U.S. senate resolution insists peace plan include two-state solution

A new US senate resolution insists that any American peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must include a two-state solution. The resolution was brought up a few days before US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said in a New York Times interview that Israel should be able to annex a part of the West Bank, and a mere few weeks before the first part of US President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” is supposed to be announced in the economic workshop in Bahrain.

The resolution was introduced by Oregon Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley. It states that “United States efforts to promote peace between the Israelis and Palestinians should explicitly endorse a two-state solution as the goal of any process to resolve the conflict’s core issues.”

J Street, the liberal pro-Israel nonprofit, welcomed the introduction of the resolution while condemning any move by the Israeli government, as suggested by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in April, toward “unilateral annexation of the West Bank,” according to a press release by the organization.

“This resolution is an important warning to the Trump administration against any attempts to encourage annexation or undercut the ultimate prospects for a two-state solution,” said J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami. “It’s vital that the Senate recommit to long-held, bipartisan principles — and reject a path that leads Israel down a path towards permanent occupation and endless conflict.”