Even though Israel has approved a temporary ceasefire in its unprecedented assault on Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made clear that he still believes it is a “time for war,” not for peace.
On Tuesday, he vowed that the war will continue “until Hamas is destroyed, all the hostages are released and there is nobody in Gaza who can threaten Israel.”
But while US leaders have supported the Israeli war effort, they have also held out hope for an eventual two-state solution in which Israel and a sovereign Palestine exist side by side: “The only ultimate answer here is a two-state solution that’s real,” US President Joe Biden said recently.
The two-state solution isn’t the only approach to solving the Israel-Palestine conflict. But it is the mainstream one; it’s been the international community’s approach for the last several decades. The idea is that US-brokered negotiations can lead to a peace treaty, or a “final status agreement,” which would establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank in exchange for a permanent end to hostilities.
But in the three decades since this peace process really began — with the historic Oslo Accords in 1993 — the two-state solution has slipped further away. A lack of political will in Israel, Palestine, and the US, as well as disagreement over the precise contours of the deal, have rendered negotiations unsuccessful. Major sticking points include: what the borders of the two states should be (and where Jerusalem falls in that), whether Palestinian refugees who were forced out of what is now Israel will be able to once again live there (also known as the “right of return”), and how to establish security guarantees for both Israelis and Palestinians. Today, all of these issues remain major impediments to peace.
Violence perpetrated by Palestinian militants such as Hamas — an organization many countries designate as a terrorist group…
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