318 · Yehudit Ronen
be recognized. Personally, as along as I am alive, I will never recognize
either an Israeli state or a Palestinian one.”^28
Other reasons for his persistent negation of the two-state solution in-
cluded his assertion that the area is too small to accommodate two coun-
tries. “It is like trying to put two bodies into one item of clothing or two
men wearing the same pair of trousers.”^29 The Libyan head of state also
claimed that two separate states “would come into conflict because the
land of each, they believe, forms part of the land of the other and each
mini-state would feel threatened by the other party.” Among other ob-
jections, Qadhafi further contended that the West Bank and Gaza are too
small to contain all the Palestinian refugees who would return and that
the fact that there are Arabs living in Israel and Jews living in the West
Bank precludes such a solution.^30
While clinging to his “Isratin” formula, Qadhafi avoided publicly call-
ing for the annihilation of the “Zionist entity” throughout 2005 (unlike
Iran’s president, who, in a series of vituperative speeches against Israel,
stated that “it must be wiped off the map”).^31 Qadhafi was anxious at this
time to maximize the beneficial normalization process with the West and
the United States in order to further the interests of his state and his lead-
ership position, aware that brandishing his flag of anti-Israel sentiment
would tarnish his shiny new reconciliatory and pragmatic image and, in
turn, damage his rehabilitation in the international community.
At the same time, however, the Libyan head of state found it important
to state in early 2006 that “I agree with America on everything but Iraq
and Palestine,” thus signalling for both external and internal consump-
tion that he had not removed the Arab Muslim cause, especially that of
the Palestinians, from his agenda.^32
Saif al-Islam’s New Rhetoric: Arab-Israeli Coexistence
and the Holocaust
Saif al-Islam has played an important role in drawing Libya into a new
era in its political history, satisfying his father’s dire need for fresh input
into the state’s leadership to present mainly to the outside world in order
to promote Libya’s interests in its challenging times at the turn of the
century. Trusting his son completely, Qadhafi gradually expanded Saif
al-Islam’s responsibilities, allowing him a great deal of room in Libya’s
dealings in diplomacy and with the international media. Indeed, being