Reviving the two-state solution: lessons from past negotiations

hello everyone welcome uh I am Gabriela Giger the national chair of Canadian friends of peace now uh Welcome to our webinar today with schlomo benami our organization is the Canadian partner to peace now Shalom shav which is Israel's leading peace movement and which promotes the two-state solution to the Israeli palestin Ian conflict you can find out more about us at our website at peace nowan can.org we really hope you will consider supporting us with a donation which you can do via our website just go to the Donate page we rely entirely on donations from people like you our webinar today will run for 75 minutes so until a quarter after 1 Eastern Time the last 30 minutes is reserved for audience questions please type your questions at any time using the Q&A feature at the bottom of your screen please make your question as concise as you can our webinar will is being recorded and will be posted to our website for this webinar we are offering French translation captions to view the translation please click the captions option on the bottom of your Zoom screen and enable the translation toggle and select your language of choice if you have a problem put your question in the q&as and our M administrator will try to help you we are honored to have as our guest today schlomo benami a former Israel foreign minister and Diplomat and a very esteemed historian Mr benami served as Israel's Chief negotiator during the Camp David and taba Summits in the Years 2000 and 2001 he has written a number of influential books including his latest prophets without honor the 2000 Camp David Summit and the end of the two-state solution he is currently the vice president of the Toledo International Center for peace Mr benami has generously agreed to stay with us until 15 minutes past the hour and as I said we are extremely honored to have him with us our moderator today is our Montreal uh board member David Cohen so David I'm going to hand it over to you thank you Gabriela Welcome to our webinar scho benami I am as someone like you who was born in Morocco pleased to meet again even though our first encounter lasted a few minutes at the University of Montreal where you gave a conference in 2022 so let's start with the first question why did the Israeli Palestinian negotiations in the past fail especially the um 2000 Camp David negotiations you have explained that in detail in your book prophets without honor published in 2022 please go ahead well I can try and distill uh the essence of uh the reasons why the process uh has failed uh and I would divide them in two parts one is uh I would say tactical issues there are always tactics at play in uh peace negotiations and the second is more structural uh reasons that have to do with the with the narrative with a with uh uh The Clash of uh uh of narratives that are uh impeding a peace agreement but as far as the tactics are concerned I should say that those who came to negotiate a final settlement with the Palestinians were defeated by uh the concept of interim agreements such as Oso for example that was based on what Harry hinger used to call constructive ambiguity constructive ambiguity is fine when you negotiate an inter an interim settlement but it becomes a mindfield when you uh get to the final negotiations so the constructive ambiguity of Oso said yes at some point we will negotiate statud we will negotiate settlements we will negotiate final borders we will negotiate uh uh refugees we will negotiate Jerusalem while but then we believed those who came to negotiate the final settlement that this meant that uh these were open-ended negotiations whereas the Palestinian thought these were given the result was given we believed it was not given which we were just being asked to negotiate an issue but we did not have we did not inherit from Oslo a clear idea as to the final settlement so this was one major reason for the failure we came to negotiate a final settlement on the basis that uh uh what was at stake were issues that were created by the 1967 war whereas the Palestinians came to negotiate the issues of 1948 the issues of the nakba the issues of displacement disinheritance and religious uh issues so this was like trying to break the the genetic code of a conflict that had in IT issues of real estate that is borders and issues of uh or non-tangible issues isues and it turns out that non-tangible issues are always much more difficult to resolve than tangible issues we could have a peace settlement with Egypt because this was only about real estate just it was just about uh um Egypt getting back its land and that was the recipe or the formula for a peace agreement whereas in the case of Palestine it's not about land for peace it's land and additional categories such as for example U you know Millennial U certificates of of ownership for example issues that come from religion and uh and and history for the Palestinians it was about uh uh granting moral legitimacy to a state that according to them was born in sin so that these were all issues that you didn't didn't have when you when you negotiated with with Syria or Jordan or or or Egypt but with the Palestinian national movement these were issues that uh that prevented an agreement the the the the the the point of equilibrium where Israeli positions and Palestinians Pol Palestinian positions could meet was never really achieved and then you can say that there were also tactical reasons uh we didn't uh put on the table our red lines to the mediator for example to the Americans to say listen these are real red lines but when you start offering the Palestinians 66% of the land which is what prime minister Barack did and then you end up offering 92% in U at K David and 97% through the Clinton parameters so nobody really trust your negotiating positions uh so there was tactically there were mistakes but my sense is that tactical issues however important they may be were not the reason for the failure the reason for the failure was there was in the in the in The Clash of narratives on the way that uh Israelis perceived the agreement as being uh something that we as israelies and Jews could live with and the Palestinians saw the these positions as unacceptable to them um you know if you get in take for example the the the the issue of uh Temple mount for that's amazing uh to to try and convey you know to people that uh um