Crushed Jaffa Oranges

Around 20 years ago, while touring the US during his first stint as Israel바카라�s prime minister, Benjamin 바카라�Bibi바카라� Netanyahu paid a visit to his good friend, real estate dev­eloper Charles Kushner바카라�a committed contributor to Israeli causes. He stayed overnight at Kushner바카라�s New Jersey home and slept in the bedroom of Kushner바카라�s teenaged son Jared, who temporarily shifted to the basement.

This month, when Netanyahu visited Washington DC to greet the new American president, he saw a familiar face in the White House crowd. Jared Kushner, now 36, is son-in-law to Donald Trump and has been appointed as a negotiator to 바카라�do peace바카라� in West Asia.

The press in both countries has been awash with anecdotes about Jared Kushner바카라�s close ties with Israel and its premier바카라�like the one above, from The New York Times바카라�since Trump바카라�s inauguration. But there is little evidence that the prodigal son-in-law바카라�s personal connection has brought a clearer vision about how to end the seven-decades old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Instead, Trump바카라�s statement to the media after his meeting with Neta­nyahu has thrown the US바카라� West Asia pol­­icy into something of a disarray. 바카라�I바카라�m looking at two-state and one-state (solutions),바카라� Trump said. 바카라�I like the one that both parties like. I바카라�m very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with eit­her one.바카라� This would imply that Ame­rica was reneging on its decades-long official position as well as the international consensus: to push for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would exist alongside Israel.

바카라�It was an off-the-cuff remark. But now that Trump has said it, it gets a life of its own,바카라� says Mehran Kamrava, a professor at Georgetown University바카라�s campus in Doha, Qatar, and the author of The Impossibility of Palestine: History, Geog­raphy, and the Road Ahead. 바카라�However, it also reflects reality. The two-state solution is not tenable any longer.바카라�

Israel declared itself an independent Jewish state in 1948 following the migration of hundreds of thousands of persecuted Jews from Europe to the historical Palestine. Its creation, in turn, forced Arab Palestinians out of their own land to other parts of the region and beyond. It also divided the remaining Palestinian territory into two non-contiguous parts바카라�the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Innumerable UN resolutions and peace proposals sponsored by the US, European nations as well as other Arab countries have since been calling for the creation of a Palestinian state. Israel, too, accepts the idea in principle바카라�but insists that Israeli security must not be imperilled by a separate Palestine. In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza following the Six-Day War with Arab nations and has been building Jewish settlements in the West Bank, especially since the 1990s. These settlements, crisscrossing the region, have forced West Bank residents to live in disconnected and ever-shrinking spaces that are nominally administered by the so-called Palestinian Authority, but effectively remain under Israeli control and depend on Israel for the necessities of life.

Thus, even though Israel continues to pay lip service to the two-state solution, Kamrava says the ground reality renders inconceivable a Palestinian state. 바카라�As a geographic entity, Palestine does not exist. Israelis have undermined that by creating strategically located settlements,바카라� he says. 바카라�You can바카라�t move from one part of Palestine to another without having to cross an Israeli settlement.바카라�

With lots of talk but little progress, the popularity of the two-state solution has been dissipating among both Jews and Palestinians. Only half of Israel바카라�s Jews supported it in a poll this month, conducted by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research (TSC) at Tel Aviv University and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah. Among Palestinians, the number was 44 per cent바카라�down from 51 per cent in June.

But support for the one-state solution, or turning all of Israel and Palestine into a single political unit, is lower still: 36 per cent among Palestinians and 19 per cent among Israeli Jews.

A single state would solve the problem of Jewish settlements and how they divvy up Palestinian areas within the West Bank바카라�as well as the non-contiguity of West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But it will also have a majority of Palestinian citizens and thus dissolve Israel바카라�s character as a 바카라�Jewish state바카라�. Indeed, Palestinians could end up controlling the government if it is formed through popular vote. These prospects raise the fear that Israel would, in fact, run the single state as a Jewish ethnocracy rather than a popular democracy바카라�turning Palestinians into second-class citizens with limited or no political rights.

바카라�That is a lot of ambiguity over what a one-state solution would look like,바카라� Kam­­rava says. 바카라�Some of it is unintentio­nal and some of it is deliberate. I doubt we would see any substantive pro­­gress being made in this regard.바카라� Indeed, a day after Trump바카라�s press conference with Net­anyahu, US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said her government remains committed to the two-state solution.

바카라�Talking about the two-state solution,바카라� Kamrava says, 바카라�enables Israel to maintain the status quo while continuing with increased settlements, increased dismemberment of Palestine, and at the same time suggesting that there is a peace process that is active and ongoing. So the two-state solution serves Israel better because its perpetuates the illusion of some sort of progress being made,바카라� he says.

Dana El Kurd, 26, was born in Jerusalem but her Arab family migrated to the US when she was seven. Kurd spent her childhood all over the country바카라�in Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, California and Texas. 바카라�We have always been nomads,바카라� she jokes, referring to Arabs바카라� nomadic history. She hopes that Trump바카라�s impromptu statement would force the Palestinian leadership and public to 바카라�come to terms with the fact that (the two-state solution) is already dead in the water and make some hard decisions바카라�. It could possibly lead to 바카라�an end to the status quo since 1994, which is the Palestinian Authority바카라� and maybe make Palestinians 바카라�give up on the two-state solution and say we want equal rights바카라� within a single state.

Surprisingly, support for the two-state solution is the highest among Arabs living inside Israel바카라�82 per cent according to the TSC-PSR poll. Among them is Ahmad Agbaria, 37, who hails from a village close to Nazareth in the north of Israel. Now a doctoral student of Arab intellectual history at the University of Texas at Austin in the US, Agbaria says he was deeply dismayed to hear Trump talk about a single state.

바카라�I understand why many Palestinians want to be Israeli citizens. They have given up hope of their own state,바카라� he explains. 바카라�They are already living with Jews without any rights. Even their identity cards are issued by Israel, not the Palestinian Authority. They say, 바카라�We are anyway under Israeli control. Why don바카라�t we officially be a part of Israel and enjoy access to everything?바카라� They look up to Israeli Arabs and consider us lucky. But I tell them they are the ones who are lucky because they can stay true to their Palestinian identity, while all my life I have tried to hide my identity because I want to fit in.바카라�

Palestinians should not forget the exp­erience of Israeli Arabs when they think about a one-state solution, he adds. 바카라�We are 1.5 million Arabs inside Israel. We have just five cities and more than 470 villages. Arabs live divided into small tribes rather than together. It undermines our Palestinian identity. This is how they are going to treat Palestinians if we go towards a one-state solution.바카라�

Kamrava fears that Israel바카라�s endgame could be to force Palestinians into 바카라�reservations바카라� of the sort American-Indians live on in the US. 바카라�That is the likely outcome for Palestine. You could have these human warehouses where Pales­tinians are isolated and segregated from each other, living in small containers. They would have their own laws but it won바카라�t be a country. They would suffer high rates of unemployment and a limited economy, surrounded by Israel on all sides.바카라�

Kurd says she has little doubt that 바카라�if Israel annexes the West Bank tomorrow, it will be a Jewish ethnocracy and apartheid바카라�. And yet, she is more hopeful about the possibility of Arabs and Jews living together in a single state. 바카라�Since 1948, Palestinians have been denied their rights,바카라� she adds. 바카라�It will be a hard-fought battle to get equal rights, but we will have to fight for it.바카라�

By Saif Shahin in Ohio