Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters in New York, US, Sept. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Next month, France and Saudi Arabia will host a conference backed by the United Nations to create a plan for the establishment of a Palestinian state, without regard for Israel’s interests. In other words, the conference is designed to impose a two-state solution whether Israel likes it or not.

Clearly, it doesn’t matter to the French or the Saudis that a Palestinian state would present an existential threat to Israel — or be a reward for the Palestinian terrorism of October 7, 2023. It doesn’t matter that the leaders of such a state would be publicly committed to Israel’s eventual destruction. And it doesn’t even matter that polls show neither Israelis nor Palestinians want a two-state solution.

The leaders of France and Saudi Arabia also forget, or perhaps choose to ignore, the fact that the Palestinians have been offered statehood on several occasions, dating back to the 1947 UN partition plan. Indeed, within one decade alone, Israel offered the Palestinians statehood three times in the 2000s. Each offer was more generous than the last, and included nearly the entirety of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), the Gaza Strip, a capital in Jerusalem, and even territory within pre-1967 Israel. The Palestinians said no to each of these offers and responded to them with terrorism and bloodshed.

Moreover, for 18 years, there already was a de-facto two-state solution. In 2005, Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip. The Gazan Palestinians were given complete autonomy to govern themselves and build a state. Instead, they turned Gaza into a base from which to attack Israel with the ultimate aim of destroying the Jewish State. Gaza’s Hamas rulers launched several wars against Israel, ultimately culminating in the October 7th massacre — the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. At the same time, the Palestinian Authority had autonomy in almost all of the West Bank.

The two-state solution died on October 7, 2023 — as it became clear that right now, the Palestinian have no desire to peacefully live alongside Israel (opinion polls show that Oct. 7 is still supported by a majority of Palestinians).

But tragically, many world leaders, including those of France and Saudi Arabia, are determined to press ahead anyway — despite Israel’s security needs and facts on the ground. So how should Israel respond?

Perhaps Israel should convene a conference with leaders of independence-seeking regions of France. Indeed, if French President Emmanuel Macron is so insistent on the Palestinians having a country of their own, he should be more than willing to grant independence to the peoples of these territories. And maybe Saudi Arabia should consider giving its oppressed Shiite minority in the east their own country.

A more practical response would be for Israel to present the upcoming conference with a list of demands in exchange for Palestinian statehood.

First, the Palestinians must accept that Israel is the national home of the Jewish people. In other words, say yes to a Jewish state — yes to thousands of years of proven Jewish history and sovereignty in the Holy Land, and yes to the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their native homeland. This must be done with actions, not just words.

Second, the Palestinians must renounce their so-called “Right of Return” — the right of millions of Palestinian “refugees” (which are largely non-direct descendants of refugees, including many who left on their own volition) to “return” to what is now Israel — a land that most of them have never seen, let alone lived in — so that they can erase Israel’s Jewish majority, and therefore, the Jewish state itself.

Third, the Palestinians must allow Jews complete and unfettered access to their holy places. This includes the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, where Jews are forbidden to pray per the terms of the “status quo” arrangement that gives exclusive control of the site to the Islamic waqf (religious trust) under the supervision of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Fourth, Jews should be permitted to live in what becomes the state of Palestine, just as Palestinian Arabs are permitted to live in the State of Israel. No expelling Jews as part of a two-state solution simply because they are Jews.

Fifth, demilitarization. A state of Palestine must not be allowed to have heavy weapons such as tanks or fighter aircraft, nor can it be a haven for Israel’s enemies. Palestine must not become an Iranian proxy, as the Gaza Strip became when Hamas took it over in 2007.

Sixth, and finally, once a Palestinian state is created, the Palestinians must renounce all claims to any part of Israel and declare that their conflict with the Jewish State is finished.

These are reasonable demands, but they are demands that the Palestinians will never agree to. Why? Because the vast majority of Palestinians have never wanted a two-state solution. They want all of “Palestine,” “From the River to the Sea,” as the genocidal slogan shouted at university campuses and public squares says. And that is the real reason there isn’t peace.

The author is a freelance writer in Toronto, Canada.