Under the above title, I was invited to a “conversation between Ambassador Dore Gold and Rabbi Joseph Telushkin” in West Palm Beach, but there was no “conversation” except a very poor interview in which Rabbi Telushkin asked Ambassador Gold apparently invited questions, and the answers were quite accordingly.  The farce ended with a question from the audience about the relevance of this interview to the title of the evening.

I fear that the real answer to the above question is negative, and there will be no peace between Israel and the Arab world, at least in the predictable future.

There can be six theoretical solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian problem:

1. Throwing the Jews to the sea;

2. Throwing the Arabs to the desert;

3. Two states for two peoples;

4. One state for two peoples with equal civil and political rights to Jews and Arabs, as well;

5. The same, but without (or with limited) civil and political rights to the Arabs;

6. No solution.

In order to reach any solution to the problem there must be a majority of at least 51% both in Israel and in the Palestinian community, but in the predictable future there is no chance for such an occurrence.

The first two above-mentioned solutions cannot be considered, at all, because nobody will accept them either in Israel for the first solution or by everyone else for the second one.

The two-state solution involves some “territorial arrangements”, i.e. giving away some of the Promised Land, a thing which many in Israel will never accept, either for National reasons or security reasons, or both. 

The one-state solution, with equal rights for all, may lead to an Arab majority in a few decades, a thing that is completely opposite to the idea of a Jewish state.

The one-state solution, without (or with limited) equal rights, will lead to an apartheid state which doesn’t fit a democratic state, and the Jewish people, who suffered discrimination for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years cannot allow itself such an attitude to others.

Moreover, a majority of 51% is good only on paper, because the minorities in both communities will wage war against their own respective leaderships. 

So, the sixth solution, which is no solution, needs no majority, no vote, and no decision. It is just there.

How do both communities, the Jews and the Arabs, cope with this situation, in order to show their “anxiety” for peace, while they know that peace is improbable in the foreseeable future?  They just speak, either as peace-seekers or as war-mongers, either for the whole world or for “internal consumption”.

This very point brings us back to the “conversation” between Ambassador Gold and Rabbi Telushkin:  As they could not bring any tidings of peace to Israel or the world, they could only speak, and say nothing.

And this is my answer to the prospects for peace in the Middle East, in the next generations.

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