The future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Writer: Major General: Ahmed Issa

On October 21, 2026, the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) published an insight paper by Udi Dekel and Ofer Gutman, entitled “International Experts and Artificial Intelligence Agents Deconstructing the Future of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Preliminary Conclusions from a Hybrid Workshop,” summarizing the extensive discussions that took place during a workshop whose last session the institute had organized on October 15, and which included Israeli and international experts. And artificial intelligence agents to discuss the future of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Below is a translation of the paper, then my commentary and analysis detailing the simulation results and the political assumptions on which they are based.

Translation

During the past months, the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies held a hybrid workshop, the last of which was on October 15, 2026, that brought together human experts and artificial intelligence agents to evaluate four alternatives for dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

1. Continuing conflict management: within an advanced framework that adapts to developments on the ground.

2. The resolution plan: imposing Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, dismantling the Palestinian Authority, and encouraging the migration of Palestinians from it.

3. Comprehensive agreement: based on the vision of two states for two peoples.

4. Transforming the course of the conflict: through a gradual model that prevents the slide into a one-state reality, and includes political, regional and demographic separation, while strengthening the civil capabilities of a Palestinian entity with limited sovereignty, especially in the security field, referred to as (PELS) for short.

In the sessions of this workshop, about fifty Israeli and international experts discussed the results of a digital simulation conducted by the Institute over the past months, and studied the various alternatives and their implications for Israeli national security and Israel’s strategic interests.

The simulation used an artificial intelligence platform with about fifty agents simulating real-life actors. They made decisions across hundreds of runs of each alternative, including communication and crisis response. The simulation assessed how the alternatives would evolve over three years, practically until the end of the decade.

The simulation started from rejecting the false dualism that dominates political and international discourse, and limits the choice between two illusions:

• The illusion of unilateralism: creeping annexation and the decisive plan; This path will lead to the reality of one state, the state losing its Jewish or democratic character, international and regional isolation, and continued friction and terrorism.

• The illusion of a comprehensive agreement: the belief that it is possible to reach at once an agreement based on two states for two peoples, and that includes practical solutions to all the fundamental issues of disagreement.

Preliminary conclusions of the simulation

1- A division in visions within Israeli society

On the one hand, there are those who believe that Palestinian national aspirations can be defeated and Israeli sovereignty extended to the entire West Bank. The supporters of the resolution plan realize that it will lead to the reality of one state, and they are prepared to endure sanctions and international isolation to achieve this.

On the other hand, there are those who believe that the reality of one state means abandoning the Zionist vision of a Jewish, democratic, safe and prosperous state, in addition to being exposed to isolation, boycott, and loss of American support.

2- Continuing conflict management as the situation deteriorates

The conflict management alternative held up throughout the three years, but field conditions deteriorated in the vast majority of operations.

Conflict management is the most comfortable option for any government, because it does not require difficult decisions. But it failed, in most cases, to prevent the slide into a one-state reality, the escalation of violence on both sides, the weakening of the Palestinian Authority, and the growing power of Hamas.

3- The failure of the resolution plan with the establishment of facts that are difficult to undo

The resolution plan stopped in most of its operations, and was not fully implemented during the three years, mainly due to American and international pressure, the Palestinians’ refusal to divide their lands into cantons, and the failure of attempts to encourage voluntary migration.

But the unilateral steps that were implemented, including expanding Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and overthrowing the Palestinian Authority, created a reality that is difficult to change even after stopping the course.

4- The comprehensive agreement serves Israel’s long-term interests, but it is not currently achievable

A comprehensive agreement requires bridging many gaps and overcoming multiple obstacles. Its implementation depends, as the paper explains, on:

• Israel assuming supreme security responsibility west of the Jordan River, and retaining its freedom of action to impose security arrangements.

• The existence of an effective Palestinian authority that monopolizes the use of force among Palestinians, and works to remove extremism from Palestinian society.

• Weakening Hamas in a way that prevents it from building its military capabilities or re-establishing its terrorist infrastructure.

• Regional and international support that ensures the Palestinians’ commitment to their pledges.

• Achieving regional and economic gains for Israel.

5- The need for a transitional plan that keeps the keys to security in Israel’s hands

In the current circumstances, the gaps necessary to move towards a comprehensive agreement cannot be bridged. Therefore, there is a need for a transitional plan that builds the conditions for a political settlement, while keeping the keys to security in Israel’s hands. This is the plan for the Palestinian entity with limited sovereignty.

Progress also depends on political stability in Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The collapse of power or the holding of elections in Israel is likely to halt any political process.

6- The alternative to limited Palestinian sovereignty achieved better results

This alternative emerged as the only path, according to the current results, to stop the deterioration towards a one-state reality. It changes the course of the conflict and charts a path toward a future political settlement, while preserving Israel's operational freedom of action and its supreme security responsibility west of the Jordan River.

