Western wall in Jerusalem at night. Credit: Wayne McLean/cc by 2.0

By Joseph Chamie
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 19 2015 (IPS)

The writing on the Western Wall is evident to most Israelis: “דמוגרפיה היא גורל” or “demography is destiny”. Those unwilling to acknowledge the prophetic message are either deceiving themselves or simply ignoring it in order to avoid facing the implications of demography for Israel’s future.

In order to be both a Jewish and democratic state, Israel has adhered to a clear demographic principle:  maintain an overwhelming Jewish majority. During the first few decades following its establishment in 1948, the proportions Jewish among the several million Israelis remained at record highs of nearly 90 percent (Figure 1).In the immediate aftermath of the two-state solution’s formal demise, Israel will try to avoid facing demographic realities and maintain an untenable status quo.

Since then, even with the large-scale Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, the Jewish proportion in Israel, while still a sizeable majority, has declined steadily. Today the proportion Jewish among the Israeli population of more than eight million is at an historic low of 75 percent.

Although the country’s Jewish majority will likely continue to decline slightly over the next 20 years, it is expected to remain over 70 percent according to official Israeli population projections. Those projections, however, assume that no significant numbers of non-Jews outside pre-1967 Israel are granted Israeli citizenship. If this assumption is relaxed, very different demographic futures emerge for Israel.

The Israeli population, for example, could be combined with the Palestinian populations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to form a single state with universal suffrage, in other words the one-state solution. While the expanded nation would continue to be democratic in principle, it would no longer be a Jewish state because the majority of the enlarged Israeli population would no longer be Jewish.

Source: Israel Central Bureaus of Statistics and United Nations Population Division

A more likely possibility perhaps would be for the Palestinians in the West Bank to be granted Israeli citizenship. At least during the first couple of decades of such a scenario, Jewish Israelis would retain their majority, being slightly above half of the total population.

However, after several decades, Jewish Israelis would likely turn out to be the minority due to higher rates of demographic growth among their non-Jewish compatriots. Here again, an expanded Israel enfranchising large numbers of non-Jews would continue to be a democracy but would eventually cease to be a predominantly Jewish state.

The current Israeli government does not envisage the establishment of a Palestinian state any time in the foreseeable future. Although some Israeli politicians have called for the creation of a separate Palestinian state in the occupied territories, key Israeli government officials and their pivotal supporters believe that it would be collective suicide for Israel to permit the establishment of a Palestinian state. They prefer to annex West Bank land, or Judea and Samaria using their terminology, which some contend is already the de facto case.

In addition, a majority of the Israeli public view reaching a peace agreement with a two-state solution as a pipedream and many are opposed to a two-state solution. Any support voiced by Israelis for a two-state solution invariably evaporates when the details of a possible peace agreement are spelled out, such as the sharing of Jerusalem, removing Israeli settlements or returning to some pre-1967 borders.

Also, more than 120 government-approved Israeli settlements and 100 unofficial ones have been established in the West Bank. The growing Israeli settler population in East Jerusalem and the West Bank is estimated at approximately 750,000. In the West Bank alone, the number of settlers has more than doubled since 1995 to about 400,000.

It appears highly unlikely that Israel will be able to withdraw its Jewish settlers from the occupied land as it did in 2005 when it withdrew with some difficulty about 9,000 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip.

Despite the government’s opposition, public resistance and the ever-expanding demographic facts on the occupied ground, the two-state solution continues to be kept on life support largely through the sponsorship, funds and hopes of the international community, in particular the United States and its Western allies.

The ostensible reason for keeping this all-but-dead diplomatic path alive is to avoid confronting the inevitable alternatives to the failed attempts to establish a separate Palestinian state.

Soon, however, the two-state solution will be given its formal funeral, especially as peace talks have collapsed and the Israeli occupation is approaching its 50^th anniversary. When this happens, the options remaining for the Israelis will be limited and difficult with the one-state solution with its eventual Palestinian majority loudly knocking at Israel’s front doorstep.

In the immediate aftermath of the two-state solution’s formal demise, Israel will try to avoid facing demographic realities and maintain an untenable status quo. The Israeli government will likely continue to enforce its costly and troubling occupation and control over millions of Palestinians, expand and increase Jewish settlements and consolidate its presence and authority throughout Jerusalem. However, those and related acts will in all likelihood only exacerbate an already vexing and volatile situation.

Attempts to preserve the status quo will lead to the numerous Jewish settlements becoming increasingly entrenched and entangled in the West Bank. The living conditions and disposition of the Palestinians in the occupied territories will worsen and their human rights concerns can be expected to rise to the top of the international community’s political agenda.

Israeli administrative decisions, Knesset bills and judicial pronouncements can neither dismiss nor repeal the laws of demography. No doubt some will choose to challenge the numbers and their significance, contending that under any foreseeable demographic circumstances Israel will remain a democratic and Jewish nation.

