Two more years for two states?

Recent reports and developments suggest that the Obama administration--and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank--may see the "window of opportunity" for a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shutting in two years, in 2011.

This spring, the mission of General Keith Dayton, the U.S. official tasked with overseeing the training of Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, was renewed for another two years. In May, following an address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, General Dayton responded to a question about the viability of the Palestinian forces, saying "There is perhaps a two-year shelf life on being told that you're creating a state, when you're not."

In June, the London-based Asharq Alawsat newspaper reported that the Obama administration, in conjunction with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States and President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo, had presented Israel and Egypt with a plan to conclude an agreement by 2011.

This week, various media outlets have reported that White House officials have privately said that the administration has committed itself to try to reach an Israeli-Palestinian agreement within two years. And some analysts believe that, notwithstanding developments in the region, the Obama administration has about two years to aggressively pursue such a lofty foreign policy goal before needing to focus its attention on the president's re-election.

The Palestinian leadership in the West Bank is now indicating that they too see 2011 as a pivotal year.

Earlier this week, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad issued a new, detailed government platform titled "Ending the Occupation, Establishing the State." The document calls for the establishment of a "de facto state apparatus" within two years, regardless of the state of the peace process.

Fayyad first made reference to the idea of establishing a state within two years during a speech at Al Quds University in June, which was meant to serve as a response to Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech at Bar Ilan University. That was the speech in which Netanyahu expressed support for a Palestinian state, albeit with a host of conditions and reservations.

Jacob Walles, U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem, expressed support for Fayyad's announcement, calling it "a concrete plan."

While Prime Minister Netanyahu has not released an official reaction, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon responded to the announcement by saying that "artificial dates and arbitrary deadlines never worked in the past, but caused only damage and would not work now."

The Palestinian plan could be likened to Yasser Arafat's threats to unilaterally declare a state in 1999. While unsettling to Americans and Israelis then, some believe it provided a sense of urgency that the ultimately failed process had lacked.

Indeed, the United States and Israel still remain at an impasse over a freeze to West Bank settlement construction that would kick off negotiations. It is against that background that the Palestinian document released earlier this week declared "the window of opportunity to secure a viable two-state solution is now mortally threatened by Israel's settlement policy, the continuation of which will undermine the remaining opportunity of building an independent Palestinian State on the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967."

And there is reason to believe that this time the deadline might not be artificial or arbitrary.

According to Peace Now, in 2008 Jews represented 51.8 percent, and Palestinians 48.2 percent of those living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. By 2015, Peace Now says these figures will be reversed. Do the math--a few months into 2011, they will be equal in size.

These demographic concerns are what led former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to carry out the disengagement from the Gaza Strip, despite his long-time staunch support for the right-wing settlement movement.

It is not yet clear whether the current Israeli government--with the urging of the Obama administration--might undergo a similar transformation.

Writing in the conservative online magazine Commentary in May, Michael Oren, who was subsequently named Israel's new Ambassador to the United States, wrote that the demographics issue represented an existential threat to the State of Israel:

"Israel, the Jewish State, is predicated on a decisive and stable Jewish majority of at least 70 percent. Any lower than that and Israel will have to decide between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. If it chooses democracy, then Israel as a Jewish state will cease to exist. If it remains officially Jewish, then the state will face an unprecedented level of international isolation, including sanctions, that might prove fatal."

Analysts project that the end of efforts to reach a negotiated two-state solution as it has widely been understood would give rise to the concept of a bi-national state, which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state.

As former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Ha'aretz after the Annapolis Conference in November 2007: "If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished."

Thus far, support among Palestinians for a one-state solution remains low, though not insignificant. A poll conducted in May by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip found that 23 percent of Palestinians support a one-state solution, with 61 percent preferring a two-state solution.

It remains to be seen whether the 2011 deadline galvanizes support for the latter, but the Fayyad government and the United States are clearly hoping it does. Israel should be hoping it does too--its survival may depend on it.