Transcripts For CSPAN Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Middle East Policy 20180112

Mr. Pipes good morning, welcome to the Heritage Foundation and our douglas auditorium. We want to welcome those who join us on our heritage. Org website on all these occasions and remind our inhouse guests to be so kind to check your mobile devices to see if they are silent or turned off. And of course for those watching online, you are welcome to send comments or questions at any time. Email speaker heritage. Org. Following the initial presentation, my colleague jim phillips will lead. Veteran foreignpolicy foryst and has worked heritage since 1979, authored dozens of papers on is really an Foreign Policy issues and testified before congress on a wide variety of middle east issues. Hosting and introducing our special presenter is luke coffey who serves as director for the Allison Center of Foreign Policy. Before joining us at heritage, mr. Copy served in the united kingdoms ministry of defense to then secretary of state of defense liam fox. He was the ever nonu. K. First national to be appointed by the Prime Minister into this role. Prior to this, he worked in the house of commons as an advisor for the conservative party, and he is also a veteran of the United States army, having been stationed in italy and southern and the Southern Europe task force command. Please join me in welcoming luke coffey. Luke. [applause] thank you, john, i welcome, everyone, here to the Heritage Foundation this afternoon to discuss a very important and timely matter about the israelipalestine crisis and the recent announcement about the move of the embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem. The timing couldnt have worked out better in terms of this event and the president s announcement. Its my pleasure to introduce ron desantis. He is a native floridian who has served in Congress Since 2013. Prior to his election, he served as a jag officer in the United States navy deploying to iraq in , 2007 during the troop surge, as adviser to the u. S. Navy seal commander in support of the seal mission in iraq. He has also served as a jag officer at the terrorist Detention Center at guantanamo bay. And as a former military policeman who did Detainee Operations in afghanistan, i know how important the j. A. G. Officer is. He is currently a Lieutenant Commander in the reserve component of the u. S. Navy. Incongress, he has been a leader on issues pertaining to National Security, and he has also been an outspoken advocate for the state of israel. As the chairman of the National Security subcommittee and as a member of the Foreign Affairs committee, he is deeply engaged in developing policies to combat foreign threats supporting our allies in the middle east. The congressman has also been a key player in the discussion surrounding the relocation of the American Embassy from tel of eve tel aviv to jerusalem. He also launched the israel victory caucus to educate congress on the challenges faced by our nations in support of peace in israel. So it is my pleasure to welcome the congressman, and please join me in introducing him. [applause] rep. Desantis thank you, thank you. Its great to be here. One of the things that i think you learn around here is that there are a lot of things that just get repeated and that people will kind of just say, the conventional wisdom that really has no basis in fact and has been proven to not be true over and over again. And one is the subject of this forum, is that you will never have peace in the broader middle east until you solve the arabisraeli conflict. Between israel and the palestinian arabs. And until you do that, you cant do anything else. I never bought into that from the time i got to congress, and i think that there are very few members of congress who really think that that view carries water anymore. And i think the Trump Administration is showing that that view is not the view that really represents the reality on the ground in the middle east. Its important to think about what this administration had inherited when they took over. You had a middle east that was in chaos. The islamist regime in iran was ascendant, obviously, flush with a lot of money due to the Iranian Nuclear deal. They were funding problems in places like in yemen and syria, funding groups like hezbollah and were in defacto control of baghdad in iraq. You had the emergence and growth of the terrorist group isis that happened after american troops pulled out of iraq in 2012 and of course the deepening conflicts in syria, yemen, and really israel isolated in bash isolated on the world stage in part by u. S. Actions such as the Obamas Administration pursuing u. N. Resolution 2234 at the end of the administration, which really, the u. N. I mean i dont know what they do , other than attack israel. In that year they did 24 resolutions, and 20 of them were against israel. But even by the u. N. s very, very low standard, resolution 2334 was a disgrace and said basically that even things like the western wall were considered occupied arab territory, and that would have been something that i think almost any administration previously would have vetoed. Certainly this administration would have vetoed. So the obama, i think approach , was first and foremost empower iran. They believed in a reproachment, and ben rhodes idea that they turnew, they are going to over a new leaf with the ramadi administration. Thats what they said publicly, and people admit that was nonsense. They believed if you empower iran, that will be better for the United States in the middle east. They also did things like fail to embrace leaders who may not be our cup of tea domestically like president alsisi of the egypt, but who are very strong in identifying the threat posed by militant islam, and someone like alsisi who is even challenging the radical clerics in egypt to reform some of these teachings that incite violence against other countries or other faiths. But yet, they prefered groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in egypt to president al sisi and of course they seem to blame israel for almost every problem in the region it so that was one seems whenever that was convenient. Approach. I dont think it was a successful approach. I was very much opposed to what the Obama Administration was doing from the day i got into congress, but i can tell you, i wish i would stand here and tell you i was wrong about some of this stuff because i think it would be better for the country, but i think the results have been suboptimal to say the least. The Trump Administration has come in, and they have pursued a different approach to the arabisraeli conflict, and i think when the president did the press conference with Prime Minister netanyahu early in his presidency he basically said , look, we want to be for israel. Well stand for israel. What is good for israel were , good with. It is a much different posture than saying this whole problem of middle east conflict is because someones building an apartment in parts of jerusalem or in other parts so, that was refreshing to hear. Now they are trying to broker a peace. I dont know whats going to happen with that. I didnt think that was worth spending capital on. But it is being done from an unabashedly proisrael prospective. And i think that that is a good thing. If you look at trumps tweets last week about palestinian incitement in support of terrorism, i dont remember very many people really some of us in the congress have been willing to use the power of the purse so that we are penalizing bad behavior by the palestinian arabs instead of always rewarding it. But trump said we need to stop doing this. Why arent we insisting on better behavior . If you look, we are sending hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority, but yet after all this time, they still incite violence and hatred against the state of