Gaza, ALRAY - Sixty per cent of US academics and scholars in Middle Eastern studies have described the Israeli occupation of Palestine as “a one-state reality akin to apartheid,” a new survey shows.

Conducted jointly by the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll and the Project on Middle East Political Science at George Washington University, the survey was distributed to 1,729 academics from various American universities.

Asked about the viability of the two-state solution, 61 per cent of the participants no longer believe that it is possible, compared with 52 per cent in February 2021 and 57 per cent in September 2021, when two previous rounds of the survey were conducted.

Some 60 per cent describe the current reality as that of “one state akin to apartheid," which is slightly higher than the February 2021 poll (59 per cent).

US Republican Senators Rick Scott and Mike Brown had introduced a bill to Congress to prevent Amnesty International from receiving US federal funding, in response to its latest report that accused the Israeli occupation of being an apartheid state.