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Labour Friends of Israel has produced a policy briefing titled “Israel, Palestine and a two-state solution: a guide to the conflict.

The horrific atrocities committed in southern Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent conflict in Gaza have highlighted the tragic conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.  

In the wake of the massive bloodshed, suffering and pain on both sides, it’s hard to see how this seven-decade-old conflict might come to a close. Nonetheless, the need to find a resolution – which brings peace and security, and recognises the legitimate right to self-determination of both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples – could not be more urgent.  

This guide is designed to briefly outline the history of the conflict; detail the thorny issues which have hampered the quest for a settlement; and tackle some of the myths which surround much-debated topics, for instance, Zionism.

It also seeks to offer ideas around how the peace process might be restarted and touches on the part Britain’s new government might play.

We hope that you find this guide useful and informative. If you’d like to know more about these issues, continuing developments in the region, and LFI’s work, please join our mailing list using the support tab on this website. You’ll receive our weekly bulletin, Key Issues, and information about LFI’s activities, policy briefings and publications.   

Contents

  1. Zionism
  2. A history of the conflict
  3. “Land for peace”: the route to two states 
  4. Two states for two peoples
  5. Barriers to progress 
  6. The region’s only democracy 
  7. Israel: an apartheid state? 
  8. The Palestinian Authority and the governance of the West Bank 
  9. Hamas and Gaza 
  10. Learning from Northern Ireland  

  1. Zionism

The national liberation movement of the Jewish people, Zionism is a belief in the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.  

  • It developed in the 19th century as part of the wider rise of the nation state and was intensified by the persecution suffered by many European Jews, culminating in the Nazis’ attempt to annihilate European Jewry in the Holocaust.  
  • Today, support for Zionism is widespread among Jews worldwide. At the same time, many non-Jews identify themselves as Zionists. 
  • Support for Zionism does not equate to support for the policies or political stance of individual Israeli governments. Nor does support for Zionism in any  way preclude support for a Palestinian state. 
  • Zionism has never been homogenous. There are many strands of Zionism –  stretching from the socialist Zionism pioneered by the Israeli Labor party and its left-wing allies – to the more strident “revisionist” Zionism encapsulated by the Israeli right and the Likud party.  
  • The Labour party has long been allied to socialist Zionists. Labour’s sister party in Israel is the Democrats (a merger of Israeli Labor and the left-wing Meretz party).
  • The Jewish Labour Movement is part of an international network of socialist Zionist organisations.  

The case for the left to support Zionism has been put by historian Jack Omer-Jackaman: “To be on the left means … to be on the side of the underdog. I am thus a Zionist because I am a leftist, not in spite of it. In its affirmation of a viable Jewish peoplehood, and its sober and rational recipe for Jewish survival, Zionism demands leftist support for European civilisation’s ultimate underdog.”  

Opposition to Zionism – to the Jewish people’s right to self-determination – rests at the heart of the growth in modern antisemitism. As Professor Vernon Bogdanor has suggested: “In the late 20th century antisemitism mutated. Nineteenth century antisemitism began by singling out Jews for the deprivation of civil rights. It climaxed with the Holocaust. Modern antisemitism begins by singling out Jews for the deprivation of the right of self-determination … The older antisemitism insisted that Jews had no place in the national community. The new antisemitism insists that Israel has no place in the international community.” 

  1. How we got here: a brief history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 

Any resolution to the tragic and complex conflict rests on the application of a simple principle: that both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples are equally deserving of the right to self-determination.  

