Israeli former justice minister Yossi Beilin discusses prospects for a future solution in the wake of Israel's killing of the Hamas leader in Gaza.
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00:00Senior American diplomats fly back into the Middle East, promising to stand by Lebanon,
00:05even as their ally Israel continues massive airstrikes on Beirut and other parts of the country.
00:12It doesn't look like a formula for peace, but my guest today doesn't give up easily on that prospect.
00:17He's Yossi Beilin, former Justice Minister and peace negotiator in Israel.
00:22I believe that there is a chance that after such a war,
00:26when people understand that managing the conflict is idiotic, childish and impossible,
00:34more and more people will tend to go for peace.
00:37But how does he explain the humanitarian catastrophe Israel has presided over in Gaza
00:43and its refusal to heed calls for restraint from Washington?
00:47Is another year of bitter conflict in the region unavoidable?
00:52Yossi Beilin, welcome to Conflict Zone.
00:57Hopes of any lull in the fighting in the Middle East after the killing of the Hamas leader, Yaya Sinwa,
01:05these seem to have evaporated pretty quickly.
01:09In your view, does his death change anything?
01:12You know, you know these things only post-factum.
01:17You have to wait a little bit until you know whether something like that is having an influence on history or not.
01:28Theoretically, it is quite likely that somebody like him who had such a huge influence on his organization
01:41will change things on the ground.
01:44He and Hamas were the biggest spoiler of the peace process on the Palestinian side.
01:54One of the main reasons for me to go for the Oslo process was the strengthening of Hamas in 1992-93.
02:04So if there is somebody else, and we don't know who might be his successor,
02:11but if there is somebody else who would be ready to make out of Hamas again kind of a social movement or even a political party,
02:24rather than what it became since the end of 87, of 88, then there might be a historic change.
02:36If it is somebody who is actually the ideological successor of Yaya Sinwa, then maybe nothing will happen.
02:48For now, Israel's prime minister seems to be happy fighting on multiple fronts.
02:54But at every stage, he stopped listening to his closest ally, Joe Biden.
02:59Does he have no respect for him, or is he hoping that his friend Donald Trump will be in power again soon?
03:06Well, Tim, you're asking me a very difficult question.
03:09I mean, to understand the motivation of Bibi is a very big challenge.
03:16But you've watched him closely for many years.
03:20Yeah, I was in charge of him, and I was equal, and I was in opposition to him and whatever.
03:29But the point is, it doesn't mean that I understand everything that he's doing.
03:35And lately, I understand less and less.
03:38Does he despise Biden? I don't think so. I don't think so.
03:44The point is that he cherished his ongoing role as the prime minister of Israel more than anything else,
03:56including the relations with other countries, which he is losing, and including the cooperation with the United States.
04:06He understands. I mean, he's not a foolish person.
04:09He understands the importance of our most important ally with Israel.
04:16But when he has to choose between these lunatics in his cabinet, like Ben-Gvir and Smotrych and others, not only them,
04:26then he chooses them not because he prefers them, but because without them, he doesn't have a coalition.
04:33But while he's making that choice, would you say that relations between Washington and Jerusalem are now in a worse state than they have been in decades?
04:42Maybe. But it is a personal matter. I mean, if tomorrow there is another prime minister, it will change very quickly.
04:51We saw it in the past. Between Shamir, if you remember, and Rabin. With Shamir and the American president Bush, the father, it was awful.
05:08And then came Rabin, and there were never better relations. So it is very personal. I regret it very much.
05:16I think that Bibi is making a huge mistake, but it is his preferences, and his preferences are quite clear.
05:27One of his preferences seemed to have been to ignore completely American strictures about the humanitarian aid, especially in northern Gaza.
05:39Israel has gone on to create something of a living hell for two million people. Has that shocked you?
05:46Well, very few things can shock me about Netanyahu, but it is not that. Here, I think that the main problem is not necessarily the Israeli reluctance to send aid to the Palestinians,
06:03but the fact that Hamas is taking over. So once the drugs are on the Gaza side, they are taking it and they are selling it. I mean, it is given for free, of course.
