But these chapters contain only a few vague hints of the heretical conclusion -
for a life-long, traditional Zionist, that is - that Gavron has reached and which he presents to his unsuspecting readers in the book's eighth and final chapter: After 55 years of Jewish sovereignty, the time has come to dissolve the Jewish state and establish, in its place, a single Israeli-Palestinian state.
"Having reached the conclusion that the territory between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River must be shared, but cannot be sensibly partitioned," he writes in his book, "we are left with only one alternative: Israeli-Palestinian coexistence in one nation."The only solution, to his mind, that could preserve the Jewish state - partition into two states, Israel and Palestine - is no longer tenable. The massive settlement construction in the West Bank has sealed its fate. If Israeli Jews now wish to secure their long-term future in the region, he explains, they must agree to abdicate Jewish sovereignty and move swiftly, while the balance of power still tilts in their favor, to a multiethnic democracy.
The absence of governmental steadfastness in the face of the settlers' ideological tenacity, along with the left's lack of clarity, have added to Gavron's conviction that the land is no longer divisible.
"I do not see any government emerging that would withdraw more than a very minimal number of settlements," he says. "We haven't even managed to get rid of Netzarim, for God's sake. I just don't see any elected Israeli government having sufficient determination and sufficient clarity of vision to carry out the redivision of Palestine, Israel, the Land of Israel, whatever you want to call it. Friends of mine sometimes say the Americans will force us into it. They won't. They're not forcing us into anything ... In a way, I'm saying the settlers have won. That is profoundly sad. But they have."
The penalty for succumbing to the settlers' single-minded pursuit of Greater Israel, Gavron writes, is the dissolution of the Jewish state.
"Many Israelis, and other Jews, will argue that historic justice demands a Jewish state. They will insist that, particularly after centuries of horrendous Jewish suffering culminating in the Holocaust, there should be one place on Earth where the Jews can exercise their natural right to sovereignty. They are absolutely right, but, unfortunately, given the choice between sovereignty and land, we chose land. We have manifestly preferred settlement in the whole Land of Israel to a state of Israel in part of the land.
It is irrelevant that the settlers are a small minority. The rest of us have permitted them to do what they wanted."....http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=370673
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