A top American Jewish Committee official decried to an Arab audience advocacy of a “one state solution” from both the pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian perspectives.

“AJC opposes calls for a one-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, whether proposed by supporters of the Palestinian cause or by supporters of Israel,” Jason Isaacson, AJC’s director of government and international affairs, told the Doha Forum in Qatar over the weekend. “One-state formulations are historically, politically and morally untenable.”

Isaacson’s comments come as proponents of a single state stripped of its Jewish significance intensify their activity through the divestment movement, and just weeks after Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) proposed a single state in the West Bank and Israel with limited voting rights for Palestinians.

Isaacson called on Arab nations to reach out to Israel to make peace, and to reformulate the 2002 Arab League proposal.

“If the intention of the initiative was to convince a skeptical Israeli public and a wary international community that the Arab states accept Israel and are prepared to live with Israel and even work side-by-side with Israel, the message hasn’t been received, and it needs to be retransmitted, in a new way,” he said. Israelis have been skeptical about the proposal’s failure to count out a “right” of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to Israel.

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