Israel Matzav

J Street responds to ECI

J Street has responded to the two questions ECI (Emergency Committee for Israel) threw at it on Monday night. Ben Smith has the details.

We’re also very clear that, no, we don’t support the two-state solution no matter the character and borders of the two states. We believe that both states have to be secure, viable and contiguous. That means not simply that Israel’s security must be assured in a two-state deal — that’s a given, and no Israeli government would or should agree to a deal that doesn’t guarantee security. But it’s also in Israel’s interest to ensure that the future Palestinian state is viable and sustainable and offers the Palestinian people a future with dignity, not a half-state that breeds further violence and discontent.

We support a two-state solution built on the 1967 borders with equal land swaps and in which the Jewish and Arab sections of Jerusalem are capitals respectively of Israel and the new Palestinian state. We support the vision of a two-state solution outlined by President Clinton and captured in the Geneva and Ayalon-Nusseibeh Initiatives. This includes return of Palestinian refugees only to the state of Palestinian and robust security arrangements including international supervision along the new Palestinian state’s eastern border with Jordan.

This is physically impossible without a massive redrawing of the map on both sides. Unless you make drastic changes, if one state is contiguous, the other, by definition, is not. Does anyone at J Street know how to read a map? Maybe J Street President Jeremy Ben Ami should have stayed in Israel long enough to do the army and learn how to read a map.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:16 PM