The “carrot” of the new UN resolution on Gaza—a conditional “pathway to statehood” for Palestinians—appears to be dead on arrival, killed by the immediate rejection of the Israeli government. This clause was the masterstroke of US diplomacy during the drafting process, essential for securing the support of the Palestinian Authority and preventing a Russian veto at the Security Council. Adopted on Monday, the resolution was meant to trade this political promise for the security gain of disarming Hamas. However, the trade has been blocked before it could even be attempted.
The US strategy relied on the “statehood” clause to provide the moral and political legitimacy for the intervention. It allowed Ambassador Mike Waltz to frame the plan as a comprehensive solution leading to a “prosperous” future. But this strategy required the tacit, if not active, cooperation of Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s public rebuke of the resolution and his reiteration of opposition to a Palestinian state shattered that premise. If the power controlling the land rejects the pathway, the carrot is merely a plastic prop.
This failure has cascading effects. Without the credible promise of statehood, the Palestinian Authority loses its justification for supporting the plan. It leaves them endorsing the forced disarmament of their people by an “International Stabilization Force” without any guaranteed political reward. This weakens the moderate factions and emboldens Hamas, who can rightly claim that the diplomatic track is a dead end. Their rejection of the plan as “international guardianship” and their vow to “not disarm” gains resonance when the political alternative is removed.
President Trump, who is set to chair the “Board of Peace,” now faces the challenge of leading a reconstruction effort with a broken political compass. The 20-point plan assumed that economic and political progress would move in tandem. With the political track blocked by Israel, the “Board of Peace” becomes solely an economic administrator of an occupied zone, rather than a builder of a new state.
The abstentions of Russia and China indicate that they foresaw this failure. By abstaining, they allowed the US to make the offer, but their lack of support suggests they knew it wouldn’t stick. Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya’s warning about ceding “complete control” to the US can be interpreted as letting Washington take the fall for a promised statehood that it cannot deliver. The “carrot” that failed has left the US holding only the “stick,” and a very difficult path ahead.