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Bear in mind that the "two state solution" is *only* an excuse for postponing the day of reckoning on Palestinian rights. The "solution" in its variations involves swapping territory between Israel and the State of Palestine. However, it ignores the fact that all Palestinians driven from their homes by the Zionist Jewish invaders in the 1948 era, and all Palestinians driven from their homes subsequent to Israel's occupation of the remainder of Palestine (and part of Syria) in 1967, all have a personal right of return to their homes under international law, a right that according to the Fourth Geneva Convention is not subject to negotiation by the occupying power and any government of the occupied territory. There is no lawful government power to extinguish that right. So when the Quartet calls for the "two state solution," keep in mind that it is only an excuse for continuing the occupation and Israel's colonization of Palestine. The Meretz is a minor party in Israel, combining Green-socialist-progressive traits with a Zionist agenda. See WIkipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meretz

"And it has long been the policy of the United States and it *continues* to be the view of the President that a two-state solution is the best way to address those tensions and address that instability. ... "[T]he United States will reevaluate our position and the path forward in the situation." Those are the two most substantive sentences in quite a bit of White House Press Secretary blathering about Netanyahu's statement that there will not be a Palestinian State, chucking overboard even Israel's lip service to the 2-state solution. And at that, it doesn't say much to Joe Sixpack. But in diplomat-speak, it signals that even the future of the 2-state solution is up for discussion at the White House.  That signal should be causing heart palpitations in Israeli government and undoubtedly is within Mossad and the Israeli Defense Force. IDF went public over a year ago with its concerns that a severe national security problem was resulting in rapidly worsening isolation of Israel because of the Palestine Question and Palestine Civil Society's call for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of settlement-produchttps://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/posting-foia-releases-online-saves-agencies-time-and-money/ed goods with a goal of a single-state solution.  Not a word by the White House Press Secretary about what the U.S. will do about Netanyahu's statement that there will be no Palestinian State. That underscores that the Obama Administration was taken by suprise when Netanyahu said it. But it is not a matter that Obama may delay long in announcing a far more substantive position. 

This is the largest part of the real back story on John Kerry's feverish effort to negotiate a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine apartheid problem. The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions ("BDS") movement against Israel is growing rapidly, nearly doubling the rate of growth of the former BDS movement that successfully ended apartheid government of South Africa.   Israel has become a pariah state diplomatically because of its war crimes against Palestinians and because of BDS, is increasingly becoming a pariah state economically. At the same time, Israel has illegally colonized Palestine to the extent that a 2-state solution is all but impossible, meaning that the most likely outcome is that Israel will cease being the "Jewish State" and be forced to grant equality to Palestinians as well in a new secular government. The situation became all the more dire for Israel as the "Jewish State" when the U.N. General Assembly granted Palestine observer state status, opening the way for Palestine to, e.g., pursue criminal prosecution of Israeli leaders for war crimes before the International Criminal Court.  That has dramatically increased the Palestinian Authority's leverage in negotiations. Kerry is on a rescue mission to see if he can coerce the Palestinian Authority to cede sufficient land and powers to Israel to make a 2-state solution credible. Kerry's leverage is that the U.S. has been underwriting the Palestinian Authority's expenses and can threaten to withdraw the financial support.  All of which brings it down to the question of Palestinian Authority leadership corruption. If the PA stands tall and refuses to accept Kerry's ridiculous demands, there will almost certainly be no 2-state solution, ever, because Israel continues to colonize Palestine and has locked up most of Palestine's water resources. Further colonization means still less water for an "independent" Palestine state. The Palestine Authority, on the other hand, suffered f

Negotiation of a "2-state solution" for Israel and Palestine has never been anything more than an excuse for continuing the status quo, with Israel dominating both territories in an apartheid state. The 2-state solution, moreover, denies all residents of the former British Mandate Territory of Palestine (including present day Israel) of their fundamental right to self-determination of their form of government established by the U.N. Charter. And the notion of a 2-state solution with territorial swaps ignores the right of Arab residents of the Mandate Territory to return to their homes at the close of hostilities, a right specifically forbidden from being negotiable by Israel and the Palestinian authority; it is an individual right that governments cannot lawfully barter away.   I'm glad to see The Intercept taking a no holds barred, speak-truth-to-power  approach to the Israel-Palestine question. 

