Patrick Gaspard, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and current president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, told Politico that he no longer believes in a two-state solution.
“This is difficult, but we need to talk about whether the two-state solution continues to be the sole pathway to peace,” he the publication’s West Wing Playbook.
“I think that you ultimately get to peace and a ceasefire that is enduring if you have a state that integrates the fulsome rights of Palestinians and Israelis living side-by-side,” he added.
Israel must exist as a state, Gaspard said. “But I also believe Palestinians—if we are going to solve this problem—need to exist in an Israel that is inclusive of their full rights.”
The “pushback has always been that if you have a single state, you can’t have a Jewish majority state that is democratic in Israel,” Politico noted.
“I think that taking out the possibility of coexistence is, in itself, really cynical and tragic,” Gaspard said.
The Center for American Progress is a left-wing think tank. It is “the most influential Democratic-allied think tank in politics, one that has historically been supportive of both Democratic administrations and the state of Israel,” according to Politico.
“People keep telling me that the situation in Gaza is ‘complicated.’ There’s nothing complicated about being able to say killing innocent people is wrong and needs to stop,” Gaspard wrote on Oct. 27. “We said it when it was Hamas. We can say it now that it’s Israel. This is wrong. This needs to stop.”
He has also accused Israel of “using starvation as a weapon,” which he called a “war crime.”
