WEST BANK — United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement that resolving the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians depends on the establishment of two states. "The only way out of the Israeli-Palestinian impasse runs through two states," Guterres said.
The two-state framework in its current form dates to the Oslo Accords of 1993. The architects of those accords, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, are both deceased. The Israeli Labor party, which championed the Oslo process, has been a marginal political force for two decades. American Jewish organizations once described advocacy for a two-state solution as moderate centrism.
On the Palestinian side, Hamas won the last Palestinian legislative election in 2006 and rejects the two-state framework on theological grounds. Hamas retains de facto authority over Gaza. Fatah supports the two-state framework but has not delivered on any related agreement in the past twenty years.
The Palestinian Authority, which governs part of the West Bank, receives funding from foreign donors and operates under the authority of the Israeli security apparatus. Mahmoud Abbas, who governs part of the West Bank, in 2026 remained twenty-one years into his four-year presidential term. Polls of youth in Ramallah and Nablus indicate they do not support the two-state project and instead favor armed resistance, emigration or both.
On the ground, approximately 700,000 Israelis live in settlements east of the Green Line. Israeli authorities approved the E1 settlement project, which nearly bisects the West Bank. Road, utility and security infrastructures in the West Bank have been integrated for years. The Israeli ultra-Orthodox population has a fertility rate about twice that of West Bank Palestinians.