06:18And they are selling it to the Palestinians, to the poor Palestinians there. So I think that here, I wouldn't necessarily blame him, but the fact that Hamas doesn't allow the drugs to get as they came, but taking over these drugs.
06:42Yes, but you've had USAID agencies who have specifically blamed the Israeli authorities for holding up the shipments and not allowing basic goods to get through.
06:54So this was put to Secretary of State Blinken, and he actually lied to Congress about it and said that they weren't doing that.
07:07The USAID and other agencies were quite clear that the Israelis were at fault here.
07:13Okay, so here I believe that Netanyahu had to listen to Americans and send more and more drugs. It is, I would say, back to back. Originally, many Israelis said don't give them anything, the Palestinians. They should die of starvation or whatever.
07:37Yeah, well, that's a war crime, isn't it?
07:40Of course, and this is why it never happened. It never happened.
07:43But it's come pretty close, hasn't it? It's come pretty close.
07:47There is no starvation. I don't envy them. And they are in a very, very poor situation and this has to end. But it is not a situation of hunger and they have nothing. No.
08:04It's malnutrition, certainly. Successive aid agencies have talked about malnutrition.
08:10Yeah, malnutrition is something else than starvation. You have malnutrition in many situations. The problem is, again, I mean, the people on his cabinet are saying the worst things in the world.
08:26They have no international commitment and no international law on their agenda. They live in the medievals. So they are the ones who are saying it. And hopefully, I mean, gladly, Netanyahu doesn't accept many of the things that they say.
08:49But at the bottom line, it depends on them. And if they say something like you should do A and if you don't do A, we will leave your coalition, he finds himself doing what they want. In that case of starvation, it didn't happen.
09:11Yossi Berlin, there's been particular shock internationally at the reports of Palestinian children in Gaza shot in the head and chest on multiple occasions with high velocity bullets. The New York Times printed testimony from 65 American doctors and health care professionals in Gaza.
09:30Clear implication that these wounds weren't the result of collateral damage. The kids were targeted. Does Israel's prime minister believe that killing Arab children makes Jewish children safer?
09:41Well, it is hard for me to believe that it was intentionally done. I don't know.
09:48These are bullet holes through the forehead and the chest, one after the other, one after the other.
09:54I'm not the army spokesman. What I can say is that my heart is broken seeing what is happening there, seeing what is happening to Israelis, seeing what is happening to Palestinians. It must end.
10:12And the accusations are there and some of them are right. Some of them are wrong. It should end the situation on the on the ground. And as a result of it, the accusations.
10:25One of the doctors who came in with an aid organization, an American doctor, said all the drugs and dressings that he tried to bring in with him, antibiotics, painkillers, bandages, all in desperately short supply in Gaza, all were taken away by the Israeli soldiers before he was allowed into the territory. That beggars belief, doesn't it?
10:48Again, again, I am not here as the spokesman of the Israeli army.
10:51I understand. But this is your country. This is your country, Yossi Bein.
10:55This is my country. So I told you my heart is broken. The whole situation, as you know me, is awful for me. I can't believe when I get up in the morning that this is the reality here.
11:07But if you ask me about specific things, about the doctor's testimony and other things like that, I cannot answer it.
11:21You've always refused to abandon hope of a peace settlement. When you when you see the carnage of Gaza, do you still cling to that hope?
11:32You mean the assassination of 1,200 Israelis a year ago by Hamas?
11:40No, no. I'm talking about that too. That too. But I'm talking about all the carnage.
11:46I don't think that we are speaking about the carnage, but whatever. Wars are conducive to peace in many, many cases.
11:59What happened to us in the last years of the governments of the right was that people gave up on the two state solution, gave up on a solution for the Palestinian problem, said that it is OK if we can manage the conflict or do something like that with the conflict rather than solving it.
12:22And this confrontation shows us that it is impossible, that we have to solve the problem.
12:30And I don't have to tell you that the most important peace agreements or peace developments in the modern history happened after the worst wars, like in the end of the Second World War, when the UN was established, when the EU was established, when the World Bank was established.
12:51All these institutions are a result of the worst war in human history.