"Negotiations" for a two-state solution has never been anything more than an excuse for prolonging an apartheid government across all of Palestine. The fact that public support is building in the U.S. for a single-state, secular government for all of Palestine including Israel has to be keeping Israel's right-wing leadership up at night. Israel is losing the BDS battle for U.S. hearts and minds. Hillary risks eroding her support by continuing to push for the increasingly unpopular two-state solution.

Excellent review of Charles Murray's new book on Class Warfare, "Coming Apart".  Excellent libertarian commentary hits hard on solutions pouring out of the both the left and the right advocating the use of big government force and power to level the class divide.  Whatever happened to individual liberty and the Constitution? excerpt: This is what the debate is about. To the left, the answer about what to do is completely obvious. We need massive government programs to boost the lowers, and we need new taxes and punishments to whack the uppers good and hard. Never mind that the programs for the lowers don't work and the punishments on the rich end up only bolstering a new government elite that lords it over everyone. The right has a different solution. Well, not everyone on the right, but those neoconservatives who take it as a given that every coherent nation needs a unified national culture. To quote David Brooks: "We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from both tribes work together to spread out the values, practices and institutions that lead to achievement. If we could jam the tribes together, we'd have a better elite and a better mass." No thanks on this Stalinist plan. The right is just like the left in this sense: If there is a national problem, it needs a solution imposed by force. The left favors looting people, whereas the right favors Tasing people. Either way, it is all about increasing the police powers of the state. On the extremes, the left wants total expropriation to make everyone equally poor, whereas the right wants total war to unify us all in a grand project of killing and being killed. This is what worries me most about the Murray thesis. No matter where you look for answers, the solutions actually seem worse than the problem itself. More fundamentally, we have to ask: What is the problem we are actually tryin

Note that this article's original is behind a paywall in Haaretz, one of Israel's market-leading newspapers.  There can be no questioning of the facts that: [i] the Palestinian Boycott, Divesment, and Sanctions ("BDS") movement is rapidly gaining strength globally; and [ii] that factor weighs heavily in the negotiations between Israel and Palestine for a two-state solution. Although not bluntly stated, the BSD movement's path runs directly to a single-state solution that would sweep Israel's present right-wing government from power and result in a secular state rather than a "Jewish state." And the E.U., Israel's largest export market, has promised to go even farther in sanctioning Israel than the considerable distance it has already gone if the negotiations do not result in a two state solution. Labeling all products produced wholly or in part in Israel-occupied Palestine territory is among the mildest of sanctions under discussion, a measure already adopted in two E.U. nations. The BSD Movement's success has also been marked by Israel attaining the pariah state status previously experienced by South Africa. Only the U.S., Canada, and a half-dozen or so tiny island nations closely aligned with the U.S. still vote in favor of Israel at the U.N. For example, the vote on granting Palestine U.N. observer state status was 138-9, with 41 abstentions.  The prospect of an end to the non-secular Jewish state has enormous ramifications for U.S. foreign policy, not the least of which is the influence of the Israel lobby in the U.S. that has thus far led the U.S. to three Treasury-draining wars in Southwest Asia and Northern Africa and host of minor military actions in other area nations, as well as a near-war in Syria, averted mainly via Russian diplomacy that outfoxed Secretary of State John Kerry. Time will tell whether the diplomatic outreach by Iran will succeed in averting war with the greatest military power remaining in the Mideast after Israel itself. "Protectin

Nassim Taleb and his hedge-fund partner Mark Spitznagel weigh in in the FT with an analysis of the world's problem (too much debt) and a reasonable solution (convert some of the debt to equity).  Taleb explains how banks can end the mortgage crisis, lowering monthly mortgage payments by converting mortgage debt to equity: Excerpt: The only solution is to transform debt into equity across all sectors, in an organised and systematic way. Instead of sending hate mail to near-insolvent homeowners, banks should reach out to borrowers and offer lower interest payments in exchange for equity. Instead of debt becoming "binary" - in default or not - it could take smoothly-varying prices and banks would not need to wait for foreclosures to take action. Banks would turn from "hopers", hiding risks from themselves, into agents more engaged in economic activity. Excellent excellent excellent!