Inevitably, however, and likely sooner rather than later the Israeli government will be obliged to acknowledge the writing on the Western Wall and address demography’s decisive implications for the future of Israel.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

Israeli soldiers and police blocking Palestinians from one of the entrances to the old city in Jerusalem. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Joseph Chamie
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 9 2015 (IPS)

The large majority of countries, and most of the people in the world, already recognise Palestine as an independent state.

Among the member states of the United Nations, for example, 135 countries – representing about 82 percent of world population – officially recognise Palestine as an independent state versus 50 countries that do not recognise the Palestinian state.

Source: Author’s calculations based on official data

Large majorities of countries throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America recognise the state of Palestine, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa.

In addition, the European nations that have officially given diplomatic recognition to the Palestinian state include Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Malta, Poland, Romania, Russia Federation, Slovakia, Sweden and Ukraine.

In addition to Israel, key countries that do not recognise Palestine as an independent nation include France, United Kingdom, the United States – each with a veto in the U.N. Security Council – as well as Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Spain and Switzerland.Even with the international community’s considerable resources, numerous pronouncements and stated desires to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, few are optimistic that the two-state solution is achievable in the near term.

The general position of these countries is that the recognition of an independent Palestinian state can only be achieved from direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

However, due to frustration over stalled peace talks many of the countries whose governments do not currently recognise the Palestinian state are encountering initiatives and pressures from parliaments and the general public to modify their policies.

In Europe, for example, the parliaments of Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain have passed non-binding advisory resolutions recommending their respective governments recognise the state of Palestine. Also, the European Parliament adopted a resolution supporting Palestinian statehood in principle.

A recent German survey has also reported that a broad majority of German citizens are in favour of their governments’ recognition of a Palestinian state. The study found that 71 percent supported the German government’s recognition of a Palestinian state, with 15 percent rejecting it, and 14 percent abstaining.

Also, a multi-country survey done several years ago found that more people backed recognition of Palestine as an independent state than opposed it. Across the 19 countries survey, 49 percent supported the proposal while 21 percent said their government should oppose recognition of a Palestinian state.

In the United States public opinion regarding Palestinian statehood has fluctuated considerably over time. As recently as 2012, a majority of the American public, 51 percent, supported the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with 37 opposing it and 12 percent having no opinion.

A survey of Americans in March 2015 reported that 39 percent are in support, 36 percent in opposition and 25 percent with no opinion concerning the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Among both Israelis and Palestinians views on Palestinian statehood vary depending on the specifics of the survey question and when it was posed. Less than two years ago, the majority of both Israelis and Palestinians, 63 and 53 percent, respectively, supported a peace agreement based on the general notion of a two-state solution.

However, when details of the two-state solution are spelled out regarding such contentious issues as territorial compromise, settlement evacuation and dividing Jerusalem, support collapses. Approximately three-quarters of Jewish Israelis recently polled, for example, opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 borders.

Similarly, following the disappointing failure of recent U.S.-mediated peace talks, a poll of Palestinians found about one-third expressed support for a two-state solution.

In addition to the collapse of the U.S.-mediated Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, an important element influencing this possible shift in the policies of countries that do not recognise Palestine is the election campaign statement made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that caused an international uproar.

Although he subsequently toned down his remark, the Israeli prime minister pledged prior to the Israeli election that a Palestinian state would not be established on his watch.

Awaiting the formation of the next Israeli government, the United States, key members of the European Union and several other countries have stated that they are reassessing aspects of their relations with Israel. For some of those governments, those reassessments could include recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg indicated, for example, that in the wake of Netanyahu’s apparent refusal to back a two-state solution, the world, including the British Parliament, would have no option, inevitably, but to recognise a Palestinian state.

Source: Author’s calculations based on poll data by Gallup and Washington Post/ABC

While the Obama administration continues to believe that the two-state solution is the best way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is unlikely to recognise a Palestinian state any time soon. The U.S. administration may not object, however, to a draft resolution on an Israeli-Palestinian peace framework that has been informally circulated in the U.N. Security Council.

France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius indicated recently that his country along with its allies intend to propose a U.N. Security Council resolution in the coming weeks that could present a framework for negotiations toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The proposal is expected to stress the right of both peoples to live in their respective nation-states and declare that the conflict must end through negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.

An earlier informal draft resolution, which was circulated in late 2014 and penned by France, pushes for a lasting, comprehensive peaceful two-state solution. Essentially it aims to achieve two independent, democratic and prosperous states, Israel and a sovereign, contiguous and viable State of Palestine living side by side in peace and security within mutually and internationally recognised borders, no later than 24 months after the resolution’s adoption.

The key elements of the draft framework for the negotiated two-state solution are to be based on: (a) the borders on 4 June 1967 with mutually agreed limited land swaps: (b) security agreements that respect sovereignty of a non-militarized Palestinian state, with a full phased withdrawal of Israeli forces; (c) an agreed, just and realistic solution to the refugee question; (d) Jerusalem as the shared capital of the Israel and Palestine; and (e) agreed settlement of other outstanding issues, including water.

