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Friends,

Could this be the end of the Bibi era? Beats me. Could he be back one day? Maybe--the new government has not yet taken power, and anything can happen. He could be back by the time you're reading this.

What changes will we see under Naftali Bennett? I don't know. The only unity in the new coalition, as Michael Koplow writes, is "its conviction that Netanyahu must go."

Bennett opposes Palestinian statehood and supports settlement expansion, but he will be constrained by his coalition, the Biden administration, and perhaps reality. Explaining his shift in views on becoming prime minister, Ariel Sharon is purported to have said, paraphrasing an Israeli song lyric, things you see from here, look different from over there. 

Let's hope it looks different to Bennett too. Israel has no partner for peace on the Palestinian side. And for a long time, neither have the Palestinians on the Israeli side. But the problem is Israel's problem. Israel has to find a way to get to a two-state solution for Israel's sake. Even if you believe the Palestinians are 100% at fault, even if you believe that Israel is 100% sincere and every Palestinian 100% wants to destroy Israel, the fact remains that the alternatives to a two-state solution are one state that is democratic but not Jewish or one state that is Jewish but not democratic. Both are terrible outcomes.

Israel cannot unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank. We saw in Gaza what would happen--thousands of rockets. A two-state solution must be a negotiated solution that safeguards Israel's security, which is why Israel cannot end the occupation by itself even if it wanted to. Both sides must want to and be willing to make major compromises.

But Israel can unilaterally preserve prospects for a two-state solution so that when the day comes, whether tomorrow, next year, in ten years, or 20 years, when Israel and the Palestinians are ready for peace, peace will be possible. If Israel keeps expanding settlements in the West Bank, then as a practical matter, a two-state solution will become impossible, and that's the end of the Israel we know.

People who deny that the Palestinians are a people with legitimate aspirations who deserve a state and call for a Greater Israel consisting of what is now Israel and the West Bank are dooming Israel to a one-state reality that would end the classic Zionist dream.

People who deny that Jews are a people with legitimate aspirations who deserve a state and proclaim "Palestine shall be free from the river to the sea" are calling not for an end to the occupation but for the end of Israel. Free of who? Jews? Free of what? the State of Israel? (The river is the Jordan River and the sea is the Mediterranean Sea, between which is all of the West Bank an Israel.)

The competing national narratives are both true and irreconcilable, which means the paths forward are either denial of the other side's narrative and perpetual conflict or two states for two peoples, each on part of the land it claims for itself. Neither side has to deny its history or accept the other's narrative, but both have to live with it.

Peace requires a triumvirate of leaders in the United States, Israel, and among the Palestinians with the political will and desire to make peace, similar to the combination of Carter, Begin, and Sadat that achieved the peace deal with Egypt. The best we can do until then is encourage all sides not to make the situation worse and to take whatever confidence building measures that they can, because both sides need a two-state solution to realize their national aspirations. As Tamara Cofman Wittes points out, what we saw during the Gaza conflict within pre-1967 Israel was a glimpse of what a one-state solution could look like.

According to this thread from Eylon Levy, Bennett might adopt Micah Goodman's "shrink the conflict" approach, which could be the best we can realistically hope for in the near-term. If you're looking for some summer reading, Goodman's Catch-67 would be a great place to start. Goodman summarized the challenge in this article: Most Israelis "believe that Israel cannot guarantee its Jewish national majority if it continues to control Judea and Samaria and, at the same time, that Israel would struggle to guarantee its national security if it withdrew from Judea and Samaria."

Goodman continues: "The belief in national freedom is the beating heart of Zionism, so controlling another nation is not a Zionist act. The belief in the Jewish people’s right to live in security is equally integral to Zionism, so endangering the Jewish people’s security would not be a Zionist act either. That is the catch in which Israelis now find themselves trapped. Their ancestors did not go to Israel to rule over another nation, but neither did they go there to be threatened by another nation."

Goodman then outlines not a final status solution, but eight steps to shrink the conflict that might get us closer, which Levy summarizes as "doing everything possible to improve the Palestinians' lives consistent with Israel's security. It's an alternative to attempts to solve the conflict or to manage it" that could create conditions that will make it easier to solve the conflict or manage it.

Will Bennett move in this direction? We don't know. If he had his way, he'd probably expand settlements or even annex. But Israeli coalition politics might not let him have his way. This week marks the 54th anniversary of the Six Day War, and at some point a temporary occupation will more accurately be termed a permanent occupation, and that will be the point of no return.

The U.S.-Israel relationship will remain strong and might become stronger. Unlike previous prime ministers, Netanyahu openly identified with the Republican Party, and he all but endorsed Mitt Romney for president.

The good news (the glass this newsletter drinks from is always half full) is that, as Shalom Lipner and William F. Wechsler write, this new "coalition is very much well placed to redress the fallout of Netanyahu’s partisan approach by reorienting the U.S.-Israel relationship back toward its bipartisan heritage."

Regardless of any policy changes under Israel's new government, new leadership may itself improve relations between the two allies. Or Bennett could openly side with right-wing allies in the U.S. and widen the partisan divide. We'll see. In the meantime, the Biden administration reiterated its commitment to replenishing Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, and the Democratic-controlled Congress will support this request when it comes.

Israel's new governing coalition includes, for the first time in decades, an Arab party (Ra'am). Arabs have substantially equal rights in pre-1967 Israel, but that's never been the issue. The issue is the inequality on the West Bank, and the question is whether the new government will move to diminish or increase prospects for a two-state solution. We'll see.

Heart of a Nation. Rabbi Irwin Kula writes about a new organization, Heart of a Nation, that fills the idealogical gaps some of us have noticed. Check it out.

One party is attacking the other over imaginary House votes. By now most of us know that the Iron Dome vote Republicans claimed to be outraged about never occurred. But this won't be the last time they'll attempt this stunt, so we need to understand how it happened.

Not surprisingly, none of the outlets that falsely reported the vote have admitted their error. Jonathan Last writes that "responsible media will sometimes get things wrong. Mostly, they self-correct. And people expect them to be right. Conservative media will often get things wrong. They rarely self-correct. And no one expects any different from them."

If you want to do your friends a favor, urge them to consume news responsibly.

Last week's newsletter.

ICYMI. Why was this round of Gaza violence different?

Tweet of the Week. Sarah Lazarus.

Twitter Thread of the Week. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ).

Video Clip of the Week. Patrick Stewart Soliloquy on B.

Upcoming Events. Confused about what's going on in Israel? Dana Goldsmith Gordon and I are hoping to resume our event series in person at some point over the summer, but until then, I'd love for you to join me and Martin Jay Raffel on Zoom at an event moderated by Jill Zipin and Dana, sponsored by Politics with Dana and Steve and Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania on Wednesday, June 23, at 6:30pm CT. It's free, but RSVP is required to get the Zoom link.

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