Although the two-state solution is touted by the United States as the way to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians, support for it among Americans is “surprising tepid,” according an opinion poll commissioned by Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland.
In fact, Telhami found in online interviews with 1,000 Americans that fewer than four in 10 prefer a two-state solution. And if efforts to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state fail, two-thirds of those who had preferred a two-state solution would now favor a one-state solution that would give equal citizenship to both Arabs and Jews. That would mean, he said, “the end of Israel as a Jewish state.”
Writing in Foreign Policy magazine and in an interview with The Jewish Week, Telhami noted that even among Americans who favor an American policy that tilts towards Israel, 52 percent said they would support a one-state solution – choosing democracy over Israel’s Jewishness.
“Unequal citizenship is simply antithetical to being an American – whether one is pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, or neutral,” he said.
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