On Sep 1, 2014, at 7:31 PM, Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org> wrote:
> Though it should be noted that Sheizaf does not believe that they are really serious, and believes that so long as Israeli does not face significantly increased pressure, the choice of the Israeli political system will continue to be “maintain the status quo while trying to minimize its costs," and that if Israel ever faced enough pressure to force it to abandon the status quo, Israeli Jews would decisively choose "two state solution" over "one state solution that grants rights to Palestinians."
Conceivably. But it’s also conceivable that granting the Palestinians formal citizenship would see their demands for equal rights channelled and absorbed into the Israeli electoral system, encouraging their gravitation towards parties like Balad and even Labour. As we know, granting democratic rights (to vote, to form unions) is a two edged sword: it opens the door to modest improvements within the system at the same time it saps more militant resistance outside of it. Ruling classes often choose to institutionalize disruptive and costly conflict in this way, and it may well underlie the thinking of that segment of the Zionist right cited by Sheizaf. I wouldn’t rule out any scenario.