article approximately coincided with the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the U.S. and with the cease-fire that apparently marked the end of the Gaza War (2008–09). Gaddafi argued that this solution would avoid the partitioning of West Bank into Arab and Jewish zones, with buffer zones between them. Popular support The belief of both proponents and detractors of the Isratin scenario is that a single state in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, would provide citizenship and equal rights in the combined entity for all its inhabitants, without regard to ethnicity or religion. It is precisely for such reason that such a scenario is regarded by the majority of Israelis and Palestinians as unthinkable. The Israeli political left-wing, both Jewish and Arab, argues that continuing Jewish West Bank settlement is creating a situation whereby Israel and the West Bank would become either an apartheid state with full civil rights for Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs and limited autonomy for Palestiniansas currently practiced under the Palestinian Authorityor a bi-national state in which Zionist Israel would cease to exist as a homeland of the Jewish people. Similar arguments are raised by Palestinian leaders, who frequently warn Israelis and the international community that time is rapidly running out for the implementation of the two-state solution as the Jewish West Bank settlements continue to expand. Despite their diaspora-style support of the Palestinian cause, a large majority of Israeli Arabs fiercely oppose any political solution which would reduce their status as purely Israeli citizens, including any one-state solution which would effectively merge them with the West Bank Palestinians from which they have developed separatelyboth economically and politicallyfor over 70 years. Israeli Arabs are economically much better off than their Palestinian cousins. In a positive sense, while some advocate Isratin as a one-state solution for ideological reasons, others feel that due to the reality on the ground, it is the only practicable solution. A bi-national solution enjoys the support of about a quarter of the Palestinian electorate, according to polls conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center. A multi-option poll by Near East Consulting (NEC) in November 2007 found the bi-national state to be less popular than either "two states for two people" or "a Palestinian state on all historic Palestine". However, in February 2007 NEC found that around 70% of Palestinian respondents backed the idea when given a straight choice of