Omid Memarian writes:

In the 1990s and again in the early 2000s, Daniel Levy worked as a peace negotiator in Israel’s talks with the Palestinians, under Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak. He saw firsthand the promise of the Oslo peace process—and its ultimate failure, “eventually just becoming another way of managing the occupation,” he tells Democracy in Exile. With the Biden administration reviving vague talk of a two-state solution—even as it has vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions for a cease-fire in Gaza and continues to provide the weapons necessary for Israel’s war—Levy sees little reason for optimism. “It’s important to understand that when the Biden administration, having really neglected this issue, then returns to a narrative about two states—I do not suggest it should be taken seriously,” he says.

“We should probably understand this resumed talk of two states as a ruse, as a rhetorical sleight of hand,” he argues. “But also, what it really is, is an attempt to go back to a peace process that’s make believe, that allows the existing apartheid to be refrozen. That’s what’s on the agenda.”

Levy is the president of the U.S./Middle East Project, a co-founder of J Street, and a frequent analyst and commentator on Israel, Palestine and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. In this extended interview, he discusses how Israeli society and politics have changed in the decades since Oslo, the hard choices Israelis face in the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, and why the Biden administration has aligned itself “with an unreasonable and unachievable” Israeli goal in Gaza. “It really is the case that without the constant channeling of American weaponry, this could not continue,” he says of Israel’s war. “The American monopoly on peacemaking efforts has to be pried away,” he adds, “because they are clearly not in a position to lead a good-faith effort toward a sustainable future for Palestinians and Israelis alike.” [Continue reading…]