US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has asked the State Department to review how the US and international community could recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Part of the deliberations include an examination of how to create a demilitarized Palestinian state based on other examples in the world.
President Joe Biden signalled earlier this month to reporters that his administration was looking into the creation of an independent Palestinian state that would have no military, as a way to gain Israeli support.
In his remarks to reporters, Biden alluded to other demilitarized states, such as a handful of small European principalities and island nations.
The State Department’s review comes as the Biden administration ramps up efforts to seal a lengthy ceasefire to the war in Gaza.
The White House dispatched CIA director Bill Burns to Paris, France, over the weekend to hammer out the details of a potential six-week pause in Gaza fighting, that Arab and US officials hope could lead to a permanent ceasefire.
Hamas has announced it is reviewing the agreement, but the deal faces a number of obstacles, not the least of which is Israel’s public refusal to agree to a full ceasefire and the removal of Israeli soldiers from Gaza when fighting stops.
The Biden administration has consistently said that it believes a two-state solution is the only way to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.
That has put it at odds with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which has publicly said it would oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Some members of Netanyahu’s government are also calling for Israel to re-settle the Gaza Strip and expel its Palestinian population.
The media leak saying that the State Department is reviewing options to recognize a Palestinian state could be a way to put pressure on Netanyahu’s government as it weighs the US-backed ceasefire proposal.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has dragged on with no end in sight, and about 80 percent of Hamas’s tunnel network remains intact, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Israeli officials’ statements that the war in Gaza could drag on through 2024 stand in sharp contrast to the Biden administration’s lobbying for a precise and short military campaign in the besieged enclave in response to the Hamas-led 7 October attack.
For decades, the US has refused to unilaterally recognize an independent Palestinian state, insisting that such a move will only come after Israel and the Palestinian Authority have reached a final agreement on a two-state solution.
The US has also regularly blocked efforts at the United Nations to recognize Palestine as an independent state. According to the Axios report, one of the options on the table for the US, short of recognizing an independent Palestinian state, would be to lift its veto on the move at the UN Security Council.
Other US allies have also stated they are considering recognizing an independent Palestinian state. On Monday, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the UK should “set out what a Palestinian state would look like”.