  • The British government’s famous Balfour Declaration of 1917 recognised the case for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. It was right to do so: the land of Israel is the historic, religious and cultural homeland of the Jewish people. Despite the Romans’ destruction of the Jewish state in AD70, there has been a continuous Jewish presence in the Holy Land for several millennia. But the Balfour Declaration also stipulated: “Nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.” 
  • A two-state solution was first proposed by the UK government’s Peel Commission in 1937 during the British Mandate. It recommended the land be partitioned between its Arab and Jewish inhabitants. Partition reflected the fact that, as the commission said, “it is fundamentally a conflict of right with right”. While the Arab Palestinian leaders rejected any notion of a Jewish state, the Zionist leadership accepted the principle of partition. 
  • This pattern was repeated in 1947 when the United Nations passed a resolution endorsing a partition and the establishment of an “independent Arab and a Jewish state”. The Jewish leadership in Palestine accepted partition and in 1948 declared the State of Israel in the territory awarded to it by the UN. But Palestinian leaders opposed the UN proposal and Israel’s Arab neighbours promptly invaded the fledgling Jewish state, sparking a brutal conflict which came to an end with a 1949 ceasefire.  
  • Instead of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel, Jordan then assumed control of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, while Egypt took charge of Gaza. 
  • In June 1967, with the Arab states once again preparing and threatening war against the Jewish state, Israel launched a pre-emptive defensive strike, taking a buffer zone of territory: the Golan Heights from Syria; East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan; and Gaza and Sinai from Egypt. Israel hoped its Arab neighbours would sue for peace; but, in August 1967, the Arab League meeting in Khartoum responded with its infamous “three no’s”: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, and no negotiations with Israel.  
  • An Arab coalition surprised Israel by invading on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar – an intelligence failure unsurpassed until 7 October 2023. The war lasted from 6 to 25 October. The majority of combat between the two sides took place in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. After three days of heavy fighting, Israel halted the Egyptian offensive, resulting in a military stalemate on that front, and pushed the Syrians back to the pre-war ceasefire lines. 
  • Following the Israel-Lebanon war of the early 1980s, which began in response to attacks carried out from Lebanese territory by Palestinian militants, Israel pulled out of its southern Lebanon “security zone” in May 2000. But Iran’s proxy army, Hezbollah, swiftly took control of southern Lebanon, using it as a base to attack northern Israel. This led to the 2006 second Lebanon war. Hezbollah rebuilt its arsenal, launched regular cross-border attacks on Israel and routinely violated the UN security council resolution which brought the 2006 war to an end. It began sustained attacks on northern Israel on 8 October 2023, leading to the displacement of more than 60,000 Israelis and the death of 45 civilians. A “limited” military operation by Israel against Hezbollah commenced in October 2024, with a ceasefire agreed on 26 November 2024. 
  • In 2005, Israel uprooted 21 settlements and 9,000 residents from the Gaza strip. The withdrawal left the Gaza Strip under control of the Palestinian Authority. In June 2007, Hamas launched a coup and seized power from the PA. Many thousands of rockets and mortar shells have subsequently been fired from the Gaza Strip onto southern Israeli towns and villages, terrorising and destabilising the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens.  
  • On 7 October 2023, Hamas used Gaza as a launchpad for the 7 October attacks – the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust. 
  1. “Land for peace”: attempts to negotiate a settlement  

Israeli governments have pursued a policy of “land for peace” – one which underlines the importance of strong and courageous political leadership in pursuit of peace.  

  • In 1978, the first peace treaty between Israel and one of its neighbours was negotiated at Camp David between the Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. Under the Camp David accords, Israel agreed to withdraw all its civilians, soldiers and army bases from the Sinai Peninsula and return it to Egypt. Sadat later paid a heavy price for his willingness to make peace with Israel – which saw the two countries establish diplomatic relations – when he was assassinated by members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad in October 1981. 
  • The Oslo peace process in the 1990s saw an effort to bring about peace between Israel and the Palestinians. It led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, which assumed control of Gaza and much of the West Bank territory inhabited by Palestinians.  Addressing the Palestinian people at the White House signing ceremony alongside the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin declared: “We wish to open a new chapter in the sad book of our lives together, a chapter of mutual recognition, of good neighbourliness, of mutual respect, of understanding.” But the high hopes for Oslo were sadly dashed. Hamas suicide bombers began a campaign to disrupt the peace process with terror attacks which saw the murder of hundreds of Israelis.  
  • Subsequent efforts by Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak in 2000 – which would have seen the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, with its capital in East Jerusalem – were rejected by Arafat, sparking the bloody second intifada.  
  • Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert offered similar proposals in 2009 but the current Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, failed to take them up.  
  • In 2013, Israel indicated its acceptance of US secretary of state John 

Kerry’s “framework agreement” for negotiations. Again, Abbas never responded. 

