Editorials & Actions
Relinquishing Hope for a 2 State Solution
|
On Relinquishing Hope for a Palestinian State Alongside Israel
By Jeff Warner and Eric A. Gordon
Donald Trump’s December 6, 2017, decision on Jerusalem—to establish the United States Embassy there against our own past policy and world consensus—and his following tweets, supported by Congress, have implications for U.S. Middle East policy that have finally convinced us that the two-state solution, a Palestinian state alongside Israel, is indeed a fantasy. What Happened
Achieving a sovereign, economically viable Palestinian state had always been a long shot, arguably ever since 1948, and more so after 1967. The disparity between rich, politically connected, militarily strong Israel and poor and weak Palestine, allowed Israel’s leaders to block any possibility of a Palestinian state. It has been clear for decades that Israeli leaders turned away from peace initiatives to fulfill their openly expressed goal to control all the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. There is no political will in Israel among either the leadership or the people to allow a Palestinian state, nevertheless, two-state advocates worked tirelessly to change that situation by promoting significant pressure from the U.S. and Western democracies.