Is the two state solution dead?

If it is, the Palestinians have themselves to thank.

Arafat rejected the best deal they were ever offered, a deal so good they will never again see its like and have been clinging for the years since then to the hope they can get something not too much worse.

When you get down to it, there is more than a little justice in the comment made long ago that there already is an arab state in Palestine and its name is "Jordan".

And there is more than a little justice in the claim that those now called "Palestinians" have never really giving up making the Jewish state in Palestine as small as they can, preferably zero.

The so-called "one state solution" is a fantasy of American liberals for whom the Zionist dream of a Jewish State is nationalist and hence racist and hence unforgivable.

It would very quickly develop into just another majority arab state in Palestine with a large and beleaguered Jewish minority.

Jews in Israel and most elsewhere will never buy that.

Did Trump Kill Off a Two-State Solution? He Says No, Palestinians Say Yes

President Trump, in formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Wednesday, declared that the United States still supported a two-state solution to settle the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, provided it was “agreed to by both sides.”

For the first time in his 26 years as a peacemaker, the chief negotiator for the Palestinians did not agree.

Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization and a steadfast advocate for a Palestinian state, said in an interview on Thursday that Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel “have managed to destroy that hope.” 

He embraced a radical shift in the P.L.O.’s goals — to a single state, but with Palestinians enjoying the same civil rights as Israelis, including the vote.

“They’ve left us with no option,” he said. “This is the reality. We live here. Our struggle should focus on one thing: equal rights.”

Mr. Erekat’s change of heart is unlikely to change Palestinian policy. 

The dream of a Palestinian state is too deeply ingrained in a generation of its leaders for the Palestinian Authority to abandon it now. 

Israel would be unlikely to accede to equal rights, because granting a vote to millions of Palestinians would eventually lead to the end of Israel as a Jewish state.