The relationship between the United States and Israel is immeasurably more profound and complex. It has deep ideological layers: a similar national narrative, the Christian Evangelist theology, and more.
The two-state solution is the only practical solution in the realm of reality.
It is ridiculous to assert that it has been defeated. The very opposite is true. In the most important sphere, the collective consciousness, it is winning all out.
On the morrow of the 1948 war, when we raised this flag for the first time in Israel, we were a tiny band. We could be counted on the fingers of two hands. Everybody denied that a Palestinian people even existed. In the late 1960s I tramped around Washington DC and spoke with officials at the White House, the Department of State, the National Security Council, and the US delegation to the UN; nobody there was prepared to entertain this idea.
Now there is a worldwide consensus that this is the only solution. The United States, Russia, Europe, Israeli public opinion, Palestinian public opinion, the Arab League. One has to realize the full meaning of this: the entire Arab world now supports this solution. This is extremely important for the future.
Why did this happen? After all, it is not that we are so gifted as to win over the whole world. No, it is the inner logic of this solution that conquered the globe. True, some of the new adherents of this solution only pay lip service to it. Perhaps they use it to divert attention from their real aims. People like Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert act as if they support this idea, while in reality their intention is to maintain the occupation forever. But this shows that even they realize that they cannot go on opposing the two-state solution openly. When the whole world recognizes that this is the only practical solution it will, in the end, be realized.
The parameters are well known, and they, too, now enjoy worldwide agreement:
1. A Palestinian state will come into being next to Israel.
2. The border between them will be based on the Green Line, perhaps with an agreed-upon and equal swap of territories.
3. Jerusalem will be the capital of the two states.
4. There will be an agreed-upon solution of the refugee problem. In practice, this means that an agreed number will return to Israel, and the rest will be rehabilitated in the State of Palestine or in their present places of domicile, with the payment of generous
compensation that will turn them into welcome guests. When there