When It Comes to a Palestinian State, Who's Asking Israel Anyway?
This week, 99 Knesset members voted in favor of a cabinet statement rejecting what it called the "unilateral" recognition of a Palestinian state. 99 out of 120 lawmakers. "Israel utterly rejects international diktats regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared.
"A settlement, if it is to be reached, will come about solely through direct negotiations between the parties, without preconditions," said the man who has dedicated his life to blocking the diplomatic channel between Israel and the Palestinians, including by setting preconditions that don't stand a chance of being accepted (recognition of Israel as a Jewish state).
"Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the October 7 massacre would be a massive and unprecedented reward to terrorism and would prevent any future peace settlement," said the person who murdered the path to peace, and 99 out of 120 agreed.
That is an astonishing figure. It is hard to think of another issue on which 99 of the Knesset's 120 members would agree. But such a consensus around the megalomaniacal waving of Netanyahu's faded flag of diplomatic rejectionism?
And this at a time when it is clear, to anyone not wearing the virtual reality goggles programmed for us by Netanyahu, that the story in which the world lets us rule over another people, until we overcome each of the innumerable traumas that are unique to the Jewish people, is over; that the world has changed; that it has had it up to here with us; that the reserves of pity for us and our suffering have run out; that our excuses and explanations and special circumstances and complexities no longer interest anyone; that no one wants to hear about the Holocaust anymore, about the Arabs rejecting the UN Partition Plan; or about the illusion that we want peace, but what can we do when there is no partner on the other side; and it has nothing to do with the settlements; and that the future of Israel, its continued existence – as a state that anyone besides the Jewish shahids from the settlements will want to live in – depends on the establishment of a Palestinian state.
And one more thing: Who's asking you anyway? This is unilateral recognition, what part of that don't you understand?
We need to linger on the above-mentioned number, preferably on a psychoanalyst's couch. And no, it truly is not only the Bibi-ists. They at least are aware of their Bibi-ism. If 99 lawmakers ratified Netanyahu's "statement," and the Knesset represents the public, then it can be declared that we are all Bibi.
And it really doesn't matter what some of them shouted on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, or on Balfour Street in Jerusalem: The entire pompous affair – aimed at a domestic audience, aimed at a foreign audience, aimed anywhere at all, all the tricks and the shticks and the manipulations dripping from its every letter, is the incarnation of Netanyahu's degenerate "statesmanship" that led us to the abyss. Trash that is convinced it's high-class.
Protesters in Tel Aviv's Kaplan junctionm on Saturday.Credit: Itay Ron
The only genuine political opposition to Netanyahu is in the extreme right, whose members cleave to Netanyahu while waiting for zero hour – in a few years, when they're big enough – to completely take control of Israel.
As long as Netanyahu maintains his diplomatic rejectionism and protects the settlements, he doesn't bother them. Everyone to his left indeed recoils from him, his lifestyle, his family, his voters and his political partners, but they think like him. About everything: the Palestinians, Iran, antisemitism, geopolitics, economics – everything.
This is also what allows everyone to rally around him during the war. Otherwise, how can it be explained? After all, he's the one who brought Israel to this situation, all the while denying he did so.
The great "sobering-up" after October 7 was nothing more than a total surrender to Netanyahu's doctrine, even if the hatred for him increased.
It is true that he is accused of strengthening Hamas, but where are the voices that cry out against him for weakening the Palestinian Authority? For missing the Palestinian partner, Mahmoud Abbas? For strengthening the settlements and for not extending the hand of peace to the Palestinians?
What more has to happen, what new catastrophe needs to strike us, so that someone among us will finally stand up and say: Enough; we have gone astray, we have deceived, we have reached an impasse, we have no choice but to change?