To: Les H who wrote (49288 ) 12/6/2025 10:51:22 AM From: Les H Respond to One State, Brought to You by the IDF Hanin Majadli , Haaretz, December 4, 2025Recent online postings have cropped up, featuring an army initiative calling on soldiers and civilians to visit archeological sites and outposts in the West Bank, some of which are under the control of the Palestinian Authority. The soldier pitching the ad turns to the viewer and asks: Haven't popped the question yet? We've found a few places in the area where you can take your girlfriend on a date. You can propose to her, too, as long as you're already there. How romantic, recommendations for touring occupied land along with political-religious propaganda. The purpose of these videos is to cement the link between Israelis and different parts of the country. The IDF is promoting one state, called Israel, stretching from the river to the sea. There are no more 1967 borders or a Green Line; there are no occupied territories or borders. There is one big "space," called Israel. The military has stopped concealing what it's been fostering for years: one regime, one sovereign, a civil government for Jews and a military one for Palestinians. But the harsh truth is that this campaign reveals nothing new about the army. It repeatedly reveals the nature of the liberal center in Israel. This camp mutters "two states" like an empty mantra, only so that it can live in peace with the convenience of the occupation. These people recite "diplomatic solution" in the morning, only to deliver their children as guards protecting the settlements in the evening. They watch this IDF video – one that romanticizes the settlements while turning apartheid into an attraction – and nothing moves inside them. Nor will it. The liberal center in Israel still harbors an inclination to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, a tendency that bestows total calm upon it. These beliefs hold that Israel is both Jewish and democratic, and that "correcting" the occupation is a matter of political choice rather than an essential one. For them, the occupation beginning in 1967 was but a momentary deviation from the path, not a foundational element of the Zionist project. That is why they believe it will always be possible to get a grip and get out of the territories, returning to being a small, normal country trying to survive in a hostile Middle East. After two years of genocide, this imaginary idea has remained almost entirely unchanged. On the contrary: it has become a defense mechanism. Even now, when the army itself is saying out loud what Palestinians have been saying for decades, they keep adhering to their ethical fantasy. On Tuesday, the UN General Assembly adopted two resolutions calling for the end of the occupation in the West Bank and the Golan Heights . The official Israeli response: The General Assembly is disconnected from reality. Israel will not return to the 1967 borders and will not abandon the Golan. Not now, not ever. And the liberal center? It believes that when Benjamin Netanyahu is replaced, things will change. I once asked someone: At what point will you begin to see reality as it is, and not as you insist on imagining it? It turns out that the scenario that frightens the liberal camp most is not the occupation, but the opposite possibility: one equal state, in which Palestinians and Jewish-Israelis live under one democratic regime, without ethnic superiority and without Jewish privilege. It is precisely this idea, consisting of reconciliation and reciprocal historical recognition, with a democracy free of ethnic superiority and Jewish privilege, that chills their blood. Now, when the IDF is promoting a de facto single state, based on apartheid and not on equality, à la South Africa, perhaps it will be easier for the liberal camp to accept the reality it so fears. Perhaps this move will force them to look in the mirror and see who they truly are – not who they love to pretend to be. One State, Brought to You by the IDF - Opinion - Haaretz.com
