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00:00:00The conflict raging in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere, the US President uses his platform at the
00:00:15UN General Assembly to argue for lower levels of global migration and a turn away from green
00:00:22energy in a wide-ranging and combative address that levelled scathing criticism at both the
00:00:28United Nations and other world leaders. Hello and welcome to this special edition of World
00:00:37Roundup on France 24 as Presidents and Heads of State address the UN General Assembly in New York.
00:00:43Donald Trump used his platform earlier to lash out at the United Nations while warning Europe that it
00:00:49would be ruined if it didn't turn away from a double-tailed monster of ill-conceived migration
00:00:56and green energy policies. His nearly hour-long speech was both grievance-filled and self-congratulatory
00:01:02as he praised himself and lamented that some of his fellow world leaders' nations were going to hell.
00:01:09Emerald Maxwell has the details.
00:01:13It was a less than smooth entrance for Donald Trump, who was confronted with a broken escalator
00:01:18as he arrived at UNHQ. An episode he brought up in his address to gathered leaders as he
00:01:25railed against the world body.
00:01:27All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that, on the way up, stopped right in the middle.
00:01:33Trumpetine himself as a peacemaker. The US President repeatedly made the spurious claim that he's
00:01:40ended seven wars since he returned to office, while the United Nations looked on.
00:01:45I ended seven wars, dealt with the leaders of each and every one of these countries and
00:01:50never even received a phone call from the United Nations offering to help.
00:01:54What is the purpose of the United Nations? The UN has such tremendous potential.
00:01:59I've always said it. It has such tremendous, tremendous potential.
00:02:04Trump has worked to undermine the United States' support for the UN since his return to the White
00:02:15House this year, withdrawing from the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights
00:02:20Council and clawing back $1 billion in funding. This at one of the most volatile moments in
00:02:26the world body's 80-year-old history, as its secretary-general warned.
00:02:31We have our work cut out for us, as our ability to carry out that work is being cut from us.
00:02:41What kind of world will we choose? A world of raw power or a world of laws?
00:02:48Antonio Guterres urged leaders to make the right choice between a world of a scramble for
00:02:54self-interest and the world where nations come together.
00:02:59Well, for more, we're joined in studio by our International Affairs commentator, Douglas Herbert.
00:03:04Doug, good to have you with us this evening. It really was an extraordinary address earlier
00:03:09by Donald Trump. Unsurprisingly, he didn't take the same path as Antonio Guterres in really
00:03:14giving a message of unity. He did the exact opposite today.
00:03:18I mean, let me just underscore the word you used, the correct word, extraordinary, and then some.
00:03:23Look, we have seen antics from the UN General Assembly before and surprising moments, right?
00:03:28We heard Hugo Chavez, I think it was back in 2006, calling George W. Bush the devil,
00:03:33saying the podium still smelled of sulfur. Now, it's one of those, we remember Netanyahu stepping up
00:03:38there with his cartoon depiction of a nuclear bomb and drawing the red line. He was talking about
00:03:43how close Iran was to the nuclear bomb. We even heard Donald Trump in his own first term in 2017,
00:03:49get up to that very podium where he was today and talk about totally destroying North Korea,
00:03:55Kim Jong-un. They subsequently, as we know, history will show, wrote love letters to each other,
00:03:59but that came afterwards. Surprising moments, but we have rarely, and look, you know, transitioning to a
00:04:06more serious note, on a more grim note, if you will. This was really a nearly hour-long diatribe,
00:04:14a scathing attack against broadly the UN and global institutions, a UN which, in Donald Trump's words,
00:04:23has basically done nothing, as Donald Trump has single-handedly basically taken on the world's
00:04:28most troubling and vexing conflicts and has resolved them. He named specifically seven conflicts that he
00:04:34says he resolved while the UN literally did nothing, didn't even call him, didn't even try to help.
00:04:40So a full-frontal attack against the global diplomacy, global institutions, and yet at the
00:04:47same time also singling out specific issues. You mentioned energy policies. He said that the energy
00:04:54policies, the green renewable energy policies specifically, are going to be sort of the death
00:04:59sentence for Western Europe, notably Western Europe, if the same policies continue. They're
00:05:04essentially, he said, digging their own grave. He singled out immigration, accusing the UN basically
00:05:10of abetting illegal immigration, pointing the finger at the UN for all of the past illegal migrants who
00:05:16entered the US. So on those, the double-pronged issue of immigration, renewable energy, he was very,
00:05:22very forceful. But literally, his overall message when it came to the UN as an institution, let's not
00:05:29forget, this was the 80th birthday, the 80th anniversary of the UN, this gathering this year,
00:05:33there were no happy birthdays in there. It was really, what have you done for me lately? Specifically,
00:05:38what have you done for the United States lately? Where were you when I needed you for this, that,
00:05:43and the other thing? So it's not an understatement, and it's not going out on a limb to say that this was
00:05:49one of the most vitriolic attacks against the United Nations by a prominent world leader in its
00:05:5780-year history, since its founding in 1945, and one that many of those who were listening in the
00:06:04audience, they showed a lot of the people watching on, felt a little bit, at times, you could see
00:06:11perplexed, and yet mixed emotions, because there was a lot of applauding as well at certain moments in
00:06:17the speech, a sense that some of the countries sitting there, perhaps, I won't use the word fear,
00:06:22but felt like they had no choice but to at least pay a little bit of fealty from their spectator seats
00:06:29to this world leader, who clearly, a lot of their policies must have struck them as at odds, perhaps
00:06:36with their own interests at times, but they simply have no other choice. It's Donald Trump at the helm of the
00:06:41United States, which is still perhaps the most powerful nation at the end of the day.
00:06:46And it also felt at times, didn't it Doug, as if he was back on the campaign trail. You're thinking that
00:06:51maybe he has the home audience in mind for a lot of it, still as well also holding out for that Nobel
00:06:57Peace Prize. Well, he mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize specifically in the context of the seven wars that
00:07:02he, you know, credited himself with solving. But you're absolutely right. It had, at times, a whiff of
00:07:09a MAGA rally, you know, on the road. This was obviously a very different audience than he would
00:07:14encounter at a MAGA rally, and notably, the type of event he attended last weekend at Charlie Kirk's
00:07:19Memorial in Arizona. Very different audience, but in many senses, he almost, his message was he didn't
00:07:26modify the message that much. He was, he was still directing it. He tried to use certain types of, I
00:07:34guess you could call it, a Trumpian humor. The teleprompter went down on him, right? So, the escalator,
00:07:40when he was arriving in the public escalator at the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan, it broke
00:07:45down for a while, and he and Melania had to climb the stairs. He used those seemingly slightly, you know,
00:07:51humorous petty incidents, you might call them, and he used them as props in that broader diatribe,
00:07:56against the UN. And you could either, depending where you stand, say, well, that's Trump's political
00:08:00genius, being able to take those very mundane moments and somehow deploy them in a broader case
00:08:07that he's trying to make against this global institution, or you could just say he was being
00:08:11extremely petty at a very significant moment and belittling the organization that he is supposed to
00:08:17be, well, at least supposed to be, honoring on its 80th anniversary. Exactly. Well, Doug, you're staying
00:08:22with us, but we can cross live now to the UN, our correspondent there, France 24.
