We are currently living in a period of geopolitical change, especially in the Middle East. The events of the last two and a half years, October 7 and its aftermath, have shaken, shocked, and galvanized many of us into both introspection and examination of previously deeply held beliefs.

Amos Oz (1939-2018), the Israeli author and peace activist, depicted the Jewish people of 1948 as a drowning man who had found a plank, the Land of Israel, to save himself. In this scenario, the drowning man is justified in saving himself by grabbing onto the plank even if it means pushing the other person on the plank, the Palestinians, aside a little. Critics of this metaphor note that the magnitude of the Nakba was more than just pushing the other aside a little. Oz often used this metaphor to explain the tragic nature of the conflict, demanding both sides recognize the other’s existence rather than aiming for complete elimination of the other’s presence, that is pushing the other off the plank completely.

Today however, given the reality of the current situation, the polarization of extremes, and the maximal demands expressed by both sides, the conflict has become all about “Pushing the other off the plank”.

One should examine the consequences, implications, and end state that such an approach will produce. Concurrently, this is being written as we mark two years and six months since October 7, 2023 – the worst and most traumatic day in Israel’s history. It also marks a point which can be seen as the end of the war and the start of a new externally imposed peace process with the return of the last deceased hostage. The resulting two and a half years of war have seen Israel achieve unprecedented tactical military successes while still lacking, and struggling with, a strategic solution for the ongoing 100-year conflict with the Palestinians. 

Following the Gaza War, Israel and the US attacked Iran, resulting in a five-week campaign which has ended in a tenuous two-week ceasefire after extensive bombing of Iran and Iranian retaliation with missiles and drones aimed at Israel and the surrounding Gulf States. Together with the Iran War, Hezbollah attacked Israel in isupport, shooting rockets and missiles into Northern Israel sending Israelis to the shelters yet again. Israel has started yet another campaign to invade and occupy South Lebanon for an indeterminate period, repeating the exact same failed strategy of dealing with threats from Lebanon with kinetic force.

 As a result of the ongoing wars, Israelis have spent more than the last two and a half years feeling threatened, unsafe, and in and out of bomb shelters as missiles, rockets, and drones have targeted the Jewish state. One can only imagine the harm that has been inflicted on the psyches of children and adults that will reverberate for decades to come both in Israel, Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon.

The fact is that approximately 15 million people reside in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – the area that was the former British Mandate for Palestine. About ten million of them have Israeli citizenship, with non-Jewish Israelis enjoying more rights than non-Israeli Palestinians, while lacking full equal rights with Jewish Israelis. There are slightly more non-Jews in the area meaning that despite all efforts to the contrary, including but not limited to financial and other incentives, promotion of Jewish immigration, and legislation designed to keep non-Jews (Palestinians) out, the total area controlled by Israel is still a Jewish minority state.

Some attempts have been made to cosmetically present the appearance of a Jewish majority state by the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, and the devolution of limited aspects of self-rule for Palestinian areas in the West Bank. Nonetheless, for all intents and purposes, the full area is under Israeli control for security, entry/exit, telecommunications, border controls, population registry, water rights and utilization, banking, currency, posts, and just about every aspect of state rule. It is impossible to draw an imaginary line, dividing the territory into two, where ostensibly on one side of the line there is a liberal democracy with full and equal rights for all, and on the other side of the line, there is a temporary military occupation which will end at some indeterminate date in the future.

As ex-South Africans, we are all too familiar with the attempts of the apartheid government to create Bantustans, nominally self-ruled areas for black South Africans pretending to be independent states. So too has Israel created 165 mini non-contiguous blocks of land in Area A of the West Bank in an attempt to claim that the Palestinians are self-ruled and not under Israeli rule. The reality is that Israel has full control over all of the West Bank, including Area A which contains the majority of the West Bank Palestinian population centers. 

This Israeli control over Areas A and B has been further extended with “illegal” settlement and in February 2026 the approval of measures deepening Israeli governance over the West Bank, particularly within Areas A and B. These steps, including revised land regulations and enhanced enforcement powers allow for increased settlement expansion and land acquisition in areas originally nominally under Palestinian Authority control. The changes include legalizing easier land purchases for settlers and increasing demolition authority over Palestinian construction, described by officials as “normalizing” life in the region, further expanding Israeli control and normalizing further settlement expansion.

The End of  the Green Line

The Green Line is the 1949 armistice border, established after Israel’s War of Independence, separating Israel from the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon until June 1967. Often called the “pre-1967 border,” it is named for the green ink used on maps and serves as a key, though debated, reference for a future Palestinian state. Initially, post June 1967, there was a clear distinction between Israel proper, the Israel to the West of the Green Line, and the occupied West Bank. Over time, the distinction between the two areas has grown divorced from reality. This state of affairs has existed for nearly 59 years – three times as long as the State of Israel existed without occupying and ruling over the West Bank. More than half a million Jewish settlers now reside in permanent settlements east of the Green Line, living as though they were west of it. East Jerusalem has been officially annexed to Israel’s sovereign territory with a further 300,000 Israeli Jews, and the West Bank has been annexed in practice. Most importantly, the claimed distinction between the two territories attempts to mask the fact that the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and perpetuating the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. All this leads to the conclusion that there is one regime governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a single organizing principle. In practice, one cannot actually find any indications of the historical border, the green line, in the West Bank.

