the focus was on the palestinian authority and what steps would be taken after the collapse of the peace talks much more than focus on hamas. kñañfya;sd]!m7 war was at itsa weakest point and netanyahu and israeli government assumed this was a situation that was going to continue and so much of the discussion was focused onç thea and what could be done to work with the pa despite the fact that peace talks had now collapsed and hamas has not seen as much of a political factor. then we moved to during the war and during the war, there was a huge outpouring of support for netanyahu. this is not surprising. any time there's fighting in israel, certainly initially, there's lots of rallying around the government. the second still shapes the israeli psyche in ways that has changed it possibly forever. the vast majority of israelis will not tolerate any type of rocket fire coming into israel irrespective of what the casualty count is like and while rockets are coming in, netanyahu really had blanket support to deal with them. the kidnapping and murder of the three teens only added to what was already overwhelming support for a military campaign against hamas and netanyahu used the disadvantage and had a free pass initially on the shifting goals. depending on what day it was, the goal was to eradicate hamas, restore quiet, to eliminate tunnels. they were shifting as the war went along. at least initially netanyahu was able to do this because of the overwhelming support the government was given during the war. as the war went on and as matt just referred to, benjamin netanyahu's support dropped. it went from a high of 82% down into the 30s. now in historical context, it's not so bad. a drop of 50% is still not something that any israeli leader likes to see. the reasons for this also weren't surprising. if you think back to 2012, the israeli operation was relatively qui quick. it only lasted, i think, eight days. this went on far longer than most were respecting. it went on longer than netanyahu himself was expecting. and as rocket fire continued and as cease-fire offers were either rejected, broken or lapsed, the israeli public realized pretty quickly that benjamin netanyahu had no long-term strategy and that the airstrikes were not goirng to be enough and possibly ground operation in the limited scope was also not going to be enough. so there certainly was a sense towards the end that netanyahu perhaps had not handled things in the ideal way. now that the war is over, netanyahu's position is a bit less stable. the politics are pushing things very much more to the right, and netanyahu has to deal with challenges both within his own party and with challenges from the right more generally. does he look at the polls over the past few days, it's clear that the right in general has benefitted politically from the fighting in gaza. the latest polls have anywhere between 29 and 31 seats. at the moment they control 31, but 11 of those seats, are used because they were made a deal before the election. so it's now in the latest polls up from 20 seats of their own to somewhere between 29 and 31 seats. the jewish home party currently had 12 seats. in the polls they are up to anywhere between 18 and 20. they have basically flipped with jewish home. right now they have 18 and the current poll are anywhere from 9 to 12. and labor has stayed the same. so if an election was held today, you'd probably have somewhere around 80 -- 70, 80 seats going to parties on the right. there's serious pressure on netanyahu. his position has never been great. within the context of the politics, he's right winged, but he's not on the far right. as odd as it seems within the context, netanyahu occupies the left flank. the younger members who are asen dent are far more right winged than benjamin netanyahu is and they are upset with the way he has conducted the war because many of the right wing members who are all younger and in a lot of ways it sort of mimics the tea party dynamic in the u.s. the younger members think he did not go far enough and some of them have advocates to reoccupy gaza for however long it takes to stamp it out. which is something netanyahu is not willing to do. it's something netanyahu himself realizes is not feasible. the chair of the central committee and who was the deputy defense minister until netanyahu fired him the first week of the war for criticize iing the government's approach is convening party congress later this month where no doubt it will be nothing but local criticism of the conduct of the war. outside netanyahu's party, as i mentioned, the home party is much more popular now than it was. bennett is taking serious strides to capitalize on that. yesterday he announced he would like to make changes to the constitution that will make it a more secular party, which is significant because he is looking to appeal to the wider israeli right and for the first time seems to believe he actually has a shot at being the standard barer of the right and becoming prime minister. . and so all of these things are pushing him to the right. it leads to the announcement of the 980 acres declared state land because in the absence of reoccupying gaza, netanyahu knows he has to do something to protect the right flank and the easiest way to do that is to announce tenders or to announce long-term planning processes for settlements. they don't want to risk a takeover in the west bank and the aftermath of this type of war and this type of fighting generally u make israelis more hawkish and more conscious than they would otherwise be. so the right word is not going to be a blip. whenever the next elections are and there's wide speculation it's in the next year, i have very little doubt that the right wing parties