00:08:27Pamela Falk is standing by for us. Pamela, you were, of course, there during this address and
00:08:32all the other speeches that we've been hearing at the UN today. Just talk to us a little bit
00:08:36about what the reaction was. Doug spoke to us a little bit about, at times, there was laughter
00:08:41in the audience. But there was also, you know, a couple of tense moments. We saw the Brazilian president,
00:08:46as well, when he was referred to. Somebody appeared to be giving him a little bit of a shake,
00:08:50you know, to pay attention. Donald Trump was speaking about him. So just talk to us a little
00:08:54bit about the ambience and the atmosphere, the reaction to that speech.
00:09:03Yes, it was expected to be very tense because President Trump and the Trump administration
00:09:12has cut back on the UN, has not paid its mandatory bills, has cut back on many of the agencies,
00:09:20including World Food Program and UNICEF and World Health Organization. But that said,
00:09:26the ambience in the room changed dramatically when President Trump began by saying the teleprompter
00:09:35wasn't working, the escalator stopped, and what is the UN? What is the purpose of the UN? And so people
00:09:44laughed at the criticism that was so petty of these things, like the teleprompter. But then he went on
00:09:55to say, he did say that the U.S. is 100 percent behind the United Nations, which seems to be a contradiction,
00:10:04and that got a few people more relaxed in the room. Then he went on to other subjects that were much
00:10:11tenser and that have really contradicted President Macron and other statements that he has made and
00:10:20policies of France. So, for example, on climate, he said it was a hoax, it was a con, and people who
00:10:27believe in clean energy and climate change are stupid. So there were a lot of insults.
00:10:34He went on to say that the world can buy American coal, but then also added things that the European
00:10:43Union and the U.S. agree to, which is that the reliance on Russian oil and gas needs to stop,
00:10:51and that that is something that they agree to. But that climate was something that he really,
00:10:59because the Trump administration did pull out of the 2015 climate agreement, the Paris climate
00:11:07agreement, and has gone its own, they have gone their own way on climate. There was also on immigration.
00:11:15Immigration, there was the statements by President Trump that it's ruining the European economies,
00:11:22that every country has a right to its sovereign borders. That created some tension. On Gaza,
00:11:30clearly, and the Palestinian recognitions in terms of what just happened the day before on the two-state
00:11:37solution conference, he was very critical. And he criticized both France and Saudi Arabia for making
00:11:46these statements of recognition because he said it was a reward for Hamas. Then, as you mentioned,
00:11:54he criticized Brazil for the prosecution of President Bolsonaro, his friend, but then said he ran into
00:12:07Tallulah on the way in, and he thinks he's a good man, so that he will be having a bilateral with him.
00:12:13So there was a lot of give and take on Ukraine. He said he was very disappointed with the Russian
00:12:19Federation, and that's something the European Union agrees with. So there were things that were insults,
00:12:28and then he would take it back a bit. So that, in addition to, because he didn't have his teleprompter,
00:12:36he was more ad-libbing. And so he talked about the UN renovations, that he wanted to renovate the UN
00:12:44for $500 million, where the UN renovation ended up being over $2 billion. And so there was a mixed
00:12:53message, but it was clearly one of America first, nationalism versus both President Macron and so
00:13:01many other world leaders and the Secretary General who were talking about multilateralism and that that
00:13:08has to succeed with so many conflicts around the world. Pamela, you're staying with us as well,
00:13:13but we will cross live to Professor Noura Erekat. She's also joining us from the US,
00:13:18author and human rights lawyer. Thanks so much for being with us on the program.
00:13:24Noura, it was no surprise really to see Donald Trump rejecting moves by his US allies,
00:13:30including France, to endorse a Palestinian state. In your view, are we actually any closer
00:13:36to a two-state solution? I know you have particular views on that. Is it a viable option still?
00:13:46Any denigration that any US leader on either side of the aisle, be it Republican or Democratic,
00:13:53in regards to Palestinian rights and self-determination, should be no surprise.
00:13:58The US is part and parcel of the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians and their replacement
00:14:05with Jewish Zionist settlers. And the US is as equally invested in settlement expansion across the West
00:14:12Bank. It's equally invested in recognizing the illegal declaration of Israeli sovereignty over
00:14:18Jerusalem, the declaration of sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the occupied Golan Heights.
00:14:24It's a part and parcel of the continuing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza,
00:14:30by providing relentless source of arms, as well as impeding any diplomatic solutions and multilateral
00:14:38solutions at the United Nations. And so we should understand very much that the US is now speaking
00:14:44in the voice of Israel, almost without distinction, in order to continue this expansionist project.
00:14:51The Palestinian state has long been dead. And it was the US and Israel that killed that solution.
00:14:58Any discussion of resurrecting it now is a way for European states to avert their own responsibility
00:15:05for the death of that solution, as well as for their complicity in an ongoing genocide. And I fear that
00:15:11it's far more symbolic than it offers us in this moment and is an affront to their international obligations,
00:15:18as well as to Palestinians who are suffering at the result of the complicity and the impotence
00:15:25of the UN to stop the crime of all crimes.
00:15:29Well, in terms of how you are expecting Israel to respond, we'll be hearing from Benjamin Netanyahu
00:15:35himself later in the week. There are fears, though, that Israel could retaliate by taking complete
00:15:41control over the West Bank. What exactly are you expecting?
00:15:47You know, I hear you say that, and I hear Benjamin Netanyahu making that threat to the world,
00:15:52and I am absolutely perplexed. I'm at a complete loss of how is it that a standing leader can be
00:16:01wanted by the International Criminal Court, accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice
00:16:09finding a plausible genocide, threaten the international community with more crimes of
00:16:15annexation, the territorial conquest by force, as well as the forced removal of people. He's
00:16:23threatening a lack of compliance and ongoing crimes with more crimes. And the response is to normalize
00:16:30that and to ask whether or not we think that that's reasonable and is it going to happen,
00:16:35as opposed to what we should be doing, which is to absolutely punish that, prevent genocide.
00:16:43I think that part of this problem is the way that we continue to normalize
00:16:49Israeli removal and dispossession of Palestinians as somehow acceptable. And rather than impede that,
00:16:56we want to manage it. We want to make the removal and dispossession of Palestinians something that's
00:17:01more acceptable to the international community on political terms, when if you look at it on legal
00:17:08terms, it is absolutely illegal. And I urge us not to normalize this language, not to normalize annexation,
00:17:16not to normalize dispossession, or to normalize genocide. The reason we're at this moment is because
00:17:23when international human rights organizations finally agreed with Palestinians that Israel
00:17:28oversees a racialized regime prefigured with the superiority of one racial group over another
00:17:34and characterized by segregation and the immobility of the inferiorized racial group, which is apartheid,
00:17:43that rather in that moment to apply sanctions and to punish apartheid, which was declared a crime
00:17:49against humanity in 1973, the international community normalized it by celebrating the security
00:17:57pacts between Israel and several Arab regimes known as the Abraham Accords. In that moment,
00:18:04that they should have been imposed with sanctions in order to dismantle its apartheid regime, instead
00:18:09that they were rewarded by acting like it didn't exist and normalizing that system.
00:18:15We continuously perpetuate that when we talk about this in political terms, rather than to highlight
00:18:22the absolute absurdity and the levels of violence that Palestinians have to endure,
00:18:28because we are not confronting these atrocities.
00:18:32Noura, we will come back to you a little bit later in the program. Do stay with us because we have
00:18:38Steven Ekovich also here in studio, Professor Emeritus at the American College. Talk to us.
00:18:46The American University of Paris.