If the U.N. Security Council adopts the French draft resolution, which will require the U.S. not to exercise its veto, an international peace conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to be convened. This event is then to be followed with France and its other European allies recognising an independent Palestinian state built principally on the 1967 borders.

Achieving a two-state solution today has become considerably more complicated logistically than when originally proposed by the U.N. in 1947 due to changing demographics.

For example, when U.N. Resolution 181 divided Mandatory Palestine into two states, one Jewish and other Arab, their respective populations were approximately one-tenth their current sizes, each less than 0.9 million. Today the Israeli population has grown to 8.3 million and the Palestinian population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip stands at about 4.5 million, with more than 5 million additional Palestinians residing in neighbouring countries.

Even with the international community’s considerable resources, numerous pronouncements and stated desires to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, few are optimistic that the two-state solution is achievable in the near term.

Many, especially Israelis and Palestinians, have concluded that the two-state solution is no longer practical, with the chances of achieving a two-state solution in the next five years being slim or non-existent and the one-state solution becoming increasingly the de facto reality.

It seems abundantly clear that the various peace initiatives to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over the past 40 years have not achieved the desired goal. With most of the world now recognising the state of Palestine, the world’s major powers need to resolve this nearly 70-year conflict and bring about a lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

BDS and Rabbis For Palestine. Credit: Mike Gifford/cc by 2.0

By Emile Nakhleh
WASHINGTON, May 3 2014 (IPS)

The recent suspension of the U.S. -engineered Israeli-Palestinian talks signals a much deeper reality than the immediate factors that caused it. The peace process and the two-state solution, which for years were on life support, are now dead.

It is time for the United States and the rest of the international community to stop the 20-year old quixotic effort to resurrect a dead “process” and to seriously begin exploring other avenues for Israeli-Palestinian coexistence between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.Perpetuating Israeli rule over half the population through military occupation and without granting them citizenship or equal rights would in the foreseeable future deprive Israel of its Jewish majority, negate its democratic political culture, and ultimately lead to apartheid-like conditions.

The two-state solution has been a convenient policy position that allowed negotiations to go on and on, prompted primarily by the argument that no credible alternatives existed. Many governments, diplomats, negotiators, politicians, academics, NGOs, and consultants on both sides of the Atlantic and in the region have staked their life-long careers on the two-state paradigm.

Dozens of international agreements and declarations and thousands of meetings have been held all around the globe on the so-called modalities of a two-state solution. Unfortunately, all have come to naught.

Whenever the two-state approach was questioned over the years, its defenders would quickly ask, “What’s the alternative?” and would dismiss the “one-state” suggestion and similar options as non-starters. The retort has always been that no Israeli government would dare contemplate any proposal that involves Israelis and Palestinians living together in one political entity.

Palestinian nationalists and ruling economic and political elites, who benefited from their association with the PLO power structure, whether in Ramallah or elsewhere, supported the two-state formula despite their belief that Oslo was a hollow victory that would never lead to statehood. They went along because in the view of one Palestinian at the time, “It was the only game in town.”

The Arab states that advocated this approach drew comfort from the rhetoric because it appealed to Western countries, especially the United States. Yet, these states have failed to commit the necessary resources and political capital and seriously pursue their “Arab Peace Initiative” to its intended conclusion.

Official Arab leaders’ rhetoric continued to extol their unwavering commitment to Palestine, but they gave priority to their separate national interests, which often included unofficial economic, political, and intelligence contacts with Israel.

Successive Israeli governments played a similar game. Whenever the discussions of establishing a Palestinian state got serious, they advanced new conditions and “redlines”, which made it more difficult for Palestinian leaders to accept. The entire negotiating enterprise was reduced to talks about talks, resulting in decoupling the negotiation “process” from the envisioned “peace”.

The pro-Israeli lobby in Washington has successfully erected a solid pro-Israeli stand in the United States Congress. Such support, which has always been identified with right-wing policies in Israel, has severely constrained the diplomatic flexibility of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government.

In lieu of a political settlement, Western countries and the United Nations provided massive aid programmes to Palestinians, and Palestinian leaders and ruling elites benefited disproportionately from the largesse, resulting in newfound wealth and rampant corruption. In the absence of government accountability and transparency, it’s not clear where the huge chunks of the money went.

While rhetorically committed to a two-state solution, high-level PA officials have not been uncomfortable with this arrangement of the political status quo under Israeli occupation. So much so, in fact, that a Palestinian intellectual has described the situation as “The National Sell-out of a Homeland.”

I have supported the two-state solution for almost five decades. Based on my field research in the Occupied Territories in the late 1970s, I published a short book titled “The West Bank and Gaza: Toward the Making of a Palestinian State,” which argued for the creation of a Palestinian state in those parts of Palestine.

