by Daniel C. Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt and professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Remember the two-state solution as a means to achieve Middle East peace? It has been a pillar of American foreign policy, certainly since President George W. Bush announced U.S. support in 2002. But in three quick strokes over the past few weeks, the Trump administration has demonstrated it really is not very serious about pursuing a two-state solution.

The first shoe dropped when a team of presidential emissaries, led by Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, visited the Middle East to talk to the Israelis and Palestinians. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert was asked whether the Trump administration supports a two-state solution. Her response was shocking:

“We are not going to state what the outcome has to be. It has to be workable to both sides. And I think, really, that’s the best view as to not really bias one side over the other, to make sure that they can work through it. It’s been many, many decades, as you well know, that the parties have not been able to come to any kind of good agreement and sustainable solution to this. So we leave it up to them to be able to work that through.”

Nauert was following the Trump script, as he stated months earlier: “I’m looking at two-state and one-state and I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like.”

Nauert’s use of the word “bias” is highly misleading. She is hardly calling for a neutral, non-biased approach to the Middle East conflict. In fact, her words indicate that the Trump administration itself is extremely biased — in favor of hardliners in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition who want the United States and Israel to abandon the two state outcome. These radicals cheered Trump’s comments in February and probably celebrated Nauert’s recent non-answer answer.

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This episode features two conversations. The first is an interview with Dr. Bashir Karkabi, a Palestinian Israeli physician, who is among the organizers of an event that will take place on September 14th in the Israeli Arab town of Kalanswa, bringing together Jewish and Arab activists to forge together a shared agenda for a joint political struggle.

Our second conversation is with Nadia Abuelezam, a Palestinian-American, who is the creator and host of a podcast that tells the stories of Palestinians in the United States. The podcast is called Palestinians' Podcast.

Produced by the Foundation for Middle East Peace in cooperation with Americans for Peace Now, where the Legislative Round-Up was conceived

Note: There will be no Round-Up this Friday. This special mid-week edition is devoted to a detailed analysis of the Senate version of the FY18 ForOps bill, passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee on 9/7. Next week’s Round-Up will cover Hill developments 9/8-9/22.

Shameless plug: On 9/28, FMEP will be hosting an event in Washington: “JAILING ISSA AMRO: Israel (and the PA’s) Problem with Non-Violent Activism.” The event will feature Palestinian human rights defender Issa Amro and FMEP non-resident fellow Peter Beinart. For event information or to RSVP, visit our event page.

Rosh Hashana is a time to reflect. If your reflection brings sadness - and rage - at the ongoing assault on the values and principles you hold dear, both at home and in Israel, we share this with you.

This year, the Israeli Knesset legislated that those of us in APN - who work against boycotts divestment and sanctions (BDS) directed at Israel but who advocate boycotting the occupation and products made in the settlements - are not welcome in the Jewish homeland. Israeli law now states that a visa will not be granted to us because we, as non-Israelis, and APN, the organization on whose behalf we work, knowingly published a public call to boycott the settlements.

This year, Israeli lawmakers put on the Knesset’s docket bills to bar foreign donations to Israeli human and civil rights organizations. Likud MK Miki Zohar, in proposing the bill, said: “The time has come to dry up [the resources used by] leftist organizations that undermine the government, slander Israel and try to infringe on its right to defend itself. We must block their funding sources and thus prevent them from harming the state.” Not surprisingly, this bill targets progressive donors and does not affect the enormous financial contributions made to Israeli organizations by the likes of Sheldon Adelson.

Listen here for APN's briefing call with Amb. Daniel Shapiro.

Like APN, Ambassador Daniel Shapiro has supported the two-state solution since the late 1980s, long before it became a tenet of America’s Middle East policy. As President Obama’s ambassador to Israel, Shapiro was a key member of the past administration’s team working to advance the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Now, with the Trump administration refusing to commit itself to this basic US policy position and with the situation on the ground turning increasingly less hospitable to this solution, Shapiro is examining other scenarios and trying to assess their likelihood and their potential implications. Read Shapiro’s recent Tablet article on this topic.

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 the Israeli Air Force's alleged attack on a Syrian missile plant deep in Syrian territory; whether this is Israel's only new security front; Israel's internal security; why the Border Patrol's theatre of action is a new security front; what Hamas is doing in Lebanon; the "front" of expanding global strategic reach; and what happened to the conventional Arab military challenge to Israel.

Update: this action, now closed, ran in September 2017.  

Last week, any remaining pretense of US leadership in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was dealt a serious blow when State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert declined to recommit the United States to a two-state solution to the conflict. Strikingly, Nauert rejected the vision articulated by successive US administrations since 2002, Republican and Democratic, by suggesting that endorsing a two-state solution would "bias one side over the other."

Two members of Congress, David Price (D-NC) and Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA), released a statement in response calling on the Trump Administration to "stop equivocating on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and imploring it to "reaffirm the United State' support for a viable, lasting, and mutually-agreed upon two-state solution and to make this support clear in public and private statements."

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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