7- The connection between the political track and the future of Gaza

The simulation demonstrated a close connection between implementing President Trump's 20-point plan for Gaza stabilization and reconstruction, and the ability to advance a political process with the Palestinian Authority.

This requires a commitment to disarming Hamas, transferring the civil administration of the Strip to the National Committee for Gaza Administration, and encouraging the Palestinian Authority to implement the necessary reforms, in preparation for it assuming responsibility for the Strip in the future as well.

8- There is no political progress without eliminating Jewish terrorism

Progress requires resolute law enforcement to confront Jewish extremist terrorism and violence, while continuing to thwart Palestinian terrorism.

These steps are necessary to achieve stability, reduce international pressure on Israel, and build confidence between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Israeli government's tolerance of the continuation of Jewish terrorism reveals its shortcomings and its unwillingness to confront it firmly, which weakens its claim to bear supreme security responsibility.

9- The Palestinian Authority is the weakest link in any progressive path

The weak performance of the Authority, succession struggles within it, or its collapse could disrupt the plan for limited sovereignty and any political settlement, and create a vacuum to be filled by Hamas or other extremist parties.

Hamas has the real ability to disrupt the course if it is not disarmed and removed from power.

10- The difficulty of maintaining the continuity of the political process inside Israel

Fragile coalitions, frequent elections, and pressure from political groups make it difficult to advance a gradual and sustained process toward agreement.

To change course, the next Israeli government must act immediately on two fronts: eliminating Jewish terrorism, and strengthening the Palestinian Authority rather than pushing for its collapse.

These two steps would strengthen Israel's position demanding the disarmament of the Palestinian entity and its retention of supreme security responsibility, as well as reducing international pressure and mobilizing moderate Arab countries to participate in the process.

Success criteria

The alternative to a Palestinian entity with limited sovereignty achieved better results according to the success criteria tested by the simulation. The criteria for measuring the success of this alternative were as follows:

1. Security: Protecting Israeli citizens and making them feel safe.

2. Effective Palestinian governance: without Hamas in its institutions, while maintaining internal stability, and working decisively to prevent terrorism and violence.

3. Regional and functional connectivity: This enables the Israeli army to reduce friction between residents, while preventing the growth of terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank.

4. Regional and international legitimacy and support.

5. Relative internal stability in Israel.

6. The ability to neutralize disruptive parties.

7. Creating the conditions for a political process: On the basis that separation into two distinct political entities is, in the long term, the only way to preserve the Zionist vision of the State of Israel.

One of the main conclusions of the workshop is the possibility of moving between different strategic alternatives. Effectively managing the conflict, by setting strategic goals and improving field conditions, could constitute a transitional phase towards a limited sovereignty plan.

In turn, this plan could pave the way for a future comprehensive agreement, expand the Abraham Accords, and bring about a fundamental change in Israel’s strategic position.

On the other hand, and in the absence of a public decision, the resolution plan is progressing on the ground without broad popular support in Israel, while the public is not informed of the consequences of the one-state reality: the state’s loss of its Jewish and democratic character, damage to internal and external security, severe international isolation, damage to the economy, and increasing Israeli migration abroad.

Comment and analysis

On the one hand, the workshop, especially the involvement of artificial intelligence in anticipating the future of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, reveals the important roles of artificial intelligence in addressing human needs and conflicts around the world, especially the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. On the other hand, it reveals, perhaps, the inability of the human mind, more than a century after the start of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, to address this increasingly complex and intractable conflict through military force that has reached the point of genocide and ethnic cleansing, which means that addressing this conflict exceeds the capabilities of humans, and perhaps the capabilities of humans and artificial intelligence together.

Despite this, the paper, which is the synthesis of the human mind and artificial intelligence, proposes to rebuild the political path, but based on the Israeli security interest (and here lies the point of the intractability of the solution), as it makes limited Palestinian sovereignty a transitional phase towards a possible settlement, without providing a guarantee that this phase will end in an independent state. This is the central point in its Palestinian reading (i.e. returning again to what was previously proposed by Israel, which is the long-term interim solution).

What is important in this context is that the paper reveals a number of facts that Palestinians can benefit from, and they are summarized in the following points:

First: An important diagnosis of conflict management failure

The paper acknowledges that continued conflict management does not necessarily maintain the status quo; The same political mechanism may continue while the land, population, and balance of power change in favor of the reality of a single state.

Thus, the absence of a political decision becomes a decision with strategic consequences. Continuing administration allows regional annexation and dismantling to advance. Therefore, the conclusion of the paper carries a clear warning that the resolution plan may advance in practice even without an official declaration or a broad popular mandate.

One of its strongest conclusions is that stopping the annexation project after starting it does not automatically restore what was dismantled, whether it is related to the Palestinian Authority or geographical contiguity.

