The Mandate: Israel and Palestine Form One State
March 6, 2009
Really, I don’t like interceding. I would’ve preferred to continue my anonymous visits to this biblical land but, after decades of Israelis slaughtering as many as they dared and Palestinians wishing they could’ve killed more, I must no longer remain divinely detached. I naturally favor neither side; I embrace both. That many consider my embrace a headlock, I confirm. My maneuvers nevertheless are and will remain far less damaging than those of anyone else in, or outside prying into, this region of heretofore insoluble distress.
What I am doing is erasing all internal borders, barricades, and dictatorial restrictions. That is, I’m dismantling the walls and political barriers around Gaza and the West Bank and Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Go ahead and live there, I say to the Jews. Your presence will be no different than that of the quarter million Palestinians I’m moving into suburban Tel Aviv.
You can’t fence each other out or in. You’re all free and franchised in this singular state. That’s the only way.