President Trump’s position that either a two state solution or one state makes no difference to him clearly means he is abandoning the previous US commitment to a two states solution. Undeniably, his position would diminish all hopes of an independent and sovereign Palestine State by ending the occupation. More dangerously, his clear hinting of a single Israeli state encompassing all Palestinians has all possibilities to directly or indirectly suppressing the Palestinians in their land. The only short-term positive outcome of the press conference was a call for a hold to build more settlement in the West bank and that is also in a lukewarm way. The only good thing is that Mr Trump refrained from announcing the transferring US Embassy to East Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Three marked features of Wednesday’s press conference have caught our attention. First, Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated demand that Palestinians unconditionally acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state, second, his pinpointing of “Palestinian hatred” to be the main cause of the age-old conflict between the two sides and, third his call for Palestinian leadership ‘to stop educating their people for Israel’s destruction.’
Paradoxically, Palestine too, has all the grounds and even more, to make similar demands but unfortunately there is hardly any room for the Palestinians to make their points to the new Trump administration. Netanyahu’s demand is ridiculous when he said Palestinians must stop lessons in schools and mosques; which inspire people to claim for a state. But we know for sure that no legitimate or sympathetic lessons for tolerance and coexistence are taught about the lawful rights of Muslim Palestinians inside Israel.
Both leaders on this occasion of Netanyahu’s first visit to Washington after Trump became president has deliberately ignored the facts that Israel has no right to ignore the two state solution which provides the basis of US backed peace process for decades and the international community is working on it.