00:18:48The American University of Paris. Talk to us a little bit about what is happening here with Gaza. In your view,
00:18:55has the West lost all credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world? We saw Donald Trump today
00:19:01not refer at all to the suffering of Palestinians, speaking only about the hostages that are still
00:19:07being held by Hamas. But other world leaders, we saw the Turkish president come out and hammer home
00:19:13that message that something needs to be done. Has the West lost all credibility at this point?
00:19:19The failure to have to realize a two state solution is a failure on all sides. It's a failure of leadership
00:19:29in Israel. It's a failure of leadership, Palestinian leadership. It's a failure of Arab leadership.
00:19:35We cannot just put the blame on the United States and on the West or on the UN.
00:19:40The only way to get to a two state solution is to have both sides agree to it. And we're not going to
00:19:48see that. We're probably not going to see that for years and years to come, in fact. Until the two
00:19:58leaderships and the two peoples can come to some sort of understanding with each other. The kind of
00:20:04discourse that we've had where we can make the legal and the moral argument, you know, I've had
00:20:11experience with this argument for many, many years. The first time was when I was a professor in Tunis
00:20:17in 1989. It's a time when the PLO was there. And I spent some time with the PLO, in fact, at that time.
00:20:24And the argument was always the same. We have a just cause. Okay, we can agree to that. We have a strong
00:20:32legal case. Yeah, fine. We can agree to that, too. We should have our own state. All right,
00:20:38why not? But then what? If we only continue with these kinds of discourses about putting the blame
00:20:44on one side or the other, on saying that we have the moral high ground and that we should be recognized
00:20:50and have our state, we're not going to get anywhere. This is the kind of discourse that just
00:20:58is floats up in the thin air and doesn't really help with anything concrete to get to a real situation.
00:21:04So American policy, at least since George W. Bush Jr., has been a two-state solution.
00:21:14His condition was two states living in peace side by side. For most American presidents,
00:21:21until this current president, there has been some kind of support for a two-state solution. But always
00:21:29with the recognition, once again, that the only way to get there was for the actual parties involved
00:21:35that have some kind of agreement. The United States was not going to impose it. The UN was not going to
00:21:40impose it. It's not going to be imposed from the outside. So in a sense, now today we have, you know,
00:21:49a slight deviate, Donald Trump has deviated from the longer-term American policy to be in favor of,
00:21:58it's proclaimed diplomacy, that the United States is behind a two-state solution, as is France.
00:22:06There are already something like 150 countries in the world that recognize the state of Palestine.
00:22:12What more can we get from a UN General Assembly declaration? If we go country by country, well,
00:22:22each country's leaders has a, you know, a domestic stake in declaring a two-state solution. President
00:22:30Macron has an important French domestic stake in declaring that he's in favor of a two-state solution.
00:22:38So, I mean, I think we have to put all of this into a historical perspective and get out of this
00:22:43ethereal, you know, ethical, moral, juridical argument that we've just heard, because it gets
00:22:50us nowhere. In fact, not only does it not get us nowhere, it doesn't help at all.
00:22:54And you say a two-state solution can't be imposed, but can it even happen realistically
00:23:00without U.S. support? We had the head of Amnesty speaking on our channel earlier today saying,
00:23:05you know, with or without the U.S., the E.U. should be doing more, the rest of the world.
00:23:08It needs U.S. support. It could use E.U. support. But once again, we have to come back to the actual
00:23:14people involved. It's not going to happen until Israelis and Palestinians come to some sort of
00:23:19agreement. There have been many, many attempts over the years. They've all failed. And not only because
00:23:24of one side. Let's get that clear. Okay. Both sides have, with the help of outsiders,
00:23:31with the help of the United States, with the help of the U.N., with the help of the Quartet,
00:23:34there have been many outsiders who've come to the assistance of both sides to try to mediate,
00:23:40try to help bring the two parties together. But in the end, the two parties have to come together.
00:23:44And that's why it seems to me very implausible to have a two-state solution soon. The Israeli
00:23:52public doesn't want it. The recent polls show that the Israeli public now is rather massively
00:23:59against the two-state solution, largely because of October 7. So once again, the United States is
00:24:06powerful. Perhaps a united Europe can have some sort of influence. But it all comes down to two
00:24:13peoples, two traumatized peoples with two different imaginations, unable to come to some sort of
00:24:20feasible and concrete agreement. I think we can just bring back Nora Erika. She just wants to respond
00:24:27to that point. Nora, we can hear you now if you want to go ahead.
00:24:30Yes, absolutely. I think that for the audience listening, they should take note
00:24:37that the guest just said that legal arguments of international law and that ethical arguments about
00:24:43morality here are a distraction. In fact, those are pillars of how we organize society and ourselves.
00:24:51And if we just want to pivot to the political and look at the historical events, then remember that in 1988,
00:25:00it was Yasser Arafat, the head of the PLO, who recognized Israel as a state. And in response,
00:25:08Yitzhak Rabin never recognized Palestine, but only recognized that the Palestinian Liberation Organization
00:25:15represented Palestinians. I also want to point out to the audience that we cannot create a false
00:25:22equivalency between the only nuclear power in the Middle East that is the eighth largest exporter of
00:25:29weapons that is the only, the only, has complete jurisdiction, the only sovereign from the river
00:25:36to the sea who can control the movement of even the so-called Palestinian president from leaving
00:25:42and equivocate between them. Right now, the reason it's apartheid is because only one side,
00:25:48the Israeli side, is committing systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians. Palestinians are not
00:25:56committing systematic human rights abuses against Israelis. They do not control their access to
00:26:01water. They do not control their education. They do not control their economy. They do not control
00:26:08their movement. They cannot detain them in the middle of the night through a home raid
00:26:13and then subject them to trials without representation. They cannot detain them without charge or trial.
00:26:20So we must be careful that, yes, this has to require outside intervention. Palestinians will need an
00:26:28international community based on law, morality, politics in order to end the situation, just as it
00:26:36required an international community to end apartheid in Namibia, apartheid in South Africa, just as it
00:26:43required an international community to end the colonization of colonized peoples. People in power will not
00:26:50relinquish their power on their own. And it's not just that Israelis do not want a Palestinian state,
00:26:55to the professor who spoke. Israelis polled want to even forcibly transfer their own citizens of the
00:27:03state. They want, 56 percent want to transfer Palestinian citizens of the state. 82 percent want to completely
00:27:10ethnically cleanse Gaza and replace it. And that is because they have been impugned. Nobody has held them
00:27:16to account. And so that is our failure and why we must intervene. And it will require an international
00:27:24community to do the work. We can't leave it to Palestinians and Israelis because Palestinians have
00:27:29no power. They don't control their economy. They can't control this outcome on their own.
00:27:35Stephen, we'll just, if you want to give a response to Noor there.
00:27:39We've heard the lawyer speaking. It's just fine. And it's, in general, a good ethical and moral
00:27:48argument. We can agree with that. Okay. Well, this is the lawyer speaking. This is the professor here
00:27:53speaking, the historian and the professor of international relations. You need diplomacy at
00:27:58some time. You need to bring the party's concern together. And for all sides to make concessions,
00:28:05there's not going to be an outside power that's going to impose a solution. And outside powers can
00:28:11facilitate. They can moderate. They can mediate. They can make suggestions. They can put some
00:28:17pressures behind the scenes. But pressure is only to bring those peoples together. And to hear that,
00:28:22that the Palestinians have not been committing war crimes. Let's think about Hamas. Hamas, come on.
00:28:28This is, you know, uh, uh, I can't, I can't believe my ears on this.