This intransigence has allowed some on the Israeli right, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, to claim that Israel has no partner for peace. Today, following the Hamas atrocities of 7 October and the terrible war in Gaza, it is clear that the impasse of the past two decades must end. Both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples need new leadership to bring this tragic conflict to a long-overdue close.

  1. Two states for two peoples 

A two-state solution is the only means by which to guarantee Israel’s security and to preserve its identity as both a Jewish and democratic state, as well as to satisfy the legitimate demand of the Palestinian people for self-determination and national sovereignty. It is also the only solution which commands popular support among both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples, as well as having the backing of the international community, including Israel’s allies and key regional players in the Arab League. 

  • The case for a two-state solution is best encapsulated by the Israeli author Amos Oz:  “The land has to be a two-family dwelling. We, Israeli Jews are not going anywhere. We have no place to go. The Palestinians are not going anywhere, either. They too have nowhere to go. In its essence, the fight between the Palestinians and us is not a Hollywood western and a fight of good against evil, but a tragedy of justice versus justice.” 
  • While it is true that polls have registered a decline in support for a two-state solution in Israel, this is less the result of an ideological aversion to a Palestinian state among the Israeli public than practical concerns stemming from the collapse of the Oslo process and the experience of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. In both instances, the result was not peace and stability but war and conflict. In the case of the former, Hezbollah exploited the weakness of the Lebanese authorities to use the south as a base from which to repeatedly attack Israel. In Gaza, Hamas provoked five conflicts with Israel in 15 years, culminating in the attacks of 7 October. 

For all the difficulties, it is clear that the alternatives to a two-state solution are unworkable and unpalatable.  

  • A binational “one-state solution”, encompassing Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, would likely be riven by conflict and violence. As The Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland has written: “It is the lose-lose scenario, in which two peoples who have long yearned for self-determination are both denied. It gives no one, neither Palestinians nor Jews, what they want, namely the chance to be master of their destiny. It suggests that two nations that could not negotiate a divorce should get  married instead. It demands that two peoples that have fought bloodily for nearly a century should now live in harmony.” 
  • Equally, permanent Israeli rule over the Palestinian territories would not simply deprive the Palestinians of their right to self-determination, it would also fundamentally alter Israel’s character as a democratic state – indeed, the only democratic state in the region.   
  • Crucially, a two-state solution remains viable (see the question on settlements below) and continues to command widespread international support. It also rests at the heart of any regional agreement to normalise relations between Israel and its neighbours. 

The principle underpinning the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative – which offers Arab world recognition of Israel in return for the establishment of a Palestinian state – could offer a way forward, building on the progress made by the Abraham Accords which saw Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan recognise Israel in 2020.  

  • The New York Declaration – which was adopted by the UN General Assembly following the July 2025 High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution – called for a two-state solution with “a sovereign and economically viable State of Palestine, living side by side, in peace and security with Israel” and “mutual recognition, peaceful coexistence, and cooperation among all States in the region, linked to irreversible implementation of the two-State solution”. 
  • The September 2025 US-brokered 20-point Gaza peace plan suggests that “while Gaza re-development advances and when the PA reform programme is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognise as the aspiration of the Palestinian people”. 
  1. The barriers to progress 

The core obstacles to a peace deal, which have been addressed at the negotiating table on a number of occasions since the early 1990s, are an agreement on the permanent borders of the State of Israel (including the issue of the settlements); Israel’s security; the status of Jerusalem; and the question of the Palestinian refugees from 1948.   

Borders:

Israel wishes to see its permanent borders decided in direct final-status negotiations with the Palestinians.  

  • UN Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for Israel to negotiate secure borders with its neighbours, provides room for flexibility with regards to the eventual borders; indeed, the 1949-67 Green Line was merely the armistice line decided in 1949, and was never intended to be a permanent border. In direct negotiations, Israel and Palestine can determine borders that facilitate both a secure Israel and a viable Palestinian state.  

Settlements: 

Continued settlement expansion undermines trust, weakens the viability of a future Palestinian state and does nothing to enhance Israel’s security. However, settlements are a remediable issue.  

