Transcripts For CNNW A 20240706

September 13, 1992. A piece of paper, two signatures today seen as the beginning of the end of patriot wars and vengeance between arabs and jews. A day that could have lead to the unthinkable. Peace in the middle east. Israel and the palestinians sign a pact on the white house lawn. Supporters of the declaration are dancing in the streets of that west bank town of jericho at this hour. The reality changed today in the middle east. Enough of blood. Enough the comprehensive peace in the middle east happening now in jerusalem, the scenes that took place in washington are being replayed. Go in peace, go as peacemakers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 30 years and one month later an unthinkable day, an allout Massacre On Israeli soil perpetrated by hamas. War erupts in the middle east. The attack caught israel by surprise at sunrise. Major cities in israel including tel aviv and jerusalem. It is a shocking and unprecedented escalation in the regions long history of conflict. Babies slaughtered, entire families massacres, releashes pure, unadulterated evil on the world. Israel is fighting back at hamas with strengths on cities in gaza after the staged terrorist attack. We are all left with a crucial question to ponder. How did we get from here let us all celebrate the dawn of a new era. To here. [ explosion ] intense fighting is still under way. We have just had a massive barrage of rockets coming in here. [ siren ] to help us understand, im going to talk to historians on both sides of the divide, and a former u. S. Ambassador to israel who has been involved in middle east diplomacy since the administration of john f. Kennedy. Welcome to this Fareed Zakaria gps special the road to war in the middle east. Now we could take you back thousands of years, but in this special we will start our focus on the closest the two sides ever got to peace since the founding of israel. Briefly it bears mentioning that the first steps toward israels statehood began in 1947 when in the wake of the holocaust that saw some 6 million jews murdered the United Nations voted to Split Palestine into two, one jewish state and one arab state. At this point the population of palestine was about a third jewish. The Jews In Palestine Beinga Sented the plan, but the arabs rejected it. Nevertheless, the british pulled out and on may 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the state of israel. A mere day later the new nations neighbors declared war and israel has been in a state of war or under the threat of it ever since while the palestinians have remained in limbo, but that sunny day in 1993, september 13th, brought the first real hope for peace. President bill clinton had convened israeli and palestinian leaders on the white house lawn to make a major step toward that peace, to sign the socalled oslo accord. The document signed that day and in the days leading up said that the Palestine Liberation Organization recognized israels rate to exist. That israel recognized the plo as the sole representative of the palestinian people, that israel would pull out of much of the Palestinian Territories after occupying and controlling them starting in 1967, and that the plo renounced violence. The parties were exchanging land for peace. After the signing, the world watched stunned as plo chairman Yasser Arafat reached out his hand to israels Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and stunned again when rabin reached out his hand in return. Lets pick up there with two great observers of the politics of the region and i spoke to a scholar at oxford, but first up, beni morris, an imminent israeli h historian who has written extensively about the middle east Peace Process. Rabin looked to be very reluctant. Explain that. Look, rabin had been a soldier for many years. He was the Chief Of Staff of the israeli army. He had been fighting palestinian terrorists for a long time and regarded arafat as a terrorist. He didnt really believe, i think in his heart that arafat would change into a statesman from a terrorist, but he wanted to give it a chance, i think, and so he reached this agreement with the fan. Was it difficult for arafat to get there . Talk about what he had to do to get there and shake hands with rabin . Arafat had to do an awful lot, and i think one of the misconceptions of the whole period is the degree to which arafat was determined to try and reach a Peace Agreement with the israelis. This started in 1988 at the Palestine Liberation Organizations Palestine National council which is the highest body within the plo which took a decision which was the basis of what we call today a twostate solution. It was a decision to accept the palestinian state on the areas occupied in 1967 in East Jerusalem, the west bank and the gaza strip. Oslo was not particularly popular among the palestinians and among the palestinians as a whole, the imbalance was evident. The israelis were not offering a state. The Israelis In Oslo were not offering a state. The israelis