Wasserman Schultz: Israel’s Reluctance to Talk Two-State Solution ‘Pretty Understandable’ — Free Hostages First

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said that she supports a two-state solution in the Middle East, but “it’s pretty understandable that perhaps Israelis are not quite ready to take the step of beginning to negotiate” and that Hamas needs to release Israeli hostages and the terrorist threat has to end first.

Wasserman Schultz stated, “I support a two-state solution, have for my entire career, and continue to voice public support for it. But I think people have to understand what’s going on on the ground in Israel, Israelis are paralyzed right now. Imagine that you’re in a country that nearly everyone is one or two degrees — if not right in their own family — connected to a hostage who has not yet been returned, and that, every single day, both in the north and the south, on the doorstep of a country not much larger than the State of New Jersey, you live every day with a terrorist organization sworn to your destruction and willing to sacrifice — to kill themselves and their own civilians in order to kill Jews. So, I think it’s pretty understandable that perhaps Israelis are not quite ready to take the step of beginning to negotiate a two-state solution.”

She continued, “First, Hamas needs to release the hostages that they still hold, many of which are elderly, wounded, or are women. And second, we need to make sure that that terrorist threat is ended. And Arab — the world leadership in the Arab League need[s] to step up and use their leverage to bring that terrorist threat to an end and use the leverage to get those hostages home.”

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