Seems like the latter.

Posts are supposed to be based on news articles.

At least, it used to be that way.

J23 it is appreciated

The two-state solution is an idea, and ideas can always be brought back.

However, if you mean, is the idea of a two-state solution likely to be implemented, then... well, the recent victory in the UN gave it a big boost. Before, I would have answered with an easy no - one party just isn't interested and the other party lacks any ability to force it. But now? The prospects look a little better.

Anyone who expects it to take off running without so much as a stumble though, isn't a very good student of history. Which is most internet pundits who talk about anything in the middle east, granted.

The "two state solution" was still a pretty radical idea in the 1990's, after all. before that the assumption was a settled peace that would end up either with the Palestinians becoming part of Israel, or falling back under Jordan / Egypt.

The people you see running around today squawking that a one-state solution is ""AN ANTISEMITIC PLOT TO DESTROY ISRAEL!" were saying the exact same thing about the two-state idea not two decades ago.

it wasn't before...just more brazenly defined now.

They overturned Oslo altogether and gave a "state" to the Palestinians that also defies "land for peace" from UNSCR242.

Oslo was agreed to as a basis for 2 states & peace not only by the USA, Israel, and the PLO, but also Russia and the EU.

All rejected with 1 vote.

Congrats "world" for reneging and working against the interests of peace and 2 states.

Britain and France have both summoned Israeli ambassadors in protest at Israel's decision to approve the construction of 3,000 new homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The UK said the move would cast doubt on Israel's "stated commitment to achieving peace with the Palestinians".

Israel authorised the 3,000 additional housing units a day after the UN voted to upgrade Palestinian status.

The UN warned the homes would be "an almost fatal blow" to peace hopes.

Sweden also summoned the Israeli ambassador, while Russia and Germany expressed their opposition to the settlement plans.
'Preliminary zoning'

In a statement, the UK Foreign Office said it was urging Israel to reconsider, and threatened a "strong reaction" if the homes went ahead.

It said: "We deplore the recent Israeli government decision to build 3,000 new housing units and unfreeze development in the E1 block. This threatens the viability of the two state solution."

in full: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20579248

Good job!

Israel says will stick with settlement plan despite condemnation

JERUSALEM | Mon Dec 3, 2012 11:11pm GMT

(Reuters) - Israel rejected concerted criticism from the United States and Europe on Monday over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to expand settlement building after the United Nations' de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Washington urged Israel to reconsider its plan to erect 3,000 more homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, saying the move hindered peace efforts with the Palestinians.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/12/03/uk-palestinians-israel-ambassadors-idUKBRE8B207420121203

Representatives of 95% of the world’s population supported Palestine’s bid for enhanced status at the UN. The U.S.’ opposition should be a sign for the world that the U.S. can no longer enjoy a monopoly on the peace process, and that its further involvement is no longer needed or wanted.

By John V. Whitbeck | Dec.02, 2012 | 3:23 AM |

The UN General Assembly voted, by 138 votes to 9, with 41 abstentions and 5 no-shows, to recognize the existence as a state “of the State of Palestine on the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967.”

The “no” votes were cast by Israel, the United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama.

The Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau, all former components of the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, are “freely associated states” of the United States, with U.S. zip/postal codes and “Compacts of Free Association” which require them to be guided by the United States in their foreign relations. They more closely resemble territories of the United States than genuine sovereign states – rather like the Cook Islands and Niue, “freely associated states” of New Zealand which make no claim to sovereign statehood and are not UN member states. They snuck into the UN in the flood of new members consequent upon the dissolutions of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, when the previous standards for admission were effectively ignored.

Nauru, a tiny island of 10,000 people in the central Pacific, has, since the exhaustion of the phosphate deposits which briefly made it the country with the world’s highest per capital income, had virtually no sources of income other than marketing its UN votes (reliably joining the United States in voting against Palestine) and diplomatic recognitions (joining Russia, Nicaragua and Venezuela in recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and housing, in tents, aspiring illegal immigrants who had been hoping to reach Australia. It is a sad place, an island with no beaches, the world’s highest obesity rate and no real alternative to diplomatic prostitution.

