The Hebrew Talmud teaches us that “Since the Temple was destroyed, prophecy was taken from the prophets and given to fools and children.” I am not a child anymore, and I want to believe I am not a complete fool either. Hence, I will avoid prophesying. I will try in this essay to look ahead and suggest several different ways in which American foreign policy might affect developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thinking about possible future scenarios may help guide our actions in the right direction.
What might the Israeli-Palestinian conflict look like four years from now? How might the conflict appear in the summer of 2030, after seven tumultuous years that started with the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel — the mass killing, mayhem, and kidnapping of that day — and continued with the Israeli onslaught on Gaza and the tremendous death, displacement, and destruction this genocidal campaign brought? After the war expanded to Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and the Gulf? Let me offer four different scenarios, based on who sits in the White House in summer 2030 and who constitutes the Israeli government at that time.
Why focus only on the U.S. and Israel? There are, of course, two main sides to the conflict and many more actors that affect it. The future of the Palestinian leadership is also critical, and so are regional dynamics — in the Arab world, Iran, and Turkey — as well as non-state actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah. But this is an asymmetric conflict, and Israel’s policy disproportionately affects its direction. The United States, in turn, has — or could have — very significant influence on Israeli policy. U.S. leverage comes not only from the supply of weapons, technology exchange, and economic assistance, but also from its ability to apply diplomatic and economic pressure through the UN Security Council, international courts, and other bodies — or to deny these forms of pressure on Israel. Holding all other actors constant and focusing on Israel and the U.S. may therefore yield important insights.

2030 Scenario 1: Nothing New Under the Sun? Republicans in the White House, Netanyahu Government in Israel

Two assumptions ground this scenario: that Netanyahu’s government survives the 2026 elections and remains in power, and that the Republican Party wins the 2028 presidential election and remains in power — in both cases whether through free and fair elections or otherwise. On its face, this should be the easiest scenario to forecast, as there is no change of government in either Washington or Jerusalem. In practice, that is not quite the case.
Since his first term as Prime Minister in the 1990s, Netanyahu has worked tirelessly toward two goals: preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, and assuring his own preservation in office. Until 2023, achieving the second goal required a measure of restraint in pursuing the first. Not anymore. After October 7^th, Netanyahu assessed — rather accurately — that his only path to staying in power, and out of jail, is transforming Israel into a state of constant active war with its neighbors. In his own words, the vision is Israel as a “Super-Sparta.” This vision coincides with a fundamental shift in the IDF’s doctrine: deterrence, the cornerstone of Israeli strategy since the state’s inception, gradually declined and then rapidly disappeared, replaced by the goal of preemptively targeting any offensive capabilities of the enemy. As a result, Israel has become a state that consistently defies international law and aggressively seeks to expand its power and control.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration’s foreign policy has been anything but predictable. It veered from grandiose peace declarations to poorly calculated military action, shifting between isolationist rhetoric and interventionist practice. Trump and his team have at times been more effective than previous administrations in forcing Israeli compliance: imposing a hostage deal and ceasefire in their first week and another one in October 2025, deciding unilaterally on a ceasefire with Iran, and compelling a ceasefire with Lebanon. Yet the extent of American enforcement of these agreements remained limited. Netanyahu learned quickly that Trump values the announcement of a ceasefire more than its implementation, and that the Administration’s monitoring and enforcement capacity is lacking. The National Security Council and the State Department have been hollowed out. U.S. foreign policy is now conducted by a handful of trusted aides, chief among them Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner, whose attention is divided among Russia-Ukraine, Iran, and Israel-Palestine. Netanyahu exploits this by officially saying yes while relentlessly undermining any agreement from below.
We can assume, then, that if Republicans keep the White House and Netanyahu retains his position, this pattern is likely to hold. Israel will continue to pursue aggressive and expansionist policies on all fronts: advancing toward a complete takeover and ethnic cleansing of Gaza, pushing from Area C into Areas B and A of the West Bank, and extending IDF control in Lebanon and Syria — potentially triggering periodic clashes with Iran or Turkey. The U.S. will try to constrain Netanyahu, perhaps more under a President Vance or others from the MAGA camp than a President Rubio or some other neoconservative. But, in the end, they may have neither the attention not the institutional skills to effectively control Netanyahu. The U.S., then, will go along with the Israel’s prime minister’s general policies.

