Recognition, Isolation, and the Cost of Denial

Yet beyond the numbers, it was the words accompanying these recognitions, and the responses to them, that reveal the deeper story of this UNGA.

Every country recognizing the State of Palestine was clear and unequivocal in its condemnation of Hamas and its insistence that Hamas must never have a role in governing a future Palestinian state. Every country called for the release of the 48 hostages still languishing in Gaza. And every country noted what is tragically true - that in Israel, there is currently no partner for peace.

Netanyahu’s speech earlier today, given to a near-empty hall as dozens of officials and diplomats walked out in protest, took this rejection to new heights. First was the bizarre and cruel decision to broadcast the speech throughout Gaza, but then, of course, the contents of the speech itself.

Netanyahu once again embodied the very rejectionism he so often accuses the Palestinians of, laying out his very own “three nos”: no to a Palestinian state, no to an alternative to Hamas, and no to a future of peace and security.

In doing so, Netanyahu and his mouthpieces squandered an opportunity to engage with the core substance of Israel’s allies’ statements on Palestinian statehood.

They could have emphasized that so many countries have condemned Hamas, called for the hostages’ release, and recognized Israel’s right to safety and security. Instead, they ignored the hard truth that Israel’s own actions are threatening its future as both Jewish and democratic.

This makes the New York Declaration, endorsed at the UNGA, all the more significant. It is not merely an affirmation of the long-standing foreign policy of many of Israel’s allies, including Canada, in support of a two-state solution. It is a declaration that reflects Israel’s own stated conditions for peace.

The Declaration calls for two states while condemning the October 7 terrorist attacks, demanding the return of all Israeli hostages, and insisting on the end of Hamas’s rule in Gaza and the group’s disarmament.

These are precisely the conditions the Israeli government itself has claimed are necessary for ending the Gaza war. That they are now enshrined in a UN resolution marks a decisive shift in the UN’s treatment of Israel.

Even countries with no ties to Israel are echoing this change. Indonesia’s president, for instance, told the UN, “Israel’s security must be guaranteed for peace,” closing his remarks with “Shalom.”

This irony cannot be ignored. For decades, Israel and its supporters lamented the country’s supposed isolation, portraying it as a small state surrounded by enemies, a “villa in the jungle.”

Yet now, as Israel achieves much of what it long claimed it lacked, it is choosing to remain isolated. Worse still, it seeks to revel in this isolation, as Netanyahu’s recent “super Sparta” speech made clear.

This shift did not happen overnight. As Israel grew into a regional military superpower, its original stance of “land for peace” and its desire for regional integration gave way to the ideologies of “peace through strength” or “peace for peace,” exemplified by the Abraham Accords.

But even within that worldview, the strongman coercing neighbours into peace without compromise, Israel is undermining itself.

Increasingly, neighbours no longer see Israel as a stabilizing power worth engaging with, but as a destabilizing force in the region, paradoxically resembling Iran more than any future peace partner.

This is why, at our Haaretz conference earlier this month, co-presented with our friends at the New Israel Fund of Canada, our executive director, Maytal Kowalski, noted in her closing remarks that sometimes issues must be polarized.

Too often, critical issues have been sustained by the mirage of the status quo, met with apathy, or ignored entirely. This moment, marked by widespread recognition of Palestinian statehood and renewed momentum for a two-state solution, is one such issue. It must be polarized. And Jewish leaders, in particular, will be remembered for the side they chose.

Indeed, the choice before us could not be clearer. On one side, world leaders are articulating a vision of peace for two peoples, a secure Israel alongside a sovereign Palestine.

Arab countries are denouncing Hamas and presenting day-after plans for Gaza. Western allies are offering Israel a lifeline, a way out of living forever by the sword.

On the other side, Netanyahu and his allies cling to a bleak, isolationist vision of “super Sparta.”

What is striking, however, is that even in Israel and Palestine, where people are most directly affected and traumatized by their leaders’ decisions, a majority supports an international package deal: the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state, the return of hostages, the dismantling of Hamas’s rule and military capabilities in Gaza, and full normalization with the Arab world.

There are today hundreds of thousands of Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, and Muslims who see the unprecedented support for sovereignty on both sides and are choosing peace, integration, normalization, and an end to the bloodshed. And yet, bafflingly, there remain those who refuse to engage with the merits of these developments, choosing instead to recycle propaganda and empty talking points.

And so we must ask: for what? Have we become so addicted to victimhood, to war, and to martyrdom that we cannot imagine a world in which we build rather than destroy? A world in which we pursue who we can become, rather than remain trapped in the trauma of the past? A world in which we dare to embrace the difficult pains of peace rather than the familiar agonies of war?

The events of these past two weeks have made one thing undeniable: the question of Israel, Palestine, and the two-state solution is no longer whether it will happen, but how it will happen.

It is understandable that, forced to accept a "how", not an "if", many people are polarized on this issue. What is not understandable is how many are revealing a willingness to embrace endless conflict rather than figuring out the "how".