A Quote by Ehud Barak
As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel, it is going to be either non-Jewish or non-democratic. If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.
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I would like Israel to be a Jewish state, and therefore not to annex over 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Israel, which will make Israel a bi-national state.
Since Israel would rather re-experience Masada than renounce the core Zionist objective of establishing a Jewish state, the only one-state "solution" on the horizon of realistic possibilities is an Israeli "one state" that fulfills the messianic nationalist ideal embraced by deep Zionism, likely consisting of completing the expansionist process of recent years by incorporating all or most of the West Bank, casting Gaza adrift, consolidating control over Jerusalem, and transferring as many West Bank Palestinians as possible to Jordan.
If the choice is one-state, Israel can either be Jewish or Democratic. It cannot be both.
Some Israeli politicians have proposed the transfer of Palestinians out of what is currently called Israel, either into the occupied territories, into Jordan or out into other Arab lands, with the idea that there would be no intermixing of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis or Palestinian and Jewish communities. But the idea of an absolute segregation is one that I find lamentable.
I want to separate from the Palestinians. I want them to have their independent, separate state on a contiguous territory, and I want Israel to exist, of course, as a Jewish state in its own territory, as an independent state in its own territory. The Palestinian state, the Israeli state, separate. This is my dream.
Disengagement is a response to certain demographic realities, .. Within a few years, due to the higher Arab birth rate, Jews will become a minority in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. I don't want [Israel] to be South Africa because we don't believe in apartheid. We simply have to separate from the Palestinians so that we can control our own destinies.
What we have really now is a one-state outcome in which Israel is the one and only state between the Jordan River and the sea. It can do whatever it wants virtually throughout the area. But that's not the kind of a state that's going to be a basis for peace and stability in the region.
The US and Israel have demanded further that Palestinians not only recognize Israel's rights as a state in the international system, but that they also recognize Israel's abstract right to exist, a concept that has no place in international law or diplomacy, and a right claimed by no one. In effect, the US and Israel are demanding that Palestinians . . . formally accept the legitimacy of their expulsion from their own land. They cannot be expected to accept that, just as Mexico does not grant the US the right to exist on half of Mexico's territory, gained by conquest.
We continue to believe that a two-state solution is the only way for the long-term security of Israel, if it wants to stay both a Jewish state and democratic.
I support Israel. And I have long supported a two-state solution and a democratic and secure state for the Jewish people, with a democratic and viable Palestinian state side-by-side in peace and dignity.
With all its being, the Labor Party supports Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. Labor built the state, and its leaders formulated the Declaration of Independence, the foundational document that anchors Israel as a Jewish state.
I think it is essential for Israel's survival as a Jewish and democratic state that we end the status quo. The preferred way to end the status quo would be on the basis of a two-state solution. We don't want the Palestinians to be citizens of Israel, nor do we want them to be subjects.
I believe that the only alternative Israel has to save itself as a Jewish state - and let's be frank about that: the Jewish state is predicated on having a Jewish majority - the only way we can do that is by unilaterally withdrawing our border and withdrawing our settlements in the West Bank.
I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.
The far right is saying to us: Forget about the two-state solution, it is going to be a Jewish state from the coast to Jordan. The left wing says you have to forget about Jewish self-determination, you will have to live as a minority in an Arab state - just like the whites in South Africa. The key word that both have in mind is that the situation in the West Bank is "irrevocable." It is one of the words I dislike the most.
What's going to be hard for the United States is that our policy for a long time has been a two-state solution; the Palestinians should have their own state. Now, the Palestinians are going to the U.N. and saying, 'We're having the U.N. vote to say we have our own state. Well, if that's your policy, United States of America, why are you vetoing it?' Which we will do.
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