were proficient in in peace negotiations what did it mean to to negotiate Temple Mount this is something nobody ever in any kind of process uh negotiated uh you start it becomes a a seminar in archaeology and history where your interlocutor uh refuses to admit that uh that there has ever been such a thing as a temple in the mount uh even though the Quran itself uh uh acknowledges it and then uh the Americans obviously accepted the as Christians uh whereas Palestinians would not accept it and we we needed to concede uh something which uh in Jewish history was very Central uh so this these kind of officials we couldn't really uh find the middle way and there in fact the the the concept of middle way was utterly unacceptable by the Palestinians they didn't believe that uh we needed to look for a compromise uh the solution is borders of 67 removal of settlements if you want blocks of settlements to accommodate your uh your settlers uh this would be ridiculous uh thin lines that would be would not be um defensible I mean you could not really defend them in in in times of Crisis and and therefore this is the mixture of things the tactics Palestinian tactics Israeli tactics American anemic uh leadership um you know Clinton was a was a brilliant uh [Music] individual but uh he lacked the the the Bulldog character of uh of Jimmy Carter in Kem David one uh he was uh too nice a man that um that didn't twist arms and in these kind of processes the the superpower trying to mediate an agreement between two tribes two two Middle Eastern tribes needs to be able to exert its capacity as a superpower and I we couldn't see that uh in in americaas in US mediation at the time okay okay well let's talk about a non-tangible issue the the colonial settler analysis of the Israel Palestine conflict is very fashionable in the west and among students in particular while you expressed empathy for the Palestinian perspective in your book you also criticized the settler Colonial analysis of the conflict what is your concern you know no chsky who is probably the critic in in of Israel's uh immoral Behavior he himself rejected the number of times the comparison with Algeria and uh and Vietnam [Music] um the Jews who came to Palestine were not the envoys of any power of any European power they did not came uh to uh uh create a bridge head for uh um the the economic penetration of a European power such or a strategic penetration of the European power they were idealists that came to create a state and a nation so uh to compare this to European colonialism is is uh absurd uh um you know I don't know in the history of modern colonialism or in modern Wars of against colonialism uh a war that persisted for more than 100 years you know keeping an Empire is never so um uh vitally important to the to the Imperial power that it would risk the kind of intern National o probium and uh and one war after another that was presumably fought for the sake of Palestine by the Arab neighbors so there is no parallel to such uh a 100e resistance against colonialism if it were true colonialism Israel would have would have long ago collapsed uh under the pressure of uh International opinion and uh one in TI after another this is a refuge these are the trenches of our existence this is not colonialism this is where the Jews have decided to create a Homeland uh and unlike the Australians or the new zealands or the Canadians with due respect all due respect we came to a place where we did have a history history we didn't come uh to um to a wasteland uh and uh and um um eliminated an indigenous population as was done in North America and this is my message to Miss um uh Nori Klein Nori Klein is it is it Nami Klein yes nor Klein that the other day said what we need now is an exit from Zionism and th shall not kill th shall not Etc so you know she lives between the United States and Canada two countries that can tell us we the Israelis a lesson about the annelation of an indigenous population so I think that the the realities are so opposed so different that uh it's you know in interestingly um the demonstrations that you see now throughout the West uh in compasses and uh and civil organizations or all kind of NOS none of it is in Africa or in Asia I mean that one would suppose that this would happen uh there they were the victims of colonialism they were the brothers of the Palestinians and the uh of the enslaved Palestinians as it were um so I see this more as a as an internal issue as a the kind of alienation that younger generations and the intellectual plus has always had uh against uh their own country in the 1960s or 1970s I it was Paul Hollander um wrote an excellent book political pilgrims and they try to explain how come um Western in intellectuals uh and academics found a model in Cuba Algeria Vietnam the Soviet Union we explained it the same way that I would explain what is going on now it's an Alien Nation with your own country what uh what Americans do to to to blacks [Music] to to far away lands be it Vietnam be it be it Afghanistan be it Iraq uh and of course there is a lot of uh frankly there is a lot of uh uh of ignorance of knowing the complexities of the of the conflict this is not a clearcut colonial problem I would not uh I would not uh uh deny that uh uh Israel's practices in the West Bank in the West Bank uh are of a colonial nature and this is why persons like me and others we have dedicated our political life or political intellectual life to a separation between the two between the state of Israel and the West Bank but even so if even assuming even assuming that uh the West Bank is a colony and accepting the Paradigm that people like Rashid khidi and others um have have have advanced with regard to the West Bank not only this is a historic land historic uh homeland of the Jewish people but let's assume that even so this is a colony but it is a colony that is territorially contiguous to the Homeland which means that every peace process that you conduct between Israel and that Colony with or without uh um quotation marks we have to deal with questions of political stability of security it's not like France leaves Algeria when France lives Algeria that's the end of the conflict for France it France was not affected by the fact that Algeria was never never became a stable democracy and it went from one Civil War to another and after 30 years of fln government there was not enough CC for everybody