In reaction, self-proclaimed Palestinian nationalists, including the current Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, attacked me publicly for “advocating an American position.” Some pro-Palestinian newspapers in the Gulf derisively described me as a “Palestinian American Sadatist”, a reference to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel.

Of course, 10 years later, the PLO formally supported the two-state approach and proceeded with the Oslo agreement.

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that the two-state option is simply no longer viable. The two parties and the international community must search for other options that could accommodate the two peoples living together.

I reached this position fully cognizant of the realities on the ground – Israeli occupation, Palestinian factionalism, and rising poverty and frustration among Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and in Israel – and the lack of credible alternatives to the two-state approach.

As more and more Palestinians search for alternatives, they are transforming their confrontation with the Israeli occupation and anti-Arab discrimination in Israel to a peaceful struggle for human rights, justice, and economic self-sufficiency. BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) has become the global rallying cry against Israeli occupation and continued settlement construction.

Some members of the Israeli cabinet, on the other hand, have begun talking publicly about taking “unilateral actions” on the West Bank, including annexing Area C and the major settlement blocs. Meanwhile, Israeli security forces continue to enter Area A, which is nominally ruled by the PA, at their whim.

In the absence of a Palestinian state, the Israeli government will be faced with a growing Palestinian population in Gaza, the West Bank, and in Israel, which, taken together, constitutes almost 50 percent of the total population between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.

Perpetuating Israeli rule over half the population through military occupation and without granting them citizenship or equal rights would in the foreseeable future deprive Israel of its Jewish majority, negate its democratic political culture, and ultimately lead to apartheid-like conditions.

The international community and the two peoples should begin a serious exploration of new modalities based on justice, fairness, and equality. These could range from a unitary state to confederal arrangements that guarantee Palestinians equal rights, privileges and responsibilities. But all of them require an end to the occupation.

Some critics might consider this approach Pollyannaish, but it’s not unthinkable in light of the demonstrated failure of the two-state approach.

Emile Nakhleh is a former Senior Intelligence Service Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, a Research Professor at the University of New Mexico, and author of ‘A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America’s Relations with the Muslim World’.

Kerry’s comments came on the heels of Israel, the Palestinians and the United States all making statements and taking actions that seemed to draw a curtain on the latest peacemaking efforts. Ralph Alswang/cc by 2.0

By Mitchell Plitnick
WASHINGTON, Apr 28 2014 (IPS)

In the wake of the collapse of U.S.-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the angry rhetoric around this conflict has only escalated.

After days of mutual recriminations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ignited a controversy by telling a gathering of world leaders at the Trilateral Commission in Washington that Israel is now running the risk of becoming “an apartheid state.”“Kerry is four years behind Ehud Barak and seven years behind Ehud Olmert in acknowledging that Israel meets the conditions that define Apartheid." -- Rebeccca Vilkomerson

Kerry was stressing how important a two-state solution is for Israel’s concerns. He was explaining why he believed a one-state outcome of the conflict was not in Israel’s best interests.

He told the gathered leaders that “…a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens – or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.”

After the web site, The Daily Beast, reported Kerry’s statements, some of Israel’s most right-wing supporters were outraged and called for Kerry’s removal from his post.

“It is no longer enough for the White House to clean up after the messes John Kerry has made,” the neoconservative, self-styled Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) said in a statement. “It is time for John Kerry to step down as Secretary of State, or for President Obama to fire him.”

Other leading supporters of Israeli policies were disturbed by Kerry’s use of “apartheid,” while stopping short of ECI’s call.

David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee, told the Daily Beast that “the use of the word ‘apartheid’ is not helpful at all. It takes the discussion to an entirely different dimension.”

Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists have claimed for years that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip amounts to an apartheid regime. For many of them, Kerry’s statement is a long-awaited breath of realism, even if it still leaves them wanting more.

“Kerry was stating the obvious,” Professor Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, told IPS. “It would be helpful and entirely healthy if this became a habit for American diplomats.

“They could also say that the unceasing expansion of Israeli settlements is incompatible with a two-state solution, and a clear sign that the Israel government has no intention of allowing a sovereign Palestinian state,” Khalidi continued.

“They could state unambiguously that the Palestinian people have an inalienable right to self-determination, sovereignty and independent statehood in their historic homeland, and that they do not need anyone’s permission in order to seek to exercise these rights. I unfortunately do not expect any such statements in the near future.”

But not all supporters of Palestinian rights see Kerry’s statement in the same way.

Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, doesn’t view the apartheid issue as a threat to Israel’s future, as Kerry frames it, but rather as an oppressive reality that Palestinians currently experience.

“I see Kerry’s remarks as wholly protective of Israel and unconcerned about the Palestinians,” Hijab told IPS.

“He seems unaware that Israel is close to being an apartheid state vis-a-vis its Palestinian citizens [within Israel]. What he wants from a two-state solution is to defend ‘Israel’s capacity to be a Jewish state’ – which would enable it to maintain its apartheid-like practices toward its Palestinian citizens.”

