Former MK says Gaza should be split in two: South for war, north for peace

• Published date: 26 April 2024
• Author: PAMELA PELED
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Wilf ultimately harnessed her ferocious intellect and prodigious energy to tackle the complications of our contentious region. She chose to become a "roving ambassador" for Israel; wrote seven books. including the recent bestseller (with Adi Schwartz) The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace; volunteered with Yossi Beilin; and ran in the primaries of the Labor Party, where she worked with Shimon Peres. In 2009, she was voted into the Knesset, where she served until that government fell in 2013. Having learned from Peres that "it's not necessary to wait for official nominations to do the job," she has become a prolific and fresh voice for peace and stability in the region, where her out-of-the-box solutions for intractable problems are steadily gaining traction

Wilf's watershed moment happened in 2000 after PLO chairman Yasser Arafat refused prime minister Ehud Barak's offer of a Palestinian state – an offer that was met with the violence of an intifada. Why would a Palestinian leader turn down a state, after repeatedly claiming that ending the "occupation" was the apex of his hopes and dreams? "I realized that for us, a two-state solution means one Jewish, and one Arab," she explains. "But for Arafat and also today, the Palestinians mean one Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza, and the other in Israel, where all Palestinian refugees have the right of return, demographically eventually turning Israel into a Palestinian state, too."

Yet Wilf believes that there is no alternative to having the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza come under another sovereignty, even Palestinian. For Israel to stay democratic, she insists that it can't remain in the West Bank. She advocates a Jewish Israel on 80% of the land, with 80% of the population Jewish. She doesn't focus on future governance of a Palestinian state but is unequivocal on the parameters: Palestinians must give up the right of return; recognize Israel; and declare that after the establishment of their own state, they will have no further demands.

"I am a proponent of Constructive-Specificity," she says. "We need to discuss all the issues and reach conclusions." This is opposed to the Constructive-Ambiguity principle, which aims to build trust by a general fudging of difficult stumbling blocks, with the vague hope that things will work out. "That approach failed," she declares. "We thought, for example, that the Arabs would bargain the Right of Return...