Peace Requires Preconditions — A Framework for New Zealand Policy

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister recently described Israeli expansion of control in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) as a “major setback” to the two-state solution.

But diplomatic reflexes do not build peace. Political reality does.

If the two-state solution is to remain viable, it must be anchored not only in principle but in enforceable preconditions. At present, those preconditions are absent — on both sides.

October 7 and Strategic Memory

The attacks of October 7 fundamentally altered Israeli threat perception. For Israelis, the events were not an isolated atrocity but the culmination of a trajectory that followed Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza.

That disengagement did not grant Gaza full sovereignty — control over airspace, maritime access, population registry, and most border crossings remained with Israel and Egypt for security reasons. But it did remove permanent ground presence of any military or Jewish civilians.

The expectation internationally was that reduced Israeli control would create space for stable Palestinian self-governance.

Instead, Hamas seized control, eliminated political rivals, and transformed Gaza into a heavily armed enclave.

Reasonable analysts debate the role of Egyptian and Israeli security controls and regional isolation in shaping that outcome. But one conclusion is unavoidable: partial territorial withdrawal, absent enforceable demilitarisation and unified authority, did not produce security.

Any withdrawal plans from Judea and Samaria — territory overlooking Israel’s major population centres — will be judged through that experience.

That is not ideology. It is strategic memory — though like all historical analogies, it can be invoked both as legitimate caution and as justification for avoiding territorial compromise altogether.

Policy must distinguish between those uses.

The Palestinian Governance Crisis

Palestinian political institutions face structural weaknesses that directly affect the feasibility of sovereign statehood:

• No national elections have been held since 2006.
• Authority is territorially divided between Gaza and Judea and Samaria.
• The Palestinian Authority does not exercise a full monopoly over force.
• Public confidence in leadership is low.
• The PA maintains a prisoner compensation system that provides stipends scaled to sentence length for individuals convicted of attacks — including those that killed civilians — and to families of attackers killed in operations, a policy widely criticised internationally for creating financial incentives tied to violence.

It is equally true that nearly six decades of occupation, territorial fragmentation under the Areas A/B/C framework (which divides Judea and Samaria into zones of varying Palestinian administrative control), movement restrictions, fiscal dependency, and periodic Israeli military incursions have constrained institutional development. Israeli control over East Jerusalem voting has contributed to electoral deadlock. Reform cannot occur in a vacuum.

But regardless of causation — internal dysfunction, external constraint, or both — the operational question remains: can a Palestinian state be created under current conditions that would reliably prevent cross-border violence?

Statehood entails responsibility: monopoly over force, enforceable demilitarisation, adherence to agreements. At present, those capacities are unproven.

Israeli Policies and Territorial Viability

Israeli actions also affect viability.

Settlement expansion beyond blocs widely expected to be retained in negotiated land-swap arrangements reduces territorial contiguity and diplomatic flexibility. (Defining “major blocs” would itself require negotiation; estimates vary, but they are generally understood to comprise a limited percentage of Judea and Samaria territory adjacent to the 1949 armistice lines.)

Settler violence, where it occurs, undermines rule of law and weakens moderate Palestinian actors.

Fiscal withholding and administrative constraints can destabilise the very institutions the international community hopes will govern a future state.

If Palestinian reform is necessary for peace, Israeli restraint is necessary for credibility.

The status quo empowers hardliners on both sides.

A Reciprocal, Graduated Framework

The choice is not between immediate sovereignty and indefinite occupation. A third path exists: graduated, reciprocal steps tied to benchmarks.

This framework is not designed to perpetuate occupation indefinitely but to create the conditions under which withdrawal can occur safely and sustainably.

Palestinian benchmarks could include:

• Transparent restructuring of the prisoner payment system to remove incentive structures tied to violence.
• Consolidation of security forces under unified civilian authority.
• A credible electoral timetable — requiring Israeli agreement to facilitate East Jerusalem participation.
• Public commitment to demilitarisation verified by third-party monitors.
• Removal of inciting and racist content from school curriculum.

Israeli reciprocal measures could include:

• A freeze on expansion beyond negotiated settlement blocs pending final-status talks.
• Gradual transfer of additional administrative authority in parts of Area C.
• Revenue stability guarantees.
• Robust enforcement against settler violence.

Regional guarantees could include:

• Activation of elements of the Arab Peace Initiative, including phased normalisation commitments from Saudi Arabia and Gulf states.
• Security cooperation frameworks involving Egypt and Jordan.
• International monitoring or peace-support mechanisms to verify compliance.

Occupation constrains reform. Unreformed governance makes withdrawal dangerous.

Reciprocal sequencing is the only plausible way to break that cycle.

The Hamas Question

Hamas, in its current form, cannot be a negotiating partner for coexistence. An organisation that openly declares its intent to repeat mass-casualty attacks cannot simultaneously anchor a peace process.

This leaves two possibilities:

• Hamas is excluded and disarmed as a political-military force, or
• Hamas undergoes demonstrable transformation — renouncing violence, accepting prior agreements, and submitting to unified civilian authority.

Absent one of those outcomes, no agreement signed by other actors can guarantee security.

Clarity on this point is essential. Ambiguity benefits those who seek to sabotage negotiations — and undermines the international community’s ability to distinguish between legitimate Palestinian aspirations and violence designed to derail peace.

A Constructive Role for New Zealand

If New Zealand seeks to contribute meaningfully, it should move beyond declarative endorsement of a two-state solution and articulate the measurable preconditions necessary to sustain it.

That means:

• Applying conditional diplomacy symmetrically.
• Supporting Palestinian institutional reform.
• Encouraging Israeli policies that preserve territorial negotiability.
• Engaging regional actors as enforcement backstops.

The two-state solution remains the least-worst framework for reconciling Palestinian self-determination with Israel’s security and democratic continuity.

But it cannot be achieved by rhetorical repetition.

New Zealand’s voice carries weight when it is principled, specific, and reciprocal. The two-state solution remains viable — but only if the international community is willing to articulate and enforce the preconditions necessary to sustain it.

Those preconditions exist on both sides.

Until they are met, statehood remains an aspiration, not a policy.