were simply offering an interim period in the israeli concept of oslo everything was reversible. On the palestinian side it was seen as irreversible and that was the fundamental difference in the way that both sides saw oslo. There was great distrust. Especially on, i think it was true of both of them upon arafat and rabin distrusted the other side. They felt the other side was cheating. The jews were busy taking peace and moving slowly towards peace and at the same time they were building settlements and the arabs were talking peace and they were busy Murdering Jews in busses and restaurants and there was mistrust and dont forget that arafat had been a terrorist for most of his life and the charter of his movement, the fatah called for israels destruction and rabin himself simply didnt trust these people. The oslo agreement was essentially asymmetrical. The plo got formal recognition. The israelis got plos recognition to live in peace and security. So where the israelis got a very significant political prize, the plo got a formal procedural agreement in terms of representation. So the asymmetry there reflected, of course, the balance of power. The oslo accords meant that israel would withdraw from the cities of the west bank and from the gaza strip, pull out its troops and allow arafat and his plo units who had been living and training in tunis and other places to come into the west bank and to come to the gaza strip and basically take sort of administrative control of the main towns in the west bank and the gaza strip on the whole. So they were side by side in those interim years in the 90s the Autonomous Palestinian Authority governing the cities of the west bank and the gaza strip, side by side with Israeli Military government which was in charge of the security for the whole of the west bank and the gaza strip. It was an uneasy arrangement. In february, 1994, very soon after The Oslo Agreement was signed and began implementation, was there the massacre at the Ibrahimic Mosque where an idf officer belonging to an extreme rightwing Israeli Group mowed down 30 muslims at prayer in the mosque and the subsequent protest the israeli army killed another 30 changing completely, both the atmosphere and beginning the process in which The Oslo Agreement was provided by significant violence on the palestinian side. Hamas took responsibility on itself with a series of Suicide Bombings. Next, we will pick up the story at a major Turning Point. One that threatened the very existence of the Peace Process. The assassination of israels Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Did it indeed end the hopes for a lasting peace . Well be back with two sets of answers in a moment. On november 4, 1995, israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin spoke at a peace rally in tel aviv. The man who had shaken Yasser Arafats hand on the white house lawn hailed his partners in peace manage the palestinians. He declared that peace is the true desire of the jewish people, but prophetically, he warned of threats from enemies to the Peace Process. As he was leaving the rally rabin was a assassinated by a jewish extremist who did not believe in peace with the palestinians. I asked how rabins death affected the Peace Process. Did rabins assassination kill oslo definitely . We can never tell. It was never clear what rabin had in mind, and i dont think he was committed to an independent palestinian state and certainly not in the whole of the occupied territories, nonetheless, the very beginnings and the glimmerings of some kind of understanding on between him and arafat have begun to emerge, i think the Turning Point in hebron was a very important one that the point of the Hebron Massacre had the Israeli Government with Yitzhak Rabin at the head taken a decision to vacate the Israeli Settlers from the heart of hebron, because these were the hard core, the very hard core settlers with the person who committed the act in the mosque came from, had they removed them, had they remove them i think the whole course of the interaction between the palestinians and the israelis would have changed, but rabin did not and the settlers were not removed and the message came from the palestinians that the israelis, theres nothing that will budge them from the positions that they had taken. So rabin gets assassinated and his successor is shimon peres who seems determined to continue what rabin had been trying to do, and rabin had been trying to reach out it syria and he had already made peace with jordan. What happens after rabins death and does paris try to take the lead . Yeah. After rabins assassination, it seemed that his successor shimon peres who incidentally had been the man pushing for peace in the rabin government and Pushing Rabin Towards Peace Making He Succeeded rabin, and it seemed that he was set on the course to win the elections, but then a wave of hamas terrorism pushed the israelis right wards. What about the hamas Suicide Bombings after rabins death . How much did they how much did