She fought for civil rights in the 1960s. She was against the war in Vietnam. She was proud of Israel in 1967, worried in 1973, confused by the first Lebanon war, dismayed by Israel’s continued presence in Lebanon for 18 years.

She saw the first intifada as the birthing ground for a peace process with the Palestinians based on mutual recognition. She was inspired and hopeful when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn in 1993. She was devastated when Rabin was assassinated. She continued to believe in peace and was convinced that the two-state solution was the best way to fulfill Zionism’s dream of a sustainable Jewish nation-state in the land of Israel.

Now, she is challenged within her own Jewish community on the viability of a two-state solution and she finds herself becoming part of a rapidly shrinking group of American Jews who hold firm to the belief that it is the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Settlement leaders, writing in The New York Times and other local and international newspapers, tell us that there is no two-state solution, and they claim, there never was. They tell us that the Zionist dream is the fulfillment of the Jewish state in all of the land of Israel and make believe that there is no thing called the Palestinian people.

Every week “talkbackers” to my articles in this newspaper make the same claim. I still have not heard one of them – or any credible settler leader – explain to me how we make peace with our neighbors by implementing a one-state reality.

I have heard some of them say that peace is not in the cards. That is certainly true if we continue to implement the plans that they dictate to the country. They are right: there will be no peace if we deny the Palestinian people their right to self-determination. If we deny them their freedom – if we continue to confiscate their land and build more settlements for Jews only – there will be no peace.
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