  • Some 85 percent of Israelis (including Israeli Jews residing in East Jerusalem) who have “settled” beyond the 1967 “Green Line” live in “settlement blocs”, such as Maale Adumim and Modiin Ilit, within the security barrier. At the same time, 90 percent of Palestinians live outside the security barrier, which was built following a wave of Palestinian terrorism inside Israel during the second intifada. 
  • All peace negotiations since 2000 have proceeded under the assumption that most of the settlement blocs will become part of Israel in any future agreement. Given that the vast majority of settlers live in these blocs near the Green Line, this would not obstruct the contiguity or viability of a Palestinian state. In return, land that is currently part of Israel near the 1967 border would become part of a Palestinian state.   
  • In 2008, for instance, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, proposed an agreement at Annapolis involving five percent of the territory of the West Bank joining Israel with compensating territory from within the 1967 lines becoming part of the new Palestinian state. The Palestinians have agreed to this principle of “land swaps”.   
  • Settlers are not a homogenous group: most move to the West Bank in search of cheaper homes and a better quality of life. The number of “national-religious” settlers, who are ideologically committed to settling in the West Bank, is around one-third, suggesting that a package of strong economic incentives could smooth any evacuation process. Particularly since the current Netanyahu cabinet took office in January 2023, extremist settlers have also too often engaged in sporadic, violent attacks on innocent Palestinian residents of the West Bank. 
  • Settlements that are not near the Green Line and obstruct the viability and contiguity of a Palestinian state would have to be evacuated. There are precedents for this. In 1982, Israel evacuated 12 settlements in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, which it had occupied since 1967. And in 2005, Israel evacuated 21 settlements in Gaza as part of its unilateral withdrawal, and evacuated a further four settlements in the northern West Bank.  
  • Detailed proposals have been drawn up by the Geneva Initiative, a joint Israeli-Palestinian project, to address the issue of settlements as part of ending the conflict. 

Security:  

Given the conflicts of 1948, 1967 and 1973, the stated desire of the Iranian regime to destroy Israel, and the continuing terror threat which culminated in the attacks of 7 October, Israel has a right to expect its security and the safety of its people to be guaranteed in any final-status agreement.  

  • Since the 1979 revolution, Iran’s leaders have vehemently opposed a two-state solution and any negotiation with Israel, which they label a “a cancerous tumour”.  
  • In 1987, a year before the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) agreed to endorse a two-state solution in principle, Hamas, an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, was established as a rival to the PLO’s dominant and nationalist faction, Fatah. Hamas’ founding charter dismisses all “so-called peaceful solutions” and says its struggle is against the Jewish people. Hezbollah is similarly virulently opposed to any negotiation with Israel or a two-state solution. 
  • Through its “axis of resistance” – which includes Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiia militia in Iraq – Iran sought to surround Israel with a “ring of fire”. It has provided hundreds of millions in funding as well as political and military assistance to this network of “proxy armies”. While the 2023-5 conflicts weakened Hezbollah and Hamas, the former is attempting to rearm and restock, while the latter has refused to disarm and is reasserting its power over areas of Gaza from which Israel has withdrawn.  
  • Beyond its “axis of resistance”, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its arsenal of ballistic missiles – the largest in the Middle East – represent a major, potentially existential, threat to Israel. 
  • The growth of Hamas and Hezbollah, supported by their patron Iran, has strengthened Palestinian rejectionism and “anti-normalisation” (the belief that Palestinians should avoid negotiation, reconciliation or contact with Israelis).  

Israel will require that a final-status agreement ensures that Iran and its allies in Hamas and Hezbollah cannot exploit and utilise a Palestinian state to continue their war against Israel.  

Jerusalem 

The final status of Jerusalem, and particularly the Old City of Jerusalem, remains highly  

contentious. Both Israelis and Palestinians lay claim to this holy city. A widely agreed solution is dividing the city between an Israeli-controlled West and a Palestinian-controlled East, with potentially some international control over the holy basin in the Old City.  