2030 Scenario 2: Returning to Status Quo Ante? Republicans in the White House, Centrist Government in Israel

If Netanyahu is defeated in the 2026 elections and actually yields power to the opposition, the new government will spend its first two years interacting with the Trump Administration. I also assume that, given Trump’s tremendous influence on his Party, a Republican successor after 2028 will follow a similar Middle East policy.
A post-Netanyahu government will have difficulty constructing a governing coalition, and an even harder time governing. I call it “centrist” because that term is relative: in practice, it must be a very broad coalition spanning settlement-supporting figures like Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman, traditional right wing leaders such as Gadi Eisenkot, left-leaning parties supporting a two-state solution like The Democrats under Yair Golan, and support — inside or outside the government — from predominantly Arab parties such as Hadash-Ta’al and Ra’am. This coalition shares three positions: opposition to Netanyahu; rejection of the corruption and democratic institutional degradation under his rule; and — most relevant here — rejection of excessive settler violence and annexation of Gaza, even if its members disagree on broader policy towards the conflict.
In Gaza, the new government might actually align with Trump’s 20-Point Peace Plan — which Netanyahu formally endorsed but in practice sabotages. A centrist government, in contrast, is likely to support its implementation, allowing a Palestinian technocratic government to enter Gaza and encouraging the deployment of an international force. It will still insist on Hamas disarmament but will understand this as a prolonged process more likely to succeed when Israel allows an alternative power structure to be built. In the West Bank, U.S. pressure from Arab allies might push Israel to curb settler violence and reverse de facto annexation, and a centrist government — unlike Netanyahu’s — might comply, though the coalition’s exact composition will matter: Bennett is more likely to oppose concessions, while Eisenkot is more likely to agree to compromises supported by the U.S. A broader regional agreement remains unlikely given Saudi Arabia’s clear condition: a credible path to a Palestinian state, which parts of this coalition would not accept. The expected situation, four years down the road, is more or less a return to the precarious status quo ante—the situation before October 7.

2030 Scenario 3: Clashing Gladiators? Democrats in the White House, Netanyahu Government in Israel

Netanyahu is the longest serving Israeli Prime Minister. He’s rule has coincided with the Democratic administrations of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. While he always feels more at ease with Republicans, he knows how to work with — and around — Democrats. The most recent example is his ability to use the shock of October 7^th to push the U.S. continuously into positions it does not support, exploiting the deeply ingrained “no daylight” principle in American foreign policy circles: the idea that while the U.S. can dispute Israeli policy in private, it should never do so in public. Netanyahu is well aware of this principle, cultivates it, and has used it many times — including during Gaza negotiations — to avoid reaching agreements. Combined with reflexive support from the Jewish establishment and broad public opinion backing, the “no daylight” principle made opposition to Netanyahu a dead-end policy for Democrats. Not anymore.
The mass violations of human rights in Gaza, combined with Netanyahu’s neglect of the bipartisan approach to U.S.-Israel relations, have dramatically changed the positions available to any future Democratic administration. Support for Israel is slipping rapidly in American public opinion — more so among Democratic constituencies and younger voters. After the establishment of Israel’s extreme right government in 2022, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken declared that the administration will judge Israel’s government not by its ideology but by its action. The Biden Administration failed to do so, but the next Democratic administration might do just that. As Senator Chris Van Hollen signaled in a recent New York Times op-ed, the next Democratic administration is likely to abandon the “no daylight” dogma: still supporting Israel’s security yet refusing to turn a blind eye to its human rights violations. Conditioning weapons sales, the Senator advocates holding Israel accountable for its policies. If a Democratic administration replaces Trump in January 2029, it is likely to use U.S. leverage — economic, military, and diplomatic — far more assertively, and to be vocal and public about doing so.

