Drinking the Sea at Gaza, by Amira Hass, was one of the first books I read about Israel and Palestine. The One State Solution, by Virginia Tilley, is the latest.

Drinking the Sea at Gaza:
Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege
by Amira Hass

It was over four years ago that I started reading about American built Israeli f-16s and attack helicopters bombing the civilians of Palestine. That was sort of my "what the fuck" moment about Israel/Palestine. I started reading about what was going on. This was one of the first books I read and is still one of the best. One of the problems I ran into right away was the inability of anyone to believe anything a Palestinian had to say so I started looking for writings by Israeli Jews. Amira Hass is an Israeli Jew whose parents were holocaust survivors. She was a reporter for the Israeli paper Haaretz. Hass was assigned to cover the situation in Gaza as the Oslo Accord was implemented. She took the radical approach of moving to Gaza to see first hand. What a concept. About that same time I was emailing an Israeli about how she saw things. I asked her if she actually knew any Palestinians. She had only ever met one. It's amazing how ignorant Israelis are of Palestinians. From Amazon:

In recent years, several Israeli scholars, journalists, and even a few individuals with ties to the Israeli military have written critical and pathbreaking books on the degradation of life in the Palestinian refugee camps and other areas under Israeli control. This book, written by an Israeli journalist for the daily Haaretz, belongs to that category of work. The author lived in the Gaza Strip and personally observed the events she so eloquently relates in this highly readable and lucid book. She describes in agonizing detail the hardship and deprivation experienced by ordinary Palestinians as they live their lives under Israeli rule. As the author points out, the unrelenting difficulties and humiliations experienced by ordinary Palestinians have not changed since the Oslo peace process and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Stories and moving testimonials gathered by the author add a much-needed human dimension to the Palestinian tragedy. Highly recommended for all readers interested in the future of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

This book ends prior to the beginning of the second Intifada. This is a must read. Amira Hass now lives in the West Bank and still writes for Haaretz.

The One-State Solution:
A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock
by Virginia Tilley

Israel has never had any intention of allowing a Palestinian State. But Israel can't get rid of the Palestinians. They won't go away no matter how bad Israel makes it for them and world opion won't allow the ethnic cleansing that many Israelis would like to see. The Israelis call it "transfer". Israel has continued to steal land from the Palestinians to build illegal settlements. The settlements, and the Jews only roads that support them, have divided the West Bank up into non-contiguous bits of land for the Palestinians. There is no way for there to be a viable Palestinian State because of the Israeli facts on the ground. That is as the Israelis intended. Sharon has said that the future of the Palestinians is a reservation or a Bantustan under complete Israeli military control. The problem is that, in not too many years, there will be more Palestinians than Jews in Israel/Palestine and they will want the vote. Quite a conundrum Israel has. From Amazon:

The One-State Solution demonstrates that Israeli settlements have already encroached on the occupied territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the extent that any Palestinian state in those areas is unviable. It reveals the irreversible impact of Israel’s settlement grid by summarizing its physical, demographic, financial, and political dimensions. Virginia Tilley explains why we should assume that this grid will not be withdrawn —or its expansion reversed—by reviewing the role of the key political actors: the Israeli government, the United States, the Arab states, and the European Union. Finally, the book addresses the daunting obstacles to a one-state solution—including major revision of the Zionist dream but also Palestinian and other regional resistance—and offers some ideas about how those obstacles might be addressed.

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Tilley lays out the recent history and states the problem very well. She also proposes some solutions and processes. It's just the beginning. But it is clear that there will not be two states. There will be only one.