  • Many Israelis wish to see their country retain a united Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city. However, as Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert showed, this position has shifted in previous negotiations.  
  • At the same time, the Palestinians want all of East Jerusalem (east of the Green Line) as their capital, which would include Jerusalem’s Old City. The Old City contains sites holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, but Palestinian leaders, including President Abbas, have continually rejected the city’s Jewish history and deny the existence of any historic Jewish sites there.    

“Right of return” 

The “right of return” refers to the collective belief in a legal and moral right for Palestinian refugees – and, crucially, their descendants – to return to their ancestral homes. These homes were once part of Mandatory Palestine but are now in Israel.  

  • The right of return has become central to Palestinian national identity and international campaigning and presents a fundamental threat to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.  
  • Israel believes that, for the most part, Palestinian refugees and their descendants should “return” to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.  
  • Nonetheless, in the past, Israeli leaders have also offered that a small number of Palestinians would be able to settle in Israel as part of a symbolic gesture: in 2008, Ehud Olmert, proposed allowing the relocation of 5,000 Palestinians within Israeli borders, while offering compensation and resettlement to a Palestinian state for the rest. 
  1. The region’s only democracy 

Israel’s raucous democracy – with a fiercely free press, a parliamentary system, a strong Supreme Court and an empowered civil society – is unique in the Middle East. 

  • Israel’s 1948 Declaration of Independence proclaimed the Jewish state would: 

“uphold the full social and political equality of all its citizens, without distinction of race, creed or sex; will guarantee full freedom of conscience, worship, education and culture; will safeguard the sanctity and inviolability of the shrines and Holy Places of all religions; and will dedicate itself to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” 

  • Freedom House rates Israel as “free”, a status which it does not give to any other state in the Middle East or North Africa. Its rating of 73/100 far exceeds neighbours such as Egypt (18/100); Jordan (34/100); or Lebanon (39/100), as well as other regional states such as Saudi Arabia (9/100); Iran (11/100); the UAE (18/100); or Qatar (25/100). It exceeds other democracies such as India (63/100) and is comparable to Brazil (72/100), Greece (85/100) and the US (84/100). 
  • Despite social, racial and economic inequalities common to other western-style democracies, Israel offers rights and protections for women, religious and racial minorities and the LGBT+ community which are unique in the region. Parties which draw their support largely from Arab-Israelis, who constitute one in five of the population, sit in the Knesset and represent a range of views from the Ra’am, a conservative religious party, to the far-left Hadash. In 2021, Ra’am was part of the governing coalition. 
  • In its 2025 report, Freedom House notes that “the Israeli media sector is vibrant and free to criticise government policy”, “protests and demonstrations are widely permitted and typically peaceful”, and, despite controversial efforts by the Netanyahu government to weaken the role of the courts, “the Supreme Court has historically played a crucial role in protecting minority groups and overturning decisions by the government and the parliament when they threaten human rights”.  
  1. Israel: an apartheid state? 

Anti-Israel campaigners and the BDS movement have long argued that Israel is similar to apartheid-era South Africa and should consequently face boycotts, divestment and sanctions. But BDS is not about ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, but about eliminating Israel as a Jewish state. Such calls are morally wrong; undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; stoke antisemitism and damage community cohesion in the UK; and are economically damaging to both Britain and the Palestinian people. 