After Kerry’s apartheid comment stirred controversy, the U.S. State Department scrambled to contain the outbreak.

“Secretary Kerry, like [Israeli] Justice Minister [Tzipi] Livni and previous Israeli Prime Ministers [Ehud] Olmert and [Ehud] Barak, was reiterating why there’s no such thing as a one-state solution if you believe, as he does, in the principle of a Jewish state,” State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Rebeccca Vilkomerson, executive director of the progressive U.S. group, Jewish Voice for Peace, which is deeply critical of both Israeli and U.S. policies, sees some indication of long-delayed progress in Kerry’s comments.

“Kerry is four years behind Ehud Barak and seven years behind Ehud Olmert in acknowledging that Israel meets the conditions that define Apartheid,” Vilkomerson told IPS.

“That such a high-ranking U.S. official would use the term shows that the Obama administration, and the broader foreign policy community, is losing patience with Israel.  This may be an indicator that we are moving into a new phase of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that the message of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement is having a significant impact.”

The more centrist, “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group, J Street put Kerry’s words in a similar context to Psaki’s.

“Israel today is not an apartheid state, and that’s not what John Kerry is saying,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami told IPS.

“For over a year now, Kerry has argued that, without a two-state solution, Israel is risking its future and its values as it moves toward permanent rule over millions of Palestinians without equal rights.

“Former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have used the ‘apartheid’ term as well to describe this possible future.  Instead of putting energy into attacking Secretary Kerry, those who are upset with the secretary’s use of the term should put their energy into opposing and changing the policies that are leading Israel down this road.”

Kerry’s comments came on the heels of Israel, the Palestinians and the United States all making statements and taking actions that seemed to draw a curtain on the latest peacemaking efforts.

After Israel refused to follow through with a planned release of prisoners, and announced new construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem instead, the Palestinians applied to some 15 international treaties and organisations, further angering Israel.

When Israel announced renewed sanctions against the Palestinians, the situation flared up again when the Palestinian Authority and Hamas agreed to move forward with past agreements to reunify their government.

U.S. President Barack Obama declared that it was time for a “pause” in Middle East peacemaking shortly thereafter. This was the situation that Kerry was addressing with his words at the Trilateral Commission.

The Palestinian reconciliation agreement was controversial in itself, as the Israeli government immediately declared that any Palestinian leadership that was associated in any way with Hamas was one Israel would not deal with.

But many believe that Palestinian reunification is necessary if there is to be any real progress, now or in the future, in resolving this conflict.

“I think the reconciliation agreement is more of an acknowledgement from Abbas that the U.S. has utterly failed, yet again, in its efforts and he is embarking on creating a positive legacy before exiting the political theatre,” Palestinian-American businessman and activist Sam Bahour told IPS.

“If the reconciliation reaches the point of elections, it can be a game changer… Anyone serious about resolving this conflict must view the Palestinian people as a single unit, from Ramallah to Santiago, passing through the Galilee, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan too. Political agency is of utmost priority today so a sustainable path forward can actually be crafted with some legitimacy.”

Gaza women demonstrate to demand release of their loved ones in prison in Israel. Credit: Mohammed Omer/IPS

By Mitchell Plitnick
WASHINGTON, Mar 4 2014 (IPS)

The failure of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians could lead to a significant shift in public opinion in the United States regarding Israel’s future, according to a new poll released Monday.

When asked about two options in the event the two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict was no longer on the table, 65 percent of U.S. citizens said they preferred a democratic state where Jews and Arabs are equal, against only 24 percent who supported “the continuation of Israel’s Jewish majority even if it means that Palestinians will not have citizenship and full rights.”"We always assume that pro-Israel means people will accept immoral situations if they have to and that’s not true.” -- Shibley Telhami

The Barack Obama administration has repeatedly warned both parties that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution to their conflict is closing.

This is widely understood to be driving the frenetic efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to cobble together a framework for further talks which he hopes would culminate in a permanent status agreement by the end of 2014. But should these efforts fail, the United States has no alternative to the current two-state formula.

The poll, commissioned by pollster Dr. Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland, indicates that, as Telhami said, “if the two-state solution fails, the conversation among the American public might shift to that of a one-state solution as the next-best thing.”

In that context, United States citizens hold the value of one person, one vote very strongly. Telhami told IPS that this value was held even among those polled who felt the United States should be favouring Israel over the Palestinians in negotiations.

“We asked if you want the U.S. to lean toward Israel, towards the Palestinians or to stay neutral. As usual, two-thirds want the United States to be neutral and among the rest, most want it to lean toward Israel. So we asked that segment what they would do if the two-state solution was no longer an option. And we still got 52 percent of that segment who would support one state with equal citizenship.

“We always assume that pro-Israel means people will accept immoral situations if they have to and that’s not true,” Telhami continued. “A lot of people try to reconcile their support for the cause with their moral view of the world and that view is antithetical with occupation or inequality for many of these people.

