benami154_Yousef MasoudSOPA ImagesLightRocket via Getty Images_palestine Yousef Masoud/SOPA IMAGES/LightRocket via Getty Images

Forgetting Palestine

The two-state solution is virtually dead in the water, and the international community has largely abandoned the Palestinian cause. At this point, there is little to stop Israel from cementing the one-state reality that its right-wing government has long sought, regardless of whether that leads to a permanent civil war.

TEL AVIV – Israel is approaching another parliamentary election, and Palestinians have barely been mentioned. The vote comes at a time when the United States is pushing its poorly conceived economy-focused Peace to Prosperity plan. With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict no longer undermining Israel’s economic prosperity or global standing, it has all but fallen off the domestic political agenda.

Next month’s parliamentary election will be Israel’s second this year. After the first, held on April 9, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – whose Likud party won 35 out of 120 seats – failed to create a governing coalition. Barely a month after the parliament was sworn in, its members voted to dissolve it.

That failure had nothing to do with Palestine. Netanyahu lost the support of part of his right-wing alliance over disagreement on a military draft law (relating to an exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews). And he was unable to get the main centrist opposition party, Blue and White, to work with him, owing largely to his expected indictment on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.

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