Just Say No

This op-ed in the mainstream daily, Yedioth Ahronoth on June 10 by Yigal Sarna says it all...

One day, a US president will come and say to us: One state. In three terms, during which Netanyahu will return to power again and again after resounding failures, President Eduardo S. Gonzales, the son of Cuban immigrants, will come from Washington, and standing atop the summit of Masada, flanked by Elie Wiesel and the president of China—will declare his unequivocal support for one state. And Bibi, crowned with experience, trembling with age, worry and anxiety, will insist: Only two states.
But President Gonzales—sated with promises and ruses, looked before his arrival in the White House library at all the developments of the idea of two states and the attempts to implement it and thwart it since the days of the partition resolution, the Arab Liberation Army, Ben-Gurion and the Left, through the Communist Party, the Israeli opposition and the understandings that were not implemented, the settlers, the forgotten Oslo Accords, the purported three phases of redeployment and the historical wall, the remains of which are still scattered on the hilltops since the earthquake of the Syrian-African Rift, through the days of the first, second, third and fourth Bibi regimes. The same President Gonzales will say: One state for everyone.If my Cuban parents, who were born in Habana Vieja, managed to get along in Miami Beach with your ancestors the Florida pensioners, and Seinfeld’s annoying father, there is no reason for you Israelis and Palestinians not to get along here, for heaven’s sake, after having shed each other’s blood for 100 years.One state. Lieberman’s daughter as education minister and Abu Mazen’s son as infrastructure minister.If Fuad will deign to step aside. One state speaking Hebrew and Arabic, with rotation in the Defense Ministry and two presidents—Barghouti and Peres. And Bibi will say once more: Only two states, and will recall the entire host of gimmicks and lies, tricks and shticks that we developed with the art of great survivors over 100 years. How to say yes and do no. How to remove a roadblock and put up two.How to remove an outpost and strengthen a settlement.How to wink with both eyes simultaneously and make every misdeed pass in the Supreme Court.How to foil every attempt to establish two states and live as if we were alone, with four million transparent Palestinians in a state we have established from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, with the help of the “five minute” settlers [living five minutes from Kfar Saba], through the hilltop and riverbed settlers to the Jordan Valley settlers. What will we do with all the reserves of cunning, of not trusting anyone and living in non-security between watchtowers and barbed wire fences and interrogation units and partition barriers.All of a sudden, one state? This will not come to pass, only two states, Bibi will insist.I don’t have the political strength to pass something dramatic like one state for everyone. But everything is all ready for it, President E. S. Gonzales will say. You have been living together since 1967.You insisted.you clung. You returned to your forefathers’ graves.None are as expert as you in the history of the other people, its archives and opinions, its way of life and family ties, its plots and flocks—all that remains is the matter of equal rights and a bit more coordination and integration of the security services.Generals Jibril and Kochavi will manage already.You have a wonderful start on living together, Gonzales will say.Each side knows the lies of the other by heart.The radicals are similar, those of the mosques and those of the synagogues.You have a loyalty law that will prevent foreigners from infiltrating into your shared state.And there is the common memory of the trauma and the bad times you have undergone in the conflict, which we will call your hundred-year civil war, and a deep understanding of the march of folly that has marched here.
To conclude his address, the foreign president will quote a verse from David Avidan and a verse by Mahmoud Darwish, and will propose a period of two years to dismantle the old frameworks and establish one state.Isra-Palestine.