Is the Two-State Solution Dead?

Gaza lies in ruins. The West Bank is carved into fragments. Abroad, governments talk of recognition. At home, despair deepens. Is the two-state solution finished—or still clinging to life?

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On 6 September 2025, Israel again told civilians to leave Gaza City as ground operations intensified. Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed since October 2023. The strip is shattered. UN satellite studies suggest up to 80% of its buildings are damaged or gone. Along the border, Israel has bulldozed wide “kill zones,” erasing homes and farmland. Gaza is being hollowed out, leaving little for its people to return to.

In the West Bank, the story is one of creeping control. Israeli forces have carried out the biggest raids in decades. Camps like Jenin and Tulkarm have been hit hard—drone strikes, demolitions, mass arrests. Settler violence is at record levels. New outposts are being legalised one after another. The land a Palestinian state would need is being carved into ever smaller pieces. A dream of contiguity looks remote.

On the ground the picture is bleak. It is harder than ever to imagine a sovereign Palestine standing beside Israel. The patient is on life support.

Yet beyond the battlefield there are flickers of hope. France, Canada and the UK are preparing to recognise Palestine at the UN. Washington and the UN are sketching a plan for Gaza: a one-year technocratic government under international protection, a pathway to self-rule, and reconstruction funding tied to stability. These moves may look fragile, but they are not nothing.

Regional actors matter too. When Israel floated annexation this summer, the UAE called it a red line. Within days the talk stopped. That shows outside pressure still shapes what is possible.

Public opinion is stubborn. In Israel, only a minority believe a Palestinian state could live peacefully alongside them. Among Palestinians, support rises if the question is framed around 1967 borders, but faith in the Palestinian Authority is threadbare. Many see no alternative but resistance, especially in the absence of elections or genuine reform.

Here the voice of Fania Oz-Salzberger cuts through. An Israeli historian and humanist, she argues that one state is impossible after the horrors of 7 October. Israelis and Palestinians will not be fellow citizens in this generation. Two states, she insists, remain the only moral horizon. Not because it is easy, but because it is the only way to respect the dignity of both peoples.

Her view carries responsibility in both directions. Israel must rein in its extremists and recommit to liberal democracy. Palestinians must build accountable governance able to prevent attacks. It is a position rooted in her family tradition: pragmatic, ethical, and rejecting the fantasies of total victory.

In the West Bank, reality tells another tale. The Civil Administration has shifted under pro-settler ministers, a move legal analysts call annexation in all but name. Outposts have been legalised. Violence goes unchecked. For Oz-Salzberger’s vision to survive, this course has to be reversed—settlement freeze, law and order, freedom of movement restored.

In Gaza, the paradox is sharper still. The war has smashed the means of governance, yet rebuilding requires functioning authority. A technocratic interim government is being discussed. It would need international backing, prisoner-hostage exchanges, and strict security terms. Without this, aid will stall and the buffer zones will stand as monuments to defeat.

So is the two-state solution dead? On the ground, it looks close to finished. Gaza lies in rubble, the West Bank cut into shards, and institutions are weak. But three forces keep the idea breathing. First, external pressure—from allies and donors who can still block annexation and force concessions. Second, a sketched endgame in Gaza that at least gestures toward Palestinian self-rule. Third, voices like Oz-Salzberger’s, which insist partition is the only just settlement left.

If in the next year we see a settlement freeze, a credible Gaza deal, and genuine Palestinian reform, then two states could inch back onto the horizon. Without that, the phrase will remain little more than a slogan while one unequal reality hardens.

The truth today is simple: the two-state solution is not dead, but it is in intensive care. The machines keeping it alive are diplomacy, pressure, and principle. Whether it stirs again depends not on rhetoric, but on hard choices made in Gaza City and Jenin, in Jerusalem and Ramallah.

By Pat Harrington