Palestinian leaders have hailed the result of a
vote at the UN rejecting a unilateral US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, calling it proof of international support for "justice".
"The international community has unequivocally proved that it will not be intimidated or blackmailed, and its members will defend the global rule of law," Hanan Ashrawi, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
said in a statement after Thursday's vote.
But for many on the ground, the resolution approved by the UN General Assembly was nothing more than a symbolic act.
"It's a pointless exercise," Amany Khalifa, a political activist in Jerusalem, told Al Jazeera.
"The Palestinian Authority (PA) has to evaluate the whole diplomatic process of going to the UN. The experience we've had is that for decades now these resolutions have not changed anything."
Breaking with decades of US policy in favour of a two-state solution, President
Donald Trump on December 6 said Washington would formally recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and would start the process of moving its embassy to the city.
The declaration
dealt a blow to the Palestinian leadership, which for more than two decades has unsuccessfully attempted to establish a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
When a
US veto at the UN Security Council earlier this week blocked the same draft resolution from passing, the PA decided to take the issue to the General Assembly, where the resolutions are non-legally binding.
"We will take political, diplomatic and legal actions against Trump's declaration regarding Jerusalem," Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the PA,
said.
But Khalifa believes that "the only ones who are still talking about the two-state solution are the PA".
It is "in their interest to maintain this discourse", she said.
"If they don't do so, they will cease to exist."
The PA, which administers pockets of the
occupied West Bank, says that the only answer to the more than 70-year-old conflict is the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside the existing Israeli one.
But since the signing of the
Oslo Accords in 1993, meant to lead to the formation of that Palestinian state on the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, the Israeli occupation of these territories has only intensified, making it difficult for Palestinians to envision such a solution.
Currently, between 600,000 to 750,000 Israeli citizens - or 11 percent of the Israeli population -
live in the occupied territories.
Guarded by heavily armed Israeli soldiers, they have taken up large swathes of Palestinian private land and are. At least 12 such settlements have been built around and in the heart of Palestinian neighbourhoods in Jerusalem.
Amid this reality, as well as dwindling hopes of Israel ever withdrawing its settlers, some say it is time for a different approach.
"People are already living in the reality of settlements and they see that such a solution is impossible to be achieved on the ground," said Khalifa.
"We need to accept that there is one state - the Zionist one - and then we can talk about finding other means of resistance - not clinging on to the two-state solution," she added.