00:28:31Right to abuse this. Yeah. So, um, first of all, I'm also a professor. I'm a professor.
00:28:36No, no, fine. Yeah. I would say you're not a professor.
00:28:39Yes. But I'm, I referred to you by your title.
00:28:41Doug, you wanted to come in there as well?
00:28:43Yeah. I was just going to jump in very quickly. One of the things, regardless of where you stand with
00:28:49respect to the recognition of Palestinian statehood and this latest wave of states recognizing is,
00:28:54is two of the things that immediately galvanized their decision, brought them to this point,
00:29:00were the growing condemnation and sense of outrage. And in some cases of standing by impotence
00:29:07on the part of the international community at what is not just a humanitarian catastrophe,
00:29:11but a cataclysm, um, objectively speaking, a cataclysm, you know, we've had the, the, you know,
00:29:17the terms of genocide assigned to it. You don't need me to start, you know, trying to define genocide.
00:29:22Um, that coupled, coupled with the fact that you have a, a sense on the part of those who are
00:29:29recognizing the Palestinian state, that as Macron said yesterday, that it will soon be too late to
00:29:35seize the moment, to try to create a pathway to a lasting peace. And why do they feel that way?
00:29:40And this gets down to the false equivalency question. They feel that way because it's not
00:29:44on the one hand, the Palestinians on the one hand, on the other hand, the Israelis,
00:29:48they are specifically singling out in this case, Benjamin Netanyahu at the helm of a far right
00:29:55coalition, the furthest right, an ultra nationalist, ultra religious coalition
00:29:59in Israel's modern history, singling them out for disapproval. Why? Because they see them as
00:30:05more reticent, that is more against the prospect of engaging in talks towards a peace with the
00:30:12Palestinians than any other government in Israel's modern history. You could perhaps go back to Israel's
00:30:18founding. So in other words, taking out from their perspective, if you ask Emmanuel Macron,
00:30:23if you were to ask Keir Starmer, if you were to ask Mark Carney, if you were to ask almost any of
00:30:28these leaders at the helms of these countries that went and went ahead to recognize Palestinian
00:30:33statehood, they would say specifically that part of what drove them to that point was a sense that
00:30:39Benjamin Netanyahu was not ready in any way, shape or form to try to forge even the beginnings,
00:30:46even the makings of a pathway to peace with the Palestinians. He did not see them as negotiating
00:30:52partners. He did not see a Palestinian state. This is not me saying it. This is him being explicit,
00:30:59explicitly saying it is not going to happen. It will not happen. There is no pathway for a Palestinian
00:31:06state. So the motivation immediately for that decision was the prospect from the perspective
00:31:12of the recognizing states that there was no real future for a Palestine living side by side with
00:31:20Israel. Think what you will about it. You might viscerally disagree with it. You might be against
00:31:24the two-state solution. But this was the reasoning and the logic behind that decision. So that's where the
00:31:31false equivalency, you sort of have to put it aside for a second. They are specifically saying that in
00:31:36this particular instance in history, this particular Israeli far-right government with this particular
00:31:42Israeli prime minister at its helm was not amenable in any way to negotiating with the Palestinians on a
00:31:48prospect for a better future for them. And that's just clear. Ehud Olmert, a former conservative Israeli prime
00:31:56minister, a member of the Likud party, okay, he himself was in favor. He actually supported the
00:32:04Palestinian statehood recognition, given the context of this moment, recognizing that there seemed to be
00:32:09absolutely no other prospect with this current Israeli government of engaging the Palestinians.
00:32:15That's how they see it. And that is what is driving their decision. And that is why they think
00:32:20that even those who look very dimly on this recognition of Palestinian statehood, even those who say
00:32:25it's purely symbolic, it serves no purpose, it's not going to do anything, the international community
00:32:29should be concentrating on its other efforts. It's simply the explanation of why they're doing it
00:32:33in the first place. Symbolism, yes, but small steps, they would argue, do contribute to something
00:32:40more enduring, something more lasting. Well, I'll just bring Nora back in because I'm aware you're going
00:32:44to have to leave us shortly, Nora. On that point, can trust ever be rebuilt between both sides? As we're
00:32:51seeing here tonight, it's still a very divisive issue. And do Palestinians still actually have
00:32:56faith in the political process? I really do urge people, we've been, you know, we're almost on two
00:33:03years of a live stream genocide. And we have that conclusion that's come by multiple scholars,
00:33:11including most recently, the International Association of Genocide Scholars. And people need to
00:33:16realize that they cannot leave a situation of this much power imbalance, where one side is using
00:33:24their force and their impunity, advanced weapons technologies to destroy a people, and then leave
00:33:30it to build trust between them. What we need is international mobilization to end the genocide.
00:33:35And what we need is accountability. That means holding the perpetrators to account
00:33:40at the International Criminal Court. That means holding soldiers, who are dual nationals,
00:33:45to account in national jurisdictions. That means reparations for Palestinians and a recognition of
00:33:50the harm that they've suffered. It is what survivors of genocide deserve. It is what former survivors of
00:33:56genocide have received. It is what the future deserves from us, so that we do not transform a genocide
00:34:05into a legitimate policy option for other sovereigns in the future, who can then rectify it by moving to a
00:34:12political solution without first engaging in accountability. Whatever the future is, there
00:34:18is no future without accountability. There is no trust between anyone unless there is accountability.
00:34:25This time, they're for the destruction of an entire people in the Gaza Strip, where we are now being told
00:34:33that some 700, the estimates are some 700,000 people because of those buried beneath the rubble,
00:34:39who are being subject to famine, who have quadcopters that are basically automated drones that blow up in
00:34:48children's faces. There are atrocities here that make us all unsafe. This isn't just about Palestinians.
00:34:55It is a future we are fighting for, and the world deserves an accounting with these atrocities. So,
00:35:01in fact, we never do them again.
00:35:03Noura, you mentioned the International Criminal Court. How frustrating is it for you to see the
00:35:08Israeli leader? He'll be back in New York this week. He's also going to be holding
00:35:12further talks with Donald Trump at the White House. And how do you respond to both him and Trump,
00:35:17who talk about the recognition of a Palestinian state being a reward for terrorism?
00:35:24Well, I'm not surprised at all that he's welcomed in the United States, because the United States,
00:35:29as you heard, its leader is fomenting a lot of false realities. And so in trying to transform that
00:35:37absurdity and lies into something that we have to digest. So it makes sense that Netanyahu,
00:35:43a wanted war criminal, would be in alignment with the leader of the United States. What frustrates me
00:35:48is to see those who talk out of two sides of their mouth, like France and Macron, who on the one hand
00:35:55wants to recognize Palestine, but on the other hand also says that the ICC's jurisdiction over
00:36:02Netanyahu may not be binding because they're not a party to the Rome statute. That's just legally
00:36:08untrue. It's really frustrating when I see France offering its airspace to Netanyahu, or when I see
00:36:14other European countries who are welcoming them and at the same time continuing to say that they
00:36:21believe in some sort of collective future for Palestinians. The first step is to end genocide
00:36:27and to end European complicity in that genocide. The United Kingdom and Italy and Germany are second,
00:36:35third and fourth only to the United States in providing arms to Israel. They need to cease the
00:36:40provision of those arms and all countries can cease their diplomatic relationships in order to exert
00:36:46pressure. To concede power, it requires pressure. That pressure lies in the trade partners and in
00:36:53the arms partners of Israel. And that is where that pressure lies and where I encourage us to continue
00:36:59pushing. I applaud civil society in Italy, in the UK, in France and elsewhere that have mobilized,
00:37:06as well as I applaud civil society in the United States, which has now been, you know, as you may know,
00:37:12we are being punished. Academics are being fired, even those with tenure. Students have been kidnapped
00:37:19and disappeared for engaging in democratic protest. And so I encourage all of us to applaud and protect
00:37:26that civil society and to continue to put pressure on our state leaders who can be the source of a
00:37:33positive outcome rather than the source of harm. Well, Stephen, I might ask you, do you believe,
00:37:38even though we are nearly two years into this war, that Emmanuel Macron deserves some credit
00:37:42for actually leading the post? Move this ahead deserves credit. Of course. My point is that it's
00:37:51fine to try to move things ahead, to make small steps. But, you know, we have a classic situation here
00:37:59from the professor where tirades on both sides are just not going to work. It's not going to work that
00:38:08way. Okay? So, once again, the two sides, we could all have the same opinion of Netanyahu. And I'm sure
00:38:16that we probably do share the same opinion of Netanyahu. But then what? Okay? Then what? What can
00:38:24realistically be done by the European Union? And what will the United States do? That's an open
00:38:29question. What has the United States done all of these years? The United States has been a regular
00:38:35and persistent supporter of the existence of the state of Israel. And I cannot see that ending. Okay?
