Herzog says his support for two-state solution shaken by Oct. 7 onslaught

Amy Spiro is a reporter and writer with The Times of Israel

President Isaac Herzog speaks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 21, 2025. (FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP)
President Isaac Herzog speaks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 21, 2025. (FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP)

Asked if he supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, President Isaac Herzog admits that his position has changed somewhat in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

The future of the region “includes many ideas, because the idea of the two-state solution is something which, on record, I supported in the past, many times,” says Herzog, a longtime former lawmaker who previously headed the left-wing Labor party and served in the Knesset for 15 years.

“But I would say that I had a wake-up call following October 7,” says Herzog in a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “In the sense that I want to hear my neighbors say how much they object, regret, condemn, and do not accept, in any way, the terrible tragedy of the terror attack of October 7 — and the fact that it cannot be the tool to get there.”

Herzog says that “one has to understand the state of mind of Israelis, to come after such a horror and a national trauma, surrounded by [threats] from seven different frontiers, and expect Israelis” to agree to move ahead with withdrawing from West Bank settlements. That “is not realistic at all. It doesn’t make sense to Israelis. They need to see something that makes sense in terms of their personal security and safety.”

Rather, the president says, he believes that talks that would include normalization with Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations and “puts the Palestinian issue as a focal point in the discussions, is something which makes more sense to me.”

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