Accordingly, only three “real” states joined Israel and the United States in voting against Palestine and the two-state solution: Canada, the Czech Republic and Panama. They must make their own excuses.

In population terms, those who opposed the Palestinian bid represent approximately 5% of the world’s population, 370 million out of over 7 billion, and, of those, the United States accounts for 314 million. It follows that countries with less than one percent of the world’s population supported the United States in this vote.

41 states abstained. It is worth noting (and a bit puzzling) that 15 of these states (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Congo (DRC), Hungary, Malawi, Mongolia, Montenegro, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Togo and Vanuatu) have extended diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine, although most of the formerly communist states of eastern Europe did so when they had communist governments.

They have been more than balanced out by the 27 states which have not yet recognized the State of Palestine but which voted in favor of Palestine at the UN: Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Eritrea, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Myanmar, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago and Tuvalu.

Five states did not vote: Equatorial Guinea, Kiribati, Liberia, Madagascar and Ukraine. Kiribati is no surprise. For economic reasons, it is the only UN member state which does not maintain a permanent mission in New York. Why the other four, all of which have extended diplomatic recognition to the State of Palestine, failed to push any of the three buttons, is a mystery.

The European Union vote was 14 “yes”, 1 “no” and 12 abstentions. Aside from Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, all of the old “Western” members voted for Palestine. All ten of the new “Eastern” members (the three Baltic states, formerly part of the USSR, the six former members of the Warsaw Pact and Slovenia) abstained or, in one case, voted against Palestine. These “Eastern” states have passed from domination by one empire to domination by another empire without ever daring to fully assert their independence. That said, all except the Czech Republic did at least dare to abstain.

It may take some time for the results of this vote to be fully digested. In the best of all possible worlds, one might hope that the United States would finally recognize that, on the issue of Palestine, it is totally divorced and isolated from the moral and ethical conscience of mankind, and must now stop blocking progress toward peace with some measure of justice. It should step aside and permit other states with a genuine interest in actually achieving peace with some measure of justice to take the lead in helping Israelis and Palestinians to achieve it.

Since we do not live in the best of all possible worlds, and since Americans persist in believing that they are the “indispensable” nation, other states will need to make clear to the United States that its vote on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People has definitively disqualified it not only from its prior monopoly control over the “Middle East peace process”, but even from any further role in it, and that its further involvement in the preeminent moral issue facing the international community is no longer needed or wanted.

John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based international lawyer who has advised the Palestinian negotiating team in negotiations with Israel.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/diplomatic-prostitution-and-disconnect-at-the-un.premium-1.481820

In 2009, Whitbeck wrote that Western states should adopt a policy that he called "profoundly philo-Semitic, pro-Jewish and, yes, anti-Zionist" by encouraging Israeli Jews to "return[] to their countries of origin or emigrat[e] to other countries of their choice" while the state of Israel is replaced by a "unitary state in the land which, until 1948, was called Palestine." Whitbeck rejected what he called "cynical recycling of a partition-based 'peace process' which is now widely recognized to be both a fraud and a farce and which, even if 'successful', would simply legitimize, reward and perpetuate ethnic cleansing, racism and apartheid."

He's a truther who has been disbarred.

On July 23, 2001, Whitbeck was suspended from practicing law in New York state for four years for professional misconduct during his employment with Pharaoh Holdings Ltd., a company owned and controlled by Saudi businessman Ghaith Rashad Pharaon.[10] After uncontested proceedings, a referee appointed by the Supreme Court of New York, Appellate Division (1st Department) sustained two charges that Whitbeck had engaged in conduct to "harass" an adversary and sustained one charge of "failure to comply with a ruling of a tribunal," all in violation of the New York Code of Professional Responsibility.[11]

Whitbeck supports the 9/11 Truth Movement and in a blurb published in a book by David Ray Griffin, Whitbeck wrote "After reading David Ray Griffin's previous books on the subject, I was over 90% convinced that 9/11 was an inside job. Now, after reading Debunking 9/11 Debunking, I am, I regret to say, 100% convinced."[12][13]

His opinion on 9/11 is fruitless; his disbarment from NY however, is quite serious.
Nevertheless, his opinion regarding the U.S. as a dishonest broker in this conflict
is not controversial by any means.