Of all the responses to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's remarks Wednesday, I was particularly struck by that of Justice Minister Yariv Levin. "The people of Israel is not willing to be humiliated," he said, before continuing with the well-known talking points against what he calls Oslo 2.0 and the Palestinian Authority. Not willing to be humiliated? Yariv, don't make me laugh. Anyone who, after October 7, still supports Benjamin Netanyahu, the mother of the greatest humiliation the "people of Israel" has ever suffered, has no problem with being humiliated. In fact, this may be one of the personal pathologies that could explain the continued support for the prime minister.
And if we're already talking about Levin and humiliations, he deserves congratulations. On Wednesday, he was appointed by Netanyahu – who surely trusts him blindly following the dizzying success of his judicial "reform" – to head a ministerial task force responsible for coming up with ways to retaliate against the Palestinian Authority for the UN General Assembly's resolution last week to bolster its status.
This irresponsible decision was preceded by a lame debate that was itself a humiliation for Israel. (The quotes below are from the Ynet news website and the Kan public broadcaster). "We have to deal them a tough blow that will shake them," Transportation Minister Miri Regev said. And the nutcase from the West Bank hilltops, National Missions Minister Orit Strock, called the Palestinian move diplomatic terror and demanded painful retaliation. Levin himself wants to treat the PA's move (which, let us recall for the sake of the sane among us, fits the dictionary definition of a diplomatic struggle, meaning it's the opposite of terrorism) "like we treat terrorism" and exact a price "like we exact for terrorism." Like what, for example? "Hurt its senior officials and exact a price on the ground through settlement." Levin, you really think Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas should be treated like Hamas' leader in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinwar?
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for toppling the PA, nothing less. So apparently, instead of letting the PA rule Gaza the Netanyahu government will end up with Hamas ruling the West Bank. The provincial boor also proposed punishing each country that recognizes a Palestinian state by building a new West Bank settlement.
There's a wonderful quote from Nietzsche that goes "In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." There is no better example of group insanity than the current Israeli government.
Gallant can't stop the madness alone. It's no accident that he appealed to the public, because only the public can stop the madness, as it did the night spontaneous mass demonstrations prevented Netanyahu from firing Gallant because he called for pausing the judicial overhaul. But for this to happen, the public has to want to stop the madness.
The categorical distortion of conflating terrorism and diplomacy is the worst crime committed by successive Netanyahu governments and a key element of the rotten doctrine of funding Hamas' path of terror while destroying the path of diplomacy. If a diplomatic battle to secure recognition of a Palestinian state is defined as terror, how is it possible to take Israel seriously? Is there any kind of struggle against the occupation it would view as legitimate?
Security forces in the West Bank during confrontations between settlers and Palestinians, last month.Credit: Itay Ron
Consequently, once again there's only one conclusion to be drawn: The world must take solving the conflict out of Israeli and Palestinian hands by recognizing a Palestinian state on the basis of the 1947 UN Partition Plan plus relevant border adjustments – roughly, the borders as of May 1967. This would liberate Israelis from the delusion that it is up to them whether or not "to grant" statehood. And it would liberate Palestinians from their refusal to settle for what Israel "grants" them. Israel isn't giving them the territories, because they don't belong to it. And the Palestinians aren't settling for the territories alone, because the rest of the land doesn't belong to them.
A border that would divide the land between the two peoples is the worst enemy of those who want it all, Jews and Palestinians alike. And to the European states that want to recognize Palestine but fear the new settlements in their names: Fear not. When those settlements are handed to the Palestinians, there'll be no need to change their names.