Tom O'Connor
On October 6, 2023, an edition of Newsweek hit newsstands proclaiming, "The Palestinian Dream Is Dying—And It's A Nightmare for Israel."
The following day would be the deadliest in Israel's history, sparking a war in which more Palestinians are estimated to have been killed than in all previous conflicts combined.
But the dream of an independent Palestinian state had already begun to fade long before Hamas militants launched their surprise incursion into Israel, killing, maiming and kidnapping men, women and children. A combination of Israel's territorial expansion, the decline of the Palestinian National Authority (PA) and the growing influence of Hamas has eroded the feasibility of a two-state resolution, creating an untenable status quo that shattered into pieces in the early morning hours of October 7, 2023.
Now, residents of Gaza and the West Bank are at the mercy of Israeli military operations in which fighters and civilians are being slain at staggering rates. And with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government considering territorial annexation and mass expulsions while two rival Palestinian governments teeter on the verge of collapse, not the only hopes for a Palestinian state—but the existence of its very people—is at risk.
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