are going to increase their share in the government whether that means a larger or that le kud suffers at the hand. there's likely going to be a more right wing next time than this time. and of course, that's going to impact israel real's relations going forward and the peace process more generally. >> i'm going to turn to joe now to address some of the international humanitarian law issues relating to not only the war, although i think the conduct of the war the bombardment by israel, the use of rocket fire and mortars by hamas, but also the policy of blockade. one of the key elements here is demands was using the blockade. it's worth remembering it was a condition of the 2012 cease-fire that was not i want plemted. this is going to be one of the most important items for discussion in the talks that i very much hope will take place in e yipt and that everyone get. s to plan to take place in several weeks. that's a lot on your plate. so if you'll take a crack at that. >>. thanks, matt, and thanks, kate, for holding this event and for inviting me to be a part of it. human rights watch, as the name would indicate, looks at human rights violations by states, by political authorities around the world. but we also monitor compliance with the laws of war. the humanitarian law, one important component which the geneva conventions. human rights watch doesn't take positions on whether any conflict should take up arm, launch an attack, whatever. those are political questions we don't address. in part, in order to be able to impartially look at how the fighting, how the armed conflict is conducted by any of the parties, the two issues that we're concerned with here before i go into some of the details is one is accountability. accountability for unlawful behavior, noncompliance with the violations of the loss of war. and the other is the humanitarian consequences of the war in particular and of the policies that sort of set up this conflict to begin with among which i would include what matt just mentioned, the blockade that's been intensively in effect since 2007, since hamas basically took over as the political power in gaza. really since 2005 with the withdraw of israeli military forces and settlers under prime minister sharone. the accountability issue i want to stress because it seems to me it's the element that should be part of any kind of looking forward. it's what's been consistently missing in terms of any of the peace talk agendas that we have seen, no matter how unsuccessful they may have been. it's not because accountability was among the issues raised. it's been a consistent issue for us looking at the various phases of war. over many years now i think what we have seen perhaps a lis dispiritingly is we haven't seen much change looking from one conflict to another. 2009, 2012 and now 2014. in the behavior combatan combatants, either hamas's behavior or israel's. let me just say a couple of words about what international law, international humanitarian law requires. the key principle is that of distinction. . you have to distinguish all the all times between combatants and civilians, between military objectives and civilian properties. and that may only target combatants and structures or areas that have immediate military u -- represent military gain. so targeting civilians is obviously sort of at the first order of prohibition. but then there are other areas so there might be an attack where there's no objective, either a combatant or group of combatants or a place, a structure, a building, an apartment building where maybe arms have been stored or where it thinks arms have been stored making it a legitimate target in itself. but where the harm to civilians, the use of the weapons that are used, the character of the fighting and so forth results in making the attack indiscriminant so civilians are aren't harmed. understand sort of from the g get-go that civilians are going to be harmed and killed. the point is to minimize that harm, minimize those deaths. so the parties have to take -- to use the language of the c conventions, all precautions to avoid harming civilians. on the palestinian side, recalling also that the combatants in the gaza are not only hamas, they also involve forces like jihad and some of the secular palestinian parties. obviously the rockets launched into israel were first of all the reason we would say those constitute prima fascia war crime in the sense of targeting civilians is because many of the groups have said they are attacking population centers, essentially and so they state the aim as such. the types of weapons they are u using are inherently cannot be guided or cannot be used in way that could distinguish between military and targ military targets and civilian areas, civilian structures. so o there's sort of from the get-go you have a situation where the kinds of weapons palestinians were using in the fighting the attacks into israel inherently indiscriminant. and the fight in terms of the combat that went on inside gaza once israeli forces moved in and even during the air campaign, the issue of the extent to which hamas did or did not take, quote, unquote, all feasible precautions in terms of carrying out military operations from heavily civilian populated areas. on the side of the defense forces, the issue we have documented and i'll go into a little bit of detail, a couple of instances where it appears that civilians, individual civilians were targeted. civilians who were trying to flee a combat zone often at the instruction of the idf. this is something we also saw in the previous conflicts in 2012 and especially u in 2009. but i'd say the issues on israeli side involve much more issues of whether the attacks were indiscriminant or not. so