Former Obama adviser Susan Rice comes out against sovereignty

“There’s no other way to preserve that Jewish state and its democratic nature without a two-state solution,” said Susan Rice.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Susan Rice, former U.S. ambassador to the UN and national security adviser to the Obama administration, said on Tuesday that there’s no other way to ensure that Israel can remain both Jewish and democratic without a two-state solution.

Her comments were made in an interview with Alan Solow of the Israel Policy Forum.

“There’s no other way to preserve that Jewish state and its democratic nature without a two-state solution,” Rice said.

“Now, I understand that there are many pressures and militating factors that are making that harder and harder to achieve, but for that to be lost as the object we all seek, that we continue to strive for, means that fundamentally either Israel will no longer be able to sustain itself as a Jewish state or it will no longer be able to sustain itself as a democracy,” she said.

Rice said that either outcome is one that “we have to try to avoid at all costs.”

“So when it comes to annexation, I think the obvious argument against it is that it all but makes that objective of a two-state outcome impossible,” she said.

Democrats have come out strongly against Israel’s sovereignty plans. Last week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and 114 other fellow Democrats signed a letter accusing Israel of sacrificing its security interests and diplomatic ties with allies by extending sovereignty to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

Judea and Samaria is Israel’s historic homeland where most events of the Bible took place. It is claimed by the Palestinian Authority for a future state.

The Israel Policy Forum is an organization that describes itself as working “to shape the discourse and mobilize support among American Jewish leaders and U.S. policymakers for the realization of a viable two-state solution.”

On February 6, the group published “How American supporters of the two-state solution should respond to annexation,” an article by Ilan Goldenberg.

Goldenberg suggested that perhaps the best option for U.S. policymakers who oppose annexation is to publicly state that if a two-state solution is not possible, they support one bi-national democratic state of Israel with equal rights for all of the people who live there.

Goldenberg hopes that Israel will be unable to choose between being Jewish and being democratic, and therefore choose two states instead. “This might be enough to spur Israelis to take action to preserve the viability of two states so that they can be both democratic and Jewish,” Goldenberg said.

Ever since the establishment of the State of Israel as a “Jewish state” and also one that offers “full and equal citizenship and due representation” to its Arab inhabitants, the question of what would happen if the country lost its Jewish majority has loomed.

Israel Policy ForumSusan RiceTwo State Solution