Last Chance for a Two-State Peace Agreement

by Charles Lenchner · 2009-04-01 04:09:00 UTC
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A bipartisan group of heavy lifters came out recently with an important document: A Last Chance for a Two State Israel-Palestine Peace Agreement. If it was any other group, I might yawn; but check out the list of signatories:

The U.S./Middle East Project has released recommendations for U.S. Middle East peacemaking submitted to the administration of President Barack Obama by a bipartisan group of ten former senior government officials: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Chuck Hagel, Lee H. Hamilton, Carla Hills, Nancy Kassebaum-Baker, Thomas R. Pickering, Brent Scowcroft, Theodore C. Sorensen, Paul A. Volcker, and James D. Wolfensohn.

This is a very elite group. Their goal is to push Obama, to encourage him to be firm in implementing what is the only reasonable strategy for getting to a two state solution:

The document calls for putting serious pressure on all parties to begin accelerated negotiations toward a solution roughly along the lines of most recent two-state proposals: Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, with only minor and reciprocal adjustments allowed; division of Jerusalem, with Jewish neighborhoods under Israeli sovereignty and Arab neighborhoods under Palestinian sovereignty, and unimpeded access from both sides to their respective holy sites in the Old City; a resolution of the refugee problem "consistent with the two-state solution," i.e., that would not allow general return to Israel but would acknowledge the injustice of the expulsion and provide generous compensation for resettlement in the new state of Palestine or elsewhere. There's plenty to argue about in these elements, as in other details of the plan, but there's little denying that something along these lines is the only chance for survival of the two-state solution.

[From the Nation's The Notion.]

Here's my question: if the latest diplomatic push fails, if the situation a year from now is worse, what then? Is there a moment in time or some set of circumstances under which even solid liberals move away from the two state solution?

Charles Lenchner
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