TEL AVIV, September 13, 2009 (WAFA)- Time to poll Israelis on continuing occupation, wrote  Gideon Levy in the Israeli daily Haartez.

This charade really has to stop. Forty-two years into the Israeli occupation, it's time to find out once and for all, without caveats or reservations, what Israelis actually want. Governments deceive us, one after another, as with generation after generation of a seemingly apathetic public, Levy said.

 Now we have a prime minister who talks about a two-state solution and simultaneously works to undermine any chance of realizing it. No one knows what he, or we, are striving for, other than his own survival.

“The prime minister that preceded him made even more far-reaching, imaginary compromises, while simultaneously building up the settlements and leading us into two unnecessary wars. Another prime minister offered the skies to Yasser Arafat, and built 1,000 housing units in the West Bank alone.” Levy said by adding: “ The settlements have blossomed and grown under every single Israeli government, absorbing colossal budgets, while settler leaders proclaim the public is with them. It's difficult to say whether they've been right or wrong, because the public has been as deceitful as the governments. In surveys, most of it says it supports the two-state solution, but at the same time it votes for right-wing, centrist or pseudo-leftist parties that have no intention whatsoever of ending the occupation.”

Levy called for the people opinion by: “ We don't need Barack Obama, we don't need Mahmoud Abbas, we don't even need Netanyahu: Let the people speak, and then we'll see who dares defy them, If Israel had a strong, determined leader - who proposed a clear choice to his voters between two states or one state, without any middle ground - elections would suffice. But Israel does not and never had such a leader.”

“True, the charade can continue even after a referendum, which is why the question must be razor-sharp: Do we continue the occupation, all of the occupation, yes or no? If yes, then yes, if no, then no.” Levy asked.

 At the end Levy said, Without a referendum, any leader can go on deceiving, and the public can maintain its smug indifference. With the stopwatch of occupation ticking incessantly, the time has come to produce this doomsday weapon, because doomsday is very near indeed. Very soon, if not already, we'll be past the point of referenda and sentenced to live forever in a racist, bleeding, forever warring bi-national apartheid state. The government won't want the referendum and the Knesset won't like it; this is why the call must come from elsewhere - from the parched throats of the last Israelis, left and right, who still want to know what on earth we want and where we are going.