so this did not affect France if we withraw from the West Bank and the West Bank becomes something like Gaza after Israel's withdraw this will affect our security you know Alber M was a was a French uh um um author French Alger Tunisian author wrote two books on colonialism the the the uh about the colon the colonizer and the colonized that was his first book where he called for the independence of third world country you know along the phenon phenon of concept of liberation of uh of the colonies and in his second book the dec colonizer and the decolonized the book was a lament about what happened in the decolonized countries Algeria and others so we need to to be aware that we have a problem here we have a problem that by the way even Edward S more than once said I am afraid that what we will see in in Palestine is something like Libya with Gaddafi so these are this is a major difference between a colony suppose supposing we will admit the the Paradigm of uh colonialism in the West Bank which I not I do not deny that there are practic practices of colonialism but there is a difference we need to be very careful what what happens there and then can anybody in the International Community give Israel guarantees that what would happen in the state of Palestine would not be something similar to to what we see throughout the Arab geography be it Algeria Libya Yemen do have do we have any guarantees we saw a an independent state in Gaza and this is the result so that's a a sea difference there's a major difference between Israel West Bank reality and France Algeria America Vietnam etc etc okay thank you because we have many other questions okay and uh okay in your book you bid farewell to the two-state solution and you wrote whatever happens in the future is not going to be the classic two-state solution it would be a situation born out of the chaos or a strategic earthquake from which a solution might emerge would you say that Israel and the Palestinians are facing such a strategic earthquake now yes they are they are they are facing uh the only problem with uh with the Israel Palestine situation is that until the present um the parties were willing to uh to sustain the difficulties of the conflict uh and not sacrifice what they believed are their vital interest normally any everything that happened good in the Middle East came after a war the the 1948 War we got the Armistice agreements this the the Yum kipu War we got the peace with Egypt Etc the problem is that uh here the par is the the the the insistence of the parties on defending every single uh issue that touches upon the their history and their narrative is such that they are willing to sustain the the sacrifices of war and not uh and not concede what they believe are issues that where they simply cannot cannot withdraw from them can they need to defend them to The Bitter End this is why in my book and in this conversation I would I would uh maintain the position that I have uh that I have developed in this book and in many other occasions before that I came to the conclusion to the side conclusion that the two-state solution being perhaps the most daunting divorce in history and the history of conflicts may not be possible at the end of the day the parties will come if they negotiate they will turn the ocean that that separates them into a river but they would not be able to cross the river and this would force the Israelis this would be the major strategic uh um uh shake up it will force the Israelis at some point to conduct the unilateral withdrawal from Mar of the West Bank because the Dilemma is that if we do not reach a two-state solution which is the ideal solution which is the Salvation for the Zionist project and I believe also of the Palestinian project if we fail there and it to to me success is almost impossible given the players and given the issues that stake we might have to conduct a unilateral withdrawal when Ariel shaon withdrew from Gaza he wanted to withdraw from the West Bank as well he had the idea of dismantling 17 settlements from somaria and he eventually only dismantled four settlements the Americans told him that they they were afraid that the pales won't won't be able to manage the the the land that Israel would withdraw withdraw from so I think that at some point if we want to protect the Jewish State and prevent our slide into a South African situation which doesn't have a South African solution because if we we we incorporate integrate the the territories into the state of Israel and blur delete erase the the the the green line what we would have is a South African situation that does not lend itself to a South African solution it would be a a a a civil war a permanent state of Civil War to to prevent that we need we would conduct at some point a unilateral withdrawal which means converging much of the of the settlements into blocks adjacent to the green line this would be such a major earthquake that would force the jordanians to want to be more involved in the running of the West Bank just as the Egyptians after our un unilateral withdrawal from Gaza were drawn into the business of Gaza out of an instinct of self-preservation for their security in the year 2008 I was on a visit to Cairo and I met Egypt's minister of intelligence Omar suan and I told him how happy Israelis were that Egypt is again being interested in what is going on in Gaza and mediating agreements uh contributing to the stability of the strip his answer to me was what do what do what do you expect what do you expect us to do Gaza is a Iran's common border with Egypt so out of an instinct of self-preservation I believe that the jordanians sooner or later would have H once Israel if we do not reach the two-state solution which in my view is the ideal solution then we will have to reserve the the the the Jewish state which is the whole essence of Zionism a Jewish St state with a sizable Arab minority today the Arab minority in Israel is 21% in 1948 it was 11% so much for genocide and the same can be said about Palestinian population a population of a million a million and something perhaps a million and a half if we exaggerate is now 13 million worldwide and 7 million in Palestine so it's about nine times more than then so much for genocide so I think that uh the the the misunderstanding of the complexities of this conflict among uh pundits in the in the west or you know the the leaders of of opinion and