12:59So I believe that there is a chance that after such a war, when people understand that managing the conflict is idiotic, childish and impossible, more and more people will tend to go for peace.
13:15And I hope also that the world will help us to push for peace.
13:21We're seeing some groups from the right in Israel pushing to resettle Gaza.
13:29In fact, yesterday the Prime Minister's Likud party invited people to a conference entitled Preparing for Settlement in Gaza, a pretty clear direction of travel, wouldn't you say, despite all the denials that they were going to resettle Gaza?
13:47Well, first of all, the good news here is that Netanyahu said it will never happen.
13:54And that it is not an official event of the Likud, but it is members of the Likud with some lunatic ministers.
14:05I really hope that it is a bad joke.
14:08Well, they said in the invitation, it didn't leave much room for doubt.
14:12We'll all show up, it said, Likud members, branch heads, ministers, members of the Knesset, and together we'll cry out Gaza is ours forever.
14:22How many people think that way in Israel?
14:25Minority. I mean, we see the polls about settling in Gaza as a small minority.
14:31You have about 20 percent, I believe, in Israel who may support all these crazy ideas, like rebuilding the Temple Mount.
14:43What do you need more than that?
14:45You have ministers in our government who are planning to rebuild the Temple Mount.
14:51It doesn't mean that it will happen.
14:53Does this government, do you think, really believe Israel can be secure without a political solution for the Palestinians?
15:01Apparently, yes. Apparently, yes.
15:05And your view hasn't changed?
15:07What Netanyahu is portraying for years is that we have to make peace with the Arab countries.
15:14Once we succeed with it, then we can go to the Palestinians and say to them, here you see a coalition of Israel and the moderate Arab countries.
15:25And now we demand that you will do A, B, and C in order to have peace with us.
15:30This is his dream. It will never happen. Never happen.
15:35But I think that the idea of encircling the Palestinians with moderate Arab countries which have peace with Israel is his dream or plan or whatever.
15:50I want to talk in a minute about your own ideas for a resolution of this interminable conflict.
15:56But let me go back to a prediction that you made in January when you said that Netanyahu would lose the support of his Western allies and the Israeli public.
16:06The allies may have got fed up with him, but they're terrified of withdrawing their support, aren't they?
16:12And what criticism there has been has remained pretty soft, isn't it?
16:17He gets about 30% of the public opinion.
16:22You can see in all the public opinion polls that this is his ceiling.
16:31So he doesn't have a majority. He has supporters.
16:36But his party is back on top of the surveys, isn't it?
16:39Yeah, but the numbers are small. I mean, in a parliament of 120, they are getting something like 22 seats.
16:48And the other parties are getting 20, 18.
16:56So it is not that he became very popular, even as a result of the successes in the war or what he is portraying as big successes.
17:10You have a plan for a Palestinian-Israeli confederation as a stepping stone, I think you've said, to a two-state solution.
17:19Before I ask you for the details, do you have any indication at all that such a plan would be acceptable to any part of this Israeli government or indeed any Palestinian administration?
17:32One day before we signed or before we exposed the Oslo process, there was a majority of 80% against any talks with the PLO.
17:46And one day after that, there was a majority for it.
17:49The same happened with the withdrawal from Sinai by Menachem Begin when he signed the agreement in 1979.
17:58I am not worried about it. I believe that people would like to have peace and will follow their leadership.
18:07I asked the question because last month Jordan's prime minister revived the two-state solution himself and said he was mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim states to offer a guarantee of security to Israel in return for an agreement on an independent Palestinian state.
18:25The offer wasn't answered. It was thrown straight in the bin, wasn't it? Which is not a hopeful sign.
18:30Of course Netanyahu will throw everything like that.
18:35But, by the way, for the Trump plan, which was issued in the beginning of 2000, when he supported it, although it is a two-state solution, although it is idiotic and I don't think that Palestinians can accept it.
18:53But still, it was a two-state solution and Netanyahu supported it.
18:58Otherwise, he rejected everything.
19:00What is the whole idea of a confederation?
19:03When we signed the Oslo agreement, there were 90,000 settlers in the West Bank.
