Yesterday, Israeli media reported on a blockbuster report alleging that the Obama Administration is lying when it says U.S. policy regarding the labeling of products from West Bank settlements hasn't changed since 1995, and alleging that the policy reiterated last month in a statement issued by the U.S. Customs Service (CBP), in fact, represents a change in U.S. policy.

These allegations rest on a “smoking gun,” unearthed by the intrepid researchers at a right-wing Israeli non-governmental organization called the Legal Forum for Israel, in the form of a 1995 document issued by CBP.  The Legal Forum for Israel alleges that the document proves that U.S. labeling policy since 1995, according to which exports from the West Bank cannot be labeled as made in Israel, applied only to those areas of the West Bank under Palestinian self-rule in 1995. The NGO insists that the “reminder” of the policy issued by CBP in January 2016, which stated that labeling rules apply to the entire West Bank, thus clearly represents a (stealth) shift in U.S. policy.

Is this document, in fact, a smoking gun? Not in the slightest.

Oded Adomi Leshem, a doctoral student at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution is an expert on hope. One of his areas of expertise is strategies for impacting Israeli public opinion to be more supportive of peace. A new study that he recently published shows that messages of hope from Palestinians can go a long way in  fostering and enhancing hope among Jewish Israelis. Listen to our February 16^th 2016 conversation with Leshem.

Peace Now's Oppenheimer criticizes Labor Party for adopting position that isn't stronger on the two-state solution (Haaretz, 2/8/20160)

 Peace Now criticizes anti-NGO bill that passes first reading in the Knesset (AFP, 2/9/2016)

…if someone asked me if I wanted peace to happen right now, I would say that I would have liked peace to happen 20 years ago. I think it would be easier if it happened 20 years ago, both politically and in terms of facts on the ground. I think every day we wait it gets harder.

In terms of my faith in the final outcome being a two-state solution, that hasn’t changed because there is no other solution. Your alternative to a two-state solution is continued fighting until people come back to the table because they don’t want to fight anymore.

When we talk now about the window closing on the two-state solution, what we’re talking about is that you look at the ground and say, ‘If there were the political will to reach agreement today, it could be implemented on the ground and we could have two states.’ If we wait much longer, even if the political will is there, we will have to undo so much more. That doesn’t mean it goes away, and the window closing on the two-state solution doesn’t mean we have another option. It just means we have to wait until the parties decide again that this is the only solution.

There are folks on both sides, on the Israeli and Palestinian side and in the U.S., who want a zero-sum solution and who are happy to see this thing drag out, either hoping that God will work it out in their benefit, or something else will happen and change the ground…”

-Lara Friedman, in a Feb 25, 2014 interview in the Oberlin student newspaper

They Say, We Say

Why The Two-State Solution?

• "Why is the Left obsessed with the two-state solution?"
• "Why can't Israel keep all the land?"
• "The majority of Jordan's population is Palestinian. If Palestinians want a state, let them go to Jordan, and likewise, let Egypt take over Gaza."
• "Why should the settlers leave? Why can't the current situation continue more or less as it is, at least until a peace agreement is a more realistic possibility?"
• "Some problems simply can't be 'solved.' Some things are just too complicated to be fixed and the only solution is to just live with the problem."
• "Maybe a solution is possible, but it is clearly not going to happen anytime soon, because the Palestinians and Arabs don't want it. It's time to stop pushing Israel to make concessions and to stop pressing Israel to engage in peace efforts that are clearly pointless."
• "For now, the best we can hope for is "economic peace" -- where the focus is on improvement in the living conditions of Palestinians, not a political agreement to end the conflict."

APN Analysis and Commentary

Lara Friedman in the Huffington Post, Nov 4, 2015: Bibi's 'Anti-Solutionism' as Cover for 'Anti-Solution'
Lara Friedman in the Forward, Aug 18, 2010: One Solution: Two States (response from Noam Sheizef at +972, here)
Ori Nir in the Washington Jewish Week, Jan 7, 2010: No Solutionists
Ori Nir in the Boston Globe, May 30, 2007: A two-state solution could work

Further Discussion

Amb. Daniel Kurtzer (Brookings Publication) January 29, 2016: Nothing beats the two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians
Gadi Zohar (Ynet), February 18, 2016, The Illusion of Conflict Management
Daoud Kuttab (Al-Monitor) August 10, 2015: Israelis lean right toward one-state solution
Amos Oz (LA Times), March 7, 2015: For its survival, Israel must abandon the one-state option
David Remnick (The New Yorker), November 17, 2014: The One-State Reality
Al-Monitor, June 13, 2013: The Myth of the One-State Alternative to the Two-State Solution
Woodrow Wilson School Graduate Policy Workshop, December 2012: Exploring Alternatives to the Two-State Solution In the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Khalil Shikaki (NOREF brief), May 14, 2012: The future of Israel-Palestine: a one-state reality in the making
+927, February 13, 2011: Is it time to move on to the One-State Solution? (interviews with people on both sides)
Yossi Alpher (Al Arabiyya) September 28, 2010: The 'one-staters,' both Israeli and Palestinian, are laughably mistaken
Ami Kaufman (+972) September 10, 2010: The one-state solution: An option that should be taken off the table
Bernard Avishai (The Forward) July 7, 2010: Is the two-state solution passé? Serious people, with democratic instincts, are asking this now, but it is hard to think of a more frivolous question.
Hussein Ibish (ATFP publication), August 27, 2009: What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? (A short downloadable book)

Further Discussion

For many of my American friends and former colleagues in the media, I am the Israeli they know and therefore a go-to person on Israeli affairs. They contact me with questions on Israeli politics, Jerusalem restaurants, Hebrew slang and Israeli popular culture.

Recently, their curiosity is turning into bewilderment and astonishment. Their lovingly inquisitive approach toward Israel is turning into exasperation. Their focus now is on trying to decipher Israel’s shifting character, on its changing face, on the fading vision of the Israel they grew up loving and hoped to see thriving — a state that embodies progressive, democratic, pluralistic, tolerant values.
“What the hell is going on there,” I’m often asked, “have they totally lost it?”