Trump's Deal of the Century, if adopted, would have ended the Palestinian right to self-de­termination. Palestinians in Israel are treated as second-class citizens, in the occupied territ­ories - where settlers have free reign - virtually as slaves. The situation of the Palestinians in Gaza is intolerable. Intriguingly, there are compelling options that do respect international law.

Arguably, Israel is not acting like a loyal American ally. It did not shy away from an attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. And several sources hint that the Israeli Secret Service may have been in­volved in 9/11 and in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the US president who in 1963 was em­broiled in a bitter conflict with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion over Israel's nuclear weapons programme.

For the author, the Zionist project is a dead end. Israel's right to exist is not at all in jeopardy. A state that entertains two legal systems is an apartheid state. An unlivable complex of Israeli-controlled bantustans is not a Palestinian state within the meaning of international law. A binational solution in which Jews and Palestinians join hands is a win for Israel. It may not be a purely Jewish state, but don't most of us live in multi-ethnic and multicultural societies?

If things are not headed in that direction, the country will succumb to socio-economic and demo­graphic problems, and/or evidence of Israel's involvement in JFK's assassination will be decisive.