Israeli-Palestinian peace: how might a two-state solution work?

Joe Biden has said Israel cannot return to the status quo that existed before Hamas's 7 October attacks and should work towards a two-state solution with Palestinians once the war is over.

It follows the US president's call last week for a "concentrated effort from all the parties – Israelis, Palestinians, regional partners, global leaders – to put us on a path toward peace".

While laudable, the odds of achieving a two-state solution in the current climate are "very, very low", Aaron David Miller, who has been a Middle East adviser to Democratic and Republican administrations, told The Associated Press. "It's essentially mission impossible."

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What did the papers say?

A two-state solution is still seen by some as the best hope for lasting peace in the region. It would see an independent Palestinian state – made up of the West Bank and Gaza – established alongside Israel.

It may be the official position of the UK, US, UN and even Israel itself, reported Sky News, but there is "no shortage of obstacles in the way of Biden's postwar vision", said AP.

An independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza is seen as a "nonstarter by Israel’s far-right government", said the news agency. Israel has spent decades building settlements and other infrastructure "designed to effectively annex much of the West Bank and render the possibility of a coherent Palestinian nation impossible", said Mother Jones. 

Although considered illegal under international law these settlements make the territory "increasingly difficult to designate as Palestinian", said Sky News. Deciding the borders of a potential Palestinian state remains the "biggest obstacle" to a two-state solution. The current Israeli government has expanded settlement construction and treated the West Bank as part of a "Judea and Samaria" that Jews have a right to control, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying in June that Palestinian hopes of a sovereign state "must be eliminated".

On the Palestinian side, an "ineffectual" Palestinian Authority (PA) that controls parts of the West Bank has "little credibility with the population it governs", said AP. 

Despite this, The Times of Israel has reported on talks between US officials and the PA leadership over the possibility of it taking over control of Gaza from Hamas after the current fighting ends. Such a scenario would be "highly difficult to implement given the historically weak state of the PA" in the coastal territory, said the paper. It added that the Ramallah-based PA has been "plagued by corruption, is unpopular among Palestinians for cooperating with Israel and has seen international support shrink with rejected peace offers and continued stipends to Palestinian security offenders jailed in Israel".

That leaves the US. While it continues to pay lip service to a two-state solution, recent administrations have seemed less wedded to the policy, instead favouring an incremental approach that has effectively circumvented the Palestinians altogether, seeking instead to normalise relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours as the best path to peace in the region.

What next?

There is an acknowledgement on all sides that any tangible steps towards a two-state solution is off the table while Israel continues its assault on Gaza.

Looking beyond the war, much will depend on what happens at next year's US presidential election. While the Biden administration has – belatedly – reiterated its call for a two-state solution, Republicans seem less committed to the idea. Presidential hopeful and biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy summed up the mood in the party at a summit over the weekend in which he said Israel should feel free to abandon "the myth of a two-state solution".

This "single-state solution" may seem fanciful given recent events, but after years of occupation, terrorist attacks and retaliatory strikes, only a minority of Israelis and Palestinians continue to believe in a two-state solution. Since the Hamas attack "it seems further away than ever", said DW.