Lapid’s proposal to hand over Gaza to Egypt for 15 years was creative and out-of-the-box, but it also demonstrates a complete ignorance of the realities of the Arab world. Egypt immediately rejected Lapid’s suggestion and said that Egypt will never take responsibility for Gaza BECAUSE GAZA BELONGS TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE (Trump needs to understand this as well). This might be hard for Israelis (and Trump) to grasp, but Gaza is part of Palestine and will be part of the State of Palestine that eventually will be recognized by the State of Israel.
October 7 should have been a wake-up call for Israelis that the occupation must end and that Israel cannot deny the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. I understand that we are all still in a state of deep trauma. I understand that the majority of Israelis today reject the idea of a Palestinian state. But the reality of more than 7 million Israeli Jews and more than 7 million Palestinian Arabs living on the land between the River and the Sea is much stronger and compelling than the current mood of Israeli public opinion. Anyone is who is a genuine leader (unlike the so-called leaders that we now have) understands that leaders shape public opinion, they don’t run after it. Even leaders of the so-called left in Israel, like Yair Golan, are afraid to speak the words “two states” because he is afraid of public opinion, or because his so-called “strategic advisors” tell him not to speak about a Palestinian state. Yair Golan – that is a failure of your leadership and hints that perhaps you don’t have what it takes to actually be a leader.
We (Israelis and Palestinians) need new leaders. We need leaders who have the confidence to know that the conflict in this land which has witnessed the killing of each other for more than one hundred years must come to an end. We can no longer allow the extremists on both sides to determine our future. There are two people living on this land and neither will vacate the land for the other. Both peoples see this land as their rightful homeland and that will not change. There are no military or security solutions to this conflict. There are only political solutions which require leadership. There are security realities that must be dealt with. Both Israelis and Palestinians must live with security, freedom, and dignity. Both sides must respect the right of the other for self-determination and national expression on a designated territory. But peace will be built by cooperation, not by walls and fences that prevent people from interacting. Political separation – YES. Cross border cooperation – ABSOLUTELY!
This is a call for leadership. It is a call for leadership on both sides. It is a call for Israelis to understand that the fastest path to security is through recognizing the right of the Palestinian people to establish their state in Palestine. It is a call for Palestinians to end their foolish ant-normalization campaign in which they even boycott Israelis who are working against the occupation and support Palestinian freedom. It is a call for Palestinians to stop their denial of Israel’s right to exist just as Israelis must stop denying the existence of the Palestinian people. It is a call for both of our peoples to wake up from the trauma of the past 15 months and move us from trauma to facing reality head-on with the understanding that only looking back to the past will never allow us to move forward to a new future.
This is an invitation to all Israelis and all Palestinians to begin to build partnerships of understanding so that we can dispel the myth that while “we” want peace, the people on the other side do not. We will get there, even if it looks very bleak right now. We will get there because we have no other real choice. It is time to move from the concept of the war of no choice to the concept of the peace of no choice.