all that derail the direction that things were going in . Well, the truth is that for six months from summer until the end of 1995, hamas had stopped its Suicide Bombings. They only started again when the israelis decided in the spur of the moment, shimon peres and the Prime Minister who succeeded rabin decided to kill the senior Military Leader of hamas at that time, which then sparked another wave of Suicide Bombings. The Suicide Bombings helped to bring peres down. And eventually Benjamin Netanyahu won the election by a slim majority, but in the election basic ally on this wav of antizionist and antiisraeli by arabs. It was clear that he would not move further towards peace. He rejected the idea of a twostate solution, and the Peace Process got stuck for three years from 19 from 1996 when he was elected until 1999 when he was thrown out by the public. He would claim that he actually implemented part of the oslo accords. He gave back hebron and things like that, but talk about bibi for those years, bibi and oslo. Well, netanyahu was both a rightwinger and a mpragmatist. I think he was pressured by the American Government to sign an additional small segment of a treaty in which he basically withdrew the jewish troops from most of the town of hebron. It was the last major town not controlled by the plo, by what was called then the Palestinian Authority, but he was very reluctant in doing this and basically vowed to not return the west bank to the palestinians and he encouraged new settlements and did not move toward a twostate solution which is one of the reasons he was voted out of power in 1999, even though the demographics were in his favor, many people didnt like his mismanagement and he was if government and it was his first term in office, so he wasnt really suited to be a Prime Minister. Incnext, well go to netanyahus political successor ehud barack and his risky onetime gambit for peace at camp david when we come back. Im a little anxious, im a little excited. Im gonna be emotional, shes gonna be emotional, but its gonna be so worth it. I love that i can give back to one of our customers. I hope you enjoy these amazing gifts. Oh my goodness. Oh, you guys. I know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. You have made an impact. So have you. For you guys to be out here doing Something Like this, it restores a lot of faith in humanity. In may 1999 the highly decorated general Erckhud Barac was elected in a landslide. At rabin square, barack paid tribute to his late mentor Yitzhak Rabin and vowed to carry on his legacy. He said, i tell you that the time for peace has come, not peace through weakness, but peace through might and a sense of security. Not peace at the expense of security, but peace that will bring security. It was a moment of optimism for those who hoped for a twostate solution. Israelis and palestinians alike, but if a res lugsz was to be reached barack wanted to spedly and he pushed for a resolution followed by a onetime summit with Yasser Arafat and u. S. President Bill Clinton At Camp David in july 2000. More now with the israeli historian beni morris and ahmad khalidi. Why did barack win in 1999 . Ehud barack who was also a Chief Of The General staff in his younger days so had a lot of credit in israeli public as a hard line, militant, et cetera, but barack was accepted on a pragmatic peace platform. He said we cant go on like this with the palestinians and we have to reach a final settlement and barak said lets finish this, lets meet the palestinians, lets talk to them and lets negotiate the future of jerusalem, the Refugee Problem and israels borders and palestinian statehood. Lets put it on the table and see if we can reach a Peace Agreement and when he did put it on the table he was invited along with Arafat To Camp David in 2000, these things were put on the table and arafat basically said no. Camp david. The big, as you know, this is the totemic moment according to so many versions of it, Are Abouta Barak Afters peace for a twostate solution and arafat walks away and launches the Second Intifada, tell us what happened at camp david. Barak decided the only way to do this was to create a Pressure Cooker situation where arafat would say yes or no and if he said no he would be seen as a villain. At that point you are talking about a conflict that was 75 years old in which no final status or agreement none of the issues of final stakes agreement was set out in oslo that included borders, settle ams, jerusalem and security these were the main items that they had to decide on in the socalled final stages of humans. He didnt want to, in his opinion, waste Political Capital on small steps. The consequence of that was to add to the palestinians suspicions of what he was up to and instead he wanted to solve the 75yearold conflict in one go, in one Pressure Cooker, in a short period of time and from arafats Point Of View he was being put in a position of take it or leave it. He was also told by clinton, by the way, two things. He was told first, there