In the lead-up to the 2012 American presidential elections, the Republican National Committee started a revolution in the West’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ten years earlier, on a sunny June afternoon, Republican George W. Bush became the first American president to announce support for the two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security,” he said. “There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet, at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope. Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.”
The two-state solution considered as only viable option
Once a Republican president endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state, Democrats fell in line, as did the rest of the global community. The two-state solution has been the only solution considered viable and just by most of the world. Advocates claim that any other option would create a demographic nightmare, create apartheid like conditions on the Palestinians or undermine the Jewish nature of the State of Israel.
Republican delegate Alan Clemmons, a South Carolina state representative, proposed an amendment to the 2016 Republican Party platform that stated, “The US seeks to assist in the establishment of comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East, to be negotiated among those living in the region. We oppose any measures intended to impose an agreement or to dictate borders or other terms, and call for the immediate termination of all US funding of any entity that attempts to do so. Our party is proud to stand with Israel now and always.”
Clemmons’s proposal was approved by a 14-2 vote and became the policy of the Republican Party and the Trump administration four years later.
In the 2012 platform, the Republicans supported “Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with secure, defensible borders,” and advocated for “two democratic states – Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine – living in peace and security.”
In line with the platform, American President Donald Trump has consistently declined to endorse a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “A lot of people like the one-state solution. Some people like the two-state solution. We’ll have to see. I haven’t commented on that,” Trump recently said.
While the majority of the Democratic Party supported and insisted on the two-state solution as the only viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most Republicans, but not all, refused to support it. An exception was South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. For decades, Graham, a strong supporter of Israel, has advocated for a two-state solution. In a 2019 interview in Jerusalem, he said:
“I want everybody to understand there is no one-state solution. I will not invest a dime in a situation that results in one state. It is a bad deal for America. If you believe in a democratic Jewish state, it is lost over time from the demographics of merging the two peoples.... If you absorb all the Palestinians and they can vote, the Jewish state gets eroded. And if you absorb all the Palestinians and they can’t vote, that’s South Africa and it’s not going to happen.”
Like many, Graham saw the massacre of Jews by Palestinians on October 7, 2023, as a change in the Middle East. He changed his mind about the applicability of the two-state solution. “After October 7, declaring a Palestinian state, after the attack, would be seen as rewarding terrorism,” the senator said. “That’s the universal view of the Jewish people. The two-state solution died on October 7.”
Yet recently, Graham flipped back to his support of a two-state solution, no longer thinking that it would be a reward for terrorism. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, he warned Israelis that there is no sustainable future for Israel without a political horizon that separates Israelis and Palestinians into two states, once the security conditions exist. Anything else, he warns, would either end Israel’s Jewish character or leave millions permanently disenfranchised and isolate the country.
Graham said, “There is no other alternative. A one-state solution would either end Israel as a Jewish state or leave millions without rights, which the world will not accept. To be pro-Israel, you need to be honest with Israel.”
The senator critiqued those advocating for annexation of Judea and Samaria. “If you want to marginalize the Jewish state, go down that road. It will do more damage to Israel’s future than any bomb Iran could ever build. You would lose support here in America, and you would isolate Israel from the world.”
Graham's comments are odd for they contradict his own recent position stating that a Palestinian state would be rewarding terrorism. “The mountains of Judea and Samaria are the rightful property of the Jewish people,” Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said while visiting the Samarian town of Ariel. “Judea and Samaria are the front line of the State of Israel and must remain an integral part of it. Even if the world thinks otherwise, we stand with you.”
The Conservative Political Action Conference, a brain child of conservative thought, passed a resolution in late February calling on not just the US but its allies to recognize Israeli sovereignty over what the group termed “Judea and Samaria.”
We’ll never know what caused Graham to flipflop on his support for a two-state solution so drastically. We can only call him out for promoting an archaic solution that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians don’t support.
We can point out that his strawman argument – claiming that any other solution besides the two-state one undermines the Jewish character of the state or creates apartheid – is absurd and has been debunked by the plethora of other ideas offered. The senator tried to lighten the bluntness of his position by stating, “Being pro-Israel means telling hard truths.” Graham should be reminded that the two-state solution has been shown to be a false, not true, solution. The truth is how he said it on an earlier flipflop – that the two-state solution was laid to rest with so many other bad ideas when Palestinians massacred Jews on October 7, 2023.
The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho, where she enjoys spending time with her family.