By Emily Beregovich
“What I am presenting here is only one side. You should be open and listen to the other side, because they have very strong arguments for annexation. So don’t be misled by my attempt to spread gospel, okay?,” said one of the former heads of the Israel Intelligence Agency (Mossad) Rolly Gueron.
Gueron presented information on the reality of the two-state solution he personally supports between Israel and Palestine in the SUBO building February 19. When polled by Mossad, Gueron said there was roughly as many people supportive of a one-state solution as there were of a two-state solution.
In a short exclusive with WBCR News,Gueron said, “It is not a question of good
or bad, it’s a choice between two evils, okay, the one-state solution and the two-
state solution…[A two-state solution] is less dangerous, because none of the options would be my fantasy. So it’s less dangerous to how we think we see the situation. Some other people will tell you exactly the opposite. So it’s the eye of the
beholder.”
“I grew up almost five years in a sort of a commune in Jaffa with Holocaust survivors from Poland, and a Palestinian couple. We managed to live very nicely,” he said. He also said Palestine, in the eyes of Israel’s government, is an “existential threat.”
The former Mossad chief said the main threats to Israel’s democracy and world standing also currently include Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas-rockets. The issue of the Palestinian conflict posed an existential threat because “God is involved very heavily in Middle Eastern affairs.”
A one-state solution, which he called a binational reality, would consist of the state population being 37 percent Muslim. That is not counting the population in Gaza. Gueron emphasized that if this happens, it was guaranteed that the eventual growth in the Muslim population would bring about the end of the Zionist movement, a Jewish majority in government, or a democratic state.
“According to polls that we were conducting in the last year or even more than that, we found out that something between 65-70% of the Israeli population lain general oppose annexation [of the West Bank],” he said.
In the meantime, Gueron said politicians are pushing for legislation sup-
porting the full annexation of the West Bank, including the blocs along the security fence. Whether or not this movement passes remains to be seen, due to the fact that both the Israeli and Palestinian governments agree that the blocs will remain untouched in the event of a one-state solution.
The full annexation would cost Israel $4.1 billion in education, $4.5 billion in healthcare, $8.13 billion in social welfare, and $558 million in defense, totaling $14.9 billion annually. Israel would also be obligated to offer security measures, policy clarifications, and civil-economic measures.
The two-hour event was hosted by Brooklyn College’s United 4 Israel club, and approximately 40 students in total attended the event. Among them were members of the Brooklyn College Republicans Club (BCYR) and the Brooklyn College Student Union (BCSU).