St Andrews – Yesterday, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted overwhelmingly to adopt a two-state solution draft for Israel and Palestine.

This came less than 24 hours after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said there would never be a Palestinian State.

As of December 2024, the UN condemned Israel 17 times, and as of November 2024, the UN stated Israel was committing genocidal warfare.

What does the solution entail

The draft is a seven-page declaration that received 142 votes in favor, 10 votes against, while 12 countries abstained from voting.

Conditions are: an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, release of all hostages held there, and the establishment of a Palestinian state that is both viable and sovereign, according to the UN.

The solution condemns both Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and Hamas, but only requires Hamas to disarm completely and prohibits the resistance group’s involvement in Palestinian institutions and government.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres opened the session, stating that “the central question for Middle East peace is implementation of the two-State solution, where two independent, sovereign, democratic States – Israel and Palestine – live side-by-side in peace and security.”

Response and signs of support on an international scale

As of September 2, over 145 countries have either expressed recognition of a Palestinian state or reiterated their recognition and support of a Palestinian state. This international support — whether symbolic or more practical — is increasingly crucial amidst Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Israel and the US were among the countries that voted against the solution, with Israel saying that there would “never be a Palestinian state.”

Speaking ahead of the vote, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said that “this one-sided Declaration will not be remembered as a step toward peace, only as another hollow gesture that weakens this Assembly’s credibility.”

The Palestinian observer for the UN, Ryad Mansour, said that “for those who want to have a two-state solution, to live side-by-side in peace and security and to open the doors for integration in the entire Middle East and for allowing the Middle East to reach its potential in terms of development, innovation, science, and cooperation, come and join us. All these details… are contained in the declaration that we have endorsed today.”

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has accepted the idea of a two-state solution since the 1982 Arab Summit.

Some Palestinian observers, however, criticize the two-state solution because it legitimizes Israel’s control over about 78% of historic Palestine, leaving Palestinians only 22% (the West Bank and Gaza).

They argue this framework entrenches dispossession and displacement, reduces sovereignty to fragmented enclaves, and sidelines the broader right of return and historical justice for millions of Palestinian refugees.

What will this backing actually do?

The solution, of course, is primarily focused on the territorial rights of Palestinians alongside a continued condemnation of Israel’s war crimes.

Rather than the purported binational state that Israel continues to pursue, a two-state solution would see both an Israeli and Palestinian state, with two side-by-side territories between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Beyond the obvious genocide being committed by Netanyahu’s far-right regime in Gaza, the main obstacle to advancing any solution remains Israel’s entrenched settler colonialism – marked by occupation, annexation, and the relentless implantation of settlements on Palestinian land.

The document emphasized that in order to achieve a viable Palestinian state, Gaza, “an integral part of the Palestinian State must be unified with the West Bank. There must be no occupation, siege, territorial reduction, or forced displacement.”

The document further calls for governance (law enforcement, infrastructure, and security) to lie solely with the Palestinian Authority within the Palestinian state. The UN also urged international powers, including the US, to contribute resources and reconstruction efforts to the Palestinian state.

Ultimately, the resolution calls for “empowering a sovereign and economically viable State of Palestine.”

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