After decades spent trying to kill the idea of Palestinian statehood, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is now watching it take shape in real time.
The two-state conference co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia demolished the very foundation of his legacy by rallying countries to formally recognising a Palestinian state. Most telling is that four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – France, the UK, China and Russia – now recognise Palestine. The US stands as the lone holdout, aligned with an ever-dwindling circle of allies.
For more than 30 years, Mr Netanyahu built his political career on one central pledge: there would never be a Palestinian state while he held power. He portrayed himself as Israel’s shield against “illusions” of peace. At rallies, in Knesset debates and from international podiums, he promised Israelis that Palestinian sovereignty would be stopped dead in its tracks.
To his supporters, he was the leader who would secure Israel’s borders forever. To his critics, he was the architect of endless occupation and the master of delay. His strategy was blunt but effective: build more settlements, undermine the Oslo Accords, stall talks until the world gave up and keep alliances with hard-right partners who openly rejected Palestinian nationhood. He then sold this obstruction as strength, telling Israelis it was the only way to guarantee survival.
For years, it worked. US administrations indulged him. European governments voiced objections but never applied real pressure. What was once framed as a path to peace gradually slipped into the past, a relic of the 1990s.
Then came October 7. Hamas’s horrific attack was Israel’s darkest day in decades, exposing a total collapse of security and intelligence. For any other leader, it might have been the end. Mr Netanyahu was caught unprepared, responsible for a failure of historic proportions. But instead of taking responsibility, he turned it into a political shield. “This is not the time to talk about a Palestinian state,” he declared. Gaza, he argued, proved Palestinians could not govern themselves and should never be given the chance.
His argument collapsed under the weight of the war that followed. Israel’s assault on Gaza left it flattened and tens of thousands dead. Those images filled screens worldwide. From London to Washington to Paris, crowds marched demanding an end to the war. His old narrative, that Palestinians were unfit for sovereignty, lost traction. In its place grew a conviction that denying them a state was itself intolerable.
That conviction is what has brought the issue to the UN today through France and Saudi Arabia. For Mr Netanyahu, this is the nightmare scenario. He had gambled that the horror of October 7 would bury the two-state idea forever. Instead, it has pushed it back to the centre of world politics. His attempt to slam the door has only forced it open wider.
The strike on the Qatari capital Doha earlier this month showed just how rattled his government has become. The attack was less about defence than about lashing out after a series of states moved to recognise Palestine. It looked like a tantrum, a symbolic outburst from a government losing control of the narrative. Rather than intimidating critics, it deepened the impression that Israel’s leadership is acting recklessly and without vision.
Meanwhile, Mr Netanyahu’s domestic troubles are closing in. He faces corruption trials that have dragged on for years. Many Israelis blame him for the October 7 disaster. His fragile coalition survives only by appeasing far-right partners who demand permanent occupation, settlement expansion and rejection of compromise. To hold on, he has doubled down on the hard line he knows best: expand borders, erase the Palestinian question by force and distract from his failures.
This, too, is backfiring. Allies who once shielded Israel are shifting their positions. European states that long hesitated are now moving in a new direction. The Gaza war has made it impossible to pretend the status quo is sustainable.
For Palestinians, today is both painful and historic. They continue to suffer devastation in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Yet from the rubble has come new momentum. Recognition by more western states at the UN shows that Palestinian statehood is being treated not just as a demand but as a fact. International law, treaties and diplomatic relations will begin to fill the vacuum left by Israel’s occupation.
Mr Netanyahu wanted to be remembered in books as the man who secured Israel forever, expanded its borders and killed the idea of Palestine. Instead, history may record him as the leader whose failures, from the intelligence collapse of October 7 to the destruction of Gaza and the corruption trials, convinced much of the world that Palestine could no longer be denied.
He tried to bury Palestine. But on this day, in New York, it is clear: he may be the man who gave it a new life.
