Description
The two-state solution has long been the primary focus in negotiations to resolve the Palestine-Israel conflict, favored by the United States, the European Union, most of the world’s democracies, and the United Nations. It advocates “two states for two people”, i.e., an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel with both sides running their countries peacefully and independently. While widely considered the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians and still officially endorsed by a significant majority of states and organizations, there have been increasing voices and warnings that the two-state solution is on the verge of collapse, if not dead altogether. Indeed, by 2023, it seemed to have lost its momentum and become secondary to de facto absent on the agendas of the international community, which has turned a blind eye to Israel’s continuous policy of changing the facts on the ground in ways that made a two-state solution increasingly impractical. However, Israel’s war against Gaza after the Hamas attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, has brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back into international spotlight – and with it the untenability of the status quo ante and the need for a two-state solution as the only post-war horizon for a lasting solution and sustainable peace.