and young men that are uh demonstrating against the scenes of Zionism I think that would be a very very important to try and and uh convey um the truth this simple truth that Oscar wild once uh um inserted into one of his aphorisms that the Nuance is what is the distance between civilization and barbarity you need to be capable of seeing the complexity of a problem and and and I'm afraid that Israel's many of Israel's critics do not see the complexity of the problem uh uh to sum up the two-state solution is the is the is the ideal solution I have many many doubts if this is feasible Israel would have at some point to withdraw from the bulk of the land this might lead to a civil war inside Israel if Israel has to dismantle uh uh the more ideologically driven um settlements in the hearts Heartland of Judea and Samaria this would might might might might mean uh civil Strife perhaps Civil War um but uh that this will be our our ultimate def defense and protection of the of the core of Zionism and the core was about the creation of a Jewish state with a sizable Arab minority living in equal terms according to the law and and to and to reality as well thanks thank you what is your view of President Biden's road map for ending the Gaza War which is widely supported by key European and Arab states and Biden pretends his current proposals reflect Israel's position is it I think I think yes I I think that this is a this is a plan that now the Israeli side has accepted in fact and uh nanyu as always uh um tries to to go the the line of yes accepting but then having a discourse to his political base that doesn't uh concur exactly with the with the parameters of the plan but essentially I think uh Israel has accepted a plan uh in stages uh of scaling down uh the War uh withdrawing um from from cities from the cities from the main uh strongholds that she has occupied during the war and have a return of uh uh of what remains of the of the hostages uh and then move move gradually to to original normalization of uh between Israel and and the Arab countries um what um what D what brought netan to to accept uh the deal is in my view the fact that uh long last the the Americans understood that uh the Biden Vision the the beginning uh had the the creation of a Palestinian State at the end of the road and I thought that it was tactically wrong because it allowed Nan to mobilize opinion in Israel against the plan now that they have discarded the question of Palestine not that they have abandoned it as a as a as a long-term strategy but it doesn't form part of The Proposal right now the proposal right now is about ending the war in uh in Gaza and I think it is wise and this is why netan and his War cabinet accepted it I think they have converging views on on weakening uh or disbanding or eliminating Hamas militarily and um and its governance capacity of Gaza do you think they agree on that Biden and N see there is there is a contradiction in the position of the International Community on Gaza uh on the one hand everybody says Gaza should be ruled by the Palestinian Authority without a Hamas component Hamas is not a partner to any political solution this is the common uh wisdom throughout uh Europe and and and and the United States but then how does this square with calling Israel to stop the war because Hamas is still there Hamas is going nowhere and therefore the assumption that you can have the assumption that you can have um um a postwar reality in Gaza without ER Hamas being part of it or even the two-state solution without Hamas being a part of it is uh is impossible I mean that's it's not realistic Hamas has is today the most dynamic and popular component of Palestinian nationalism they brought the pales the the the question of Palestine they they they they drew it from Oblivion and put it at the center of international agenda they have sustained an eight Monon war and they possibly can sustain a a a longer War so now they suddenly are going to evaporate that this Hamas is going nowhere and this will condition any concept of postwar government that doesn't include Hamas so this is the contradiction in the in the in the in the position of the of the International Community and if you want to negotiate a final settlement two- State solution for example Hamas would be part of the PLO now that there are ongoing negotiations between the PLO and Hamas about a merger to Hamas this will not be a merger this will be a takeover they are stronger and they have the support of the population both in Gaza and well in Gaza I don't know but in the West Bank certainly so um let let us go Step by by step right now the most urgent thing is to stop the war in Gaza because maybe Israel would have to shift to the north we have a very serious problem in Lebanon with hisbah and I would not entirely discard the possibility of an allout war with kbal which should be a disaster this is a major catastrophe what we are seeing in Gaza would be a voice Scout um event so I think that um it is important to to to get what remains of the hostages to stop a war that is going nowhere these kind of Wars are not winnable the era of Glorious victories is over for the Russians in uh in Ukraine for uh uh the West in the war on terror uh look out the Taliban is back in uh in Afghanistan so I think that this is the major tank maneuvers of the past in Alain or in the Sinai desert between Israel and Egypt these kind of Wars are over in in the asymmetrical Wars of today where the enemy according to David Patra the general the American General Gaza he said is is mosul bakuba and he mentioned four places in Iraq to taken together so I think these words are not winnable there is an article I wrote in har in the first or second month of the war well I say more or less what I'm saying now Israel has has been drawn into a war into a just War but one that doesn't have a a a finality a point when you say we got all our objectives because of the nature of the of the of um of uh the scenario where the war is is taking place thank you that was my last question thank you very much Mr benami okay back to Gabriel thank you so much David um I know you had other questions questions but we also have lots from the audience so um we'll uh we'll move into those um okay and and you know always it's a it's a real mishmash of of questions uh so we kind of have to jump around so one from Francesca bror Lon do you truly believe the Arabs in