Surprise, Surprise: Israel Has Already Backed the Two-State Solution

Call it hypocrisy, call it shrewd tactics, call it nationalism,the fact is that, in effect, Israel has already backed the two state solution: in voting in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 242 which ended the Six Day War in 1967 and which contained the following language: "withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied during the recent conflict." This meant that Israel accepted the continued existence of the two states following the cessation of hostilities. On 1 May 1968, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN explicitly gave his country's approval of the Security Council resolution.

Can anyone seriously believe that building Israeli settlements INSIDE these frontiers does not constitute a violation of Resolution 242? Yet Israel continues to blithely assert that it still supports 242 while doubting it will ever come to pass. All John Kerry was doing in his speech of 29 December was to elliptically point out this anomaly, thus earning for himself a stinging rebuke from Mr. Netanyahu.

As Mr. Trump has pointed out, January 20 is fast approaching. This means the arrival eventually of the one-state solution and the end forever of the pretense that Israel is — or will ever become — a truly democratic state.

The bottom line is that all along the Israelis expected the Palestinians to simply go away. They didn't. The Arabs love their land too much.

Statements and views expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author and do not imply endorsement by Harvard University, the Harvard Kennedy School, or the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.