Netanyahu post-October 7^th is too deep in the grip of the extreme right to moderate his positions. He would deploy all the tools in his arsenal: activating his lobbies in Congress, the Jewish community, and among Christian Evangelicals; invoking antisemitism; lamenting damage to Israel’s security; extolling the risks of limiting military and technological cooperation with Israel; and, as always, invoking Iran. But these tools would have much less effect this time. A new Democratic administration may still assist the IDF but in limited ways tailored to defense. It will use its UN veto more judiciously on resolutions against Israel, differentiate itself publicly from Netanyahu’s policies, and may even recognize Palestine as a state or join international initiatives such as the New York Declaration on Two States. It will probably not yet support ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu but will be less vocal about opposing them. These moves would also allow Europeans to impose bolder sanctions — sanctions that will bite more and more. By summer 2030, Israel will be weaker and more isolated than ever: its army exhausted from years of war and suffering from shortages, its economy in freefall. This severe degradation may not make Netanyahu back down, but it might make his government fall.

2030 Scenario 4: Winds of Change? Democrats in the White House, Centrist Government in Israel

As the main policy contours of a Democratic administration and a centrist Israeli government were explored above, I will focus here only on their likely interactions and results. These are likely to include significant advances vis-a-vis Lebanon and Syria. Instead of sustaining war and conquest to the north, Israel would cooperate with American initiatives to reach agreements with the Lebanese government: arrangements assuring gradual Hezbollah disarmament in exchange for Israeli withdrawal to the international border, paving the way for a more comprehensive peace deal. In Syria, Israel would agree to return to the 1973 ceasefire lines and reestablish the UN-controlled buffer zone, in exchange for security guarantees for Druze villages and the opening of normalization negotiations under the Abraham Accords framework. In Gaza, a centrist government would cease obstructing the implementation of Trump’s 20-Point Plan, allow international aid in adequate quantities and international agency access, facilitate the establishment of a technocratic government, and commit to withdrawing Israeli forces in return for full Hamas disarmament.
All of these policies, conducted in close coordination with the U.S. and in conjunction with improving relations with Egypt, Jordan, and Gulf countries, are compatible with the centrist coalition’s broad lines of agreement. Where this consensus might fracture is the West Bank. The government will attempt to prevent outright settler violence and further annexation, but if the Democratic administration presses for a clear path to a Palestinian state, the coalition will face a critical test. A Bennett-led coalition might treat such demands as a red line. An Eisenkot-led coalition presents a more interesting case. While essentially right-wing and opposed to a Palestinian state, Eisenkot might find himself in a situation not unlike Begin’s in 1979: he could stick to his guns and refuse to advance toward Palestinian statehood despite U.S. pressure, or he could prioritize the broader regional security framework in which such advancement would be embedded. Yair Golan and the Arab parties would support the latter; Bennett and Liberman the former. The government may or may not survive the dispute.
While a centrist government in Israel may not be the one to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace, it could be one to show that diplomacy and cooperation better serve the interests of Israel than a constant war against all its neighbors. It could be the one to open the door to a future peace, if and when domestic, Israeli-Palestinian, and regional conditions, will be ripe.
We cannot foresee the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, except for the certainty that no international dispute in history has lasted forever — and this one will not either. The past few years have brought enormous hurt to both sides, though clearly far more to the weaker side: the Palestinians. The next four years will bring either further escalation and suffering, or the beginning of a more constructive path toward resolving the conflict. Perhaps more than any other factor, different combinations of leadership in Washington and Jerusalem may produce very different policy outcomes. Assessing these outcomes in advance may help us take steps that advance the positive ones and forestall the negative ones.