19:10I don't count East Jerusalem because this is something else.
19:13Today, it is half a million.
19:16Now, most of them will be annexed to Israel.
19:22Even if, according to our plan, we are going to annex 2.25% of the West Bank, but most of the settlers live there.
19:32So, for them, it will not be a problem because, for the first time, they will become citizens who live in their own sovereign country and there will be a land swap of the same amount of land and the equality of land.
19:51But, about 170,000 settlers will find themselves in the future Palestinian state.
19:58Even in the past, we used to say, OK, Israel is a strong democracy.
20:04If we decide to have a new border, we will be able to evacuate all the Israeli settlers from their homes.
20:12It is today becoming the most important and relevant obstacle on the way of peace.
20:19Because we know almost exactly what will be the border, what will be with Jerusalem, what will be with the old city in Jerusalem, the refugees, and you name it.
20:34Yossi Beilin, can I just put to you the fact that so much of what you suggest seems to depend on trust and there really isn't any between the two sides after what's happened.
20:45You can't just sit down and manufacture it.
20:46Can you? A Palestinian survey from July showed that only 10% of Israeli Jews and 6% of Palestinians trust the other side.
20:57Not nearly enough for a big ticket confederation, is it?
21:00Did we trust the Jordanians or the Egyptians? Did they trust the Jews?
21:06Never.
21:08Yeah, but you want them to live right side by side in this confederation.
21:12As they live today?
21:14Yeah.
21:16Happily and not very happily. Look at the West Bank. Look at the settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
21:23First of all, Reba Husseini, who is my main partner and a group of Palestinians, joined us, military experts, politicians, and other professors, in order to write a book in which the idea of living side by side or remaining side by side is referred to, including the security aspects of such a solution.
21:50It is not simple. It is not easy. No solution is competing with it. No solution.
21:59Anybody who comes to me and says, I am still for the two-state solution, I'm asking him or her, what are you going to do with the settlers?
22:08If you say they will have to go back to Israel, I'll say I don't know a prime minister, a potential prime minister in Israel, right or left, who is going to do something like this.
22:20You must find a solution.
22:22You say that. You're a former justice minister. The settlements are illegal under international law, aren't they?
22:28Well, if you have an agreement, it will be a legal agreement and it will overrule all the other situations.
22:36I mean, nobody is saying that because it is against the international law, we cannot have land swaps, for example, or leave part of the settler settlements there.
22:48Now, the idea of land swaps and the idea that most of the settlers will remain where they are was suggested by the Arab side.
23:00If you remember, they came to the former American administration and declared that it doesn't have to be the 67 borders, but it can be a land swap, which will take into account the big number of Israelis on the West Bank.
23:21If you ask me, no one Israeli should have lived in the West Bank. No one settlement should have been built. But I have to deal with the reality.
23:35And in such a reality, the idea is that once we know the number of the Israelis who will remain in Palestine as permanent residents and Israeli citizens, the same number of Palestinians who would like to live in Israel as permanent residents will be allowed to do that.
24:02Yossi Beilin, what if this plan gets turned down? I mean, it's already been turned down.
24:09By whom?
24:10Well, the Prime Minister Netanyahu has already said his role is to prevent the formation of a Palestinian state.
24:17As long as he is there, there is no chance for peace.
24:20Yeah. And what if the next one says the same thing? There's no plan B, is there? You have no plan B. It's two state solution or nothing. Is that it?
24:30I had many other plans. The two state solution is a result of the fact that the right rejected all the other plans. So this is a plan which I believe is realistic.
24:45If nothing works, we will have to do it unilaterally. And it is awful. But it is not that we are orphans and that if there is no agreement, nothing will happen.
25:00No, if there is no agreement with the other side, because the other side may also say that he doesn't want it, then the Israelis should withdraw unilaterally.
25:12Otherwise, we will become a Jewish minority dominating a Palestinian majority between the river and the sea. And this is the end of the Zionist plan.
25:24Yossi Beilin, it's good to see you. Thank you very much indeed for your time. Thanks for being on Conflict Zone.
25:30Thank you. Thank you.
25:53.