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Source: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/sorry-there-is-no-two-state-solution
Sorry, But There Is No Two-State Solution
(Tablet) Gadi Taub - I embraced the two-state solution for many years. Our own Declaration of Independence says that "It is the natural right of the Jewish peoples to be, like all peoples, masters of their own fate, in their own sovereign state." But, compelling as it is, the two-state solution is, sadly, no solution at all. Rather, it would doom the Zionist project, not save it, while producing much greater misery and more bloodshed for Israelis and Palestinians alike. We now know exactly what our would-be neighbors have in mind for us. We see that a majority of Palestinians support Hamas and are well pleased by its massacres. Most of us therefore believe that turning Judea and Samaria into another Hamastan to satisfy those who see the massacre as an inspiration and its perpetrators as role models would be suicidal. If one is determined to feel overwhelming sympathy for one of the many stateless peoples of the world, why not start with the Kurds, or the Catalans, or the Basques, or the Rohingya, or the Baluchis, or any of dozens of subnational groups - none of whom seem likely to attain their longed-for goals of statehood anytime soon. If the Palestinians are determined to kill us on the road to replacing us, then they can wait, too. The two-state solution was a noble dream. But it always was just that - a dream. What enabled those who clung to it through the wrecks of exploding buses, the bodies of slain civilians, the constant wild calls for violence against us, the massive efforts to build terror infrastructures under our noses and on our borders, was our own tendency to imagine Palestinians in our own image. We find it hard to imagine a people that is not like ourselves. Palestinian identity is structured as a rejection of the two-state solution, and denies the legitimacy of any form of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the Land of Israel. The Palestinian leadership has manipulated their Israeli counterparts, as well as all mediators (including American mediators), with fake negotiations intended to extract temporary benefits, and to buy time, in preparation for the larger goal of eradicating all traces of Jewish sovereignty between the river and the sea. If you bring your children from kindergarten to stage plays where they pretend to kill Jews, you cannot also tell them to hold back forever on acting them out once they've grown up. The tree of Palestinian identity, it seems, must be constantly watered with the blood of Jews to sustain it through the many sacrifices required for a nonproductive life of permanent victimhood. The writer is a senior lecturer in communications and public policy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.