“So for them, two states is a way out, where they can say ‘I’m not paying too much attention to occupation now because it will be going away.’ But if the two-state solution goes away then the status quo looks permanent and I think people, even the segment that primarily cares about Israel, will have an issue with that.”

The possibility of the two-state solution finally collapsing seems stronger with each passing day. Despite some positive statements from Kerry and Obama, the sentiments that have been expressed by both Israeli and Palestinian leadership have, almost from the beginning, been pessimistic and accusatory, with each side seeming to jockey for position to avoid blame for what they have portrayed as the inevitable failure of the U.S.-brokered efforts.

On Monday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the leader of the left-wing Israeli Meretz party that there is strong opposition within the Palestinian Authority to continuing talks beyond the agreed upon deadline of Apr. 29.

Abbas has repeatedly stated that ongoing Israeli settlement construction makes negotiations very difficult for Palestinians and sends the message that while the Palestinian leadership talks with Israel, the Israelis are simply taking the West Bank through settlement expansion.

Bolstering Abbas’ case, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics released a report on Monday which stated that starts on new settlement building in the occupied West Bank increased by 123.7 percent in 2013.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who arrived in Washington on Monday for a meeting with President Obama and the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), accused the Palestinians of not doing enough to advance peace talks and called on them to recognise Israel as a Jewish state.

Netanyahu vowed to stand firm against pressures on him to make compromises on what he referred to as “our crucial interests. “

Given these stances, it seems there is little hope for Kerry’s dogged efforts. Obama warned of the consequences of failure in an interview published Sunday with Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldberg when he said “if you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction…If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited.”

Indeed, this poll shows that even within the United States, fallout will be a factor.

“Americans still have a generally favourable view of Israel and think it ought to live in peace and security,” Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and co-author of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, told IPS.

“But much of that support is fairly soft, and most Americans do not support backing Israel no matter what it does. This latest poll confirms that basic view, and suggests that Israel cannot count on deep U.S. support if peace talks fail and its control over the West Bank and/or Gaza becomes permanent.”

But Leon Hadar, lecturer in Israel Studies at the University of Maryland and senior analyst with Wikistrat, disagrees and believes this poll does little but satisfy the “wishful thinking of some.”

“My guess is that most Americans would support the establishment of a democratic and liberal system here, there and everywhere, including in Saudi Arabia, Congo, and certainly China,” Hadar told IPS.

“But the main problem is that there is no constituency in the U.S. or for that matter among the Israelis and the Palestinians advancing such a formula. That’s very different from the South Africa story when you had powerful constituencies in this country, including Congress, pushing for that.”

Telhami disagrees. “It may not have a direct impact on foreign policy. I don’t expect even 80 percent support for a single, democratic state will mean the White House and State Department will suddenly support it. But it results in a lot of civil society pressure.

“U.S. foreign policy is based on a lot of considerations, and domestically it is more responsive to groups that are better organised and today that means groups that are supportive of Israeli government positions. But I think the discourse itself will alter the priorities and put a lot of strain on the relationship.

“This will mean pushing the government to act on this issue. We see it now, with academic boycotts and boycotting of settlement products. Those things can happen at a level that changes the dynamic of policymaking.”

The Shuafat refugee camp can be seen across the separation wall from the Israeli settlement Pisgat Ze'ev. Credit: Jillian Kestler-D’Amours/IPS.

By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, May 10 2013 (IPS)

Amidst a new U.S. effort to revive the long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, healthy pluralities of both peoples want U.S. President Barack Obama to play a stronger role in resolving their conflict, according to a major new poll released here Thursday by the Pew Research Center.

The survey, which also covered attitudes towards Israel and Palestine in 11 other countries, found that Israeli confidence in Obama has increased since his visit to the Jewish state in March, while Palestinians retain little confidence in the U.S. president despite their desire for his greater involvement in peace-making efforts.

And while half of Israelis believe a two-state solution can still be achieved peacefully through negotiations, Palestinians by a large margin believe that is a delusion.

Indeed, a plurality (45 percent) of Palestinian respondents said the best way to achieve statehood was through armed struggle, while only 15 percent said negotiations were the best course. Another 15 percent cited non-violent resistance, while 22 percent more said some combination of these tactics offered the greatest chance for success.

The new Pew survey, which interviewed nearly 15,000 people in 12 countries, as well as the Palestinian Territories (PT), also found strongly unfavourable opinions of Israel, particularly among its predominantly Muslim neighbours.

The United States was the only country where a majority (57 percent) expressed positive views of the Jewish state, although a plurality in Russia also registered more favourable (46 percent) opinions than unfavourable (38 percent).

Nearly two-thirds of respondents in France, Germany, and China, however, said they held unfavourable views of Israel, while in the predominantly Muslim countries covered by the poll – Egypt, Tunisia, PT, Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon – negative views were overwhelming, ranging from 86 percent in Tunisia to 99 percent in Lebanon.