would be no fingerpointing if the Summit Failed and second that the interim steps that barak had already agreed on would be fulfilled even if the Summit Failed. Neither of these promises came true. And in baraks demise and the lefts demise, in effect, in 2001 in the elections in which the public saw that the palestinians do not want peace so they understood from the outbreak of the Second Intifada which followed arafats rejection of the Peace Proposals, the public voted barak out of office and rightwing governments basically followed. Why Launch A Second Intefadeh instead of continuing the negotiations . Thats what arafat wanted and he saw it as the beginning and not the end. The beginning of the process of negotiation. The violence that e rarupted ate end of the intefadeh was provoked by ariel sharon leader of the rightwing opposition who decided after everything that had happened, after all of the tension that emerged of camp david that this was the time for him, a secular israeli, a secular nationalist israeli to show his piousness to show what no israeli minister had done so far that was to visit the temple mount which provoked a series of protests which the israelis responded to with extreme violence and which lit the fuse of the conflict that went on for two or three years afterwards which thousands of palestinians were killed and a series of Suicide Bombings took place. The Second Intifada which erupted in 2000 was basically a Terrorist Intefadeh in which people both from the fatah and from the hamas placed bombs inside israel almost daily, Killing Thousands of israelis by the end of it, and terrorizing the israeli population which basically drove this the israeli population rightwards. It made them believe that the palestinians are not serious about peace making, basically their hearts are with hamas and this incidentally was reinforced by the hamas victory in the only general elections the palestinians ever held in 2006. In 2008 there was another peace deal. Was there another example of a serious offer . I believe so. I think who had grown up a rightwinger and gradually moved leftwards was by the mid2000s a peace neck and he became Prime Minister and put on the table a new Peace Proposal which is essentially a repetition of what clinton had offered arafat in December 2000 when arafat rejected and it essentially was the same offer. A palestinian state based on most or almost all of the west bank, 95 or 96 of the west bank and all of East Jerusalem or almost East Jerusalem and all of the gaza strip and mahmoud abbas, the successor to Yasser Arafata a socalled palestinian state, he didnt a no, he didnt reply to the offer which was accepted and understood on the israeli side as basically saying no again to a twostate situation. Look at olmers history. His popularity were in the single figures. Single figures. I think they were the Lowest Popularity recorded for Prime Minister, in 2008 when he was talking to hamas, he was told he would be indicted to bribery. He was olmert was almost out of power and he was incapable of seeing through any agreement because he was going to jail so abbas had no incentive, i think, to say yes and reveal his cards to someone who is incapable of delivering. And with that lastgasp effort, the Peace Process as we know it essentially ended. So how do these two scholars see the future of peace in the middle east after the horrors of october 7th and the death and destruction that israel has brought to gaza . Is therere any hope . I ask themem when we c come bac. Welcome back to this gps special, the road to war in the middle east. The key question today is will peace between israelis and palestinians ever be possible . More now with our scholars beni morris and ahmed khalidi. So where does this leave you, beni, youre a man of the left. You wrote a book that famously said that the palestinians who left in the 1948 war did not leave voluntarily. They fled expulsion. They were ordered to leave by israeli troops and it was controversial in israel. When you, as a man on the left look back at this history and it seems to me youre saying the palestinians had many offers for a serious state. Theyve turned them all down, but there are 5. 5 Million People of palestinians living on land that israel controls. Why does that leave you in terms of thinking about this problem . Well, it leaves me very depressed and pessimistic. I dont see a way out of it. I dont see the palestinians who have traditionally rejected a twostate solution and didnt begin with Yasser Arafat and began in 1937 when the palestinian leadership rejected the twostate solution, and again rejected a twostate solution in 1947 when the United Nations General Assembly proposed a twostate solution and they said no. Again, as i say, they did the same in the 1990s or the year 2000 and again under olmert and thats on the palestinian side and on the israeli side, israel has continued to build settlements and the right wing has grown stronger and stronger over the past two decades and israel by now am not sure