Palestine wish to live alongside the Israelis I think you you've part partially answered that question but because it's such a complex uh one please give your thoughts well well I think that uh when you say the the Arabs this is sort of generalization I I believe there are those who believe who are sincere in their belief of the two-state solution that are the Palestinians who believes that this is what needs to be done but uh there there are many others who think that the solution is a one state reality the younger Palestinian generation according to all polls and surveys that we know about KH shaki is the best pollster is a Palestinian pollster that um has conducted many uh studies of uh of Palestinian opinion the younger generation is opposed to the two-state idea they they have given up uh on the state on the two state idea and they believe that uh we should go for a one-state reality the the end of occupation is more important than statehood this is the position of the younger generation so uh yes one can say that they want it I only don't believe that this is possible because what was not possible in Cyprus and was not possible in Yugoslavia and I don't know About Belgium um um I think that won't be possible here I mean because of the two egocentric nationalisms uh coexisting in one uh common state I have my doubts but this is my answer the the the the the majority of the younger generation want to live in one in a one state with the Israelis thank you um I'm going to jump to a question that is somewhat well not entirely related but uh H and this comes from John Allen could you talk about two final status issues two final status issues about that came through negotiations the refugees and Jerusalem is there any possibility of a solution on either um I think that Jerusalem is simpler than uh than uh refugees I think that on Jerusalem we had in fact a [Music] solution the tip of our fingers I mean uh the the the formula that was proposed on Jerusalem was a partition of the city not along geographical lines but along ethnic lines what is Jewish should be Israel and what what is Arab should be Palestinian that was the the the formula that appears in the Clinton peace parameters and when it comes to uh the the the the holy quarters the holy sides of Jerusalem this is where we couldn't find uh uh the formula but according to the Palestinians themselves that was because of Arafat personally he had the obsession with the Temple Mount but that others could find a solution for example offering to the Palestinians a status of custodians of the of the Holy s sites of Islam yes custodians like the Saudis that have in in they are the custodians the term sovereignty is not used but the term custodianship can be used so there there are different formulas ER dolmer when he was prime minister proposed the internationalization of the old city of Jerusalem uh that was quite a a bold uh Innovative uh move that was also turned down by the Palestinians but anyway so Solutions can be found on the question of Jerusalem in my view when it comes to refugees uh you have here the problem of a of a national movement that wants to create a state but wants to gather its Exiles in a neighboring state and that's a problem the Palestinians would have to accept that if we are talking about a two-state solution that the in gathering of the Palestinian Exiles will happen in Palestine in the state of Palestine and not in the state of Israel you know I can I can tell you just to to show how uh uninformed or misinformed are people about the the conflict if you you if you want to understand why the 11% Arabs that lived in pales in Israel in 1948 are now 21% in spite of the fact that during these 75 years we got millions of Israel of of Jewish immigrants coming to to to the state of Israel and yet the Allah population has increased to 21% this is because a return of refugees has been happening all the time from the West Bank the in projects of reunification of families lots of Palestinian families in Israel in the state of Israel are mixed marriages with families or Couples from the West Bank and other parts of Palestine so I think that there has been hundreds of thousands of Palestinians many of them beduins the bedwin community has been very open to these kind of marriages with uh uh the bed community in Israel where citizens of Israel that married uh Palestinians and this has brought to Israel since 1948 to today hundreds of thousands of rores as it were so I think that and not to speak of East Jerusalem Israel has annexed it Jerusalem and by annexing its Jerusalem it has annexed 300,000 Palestinians so to ask now as the some Palestinian would be negotiators ask to address the right of return a right of return that has already been uh happening all these years is uh is something that no no no Israeli government would accept today okay I think that yeah it's a an interesting point H um there are a couple of questions that are related so I'm going to put the two of them together one from Elizabeth block this goes back to Gaza if Israel withdraws from the West Bank would it still control it as it did after it withdrew from its settlers from Gaza and um and somebody uh someone shashona F silver says you said Gaza had Independence but Israel kept it under siege so how do you how do you um yeah what would happen in in the West Bank and and you know was was Gaza truly independent it could be independent when Israel withdraw with it didn't impose immediately a Siege on Gaza why Israel didn't impose a Siege on the West Bank because the West Bank you didn't have that same kind of attitude that you have in Gaza where Hamas took over they they won presumably the elections and then they they they expelled the fat the PLO elements from from Gaza and um and started a policy of confrontation with Israel this is why Israel has had to impose a Siege and again you know even that this was uh probably one of the uh less effective uh sieges ever in history how if if uh there was such a Siege how do does one explain this monstrous uh military machine that Hamas has built where did it come from one would assume that the same uh um tunnels that brought in this military capabilities could have brought in bread and butter and and uh and uh fill the the the supermarkets and the mini markets in Gaza why it didn't happen what kind of a Siege is this where they declare a war on Israel and Israel is supposed to what what