JERUSALEM — A few hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by telephone with President Trump on Sunday, the Israeli leader huddled behind closed doors with his security Cabinet.
Ministers on his hard-right pressed Netanyahu to publicly proclaim the ‘‘two-state solution’’ dead.
The Israeli leader refused, but told his raucous Cabinet not to worry. Netanyahu said he did not support a full Palestinian state, but ‘‘a state-minus,’’ according to Israeli reports.
In the days since, Israelis, Palestinians, and American diplomats have been struggling to define what Netanyahu might have meant by ‘‘a state-minus.’’
State-minus is clearly shorthand for how Netanyahu sees his bottom-line position to the decades-long conflict here, including the thorniest of thorny issues — who controls Jerusalem, with its shrines holy to three world religions.
But shorthand for what?
Was Netanyahu suggesting he could support something close to the sovereign state the Palestinians are seeking — and that previous US administrations have tried hard to create?
Or was Netanyahu saying no way, he was not prepared to move much beyond what the Palestinians have today: limited self-rule, in 40 percent of the West Bank, under a 50-year-old military occupation?
What Netanyahu is thinking has never been more important.
Netanyahu is slated to meet with the new American president next month. The Israeli prime minister likes to boast that he best understands, and can best manage, the Americans. But in his long service, Netanyahu has never encountered a president like Trump.
Trump has said he is keen to make the deal of the century — a historic, White House-brokered Palestinian-Israeli peace that has eluded all before him.
In Israel, from left to right, politicians are pressing Netanyahu to say where he wants the country to go.
‘‘Israel now has the opportunity — indeed, the obligation — to decide what kind of future it seeks,’’ said Tzipi Livni, a leader of the opposition in the Israeli parliament.
On the hard right, Israel’s education minister and leader of a pro-settlement party, Naftali Bennett, has said Netanyahu should scuttle the false hope of two states and declare Israel’s true intentions: that it will never abandon the 400,000 Jews living in settlements in the West Bank and should instead annex 60 percent of the territory.
‘‘Until a week ago, we could not mention other solutions,’’ said Giora Eiland, a retired general and former head of Israel’s National Security Council. “The previous US administration was committed to a two-state solution and no one could suggest anything else. This obstacle has now been removed,’’
‘‘We can say bad things about Donald Trump,’’ Eiland said. ‘‘But the good thing is that he is not committed to anything, especially the positions of the previous administration.’’
For a generation, the Palestinians have been very specific about what they want: a sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, based on 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
It appears Netanyahu has other ideas. Earlier this week, the prime minister announced plans to build 2,500 more homes in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. He called this just a ‘‘taste’’ of things to come.
