viewpoint: ben cohen

Obama, not Netanyahu, killing a two-state fix

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President Barack Obama is correct. There is, as he said last week, no realistic prospect of a Palestinian state being created through a diplomatic process for the foreseeable future. 

“What we can’t do is pretend that there’s a possibility for something that’s not there,” Obama said. “And we can’t continue to premise our public diplomacy based on something that everybody knows is not going to happen at least in the next several years.”

So that, it would seem, is that. In 2012, Obama confidently told the U.N. General Assembly, “The road is hard, but the destination is clear: a secure Jewish state of Israel and an independent, prosperous Palestine.” Now, he has conceded that his own journey is over and the destination remains virtually invisible upon the horizon. The elixir that is a final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has eluded Obama, just as it did his predecessors.

That is not an outcome we should celebrate. I also applaud the vision of a secure Jewish state living peaceably with a neighboring, prosperous Palestinian state — only I would add the entire Middle East to the equation. But here is where any empathy I have with the president ends.

It was entirely predictable that Obama would blame his predicament on one man: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The issue is a very clear substantive challenge: We believe that two states is the best path forward for Israel’s security, for Palestinian aspirations and for regional stability,” Obama said. Then he added, drily, “And Prime Minister Netanyahu has a different approach.”

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