We are running out of time for a two-state solution

The following is from Meretz USA's electronic newsletter on August 22:

For some time now, Meretz USA, has been warning that, when it comes to peacemaking, time is not on Israel's side.

We have cautioned that the situation in the Middle East is never static: That if options for peace exist today, they must be seized with full force, for they might not be there tomorrow.

We have insisted, together with other American Jewish organizations dedicated to Middle East peace, such as Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek V'Shalom and Ameinu, that Israel does not have the luxury of blithely waiting for "perfect timing", or until the "ideal Palestinian leader" emerges - for this will mean that meaningful peace talks will never progress.

These arguments unfortunately received even further validation this past week, when the President of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, Prof. Sari Nusseibeh, was interviewed in Haaretz by journalist Akiva Eldar.

Perhaps more than any other Palestinian figure, Prof. Nusseibeh represents a nonviolent Palestinian political realism, which translated a generation ago into his courageous, wholehearted, unswerving support for a two-state solution. So when Prof. Nusseibeh was quoted last week as contemplating the imminent death of the two-state solution, it should have come as an earthquake for any lover of a peaceful Israel.

This interview, in which Nusseibeh expresses the belief that, if peace doesn't happen soon, the Palestinian Authority should be disbanded and Palestinians should press for equal rights within a single state, should be taken very seriously. Nusseibeh is not a games-player; he is an intellectual with a keen eye for where developments are moving the peoples in the region. It would be folly to dismiss his projections.

Click here to read the interview with Nusseibeh.