I will not go into all the reasons why it failed during the Oslo process. I will only say that even if there was a period when this solution was relevant — and this too should be taken with a grain of salt — five decades of military rule, 500,000 settlers, a failed agreement and one Gaza disengagement later, it is enough to simply glance at the maps and see how scant the chance of reaching an agreement is.
Even if we assume that we can convince a large percentage of settlers to evacuate the West Bank, and assuming the Israeli economy will be able to deal with the price, and assuming that a state that was unable to take care of thousands of Gaza evacuees will be able to take care of hundreds of thousands of evacuees from Judea and Samaria, and assuming that both sides will agree to allow visits to each other’s holy sites, and assuming the Palestinians will be satisfied with a demilitarized 21 percent of their historic homeland, and assuming that they will agree to give up on the right of return, and assuming we find a solution that will reconnect Gaza and the West Bank, and assuming that the agreement will be accepted by the majority of Palestinians (and not just a handful of suits in Ramallah). Even if we assume all these to be true, after Oslo and the disengagement, who can guarantee that missiles won’t strike central Israel a month after an agreement is signed? The Zionist Left has no good answer beyond its belief that things will eventually work out. So is it really a surprise that so few buy their plan?
As opposed to the Zionist Left, the Right actually understands that the Palestinians and their demands aren’t going anywhere. The problem is that the Right doesn’t offer any logical plan to deal with the situation. As a result, what is called “Israeli policy” today is nothing more than a hysterical combination of Netanyahu-style paranoia and childish, folksy behavior à la Naftali Bennett. What we end up with are mantras about maintaining Israeli security alongside infantile slogans such as “the eternal people do not fear a long road.”
The fact that the Left is terrified of this is clear. What is astonishing is that there are groups in the Right that recoil from this oppressive, siege-mentality attitude, and are interested in promoting democracy, coexistence and equality for our neighbors. But without a real political home that will work to that end, they remain limited by their political parties.
– Read more: It’s Time for a One-state Solution – Yonatan Amir, 972Mag
