Speaker unverified: belief

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…What do you think? Well, just briefly in response, Arafat formally recognized Israel in 1993. Yeah, earlier. I don’t think actually that in 2000-2001, a genuine resolution was on offer because I think the maximum Israel was prepared to offer, admittedly more than it had been prepared to offer in the past, fell short of the minimum that the Palestinians consider to be a reasonable two state settlement. Bearing in mind that as of 1949, Israel controlled 78% of the British mandate of Palestine. Palestinians were seeking a state on the remaining 22%, and this was apparently too much for Israel. My response to your question would be- Wait, wait. They were being offered something like 22 or 21%. They were being offered, I think less than a withdrawal to the 1967 borders with mutual and minor and reciprocal land swaps and the just resolution of- The refugee problem was one of the problems. Refugee question. Yes. I worked for a number of years with an international crisis group and my boss at the time was Rob Malley, who was one of the American officials, present at Camp David. Who was be thrown out of the State Department or whatever. The point I want to make about Rob was he wrote, I think, a very perceptive article in 2001 in the New York Review of books. I know that you and Ehud Barak have had a debate with them, but I think he gives a very compelling reason of why and how Camp David failed. But rather than going into that, I’ll- He wrote that together with Hussein Araj. Hussein Araj, yes, who was not at Camp David. But in response to your question, I think there could have been a real possibility of Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli peace in the mid 1970s in the wake of the 1973 October War. I’ll recall that in 1971, Moshe Dayan, Israel’s defense minister at the time, full of triumphalism about Israel’s victory in 1967 speaking to a group of Israeli military veterans, stated, “If I had to choose between Sharm El-Sheikh without peace or peace without Sharm El-Sheikh…” This is referring to the resort in Egyptian Sinai, which was an under Israeli occupation. Dayan said, “I will choose for Sharm El-Sheikh without peace.” Then the 1973 war came along and I think Israeli calculations began to change very significantly. which was an under Israeli occupation. Dayan said, “I will choose for Sharm El-Sheikh without peace.” Then the 1973 war came along and I think Israeli calculations began to change very significantly. And I think it was in that context that had there been a joint US-Soviet push for an Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian resolution that incorporated both an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, I think there was a very reasonable prospect for that being achieved. It ended up being aborted, I think for several reasons, and ultimately the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat decided for reasons we can discuss later to launch a separate unilateral initiative for Israeli Egyptian rather than Arab-Israeli peace. And I think once that set in motion, the prospects disappeared because Israel essentially saw its most powerful adversary removed from the equation and felt that this would give it a free hand in the occupied territories also in Lebanon to get rid of the PLO and so on. You ask when were we closest, and I can’t give you an answer of when we were closest. I can only tell you when I think we could have been close and that was a lost opportunity. If we look at the situation today, there’s been a lot of discussion about a two-state settlement. My own view, and I’ve written about this, I don’t buy the arguments of the naysayers that we have passed the so-called point of no return with respect to a two-state settlement. Certainly if you look at the Israeli position in the occupied territories, I would argue it’s more tenuous than was the French position in Algeria in 1954, than was a British position in Ireland in 1916, than was a Ethiopian position in Eritrea in 1990. And so as a matter of practicality, as a matter of principle, I do think the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories remains realistic. I think the question that we now need to ask ourselves, it’s one I’m certainly asking myself since October 7th and looking at Israel’s genocidal campaign, but also looking at larger questions, is it desirable? Can you have peace with what increasingly appears to be an irrational genocidal state that seeks to confront and resolve each and every political challenge with violence? And that reacts to its failure to achieve solutions to political challenges with violence by applying even more violence, that has an insatiable lust for Palestinian territory, that a genocidal apartheid state that seems increasingly incapable of even conceiving of peaceful coexistence with the other people on that land. So I’m very pessimistic that a solution is possible.…

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