ON the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2025, a small group of Muslim and Arab leaders held a brisk but consequential meeting with US President Donald Trump to discuss the war in Gaza.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described the gathering as “fruitful,” and Mr. Trump left signaling cautious optimism that the United States might play a constructive role in ending the fighting. The meeting sparked debate over a proposal reportedly favoured by the US, the deployment of Muslim peacekeeping forces to Gaza. While several participants received the idea with guarded hope, observers immediately noted a key obstacle: Israel’s likely opposition to any foreign military presence in Gaza. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto publicly pledged readiness to contribute troops if an international mandate were approved, offering up to 20,000 personnel for peacekeeping duties.
Beyond immediate security plans, the session exposed a deeper geopolitical fault line: whether recognition of Palestinian statehood and renewed momentum toward a two-state settlement can break the cycle of Palestinians genocide. Over recent days several European countries moved to formally recognize the State of Palestine; a diplomatic shift intended to compel renewed negotiations toward two sovereign states, a move that drew sharp criticism from President Trump, who warned that such recognitions might reward Hamas. Yet proponents argue diplomatic recognition is a necessary step toward justice and a sustainable peace.
Those advocating a two-state solution insist it remains the only credible basis for a permanent settlement. They point to the international consensus that a sovereign Palestine alongside Israel would address core grievances; territory, sovereignty, self-determination and the political future of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Critics of unilateral recognition, however, contend that symbolic gestures without enforceable security guarantees risk escalating polarization rather than producing compromise.
The human cost of delay is impossible to ignore. Health and local authorities report that the Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 65,000, with hundreds of thousands more wounded and displaced after nearly two years of war and repeated operations and sieges. The humanitarian crisis has deepened into catastrophic levels of food insecurity and shortages of basic medical care. International agencies warn of famine conditions and mounting civilian casualties that demand immediate attention.
Despite the scale of suffering, the United Nations Security Council has been unable to adopt a binding resolution to halt the genocide. Repeated vetoes and diplomatic paralysis have exposed structural weaknesses: a world body effectively dependent on the political will of its most powerful members. This dysfunction has contributed to the perception that institutional mechanisms for protecting civilians can be subverted by great-power politics. Many observers now ask whether reliance on a single multilateral forum, particularly one subject to veto politics is sufficient to prevent atrocities in the 21st century.
The role of the United States during prior administrations has been central and controversial. Past US policies including formal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and acceptance of Israeli claims on the Golan Heights have been viewed by critics as biased toward Israeli political objectives, undermining Washington’s role as an impartial mediator. At the same time, many Arab and Muslim governments have been inconsistent in their public posture. While issuing condemnations, a number of states have maintained or expanded diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, prompting charges that regional elites have subordinated Palestinian interests to short-term strategic calculations. OIC and other Muslim forums have so far failed to translate rhetoric into a unified, effective strategy to protect Palestinian civilians or to force accountable negotiations; a failure that has intensified frustration across the Muslim world.
If the two-state solution is to be more than rhetoric, it must rest on several non-negotiable pillars. First, an immediate, verifiable ceasefire with an independent international monitoring mechanism is essential to stop further civilian deaths. Second, humanitarian access and an end to sieges must be guaranteed to relieve famine and provide medical care. Third, diplomatic recognition and a roadmap to statehood must be linked to enforceable security guarantees: protections for civilians, demilitarized zones where necessary and transitional justice mechanisms to investigate alleged war crimes. Fourth, any peacekeeping deployment must be UN-mandated, multinational and acceptable to the parties whose security it would affect.
Misplaced political calculations and unilateral measures have repeatedly prolonged Palestinian suffering. A durable peace will require principled, consistent action by regional actors and global powers alike. If European recognition of Palestine and the willingness of some Muslim countries to offer tangible support including peacekeeping contingents can be welded into a diplomatic framework with teeth, then the long dream of coexistence and peace becomes attainable.
The stakes are moral and strategic; allowing a pattern of mass killings and displacement to continue under any pretext risks normalizing the most horrific excesses of war. The international community must choose whether it will uphold the basic norms of human rights and international law or continue to tolerate selective application when strategic interests demand it.
For Palestinians, the demand is simple and urgent: freedom, statehood and an end to genocide. For the international community, the test is whether words and votes can be converted into protective action. If leaders are sincere about peace, they must prioritize an immediate ceasefire, robust humanitarian relief and a concrete, enforceable pathway to a sovereign Palestinian state living side by side with Israel, the only viable long-term answer to a conflict that has cost far too many lives.
— The writer is Professor of Politics and IR at International Islamic University, Islamabad.
