Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent APN's views and policy positions.

This week, Alpher discusses UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres's statement during his visit to Ramallah that there is “no plan B to the two-state solution"; examples of "plan B's"; Guterres's statement that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is one of the most dramatic he has seen, and that the punitive siege should be removed; whether the new language in UNIFIL's renewed mandate will make a difference as the clock ticks on conflict between Israel and Iran/Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Syria.  

American interests will be worse off without two states. But it’s time to consider how we might make the best of that bad situation.
By Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel

Last week, as President Trump’s Middle East team was preparing to arrive in Israel for another round of preliminary talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert offered a rather startling defense of the Administration’s refusal to endorse a two-state solution. She said that to do so would be a sign of “bias.”

She’s right, of course. It would indeed show bias toward the only outcome that can truly serve the interests of the United States—as recognized by three previous administrations—not to mention Israelis, Palestinians, and the Middle East as a whole.

But her remark reinforced a thought I’ve been chewing on since early 2013: maybe it’s time that the United States consider options other than a two-state solution.

Wait. Don’t get the wrong idea. Let me put my cards on the table.

I’ve been supporting the goal of Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security since 1988. It hit me early in the days of the first Intifada that there was no other solution, which made me something of an early adopter of that position among advocates for Israel.

I’ve spent 20 years in government service, in two administrations and on Capitol Hill, working toward this goal, advocating, advancing, and protecting efforts to achieve it.

Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts were the single most prominent aspect of my assignments in the Obama Administration at the National Security Council and as U.S. Ambassador to Israel. I can attest to the commitment that President Obama, Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry, and Special Envoys George Mitchell and Martin Indyk demonstrated to helping Israelis and Palestinians achieve the dream of two states. We were not successful, but I will always be proud to have joined them in this noble cause.

And to this moment, nothing has changed my mind, or my analysis, about which outcome to this seemingly endless conflict is best for the United States, for securing Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, for Palestinians’ legitimate goals of self-determination in a state of their own, and for opening up relations between Israel and the Arab world.

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Israel’s Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman told reporters yesterday that this year, 2017, is a record year in terms of Israeli West Bank settlement construction. “We went over all the Jewish settlement data, from the year 2000 through 2017 – Bush, Obama, and now. There has never been such a settlement momentum,” he said, pointing to a total of over 10,000 new homes approved for construction, most of them (some 7,000) still planed, and some 3,400 under construction.

Abby Smardon, the executive director of UNRWA-USA, the American organization that supports the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees, returned to Washington after a couple of weeks in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It was her sixth consecutive annual visit to Gaza. She says it was the most distressing. The Gaza Strip, she says, has never experienced such a prolonged crisis. Starved for electricity, relief from the heat and hope for the future, the Gaza Strip's 2 million residents, most of them refugees, are struggling to survive while holding on to their humanity. Stephanie Breitsman and Ori Nir talked with Abby.