israel. They actually pay families of terrorists who murder israeli jews. They will name streets and sports stadiums and other Public Places after terrorists who commit really, really heinous acts. You think about, that is something that is causing them to change their behavior if you keep sending the money. So i would think we should condition the funding on better behavior, and you reward Good Behavior and you penalize bad behavior. That was for boded in the prior administration. Trump has come out and done that and made those statements. We will see if there is more meet on the bone, but i think that would be very, very fruitful to do. When you talk about the conflict between the arabs and the israelis, the number one issue as why there is a conflict is because the palestinians arabs do not recognize israels right to exist as a jewish state in perpetuity. And that is the fundamental problem. The land and all this other state, they dont view israel as having a right to exist. They want potentially a deal at some point, only if it is a stepping stone to israels ultimate destruction. And so for us backing an ally like israel, we shouldnt be pressuring them to do a deal that would lead us down that road. So i think that how the Trump Administration has gone with this, and it was flushed out when the president made his jerusalem announcement, is to look at the conflict and say and trump put this in his tweet, we put jerusalem off the table. It ithat that makes dont think it is likely we are going to get a deal, but i think it is more likely you are going to get a deal because people are not under any illusions israel is trying to be a country. But with the Embassy Decision that the president made, i thought it was one of the best speeches that i can remember an american president making. It was something that i was invested in admittedly from the beginning of the president s term because you had other president s that said, hey, we are going to move the embassy. They say the right things in front of the different interest groups. And it is not. American jews support it and American Christians support it. They will talk to the evangelicals, and they say we are going to move the embassy. We are going to do it. Bush and clinton promised to do it and did not. Obama i hardly believe he meant it when he said it. But i think he said something along those lines. Well, trump made that promise. And i think the president is somebody who he does not want to be somebody who is not following through with his word. It matters to him, his campaign and he is going to deliver. So i thought that history would not repeat itself. I just believe that he would make the change and he would be willing to lead on the issue. I organized a letter in the beginning of the year where we got over 100 congressman, mr. President elect pull the trigger, lets do this and shake up the middle east in a positive way and show your leadership. So he got that. I can understand why he didnt do it on day one. There werent too many people at the state department who supported recognizing jerusalem. I understand that. I took a trip on the National Subcommittee chairman oversight and we do a lot of embassy issues and we went and identified the potential sites where you could establish an American Embassy. I am engaged in this now, and i think we may find out very soon some positive news about one of the sites we profiled. We had a huge press conference in israel, and there was a lot of potential for this idea. They didnts make news when they had done it. But because of the promise and people have a lot of expectations it was a big question if trump was going to sign that inmate, or whether he would recognize that in jerusalem. The trip coincided with jerusalem day, the 50th anniversary of the liberation and reunification. , soecided not to do it then we werent deterred, we had a big hearing with some great guests, like dore gold highlighting why it would be good for americas National Security interests to recognize jerusalem. When of the components being born out of that is that in the arab world, if you are acting swiftly and with strength, that is something that makes a big impression on the leaders. N if you act against them when you show the are backing down and show that you are a wee course, and to be a position that they agree with, that causes them to wonder if you keep your work or not. Stage,mps personal per it was important, and it was good are you the waiver decision was coming, and people wondering if it would be good. The president , to his credit, just for maybe the Vice President , who were telling kim, no, just sign the waiver. You dont want to ruffle feathers. Brieftell you from being with the department, i do not find a Single Person in the career of Civil Service who said that recognizing jerusalem would be anything other than a major disaster that would cause the middle east to corrupt in flames. Whod not find one person said it would not be a big deal. They all said it could be something that would cause all these problems. So now i think that was reflected in the president s senior leadership. That was the information they were given, so they expected that, and the president , to his credit said, we have to deal with this. What is the plan, and we have to deal with this. He ended up signing a waiver, and he recognized to get this done. Act ofht it was a great statesmanship, and i am excited that if the plans being discussed now in the being have anted, we could temporary embassy open sometime this year. Next year inying jerusalem, we could say this year in jerusalem, which would be nice. That posture of support towards israel is very important, and they think he had the freedom to do that because the administration took a different posture towards the Islamic Republic of iran. Come said it was one of the worst deals negotiated, that was a disaster. The same happened with the embassy, and yet the recertify, so he did it, and you did it again. When i recertify this, and finally he told them, we need that decision where he wasnt going to certify under domestic law, it showed that this is a president that understands the threat posed by iran and the nuclear deal. That is music to the year of the gulf states. Take saudi arabia area united they want our embassy moved to jerusalem . No. Are they going to cry a river over that when they need to work with us and work with israel to combat iranian influence . Of course not. Their interest was to align with the United States and with israel to combat the iranian threats. And there is a lot of discussion what to do with the nuclear deal. My view is that it was a bad deal and cant going on because it leads to an iranian bomb, either they cheat and get a bomb because we dont have access to their sites or abide by the deal and get the bomb in the neck next decade. You have to do something different. Other targeted sanctions and other provisions that have a different policy. And i still believe that. But i can tell you this, what is going on in iran right now is potentially historic. And if i could pick one thing to have happened, you know in the world, i dont know if i could find too many things that would be better for peace in our time than having those protestors overthrow this regime, which is an illegitimate regime which has denied basic rights and suffocated the persian culture for decades and spends money on promoting terrorists. The president has come out in support, much different than the Previous Administration because the Obama Administration effectively sided with the regime in 2009 because they wanted this deal. I think we have to have whatever tools that are disposal that can be effective and do it smartly and strategicically. But i dont think we can miss this opportunity to stand behind those protestors against one of the truly evil regimes in the world. Just imagine if that regime were to collapse. You dont have