WASHINGTON (JTA) — A top American Jewish Committee official decried to an Arab audience advocacy of a "one-state solution" from the pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian perspectives.
“One-state formulations are historically, politically and morally untenable,” Jason Isaacson, AJC’s director of government and international affairs, told the Doha Forum in Qatar over the weekend in presenting his organization’s opposition to the idea.
Isaacson’s comments come as proponents of a single state stripped of its Jewish significance intensify their activity through the divestment movement, and just weeks after U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) proposed a single state in the West Bank and Israel with limited voting rights for Palestinians.
Isaacson called on Arab nations to reach out to Israel to make peace, and to reformulate the 2002 Arab League proposal.
"If the intention of the initiative was to convince a skeptical Israeli public and a wary international community that the Arab states accept Israel and are prepared to live with Israel, and even work side by side with Israel, the message hasn’t been received and it needs to be retransmitted in a new way,” he said.
Israelis have been skeptical about the proposal’s failure to count out a "right" of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to Israel.
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