00:38:40The United States has been a persistent and continual historic defender of the security of Israel. And I
00:38:46cannot see that ending. Don't believe it's going to be otherwise. Despite all of the international
00:38:51pressure that can be brought to bear on Netanyahu, who probably doesn't care. It seems that Netanyahu
00:38:59and all of those around him are just going to hug her down and do what they believe they have to do.
00:39:03And, you know, all of the tirades that we can shovel out against the Israelis, the Americans,
00:39:11and all others who support Netanyahu, I just think has limited political, diplomatic value.
00:39:16And once again, it all comes down to bringing not only two leaderships together, but two peoples
00:39:23together. And when we talk about bringing two peoples together, that is a very long-term project. And so
00:39:28far, it has had some successes. There have been some successes. There's been advances and there have been
00:39:34regressions. We're in a period certainly of a regression in terms of Palestinian statehood.
00:39:42Let's hope that with small steps, with pressures like those that are coming from the international
00:39:46community, from President Macron, that something can be moved ahead. But let's be realistic about this.
00:39:52It's worth just noting, Sharon, very briefly, that in terms of U.S. military aid to Israel,
00:39:57you know, things aren't frozen in aspect. There's a current 10-year deal, an agreement. It's due to expire in
00:40:032028. It provides about $3.8 billion a year in military aid to Israel. Yes, by far the largest
00:40:11foreign provider of military aid to Israel is the U.S. That's hardly breaking news for our viewers.
00:40:16What might be a little more interesting, if you want to look, and you could call it a tectonic shift,
00:40:20is A, U.S. public opinion. Recent surveys, notably by the Pew Research Center, which is very respected in
00:40:27the U.S., do show that American attitudes towards Israel are not necessarily frozen in stone. That
00:40:33the negative attitudes towards Israel, or put another way, there is signs of deteriorating support
00:40:43for Israel among American public opinion. It's gone up, I think, the negative rating of Israel now,
00:40:49the negative, you ask average Americans. Pew, I think, spoke to about 3,600 Americans back in March,
00:40:55so two months into Trump's second term. And 53% now have a negative attitude for Israel. Obviously,
00:41:02there's a whole bunch of criteria. We won't go into every criteria there. But that's up, noticeably,
00:41:07from 42%. So we went from a little over three years ago. We're going back, I believe the origin date of
00:41:14that survey was March 2022. 3,600 Americans across the country, seen as representative national sample,
00:41:22asked about their attitudes towards Israel. In a three-year period, yes, you had the Hamas attacks.
00:41:27That was obviously a major factor for this shift and this spike in negative opinions. And what's
00:41:33noticeable about it is one of the pillars of U.S. support for Israel traditionally has been the
00:41:39evangelical Christians, right? They've been, when it comes to the support of Israel, they've been more
00:41:44holier than holy, right? You know, saving the Jews has always been their, they've been the Jews' best
00:41:49friend or that's how they have seen themselves. Even among evangelical Christians, that pillar of
00:41:55support, the negative attitudes are rising. Among Democrats, particularly, and younger Democrats,
00:42:02you have sharp rise in negative attitudes towards Israel. Yes, I'm talking only about Israel here right
00:42:08now because that is what the poll focused on. But it does suggest, and obviously it comes with a lot of
00:42:14caveats, but it suggests that our conventional wisdom about the U.S. being sort of tied at the hip
00:42:22to Israel, unconditional support under any circumstance, it may not be eternal. And you add to that
00:42:29the perfect storm of a Donald Trump being in power, a Donald Trump who is known, notoriously transactional,
00:42:35not necessarily ideological, but transactional. He goes where the money is. Where was his first foreign
00:42:40trip as president? He went to Saudi Arabia. He went to the Persian Gulf monarchies. At the end of the day,
00:42:45he will break deals. He will broker deals where he sees his interest lies and the America first
00:42:51interest lies. And we could dare to say it, make the argument beyond, and some Americans are making it,
00:42:57if he at some point sees that his interest maybe isn't as ironclad with Israel. This is the type of
00:43:03president who might be willing to start to look elsewhere to make deals and to bring his support.
00:43:10So it's interesting. We're just seeing shifts. We're not there. As Stephen said very much, Israel and the
00:43:16U.S. remain staunch allies. The U.S. remains staunchly on Israel's side. This Trump administration is still
00:43:21a pillar of support for Israel. Netanyahu knows it. But I would bet you, if I were a betting man,
00:43:26I would bet you that in the back of his mind, Benjamin Netanyahu was making a calculation about 2028,
00:43:31when that current 10-year military aid agreement expires, how can he start to perhaps wean Israel
00:43:38of its overarching dependence on American military aid? Final question to you then, Noura. Would you
00:43:44agree with what Doug is saying there? You're in the U.S. Have you also felt that kind of shift
00:43:48in public opinion when it comes to both Israel and also Gaza? Absolutely. This shift is unprecedented,
00:43:55and it's really because Israel has shown the world the lengths that it'll go to
00:44:01and how it'll decimate Palestinians. I mean, I don't know if the other guests are consuming
00:44:06the same information that so many of these, those who are polled are consuming. But there are,
00:44:11you know, in addition to the videos of destruction and to this, you know, what is annihilation,
00:44:17there are videos of Israeli soldiers who are posting videos of themselves boasting that, in their own
00:44:23words, this is how much impunity that they enjoy these days, that they enjoyed listening to families burn,
00:44:29that Daniel Raab from Chicago, a dual national, explained how he shot two unarmed boys,
00:44:37one of them because he tried to retrieve the corpse of his brother, but was completely unarmed and said,
00:44:43I don't know what, why that corpse was important. You have to understand that for any human watching
00:44:49this, this is incredibly disturbing, and people feel responsible that somehow they were part of the
00:44:55impunity that created this, you know, society that has basically thinks it has a right to cause this
00:45:02much harm to another people. I promise you, if there were Palestinians saying that, as they were
00:45:08beheading babies, or they were destroying hospitals, or they were, you know, starving Israelis to death,
00:45:16one, it wouldn't happen, and two, there would be an absolute tirade and uproar. So take into account
00:45:23the amount of deep, deep dehumanization that's happened towards Palestinians that has made this
00:45:29such a struggle for us to be at nearly two years of genocide and still have to appear on these programs
00:45:35to make these basic, you know, calls. I want to end by saying that whatever we can say about
00:45:42peoples and coexistence in the future, that we have to understand that when there is an oppressive
00:45:47situation, there are no two sides. There are no two sides to genocide. There are no two sides to
00:45:53apartheid. Those conditions have to end. And when it comes to the United States' relationship with Israel,
00:45:59I will also point out that the United States was the last domino to fall in supporting apartheid South
00:46:05Africa. And in fact, if you bean count the number of Security Council resolutions,
00:46:10the U.S. has made on behalf of Israel and other countries, protecting apartheid South Africa and
00:46:17Namibia comes only second to the number of vetoes that the U.S. has issued to protect Israel. So the
00:46:24U.S. has historically been in alignment with racially supremacist regimes that think that they have the
00:46:31right to oppress another people in the name of their self-determination. And it was the world that
00:46:37isolated the U.S. historically and that is continuing to isolate the U.S. as we can see right now.
