Why the U.S. Should Recognize Palestinian Statehood

This week, as several European governments announced their plans to formally recognize the state of Palestine, the United States continued to press against the current. Earlier this month, the United States stood almost alone in its refusal to grant the Palestinian people an equal seat among the community of nations. The United Nations General Assembly approved its support of Palestinian statehood 143 to 9, with 25 nations abstaining. The thunderous applause that followed the vote marked both a celebration of international support for Palestinians and a protest against Israel and the United States.

Yet that vote was mostly symbolic. Full membership must first be approved by the U.N. Security Council, where the United States holds veto power. Back in 2011, the mere threat of an American veto sufficed to kill Palestine’s application for U.N. membership, but this April the Biden administration was obliged to cast the single vote that blocked Palestinian statehood.

America’s official position is that Palestinian statehood should be achieved through negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. This stance is particularly ironic considering that the United States was the first government to recognize Israel in 1948, despite President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s earlier assurances to Saudi King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud that the United States would not intervene. Today, the Saudis demand that Israel support the two-state solution as a condition for advancing a regional security treaty they see as a means of countering extremism. But in effect, America has outsourced its veto power to Israel’s extremist government, framing statehood as a gift to be granted to Palestinians at the will of their occupier.

As a Palestinian American and an Israeli, working in partnership, we believe that no one—not Israel and not the United States—should be allowed to veto the Palestinian right to self-determination. To do so undermines not only Palestinian rights, but also Israeli and American interests.

The Palestinian interest

The failures of the Oslo Accords, reached in the mid-1990s, and subsequent decades of international neglect have sidelined the so-called Palestinian problem. The massacres and destruction that erupted with the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023—further escalated with Israel’s onslaught against Gaza—reminded the world that one of its longest-running conflicts will not magically disappear. Now, some 40,000 lay dead, twice as many are physically injured, and more than a million are displaced and on the brink of starvation. With Gaza in ruins, and the war still raging on, those who survive are left with not much more than deep despair and a desire for vengeance.

Statehood provides Palestinians with political agency that is not rooted only in violence. It offers them a path to self-determination with true political agency and dignity. Statehood also opens the door for a new generation of Palestinian leaders to move forward. In 2012, Palestine became a U.N. nonmember observer state, allowing it to later join the International Criminal Court and demand accountability under international law. Full membership in the world’s most important political body is not a panacea, but it would provide Palestinians with diplomatic tools that they currently lack and that could become crucial once negotiations with Israel finally start. More urgently, full statehood resists Israel’s attempts to paint all of Gaza’s remaining public infrastructure and public life as a terrorism threat. This makes statehood an essential vehicle for reaching a sustainable cease-fire, for ending the war, and for administering the physical and political reconstruction of Gaza. This is quite the opposite of the ridiculous attempts to frame statehood as a “reward for terrorism,” as Israeli hard-liners often depict it. Palestinians deserve a path toward a future that is not soaked in blood and empty promises.

And, frankly, so do Israelis.

The Israeli interest

In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist government have exploited Israelis’ collective trauma and survivors’ guilt. Netanyahu’s efforts to avoid accountability for personal corruption, combined with his administration’s push toward annexation and authoritarianism, have strained a democracy already weakened by more than half a century of military occupation. Despite last year’s widespread protests against the government’s attempts to overhaul the judicial system, most Israelis fail to connect the occupation with the anti-democratic shift, the security failures since Oct. 7, and the rampant racism and social polarization in society. These trends are reinforced by police violence against protesters and the suppression and vilification of speech critical of the war effort, particularly on the part of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Yet calls for recognizing Palestinian statehood are still being sounded both in the streets and online. As Minister of Finance (and extremist settler) Bezalel Smotrich starkly noted in a recent meeting with settler leaders, the growing recognition of Palestinian sovereignty around the world is making Palestinian statehood a “tangible, developing danger.”

But in truth, the greatest danger to Israel is Netanyahu’s ongoing sabotage of Palestinian political aspirations, a policy that strengthens both Israeli and Palestinian extremists, perpetuates war, and destroys the lives and livelihoods of those it pretends to protect. It may be leading the state founded to prevent a second genocide against the Jewish people to perpetrate one against another people. And it is recklessly isolating a small nation from its most loyal international allies, including U.S. President Joe Biden.

The American interest

Recognizing Palestinian statehood is not just another bargaining chip for pleasing the Saudis. It could indeed restore America’s diplomatic leadership and help recalibrate its global influence, leveraging positions against Russia and Iran, and even countering Chinese designs on Taiwan. The ongoing funding of two wars—one in Gaza and the other in Ukraine—is economically unsustainable and politically detrimental. Indeed, Biden’s current strategy toward Israel is alienating his progressive base and provides fodder for his political opponents. In characteristic doublespeak, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has criticized Biden’s handling of the war from multiple angles, encouraging his followers as they chant “Genocide Joe,” and then blasting Biden for postponing weapons shipments to Israel.

A bold step toward supporting Palestinian statehood could decisively shift the narrative. It would finally present the U.S. president as standing on the right side of history, and it would help him secure more political support domestically and internationally.

Some might insist that now is not the right time for intricate statecraft, as children are starving in Gaza. But at this historic moment, a mere cease-fire is simply not enough. We finally have the diplomatic opportunity, the political leverage, and the moral imperative to support transformative change. Biden risks not just his own reelection but the moral standing of the United States on the global stage. If his reelection bid fails, a reinvigorated Trump presidency would wreak havoc on the international order—including the cause of Palestinians.

Toward two states, and a land for all

If it’s difficult to imagine Israelis and Palestinians having shared interests and acting on them at this fraught moment, our organization can serve as an example. Both of us are board members of A Land for All (ALFA), a Palestinian/Israeli movement dedicated to peace, equality, and mutual self-determination for everyone living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. We advocate creating a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, with borders based on the 1967 lines. We also believe that many of the long-standing obstacles to a negotiated agreement can be overcome by establishing a two-state confederal union that guarantees freedom of movement and residence for both peoples across our shared homeland.

Achieving this vision will obviously not be easy, but the first step is clear. It is within Biden’s power to propose a new U.N. Security Council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state. If Biden is a true friend of the Israeli and Palestinian people, he must act now. It’s the right thing to do, and it might help save his reelection campaign.