to do exactly uh Israel has to respond and one way to respond is to try and minimize the capacity of Hamas to rearm itself through a Siege but there has never been there has never been a humanitarian crisis in Gaza uh today the humanitarian condition is appalling because of the war but during the years of Siege this this guys have a a system of tunnels from Egypt okay that is double the the land of the of uh the London Underground this this is what you have there and through there through the these tunnels you had uh everything coming into Gaza so it was INE The Siege was ineffective among other reasons because of the complicity of the Egyptian authorities with Hamas either through bribes that Hamas would pay to to the Egyptian police uh in the Border but the fact is that today uh Israel has has uh displayed its uh uh its military along the border with Egypt in order to seize this flow of weapons from Egyptian territory into Israel by controlling the area in which the um the tunnels that come from Egypt get into uh into into Gaza so The Siege first was ineffective it only created a bad PR for Israel but it didn't affect real life in uh in Gaza the multibillion um uh budgets that were given by uh by Qatar and other Hamas facilitators instead of buying butter and uh and bread bread and butter they bought uh missiles and Military capabilities I have to here ask a a follow-up question on my own uh because many people say that that Netanyahu um allowed things allowed Hamas to get stronger and and get money for arms and so on how much is it uh the Israeli Pol is is Israel's own fault that Hamas became as strong as it did that's right I think that that's the major accusation that is being is being made against netan and and he has been on record I mean he said it publicly many times that us is good for preventing a two-state solution uh and he he he downgraded the the the links between Israel and the and the Palestinian Authority um and and he pushed the uh beefed up the capabilities of of Hamas because he beli this is the best way uh uh uh to uh to prevent a political solution and this is the concept now the the uh debate these days in Israel is about uh the concept that brought upon us and upon the Palestinians this tragedy of the Gaza war and that was precisely this the fact that Nan uh strategically believed that you need to weaken the Palestinian Authority which is the the which represents the the political option uh and strengthen Hamas that doesn't represent the political option this was his way of uh of killing in a a political solution uh and created a a three-state reality as it were you know the state of Israel with its settlements in the West Bank Gaza as um a state of sorts yes uh what does a state need they have uh government they had they had elections they have a political party which is one one party rule uh they have military capabilities they have their finances they have the international uh uh allies with with his balah with Iran with turkey with Qatar this is an independent state maybe not fully maybe not formally but yes sort of independent Palestinian state so why not impose a Siege however foolish The Siege might have been against an enemy State um that is that is you know that is contiguous to your land uh therefore um I think that uh Hamas has uh tricked and fooled Israel both tactically and strategically tactically they managed to create this surprise and strategically they they blocked they stopped the the changing of paradigms in the Israeli Palestinian dispute let me explain the the the Abraham Peace Accords were a major strategic setback for the Palestinians because the before the the the the Abraham P course the the the the the the guiding principle of peacemaking in the in the region was that peace with the Palestinians is the introduction to a possible peace with the Arab world without peace with the Palestinians we are not going to have peace with the Arab world the the the the Abraham Peace Accords changed the Paradigm they it they turned on its head the the the the previous Paradigm since we have peace with the Arab world without having peace with the Palestinians they this this was the major strategic achievement of this war this was the major strategic defeat of Israel in this war this was the major strategic defeat of Netanyahu who put all his bets on uh on Kamas Hamas now says to the to the Arab world to the International Community no no first Palestine I blocked your normalization with the Saudis I blocked your normalization with other Arab states so that's a major change that is a defeat for those who believed like netan and Trump that now the Arab Israeli conflict has been solved and we'll see we'll find something with the Palestinians some sort of a solution but uh now we need to go back to square one and see what kind of solution we can find for the Palestinians before we have that uh normalization that that the Palestinians Hamas and PLO as well could not accept because it uh it sidelined the Palestinian problem Oh that right um uh here's a question about the actual uh conditions in Gaza um do and this is well I just it's an anonymous question do you think the Israeli government is C currently trying to starve the civilian population of Gaza and prevent hospitals from providing Medical Care to the civilian population other words to impose Collective punishment uh I guess it's you know the the qu I think uh the question is um or or the direction is we know we know that there's there's terrible hardship in in Gaza is it is it an intentional strategy of the can of the Israeli government it started as such I think it started as such I I remember in the few in the first days of the war I I was in a meeting with uh uh there is an organization called the elders that was created by Nelson Mela former heads of state um today Mary Robinson the former president of Ireland uh is is the chair of the organization they invited me and we had a a talk in London and uh and she was appalled by I remember and I I confirmed that indeed this was what Minister Gallant said in the early days of the war the defense minister he uh he did say that Israel should not allow now anything to go into Gaza no food no medicine no water and uh this was this was an initial intention and uh and some of the of the experts of the military experts among them perhaps one of the most outspoken of them Gora Island Gora island is to come t shows and public