Two-state two step...

For the "health" of the two-state solution, see the following, three excerpted articles [with my emphasis added - SL]

...first"Arab Leaders Say the Two-State Proposal Is in Peril" from The new York Times, by MICHAEL SLACKMAN, February 22, 2008...

CAIRO — Arab leaders will threaten to rescind their offer of full relations with Israel in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied lands unless Israel gives a positive response to their initiative, indicating the Arab states’ growing disillusionment with the prospects of a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At an Arab League meeting next month in Syria, the leaders are planning to reiterate support for their initiative, first issued in 2002. The initiative promised Israel normalization with the league’s 22 members in return for the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as the capital, and a resolution of the issue of Palestinian refugees.
But this time, “there will be a message to Israel emphasizing the need to respond to the initiative; otherwise, Arab states will reassess the previous stage of peace,” said Muhammad Sobeih, assistant secretary general of the Arab League in charge of the Palestinian issue. “They will withdraw the initiative and look for other options. It makes no sense to insist on something that Israel is rejecting.”

Many Arab leaders never warmly embraced the idea of a two-state solution to the conflict because of their distaste for Israel, but they accepted it as a means to stabilize the region and tamp down extremism. ....

....there is a growing sentiment in Arab states that the principle at the core of the peace process — the two-state solution — has no future. Increasingly, the peace process, once aimed at figuring out how to get from here to there, is back to a more fundamental point: where to go. “There Is No Longer Space for Two States on the Palestinian Land,” read a headline in a recent edition of Al Hayat, a pan-Arab newspaper in London.

One of Egypt’s English-language newspapers, The Egyptian Mail, ran this headline about a week later: “No Hope for Two-State Solution.” Egyptians and Jordanians say that the way events have evolved, there is no likelihood that a real Palestinian state would be formed. .....

[Perhaps the two-state solution is really dead ... ?]

....“There is a general Arab sentiment of despair regarding this issue,” said Dureid Mahasneh, a member of the Jordanian team that negotiated the treaty with Israel in the 1990s. “I challenge you to find anyone who took part in the negotiations with Israel to say that he is optimistic.”
That despair is accompanied by anxiety and fear that momentum is moving in favor of the more radical players, like Hamas and its patron state, Iran. “Hamas is going to be fortified,” said Mahmoud Shokry, a retired Egyptian ambassador to Syria who serves on the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, a government advisory group. “Not only Egypt, but all the Arab countries have to think about this.”

Arabs blame Israel — as the occupying power — for the diminishing viability of a two-state solution, even while Mr. Sobeih said he would never, under any circumstances, accept Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

....Egypt and Jordan have specific practical concerns because they fear they will ultimately be pressed to absorb the Palestinians into their states, a prospect they find as abhorrent as Israelis view the prospect of joining their Palestinians in a so-called one-state solution, meaning the end of Israel as a state of the Jewish people.

Egypt worries that absorbing Gaza would seem to extinguish the rallying cry of Arabs for a Palestinian state. It would also be a financial burden and create a potential for spreading throughout Egypt the kind of Islamic extremism promoted by Hamas, which is an offshoot of Egypt’s homegrown Muslim Brotherhood, a group that is banned but tolerated.

Jordan sees the prospect of having to take responsibility for the West Bank as a financial burden and an existential threat to its very identity. “There are fears a federation will be forced on Jordan and the Palestinians,” said Taher al-Adwan, editor of the Jordanian newspaper Al Arab Al Youm. “This is completely rejected by the Jordanians and by the Palestinians as well. Jordan is already half-Palestinian.”....

Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting.


...and "Israel Keeps Palestinian Offices Shut" in The Washington Post, by STEVE WEIZMAN, The Associated Press Friday, February 22, 2008:

JERUSALEM -- ...Israel this month renewed its order to close a leading Palestinian center known as Orient House, the city's Arab Chamber of Commerce and other symbolic buildings that are rallying points for the Palestinians' claims to Jerusalem's eastern sector, the officials said. The fate of east Jerusalem is the most explosive issue facing Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators, and the closures are the latest area of dispute in the peace talks, relaunched in November after seven years of violence.

....Alongside the talks between Israel and the moderate Palestinian government based in the West Bank, daily violence has continued in Gaza. Early Friday, an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza killed two Islamic Jihad gunmen posted near the border with Israel to observe army movements, the organization said.

...During peace talks in the 1990s, Israel allowed the Palestinians to operate institutions such as Orient House, an elegant century-old mansion that served as the headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization....Israeli police shut down the institutions in 2001, shortly after the second Palestinian uprising erupted. It has issued orders every six months since then renewing the closure.

With the resumption of peace talks, the Palestinians say these places should reopen. The U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, the basis for negotiations, calls on Israel to "reopen the Palestinian Chamber of Commerce and other Palestinian institutions in east Jerusalem." .....
Officials at the U.S. Consulate declined comment....

....U.S. officials told the Palestinians the issue was unlikely to be resolved quickly. "They told us they need time to negotiate with the Israelis," he said.

..."As the PLO Headquarters in the occupied city, the Orient House aspires to develop Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of the emerging Palestinian state," the center's Web site says....


...and "...Jerusalem Arabs oppose division of capital" from Haaretz, by Nadav Shragai, 21/2/08:

Minister of Pensioners' Affairs Rafi Eitan on Thursday said that Jerusalem must not be divided as part of the peace process with the Palestinians, saying "we took a poll and found the [Arab] residents themselves don't want to leave. They like it with us."

Speaking during a conference in Jerusalem, Eitan said that he did not believe that the Palestinian government was able to fight terror, "and therefore we must keep the capital whole, and fight to have it all under Israeli control." Eitan was reacting to ongoing wrangling between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas over Olmert's assertion that the sides had agreed to defer discussions over the status of Jerusalem to a future final phase of negotiations.

On Wednesday, Likud leader and chairman of the opposition MK Benjamin Netanyahu said that Olmert's government was taking measures to divide Jerusalem, and urged the key Shas party to bolt the coalition and topple the government in order "to save Jerusalem." ....

.... Meanwhile, Abbas and Olmert agreed on Wednesday to expand their negotiations to topics beyond the "core issues" of borders, Jerusalem and the refugees: Within two weeks, teams will be set up to discuss at least seven other issues. ..... One of the most important new issues on which Israel hopes to begin talks is the development of a "culture of peace," with an emphasis on ending incitement to terrorism.