“This is consistent with other polling,” noted Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland’s Program of International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), who has designed multinational surveys for BBC and his own worldpublicopinion.org in which Israel has repeatedly placed among the world’s least popular nations, along with North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan.

The new survey as released as Secretary of State John Kerry visited the region, including Israel, this week in hopes of injecting renewed momentum into his efforts to reconvene peace talks between Israel and Palestinians.

In what was widely considered an important step in those efforts, Kerry persuaded Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani and Arab League officials to amend the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (API), which offers full recognition of Israel by all League member states in exchange for its withdrawal to the 1967 Green Line, to include the possibility of “comparable and mutually agreed minor swaps of land” that would presumably permit Israel to absorb major Jewish settlement blocs on the West Bank in any final peace agreement.

While the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted the statement as an “important concession” – and has quietly frozen, at Washington’s request, the issuance of new building permits for Israeli settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem through next month, most analysts believe the chances for serious progress on the peace front – or even the resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks – remain quite low.

They point in particular to the persistent split on the Palestinian side between Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas, which controls Gaza and has reportedly rejected, along with several other Palestinian factions, the Arab League’s amendment to the API.

As for Israel, the same analysts note that Israel’s leadership is unlikely to agree to the kind of far-reaching concessions necessary for a breakthrough, particularly given the continuing political turmoil in its neighbours – including the civil war in Syria, growing political tensions in Jordan, and the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government in Egypt.

And the fact that major figures in the settlement movement now head key ministries in Netanyahu’s new government also dims prospects for significant progress on the peace front, according to this view.

Nonetheless, Kerry, who said Thursday he plans to return to the region in less than two weeks reportedly in hopes of nailing down a June summit with Abbas and Netanyahu in Jordan, appears determined to overcome the reigning scepticism.

The new poll suggests that Israelis may be somewhat more open to his efforts than Palestinians, particularly following Obama’s visit, during which he spent far more time wooing Israeli public opinion, to the region in March.

Sixty-one percent of Israeli respondents said they had either “a lot” of “some” confidence in the U.S. president to do the right thing in world affairs; that was up from just 49 percent two years ago. On the other hand, 82 percent of Palestinian respondents in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem said they either had “not too much” or “no confidence at all” in Obama.

Similarly, 47 percent of Israelis said U.S. policies in the Middle East were “fair”, while another 35 percent said they favoured Israel “too much”. Palestinian respondents, on the other hand, were virtually unanimous in asserting that Washington favoured Israel too much.

Nonetheless, pluralities of 49 percent of Israeli respondents (including 54 percent of Arab Israelis) and 41 percent of Palestinians said they favoured a “larger” role for Obama in resolving the conflict, according to the survey, which noted that there was considerably more support for a larger U.S. role among Palestinians in the West Bank (47 percent) than in Gaza (30 percent).

Fifty percent of Israeli respondents said they thought a two-state solution could be achieved, while only 14 percent of Palestinians agreed (although an additional 22 percent said “it depends).”

The more positive Israeli results contrasted with a survey taken last year by Shibley Telhami, an expert on Arab public opinion at the Brookings Institution and author of a forthcoming book, “The World Through Arab Eyes.”

In that poll a majority of Israelis said they believed a two-state solution could not be achieved. “This suggests that Israelis are somewhat more optimistic,” he told IPS. On the other hand, he added, the Palestinian results suggested increased pessimism on their part.

The poll found that respondents in France Germany and Britain were significantly more optimistic about a two-state solution than respondents in other countries and that publics in those countries, especially Britain, had become more sympathetic toward the Palestinians in recent years.

That could prompt European leaders to take a more active role in efforts to bring the two parties together, as recently recommended by the European Eminent Persons Group (EEPG).

In a recent letter to the foreign affairs chief of the European Union, Catherine Ashton, the group — consisting of seven former foreign ministers, four former prime ministers, and one former president, among others – called the current U.S. position “unproductive” even if Washington’s role in a peace process remained “indispensable.” Among other steps, it called for exerting more pressure on Israel, especially with regard to settlements and recognising the 1967 border as the basis for any solution.

In a report released Thursday, the European Council on Foreign Relations amplified that message, calling for the EU to pursue “a more independent policy in the region that would include encouraging reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, acquiescing in – rather than opposing – the PA’s recourse to the International Criminal Court, and ensuring that goods produced by Jewish settlements in the PT are denied trade preferences.

“A harder-nosed and more indpendent policy from Europe will strengthen Washington’s hand in Israel and improve the chances for a decisive U.S. peace initiative before Obama leaves office and before the occupation enters its fiftieth year,” according to the report.