events Etc to propose um um putting pressure on Hamas defeating hamash uh through uh that kind of policy and I am happy that uh this is not uh Prosper really and that U at some point uh Israel was forced to chck change uh this attitude uh under American pressure um and um and today the problem is uh the fact that Hamas um takes over much of this uh Aid that goes into Gaza distributes the the aid that comes into Gaza and and this is one way that Hamas asserts its Authority and uh and this is again another uh defeat I should see I should I should say of netanyahu's attitude to the war because you defeat Hamas tactically in battles but if you do not uh display if you do not uh um put in place a an alternative Authority one that is not Hamas be it the Palestinian Authority from the West Bank be it uh a sort of regional Consortium of Arab Powers whatever what would happen is that Hamas um will maintain its Authority it might be defeated militarily but it wins politically so the problem today again is that uh there is no alternative Palestinian Authority in Gaza to distribute the hundreds of or the the food that comes in hundreds of lores every day uh into Gaza today the the capacity of Israel to go back to the old to the initial attitude of using food or weaponizing uh food as indeed Minister Gan did say that at the beginning but thankfully American pressure changed this and today this is not the the the official policy there might be technical problems here and there but this is not a policy anymore thank you um H so here's a question what do you think of the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian State and maybe you could expand on that and just uh obviously that unilateral recognition is being done in order to put pressure on Israel to change its course and uh what other do you feel there should be other kinds of pressure and what kind if so what kind well it's a it's a symbolic more than anything this recognition I mean it doesn't uh it doesn't change reality on the ground and uh and yes it is a kind of political diplomatic pressure and if the entire European Union joins these three countries it would be a major setback for Israel uh so I think that um the sooner we start some kind of political negotiation with the Palestinians the better um you know that the the problem with and and of course the current Israeli government is not in a position rule number one is getting rid of this government and so long as this getting rid democratically obviously through early elections or or in any other kind of political legitimate pressure because uh with this government we go nowhere I mean that's rule number one this is not a government that would negotiate any kind of political deal the bvs and SM riches are not for negotiations so this is first Israel needs to put its house in order uh and and the SEC and also the Palestinians need to put their house in order we see who is the Palestinian partner really is it um the current PLO um Biden said a revitalized uh Palestinian Authority okay let us see how this revitalized um Palestinian Authority comes to be so anyway um I I I think that the political pressure um is important I I think it shows that the the world or the Civilized world doesn't want to see Israel so occupation uh to persist um but uh so long as this government is here and if tomorrow after November you have in the United States a trump government so it could be even uh um more difficult to reach an understanding with with the Palestinians in my view because you won't see this kind of benign uh Vision that that Biden has which I wish Israel had a government that could go along with uh with Biden uh to implement his vision of negotiations a two-state solution normalization etc etc but as I said uh if Israel doesn't uh uh change its political configuration uh it will be very difficult to um to go beyond an end to the war which is in itself a a major achievement but to go from an end to the war to a Palestinian State this will be a a long and tortuous March which I I I my my experience is that um extremely difficult to get that uh uh happening into into a two- State reality along the 1967 borders as as that these three European States uh maintain okay they say borders of 1967 Etc I wish this could happen I am all for it but uh one needs to see reality and its complexity okay I think we have time for one more quick question uh but before before you answer it uh I just uh want to remind our audience that um uh Canadian friends of peace now which supports peace now in Israel uh relies on your donations so if you uh feel moved to give us a donation of any kind please go to our website uh peace nowc can.org and click on the Donate page thank you um so the last question is about settlements in the West Bank uh can they be dismantled uh you know and is there space within Israel's borders uh you know well I guess the main thing is can they dis be dismantled considering all the challenges what what would happen you see for the dismantling of settlements they are important they are it's important to dismantle them if we want to reach some kind of settlement in the West Bank either unilateral then or bilateral let alone bilateral you need to dismantle settlements uh the problem is that uh today most of the settlements are as I said adjacent to the green line most of the settlers in fact 30% of the population of the west of the Jewish population in the West Bank are khedim areed settlers in two Villages two townships one is modin Elite the another is B Elite they are both on the border and this is more or less 30% of the and then you have what I call real estate settlers not ideological settlers but settlers who came because land is cheaper and you could could have a little cottage with a with your own garden um in in in the West Bank at half the price that you get it in in Israel proper so I think these are the easier to move because it is a question of money it's just about paying compensations and and moving them into settlements into an a block of settlements close to the green line okay the this won't require more than 4% annexation if by Israel in a in a two- State solution settlement not more than 4% of the West Bank and then but then you will have the the hardcore which is the ideological clusters of settlements of the the Ben smri uh brand okay these are such that would be extremely difficult to remove these are those who would take uh a civil