Yes, Netanyahu is not rushing to create a Palestinian state, but for far different reasons than Hamas opposes a two-state solution:  Having seen Israeli-evacuated land handed over to the Palestinians so the Palestinians, instead of building a peaceful state, could use it to launch rocket attacks on Israeli cities, perhaps Netanyahu rightly questions whether ceding more land would put more Israeli lives at risk—hardly an incentive for Israel to turn over more land.  Hamas opposes Israel based in large part on its antiSemitic charter.  The two aren’t comparable.

All that, however, is beside the point. The point is that Israel is a democratic nation and the Arabs who have brand named themselves as “Palestinian”, want to destroy it far more than they want to have a state of their own. They could have had a state in ‘67, in 2000 and ‘08. It is utter chutzpah for any person or nation to tell Jews in Israel how to define themselves. It is delegitimisation to tell Israel how to accommodate a defeated entity which has no response to any situation except violence and delegitimisation of Israel is one form of antisemitism.

A Jewish minority had been in the land for thousands of years, but a Jewish majority had not. The real problems started with a flood of Jewish immigration that was carried out under the British occupation. Had the British not promised the Palestinian’s current homeland to the Jews for the declared purpose of re-establishing their ancient homeland, thus creating the “Jewish” state, we wouldn’t have this problem today. As it is, the Jewish majority can only be maintained as long as the displaced Palestinian’s ‘right of return’ is denied. Rejecting this ‘right of return’ in order to preserve a democratic majority for the Jews should be seen as a clear attempt to both legitimize and finalize the act of ethnic cleansing. That’s not Democracy.

Immediately after the fall of the Ottoman empire, the entire mandate of Palestine was under the threat of becoming a “Jewish” state. Rejection was natural. WWI placed the future of Palestine into the hands of the British occupation. The British then promised that land away like it was a prize to be handed out for those who helped in the war effort. Back then, this was all fairly normal, and without the ease of global communication we have today, acceptable meant something entirely different. Today, the history doesn’t look so good, and brings Israel’s “right” to exist into serious question. This is the angle I think should be pursued if Israel remains in contempt over the settlement issue, or continues to blame Palestine rather than admitting the injustice that has been forced onto the Palestinians through back to back occupations. Putting Britain in the spotlight might be more effective than keeping all the attention on Israel. It’s time to move forward.

“For years, virtually all attention has been focused on the question of a future Palestinian state, its borders and powers. As Israelis make plain by talking about the imperative of a Jewish state, and as Palestinians highlight when they evoke the refugees’ rights, the heart of the matter is not necessarily how to define a state of Palestine. It is, as in a sense it always has been, how to define the state of Israel.”

In other words—having dismissed the idea of Two States because now even Netanyahu and Hamas are mouthing the phrase only for international consumption—the issue then becomes the One State—Zionism and the nature of the state of Israel (and with it the settlements, occupation, and all the rest of its baggage), not obdurate Palestinians.

The fact remains that the average Israeli and Palestinian citizen would probably accept Two States—just not under Hamas or Likud/Beteinu.