There is a Partner for Peace. Will We Engage?

Israeli ministers themselves have made clear what this plan is meant to achieve: to make a Palestinian state impossible by bisecting the occupied West Bank and cutting off any potential development between the metropolitan hubs of a future Palestinian state.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said it openly: this vote is “a significant step that practically erases the two-state delusion and consolidates the Jewish people’s hold on the heart of the Land of Israel.” He added, “The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not by slogans, but by deeds.”

This move has nothing to do with Israel’s security, the aftermath of October 7, or preserving a future peace agreement. It is a deliberate step toward annexation, a promise written into this coalition’s agreements. While Smotrich and his allies may not reflect majority opinion in Israeli society, the political power he has amassed allows him to advance his dangerous agenda unchecked, and he does so proudly.

The E1 plan gravely undermines the two-state solution and risks making peace all but unreachable. Yet we must not accept that the two-state solution is dead, or that destructive steps cannot be reversed in the pursuit of a negotiated peace. This is not the end, but it is a moment that demands a stronger response.

We welcome Canada’s recent condemnation, especially issued alongside 21 allies. But words of disapproval are no longer enough. Concrete action is required to preserve the possibility of a two-state solution and Israel’s future as both Jewish and democratic.

At the same time, Israel’s leadership continues to fumble the unprecedented opportunities before it. Netanyahu boasts of military campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran as reshaping the Middle East. What he ignores is that while these campaigns cemented Israel’s status as a regional military power, they also exposed its paralysis in the political and diplomatic arenas. Instead of seizing opportunities for peace, Israel risks becoming an international pariah.

Consider what has happened in just the past two years: Iran’s “ring of fire” has crumbled. The Palestinian Authority has taken steps to reform, including working toward ending its Martyrs’ Fund, often known as “pay to slay,” and has been instrumental in the disarmament of Palestinian terror groups in Lebanon. And only last month, the Arab world united in calling on Hamas to disarm, release all hostages, and end its rule in Gaza.

For years, Israel claimed there was “no partner for peace,” that the PA funded terror, and that neighbouring states supported terrorism while refusing to recognise Israel. None of these claims hold today. The conditions Israel once demanded now exist. This could be the moment to pursue peace from a position of strength, on Israel’s own terms, achieving the normalization, regional integration, and secure future Israel has always sought.

Such a step would also begin to repair the fraying relationship between Israel and the Jewish diaspora, partners in Israel’s founding and its future. A renewed commitment to peace would allow diaspora Jews to support Israel with pride and conviction, strengthening Israel’s global standing and material security alike.

Instead, this government has chosen to live out the very criticism once levelled against the Palestinians: never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. But the cost here is not simply the maintenance of a status quo. It is dragging Israel, the hostages, diaspora Jews, and millions of Israeli and Palestinian civilians into a deeper abyss.

Netanyahu speaks of “decisive victory,” a shifting, unattainable mirage. Yet the real decisive victory is within reach: peace, normalization, and lasting security. That he repeatedly rejects it, insulting and alienating even those who offer it, should no longer surprise us. But it must still compel us to act, to ensure that this historic opportunity for peace does not fade away forever.