'If annexation plans become concrete, Palestine will disappear'

Do you expect a breakthrough from the UN General Assembly?

No. I also consider the choice to hold it in New York a mistake. It would have been better to have it held in one of Israel's neighbouring countries. I want to reiterate, for the avoidance of any misunderstanding, that the world would be a better place without Hamas. But there are red lines that cannot be crossed, not even in the name of self-defence. The killing of thousands and thousands of Palestinian children is a stain on the soul of the Israeli people that I do not know if we will ever be able to erase.

And as for wiping out Hamas, as the Israeli government proclaims?

In Jewish tradition, there is a saying: the sword enters the world because either justice fails or does not arrive in time. Our sages did not worship the sword, they were realists. As long as there is injustice, as long as the occupation lasts, as long as people are expelled from their homes, as long as the trees on their land are uprooted, as long as they are robbed of their land, as long as there is psychological and physical violence, even if Hamas is completely eliminated, something similar or worse will arise.

And the idea of two states?

People must understand, they must know: Palestine is disappearing. For many years, to those who called the idea of two states-two peoples dead, I replied that it was premature to say so. Today I no longer answer like that, and not because I have become or have ever been against the two-state solution. But that goal is dead. Today we have to choose between living in a democratic state or one based on apartheid. Those who still believe in the two-state idea should put pressure on Israel to stop what is happening, starting with the expansion of settler influence and presence. For these are the nails that are missing to seal the coffin of the two-state idea. Assuming that coffin is not already sealed.