The meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is now history, and it appears that both leaders gained something from the meeting. President Obama secured assurances from the Israeli leader that new peace talks will begin soon and Prime Minister Netanyahu won a timetable for progress on dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. Despite the American embrace of the two-state solution, the Israeli prime minister did not use that phrase, and it’s becoming clear that Israel will insist on greater security guarantees before returning to that formulation. In this op-ed appearing in The Washington Times, Tony Blankley considers the two-state solution in light of Arab public opinion and notes that even as the two-state solution is the outcome favored by Arab political leaders, it has been rejected by the Arab public, at least according to public opinion data he cites. Given that, it’s unlikely that a Mideast peace agreement, even if signed, would lead to the kind of peace most expect. If that is true, then how can we see a way forward? In this analysis, Carnegie scholar, Nathan Brown uses a question and answer format to explore the details of the two-state solution favored by the U.S. and the other members of the international Quartet of Mideast peace negotiators. This observer is left to conclude the the two-state solution remains a viable long-term solution for the Middle East conflict, but hopes for short-term progress may well meet with disappointment.
Photo: AP/Charles Dharapak