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

Israeli soldiers and police block Palestinians from one of the entrances to the old city in Jerusalem. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mitchell Plitnick
WASHINGTON, Apr 30 2013 (IPS)

Despite indications that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is committing a substantial amount of time and effort to revive the long-stalled Israel-Palestinian “peace process”, a growing number of experts believe a two-state solution is no longer viable and the lack of a realistic discussion of the issue in the United States is leaving the country without an alternative policy.

In the two months since confirmation in his post, Kerry has made three trips to the region. On Monday, he hosted an Arab League delegation, including the League’s secretary general, the Qatari prime minister and representatives from the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and Lebanon."Obama’s failure makes it clear that the U.S. will never be an honest broker." -- Harvard's Stephen Walt

The meeting was aimed at renewing the long-dormant Arab Peace Initiative (API), which promises full normalisation of relations between Israel and all Arab League member states in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in 1967 and a “just resolution” of the Palestinian refugee issue.

Kerry hopes that the API can serve to get Israeli-Palestinian negotiations back on track.

But those efforts may yet be for naught, according to analysts, some of whom have long championed the two-state solution but who now believe that a combination of U.S. fecklessness and Israel’s establishment of “facts on the ground” in the predominantly Palestinian West Bank have made such a settlement impossible.

“The U.S. public has bought a narrative that is totally dishonest and misrepresents the obvious facts – and what can be more obvious that there can be no peace process if you simultaneously steal the land in question,” Henry Siegman, former national director of the now-defunct American Jewish Congress and current senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and president of the US/Middle East Project, said at a recent talk hosted by the Middle East Institute in the halls of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“But the reason the U.S. public is overwhelmingly supportive of the Israeli position is that it is uninformed on geography and world affairs… So it is not surprising that the public accepts a narrative that is totally unrelated to facts on the ground,” he said.

The effect of that distorted narrative is to cripple the United States’ ability to act as an honest broker in this conflict, Siegman said.

“It was always assumed that the United States’ great friendship and support for Israel meant at some point it would say ‘enough’ because if you cross this line, we can no longer invoke our common values – apartheid is not a common value. But the other reason for our failures is that presidents and Congress have never had the courage to act on that reality.”

Philip Weiss, editor of the anti-Zionist web site, Mondoweiss, clarified the reason for that inactivity, and contended that the key place to try and change things is within the U.S. Jewish community.

“The U.S. has allowed this to happen despite knowing Israeli ambitions (to control all of the West Bank) due to the Israel Lobby,” Weiss said. “The Lobby draws its strength from the U.S. Jewish community’s commitment to Zionism… Zionism was once a valid response to the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe. But the need for Israel to be a Jewish state leads inevitably to the excesses of occupation.”

Professor Stephen Walt of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and co-author of the controversial book, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy”, identified the United States as a major reason for the current impasse.

“The failure of the two-state solution means we have to start considering alternatives,” Walt said. “For the past 15 years or so, the two-state solution was the consensus of the foreign policy community. The problem is that this goal is further away than ever.

“Many believe it is now impossible, due to settlements, the Israeli drift to right and the split [between Fatah and Hamas] among the Palestinians.

“[President Barack] Obama’s failure makes it clear that the U.S. will never be honest broker…That’s why we need alternatives. People will want to know what the U.S. is in favour of instead.”

The “failures” Walt spoke of are not limited to Obama’s first term. Despite a well-received speech during Obama’s first presidential visit to Jerusalem as well as two trips to Israel by Kerry, the divide between Israel and the Palestinians seems more entrenched than ever.

Reports from Israel after Kerry’s visit earlier this month indicated that the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Kerry’s formula for dealing with borders and security first as a way to restart talks with the Palestinians.

This cannot be surprising, as Netanyahu’s own party, Likud, as well as two of his three major coalition partners, the Israel Beiteinu and The Jewish Home parties, are strong supporters of the settlement franchise.

Kerry’s strategy to encourage progress through Palestinian economic growth was deeply undermined by the resignation of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad just after that same visit.

While Kerry insisted that his economic initiative was not meant to replace a political peace process, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insisted on focusing on the political issues such as Israeli settlements and the fates of Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

Even Kerry’s attempt to build on the progress Obama made in rekindling diplomacy between Israel and Turkey by asking Turkish Prime Minister Recip Erdogan to postpone a planned trip to Gaza was met with refusal and a sharp rebuke of Kerry from Turkey.

All of this suggests that there is no hope on the immediate horizon. Secretary Kerry testified before a Senate subcommittee recently and said there was a window of only one to two years for the two-state solution, and given the lack of opportunity now, this is strong evidence for the position that the path to two states is indeed closed.

In a clear signal of the international community’s frustration with the U.S.’s failure to find any progress in the conflict, a recent letter signed by 19 former European prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers urges European Union Foreign Affairs Representative Catherine Ashton to take immediate action to save the two-state solution.

“European leaders cannot wait forever for action from the United States,” the letter says, while advocating a clear EU statement that all Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders are illegal and calling for stronger efforts to unify the divided Palestinian leadership, among other measures.