Trump drops 'two-state' commitment

Change of stance on Middle East is calculated to please Netanyahu

US President Donald Trump shelved Washington's yearslong quest for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Wednesday, saying he would back a single state if it led to peace.

He warmly welcomed Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House and hailed the "unbreakable" bond between their countries.

And while he urged Netanyahu to "hold back" from building Jewish settlements for a "little bit", Trump broke with international consensus insisting on a future that included a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

"So I'm looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like. I'm very happy with the one that both parties like," he said. "I can live with either one."

Trump said he had thought a two-state solution "looked like it may be the easier of the two. But honestly, if Israel and the Palestinians are happy, I'm happy with the one they like the best."

This change in the US stance was calculated to please Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition.

"I think the Palestinians have to get rid of some of that hate that they're taught from a very young age," Trump said, echoing Netanyahu's argument that the Palestinians are not ready for peace.

Netanyahu had warm words for the Israeli-US alliance, and hammered home his own prerequisites for peace.

"First, the Palestinians must recognize the Jewish state. They have to stop calling for Israel's destruction," he said.

"Second, in any peace agreement, Israel must retain the overriding security control over the entire area west of the Jordan River."

This region contains the entire West Bank area that would represent the heart of any Palestinian state as conceived in all previous international agreements.

Despair, consternation

Barack Obama's administration had warned Israel that if it did not reach a two-state deal with the Palestinians, it would never reach an accommodation with the Arab world.

The shift in Washington's position, which was revealed overnight by a White House official, triggered Palestinian despair and consternation in international capitals.

The second-ranking official in the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat, denounced it as an attempt to "bury the two-state solution and eliminate the State of Palestine".

He implicitly warned Israelis that any single nation that emerged would not be specifically Jewish.

"There's only one alternative," he said. "A single democratic state that guarantees the rights of all: Jews, Muslims and Christians."

Speaking in Cairo after talks with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that "everything must be done" to preserve the two-state solution.