there was or at least idf alleged that there were military targets in a particular building or near a particular building. attacks killed large numbers of civilians, but a number of cases we investigated, we found there was no military objective. there were no combatants in the area as far as we could determine. and the israeli government in response to our queries to them did not come up with an explanation as to why they launched those particular attacks. i want to say a little bit -- first i should say that one of the problems that we have had in addressing this conflict is a lack of access. the last time we were able to go into gaza was -- we asked for permission to go in the fall of 2009. many weeks before it started we refused. up to that point delays and so forth that we would eventually get in. we have not been allowed in through israel since mid-2009 in other instances we were able to go in after a cease-fire was in place via the crossing in the sinai between gaza and egypt. but our relations with the egyptian government are as good as they are with the israeli government and we haven't been able to get in that way either. that obviously makes it much more difficult to do what e we think is needed in terms of conducting an investigation where you get to the site of a possible war crime y you can evaluate the damage, assess what kind of weapons we use, make a judgment as to whether that weapon was appropriate under the circumstances, talk to witnesses, survivors and so forth. our ability to do that is limited. we have assistance on the ground in gaza. residents of gaz a is a, but obviously the people who bring in the kind of added expertise that we need in assessing an armed conflict situation where issues of all feasible preki precautions. what does that mean, those depend on not reading the newspapers and saying, thousands of palestinians killed, scores of israelis killed, obviously disproportionate. no, it's not that. one can talk perhaps about a political sense disproportionate, but in the legal sense, in the sense that have implications for accountability, you have to look at each individual attack and make that assessment. i would invite you to look at our website and seat work we have done regarding this particular last 50 days of war in gaza as well as earlier instances. just on the u.n. figures about the number of palestinians killed, the idf claims that 616 of those were, as they say, combatants and terrorist operatives. which they also say there are some 800 other cases that have not yet been determined and they are sure that in the end we will see that many of those 800 or so cases were combatants. that obviously remains to be seen. but i do want to point out that this question of combatant is fairly clear. it's much less clear cut, at least in terms of humanitarian law. so a person simply belonging to hamas is not a legitimate target under the laws of war. but israeli policy in the gaza conflicts has been to treat these people as le jid mat targets. so that's one issue we'd take strong issue with the israeli understanding. so a lot of attention has -- a relatively high profile for the attacks that involved schools, both israeli attacks that aren't on schools. some were inhabited and a number of civilian deaths. we investigated those three cases in which there were fatalities and the kind of responses we got from the idf as to why this particular school was targeted or why it was hit in the case of july 24th the school where 13 people were killed including 6 children, they said -- idf said there were one mortar shell. however, the witness, the survivors to that attack, a number of them separately told us that there were four shells that landed right directly outside the school compound. the israeli, the idf said there had been a hamas operation firing antitank missiles near the school. but again not indicating what constitutes near. in this case a fairly lose term. they also asserted that when the mortar hit the courtyard, it was empty. which is not something that bares -- it's not something that's a variance with what people on the scene told us. there was another strike on august 3rd. actually it didn't involve artillery or mortar, but involved a guided missile. it hit right outside of a boys school ten meters from the entrance. and the children in particular are the people who were taking shelter in the school were out at the gate buying food, water, sweets, that sort of thing. the idf there were 12 people killed. 8 of them children. the idea responded that they were attacking three islamic jihad militants who were riding by on a motorcycle. now they are assuming that's correct, they are certainly a legitimate target. it's a very precise. it's the sort of thing the israelis should be using in this kind of conflict, in fact. but why did they hit that motorcycle as it was passing directly in front before it got there or after. in other words not ready to draw firm conclusions, but certainly it warrants investigation. one of the things that seems new in this particular con stex there seems to be more presis and by precise i mean by precise weapons to attack residents, homes whereas certainly homes and residents and civilian structures have been damaged, destroyed in previous conflicts as well, but it was more from a consequence of use of artillery, which has a very wide damage radius rather than precision weapons. but what we have seen is some e precision attacks on, for instance, this isn't one that we investigated, but the israeli human rights group where there was an attack on july 29th on a four story residential building that killed 35 people. there was no warning. no explanation. they did learn that one of the residents was a political operative in