00:46:43Noor Erika, thanks so much for being with us on the program. I'm going to return to you, Stephen.
00:46:48Antonio Guterres, for example, has not directly accused Israel of committing genocide
00:46:54in Gaza. We do have to make that point. What is your view when it comes to that? And where does all of
00:47:00this leave French-Israeli relations? We're going to get into trying to define genocide and whether
00:47:04or not there's genocide going on. That's a long debate. I just want to say one thing. I'm sorry
00:47:09that my dear colleague has left us. By the way, we both have our advanced degrees from the University
00:47:15of California. But she has supported the argument I'm making here. This kind of discourse does not help.
00:47:24She just blamed all of Israeli society on what's happening. You get nowhere when you blame all of
00:47:32Israeli society. Israeli society is divided. There are important cleavages. There have been in the past
00:47:40very, very significant movements for peace. Where is the movement for peace on the Palestinian side,
00:47:45on the Hamas side? I could have traded atrocities with my dear colleague, right? We can go on and
00:47:52on all night if we wanted to do that, okay? But that is not going to get us anywhere once again, okay?
00:47:58So, you know, do you want to get into a discussion about whether or not genocide is going on? The ICJ did
00:48:07not say that Israel is committing genocide. It said, beware. Be careful.
00:48:14You could plausibly entering into a period of committing genocide. That was it.
00:48:22And the UN Commission has found that, but not the UN itself and Holocaust scholars, but this is yet to
00:48:29be decided legally. And what's that going to, how are the Israelis going to take that? The Israelis have
00:48:34very little confidence already in the UN, continuing with their long antagonism with the UN, and in some
00:48:42cases, a justified antagonism, okay? So, you know, once again, I mean, I always come back to this
00:48:50because I've been dealing with my Palestinian colleagues and friends for over 30 years, even 40
00:48:56years now, okay? That at some point, the two sides themselves are going to have to work it out
00:49:03themselves. And to the extent that you're blaming the societies of the other exclusively for what's going
00:49:09on, you're just not going to get anywhere. And I just don't see us getting very far. Public opinion
00:49:15in America is changing. We'll see how durable that is. Maybe it will be durable, but will that translate
00:49:22into pulling back support from Israel? Absolutely. The United States and Israel have other
00:49:27insignificant ties besides public opinion, okay? Very important economic and technology ties. Also,
00:49:34I think sometimes we'll let our hearts speak, and what we see is heart-rending. But at some point,
00:49:43once again, we have to make a clear-headed, realpolitik, this approach to what's going on. And once again,
00:49:53that's going to take a long time because the underlying mentalities, imaginations of these two nationalisms,
00:50:00for the moment, are incredibly antagonistic. They haven't always been. There have been periods
00:50:06when there have been real attempts to come to some sort of reconciliation. They've always failed.
00:50:12And not only because of one side, once again. So. And considering the history of the Jewish people,
00:50:18how concerning is it for you, as a historian, to see how isolated Israel has become? And Benjamin Netanyahu,
00:50:26he doesn't seem to be too worried about pulling back from that. I don't think he is. He's talking
00:50:30about a super Sparta. It seems to me that Netanyahu, I think he's seizing the moment.
00:50:38This is a moment when he can advance his interests. Unfortunately, he has seized the moment,
00:50:46because maybe he's saying that, I mean, Donald Trump's not always going to be around,
00:50:50and the constellation of forces in his region already favorable. Is there any Arab regime
00:50:56that wants a two-state solution today, where Hamas is the government? We haven't talked about that yet,
00:51:02for example. Okay. Although the regimes have to be very careful with their own Arab public opinion,
00:51:10called the Arab street, we can be sure, and geostrategists know this, that there's no regime in the
00:51:18region that wants to see a Palestinian state today, where Hamas would be the main political power.
00:51:26And should the Arab world then be doing more? And why is it failing? It also can't unite. The EU is
00:51:31getting a lot of criticism for being unable to come up with a unified response. But as you say,
00:51:37there are questions to be raised about how regional neighbors are responding also to all of this.
00:51:43I remember a lecture I gave long ago in Tunisia to my Tunisian diplomat students, who at one point
00:51:51raised his hand and said, Professor, we know the United States is in the Middle East just to cause
00:51:56divisions among the Arab peoples. I said, my friends, do you think you really need the United States to
00:52:01cause divisions among yourselves? Okay. These countries have their own interests. They're going to pursue
00:52:10them for their own regimes, not necessarily for their own people, but for their own regimes and
00:52:15their own personal powers in many cases. So the situation is far more complex and far more
00:52:26difficult to resolve, precisely because there are so many cross-cutting currents in the region that are
00:52:33not favorable today to a two-state solution. And I'll just note today that these UN General
00:52:40Assemblies, right, they're as much about who's speaking at the podium as the bilateral meetings
00:52:44on the side. Donald Trump held a slew of bilateral meetings today, more like a big multilateral meeting,
00:52:51a mini summit, if you will, with leaders from or representatives from Indonesia and Turkey and Pakistan
00:52:59and Egypt and Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates and Jordan, the list goes on. But it does show that
00:53:05he sees these countries, these nations, both neighbors and even further flung countries, as being integral
00:53:13to sort of the broader calculus of the Middle East conflict and resolving this issue. It's going to take,
00:53:20there are a lot of cross-currents, as Stephen was saying, and it's going to take a lot of very difficult and
00:53:27tricky and nuanced negotiation, taking into consideration all those different interests,
00:53:32because they're not cut and dry. And it's easier, it's easy to think of different regions and different
00:53:37countries as being monolithic in their approach and their attitudes towards Israel or towards Hamas,
00:53:42towards, and it's rarely the case, rarely the case. So I suspect that that type of multilateral summit,
00:53:48what's interesting about it is the very fact that it's taking place with that entire grouping,
00:53:53with Donald Trump, showing that Donald Trump does put, does realize the importance,
00:53:58the integral importance of those neighbors, those regional neighbors in trying to forge any sort of,
00:54:05any sort of viable, durable solution. Yeah, I don't think Donald Trump has any coherent
00:54:11view of what's going on here. His meeting, personal meetings with these leaders are no doubt
00:54:19personal. He's trying to size them up and to try. He met with them as a group. Yeah, in this case,
00:54:24he did meet with them as a group. But you're right, obviously, he has the one-on-ones. He prefers
00:54:28bilateral diplomacy towards, towards this multilateral globalist. But in this case, he got them all in
00:54:33one room, perhaps for time constraints as well, I suspect. And Professor, if I could just ask you,
00:54:38who do you think, if we get to the point where we have a viable Palestinian state, who should actually
00:54:44rule it then? That's the big question. We can all be in favor of a Palestinian state. We can all here
00:54:50be in favor of a Palestinian state. How is it going to be created? Who is going to govern it? And what
00:54:56will its relations be with its neighbors? We're very far from giving plausible and realistic answers
00:55:02to those questions today. And as I see it, into the even far future. Once again, when two peoples are
00:55:11antagonistic to such an extent, and when each society is blaming the other society fundamental,
00:55:17there's no room for argument. There's no room for diplomacy. When you're going to chastise
00:55:24and attack an entire society and a civilization, there's no room to negotiate.
