The author A.B. Yehoshua became the latest leftist to openly wish for the United States to act against Israeli directly, in order to pressure the government to surrender land in Judea and Samaria for the good of an Arab state to be established on land Israel liberated from Jordanian occupation in the 1967 Six Day War. Speaking at a meeting of the Geneva Initiative over the weekend, Yehoshua, discussing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's visit to the U.S. last week, that “it's a shame that the President did not condition American aid to Israel on an end to the settlements.”
With that, Yehoshua joins other leftists who have openly expressed their desire for the U.S. to “come down hard” on Israel. For example, Larry Derfner, a well-known columnist who writes in English, recently wrote that the only way to push Netanyahu into making concessions is for the U.S. “to vote 'yes' on Palestine in the UN this September. That would change everything for everyone, and only for the better.”
Speaking at the Geneva Initiative meeting, Yehoshua said that “the settlements are the root of the problem. We cannot continue to hold onto the settlements for decades to come, to deny people their homeland and citizenship.
Among the members of the audience was a large contingent who had immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union countries. Turning to them, Yehoshua said that “we brought you and your families from Russia to ensure the Jewish majority in Israel, not to fight the Palestinians.”
Providing a different point of view, MK Yisrael Hasson (Kadima), who also participated in the event, said that he, Kadima, and the Geneva Initiative all agreed on the need for the “two-state solution. But we don't know what will happen in the future. If there is an uprising, the IDF will not kill demonstrators, but anyone who tries to 'invade' a place like Yitzhar will find people who are prepared to defend their homes.”