France and Saudi Arabia hope to use this year’s United Nations General Assembly and the increasingly horrific war in the Gaza Strip to inject new urgency into the quest for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Those efforts include a new road map for eventual Palestinian statehood in territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war, and moves by several Western countries to join a global majority in recognizing such a state before it has been established. They face major obstacles, however, beginning with vehement opposition from the United States and Israel.