they are willing to go for a twostate solution and israelis and it leaves us with more of the same and israel controlling the territories and palestinians being terrorists and israel a mounting Counter Insurgency operations until kingdom come and thats as far as one can see. The problem is that what happened in october 7th was so traumatic, mass rape of women, gang rape and the taking of hostages who were 85 years old and 9 months old to the gaza strip by this terrorist organization. This has traumatized israelis to such an extent that i fear that israel will move each further to the right as the ultimate consequence on this attack of october 7th and something israelis are not going to forget. What does it look like Going Forward after this war . Why does it leave you in terms of how you think, where you think things are going to go . Its very hard to be optimistic about where things are going to go. I know that under the present circumstances there is a lot of thought now that particularly on the part of the u. S. Administration that the twostate solution can somehow be revived in the wake of the gaza war. Yent i dont see this happening. We have 750,000 settlers on the west bank and the israelis have made it absolutely, absolutely clear that there will be no military withdrawing including now gaza, by the way, that they will maintain Security Control over the whole of the west bank. There will be no palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. There will be no return of refugees. There will be no return to the 67 borders or anything equivalent. The israeli public has shifted to the right and the extreme right now is in control and on the other hand if you look at what the palestinians still are ready to go for which is a state in the west bank and East Jerusalem, some kind of a land swap that is based on equivalence, some the basics of sovereignty and freedom from occupation and the end of Israeli Military rule, i dont think these are unreasonable demands, but i dont see the israelis doing anything like that. I dont see The Americans i dont see The Americans putting enough political resolution what people are calling the onestate reality. Between the river and the sea today you have one state that dominates and one state that controls the life of any person living within that area that controls the ports of entry and exit and controls the skies and controls the goods coming in and out. It controls by a vast, vast disparity of power the monopoly of force. It is the dominant force, and in that area theres one people that is dominant and one people that is dominated. There is one people that is in control and one people that does not have control, whether you can build out of that an equitable, peaceful and lasting resolution, i think is a is a mad dream, but it is certainly a difficult one to conceive of. Next, the final part of the road to war in the middle east. Did the u. S. Backed Abraham Accords which saw israel normalizing relations with countries across the arab world play into hamas decision to attack israel on october 7th . What is the u. S. Role in possibly reviving the hopes for peace in the holy land . Ill talk to a former u. S. Ambassador to israel and syria who has been at this since the administration of john f. Kennedy when we come back. Welcome back to the gps special, the road to war in the middle east. So how did the road to peace turn into a road to war . Well, israels prospects for peace took an unexpected turn during the Trump Administration when the white house brokered a series of agreements between israel and some arab nations. Before this, the widely held expectation was that the bulk of the arab wold would keep its back turned on israel until the palestinian issue was solved, but on september 15, 2020, in a scene reminiscent of the oslo accords, the uae and bahrain recognized israel and normalized diplomatic relations to it when they signed the Abraham Accords. Morocco and sudan followed and this year the biggest prize of them all, saudi arabia seemed possible, too. President biden connected the dots after the october 7th attack, said one of the reasons they attacked israel was because biden sat down with the saudis and recognized israel. Lets talk about this and more broadly, americas role in the quest for peace. He has been working on diplomacy in the middle east for more than 50 years. Hes been u. S. Ambassador to israel, u. S. Ambassador to syria and the Assistant Secretary Of State for middle eastern affairs. Ed, pleasure to have you on. Its good to see you again, fareed. Let me start with the Abraham Accords and you were one of the lone voices warning about it. Explain what your concern was and whether you think it was it dcame to fruition. Fareed, my analysis and experience in the middle east, i always considered the palestinian issue to be a central issue in the political geography of the whole region, and what the Abraham Accords did was what one can call achieve peace through exchanges, et cetera, and thereby normalizing relations between arab countries and israel through economic means, but not really focusing on the central issue which is land for peace between israel and palestine. At the end of the day, fareed, there are 7. 