war to dismantle those of us who follow the funerals of the fallen in the war in Gaza would see that more and more of the Fallen Soldiers come from settlements in the West Bank this is a reflection of the sociological changes that occurred in Israel in years past the least of the Fallen would come from Kim of the left today they mostly come from settlements and from Israel's let us call it for the sake of uh of discussion Israel's periphery not the the the traditional Elite as it were so this is a a change that has a political ramification political implications and therefore it strengthens the the the the group of the of the settler movement on Israeli politics we have paid with our blood they will tell you for this Victory or whatever we achieved in Gaza this is a major change that that poses problem to the two State solution now removing this this hot BS of fanaticism and radicalism Inon Katara and itamar we speak more or less about 100,000 people this will take a civil war to by force I mean unless they want to live under Palestinian sovereignty in the Palestinian State I can't imagine smart Rich living under Palestinians or the SM Riches of the West Bank living under Palestinian sovereignty this would require Israel to have a leader if we are going to face that kind that kind of challenge a leader like say Ariel Sheron a brutal leader with benign intentions because good guys mosan used to say the you know guns gun guns is a fine man General guns in the government but this is the kind of of of guy about whom mosan used to say he is a good guy in the negative sense of the expression that is a but shaon was a bad guy in the good sense of the expression when he decided to be the only leader ever to dismantle settlements and I can assure you that after he dismantled 8,000 settlers from Gaza and he dismantled cemeteries as well that needed to be moved to Israel proper I can assure you that AR Shon that night he slept like a baby he didn't have any remorse uh when in 1994 Dr Goldin goldate was his name in heon entered the mosque and assassinated called blooded how many 20 30 faithful that were praying that was a golden opportunity for itak Rabin who who was then the prime minister to dismantle there was the the national mood was in favor to dismantle the settlement in Kon he thought about it but didn't have that didn't have the guts to do it so this is our dilemma how do you get rid of the real estate settlements it's only a question of money but with the ideological settlement it calls for a confrontation that only the unique kind of leader that appears from time to time but we don't have it now that we'll be ready to confront reality see it in in in all its cruelty and take bold decisions and face the consequences these kind of leaders Israel does not have today it has a 100% politician like netan for whom political survival is is the only thing that matters we assume that in a democracy leaders have a vision and in order to implement their Vision carry carry out make uh their dreams a reality they build a coalition that allows them to implement their Vision with netan it's the other way around he defines his vision according to the Coalition that he is capable of forming and this is what you have there in 2014 2014 netan offered AB buas peace based on the border on 1967 I asked the Palestinian Chief negotiator at the time one of the most brilliant mind that I ever met husena he lives in London and he was the chief Palestinian negotiator I asked him how do you explain that Netanyahu agreed to the borders of 1967 he said very easy he knew that whatever he accepts abas will not accept so it was a tactical move in the current government Netanyahu is not even allowed to make a tactical move try to out outsmart your interlocutor because he would be toppled by his allies in the Coalition and this is something that every Peacemaker needs to understand and the the the the stability the political stability of your opponent is vital for your objectives if you want to reach an agreement you need that your interlocutor has a political standing otherwise you're not going to get anything but the Palestinians have excelled in destroying the political stability of their Israeli interlocutors by pushing and pushing and pushing saying okay no this is not enough another quch another quch another quch this destroyed Rabin destroyed Barack and destroyed Almer and we came to a situation where we have an opportunist in power that doesn't want to negotiate but those of us who wanted to negotiate were destroyed politically by the Palestinians and therefore they are they are now facing uh these guys I remember saying it in person to to Arafat you are opening the gates to the rise of the Hawks in Israel and they open the gates for the for the rise of two kind of Hulks the Israel Haws and the Palestinian Haws which is what we have today Hamas facing natan's government well it's quite an analysis I um you know I we have a lot more questions and I have questions and things I want to say back to you but we are running out of time so uh I just want to um I want to thank you so much for um this very uh interesting stimulating challenging discussion um I think you've I think there probably people who are are are troubled by some of your answers uh because but you're forcing us to see things in a different way and that's a uh uh that's a uh testimony to your deep knowledge of the subject and your uh understanding of the many complexities and I guess we have to try to understand the richness of the the problems as well so um thank you Mr benami very much for your participation thank you David for your moderate moderating and thank you to the audience for uh being here um and uh stay tuned for further webinars and and and uh Mr benami I will there were quite there questions and long comments as well I I will I will send them to you so you can't respond to them all but but you know you might be interested in seeing what people have to say and U that's one way so uh I can only uh I wish you well and and wish uh Israel and the Palestinians better days what can that's and we can only try to do our little bit in in order to make that happen um thank you very much okay thank you Mr benam okay bye shalom

Channel: Canadian Friends of Peace Now

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Id: Nq1ag_dQiGE

Length: 86min 31sec (5191 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 06 2024