00:55:33Those who have recognized Palestinian statehood, one of their key arguments is that it absolutely
00:55:41precludes, it excludes any role for Hamas in a future Palestinian government. Obviously,
00:55:46the next thought there is that is easier said than done. Hamas itself has no intention of its own
00:55:52volition relinquishing whatever power it may still have or influence in Gaza. Right now, it's technically
00:55:58still the rulers of Gaza, despite the Israeli occupation there. But the recognition of the Palestinian
00:56:06statehood comes with that stipulation that any future government would be, presumably with a revamped
00:56:12Palestinian authority, because Mahmoud Abbas has now been in power for 20 years and he is viewed by
00:56:18the vast majority of even those that he nominally controls out of Ramallah in the West Bank.
00:56:24Even that population sees him as old and decadent and debauched and corrupt and no longer really a
00:56:29competent leader. That said, the idea is looking beyond Hamas somehow to forge a Palestinian entity,
00:56:39governing entity that would perhaps be a new type of remodeled, rethought version of the Palestinian
00:56:47authority that would be presumably more to the liking of the Palestinians over which it's supposed
00:56:54to preside and govern. Let's hear from some Palestinians. We'll take a little break there from
00:56:58the chat. We'll be back with you later, Doug, because Palestinians have been responding to these
00:57:02moves to recognise statehood. With a mix of guarded hope and scepticism, rallies have been held in Ramallah
00:57:09and Hebron where locals have been calling for tangible moves to realise Palestinian statehood. But others
00:57:15say they've lost all faith in the political process. Karis Garland has more. Waving their national flag alongside
00:57:24those of countries who've recognised the state of Palestine. Residents gathered in the streets of
00:57:30Ramallah Tuesday to hail the recent moves by Western nations. France 24 reporters spoke to some of them.
00:57:38I'm here today for our independence and for our freedom, because Palestine has to be recognised.
00:57:45The recognition brings change. It revives the national spirit. In the long term,
00:57:49it will teach the new generation about Palestine and how it was occupied. Others, however,
00:57:56were sceptical as to what tangible effects the recognition would have, especially at a time when
00:58:01Israel is pushing ahead with new settlements in the West Bank, when attacks by Israeli settlers are increasing,
00:58:07and as Israel intensifies its destruction of the Gaza Strip.
00:58:13Given the political rule and control exerted by the United States on the ground,
00:58:18I don't think there will be big changes.
00:58:21There were similar scenes of celebration in Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
00:58:26Demonstrators carried posters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, former President Yasser Arafat,
00:58:32and the jailed prominent Palestinian leader Marwan Barkhouti.
00:58:37The fact that Western Arab countries recognised us gives strength to the people. We have more entity and
00:58:44value than before. France, Canada, Australia and the UK are among multiple countries to have recognised
00:58:53the state of Palestine since Sunday. The move aligns them with more than 140 other nations,
00:58:59also backing the Palestinians' aspiration to forge an independent homeland, despite fierce opposition
00:59:06from Israel and the United States.
00:59:09Steven Ekevich, let's talk a little bit then about the situation in the West Bank. Tensions have been
00:59:14inflamed there since the war broke out in Gaza. Let's talk a little bit about the concerns that people
00:59:20have about Jewish settlements increasing, obviously new settlements being approved. What needs to happen
00:59:27there? And if Benjamin Netanyahu actually moves to fully take over the West Bank, fully annex it,
00:59:34is that going to make any difference to what the EU is saying, to what Arab states are saying,
00:59:39to what the US is saying about the situation? I think what is being done in the West Bank by
00:59:45Netanyahu has to be condemned. It's clear. And it's one of the reasons we might say, unfortunately,
00:59:52that Netanyahu is the war leader today, because I think we can all agree that what the Israeli
01:00:02government is doing in the West Bank cannot be supported. Now, will he try to take all of the
01:00:09West Bank? I think there are probably some important political and diplomatic obstacles to that. Europe
01:00:14will certainly not accept that. And to the extent that Europe can do anything in terms of putting
01:00:20obstacles in the way of Netanyahu, that's a big question. I'm not sure. I think the United
01:00:28Bear Emirates has already announced that if Netanyahu were to try to take over the entire West Bank,
01:00:34the Abraham Accords are dead. So this has to enter into his calculations today. What would be the cost?
01:00:43Not only for his own public opinion, but for the diplomatic chess board that he has to deal with
01:00:52in the region and vis-à-vis the Europeans and even the Americans. So, I mean, I would say tonight,
01:01:02it doesn't seem reasonable that he would do that. But, you know, we can try to predict the future,
01:01:09but there are always surprises, right? How much pressure, though, is he coming under
01:01:13from those far-right ministers? He's also facing elections. Next year, he's in the middle of a
01:01:17corruption trial. There are a lot of different forces acting upon his actions also. That's why
01:01:23tonight I would hesitate to make any kind of prediction about that. Except, once again, I think,
01:01:29given the regional chess board, given the falling international support for Netanyahu's Israel,
01:01:41maybe on the one hand you could say, in any case, I'm going to be condemned. I'm being condemned
01:01:45everywhere. Why not? But there's some real political diplomatic problems with that as well.
01:01:50So, I don't know. But tonight it seems not very plausible to me. I don't know what you might think
01:01:56about that. And if you use Doug. Well, I'm not in the prediction business here either.
01:02:00I know. No, what is clear right now is that, at least from their public statements,
01:02:06this is a government, both the far-right, you know, the two main far-right ministers in this
01:02:11government have made it amply clear that they consider these settlements. Remember, there's 730,000
01:02:17estimated settlers living among a little over 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank right now,
01:02:23with a lot of, obviously, logistical hurdles and obstacles and checkpoints in terms of movement
01:02:30and mobility for the Palestinian residents there. But they've made it very clear that they do not
01:02:36consider this, as the international community has considered it since 1967, as an illegal occupation.
01:02:43You know, the notion of illegally occupied territories, which roll off our tongues when we talk about
01:02:52the dynamics of the West Bank. That is not something that is part of the lexicon of Benjamin Netanyahu
01:02:58and his far-right coalition. For them, this is their natural-born land. This is their birthright,
01:03:04in a sense, their historic birthright. So, they see it through a completely, a radically different prism.
01:03:11So, in order to even have the discussion about this, you have to almost put yourself in their mind
01:03:16from where they're coming from. And then you have to tell yourself that they, it's not that, to some
01:03:21people, they'd say, well, they drank the Kool-Aid. How could they possibly believe that? That is the,
01:03:25that is how they grew up. That is the worldview they have. This is what they actually believe.
01:03:29Uh, and they are not going, they believe they are in the right. They believe they're in the moral right.
