President Barack Obama is looking at ways to preserve the proposals Secretary of State John Kerry made while trying to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians and preserve a two-state solution for his successor.
"Obama and Kerry are looking at the very real likelihood that the two-state solution could die on their watch," Martin S. Indyk, the special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations under Kerry in 2013 and 2014, told
The New York Times.
"Having tried everything else, I think they feel a responsibility, above all to Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state, to preserve the principles of a two-state solution."
The outlines for such an agreement could be presented through a United Nations Security Council or a speech, reports The New York Times. If it's in a UN resolution, that would help build international support to the compromises Kerry reached, while giving legitimacy to them, officials believe.
Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
turned down an invitation to meet with Obama on March 18, saying he did not wish to become involved in the ongoing presidential election.
However, officials said Netanyahu did not wish to risk leaving a meeting without terms of a new American military aid pact that could be worth more than $40 billion in hand.
Back in 2014, Kerry was not able to break an impasse between Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and since that time, Netanyahu has won reelection and his government now takes an even harder stance against the Palestinians.
Netanyahu is against a two-state solution, and now Americans are concerned about Jewish settlements that are expanding into the West Bank that could make a viable Palestinian state impossible, the Times reports.
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