In the wake of a historical vote by the UN General Assembly to upgrade Palestine's diplomatic status as non-member observer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration reacted in a hard-line fashion. A statement by the Israeli government on Friday said that it is planning to settle 3,000 new homes in East Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank.

A few US congressmen also demanded the US government to decrease the funding to Palestinian Authority by 50 percent. Other observers hold that the move only complicates the Palestine-Israeli problem, bringing more negative effects. But from another angle, we can see the move's benefits. The key to analyze the influence of Palestine's new status in the UN is the two-state solution.

Since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, the two-state solution, to establish a separate Palestine and Israel based on the 1967 borders, has been considered the only feasible plan to solve the Palestine-Israel problem.

US President Barack Obama made a speech in Cairo in May 2009, shortly after he came into power, openly calling for Palestinian-Israeli negotiations based on the two-state solution. However, as the Netanyahu government refused to stop construction of Israeli settlements and dismantle the existing settlements, and Obama also faced strong pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, he shifted back from promoting the two-state solution.

Palestine applied for full UN membership in September 2011 after negations with Israel broke down, but its ambition was frustrated as some permanent members of the UN Security Council vetoed the application. Then it chose to upgrade its status to being a non-member observer.

One of its main goals is to enhance the importance of the two-state solution. As former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert noted, "the Palestinian request to the UN is congruent with the basic concept of the two-state solution," which could finally solve the Palestinian issue.

Now more pressure has been put on Israel. Its plan for new settlements has been wildly criticized as setting obstacles for the two-state solution, including by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. If Obama could further promote negotiations to realize the two-state solution during his second term, the significance of Palestine's status upgrade in the UN will become more apparent.

As criticism shifts from Palestine to Israel, the dramatic change only mirrors the complexity and difficulty of promoting the solution to the long-lasting Palestinian-Israeli problem.

The author is a professor of international relations at China Foreign Affairs University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn