Americans for Peace Now (APN) welcomes congressional resolutions affirming the commitment of the United States to an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution, and urges legislators to support them.

APN endorses a new Senate resolution introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), which affirms America's commitment to the two-state solution "as the goal for any process to resolve the conflict's core issues." It also takes a stand against settlement expansion and unilateral Israeli annexation of portions of the West Bank.

This draft resolution joins a similar one introduced earlier this year in the House of Representatives by Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), which APN previously endorsed.

APN is alarmed by a report that the Israeli government is trying to quash moves by Congress to endorse a different resolution supporting the two-state solution. The report focuses on a separate and bipartisan draft Senate resolution, led by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). It indicates that Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer and his staff have been lobbying the senators to remove the words "two-state solution." This reprehensible effort on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to interfere with congressional legislation compounds the tragedy of Netanyahu's rejection of the only path to peace for Israel, which requires Palestinian statehood.

APN urges members of the House and the Senate -- Democrats, Republicans and independents -- to support efforts to recommit the US to achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace. As the two-state solution is increasingly threatened by irresponsible actors – in Israel, the Arab world, and beyond -- it is crucially important that Congress assert what may otherwise seem an obvious truism: the two-state solution is the only viable way to achieve a peace agreement that would resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, end the occupation, fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for a sovereign state, and secure Israel as a liberal democracy and the national home of the Jewish people . This principle has been the policy of successive administrations, Democratic and Republican, and it must continue to be so.