  • Israel is the only country in the world to face a sustained, high-profile and international campaign aimed at introducing a comprehensive boycott, divestment and sanctions regime against it. This, despite the fact that there is a long and dark history of boycotts – epitomised by both Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia – directed at the Jewish people. 
  • The leaders of the BDS movement oppose a two-state solution, negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and the existence of the Palestinian Authority. The BDS campaign promotes the idea of anti-normalisation, encouraging the notion that there should be no dialogue, contact, or negotiation with Israel. 
  • The BDS movement falsely seeks to equate its campaign with the legitimate effort to boycott South Africa’s apartheid regime during the 1980s. As the historian Simon Schama and lawyer Anthony Julius have set out: “The parallel … between Israel and apartheid South Africa is false. The Palestinian, Druze and other minorities in Israel are guaranteed equal rights under the Basic Laws. All citizens of Israel vote in elections. There are no legal restrictions on movement, employment or sexual or marital relations. The universities are integrated. Opponents of Zionism have free speech and assembly and may form political organisations. By radical contrast, South African apartheid denied non-whites the right to vote, decreed where they could live and work, made sex and marriage across the racial divide illegal, forbad opponents of the regime to express their views, banned the liberation movements and maintained segregated universities.” 
  • The BDS movement has had very little impact economically in Israel. Instead, any impact thus far has been limited to the Palestinian people. 
  • BDS could have negative economic and security consequences for the UK. Nearly 10,000 UK businesses export and import goods to and from Israel; UK-Israel trade supports around 38,000 jobs in the UK; and Israeli firms provide up to 1 in 7 of the NHS’ drugs, saving the health service an estimated £2.9bn annually. Our defence and security ties in the region are, in the words of the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, “immensely important”. BDS stokes antisemitism and damages community cohesion in the UK. As a 2019 report found, the BDS’ movement’s “relentless delegitimisation and demonisation” of Israel “invariably results in the stigmatising of Jews worldwide and in Israel”. 
  • Within Israel, the BDS movement, which is strenuously opposed by Israeli centre-left parties, such as the Democrats (Labour’s sister party), damages those who advocate for two states and negotiations with the Palestinians. It encourages the Israeli right’s “us against them” mentality and undercuts the left’s attempts to promote diplomacy and reconciliation.  
  1. The Palestinian Authority and the governance of the West Bank 

The Palestinian Authority, which was established as part of the Oslo accords, recognises Israel’s right to exist and supports a two-state solution. Oslo established three zones – Areas A, B and C – in the West Bank: 

  • In Area A, the PA exercises both political and military authority. Although comprising only 18 percent of the landmass of the West Bank, it includes all of its major towns – including Ramallah, Jenin and Bethlehem – and the land in their immediate vicinity.   
  • In Area B, which covers roughly 22 percent of the West Bank, Israel and the PA share jurisdiction, with Israel retaining, in coordination with the PA, security control and the PA in charge of Palestinian public order and civil affairs.   
  • In Area C, which covers the remaining territory, Israel has full control over civil affairs, security and public order, although the PA is responsible for civil affairs relating to Palestinian residents. Israeli settlers are concentrated in Area C of the West Bank, as well as IDF military installations.   

In summary, approximately three million Palestinians live in the West Bank (Areas A, B and C combined), more than 90 percent of whom live in Areas A and B, with some 180,000-250,000 Palestinians living in Area C. 

A viable, democratic Palestinian state rests on the strength, transparency and accountability of the institutions of Palestinian governance. This is vital for the Palestinian people. And it is vital if Israel is to be convinced that a partner for peace exists that can both speak for the Palestinian people and, by negotiating on their behalf, come to an agreement which will be upheld and honoured. 

  • LFI supports the expansion of Area A, as well as the restoration of the PA’s authority in Gaza, as a vital step towards the establishment of a Palestinian state.  
  • At the same time, we recognise that many Palestinians view the PA as authoritarian and corrupt. There have been no parliamentary of presidential elections in the Palestinian territories since 2006 and President Mahmoud Abbas, elected in 2005 to a four-year term, is increasingly autocratic.  
  • Reforms must strengthen civic society, enhance the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary and the press, and end the systematic mistreatment of prisoners, including critics and opponents. 
  • PA policies which incite violence, antisemitism and terrorism must end. These include its payment of “salaries” to those convicted of terrorist offences and the PA school curriculum which promotes jihad and martyrdom, glorifies terrorism, and rejects peacemaking and the two-state solution. 
  1. Hamas and Gaza 

After seizing power from the Palestinian Authority in a bloody coup in 2007, Hamas instituted an authoritarian Islamist regime and used Gaza as a base to launch attacks on Israel. Throughout its 16-year-rule, Hamas thus prioritised its genocidal aspirations against the Jewish people over the safety, welfare and wellbeing of the Palestinian people. 

  • Hamas refuses to accept Israel’s right to exist, opposes a two-state solution, and has deployed terror attacks to disrupt and derail all previous peace initiatives, including the Oslo accords in the early 1990s and the expansion of the Abraham accords by launching the 7 October attacks.  
  • Its founding charter declares an ideological war against the Jews – “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious” – and states “The land of Palestine is an Islamic trust… It is forbidden for anyone to yield or concede any part of it.”  The charter sets out Hamas’ goal of an Islamist state from the river to the sea, and suggests that there is “no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.” 

