Amazing. My heart is leaping. Once again, the Israeli press and the Israeli discourse is way ahead of the American one, where the belief in a thriving "Jewish democracy" stops all free thinking. Here is the speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin, saying that Palestinians are a part of Israel, we ate the West Bank a long time ago, so let’s forget about this two-state crap and make them citizens. He meets Ali Abunimah on Abunimah’s fair and democratic ground. He dismisses the New Republic’s hysteria about the delegitimization of the Jewish state. He answers the great challenge to the Israeli psyche— At the end of every sentence in Hebrew is an Arab smoking a hookah– with ringing affirmation.
Note that Rivlin is a Likudnik, about the same age as Judge Goldstone. Note that you will never see such creative thinking in Washington, where the Diaspora Jews are about 50 lightyears behind the realities of the Middle East, locked in fearful, reactive Holocaust consciousness and dumb to the murderous occupation and the cycle of violence. Will anyone in the US pick up the ball? Put another way, How many times have friends murmured to me, I’d be for a binational state [translation, I’d be for democracy] if only there wouldn’t be a ton of bloodshed getting there. I’ve murmured that myself. Well isn’t that just a matter of imagining? The most disputed territory is the space between American Jews’ ears. Enough drumroll, Haaretz:
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said Thursday that he would rather accept Palestinians as Israeli citizens than divide Israel and the West Bank in a future two-state peace solution.
Speaking during a meeting with Greece’s ambassador to Israel Kyriakos Loukakis, Rivlin said that he did not see any point of Israel signing a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority as he did not believe PA President Mahmoud Abbas "could deliver the goods."
Referring to the possibility that such an agreement could be reached, Rivlin said: "I would rather Palestinians as citizens of this country over dividing the land up."
