American Jewish Leaders Call Remarks Opposing Two States ‘Irresponsible’
Foreign Criticism: American Jewish leaders fight back against Israeli officials like right-winger Naftali Bennett who says Israel should forget about the two-state solution. Image by Haaretz
American Jewish leaders Abraham Foxman, Rabbi Rick Jacobs and David Harris condemned recent statements by senior Israeli officials about the impossibility of a two-state solution, calling them irresponsible and saying they undermine the credibility of the government.
Earlier this week, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett told a settlers group that the idea of a Palestinian state had reached a “dead end.” His remarks came days after Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon told Israel Radio that the government will not agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon called the Arab Peace Initiative “spin” during a speech in Washington.
“I think these are all irresponsible statements which do not in any way reflect the commitment of the Israeli government, not to mention the long-standing position of the U.S., that the two-state solution is the only possible solution,” said Rabbi Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism.
Jacobs, who is in Jerusalem this week to attend the President’s Conference, added: “I think President Clinton said it best last night [at the 90th birthday celebration for President Shimon Peres] when he said a two-state solution is not the fantasy; a one state solution is. This is a black and white issue and Bennett and the others are irresponsible to speak otherwise.”
Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, told Haaretz that the statements “undermine the seriousness of the Israeli government” and compared them to the popular children’s game “whack-a-mole,” in which the furry animals pop up and need to be hammered down time after time.
Read more at Haaretz.com.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
