When a level headed analyst such as Gershon Baskin, CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information publicly states that time may have run out on the two state solution, I’d say it’s time to pay attention. I strongly encourage you to read this recent piece in the Jerusalem Post, in which Baskin suggests that the unmitigated growth of settlements has already created a bi-national reality in the territories:
Perhaps it is already too late. Perhaps the events of Hebron, of the forced removal of the settlers from the building that they claim and the riots that broke out afterwards when they went on the rampage against Palestinians in Hebron demonstrates in the most bloody terms that these two communities might be too locked into a entanglement that is already beyond the possibility to untangle.
Baskin concludes with these sad and ominous words:
The end is in sight brought to us by the very hands that created the bi-national reality on the ground in the name of Zionism.
If you aren’t disturbed enough by now, click above to see the recent Hevron evacuation incident of which Baskin is referring. (And if you truly have the stomach for it, you can log into YouTube as an adult to view footage of the ensuing settler rampage – or “pogrom” to use Olmert’s term…)
Shalom Rav 
Is this necessarily a “sad and ominous” development, Brant?
It’s ominous, I’ll grant you that. No question.
But when the “sad” development is (in Baskin’s words) “full democracy – one person one vote for everyone living between the river and the sea”–well, as an American, that’s hard for me to feel entirely sad about.
I’m equally concerned about the presence in the Likud party of far right elements who openly advocate for the replacement of Israel’ secular, democratic gov’t by an authoritarian religious gov’t, as well as the expulsion (i.e. ethnic cleansing) of all Arabs from within Israel. http://jta.org/news/article/2008/12/15/1001563/bibis-lead-threatened-by-far-right
What kinds of moral decisions are we American Jews who seek dignity and peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike going to be faced with shortly if 2-states disappears as an option and we started getting asked by all the mainstream Jewish communal organizations to stand behind an Israeli government that may move shockingly to the right? Where will our red lines be, and what will we do? Even Livni is recently quoted suggesting Israel’s Arab citizens should consider leaving and relocating to the new Palestinian state. Olmert, no longer in power, now speaks truth to power. Great. Maybe he can critique Bibi’s upcoming policies from his jail cell?
I’m hoping for hope. It’s crucial that progressive and moderate American Jews find a way to loudly speak out and share what our red lines are – what can’t be done in our name.