Two-State Solution

Ben White writes: The slogan “two states for two peoples” has long been used by those who support the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Ironically, however, such a framework risks cementing Israeli apartheid and Jewish privilege, evoking the same sorts of arguments put forward by defenders of South Africa’s historical regime of systematic [...]

David Remnick writes: At a makeshift theatre in the port of Tel Aviv, hundreds of young immigrants from Melbourne, the Five Towns, and other points in the Anglophone diaspora gathered recently to hear from the newest phenomenon in Israeli politics, Naftali Bennett. A forty-year-old settlement leader, software entrepreneur, and ex-Army commando, Bennett promises to build [...]

Larry Derfner writes: When you drive out on the highway to the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim from Jerusalem, you’re driving through big sky country. After passing Jerusalem’s new Jewish neighborhoods and old Arab villages, all you’ve got on either side of you are the soft hills of the Judean desert. Emptiness, except for [...]

Henry Siegman writes: With his decision to oppose the U.N. General Assembly’s granting Palestine non-member state observer status, U.S. President Barack Obama leaves no doubt he is not modifying his pre-election position that “There is no daylight between Israel and the United States,” and that no matter how deeply Israeli behavior violates international norms and [...]

David Wearing writes: Obituaries for the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are appearing with increasing regularity, with examples including recent pieces in the Guardian by Rachel Shabi and Ghada Karmi. Among supporters of the Palestinian national struggle, those now calling for a single bi-national state are clearly in the ascendency, but the view is [...]

The New York Times reports: Three decades after leaving the White House, former President Jimmy Carter still functions inside the trappings of power, cruising through fiercely contested areas of this city on Monday in a 12-car motorcade, with Secret Service agents stationed strategically as he surveyed the view from the Mount of Olives. But at [...]

Philip Weiss writes: Last month I wrote to Norman Finkelstein offering to debate the chapter dealing with the Israel lobby theory of Walt and Mearsheimer in his new book, Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End. He wrote back to say that’s just one section, and the [...]

The Daily Telegraph reports: Nick Clegg tilted Britain’s Middle East policy sharply towards the Palestinians on Monday with an attack on Israel’s settlement policies in the West Bank. The Deputy Prime Minister drew a hostile reaction from Israel by saying the government’s continued construction on internationally recognised Palestinian land was “an act of deliberate vandalism” [...]