But Kerry, in Riyadh, said the goals of the U.S. and its allies hadn't changed: "a transition governance process, for a new constitution, for elections, and for a ceasefire." The key phrase is "a transition governance process." In other words, the U.S. still insists that Bashar al Assad, who polls show would win any election in Syria, must step down as head of government before a new constitution is adopted, and new elections are held." The Syrian opposition, funded and led by Saudi Arabia, has just vetoed participating in the peace process unless Assad agrees to step down as a negotiation pre-condition.  But Assad, Russia, and Iran are adamant that Assad will not step down unless first defeated in an election, in other words, the only transition will be made by elected officials, that the will of the Syrian people runs Syria, not invading mercenaries.    

Not mentioned in the article: the Knesset's Regulation Bill formally annexed territory inside the West Bank and holds that Israeli law, rather than military law, will now govern the annexed portions. That is the fact that establishes a clean break with the 2-state solution and flies in the face of international law including the Fourth Geneva Convention, which strictly prohibits annexation and requires the immediate withdrawal of invading military forces from occupied territories immediately upon cessation of hostilities, which occurred in 1967. The two-state solution is dead, although the Regulation Bill will likely be overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court. Trump gave Israel's ultra-right wing leaders way too much encouragement.

The Kerry attempt to broker a 2-state solution to the Palestine Question is over, notwithstanding being labeled as a "pause." The two separate governments of Gaza and the West Bank are merging (if they can pull it off this time), and the consolidated State of Palestine will now pursue a 2-state solution without America's intervention. That is wise (assuming the 2-state solution is wise, a huge leap of faith), because the U.S. was never an honest broker in the negotiations at any stage. Of course, legislation has already been introduced in Congress to end foreign aid for the Palestine Liberation Organization. One suspects that the PLO has other financial aid waiting in the wings, very conceivably from the BRICS nations.

Occupy's busting out on a new path ... So Adbusters is asking people all around the world to march on Oct. 29. "We want to send a clear message that we the people want to slow down this global casino." And Adbusters does have one specific demand, a 1 percent tax on financial-sector transactions (perhaps stocks, bonds, foreign-currency trades and derivatives). Some form of that idea, known as the "Robin Hood" tax, has been around for a while and might actually fly. - Jerry Large/Seattle Times Dominant Social Theme: We want justice for the world and the UN will give it to us. Free-Market Analysis: Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters magazine, based in Vancouver, B.C. - the magazine that issued the call for the initial Occupy Wall Street protests - has called on people to protest the upcoming G20 while demanding a one-percent tax on financial transactions. The revenue raised would be enormous and the lingering question is where this incredible revenue stream would be directed. The answer is obvious to those who follow what we call "directed history." The intention is likely to fund the UN as part of a final push to rationalize and perfect the initial stages of true world government. As we have written before, the movement toward world government is happening very quickly now. The ramifications are enormous and people who write off these protests as spontaneous and short-lived are not grasping what is taking place, in our humble opinion. The financial sales tax has been around for a very long time but has found its most recent voice in a column by Jerry Large of the Seattle Times. He recently gained an exclusive interview with Kalle Lasn, who sounds as if he hopes that a large protest on Oct 29th will mark the beginning of a push for such a tax. What's going on is pure one-worldism, an OWS ideology that is gradually revealing itself in dribs and drabs. It is one reason that that the OWS leaders have made no specific demands. They have hoped to create a momentu

We probably won't know for a few days because the vote is so close in early returns, but there's broad agreement nonetheless that Netanyahu's Likud Party is in the best position to form the new ruling coalition. So most likely, Netanyahu continues as Israel's PM. If he remains as PM, I see no way that Obama and the U.N. Security Council can duck making a response that is more than a wrist slap and fairly swiftly. This will set the Muslim world afire and ramp up the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment movement enormously both in the E.U. and the U.S. I'd guess that unless Obama decides to get out ahead of the global reaction, the first action will be taken by individual European nations imposing labeling on all imports originating from Israeli settlements and very conceivably economic sanctions againt Israeli imports. That's likely to mushroom fairly quickly to E.U. action. Netanyahu's statements also robs the Israel Lobby in the U.S. of its "negotiated solution" script that has been their bedrock sound-bite since the 1970s. I've linked The Guardian article because it includes the most outrageous quotes, but this has broken into mainsream U.S. media. You can watch the video (with English subtitles) at The New York Times. . I'll add some more in a comment.   I've b  Barring a blunt repudiation of his promise that there would be no two-state solution (which Netanyahu will not do without a gun aimed at his head) neither Israel nor the U.S. will be able to maintain the fig leaf of a negotiated agreement between Israel and the Palestine LIberation Authority establishing a Palestinian state. 

