U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry estimates that the two-state solution will be "over" in a year and a half. Kerry spoke at the House Foreign Affair Committee hearing on U.S. interests abroad. While many analysts have been discussing the closing of a window of opportunity for the two-state solution for several years, setting such a short time frame by the secretary of state is unprecedented. Hannah Allam of the McClatchy Newspapers tweeted: The window for a 2-state solution is shutting, we have a year, year and a half before it's over [...] For Israel, for us, for world, not to strengthen the Palestinian Authority amounts…

Veteran Israeli negotiator Shaul Arieli discusses the failure of the Oslo Accords, various Israeli prime ministers' commitment (or lack thereof) to ending the occupation, and the only solution he believes both sides could live with, however unsatisfied they might be with it.  Shaul Arieli is a man on a dual mission: educating Israelis about the conflict and diplomatic process with the Palestinians, and making the point that the two-state solution is both possible and necessary. His latest publication in Hebrew, A Border between Us and You (Yeditoth Ahronoth Books 2013), is a 500-page handbook to the history of the conflict, with an emphasis on…

With Tzipi Livni joining Netanyahu’s government and President Obama heading to the region, we might be in for another round of a pseudo-'peace process,' which has become a code name for an attempt to impose 'a deal' on a Palestinian pseudo-leadership. Hatnuah – Tzipi Livni’s new party that won six seats in the last Israeli elections – was the first Knesset party to sign a coalition agreement with Binyamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu needs another 24 Knesset members to have the minimum majority for a ruling coalition. It is very unlikely that he will fail to get them. Livni was appointed as…

The U.S. president’s decision to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories in the spring is an unexpected political gift to the Israeli prime minister. Yet without confronting Netanyahu on the issues of the settlements and the '67 borders, we could end up with another diplomatic failure and even a renewal of violence in the region. The White House’s confirmation regarding the planned visit by President Barack Obama to Israel and the Palestinian Authority came just at the right time for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been facing some difficulties in putting together his next coalition. As was the case…

While Peter Beinart's latest book is well worth reading, his solutions come far too late and are likely to achieve little. I've recently finished reading Peter Beinart's controversial book, The Crisis of Zionism; admittedly I read it mostly to understand what the noise was all about. The book took heavy criticism, if by "criticism" you mean "ad hominem attacks," even before it was published. It was basically attacked by the entire Jewish establishment in the United States. Why? Because Beinart insists, as he did two years ago, on stopping to treat Israel as a special-needs child whose tantrums must be…

Knesset member joins other rightwing leaders in call for annexing West Bank, one state solution. One of the well known figures in the settler movement, Knesset Member Uri Ariel from the radical rightwing National Union Party, is publicly calling for a one-state solution as an alternative to the construction of a Palestinian state, the independent news site Srugim reported. Ariel is calling on Israel to annex the West Bank immediately and give all Palestinians living there the status of residents in Israel, similar to those of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, which was annexed to Israel in 1967. According to the…

The Palestinian Authority's statehood bid is portrayed as a crucial step on the way to the two state solution, yet an independent Palestinian state appears to as distant as ever. Watch below as Gershom Gorenberg and I engage in a Bloggingheads diavlog to discuss whether it's time to begin considering other options. One sneaky note - you'll notice I'm having considerable issue with Gershom's portrayal of the one-state approach: He argues that this is akin to being on a sinking ship (the status quo) with the shore (the two state solution) too far to swim to, and suggesting we flap…

According to a recent survey, most Israelis simply don't know that the Jordan Valley, the future Palestinians state's only non-Israeli border, is part of the occupied West Bank. This trend confirms that retaining an Israeli presence in the valley is not likely to become a wedge issue in Israel any time soon. A poll conducted by our esteemed Dahlia Scheindlin (for ACRI's Action a Day campaign) indicates a sweeping majority of Israelis - 63.5%, to be exact - think the Jordan valley is part of Israel; in other words, not part of the West Bank; or, in plain words, don't…

Support for a two-state solution based on 67' borders is likely to decline in the near future A new poll by Haaretz shows a bump of no less than 13 percents in Prime Minister Netanyahu's numbers following his visit to the US, in which he expressed his opposition to a return to the 1967 borders and  for a compromise in Jerusalem. 47 percent of the public see the trip as a success, and 51 percent of Israelis are currently satisfied with their Prime Minister. A Maariv poll published yesterday saw a rise in the Knesset seats of Netanyahu's Likud party,…

Netanyahu’s response to Obama expose his, and the Israeli’s center-right, true face For years, Israeli politicians used to say their actions were intended to “expose the true face of the Palestinians”; this used to be a specialty of Ehud Barak. Senior pundits spent lakes of ink on the proposition that Israel should agree to peace proposals, or even present some of its own, even though they thought there was no point in them: Doing so would expose the “true face” of the Palestinians/Arabs as peace refuseniks. This game is over. The two days following Obama’s Middle East speech made it…

Forty-four years into the occupation, most right-wingers still can’t answer a simple question: “So what’s your solution?” Two days ago, a rally of rather moderate leftists was held in Tel Aviv, across from the building in which Declaration of Independence was read in May 1948. These rallies generally take place on Sundays, and as a rule draw no more than a few dozen participants – I’ve been to several. On Thursday, on the other hand, hundreds of people gathered: Some said there were five hundred people present, my own estimate is closer to three hundred. The occasion was a declaration…