The one-state solution

One of these days, an American president will tell us: One state. After three more premiership terms, during which Netanyahu will return to power time and again in the wake of resounding failures, President Eduardo S. Gonzales will arrive here from Washington. The son of Cuban immigrants, Gonzales will stand up on top of the Masada, and with Elie Wiesel and China’s president by his side declare his unequivocal support for one state. Yet Bibi, boasting great experience and shaking because of his age, concerns, and anxiety, will insist: Only two states.

However, President Gonzales will be fed up with promises and deception by then. Before his arrival, he would go through the White House library and look into the many variations of the two-state vision and the attempts to implement and thwart it ever since the 1947 partition decision, and the Arab liberation army, and Ben Gurion. He will look into the Israeli objections, violated agreements, the settlers, the long forgotten Oslo Accords, and the historical West Bank wall whose remnants can still be seen on some hills in the wake the great earthquake.

And President Gonzales will then say: One state for all. If my Cuban parents managed to get along, in Florida Beach, with your retired grandparents and with Seinfeld’s annoying father, there is no reason why the hell Israelis and Palestinians cannot get along here, after spilling each other’s blood for 100 years.

One state. Lieberman’s daughter will be the education minister while Abbas’ son will be the national infrastructure minister. One Hebrew-Arabic speaking state, with a rotation at the Defense Ministry and two presidents – Barghouti and Peres.

Yet Bibi will again declare: Only two states. He will then recall the many tricks and shticks and lies that we perfected over a period of 100 years, as masters of survival. How to say “yes” but not do it. How to remove a roadblock and set up two instead. How to thwart any attempt for two states and live as if we are alone, with four million transparent Palestinians, in a state we established from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River with the help of the various settlers.

What are we going to do with all this accumulation of slyness premised on not trusting anyone and living without security among watch towers and barbed wire, interrogation cells and walls of separation? And now all of a sudden we need to accept one state?

Shared memory of trauma

It won’t happen, Bibi will vow. Only two states. I don’t have the political power to pass a dramatic decision such as the one-state solution.

But everything is ready, President Gonzales will say. You’ve been living together since 1967. You insisted. You clung on. You built the roads. You removed the old fences. You returned to the gravesites of your forefathers. There are no greater experts than you when it comes to the Palestinians, their way of life, and their family ties.

All that’s left is the issue of equal rights and a bit more coordination and integration in respect to your security forces. Major Generals Jibril and Kochavi will work it out.

You have a wonderful basis for a shared life, Gonzales will say. Each side is intimately familiar with the other side’s lies. Your zealots are similar; the ones at the mosques and the ones at the synagogues. You have a Loyalty Law that would prevent foreigners from infiltrating your joint state.

You also share the memory of the trauma and the bad times you went through during the conflict, which we shall refer to as your 100-year civil war; you both possess deep understanding of the march of folly that took place here.

At the end of his speech, the American president will quote a line from a poem by David Avidan and another one from a poem by Mahmoud Darwish. He will then present a two-year framework for dismantling the old structures and establishing one state: Israpalestine.