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Support for the Two-State Solution in Israel

Lawrence Bush
December 23, 2017

According to a poll released on this date in 2012 by Blue White Future (Atid Kachol Lavan), a movement co-founded by Ami Ayalon, the former director of Israel’s Shin Bet, nearly half of Israeli Jews support a unilateral withdrawal from large sections of the Palestinian territories based on the pre-1967 borders. Blue White Future believes it to be “imperative that Israel disassociates from the Palestinians in order for a two-people solution to be attained,” says Gilead Sher, a former Israeli negotiator who was another of the organization’s co-founders. “In the case it is not attained throughout negotiations, Israel should be prepared to do it on its own … in order to have the boundaries of the State of Israel encompass a Jewish democracy.” The poll found that 58 percent of Jewish Israelis would support fixed borders along the route of the West Bank security barrier alongside a demilitarized Palestinian state; that 62 percent support the principle of “two states for two peoples;” and that younger Israelis are more rightwing on these issues than those aged 50 and above.

“The clock is ticking . . .The status quo is dangerous, it is good for extremes.” —Ami Ayalon

​​​​Lawrence Bush edited Jewish Currents from 2003 until 2018. He is the author of Bessie: A Novel of Love and Revolution and Waiting for God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist, among other books. His new volume of illustrated Torah commentaries, American Torah Toons 2, is scheduled for publication this year.