US obsession with two-state solution is ‘delusional’

US obsession with two-state solution is ‘delusional’

 Israel Kasnett 

The Biden administration’s dogged focus on creating a Palestinian state is “obtuse” and “delusional,” according to experts who spoke with JNS.

Their comments came after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’scall last week for a “concrete, time-bound, irreversible path to a Palestinian state” during his visit to the Middle East.

Jason Greenblatt, former White House Envoy to the Middle East and author of the widely acclaimed book “In the Path of Abraham” about the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the Abraham Accords, said that for Blinken to be so obsessed with the two-state solution is “very dangerous.”

“It’s completely tone-deaf to talk about things like this at the moment after Oct. 7,” he said. “It’s not only a waste of time, it makes absolutely no sense.”

It’s “shocking that a US administration under ordinary circumstances, let alone after Oct. 7, would push for that,” he added.

Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also called out the international community’s obsession with the two-state solution, saying that the United States, United Kingdom and other Europeans “have failed to read the room in the aftermath of Oct. 7.”

This is “not the time to ask Israelis to make painful sacrifices,” he told JNS.

“It just is not where the Israeli population is right now and it really strikes me as obtuse that the Europeans, United States and United Kingdom are pushing this line,” he said.

According to John Hannah, a Randi and Charles Wax Senior Fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) in Washington, anyone advocating on behalf of recognizing or creating a Palestinian state in the near future is “delusional.”

“It reflects a total absence of understanding, not only of the impact of  Oct. 7 on Israel, but of power politics, the Palestinian situation, and—most importantly—US national interests,” he told JNS.

Hannah said that Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s message at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January “should ring loudly in every Western liberal’s ears.” Herzog had said that after Oct. 7, “no Israeli in their right mind is thinking of a Palestinian state.”

According to Hannah, movement toward creating a Palestinian state now “would be seen throughout the Middle East and Islamic world as a huge victory for the Iranian Axis of Resistance.”

Pushing for a Palestinian state now “would serve as the most powerful form of confirmation that the Iranian strategy of violence, chaos and genocidal terrorism is the only path to vindicating the rights of Muslims,” he said.

“It would be a huge gift to the worst enemies of America and the West,” he added.

Blinken further infuriated Israelis in a press conference in Tel Aviv on Feb. 7, when he accused Israel of dehumanizing the Palestinians. He said that while Hamas dehumanized Israelis on Oct. 7, and the hostages have been dehumanized every day since, “that cannot be a license to dehumanize others.”

Greenblatt said he had been extremely complimentary regarding the Biden administration, including Blinken, until recently, following these remarks.

“The statements were shameful,” he said. “Israel is not dehumanizing Palestinians…. Those words were absolutely terrible for him to use and it plays into some of the world’s attacks on Israel about genocide,” said Greenblatt.

“It’s shocking actually that he chose to use those words,” he added.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren commended the administration for its ongoing assistance, but condemned Blinken’s comments as well.

On Feb. 8, Oren tweeted: “When Secretary of State Blinken accuses Israel—inaccurately, unfairly, and libelously—of dehumanizing Palestinians, he dehumanizes us and contributes to the delegitimization of Israel and the demonization of Jews worldwide…Dehumanizing us endangers our security and possibly our existence.”

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