The two-state absurdity

One hilarious scene in the 1963 classic film, “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” has Sid Caesar hacking away, for hours, at a heavy metal door that was inadvertently shut on him and his wife while they were shopping at a hardware store, leaving them helplessly trapped in the basement. Begged by his wife to give it one last try, he takes the sledgehammer, whacks it as hard as he can and ends up falling from the collapsed steps, which have caught on fire. Laying disheveled in the rubble, he says to his wife, Monica: “Let’s forget about the door now!” 

This is almost a perfect allegory of the more than 75-year attempt at bringing about a two-state solution in Israel – one for Jews and one for Arabs.

The first attempt was made in 1947 when it was introduced through the United Nations Partition Plan. The Jewish State would consist of “the fertile Eastern Galilee, the Coastal Plain, stretching from Haifa to Rehovot and most of the Negev Desert, including Eilat. In all, this would comprise a territory of 14,100 square kilometers or 56%.”

The Arab state “was to have a territory of 11,100 square kilometers (about 4,285 square miles) or 42%, including “the central and part of western Galilee with the town of Acre (Acco), the hill country of Samaria and Judea, part of Jaffa and the Ashdod region, encompassing what is now the Gaza Strip as well as a section of desert along the Egyptian border.

Not a bad deal for the Arabs, considering that a huge chunk of the Jewish homeland, per the scriptures, as well as history, was being allotted to them by nations who thought this was the best way to solve the dilemma.

Boycotting the plan, the Arab leadership went on to reject the offer, as well as any subsequent compromises of land division. This decision has remained unchanged over the course of 75 years, during which countless plans were made, among which were the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Gaza Disengagement of 2005 and the 2008 Ehud Olmert offer, just to name a few. 

In short, a two-state solution, as it’s been called, could have been operative for as long as Israel has been a sovereign nation but, nonetheless, has failed to materialize. The absurdity is that even after the tragic events of Oct. 7, there are still some people who are delusional enough to believe that the idea has not suffered a fatal blow. It has, and here’s why.

Today, everyone knows that terror groups, such as Hezbollah, which controls Lebanon and Syria, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Hamas, which governs Gaza, are all funded and supported by Iran, whose Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, when recently speaking about Israel, stated, “The only thing we have in common is that neither of us believes in a two-state solution.”

Tehran is now using the Israel/Hamas war to, yet again, threaten the survival of the Jewish state as well as U.S. military assets in the region. These threats came by way of the foreign minister’s speech at the Doha Forum on Monday, warning that “at any moment, there is a possibility of a big explosion in the region, one not controllable by any party.”

The death of a two-state solution is so obvious, when considering that Iran has supported Hamas’ Oct. 7 plan to invade Israel in order to initiate a full-scale war, while other Iranian proxies join the fight to eventually rid the region of its Jewish population. “From the river to the sea” does not leave any room for the possibility of two states. 

And what was the justification for Oct. 7? According to the Iranian foreign minister, it was “the direct result of the creation of Israel 75 years ago…on occupied Palestinian land.”

So, there it is! All the years of planning, strategizing, offering creative compromises, and giving up precious land were for naught! Because the Arab position believes that the Jews never had any right to the land they claimed was theirs. What a waste of everyone’s time, resources and money! But, at least, we have finally figured out that no more energy should be exerted on what we now know is a non-starter.

It’s only too bad that it took us over 75 years to reach the conclusion that, without a willing partner, no deal can ever be made. But while we’re on the subject of finally getting the message, here’s another one that might be good to acknowledge. It’s never a good idea to try to carve out an agreement with ruthless terrorists of which Hamas fully qualifies, despite Iran’s foreign minister claiming they are a “liberation movement against the occupation.”

It’s already been established that Iran does not want two states, refuses to recognize Israel as a sovereign country, and accuses Israel of forcibly displacing Gazans, despite Hamas’ actions, which have necessitated the evacuation of their citizens. Finally, they point to Israel’s killing of Hamas leaders as a disproportionate force, since civilian casualties have resulted, due to the systematic use of their people as human shields.

In fact, it was at the Doha Forum that Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh stated: “Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian mosaic and must be part of the ‘day after’ plan for Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem.” The insanity is that he is not only advocating for the safety and preservation of these savage terrorists, but he is actually suggesting they go on to govern and rule over the Palestinian people who have now been forced to leave their homes, suffer unemployment, lack of food and other critical services due to the lunatic Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who has brought about a hell-on-earth nightmare for everyone – Jew and Arab alike. 

This is the type of deranged madmen with whom Israel has been encouraged to seek peace ever since she became the Jewish homeland. Now that a clear picture of what we’ve been up against has been provided, for all the world to see, there can no longer be any delusion or fantasy that a two-state solution will usher in a utopia, guaranteeing prosperity, security and peace, which has long been sought by the world’s nations. The masks have finally been removed, and the aspirations exposed. It’s the whole pie or none of it.

So can we, once and for all, agree that this door is no longer an option at which to keep hacking away? Because we, too, might find ourselves, in the midst of the debris, nearly knocked out from trying to sledgehammer our way of forcefully opening a door which never really existed.