Biden Keeps Palestinian Statehood on the Board After Netanyahu Call

President Joe Biden said a Palestinian state remains possible after speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, using a direct call with Israel’s leader to keep the two-state framework inside U.S. policy during the war in Gaza.

Biden made the statement Friday after the call, answering reporters’ questions about whether a two-state outcome could still happen while Netanyahu remains in office. The president said variations of Palestinian statehood remain possible, including arrangements in which a future state would have limits on military capacity. For Biden, it was a fresh presidential restatement of a long-standing position at the exact moment critics were preparing to move it to the diplomatic attic.

The call came as Netanyahu has rejected key elements of Palestinian sovereignty and as the Biden administration continues to argue that Israel’s long-term security and a political future for Palestinians must be addressed together. That made the exchange a useful day for Biden’s preferred diplomatic sentence: Israel, security, Palestinians, statehood and future all remained present, with none of the nouns asked to leave because the politics had become inconvenient.

The White House has continued to say a two-state solution is the best long-term path after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s military response in Gaza. Biden’s comment after the Netanyahu call kept that framework attached to active diplomacy rather than allowing it to become a commemorative phrase from earlier peace-process decades. In practical terms, the president took a conversation with the Israeli prime minister most central to the dispute and used it as the occasion to say the policy door was still open.

Netanyahu’s role gave Biden’s reaffirmation its force. The president did not make the case after a symposium, a campaign stop or a friendly conversation with a former official; he made it after speaking with the Israeli leader whose public position has put the issue under renewed strain. For Biden, that turned the call into exactly the kind of instrument he has insisted still matters: direct engagement with a close ally, followed by a public statement that the desired outcome has not been retired.

The administration’s position also preserved a distinction Biden has tried to maintain throughout the conflict: support for Israel’s security does not require deleting Palestinian political aspirations from U.S. objectives. That is a narrow lane, but on Friday Biden drove the official vehicle through it again, signaling that U.S. policy still contains a future Palestinian state alongside Israel as a live objective rather than a historical footnote.

The next diplomatic steps remain tied to the war in Gaza, hostage negotiations, regional pressure and the sharp disagreement between Washington and Netanyahu over what comes after the fighting. Biden’s achievement for the day was specific and presidentially useful: after a call with Netanyahu, Palestinian statehood remained possible in the American account of the future, exactly where Biden said it still belonged.