01:03:34They believe that those who tell them otherwise do not know what they're talking about, neither historically,
01:03:38nor through the experience of living in the region and knowing the realities of the region. So,
01:03:42that's why it's such a difficult debate to have. Um, and just to lay out those basic fundamentals,
01:03:48so people can grasp the basic basics of where people are coming from when you even try to have
01:03:52this discussion. But it's absolutely factually true that since October 7th, 2023, violence has spiked
01:04:01in the West Bank, notably by certain segments of the settler population who have been especially
01:04:09aggressive and who in some cases by some countries have been targeted for sanctions because of their
01:04:16behavior with respect to the Palestinian residents, um, in the West Bank. Uh, there have been raids on
01:04:22the refugee camps. We say refugee camps and you think of a bunch of tents set up. Refugee camps,
01:04:26which have been in existence for years and decades, are cities essentially. We use the term refugee camp,
01:04:32but these are essentially cities with stores and, and, and commerce and buildings and in some cases,
01:04:37even high rises. And there, there have been raids, if not just nightly, sometimes daily raids. They have
01:04:44been often stepping up in their frequency and a crescendo of these types of raids. Um, and like I said,
01:04:50also the physical stresses and anxiety and obstacles of trying to move around. If you are, uh, living in the
01:04:58West Bank, we heard our reporter there, Catherine Norris Trent, uh, reporting on the Alembi, Alembi crossing,
01:05:03which you have to cross, uh, through Jordan, uh, if you want to even move out of the West Bank, if you're
01:05:07a resident there right now, all of this creates enormous daily anxiety, the reality of the life there
01:05:14for the millions of Palestinians. But it can also be, uh, you know, a cakewalk for the settlers either,
01:05:21because while they say it's their land, while they do seem to have the tacit, if not explicit support
01:05:26of the Israeli security forces and army around their settlements, often looking on while violence
01:05:31is perpetrated, according to a lot of the reporting we've done and others. Um, while that's the case,
01:05:36it can't be too happy and stress-free living, uh, among a population that sees you as an occupier.
01:05:43Uh, and knowing that you're being there, your very act of choosing to put your settlement there and
01:05:50to live in that particular location is seen as an ideological statement and a provocative act.
01:05:56Hmm? And Professor, can I just ask you from a historical point of view, can Jewish settlers
01:06:01actually be forced to leave? As Doug says, under international law, these settlements are illegal.
01:06:06Um, Israel forcibly pulled settlers out of Gaza. We've seen that with certain governments. We might,
01:06:14we hope we can imagine that something like that, not a forcible extraction, but maybe someday,
01:06:22some sort of settlement, uh, uh, uh, just beyond the green line, right, uh, might, might be possible.
01:06:30Um, so, uh, you know, once again, in the history of American foreign policy vis-a-vis Israel,
01:06:38regularly in that history, American presidents have chastised and tried to put pressure on the
01:06:45Israelis to the Israelis to stop settlements. Even Donald Trump, the first time he met Netanyahu,
01:06:51asked, told Netanyahu, these settlements that you're doing are causing me problems, me problems.
01:06:57Okay. Uh, Netanyahu, I think said something, well, we'll see what we can, we can do about that.
01:07:03Trump responded. That wasn't very reassuring. So, I mean, once again, here we have a case,
01:07:09we have cases where the United States has tried to put pressure on Israel. I mean,
01:07:15there's this impression in the world that the Americans just kind of slammed down their fists
01:07:20and the Israelis will obey. That's never how it worked. And it's not going, it's not,
01:07:24that is not how it's going to work once again. Okay. Uh, even though the United States is a,
01:07:30a great power, the greatest, we can say the, the strongest power for, we'll see how far that's
01:07:36going to go in the near future, uh, in the world. Once again, there's this idea that since the United
01:07:42States is strong, uh, since it has a historic close relationship with Israel and has always defended
01:07:49its security and is an important ally to Israel, it can get its way vis-a-vis the, is the Israeli
01:07:56government. It hasn't, pressure can be put on. There can be some inflection, uh, in Israeli policy,
01:08:02but, uh, we're, we're not going to get a situation where the United States comes in
01:08:06and demands that Israel change its policy and that Israel will change this policy. That's just
01:08:13not in our real world. That's not going to happen. Well, particularly under Donald Trump,
01:08:17it doesn't look like he's applying any pressure at all. Well, as we say, the Israeli government has
01:08:23been threatening to fully annex the West Bank. It recently approved plans for a hugely controversial
01:08:29settlement project next to East Jerusalem, known as E1, as France 24's Catherine Norris-Trent reports.
01:08:38These hills just outside East Jerusalem in the West Bank are in the E1 zone, a highly controversial
01:08:45Israeli settlement plan, which the UN has labelled grave and unlawful.
01:08:50So, welcome to E1. We're in it. Notice how the, the scenery changes drastically. We're now at the edge
01:08:58of the desert. Naomi Khan campaigns for Regevim, a pro-settler group founded by the far-right minister
01:09:05Bezalel Smotrich. What you see here is a magnificent Palestinian garbage dump on our left,
01:09:12and soon massive illegal Palestinian construction. They lobby to demolish Palestinian buildings in the
01:09:19West Bank on what they claim as Israeli state land. They're delighted the E1 project has just been
01:09:26signed off. It was frozen for decades under US pressure, but that's changed with Trump in the
01:09:32White House. Now, the international climate has changed, and that includes first and foremost,
01:09:38the United States administration. Here we are, 30 years later, and US approval has been attained.
01:09:46E1 would link Mali Adumim, one of the largest Israeli settlements, with East Jerusalem.
01:09:53Coming here to formalise the controversial plans earlier in September, Israel's Prime Minister,
01:09:58Benjamin Netanyahu said, there will never be a Palestinian state. This land is ours.
01:10:04His finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, going even further, saying the E1 project would bury
01:10:10the idea of a Palestinian state, wiping it out, not with slogans, but with actions.
01:10:18The Israeli NGO Peace Now says E1 will cut off territory vital to a Palestinian state.
01:10:26Around one-third of the Palestinian population in the West Bank lives in this area, with nearly
01:10:31one million people. If Israel continues to take over more of the very little land reserve left
01:10:37for Palestinian growth, it will cripple the Palestinian economy even before it gets off the ground.
01:10:44But the mayor of Mali Adumim says the plans are actually important for Israeli security
01:10:50and affordable housing, and that Palestinians can go round the sides.
01:10:54I do think that establishing a Palestinian state in the heart of Israel is a security danger
01:11:00for the Jewish people and for the state of Israel. But there is a road that enables Palestinians to
01:11:06travel from south to north, and a 15-kilometer corridor to the east of Mal Adumim, which also
01:11:13allows for Palestinian movement. This Israeli government has accelerated settlement building,
01:11:21approving 49 since taking office. In one of those just south of Jerusalem,
01:11:27we met settler leader Lior Tal, who established an outpost six years ago and was accused of
01:11:34intimidation by nearby villagers. We've got more than 120 hectares of state land here,
01:11:42and we protect it by taking our sheep out to graze. When Jews walk around an area,
01:11:49no Arabs will go there. There won't be any intrusions.
01:11:56He dismisses out of hand the idea of a Palestinian state on this land.
01:12:01Why? Why should they be here? They have Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya.
01:12:14Let them go to all those countries. Why do they have to sit here in our country? Come on.
01:12:20If the Europeans like them so much, let them take them instead.
01:12:24Tell says he has no intention of leaving. In fact, he wants to expand this community.
01:12:32Despite years of international condemnation,
01:12:35more than half a million Jewish settlers now live across the West Bank.
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