Navigating the ‘settler fear’ through securitised framing of the two-state framework: revisiting the Deal of the Century

Despite its declining relevance in academic and political debates over the past two decades, the two-state solution remains formally intact, generating persistent fear within the settler movement, which ideologically invests in a zero-sum logic regarding the recognition of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. The study critically examines the construction of ‘settler fear’ by analysing the securitised settler framing of the two-state solution, using the ‘Deal of the Century’ as a case study. Drawing on the intersection of framing theory and the Copenhagen School’s securitisation theory, it argues that the settler framing, from reversing the injustice component regarding Palestinian right to statehood to attributing an existential value to the continuity of settlements, has been extensively shaped by the language of security at physical, societal and ontological levels. This has distorted the sequential logic of traditional framing theory and constructed intertwined components of an integral securitised framing. Claiming the rise of the pro-settler narrative in Israeli politics, this study concludes that even the most Israeli-favoured version of the two-state solution has been resisted by the settlement organisations due to the zero-sum logic underpinning exclusive territorial claims to the land.