France and Saudi Arabia hope to use this year’s gathering of world leaders at the 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 Israel-Hamas 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.

Britain, Canada and Australia formally recognized a Palestinian state on Sunday , joining nearly 150 countries that have already done so, and France is expected to follow suit at this week’s General Assembly.

But the efforts to push a two-state solution face major obstacles, beginnin

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