in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for peace, while retaining the large settlement blocs contiguous to pre-1967 Israel, seemed to present a modicum of fairness. Although the initial reaction of the Palestinians and of the neighboring Arab states was not encouraging, after 1993 diplomatic pressure from the United States, Russia, European countries, and the United Nations served to begin the process of almost institutionalizing the concept of the two-state solution as the only decent approach to the problem. The two-state solution has become a virtual dogma in Israeli–Palestinian official discussions: it was the basis of the Madrid Conference (1991), the Oslo Accords (1993), the Interim agreement (1995), the Hebron Protocol (1997), the Wye River Memorandum (1998), and so-called "Road Map" (2002). However, these agreements are rejected by various factions on the Palestinian side, most notably Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The Oslo Accords were never fully adopted and implemented by both sides. After the Second Intifada in 2000, many believe that the two-state solution is increasingly losing its feasibility. On the Israeli side, Likud and Labour both opposed withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders or setting up a Palestinian state, and both supported building more Jewish settlements in the territories and maintaining exclusive Israeli control over Jerusalem. However, Labour argued for building strategic settlements only in areas Israel intended to keep, such as the Jordan Valley and the surroundings of East Jerusalem, while handing the rest back to Jordan, claiming that the alternative would result in a bi-national state and so "the end of the Zionist endeavour". Many on the left of Israeli politics were already warning that without a clean separation from the Palestinians, the outcome would be either a bi-national state by default (thus ending Israel's Jewish character) or a South African-style "Bantustan" with a Jewish minority forcibly ruling a disenfranchised Arab majority (thus ending Israel's claims to be a democracy). Despite this, opposition to bi-nationalism was not absolute. Some of those on the Israel right associated with the settler movement were willing to contemplate a bi-national state as long as it was established on Zionist terms. Originally, members of Menachem Begin's Likud government in the late 1970s were willing to support the idea if it would ensure formal Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza. Begin's chief of staff, Eliahu Ben-Elissar, told The Washington Post in