Somebody will want to strive for the amalgamation of the two states into one? Go ahead. Somebody will think that the two-state solution is good forever? Why not? Somebody will think, like me, that the two states will move gradually, with mutual consent all along the way, towards a confederation or federation? Welcome.

(At our very first meeting in 1982, Yassir Arafat spoke with me about a Benelux solution, like the one that existed for some time between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg-Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and perhaps even Lebanon. He continued to talk about this until the end.)

Experience proves that the classic national state is here to stay formally, everyone under his own flag, while in practice many of its functions are being transferred to super-national structures, like the European Union.

(By the way, when the idea of uniting Europe was first aired, many people wanted to create the United States of Europe, on the American model. Charles de Gaulle warned against ignoring national feelings. He called for a "Europe des patries," a Europe based on national states. Fortunately, his view prevailed, and now life does the rest.)

Something like this, I assume, will in the end happen here, too. But for now, we must treat the immediate problem. We have before us an injured person, bleeding profusely. The bleeding has to be stopped and the wound has to be healed before we can treat the roots of the disease.

Summing up, this is my opinion:

The situation is terrible (as always), but we are progressing nevertheless.

True, on the surface the situation is depressing and shocking: the settlements are getting bigger, the wall is getting longer, the occupation is causing untold injustices every day.

Perhaps it is the advantage of age: today, at the age of 83,1 am able to look at things in the perspective of a much longer time span.

Because under the surface, things are moving in the opposite direction. All the polls prove that the decisive majority of the Israeli public is resigned to the existence of the Palestinian people and is resigned to the necessity of a Palestinian state. The government recognized the PLO yesterday and will recognize Hamas tomorrow. The majority has more or less accepted that Jerusalem must become the capital of the two states. In ever widening circles, there is the beginning of a recognition of the narrative of the other nation.

There is a worldwide consensus on the two-state solution, which has been reached by way of elimination: in reality, there is no other. But

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