Gershon Baskin writes: John Kerry said the “A word” and was then forced to apologize.

I don’t have to apologize.

I repeat Kerry’s exact words and believe in every single one of them: “A unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens – or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.”

If the two-state solution is dead, as it seems it might be, Israel will become a unitary state with two populations, one with privileges and political rights and the other living in Bantustans, surrounded, isolated from each other, with no real control over their lives, denied their political rights. If Israel does not end its occupation over the Palestinian people, sooner, not later, Israel will become a new form of apartheid.

No, not apartheid like South Africa was, but a new type of political discrimination, forced separation, with separate legal systems, separate roads and more. One society will be the masters and the other the servants. To a large extent this already describes the reality. We already have a unitary state reality, and it has existed for 46 years. With no real hope for political change that will bring about the end of the Israeli occupation over the Palestinian people, this can no longer be thought of as a temporary situation over disputed territories. With annexation or without it, Israel is and has been in full control over the territories for the past 46 years. [Continue reading…]