For years, part of international and regional policy in the Middle East was based on the assumption namely that the Palestinian issue could remain unresolved without hindering the establishment of a new regional order. According to this logic, it did not need to be resolved. It was enough for it to be “managed.” October 7, 2023—the third anniversary of which we recently commemorated—shatter this assumption in the most violent way possible.
The Abraham Accords had already created a different dynamic. Arab states could now build diplomatic, economic, and strategic relations with Israel without first resolving the Palestinian issue. And before October 7, the prospect of normalized relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia seemed poised to complete this new regional architecture. The message seemed clear: the Middle East could move forward, while the Palestinian issue would have to wait. It could not.
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Three years later, the Palestinian issue has not only failed to disappear but has returned to the center of regional diplomacy and the Arab public sphere. At the same time, however, the prospect of a two-state solution seems more distant, and the reality on the ground more difficult. Herein lies the great paradox of the post-October 7 era. The Palestinian issue has once again become politically unavoidable at the very moment when its political resolution has become even more difficult.
And this does not concern only Israelis and Palestinians. It concerns the entire architecture of the Middle East. The normalization agreements have not collapsed. Nor are they likely to disappear. They have proven that shared economic and strategic interests can foster cooperation even where decades of hostility have prevailed. This is significant. But October 7 also revealed their limitations. Regional cooperation cannot substitute for the resolution of a conflict that lies at the heart of the region’s political history.
There is also a second dimension. The gap between governments and societies in the Arab world has become more apparent. States may, for reasons of strategic interest, maintain relations with Israel. Their societies, however, continue to view the Palestinian issue as one of particular political and symbolic significance. That is why the real lesson goes beyond October 7.
A regional order is not built solely on alliances, trade corridors, energy agreements, and balances of power. It also requires political legitimacy. The Middle East can change alliances. It can change leaderships. It can even change the balance of power. But it cannot build stability on a problem it has simply chosen to ignore. The balance of power and the new realities that have emerged since then, and the ongoing crisis demand something particularly essential: the reintroduction of the issues at hand into a discussion grounded in international law.
