Patricia DeGennaro says in her most recent posting that the current situation between Israel and the Palestinians is "unsustainable." I believe she is correct, which prompts the obvious question: where is this conflict headed?

Avraham Burg clearly believes that Israel is headed for serious trouble. Ditto Ehud Olmert, who has said that if there is no two-state solution, Israel will "face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished." In other words, Israel will end up as an apartheid state if the Palestinians do not get a viable state of their own.

There is not going to be a two-state solution anytime soon, and maybe never. The New York Times reports today that Benjamin Netanyahu, who is deeply opposed to allowing the Palestinians to have a viable state, is likely to win the upcoming Israeli election, and that his Likud party's list of candidates is well to his right. Indeed, it includes Moshe Feiglin, who "says that there is no Palestinian people and that there will never be a Palestinian state, and that Israel will hold onto everything it now has." But even if Tzipi Livni and her Kadima party win the election, there still would be no agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. As Burg makes clear in his book, today's Israelis are a hard-nosed lot who have contempt for the Palestinians and do not trust them enough to give them a state of their own. And he sees this situation getting worse, not better, over time.

So, if there is no two-state solution and Israel continues building a Greater Israel by expanding the settlements and road networks in the West Bank and keeping the Palestinians in Gaza locked up in a giant cage, where does Israel end up? What is the happy ending to this story?

It seems to me that there is no happy ending. Greater Israel will either have to engage in massive ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians to remain a democratic and Jewish state, or it will become an apartheid state, as Olmert predicted. I don't think there are any other options, save for a democratic bi-national state. But that would mean the end of the Zionist dream, since the Palestinians will soon outnumber the Jews in Greater Israel. In short, it appears that Israel is pursuing a disastrous set of policies in the Occupied Territories, and there is likely to be big trouble ahead. Of course, this is what Burg is saying. The Zionist dream is in serious danger of turning into a nightmare.

What I don't understand is why Israel's supporters in the Diaspora aren't speaking up about this situation. Why isn't Burg's book a national best seller? Why isn't it generating a huge amount of discussion here in the United States, where the Holocaust is: taught in schools across the country; popularized in movies and books; and frequently discussed in the media? Why haven't Olmert's remarkable comments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israeli foreign policy more generally led to a serious public debate about Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories? After all, these two men are not goys like Jimmy Carter or Steve Walt or me, who many Jews see (incorrectly) as wolves in sheep's clothing; they are Israelis with impeccable pedigrees and their roots are on the political right no less. They are sounding the alarm bells and hardly anybody seems to be listening, or if they are listening, they don't seem to care much about what Burg and Olmert have to say. I don't get it.

I can understand why the Christian Zionists - at least most of them - are silent. They favor a Greater Israel and don't give a hoot whether Israel expels the Palestinians or becomes an apartheid state. They want Israel to control every square millimeter of Palestine, because they believe that it will facilitate the "Second Coming," not because they think it is good for Israel, which it is not.

But American Jews who feel a deep attachment to Israel are a different matter. Why don't they see that Israel is in serious trouble and that the situation is likely to get worse, not better? Why don't they understand that time is short and that it is imperative to act sooner rather than later? Why don't they understand that it would make eminently good sense to encourage the incoming Obama administration to put significant pressure on both Israel and the Palestinians to reach a settlement, and that if that does not happen and Israel is left to its own devices, the Jewish state will face a grim future. Why don't they understand that it is going to be increasingly difficult for them to defend Israel in the years ahead, mainly because the internet, and globalization more generally, make it impossible to hide what Israel has done to the Palestinians in the past and what it continues to do in the absence of a two-state solution? In short, why don't they see that it is in Israel's interest and their own interest to champion a two-state solution?

Maybe I am missing something here. Maybe the current situation is sustainable over the long term and Burg, Olmert, Carter, Walt, and others are misguided alarmists who don't understand that there is a magic formula after all. If so, it would be helpful - at least to me - if the defenders of Greater Israel would explain the happy ending to this story, and also explain why there is little reason to engage with Burg's important book.

tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/11/why_isnt_burgs_book_a_national/