The neocons are howling about former Reagan Secretary of State James Baker being one of Jeb Bush's advisors. Baker has never been forgiven by the neocons since he barred the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister -- Benjamin Netanyahu -- from being allowed into the State Dept. building because of his outrageous public statements. Now Baker is doubly hated because he is scheduled to be a keynote.  speaker at a conference of the liberal pro-Israel J Street lobbying group. J Street is "left-leaning" in neocon eyes because it actully supports a 2-state solution in Palestine, rather than using the 2-state solution as a political fig leaf while Israel completes its colonization of Palestine and then annexes it. But while screaming that only AIPAC represents Israel's real interests and acknowledging that Baker is closely tied to the Bush family, they're not addressing the political reality that Baker is the global oil industry's top lobbyist nor the fact that it was Baker who put the kibosh on the neocons' goal of privatizing all the oil in Iraq and flooding the market with cheap oil to break the OPEC Cartel. The western oil companies are profoundly against privately owned oil in the Mideast and even less enthused about breaking the OPEC Cartel, which normally keep crude oil prices high, enabling higher oil company profits. Apparently the oil industry also wants the 2-state solution to actually happen in order to obtain a more stable Middle East. And that is anathema to Netanyahu, AIPAC, and the neocons..   

Why would the Obama administration actively send 30,000 sniper rifles, assault weapons and firearms into Mexico even while claiming to follow an anti-gun stance back in the USA? To answer that question, you need to understand P.R.S -- Problem, Reaction, Solution. It is the "playbook" that governments use to get what they want, which usually involves: 1) Disarming their populations, 2) Taking away all their rights and freedoms, and then 3) Ruling over their people as tyrants with complete power. Precisely such an effort is now underway in the United States, led by the Obama administration which has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be an enemy of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights. How Problem, Reaction, Solution really works If you're the U.S. government, you can't just announce a new program to disarm the country, end the Bill of Rights and install yourself as the King. People won't go for it if you try to sell it that way. Instead, you need to find a way to get people to BEG you to do all that. So you need a way to put people in a state of mind where they are terrified of drugs, terrified of guns and terrified of the border violence -- to the point where they insist that somebody in Washington do something about it. Therefore, you first need a way to cause the problem that results in all the violence that people react to. You effectively need to create violence and then wait for people to beg you to stop it. This is where the Obama administration's program to send 30,000 firearms into Mexico comes into play. If you want to cause gun violence and drug war violence, what better way to accomplish it than to just arm all the bad guys?

Mixed feelings about this: It's a well-deserved slap in the face to Israel's apartheid government. But the two-state solution has not been viable for a long time because of the illegal Israeli settlements. The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement is aimed at a single-state solution with a secular government. That would still leave the Palestinian right of return to their stolen homes and lands, which cannot lawfully be abrogated by treaty or taking; it is an individual's human right under international law. When you read talk of Irael-Palestine land swaps as part of a negotiated peace, keep that in mind. Governments may lawfully swap boundaries but cannot swap land ownership and have it stand up in a court of international law. 

Smoke and mirrors. The EU, France, and the U.S. are trying to rescue Israel from the inevitable single-state solution if an independent Palestinian state is not recognized very soon. But Israel's bellicose government resists even that; it wants to annex the entirety of Palestine by pushing all the Muslim Palestinians out, one new settlement at a time. Meanwhile, the Palestine Authority threatens to join more treaties, including that for the International Criminal Court, and mumbles about ending its policing of the West Bank for Israel. And the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, which is seeking a single state solution, gains momentum at an accelerating rate globally, which is what is driving all these diplomatic machinations.