to worry about north korea will still be an issue. But the most likely purchaser of their Nuclear Arsenal is iran. So that threat would go. Hezbollahs money starts to dry up. And baghdad could turn. Yemen will cool down. Syria may be able to be dealt with in a positive way. Israel would lose a threat to its existence. The dividends from that would be absolutely phenomenal. So i hope the administration gets more engaged in this. You dont want to do things that are going to undercut those protestors. The decision on the nuclear deal now, im against the nuclear deal entirely, but i would make that decision with an eye how its going to effect the factors on the ground. But this is an important, important moment and we all need to stand by them. I just think where we are now, it is this outsidein approach and i think it is much more effective. There is a lot that need to be done but cant look at the world right now after one year of Trumps Administration in the middle east and say that we are worst off than we were when he took office. I didnt mention caliphate and isis crumbling. But that is a major deal. It has been an exciting year in terms of international affairs. And i think the president has gotten his sea legs after making these tough decisions and we could do a lot more. Its an honor to be here and are we going to take some questions . Thank you for that great overview of the Current Situation in the middle east, especially your depth of knowledge of not only the israeli issues but issues facing the region. We do have time for a couple of questions. Please identify your name and affiliation and keep your question short. Gentleman in the front and i go to the gentleman behind the gentleman. You first. Im from the Heritage Foundation. Just a question regarding north korea, can you comment on that . Whats your take . It is really serious now. Ron i give the president for credit for engaging on the issue. The fundamental issue is kim jong un his arsenal is his ticket for survival. I dont think it has been sufficient to convince him that his current course is actually more dangerous for survival. If you had military, political, economic pressure, such as he feared that his regime would buckle and lose the grip on power, then you may be willing to come to the table but were , not at that point yet. And i think its a dangerous situation. But we are not sniffing any negotiations on the Nuclear Program right now. The gentleman here. Very disgraceful and sad that you said as an elected official. The United Nations did not adopt inolutions and 26 2016. You can double check your facts. Ron i dont think its much up for dispute. How do you see the negotiations happening between palestine and israel . Do you see with the u. S. As a third party, we as a broker between u. S. And palestine or Multi Lateral form . Ron we shouldnt be a broker because our interests align with the state of israel and i think we have more affinity with israel with both our interests and our values and doesnt mean you cant work constructively but we shouldnt take the posture of brow beating israel to be offering these concessions when the palestinian arabs will still not recognize israel as a jewish state. That would be a precondition for negotiations. Could you please state your name please. [inaudible] my question is that when you are youing representative of u. S. Congress or presenting israel or interests of israel . What i see the damage that has [inaudible] due to time, we are running short. You had your say. That is enough. He mentioned my background. Im a military veteran and sworn an oath to the constitution and i represent my constituents and americas interest. I happen to think that its in americas interest to have a Good Relationship with countries that share our interests from a security perspective and that share our values. There are other countries this the region that share our interests and may not share our values and if you listen to what i said, i said you should be working with people like sisi and saudi arabia to fight iranian influence. If we share neither interests nor values, its very difficult to have any type of relationship with those countries. Its all from the perspective of the United States and i think your question was somewhat ridiculous. We have one final from the lady. I want to thank you immensely, immensely, thank you and thank President Trump who i once doubted. There are millions of us who are thrilled at what hes doing and what youre doing. Two questions. One question. How is the state Department Taking this . And what do you do about a state department that has clearly been on the wrong side of history for a very long time . Its a good question in the sense that you have the bureaucracy and then you have Administration Policy and political appointees and permanent bureaucracy. I think this is one where you probably had as close to as unanimous as possible an opposition. Im not saying every single one. And so, you hear reports of, who may have you may have a temporary embassy area but it remains to be seen, what i have heard is that i am cautiously optimistic that you will see some action to implement the policy. If there is not, then theres people like me in the congress who can conduct oversight and make sure that the policys been followed. The state Department Works for the American People. Not the other way around, so when we have an election, we have policies implemented. It is a job of the department to implement those policies. Couple in Election Night they pinatarump team yada they were ready to break open. Death have some introspection about the lack of fallout that they predicted over this issue. The fact of the matter is, all of the predictions i was told, not one of them has come true from the people who have been studying the region for a very and have been with the u. S. Government for a very long time. Itr it is a group tank is not just the state department, it is other agencies. Great, im afraid thats it in terms of time. I thank the congressman on behalf of the Heritage Foundation. Please join me in thanking the congressman. [indiscernible] we proceed with the rest of the panel. Administration has committed itself to fostering a treatyeedy peace between israel and the palestinians. This goal has become the holy grail of the american presidency, as President Trump has called it the ultimate deal. Yet there has been little progress on peace negotiations since the oslo peace negotiations broke down in the 1990s. Is peace possible . And if so, what should be the role of the United States in creating the conditions for such a peace . We are fortunate to have with us today two of the more distinguished conservative experts on the middle east and ill introduce them. Our first speaker is Elliott Abrams. He is a senior fellow of middle Eastern Studies at the council of foreign relations. He has carved out Public Service Deputy Assistant to the president and was in the administration of george bush where he supervised u. S. Middle east policy and National Security council. He was an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan Administration and received the secretary of states distinguished Service Award from secretary of state George Schultz. Schultz. In 2012, the Washington Institute for near east policy gave him the scholar statesman award, educated at harvard and the London School of economics at Harvard Law School before joining the Bush Administration, he was the president of a think tank here in washington, the ethics and Public Policy center and was a member of the u. S. Commission on International Freedom rising to become chairman of the commission in 2001 and later served a second term as a member of that body. From 2009 to 2016 he was a member of the u. S. Holocaust council which directs activities of the museum and he is a member of the board of National Endowment for democracy. He teaches u. S. Foreign policy at georgetowns university and author of five books including realism and democracy, american Foreign Policy after the arab and he spoke about this at heritage last fall. Gives me great pleasure to welcome elliott back here again. [applause] pleasure to be here at heritage and be with daniel price. We went to college together. So, i think you asked the right question, is peace possible . Right question is, how do we get to peace. The twostate question is derivative. If it helps peace, it is a good thing. If not, it needs to be rethought. We invented the term middle east Peace Process. And its probably a lot of writing about this partly the american legalization of policy. Lawyers like process. So you have the Peace Process. And keeping the process alive has actually become over the years more important than whether the process actually achieves anything. We have had carter and camp david and oslo and the current process since 1991. We had bill clinton at camp david in 2000. We had annapolis in 2008. 