  • Hamas’ deadly suicide bombing campaign in the 1990s and early 2000s sought to maximise Israeli civilian casualties. Targets included a Passover seder at a hotel in Netanya in 2002, which killed 30 people; a Jerusalem pizzeria in August 2001 in which 15 people were murdered; and an attack on a Tel Aviv nightclub in June 2001 which killed 21 people.  
  • Hamas began firing rockets from Gaza into Israel in 2001, but these attacks intensified following Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and again following Hamas’ seizure of the territory in 2007. The attacks led to conflicts between Israel and Hamas in December 2008, November 2012, June-August 2014 and May 2021.  
  • On 7 October 2023, as Israelis celebrated the festival of Simchat Torah, Hamas launched an unprecedented assault on the country. Around 4,500 rockets were fired to mask waves of heavily armed gunmen who breached the border by land, sea, and air. In coordinated attacks on Israeli communities such as Kfar Aza and Be’eri, Hamas militants went house to house murdering civilians – including infants and the elderly – and taking hostages. Others were burned alive in their homes or executed in front of their families. Simultaneously, hundreds were killed at the Supernova music festival. The terrorists documented their crimes, uploading graphic footage of murder, rape and kidnapping. Over 1,100 Israelis were killed and more than 4,600 injured. Around 200 people – ranging in age from babies to Holocaust survivors – were taken to Gaza as hostages. Held in brutal conditions, many hostages were starved, beaten and tortured, and subjected to sexual violence. 
  • Hamas has vowed to repeat the October 7 attacks “twice and three times” until Israel is annihilated and said “everything we do is justified”. 
  • As in all previous conflicts, Hamas used the civilian population as human shields and weaponised civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals. In leaked recordings, Hamas’ leader, Yahya Sinwar, suggested continued Palestinian civilian deaths were “necessary sacrifices”. 

  • This callous attitude reflects the violent and repressive nature of Hamas rule in Gaza. In its 2023 report, prior to the outbreak of the conflict, Freedom House rated Gaza “not free”, rating it 11/100 and noting that “since 2007, [it] has functioned as a de facto one-party state under Hamas rule” with freedom of religion, assembly, and the press restricted, and “little effort to address the rights of marginalised groups within Gazan society”, including women and LGBT+ people. 
  • Disarming Hamas and ensuring it can play no part in the governance of Gaza and a future Palestinian state is an essential first step in bringing long-term peace and security to both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. 
  1. Learning from Northern Ireland 

The international community must work together to empower moderates and peacebuilders on both sides, recognising their central role in a renewed diplomatic process.   

  • Successful peace processes, such as those in Colombia and Northern Ireland, reveal that civil society peacebuilding played a key part in each instance. It had a major impact on both the attitudes and political context – which are the oxygen that real peace processes depend upon; proved critical for societal resilience; transformed the political incentives within conflicted societies, creating constituencies – and indeed leaders – who support peace and reconciliation; developed many of the ideas that leaders ultimately borrowed and presented as their own; and helped to create a counterweight to the spoilers that exist in every conflict. 
  • The role of peacebuilding in Northern Ireland is especially instructive. Established in 1986, during the darkest days of the Troubles, the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), catalysed a sustained, long-term effort to build relationships and trust and built the civic foundations and capacity that successful diplomacy needs. The UK’s chief negotiator, Jonathan Powell, rightly called the IFI “the great unsung hero” of the Good Friday agreement, which followed 12 years later. 
  • Recent initiatives – including the bipartisan 2020 US Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, the 2024 G7 leaders communique, the 2025 New York Declaration, and the US-brokered 20-point Gaza peace plan – have all emphasised the importance of civic society peacebuilding in Israel-Palestine.  
  • The IFI has inspired the concept of an International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, which would invest in peacebuilding initiatives. Pioneered by the Alliance for Middle East Peace and endorsed by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves, there is now a huge opportunity for the creation of the fund, which is the focus of a future summit to be held in London.