Israel pro-peace rhetoric totally empty: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Bruce Katz, co-president of the Palestinian and Jewish Unity in Montreal, about the United States voicing concern over the fate of the so-called two-state solution in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s stronger grip to power.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Washington says that it is concerned with where the right-wing coalition in Tel Aviv is headed, where do you think that is?

Katz: First of all, they seem to think that over the past eight or nine years the Netanyahu coalition was not made up of the most extreme elements of Israeli politics to begin with. Naftali Bennett and Lieberman have been part of the coalition in the past. The Likud party has in its charter an article which states very clearly that the Likud government will never accept the establishment of independent Palestinian state, so this rhetoric about two states is completely empty and behind this empty rhetoric Israel has for the past decades continued its expansion of settlements.

So there is talk about a two-state solution but there is an entirely different reality that is constructed on the ground. Now the way I see it, there is a one-state solution as one of two possibilities. It is either the one-state solution that the settlers are putting forward and basically it is the settlers who run this coalition anyway and that is a one state where the Palestinians are pushed into enclaves, or Bantustans, or you can call them reservations which is what happened to indigenous peoples of North America but it is the same project.   

The other possibility is a one-state solution by national state with equal rights for all of its citizens, perhaps in a federated state with autonomous regions but it is going to be one or the other. There is no possibility of a two-state solution where you have the West Bank in permanent lockdown and Gaza in its 9th year of blockade. Gaza is what Amira Hass, the Israeli journalist called the concentration camp. Where are you going to build a two-state solution there?

Now what I find significant about Netanyahu naming Lieberman as defense minister after the falling out with Ya’alon is the fact that this is a direct challenge to Israel’s military establishment. Basically Netanyahu has declared war on Israel’s military, how it will play out yet remains to be seen but I would not be at all surprised to see Ya’alon work against Netanyahu from within Likud, I do not think you have heard the last show of the situation, the last push and pull on this particular situation, I think if anything it is going to escalate.

Press TV: Will this press conference with Toner or Washington’s concerns have any bearing do you think on Tel Aviv’s political make-up? And if Israel ignores this concern like it has all the ones in the past that came before it, could this be the first time that we see Washington perhaps take measures against Tel Aviv, or is that just too far-fetched?

Katz: No I do not think that the United States will take measures against Tel Aviv for the simple reason that there is no one outside of Bernie sanders who has the backbone to do it. It is not going to be Hillary Clinton who is basically dependent on a couple of pro-Israel billionaires for her campaign. It is certainly not going to be Donald Trump and basically what you have in the United States is the same old, same old concerns about a two-state solution which is something that is simply theoretical.

There is no magic wand that is going to create a two-state solution under the conditions in which the West Bank and Gaza exist currently... The extremists have even a greater degree than the extremists that were there before who constitute Netanyahu’s coalition. What it does point to is the fact that Netanyahu and his regime are unraveling and perhaps the putsch that we will find to put him out of power will come from within Likud itself. That remains to be seen.

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