2007 and the negotiations that followed. So the process has been going on for decades. But it hasnt produced peace. And i would have to say in my view, it is unlikely to do so. Because in a way, the goal hasnt been peace. We fixed upon a goal early on, even if it wasnt announced of an absolutely sovereign state and thats what we have been pushing for rather than saying whats up, what is happening, what is the condition . In the west bank, in gaza, and the entire region. It is also the case its very difficult to get to this achievement if the palestinians keep saying no. And actually they have been saying no for before 80 years, for 80 years. Starting from the preworld war ii discussions when the palestine mandate was in the hands of the british. And proposals that arafat said no and a more liberal proposal in 2008 just before he left the Prime Ministership where president abbas said no. I think the window for this was open widest from roughly 2000 to 2008. But i think it is closing. Why is it closing . For one thing, the palestinian refusal to admit the reality that they have been defeated. But with the support of many in the arab world and muslim world and some in europe, they refuse to acknowledge this. If you refuse to acknowledge reality of their defeat militarily by israel, then you are going to have attitudes and approaches in the negotiations that are unreal. So thats one reason. The refusal to acknowledge reality. The outside support particularly from the arab world. Third reason is terrible leadership. Sometimes you get lucky. And you have mandela. And sometimes you dont get lucky and you have arafat. The level of leadership has not been what anyone would have hoped for. Would a palestinian state be viable . Thats a question we should ask if our policy is going to be support palestinian statehood. Think about this experiment. Lets assume you create a palestinian state and counter factually there is no security problem. There is no security problem. No terrorism. It has been removed from the face of the earth. The palestinian state that you have thus created has no port. It has no airport, it has no currency, it has no natural resources. It has no productive economy. So i think the logic would be that the entity is going to be tied to, you might even say fall upon, admit israel or jordan for survival. And the logic of it, i think is the logic that existed decades ago, it makes more sense for it to be related to or in the form of a relationship with an arabmuslimsunni state than a jewish state. The logic seems to be that the major city you turn to is amman. People say its unrealistic, unrealistic today. I dont think its so easy to say it is unrealistic 10 years from now. Or 20 years from now. The jordanian population itself is changing. Quarter of million who did not go back to iraq and that is realistic. Over a million syriansunni refugees, are they going to go home or another big change in the population of jordan . The middle east is changing in many, many ways. The notion that the only possible outcome is a truly sovereign independent palestinian state needs to be thought about again. It shouldnt be so shocking actually. That would be a change in the american view point. There have been other changes in the american view point. I worked for George Schultz in the Reagan Administration. The policy of the United States was to oppose the creation of a palestinian state, clear stated policy. And then we changed. So the notion we could say, we changed since the world changed. And the world keeps on changing so we want to have another look. , we could change again. In the short run, meaning the next five or 10 years, i wouldnt predict much of a change. We all know that the the line. The Israeli Occupation is unsustainable. 50 years is a long time for something to be sustained. It strikes me if we do this back in five years, will you invite us, please. Things will not have changed all that much. Things can get better. The Palestinian Economy can get better. Governance, and particularly the west bank, can get better. The attitude of the United States and more broadly donors can improve and help improve palestinian politics. We see this in the taylor force act, which is a statement to the palestinians that the world is tired and no longer permit paying money to people who have committed terrible crimes of terrorism for those crimes. You see moves on the hill which suggest that the United States congress is getting tired of a situation that perpetrates the Palestinian Refugee crisis, rather than doing what we do, which is to try and solve a refugee problem. And timely the more general incitement and textbook problem which needs to be addressed because over time, one does to create a much greater chance that israelis and palestinians, whatever their political relationship, can live together peacefully. Palestinians have suffered from the soft and sometimes not so soft expectation of bigotry and expectations. It, and they will. They will get a much better outcome. Thank you. Thank you, eliott. Our next speaker is dr. Daniel pipes. He is the president of the middle east forum, which he founded in 1994 to promote american interests in the neverending debates over middle east policy. Hes one of the worlds foremost analysts on the middle east and muslim history. And hes been far ahead of the curve in diagnosing policy problems, particularly in identifying the threat of radical islam, long before 9 11. The Washington Post has called him perhaps the most prominent u. S. Scholar on radical islam. The boston globe concluded that if pipes admonitions had been heeded, there might never have been a 9 11. And those are strong words. Hes a graduate of harvard university, seems to be something very common here. With both a b. A. And ph. D. In history. And hes been recognized as one of harvards 100 most influential living graduates. Hes taught at harvard, princeton, chicago, the u. S. Naval war college, and pepper pepperdine university. Hes worked at the state and defense departments, held two president ial appointed positions, testified before congress and worked for five president ial campaigns. Daniel is a prizewinning formerly for the New York Times and syndicated and now writing independently. Hes also written 12 books and his writings have been translated into 35 languages. His website, danielpipes. Org, is among the most accessed sources of specialized information on the middle east and muslim history. He has a stellar record of anticipating middle east crises. For example, in 1993, within days of the signing of the oslo peace accord, he wrote, arafat has merely adopted a flexible approach to fit circumstances, saying, whatever needed to be said to survive. The p. L. O. Has not had a change of heart. Merely a change of policy. Enabling it to stay in business until israel falters and when it can deal a death blow. In 1995 he wrote about radical islam, noticed by most westerners. War has been unilaterally declared on europe and the United States. Al qaeda invited him by name in a september, 2006, video to repent and enter into the light of islam. \[laughter] he declined. \[laughter] saying, i am faithful to my own religion, to my own country, and to my civilization. I thank you for being such a faithful exemplar of all those. Ladies and gentlemen, gives me great pleasure to turn the floor over to daniel pipes. \[applause] mr. Pipes thank you so much, jim. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. What he didnt mention is i worked here for a summer in 1984. And what eliott didnt mention is that last time we did an event together was 1971. In reply to the question before us, President Trumps ultimate deal is israelpalestinian peace possible, my answer is yes. But i would like to propose a completely different approach. I do not think that the existing approach, which goes back 30 years, of Peace Processing, about which youve heard quite a bit now, is going to work. It can be improved, perhaps. Which i think the Trump Administration is doing. Its improved version. But it ultimately will crumble because it depends on palestinian acceptance of israel, which has not come about. And is not coming about. And therefore that is the topic that needs to be addressed. That cannot be addressed in diplomacy. That needs to be addressed in a very different way. So id like to take a step back before proposing an approach. Ill start by giving you three dates. Actually six dates. The first three are 1865, 1945, and 1975. The end of the civil war, world war ii, and the vietnam war. All of those were conclusively ended wars. It ended. There was nothing more. The south never rose again. The germans didnt rise again. And we didnt try and go back to vietnam. Let me give you three other dates. 1917, 1953, and 1967. Im sorry, 1918. The end of the first world war, the end of the korean war, and the end of the sixday war. Those were inconclusive. Any day the korean war could restart. Any day there could be hostilities between arabs and israel. The difference between these two sets of dates is the sense of defeat. In the former, there was a sense of defeat. It was over. In the latter, there wasnt. Simply to lose a round of a war is not to have a sense of defeat. Giving up on ones war goals means being defeated. Thats what we americans experienced in 1975. Victory, i would define as imposing ones will on the enemy. The enemy gives up. Youve prevailed. When you take this and apply it to the palestinianisraeli conflict, what one sees is that for 45 years, from 1948 to 1973, the israelis were seeking victory. After that, since 1993, since the signing of the oslo cords oslo accords on the white house lawn, they have not been seeking victory. They have been trying various different fancy approaches, appeasement, unilateral withdrawal, putting out brush fires, but they havent been seeking victory. The Peace Process has been dominated, has been dominant in those years. The emphasis on diplomacy, unassuming that what arafat said on the white house lawn in september, 1993, was valid. That the palestinians now accepted israel. The war was over. But it wasnt. And it isnt. It continues. So what is needed is an approach that confronts this irreducible problem of palestinian rejectionism. Palestinian rejectionism goes back a century. It means saying no to zionism, to jews, to israel. No, no, no. No political contacts, no economic relations, no personal relations. No. Its fractured. Its no longer as strong as it was a century ago, but its still there. Palestinian rejectionism is the core of the problem and it is what needs to be confronted. And as eliott pointed out, theres this delusion, due to bad leadership, due to international support, i would add, islamic doctrine, Israeli Security services, mentality, there is this delusion that exists among the palestinians that they can defeat israel, that they can cause the jewish state of israel to disappear. That needs to be confronted. That is what we as a great that is what we as a great power, looking at this conflict, need to deal with. So, what im suggesting is that the u. S. Government should adopt a policy which encourages the israelis to win. To win. As in 1865, 1945, 1975. To end the conflict. By winning. By causing the palestinians to understand that the gig is up and they lost. Its over. Done with. When theyre really upset they write a very strongly worded letter to the editor saying were unhappy. Ok. But enough with the u. N. Resolutions, however many there are. And there are very many against israel. Enough with building up militaries. Enough with the enough, over, its done. Im hoping that some president , this one or a future one, will say to his staff, yeah, diplomacy isnt working. Weve been at this for decades. Its not going anywhere. Is there some other alternative . And yes, there will be another alternative. Which is what we call israel victory. And as you heard in representative desantis bio, he is cochairman of the house israel victory caucus. There are now 32 members. There are 26 members of the knesset israel victory caucus. We began it a year ago. Under the auspices of the director of the middle east who is the head of our israel victory effort in washington. Were building the Political Base for it and were building the intellectual base by giving talks like this. Having studies, commissioning studies. Bringing this up as an alternative to the existing paradigm. Let me emphasize that it is an approach. It is not a number of policies. Were not saying two state or not two state. I have my own opinions. But thats not the point. The point is that israel needs to convince the palestinians that its over. The conflict has been resolved by the fact that israel is a flourishing, powerful state. The palestinians have a very impressive and weak policy that isnt working. Its a longterm effort. Oprah sieve and weak policy that isnt working. The goal is not to change policy in the next few months. But it is with time to put Something Else on the table that fits the historical pattern. You dont end wars through negotiating. Think of vietnam. It didnt end through negotiations. It ended by the north Vietnamese Army coming in and taking over. Thats how wars end. Wars end when one side gives up. And we have close relations with israel, as representative desantis said, we Share Interests and a moral base with it. It should be the side we want to win. We should help it win. And the ironic thing is that once the palestinians give up, then they can go on to build something good. When they give up this foul goal of eliminating the jewish state, then they can build their own economy, society and culture. And so in the long run, the palestinians will actually gain even more than the israelis. Yes, the israelis will not be murdered on the way to the pizzeria and will not phase this faced this barrage of hostilities. But they lived a good life. The israelis do. The palestinians dont. They live under oppression. Backwardness. They will be able to build once they give up this rejectionism. Once they move on to something thats more constructive. So, i hope you will join us in advocating for this approach. With members of congress, intellectually. I think it offers a new paradigm that pulls us out of the mire of this endless processing that goes nowhere. And in fact is even counterproductive. I would argue to you that palestinianisraeli relations are worse today than they were 25 years ago when the oslo accords were signed. So we need something new. We need new thinking. I offer this to you as new thinking. And as a way for the ultimate deal to be achieved. Thanks. Thank you. \[applause] i will open up to the floor after i ask one question. The thing that troubles me is that in a lot of the analyses of peace prospects, theres an assumption or a presumption that the