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. . . Whatever you might
think of its strategy or its tactics, the Obama administration has been
genuinely committed to achieving a two-state solution before it is too
late. This polichy is not an act of hostility toward Israel; on the
contrary, it is an act of extraordinary friendship for Obama to keep this
difficult item on an already overcrowded agenda. As former prime minister
Ehud Olmert and current defense minister Ehud Barak have warned: If the
two-state solution fails, the Palestinians will be occupied forever and Israel
will become an apartheid
state. Instead of helping Israel drive itself off a cliff -- as
George W. Bush did -- the Obama administration is trying to prevent that
disastrous outcome. And because Obama's team understands that the
relentless expansion of Israel's illegal settlements is making a two-state
solution increasingly difficult to realize, they believe that a halt to
settlement building is a key part of a successful peace process. That
includes East Jerusalem, by the way, whose annexation by Israel in 1967 is
regarded as illegal by the rest of the world, including the United States.
Achieving a two-state solution is obviously in America's
strategic interest as well, because it would remove one of the major sources of<... >>>