Settler Leader Blasts AIPAC for Its Support of Two-state Solution

Yossi Dagan, one of the leaders of Israel's settler movement, criticized the pro-Israel Jewish lobby AIPAC for its support of a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

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The letter by Dagan, who heads the Samaria Regional Council, comes hours after AIPAC's Executive Director Howard Kohr expressed support for "two states for two people, one Jewish with secure and defensible borders, and one Palestinian, with its own flag and its own future."

"I am astounded as to why such a great, meaningful organization as AIPAC, whose raison d'etre is pro-Israel advocacy in the United States, would present the positions of the State of Israel (and of the U.S.) so inaccurately before senior government officials, senators and congressmen, and the general pro-Israel public," Dagan wrote in the letter.

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In his address, Kohr said that "the absence of a peace process is nothing to celebrate.

"Israel's security cannot be fully assured, and this promise cannot be fully realized until she is at peace with all her neighbors. And peace begins by talking."

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Kohn lamented the lack of Palestinian willingness "to talk face to face" but stressed: "There is no substitute for direct negotiations. There are no shortcuts to peace."

Dagan concluded his letter to AIPAC by urging the lobby to "update its talking points." This would allow AIPAC to participate even more effectively in Israel's great quest – for survival as an independent, secure, moral, democratic, peaceful Jewish state, benefitting the world in the spirit of Tikun Olam."