Palestinian Authority is the be all and end all. I think many analyses dont take into account what i consider to thatmaligned hammerlock hamas has on exactly what kind of negotiations are going to produce. And, i would say even if you could assume that tomorrow the Palestinian Authority and israel negotiated a Perfect Peace deal that satisfied all their various prerequisite, whatever they may be, that the next day, hamas could explode it with another round of rocket terrorism. And, to me it seems like peace really is impossible until the palestinians themselves come under a more unified government. And, i wonder if what either one of you or both of you think of this triangular and then now we have the Islamic State moving in, to challenge hamas and gaza. I mean, how can there be peace given all these cascading radical movements . Analysis over the past century, 80 of palestinians have been rejectionist and 20 have accepted israel. And the goal must be to expand that. Its not nothing. Start at 20 . And that 20 has been very important over the century. My goal is to encourage, increasing number of palestinians that the conflict is over. I must focus on leaders. Im less focused on hamas and the p. A. I think you want a change of heart. You want to get people to recognize that its no longer worth their while to engage in, say, suicide attacks, because its futile. So long as you think that you are part of a movement thats going to lead to the elimination of the jewish state, well, its worth doing it. But if you see this futile, youre not going to do it. Im looking much more at the populous than at the leadership. With leadership, i think what youre saying points to a real problem which is, somebody has to do that negotiation. Whether its tomorrow or 10 years from tomorrow. And the palestinian Leadership Today has a declining today has a declining legitimacy. This is partly because they wont hold elections. Because of hamas. President abbas was elected in 2005. The parliament was elected in 2006. And, those were the last elections. And, fattah, the fattah party, is not confident that it will win elections. But that creates a situation where you have a palestinian leadership, whose democratic legitimacy has been severely undermined. And which is looking over its shoulder at hamas, knowing that, let us suppose it signed a compromise, we know exactly what hamas would say. Yasser arafat wouldnt sign, you signed, youre a traitor. Thats not obviously going to be very practical proposition for anybody in the palestinian Leadership Today. So that makes the possibility that this leadership will sign such a deal much lower. I would add to that that the Palestinian People have not been prepared for the compromises that any, any agreement would require, so that you get arafat backing away in 2001 and you get abbas backing away in 2008. I think because they genuinely wonder whether, i dont know whether those numbers are right today, but they worry that in fact the majority of palestinians would reject those compromises, which would, of course, be rejected by hamas and the Islamic Jihad and other groups. Mr. Phillips ok. Lets go at this point to the floor. Well ask this gentleman here and then this woman. Is there any palestinian in any leadership position who has basically said, ok, weve lost, now what happens to us . And if one does, what is israels reply . Yes, there are. Bas amid comes to mind. There are plenty of others. But they are part of the 20 that has no power. What does israel say . What happens to the palestinians . Im encouraging the u. S. Government to encourage the Israeli Government to take those steps within legal, political, and moral bounds, which will encourage the palestinians to change their behavior. Let me give you one example. Two days ago, an israeli rabbi, father of six, was murdered in cold blood. Obviously, the Israeli Government is going to try and find the murderer. But one of the israeli leaders, naftali bennett, suggested thats not enough, that because this rabbi lived in what is called an illegal outpost on the west bank, now you murdered someone, heres what we do in response. Thats the kind of thing wed be pointing to. It would send a signal rather rapidly that murdering fathers of six is not really a helpful step for the palestinians. In fact, it is counterproductive. Hello. I work at the Heritage Foundation. Thank you so much. Although were dealing with the question of whether peace is achievable, what should the u. S. next step be . I wonder if theres a way, maybe this sounds cynical, if theres a way for the u. S. To somewhat force both parties to finally sit and take these peace talks and process seriously versus nitpicking on small details whether of importance or not on borders and so forth, would be for the u. S. To take a stronger move in either reducing or cutting the aid that it sends financially to the Palestinian Authority, which is supposed to be going to helping fund infrastructure, fund schooling and education, and yet has proven time and time again to actually help the Palestinian Authority pay off terrorists and so forth. So is that a good next step that would actually force both parties to come and seriously take the peace talks, well, seriously . I sort of agree with you or the implications about 50 . That is, i think it is not sensible for us to force the parties to come to the table if they dont want to negotiate, because it wont succeed. There are prices to pay when we do that. One price is its always bad for the president of the United States to fail at anything. Anything. Its bad for him. Its bad for the country. And if you have endless negotiations that dont go anywhere, it creates a kind of cynicism on the part of israelis and palestinians about the whole question of peace. So i would not say, well, if you dont go to the table right now, we will cut this part of aid, that part of aid, but i would look at the aid program and the way that congress is doing it. I mentioned taylor force and question of honor again. I think we should start rethinking not with the goal of saying, you know, our purpose here is to cut the aid really low, but rather to say is the way we are giving aid actually helping the possibilities of longterm peace or not . And im against the negotiations, so i complete, 100 disagree with you. Thats easy. Ok. Yes, this man in the back here. Yes, sir. My name is david edmond on the board of the middle east forum. I wonder if the speakers could forecast what they expect palestinian leadership and palestinian governance to look like one year from now and lets say ten years from now. This violates the famous line of yogi berra never make predictions, especially about the future. [laughter] one year from now it doesnt i mean, because of president abbas age, palestinians are thinking about succession issues. So thats a question one would have to assume he would not ten years from now be the palestinian president and the head of the p. A. , plo, and the fatah party. One year from now, you know, the assumption would be it will look pretty much the same. I think palestinians are trying to figure out now how changed is washington . There is a story in the Jerusalem Post today saying that palestinians, that the plo, which is officially the part that negotiates with israel, in charge of Foreign Affairs, the plo is thinking of saying were not going to work with the americans anymore, the americans there has to be an International Effort at negotiation, and were going the israelis and the americans have killed oslo, so its reasonable for them to say those kinds of things. The truth is no other country could substitute for the United States in trying to convene negotiations, whether its a good idea or bad idea. The french cant do it. The british cant do it. The russians cant do it. Its not sensible. So i think youll hear a lot more of that rhetoric, and, you know, the Palestinian Ambassador from washington