Second: An Israeli dispute over the means of protecting the Zionist project

The declared reference for comparing alternatives is to keep Israel Jewish, democratic, secure, and prosperous. From this standpoint, the paper opposes comprehensive annexation and the destruction of power, and favors gradual separation.

This clarifies the nature of the disagreement within Israeli strategic thinking, as presented in the document: Is Israel protected by imposing sovereignty over the entire land, or by separating the Palestinians politically and demographically, while continuing Israeli security superiority and control?

The second approach opens up political space for Palestinians, but the size and boundaries of this space remain contested.

Third: What is actually meant by limited sovereignty?

The proposed model combines expanding Palestinian civilian capabilities, territorial and political separation, and remaining supreme security responsibility and freedom of intervention in the hands of Israel. The danger is that the transitional phase will turn into a permanent formula: Palestinian management of the population with continued Israeli control over the terms of sovereignty. The possibility of it becoming a bridge to independence depends on commitments that are not detailed in the paper.

Fourth: Even the comprehensive agreement is governed by broad Israeli security conditions

What is noteworthy is that the paper stipulates supreme Israeli security responsibility west of the Jordan River, even when talking about the comprehensive agreement. However, it does not clarify the duration of this responsibility, its limits, and the mechanisms for reviewing or ending it.

This raises a fundamental question for the Palestinian side: What is the institutional and legal difference between the entity with limited sovereignty and the state that is supposed to result from the comprehensive agreement, if the same basic security powers remain in the hands of Israel?

Fifth: Strengthening authority is not enough without strengthening its legitimacy

The paper deals with the Palestinian Authority as an institution necessary to prevent a vacuum and the rise of Hamas, and links its strengthening to security and administrative performance.

But institutional effectiveness alone does not produce national legitimacy. Sustaining authority also requires the ability to protect Palestinians, represent them, and achieve tangible progress toward their political rights.

Here a practical dilemma arises: the more security demands from the authority increase, without political gains that gain Palestinian acceptance, the more difficult it will be to build the capable and stable institution that the plan itself needs.

Sixth: Connecting the West Bank and Gaza is important, but conditional

The paper maintains the possibility of the return of authority to Gaza, and links the political track in the West Bank to the arrangements in the Strip. This is a point worth noting because it does not present the future of the two regions as two completely separate paths.

However, political unity is proposed as a deferred result in order to fulfill security and reform conditions, and the paper does not offer a guarantee to prevent secession during the transitional phase. Therefore, the unity of national institutions and reference becomes an issue that must be established from the beginning.

Seventh: Recognition of Jewish terrorism carries a political connotation

The paper not only describes the violence of Jewish extremists as a security problem, but also links it to Israel's eligibility to claim supreme security responsibility.

Here an important Palestinian argument can be drawn: Any party that claims a monopoly on security responsibility will be questioned about its ability and willingness to protect all residents under its control. This link allows the proposed arrangements to be held accountable to the criterion of protecting Palestinians as well, and not to the criterion of Israeli security alone.

Eighth: The results of artificial intelligence require careful, systematic reading

Simulation provides a tool for exploring scenarios, but it does not make the preferred alternative a confirmed scientific fact. Agents respond according to the information, instructions, and constraints on which the platform was built.

One of the drawbacks of the paper is that, while it started from Israeli security interests, Palestinian interests were absent from its text, which can be summarized in the following points:

• How to represent Palestinian interests and decisions.

• The models used and the extent to which their behavior has been tested.

• Weights given to success criteria.

• Detailed rates of success or failure of each alternative.

• The extent to which results change when basic assumptions are changed.

The evaluation criteria are mainly centered around Israeli security and interests, and no independent criterion appears among them for the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, ending the occupation, obtaining an independent state, or protecting their rights and equality.

Therefore, the phrase “achieve better results” implies superiority within the design and parameters of this simulation, and is not sufficient alone to prove the plan’s executability or Palestinian acceptance. Also, the three-year period may give preference to gradual paths compared to a comprehensive agreement that requires a longer time. This is a methodological possibility worth examining.

In conclusion, it is legitimate to say that the paper provides an Israeli argument against annexation, the destruction of authority, and the continuation of conflict management in its deteriorating form. But political benefit from it requires linking any transitional phase to stopping settlements, the unity of the West Bank and Gaza, protecting the population, a clear reference for independence, and implementation guarantees and a timetable. Without this, limited sovereignty remains at risk of becoming a permanent ceiling on Palestinian ambition.

Perhaps it is also legitimate to ask: Shouldn’t the Palestinians, especially since they began their national dialogue after their decision to postpone the general elections, look to the future and choose what best expresses and embodies the interests of their people, instead of leaving this task to the Israeli occupier?