the senior leadership of the democratic front. a nonislamist political group. two questions. at least one is he by being a political operative, no known military engagement, was he a legitimate target? and secondly, even if he was a legitimate target, it seems pretty clear that attacking this residence with such devastating consequences would constitute an attack. let me just say a word quickly about the humanitarian impact. i think back in 2012 the u.n. put out a report called gaza 2020 that was taking a forward look if present trends continue this was in 2012 these are going to be the issues in terms of housing units that are needed. schools that are needed, health care improvements. when one looks not only at the human casualties but at the destruction of homes and schools, of the power plant, gaza's one electric power plant if 2020 hasn't been telescoped into 2014. we're looking at a society that has been under siege in the sense of this blockade, this rather strenuous blockade for many, many years now. now just to return to -- and i'll end here. the accountability question. i mean, the first principle is that individual states are responsible. for the conduct of their armed force, of their security forces. so in the first instance in the sort of principle that the local justice in this case israel or the palestinian authority/hamas should be undertaking these kind of investigations of the conduct of their forces. up until now, both sides even though israel for itself part has a well developed military justice system have really failed that test rather dismally. given that it seems the new element on the ground that may at the very least provide some sort of lefr for improved behavior in this regard in terms of addressing these allege d violations of the law of war is the criminal court. unlike is an constitution to set up to deal with the states which have the primary responsibility either are unable or unwilling to carry out that responsibility. we're in a a new situation politically in that since the last conflict in 2012, much less the ones that went before that, the palestinian authority would ratify the treaty which would make it a part of the statute and eligible to present cases, allegations for investigation by the international criminal court. that's something that they didn't have that capacity a year or so ago. they signed the treaty but never ratified it and indicated it has no plans to ratify it. the other way a case gets taken up by the international criminal court is if it's referred by the u.n. security council, which they have done in the case of libya and the case of sudan, but politically the chances of that happening in regard to the palestinian is nil. maybe i'll just end on that note. that's one new element to look at as we look ahead. >> thank you, joe. so what i'm going to do, i'm going to do a round of questions with the panelists here. then after a bit, we'll come out to the audience for some more questions. so first, you had talked about the crisis of legitimacy of the movement, but you also said that elections could complicate things more. so i guess my question is how to what mechanisms other elections really exist here. >> it's a good question and a dilemma that a lot of countries have confronted over the last several years. do you hold an election first to determine -- how do you decide who gets to write up the rules? should you hold an election first, and it's kind of a chicken and egg sort of a question. i think experience as i interpreted it has bourn out that holding elections to determine who gets to decide the rules of the game is a mistake. we saw that happen in egypt where unless there is a broad consensus of the main societal and political actors up front on the rules of the game, then the outcome of any election or political process is likely to be contested. we saw that both in the case of the election and after his overthrow. in the case of the palestinians i think because elections determine -- elections are based on winners and losers. when you're deciding the way forward, hamas have very different agendas, a very different approach. one is committed to a two-state solution. the other is not. it has a very different vision of how to resolve the conflict as well as how to govern palestinians. so you can't make those enormous questions, i think, subject to an election. you're going to get a very distorted, skewed outcome that will not be to the advantage of those currently in power, i think. so on the one hand, you need to write conditions pr an election, but you also need broad agreement. the way the plo has operated in the past, they are not a terribly democratic institution. it's operated on the basis of consensus and that is a consensus of the main political factions. that was true for the first half of the plo's existence until 1988 and it hasn't been true since because you have these major political organizations like hamas and islamic jihad and a few secular groups who are outside the umbrella of the plo. palestini palestinians are now paying the price for allowing these groups to operate outside of the agreed upon consensual umbrella. so they claim to be the sole representative of the palestinian people. but on the other hand, it doesn't include these major factions that have, in fact, some of them have won elections. so clearly belong in the big tent. of palestinian politics, but they are not represented. so that's the long answer. the short answer is i think the way to go about it is a consensus of at least the political groups, but also societal constituencies that are not necessarily represented by one faction or another or another trend. or another and agree on the basic principles of the palestinian national movement. what