With the current total diplomatic stalemate regarding Israel and Palestine, one can hear emanating calls from different sides of the Israeli and Palestinian political spectrums for unilateral action in order to break the status quo.

In Israel, the extreme right, headed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett (HaBayit HaYehudi), is calling for Israeli annexation of Area C of the West Bank (60% of the territory, which is under Israeli civil and security control), while granting the Palestinians civilian self-rule in the rest of the territory. On the left, one increasingly hears calls for unilateral withdrawal from most of the West Bank in order to bring about a two-state solution. Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke when he last visited Washington (Nov. 9) about a ''unilateral move,'' though after being attacked by his right over this declaration, he clarified that he did not refer to a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank.

In Palestine, there are calls from within the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership to move toward the establishment of an independent state by a combination of violence and unilaterally turning to the UN for the recognition of statehood.

A senior Norwegian official involved in Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution since the Oslo process days spoke to Al-Monitor on the condition of anonymity about options for unilateral action in favor of a two-state solution. In the view of the Norwegian source, the current political structures and configurations cannot bring about the necessary decision-making process for a two-state solution. In Israel, there is, to a great degree, dependency on the right-wing settlers' electoral base; in Palestine, there is an inherent political weakness of the Mahmoud Abbas regime given the fact that the president’s moderation bore no political gains for the Palestinians.