The Israeli Empire of Greater Israel

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Until Israel redefines itself, let's say we call it the Jewish Empire of Greater Israel. That is the standard against which one has to measure where the Israel is destroying itself with settlements or not. I would argue that the settlements drive that democratic recession. It's impossible to sustain a democracy on one side of a green line if you're managing a not in democracy on the other. Maybe this can just be a bi-national democracy. But again, would that be called Israel? Does it not answer the definition of this debate?

Patriacide. Nationcide. Whatever you want to call it, that is what Israel is doing with its settlement policy: it is killing itself. If ever greater numbers of Jewish settlers are installed on land regarded by Palestinians as the basis for a state of their own, the possibility of a two-state solution grows ever more remote. Yet the single state alternative, involving annexation of the West Bank, would result in a country where Arabs vastly outnumber Jews and then you won’t have a one-state or a two-state solution: you’ll have a no-state solution. For those who love Israel and wish to preserve a democratic Jewish homeland, as much as for those who hate it, the settlements must stop. That’s what many left-wing Israelis and their friends say. But defenders of the settlements see things very differently. The two-state solution has long been a dead letter in their view: why stop building settlements in the name of a peace plan that is frankly unattainable? Whatever the eventual solution – it could even be a...

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