is the goal? when you don't have a consensus, some are fighting for one state. some factions are working towards two states. some are engaged in armed struggle. others are engaged in peaceful r resistance. without not just who leads, but where your you're headed and how we get there, then i think elections are meaningless. elections can't determine -- they are not a substitute for a national -- a broader national consensus. so it's messy and may even seen undemocratic, but in this environment, it's essential. to forge a national consensus based sort of on an intuitive sense of being representative. and i think it can be done. it happened in the past in many context. but even in the palestinian context. >> michael, stepping outside the domestic politics for a moment, i wonder if you can address -- one was the relationship of egypt and the way it was managed over failed cease-fires. there was a really interesting piece in "the wall street journal" a few weeks ago that talked about the closeness that's developed. it seemed like the u.s. was being cut out of these discussions. what's your view of egypt's role here. was it constructive and how -- will it impact politics in israel at all? >> you'd have to say it's constructive if for no other reason it was the party that broke the cease-fire. in that sense, it was constructive. the fact that egypt had no credibility with hamas and that egypt really didn't want to have much to do with a mass at all was a factor in extending the fighting in contrast to 2012 where hamas trusted egypt. this time around they did not. so i don't know how constructive a role they were able to play in the beginning. as the fighting went on, egypt was able to broker a deal. it's certainly constructive. in terms of how it factors into israeli politics, netanyahu has been using a phrase talking about new diplomatic horizons. a lot of people assumed that that meant with the palestinians. i don't think it does. i think he's talking about a much wider regional initiative in which israel is aligned with states such as egypt, jordan, saudi arabia, the uae in an effort to limit the influence of groups like hamas, the muslim brotherhood groups. that's what he's referring to. and i think he's looking to use the fighting and use the region where you certainly have this among arab states. if you widen it further, you can include turkey on the side of qatar and i think netanyahu is looking to take advantage o of that situation and get israel firmly into the camp of what e we might call status quo arab states versus revisioned arab states. so to the extent that a closer bond with egypt helps israel get into that group, then i think israel is going to try to play that angle as hard as it can. i'm not sure how feasible it is. netanyahu thinks he has a stronger hand than he actually does, but between that and the fact that israel has lots of natural gas to sell, they signed an mou that was worth $15 billion. they are certainly looking to do something similar with the egyptians. between the energy, regional dynamics, between a joint e desire between israel and egypt to limit hamas's influence, the government is going to try to get as close to egypt as they can. >> so we have about 25 minutes left. i'd like to go to the audience for questions. can you please identify yourself, your affiliation, try to keep your questions short and finally please ask your question in the form of a question. >> my name is jim. i don't know if you read an op-ed piece but pronouncing his name correctly. he's the former u.s. ambassador to israel during the first bush 2 administration. his proposal was basically two-fold. one was to bring an international force in gaza that would provide security and maybe to governance with the authority playing a more long-term, permanent solution as well. and that he thought israel would be much more prone to do that today given what's happened in gaza and the need for an international force in gaza, which he thinks israel would accept. again, this is all him saying that. so my question to the two of you, what do you think of the proposal? how will it fly in those respective societies? >>. i'll start. i don't know how well the idea of an international force would fly within israeli society. certainly not at this point in time an international force that includes turkey. i think that in general the thrust of public opinion within israel now is the best solution would be for the palestinian authority forces to take over security and border crossings in gaza. whatever beeves they have with the authority, they have very few with pa security in the west bank. and so i think that there is some sort of level of implicit trust that exists among the israel government and large portions of israeli society for the security forces that would not necessarily translate into a wi wider force comprised of soldiers from other arab countries and turkey. in general they are wary of internationalizing the conflicts too much. certainly israel's experience with the international community is not great, to say the least. the level of trust is very low. so i don't imagine there would be a huge amount of positivity on the israel's party for an international force as opposed to a pa force. >> quick ly i think you can mak the same argument on the palestinian side. there's not a lot of incentive by hamas or the pa to have an international force. of course, it depends on the mission. first of all, there would be a lot of disagreement. on the mission among the regional stage holders as well as the u.s. and others, not to mention the parties themselves. i can't imagine that there would be a consensus. hamas won't accept an international presence. the pa, i think, has no incentive to accept