2 million palestinians and 7. 2 approximately israeli jews in between the jordan river and the eastern mediterranean. Neither one is going to go anywhere, theyre there. They have to economic peace simply doesnt work. But that was the trope. And that trope started in the Trump Administration and the Biden Administration obviously continued that with the normalization. I have nothing against normalization of arab countries with israel. But it was done at the cost of the neglecting this central issue, the territorial aspects of peace between israel and palestinian. What do you think american diplomacies fundamental mistakes have been looking back over the last 30 or 40 years . Could we have done things differently to produce peace . Yes. I think first of all, American Diplomacy Needs A Deep Understanding and appreciation of the basic facts on the ground in the middle east and where the parties are coming from. The art of diplomacy is very, very central to understanding your enter October Into Lock Tours interest, displaying that you understand where theyre coming from and then presenting your principles, your protest and determining if theres any common ground. That we have to do much more. Second, we have to have a spine in our diplomacy. We have to be tough on both sides or else nothing will happen. You know, we started off in 67 israeli settlements and u. S. Government proclamations. Israeli settlements are illegal under the national law, the Geneva Convention of 49. And the verbiage is they are an obstacle to peace and no, theyre illegal. And we took a stand in the bush 41 administration on the Housing Loan Guarantees. 10 billion of Housing Loan Guarantees to israel that we stopped because they were not true to their word in stopping settlement activity. And that was the other part of the bargain with us. And that caused a fury. But the United States stood tall on principle. And we have to do that with both sides. We were tough on the arabs and the israelis. You have to be skillful if your diplomacy, also. Do you think that fundamentally the problem is that the palestinians at some point have not been educated by their leadership to recognize that, look, theyve lost this long struggle. Theyre not going to get the whole loaf. Theyre going to get 22 of that loaf. And you have to kind of admit that. And the unwillingness to admit that is and the worry that if you admit that, you will be assassinated or outflanked by hamas, that is at the core of it. There isnt someone willing to speak honestly to the palestinians saying this is all we could get. It comes down to leadership. The arabs simply do not have have not had the leadership that currently that could make those decisions. I hope that they learn from what happened on october 7th and i hope the israelis learn that their policy has failed. This policy of deterrence that netanyahu had on hamas has been a failure. It is not even just a military intelligence failure, not having enough idf troops on the southern border of israel, that people are going to have to account for. But the fundamental policy of the deterrence and playing hamas off of the Palestinian Authority is a failed policy and i think that Prime Minister netanyahu is primarily responsible for that. On the arab side, abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, he doesnt display the traits of leadership that will bring the palestinians to the table in serious negotiations with israel. The Palestinian Authority is systemically corrupt. And the divisions between hamas and the palestinians are there. So there has to be new leadership. Leave us with a glimmer of hope. The glimmer of hope is that i do feel that october 7th is so consequential, akin toom kip your in 73 that the Political Landscape has changed. I hope that the lesson that everyone learns is that you cannot shunt the palestinian issue aside and and you can make economic peace or peace or fooes. We have to focus on land for peace. And lets make the hard decision to go for it. There is a lot of diplomatic history in the archives on settlements, on jerusalem, on refugees. There is a body of negotiations that could be built on. Lets get the leadership to get it done. Ed, pleasure to have you on. Pleasure to see you again. And thank you to all of you for watching this gps special. You could catch my regular show sundays atat 10 00 a. M. Eaeaste. I i will see y you then anand t. Im a little anxious, im a little excited. Im gonna be emotional, shes gonna be emotional, but its gonna be so worth it. I love that i can give back to one of our customers. I hope you enjoy these amazing gifts. Oh my goodness. Oh, you guys. I know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. You have made an impact. So have you. For you guys to be out here doing Something Like this, it restores a lot of faith in humanity. Youre