Kerry’s one-state comments are irksome in Israel

JERUSALEM — Secretary of State John Kerry has set off a furor by suggesting that Israel was destroying itself as a Jewish state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted angrily, telling his cabinet that “Israel will not be a binational state” and blaming the Palestinians for the failure of peace efforts.

Kerry told a conference on Israeli affairs in Washington on Saturday that through its continued occupation of the West Bank, Israel could make it impossible to partition the land between Jewish and Palestinian states.

“The one-state solution is no solution at all for a secure, Jewish, democratic Israel living in peace, it is simply not a viable option,” Kerry said.

The U.S., along with most of the international community, has long argued that a “two-state solution” — establishing a Palestinian state and ending Israel’s control over millions of Palestinians in territories occupied in the 1967 war in which Israel foiled the attempt by Arab armies to overrun it —  is the best way of creating a long-term peace.

Meanwhile, Israel seems unable to stem a wave of stabbings and other attacks by Palestinians, now in its third month, that has killed 19 Israelis.

Ever since Israel seized the West Bank and Gaza from Jordan and Egypt in 1967, the question of the territories’ fate has hung in the air.

Israel’s more dovish left wing has favored a pullout from most of the areas, hoping this will bring Israel recognition and peace in the region. But over two decades of failed peace talks have convinced many a deal is not possible.

The left still favors a pullout, but the rationale has shifted to something more like nationalism: without a pullout, Israel would no longer be a Jewish-majority democracy because half of its population in effect will be Palestinians, most of them without true democratic rights.

That’s because while the Israel defined by the 1949 ceasefire lines that ended the war surrounding Israel’s establishment has roughly 6.3 million Jews and 1.7 million Palestinians, adding the West Bank and Gaza, demographers believe, would make the Arab and Jewish populations essentially equal.