an international presence that's involved in governing. that's the role of the pa. that was the whole purpose of creating a sort of palestinian state in waiting. and in a way, it's kind of a setback for the idea of a palestinian state. i think the problem with palestinian governance is not that they don't know how to govern. it's just there's this lack of basic national consensus. that's what's missing. it's an internal palestinian conversation that isn't being had. the same way that the egyptian conversation isn't being had. obviously, there are different degrees of consequences, but that basic consent needs to be achieved by various palestinian groups. that's the impediment. i don't think it's a question of technical know how. both have governed. both the pa and hamas can govern. but both have shown they are able to maintain security. the question about israel's security relates to a political goal and objective. there's a political question. there's an outstanding conflict between palestinians and israel. there's a blockade, there's an occupation, there are these issues. that is the source of insecurity and violence, not because -- not primarily because of a lack of capacity, i would argue. there's a lack of will to maintain israel's security because while one side has an incentive to harm israel's security. because of these ongoing issues. so unless the political issues can be resolved, i can't imagine that it's not just simply a question of technical capacity. >> i didn't see the editorial, but the way you presented it sounds not very realistic to me either. there is one area that more shoes on the ground than boots on the ground, but in terms of the crossings between israel and egypt and gaza, there's a security role in terms of -- this could address the blockade issue. no if you had international armed force, but a team of experts who could be monitoring for the transit of arms or military equipment of military use toub arranging for dual use items and would basically allow everything else in. and obviously that force, whatever its particular complex, would have to have the confidence of israel and whoever you're dealing with on the palestinian side. that was attempted in the past where the european union was supposed to provide those elements and basically there ended up being, as i recall reading it at the time, a lack of israeli cooperation in allowing them to actually, you know, move to the border there and carry out their assigned roles. that would be something worth exploring in any negotiations i think. >> and the uk, france and germany all indicated they would be willing -- they would be willing to support it and restart. i think that's actually a possibility. can we go to this gentleman in the front here? >> thank you. i'm from washington, d.c. >> i have two questions. the question is you mentioned the participation of the international palestinians to be consulted. how do you see that being carried out? and my second question is, is there a way that any way to bring netanyahu and his bunch and hamas accountability for what they have done? >> on the first question, there have been a lot of proposals put out there emanating from inside palestinian territory on how to reintegrate into the conversation at least if not into institutionally. bear in mind, the plo began as a movement. that's where the palestinian national movement as we know it today was centrally forged. most of the current leadership in the plo are themselves refugees. and first of all, there has to be the political will. some proposed elections. it's hard to imagine how an election can be held logistically in places like lebanon and syria for refugees. i think it's not a question -- the mechanisms are there. it's a question of will and the same way that the. plo was convened without any territory, the plo was created without a territorial base, it can be reinvented in the sense without that. so the mechanisms are out there. what isn't there, i think, is the political will by the current leadership, whether it's hamas or other factions to reintegrate institutionally not on an individual basis. there are, of course, individ l individuals who are involved, but more broadly and that would take rethinking the plo as an institution, which some people, that conversation is happening among a lot of palestinian intellectuals and inside the west bank and gaza. but not -- it hasn't yet produced an outcome. . >> joe, did you want to address the second part? >> on the accountability question, it's a good question and i tried to suggest in my talk that perhaps the dimension of the national criminal court it has a creator viability today. i wouldn't say it's a great violate but it's more today than it had been in the aftermath of any of the previous conflicts. but i think there are steps that individual states can take too. particularly states that are close allies of one party or the other. and certainly in the case of israel's close allies starting with the united states, for instance there's law in the books that's referred to after senator leahy, which basically says, units of an armed force or security forces cannot receive u.s. assistance or arms or funding or any of the like if they have been credibly shown to be involve d in war crimes, serious violations of human rights, laws of war, et cetera. as i understand it, as i have been told, there's essentially -- and those judgments, those assessments are supposed to be made in the u.s. embassy coming out of the u.s. embassy in country x or country y and there's essentially nobody in israel that has been tasked with that. that would be worth following up on. that would be worth a congressional inquiry or people who are interested in these issues to sort of