As a result of settlements, annexation of Jerusalem, and the erasure of the green line, any prospect of a two-state settlement has receded from the political horizon, and while always a possibility, it becomes increasingly improbable with ongoing settlement expansion in all areas and the inexorable steps taken towards annexation. The two people are destined to share the same territory for the foreseeable future and in fact, the two are compelled to compete for and share the plank, to repeat the metaphor. However, lately it has become more and more apparent that Israel, especially in the guise of the current government, but increasingly so amongst a clear majority of Jewish opposition parties, that there is no intention of creating a second state and that Israels permanent borders are intended to be as they are today, including East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and, by reason of full control of the borders, Gaza.

However, there appears to be broad support across multiple segments of Israeli Jewish society, and especially in the wake of October 7, that the land cannot be shared, that it is a zero-sum game, and the only solution is to “Push the other off the plank”. This approach is further reinforced by the widespread perception, that “There are no innocents in Gaza” which is taken by many to include all Palestinians.

To “Push the other off the plank.”, to ensure either a Jewish majority or continued Jewish rule, it is necessary to implement one of the following:

An apartheid type administration whereby the pretense can be maintained that the other is not on the plank, but next to it.

Ethnic cleansing masked as encouragement to leave voluntarily.

Some combination of all the above.

While there are those who dream of other solutions that would effectively remove the Palestinians from the plank there is no realistic option that would be acceptable to all the parties. For example, a proposed federation with Jordan or Egypt, where Palestinians are given Jordanian or Egyptian citizenship. Neither Jordan, Egypt, nor the Palestinians are open to considering, let alone discussing such an idea. In short, it is a fantasy to think that any other solution, which would magically confer some external citizenship on Palestinians, is feasible.

There is no doubt that the actions of the current extremist Netanyahu-led government have, post October 7, 2023, resulted in a severe deterioration of Israel’s status in the world producing a pariah image, resulting in the beginning and deepening of arms, academic, cultural, and commercial boycotts, as well as the initiation of expulsions from cultural and sports organizations. This is tragically all too reminiscent of the status and relationship of the world with apartheid South Africa.

Concurrently with the deterioration of Israel’s status is the emigration of Israeli elites. In 2024 and 2025 more Israelis emigrated than new olim arrived in the country with an estimated total of 230,000 Israelis emigrating in the last three years. Those who emigrate tend to fall into one of two categories: Older retirees looking to maximize the return on their savings and investments by living out their retirement years outside of Israel. Young families who have the skills, knowledge, passports, connections, and abilities to gain employment and residence either in North America or Europe. The three sectors most impacted by the emigration of elites are medicine, high tech, and academia. It remains to be seen if the emigration of elites continues to grow in 2026. Anecdotally it would appear, from my own experience in Cyprus, that this is indeed the case. An interesting personal discovery is that of a ex senior commander of mine in the IDF, a general who left the army and became a politician, a minister for a while, and then retired. I recently learnt that he has bought an apartment in a complex above Paphos, Cyprus.

Implementation of any of the policies associated with “Pushing the other off the plank”, in whole or in part, will result in an Israel that is much poorer, a pariah expelled from international academic, cultural, scientific, and sporting arenas, unwelcome to visit, trade, and study in most countries of the world. A state plagued by an ever-increasing brain drain as elites rush to migrate to find safer, more prosperous havens for themselves and their families.

Ultimately such an Israel would find it difficult, if not impossible to marshal the economic and technological resources required to continue to maintain the IDF we see today. It would be far more difficult in such an Israel to maintain the technological and qualitative edge needed to protect the country. Added to that is the stark reality that Israel faces of not having enough conscripts to face the multiple concurrent security challenges presented by ongoing violent resistance in the West Bank, a hostile Gaza population, Hezbollah in the north, and multiple external threats.

When faced with current trends and realities, the only reasonable alternative I see is one of “sharing the plank” in a secular, democratic country of all its citizens. That will, necessarily, lead to a binational state with a Jewish minority. I see no other alternative if one wishes to maintain a substantial secure and prosperous Jewish presence in the Middle East.

To those who claim that a secular democratic country, of all its citizens, will result in an oppressive Islamist theocracy where Jews are at best tolerated and at worst are killed and expelled, I ask if they have such little faith in Israeli innovation and resourcefulness to design a transition away from a Jewish state where the rights, security and safety of every minority, including the Jews is protected.

I go further and claim that it is insulting to Israelis in general and the politicians in particular to assume that they are helpless and unable to negotiate a settlement with the Palestinians that would guarantee the safety and special status of Jews in a new political arrangement. It’s insulting to think that the innovative thinkers of the startup nation cannot find a creative way to settle the conflict with suitable guarantees for all. It’s insulting to all involved in the conflict to assume that a majority political dispensation would necessarily result in a fundamentalist theocracy ala Iran. It’s insulting to think that this is a zero-sum game where it’s either Jewish supremacy or Muslim supremacy with the worst possible outcome either way.

In short, it’s just plain insulting to every Israeli to think that a creative solution cannot be found for an equitable sharing of the land.

To “share the plank” equally, rather than attempt to “push the other off the plank”, there currently is only the option of a single, secular democratic state, of all its citizens. The option of continuing the status quo, not “sharing the plank”, is a forever war fueled by religion and fundamentalism, an Israel that is Sparta, destined to continually live by the sword with the resulting lack of personal and state security resulting in ongoing death and destruction. An Israel that will see a continued socio-economic decline due to a combination of elite flight and the exponential growth of the Haredi ultra-Orthodox population.  While there currently appears to be no prospect for a peaceful settlement, a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, one can only hope that at some time in the near future more rational, less extreme, and less fundamentalist leaders will emerge who will negotiate a single state settlement that will enable all parties to live securely in peace and prosperity.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)