It is not entirely clear what the purpose of the casual comment on the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem made by US President Donald Trump during his press conference with Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu was.

When commenting about the form that any “ultimate deal” would look like, he said he did not care whether it would be two states or one state as long as both parties agreed to the solution.

Up until now, Trump has not spoken or met with any Palestinian official, so the comment may have been geared more to what Israelis can live with, rather than what Palestinians aspire to.

Universally, the two-state solution represents what successive US administrations and UN resolutions have talked about: an independent contiguous Palestinian state roughly on the pre-1967 border alongside the state of Israel.

The idea will require some land swaps and creative solutions for the Jerusalem quandary and for how to connect the West Bank and Gaza, and an agreed solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

The two-state solution is also the bedrock of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative that Israel rejected without the Israeli public even discussing it.

The one-state solution, however, is an unknown idea.

Progressive Palestinians and a tiny Israeli minority would like to see Palestinians and Israelis live in a single country with equal rights. 

But this is hardly what the Zionists want and it is certainly not how Jewish settlers, now the single biggest political force in the Israeli government, see things.

more:   http://jordantimes.com/opinion/daoud-kuttab/end-occupation