was recalled, but i gather hes been sent back or is being sent back. So there will be a lot more friction, but i would suspect a year from now, things would look very much the same. I find it amusing and very happy that the palestinians have decided to boycott the United States. Made my day. [laughter] as for what things look like in the future, should the existing paradigm be continued with the Peace Processing, which i call war processing, it will look the same. It may not be abbas, but it would be in that same tradition of rejectionism. Harder rejectionism or softer rejectionism but rejectionism, and well still have the same conditions we have today. Only if theres a complete shift will there be a prospect of something better. But at this point, thats only something we hope for. There are no signs of it. This woman right here and then the man behind her. Im Donnie Jackson with the National Black public council, also a member of the Heritage Foundation as well. Can you hear me . Oh, good. I want to thank the entire panel for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here today. We appreciate it very much. I also want to ask a question to dr. Pipes. You mentioned that israel would never be accepted due to the palestinian rejectionism. And of course its hard and soft. You just mentioned that. You said go back 100 years, bringing us around the 1900s. Now were in 2017. And my question to you is, with the bloom or the boom of social media, how does that affect the palestinian rejectionism . Is it more harder or more softer . Whats the impact of social media . I would say it has led to it becoming harder. People tend to talk to their own. You are in discussion with people who share your views and whatever it might be. And therefore you tend to get more excited and stronger in your feelings. So i think, as you can see in this country, left and right have become harder, more hostile to each other. I think youll find the same elsewhere. Let me point out, though, that were talking about palestinians. Were not talking about arabs. Were not talking about muslims. One of the striking things that happened that representative desantis noted, and whats most especially striking is the arab states, of which there are 22, the arab states were quiet. I mean, they made modest condemnation and the saudis called it irresponsible, but they didnt want to deal with it, and there was an extraordinary New York Times piece a week ago which had the tapes of an egyptian policeman calling up talk show hosts and saying, leave jerusalem alone. Remarkable. A policeman calling up a talk show host, saying stay off this subject. Its not an Egyptian National interest for you to talk about this. We only have that one concrete incident, but clearly across the board this is what were talking about. This is not arab israeli. This is palestinian israeli. Its very different. While there are so more arabs than israelis and so many more tanks and everything, they have very little economy. This looms large over them. Winning a war is rather simple. Not talking about winning over morocco or malaysia. Talking about winning over the palestinians alone. What is also striking in contrast to the arab states being quiescent is that the hotbeds of hostility were in iran and turkey and in europe. This man right here. Im frank alshore with the center for a free cuba. My question is how did the policy of president obama toward iran impact on the Israeli Palestinian situation, and how is the current policy of President Trump impacting on the same . I think the main impact of the obama iran policy was, oddly enough, to produce a kind of rapprochement between israel and many of the sunni states, because they have a common enemy. Not obama, iran. That common fear of iran, of its support for terrorism, of its support for war, has led to what appear to be improved relations. Im not even talking i mean, one assumes there are lots of secret meetings, but you can see in the tone of comments. Dan just mentioned the reaction to jerusalem. Its striking to me now when there is a terrorist attack in israel, the official saudi reaction on it is always we condemn this attack, we condemn all terrorism, this is unforgivable, period. That didnt happen ten years ago. So, i think that is an oddly beneficial impact. I dont think there was much of a longterm impact on the Israeli Palestinian situation. And if you think of it, there were eight years of no negotiations despite considerable efforts by the president and especially by secretary of state kerry in the obama second term. Tremendous amount of time put in on this, but nothing happened. So i would say i think it just kept the process going weakly for another eight years but had no Significant Impact on it. As a historian, i savor the ironies of history, and one of them is that the huge amount of money that we pay to the iranian government created a rise in expectations that led to the outbreak of revolts in the last few weeks. Looks like theyve been suppressed, but it was a factor that in the long term i think harms the Iranian Regime more than helps them. Another irony is that u. S. israel relations, i tend to like it when u. S. israel relations are not so good, because when theyre really good, as, for example, during the bush years elliott, dont listen to this the bush, george w. Bush years, the Bush Administration would make demands of israel such as to be technical, leaving the corridor, which were dumb demands that the israelis because of the flourishing regulations just felt they had to do. But when there were tensions, as oh there were during the obama years, the Obama Administration makes these demands and the israelis happily ignore them. In general, i like poor relations. Thats a twohour question and answer. But i would take exception on the detail of philadelphi, where i would argue that ariel sharon as a general came to the conclusion that if he was going to get out of gaza, defending what is actually a line, was simply militarily nuts. Something he did because of american pressure. I think its something he did for military reasons, but you raise it, so ok. Ok, this man right here. Thank you very much for coming. Im max lonegan. Jaime junior at Mount Saint Joseph in baltimore, maryland. Yesterday President Trump had a press conference with the norwegian president and he got a question regarding a comment a general made. He said that war is coming, and specifically, you know, with his strategic where he is in norway, you would think its with russia. But where do you see russia especially making strategic movements in the middle east in the next few years . You want to start . Well, i think putin to a surprising degree has been able to reinsert russia as a great power in the middle east, and i think part of that was the Obama Administrations policy in syria, its failure to push back, and behind that i think also was its focus on striking a nuclear deal with iran. Everything else came second. So i think russia is back, and i dont think its back to the extent that it was, say, before 1973. I dont think it has much of a role to play in peace negotiations, but as a security force, i think its back definitely in syria, and it has a growing alliance with iran. I see two major vulnerabilities. One is the fact that moscow has aligned with tehran and has created hostility in so many other places. And, secondly, russia is a declining power. Its demographically and economically going down. So, you know, good luck. Make hay while the sun is out. But china is the real issue. Not russia. China is going to be the problem of the future, much, much more serious. Ok. This man right here. Maybe dr. Pipes addressed this in passing with reference to neftali bennetts recommendation, but talking about the population, how do you expand that 20 . And in the foreseeable future im sorry. My name is louis morano. I forgot to identify myself. In the foreseeable