pursue this. and if it's true, to remedy that so there would be that kind of mandated reporting that might have some consequences. i'm not looking here in terms of so much cutting off arm supplies as much as giving out incentives to hold their own officers accountable. >> all right. i do apologize in advance if i don't get to you. i will come back up here. let me go to this lady here in the aisle. >> hi, i'm dr. caroline. i'm a physician. my question is, you haven't talked about the u.s. when you were discussing domestic politics. you didn't mention the u.s. do they not care what the u.s. thinks or they assume that the u.s. will back them no matter what? >> i'm not sure that it's so much an issue of not caring what the u.s. thinks. certainly there are some on the far israeli right who view the u.s. as an tag nusices towards israel. but within netanyahu's circle and the government, i don't think it's an issue of not caring what the u.s. thinks. i think it's more of an issue of trying to figure out what level the u.s. cares. and so to the extent that the u.s. cares about something very deeply, you'll see the israelis hold off. i'll give you an example. before the 2013 election, the israeli government. announced tender plans to build an e-1, which is one of the most contentious areas of the west bank. building an e-1 would cut the northern and southern west bank in half. i wrote at the time that that was a plan that was not going to be implemented because that's one of the u.s.'s clear redlines, has been for awhile and indeed it was not implemented and i don't think it will. so the u.s. government cares what they think. on other issues, the israeli government if they they they can get away with something without real consequences, they will did it. i don't think that makes them unique. israel, the relationship between israel and the u.s. is a lot more complicated than the u.s.'s relationship with other countries. so there's a lot more back and forth and the red line gets tested far more often. i certainly wouldn't say in general netanyahu and other more mainstream politicians don't care about the u.s. position at all. it's more a matter of test iing the boundaries. >> this gentleman here in the blue shirt. wait for the mic please. >> i'm a retired judge. my main question is when you talk about two factions among the palestinians. so one faction of plo cpin favor of two states and hamas is not, they are a posed to that, you're only talking about the surface here. the fact of the matter is whether you would agree with me or not on how they feel about it, most of the palestinians believe that he is in favor only of a temporary two state and that eventually they will take over the other state. so it's a a matter of stages. whether te actually believes that or not, we could argue all day, but the fact is that if the palestinians saw that he really was in fair favor, they wouldn't e vote for him. he'd get. the same percentage of votes that the party got in the last election which was about 3%. he's 79 years old now. the recent polls indicate what they have indicated all along. that a two-state solution is not what the bulk of the arabs in israel want in palestine. so what benefit is there for israel to go into a negotiation for a two-state solution if eventually they are going to end up with the same thing that they have from hamas now and which goes to the position who doesn't tell us why the right wing has ascended especially since the last war the fact that most people realize that if they give over strategic positions in the west bank, they will end up with the same thing that they have in the southern border with hamas and on the northern border with hezbollah. rockets, tunnels and artillery aimed at the coastal heartland of israel. and the third thing is that everybody in this room, i'm sure, recognizes that israel did everything it could to spare civilian casualties. >> all right. ladies and gentlemen, please. >> you can stop with that. but everything they did does not bombs on the roofs of houses, the calling off of airstrikes, everybody knows that. this stuff here really doesn't belong in this kind of discussion here. but you're picking on little things and to talk about the international court, which would be loaded against israel is no solution at all. i'd like comments on that. thank you. >> okay. let's address that as you will. >> i'll take the first piece of that. i don't know that i would agree with the characterization that most palestinians believe in two states in order to take over israel eventually. the reality is i think more nuance than that. on both the israeli side and palestinian side, it's been a precarious concept. in the mind sets of both sides, if they had their ideal way, they would go for one state in their own definitions of what that means. for palestinians one state is one historical state of palestinian. they are citizens of israel, palestinians who became refugees, they are all palestinians. i think the fantasy, the dream for pam stin yans is to have a state single democratic state from the river to the sea. but there was a moment in which there was a broad political and even popular consensus to move away from that and say, look, if we we as palestinians are ever going to exercise self-determination, it will be in the context of a two-state solution. the two-state solution has been the least worst option. it's not the best option. and that's why you see sort of the slim plorty that supports it. over time, of course, if you measure support for a two-state solution, if you pull 1988 and pull it today i think you'll pull it today i think you'll find very different results. captioning performed by vitac

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