Pakistan Backs Global Push to Protect the Two-State Solution
The growing international pushback against Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank deserves Pakistan’s full support. Canada, France, the United Kingdom and nine other European states have reaffirmed their commitment to the two-state solution while announcing, supporting or considering restrictions on trade in goods originating from Israeli settlements. Their position reflects a wider recognition that diplomatic statements alone are no longer sufficient when developments on the ground are steadily eroding the territorial foundations of a future Palestinian state. The significance of these measures lies not simply in their economic impact, but in the political message they send. Settlement expansion cannot be treated as normal commercial activity while the possibility of Palestinian statehood is being progressively diminished.
The urgency is particularly visible in the Israeli government’s decision to move forward with construction tenders for the E1 settlement project. The international community has opposed this project for years because of its strategic location in the West Bank. In August, a large group of governments warned that E1 would drive a wedge through the West Bank and damage the territorial contiguity necessary for a viable Palestinian state. That is precisely why the issue goes beyond another dispute over housing construction. Geography determines political viability. A Palestinian state divided into disconnected enclaves, separated by settlements, roads and administrative restrictions, would struggle to possess the territorial coherence normally associated with meaningful sovereignty.
At the same time, the West Bank is experiencing mounting tensions associated with settler violence, displacement pressures and continued settlement expansion. These trends are steadily changing realities on the ground. Every new settlement, land appropriation and demographic alteration makes the diplomatic promise of two states more difficult to translate into reality. If this process continues unchecked, international diplomacy risks defending a solution that remains alive in resolutions and communiqués but disappears physically from the map.
This is why the latest international measures should be viewed as an important transition from rhetorical opposition to practical accountability. Trade restrictions involving settlements establish a basic principle. States cannot condemn settlement activity as illegal under international law while allowing economic relationships to operate as though those settlements were indistinguishable from internationally recognized Israeli territory. Economic differentiation between Israel and settlements in occupied territory provides governments with a peaceful diplomatic instrument for defending international law without closing the door to negotiations.
Pakistan’s position on Palestine has remained remarkably consistent. Islamabad supports the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous State of Palestine based on the pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital. Pakistan has also explicitly rejected illegal settlement activity, annexation attempts, forced displacement and measures designed to change the demographic character of the occupied Palestinian territories. That position was reaffirmed again during Pakistan’s participation in the August 2026 ministerial meeting on Jerusalem.
For Pakistan, therefore, welcoming stronger international action is not a departure from established foreign policy. It is a logical extension of it. Islamabad should encourage states that continue to support the two-state solution to translate that commitment into coordinated diplomatic, legal and economic policies. Settlement expansion must be halted. Those responsible for settler violence should face accountability. Allegations of serious violations by Israeli forces should be subject to credible investigation. Administrative steps that facilitate annexation or permanent Israeli control over occupied Palestinian land should similarly face sustained international scrutiny.
The international community already possesses a political framework for moving forward. The New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, agreed at the high-level conference in July 2025 and subsequently endorsed by the UN General Assembly by 142 votes, sought to transform support for Palestinian statehood into a more concrete political process. It reaffirmed the importance of an independent, sovereign and geographically contiguous Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines as the viable route towards lasting peace.
That framework matters because the alternative is increasingly grim. The erosion of the two-state solution would not produce stability. It would leave millions of Palestinians living without sovereign statehood while territorial fragmentation, competing claims and recurring violence deepen. Such an arrangement cannot provide permanent security for Palestinians or Israelis. A condition of indefinite occupation accompanied by cycles of resistance, military operations and political radicalization is not a sustainable substitute for a negotiated political order.
Pakistan is therefore right to stand with governments seeking to protect what remains of the diplomatic space for Palestinian statehood. Measures targeting economic activity linked specifically to illegal settlements should be understood as instruments designed to preserve peace, not obstruct it. They signal that territorial expansion cannot indefinitely proceed without consequences while governments simultaneously profess support for two states.
Peace requires more than another declaration of good intentions. Israel must halt settlement expansion and abandon policies that amount to annexation or facilitate the displacement of Palestinians. Palestinian territorial contiguity must be preserved, international law must be respected and accountability must apply where violations occur. Pakistan should continue using the United Nations, the OIC and its diplomatic partnerships to support these objectives.
The two-state solution is not merely a familiar diplomatic phrase. It represents the remaining internationally supported framework capable of reconciling Palestinian self-determination with a durable regional peace. Protecting it requires protecting the land on which a Palestinian state would actually exist. International action against illegal settlement expansion is therefore not peripheral to the peace process. It has become central to whether that process retains any credible future at all.