future, especially in terms of considering abu mazens advanced age, would you anticipate any palestinian leader, nonrejectionist, being able to survive physically, as well as politically . My focus is for reasons youre implying not on leaders but on the populace, reducing that 80 rejectionist element to something less than 50 so that eventually a nonrejectionist leader could survive. But no. Not now. Its a longterm project. It will take time. It will take stepbystep one palestinian after another coming to the conclusion that hoping to eliminate israel is a forlorn dream. Its just not going to happen. Let me ask a question. Where do you get the 80 20 . I havent seen that. Mr. Pipes i have it from a lot of statistics. I have a web log entry on this, going back to the 1920s, various surveys that have shown this. Id be happy to send it to you. I think if you looked up 20 palestinians, my website, youll see about 10 different surveys and historical researches that point to this general number. There was what i would call a positive effort under salam fayad as Prime Minister, that is, an effort to build im not quoting, but as he put it more or less, we need to build palestine despite the occupation. Forget the occupation. Thats israels business. Our business is to build institution by institution, create a government, create an economy. It is a sort of zionist concept, that is, the Zionist Movement had no way of knowing would there be a jewish state in 1918 after the war or in the 1930s or in 1945 or in 1960. All they knew is build, build, build, you have to be ready if and when the day comes, which is i think essentially what fayyad was saying. Now, his party only won two seats in the Palestinian Legislature and he was ultimately forced out, forced out by the fatah party, of which he was never a member. I just there is impressionistic evidence i will have to look at the data impressionistic evidence i have heard from a number of palestinians that younger palestinians are more concerned with building a future than they are with some of the old formulae, like our future can only come when israel is destroyed or even perhaps like our future can only come when there is an independent sovereign palestinian state. Theyre more concerned with how do i get an education, how do i get a job, how do i raise my children . Which is precisely what in a sense we would want. We would want people to be thinking less about politics and less about israel and more about their own society. But i think i mean, thats the right question. Id say one thing is for sure. That percentage, if it is 20 , cannot expand if a lot of money is being given to the people whose lifes work it is to make sure it cant expand. For example, by paying you a large amount of money if you try to kill israelis, i mean, that should be obvious. And it cant expand if we continue the model in which what were telling you is no, no, no, despite the fact that you were born in, let us say jordan or lebanon 10 years ago, youre still a Palestinian Refugee with the thought of going back. So we are, by directing money in american money, american taxpayers money, to those institutions, practices, expenditures, hurting very much the cause of expanding the 20 to 80 . The title of the blog is how many arabs and muslims accept israel . I began it in 2003 and have been following it 15 years now. I think we have time for one more question. This man in the back here. Thank you very much. I am with the united state of africa 2017 project task force. I was outside briefly and somebody here asked me whether i thought of what youre doing. I said most of what theyre saying not of interest to me, i know about that, etc. , etc. I said Elliott Abrams made a statement which would be the future, not matching with israel but they will have to match with jordan, because smaller states like we know in africa are not viable, and very soon the palestinians will understand that. Ok. Maybe at this point, if i could just ask the two of you to sum up your comments. If you had to advise President Trump how to proceed on this issue, what would you say just, you know, the top two or three things . Mr. Abrams well, the president clearly from everything we can see now, is still focused on trying to get a comprehensive agreement, whats called a final status agreement, something that eluded every president since clinton. I think thats very unlikely. And i think it would be more useful to focus on more pragmatic ways of improving the lives of palestinians, palestinian politics, and the medium and longrun chances that israelis and palestinians and jordanians and egyptians, because gaza is out there, too, will be able at some point to live together in peace or to live apart in peace, which may be more realistic. The middle east is aflame. There are civil wars in libya and yemen and syria and arguably in lebanon and iraq and afghanistan. In turkey, there is a near civil war. Sinai has something close to a civil war, anarchy, problems all over. It is remarkable that were still talking about a problem that is 70 or 100 years old when theres so much going on, when i mean, think of the syrian refugees. Half of the syrian population, 22 million, has been displaced internally or become refugees outside the country. Huge numbers. Far, far beyond the numbers of palestinians, which was 600,000 back in 1949. And this is not 1949. This is 2018. So given this fact, given the iranian rampage of aggression, given the fact that turkey has become close to a rogue state, given the dramatic developments taking place in saudi arabia, where i think mohamed bin salman is undertaking a transformation, wishes to undertake a transformation as deep as the attaturk period in turkey, given all thats going on, i would say lets outsource the palestinian issue to the israelis, let them take care of it, and lets focus on the much bigger, more dramatic, and more dangerous developments taking place in the region. And with that, id like to invite the audience to join me in thanking our speakers for a very illuminating presentation. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] two else leaders on cspan. Speaker paul ryan and democratic ip steny hoyer. Speaker ryan a number of workaroundsng at to get beyond the 10,000 deduction. Will you will republicans do anything to do that . Heard thean i have big idea is to let millionaires and billionaires to pay their taxes as donations. I cannot imagine the treasury or irs would let that happen. Is beyond reason to think that tax regulations would allow that to happen. Hoyer iative expect us to take the house. The American People are looking for some stability and focus on issues they care about in terms of jobs, education, health care, in terms of the environment, and in terms of our National Security. They viewed democrats as being able to provide some stability to our country and very frankly also to a proper check and balance in our system when we see a president who has trouble creating stability within the white house, much less within our government. Interview withs paul ryan at 8 45 this evening, and steny hoyer sunday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. The u. S. Supreme court heard oral argument this week over voting rights. Over whether the state can purge voters from registration rolls for failing to vote. Watch that tonight at 9 00 eastern. Congress is back on capitol hill tuesday facing a Government Shutdown deadline. Members may consider an abortion bill. The senate will debate the bill reauthorizing fisa. Watch the house live on cspan and see the senate live on cspan2. Unfoldsn, where history daily beauty in 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television countries and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Eric greitens delivered his state of the state in jefferson city, missouri. He spoke about streamlining government operations. He spoke for about half an hour