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00:00Okay, let's talk about Palestinian statehood. This is something that we talk about often. This is a facet of the Israel-Hamas war that we cover on the weekly. Here's some reporting from the UN.
00:13They say, quote, statehood for the Palestinians is a right, not a reward. At the UN General Assembly, Antonio Guterres calls on world leaders to ensure the two-state solution prevails for the people of Israel, Palestine, and all of humanity.
00:30So we've been following the, I'll just call it the UNGA, the UN General Assembly, closely, something that's taking place in New York. A number of world leaders attending it this week.
00:43A number of major Western nations also this week are officially recognizing a Palestinian state.
00:52Some of the countries included, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Portugal.
00:59Those are just some of the bigger players that are saying that they are or are soon intending to recognize a Palestinian state.
01:07This is drawing ire from Israel. In fact, this is how Benjamin Netanyahu is responding to it.
01:15He says, quote, I have a clear message to those leaders who recognize a Palestinian state after the terrible massacre of October 7.
01:22You were giving a huge reward to terrorism, and I have another message for you. It will not happen.
01:27There will not be a Palestinian state west of the Jordan, says Netanyahu.
01:32So, where does this all go from here? What does it mean?
01:36All of this, by the way, coming as the Gaza War approaches its two-year mark in October.
01:42I'll also mention that the United States is not one of the countries that's doing this.
01:46Host of the Strap Podcast, Hal Kempfer, is here to break it all down.
01:51He's a retired Marine Intelligence Officer and National Security Analyst.
01:54Hal, the Palestinian statehood question isn't a new question.
01:58Why are these nations doing this now?
02:02Well, they're doing it basically because the U.S. position has shifted.
02:07I mean, under President Biden, and certainly going back for literally decades, we were tacitly committed, going back to the 1990s, to a two-state solution.
02:19Now, it lost momentum towards the end of the 90s.
02:22That was when there were some big terrorist attacks by Hamas.
02:28It was actually the same time at Netanyahu, first time he came into the Prime Minister's office.
02:34But there was a big attempt to create a two-state solution.
02:37And if you want to go back to the 1940s, 1947, 48, the United Nations actually had a two-state solution, if you will, for a Palestine and an Israel.
02:48So that's been around for a very long time.
02:50Now, what's happened is, under President Trump, there appears to be no movement towards a two-state solution.
02:57It's not really clear what happens with the Palestinians after this military operation.
03:02As you've seen, Prime Minister Netanyahu has basically said, nope, won't ever happen.
03:07So what you've seen behind the scenes is Saudi Arabia and France playing a very powerful role, if you will.
03:15Saudi Arabia is a dominant player in the Middle East.
03:17France is a major player in Europe, basically moving the dial to say, well, we'll get de jure recognition, if you will, of a two-state situation, of a Palestinian state.
03:30Although there is no de facto Palestinian state on the ground, what's fascinating is that you're seeing some of the U.S.'s closest allies, Canada, Britain, Australia, Portugal,
03:42all stepping in and doing the same thing prior to Macron saying that in the General Assembly today.
03:48So it's a big shift, and to say there's a trend line in this direction would be a big understatement.
03:55For these major states to recognize a Palestinian state, does this actually functionally change anything about the Palestinian territories?
04:03That's the thing. De facto, there's nothing. There's no shift. There's nothing.
04:07In fact, it was very interesting, and I think some of this may have actually accelerated this movement.
04:13The United States, we host the United Nations.
04:17As part of that, we provide visas to various countries around the world.
04:23To include countries we really dislike strongly, we will provide visas for their countries to have representation of the United Nations.
04:32Technically, there is no Palestinian state.
04:35So this year, we kind of took an exceptional position and didn't issue visas to the Palestinian delegation to show up at the U.N. General Assembly.
04:45To include Mahmoud Abbas, who's the head of the Palestinian Authority.
04:49So he was there virtually today. He gave a speech virtually.
04:54He was observing the other speeches online.
04:58And so I think some of this may have been seen as something of an affront to the United Nations.
05:05As you know, we have had our differences with the Secretary General Gutierrez over what's happened in Gaza and in the Middle East in general.
05:15And so this is the response is they kind of pushed this and kind of put it, I would say, sort of put it in our face, if you will,
05:23that all of these countries are recognizing a Palestinian state.
05:27I think their hope is that there's so much momentum that eventually the U.S. will acquiesce to at least saying that there should be some sort of two-state solution.
05:37However, our position is not different from the German position.
05:39German position is also there should be a full peace process in place.
05:43Once that is done, then we can talk about setting up a Palestinian state.
05:48But our position, the German position, aren't really that far off, which is very different than what we see with some other major countries in Europe.
05:58So, Hal, live look at the White House, where it's 10.40 in the nation's capital.
06:04Also, our regular live vantage point of Gaza, the time Israel's standard time, is 5.40 in the morning.
06:12We've been watching officials react on social media.
06:16The leaders of some of these countries, including Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the U.K., saying today,
06:22to revive the hope of peace for the Palestinians and Israelis and a two-state solution,
06:27the United Kingdom formally recognizes the state of Palestine.
06:31Emmanuel Macron saying, I declare that today France recognizes the state of Palestine.
06:37Canada, Mark Carney, says today, Canada recognizes the state of Palestine.
06:42All of these leaders taking to social media to make it known that they're making this change.
06:48You mentioned France and Saudi Arabia, Hal, and they are important here.
06:53France and Saudi Arabia are hoping to use this year's gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly
06:59to basically inject new urgency into the quest for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
07:07Hal, I guess my question for you on that front is, is a two-state solution the solution for the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
07:16Is that usually the common train of thought with these things?
07:20Austin, I've been looking at this for, well, 40-some years, and certainly I have seen no shift.
07:28Every time everyone digs into it, the only solution they can come up with is a two-state solution.
07:35Now, what exactly that two-state looks like, in general, everyone talks to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
07:42Now, I'm going to say just something as a general rule of thumb.
07:46If you have a country that is not, you know, geographically connected like that, you're going to end up with some problems.
07:54And if you want to look at a big problem, this too came after World War II, was Pakistan.
08:00You had Pakistan and East Pakistan.
08:02Well, East Pakistan was Bangladesh, and Bangladesh in the 70s broke off and became a separate country.
08:08It just didn't work.
08:09I think setting up the two-state solution with Gaza and the West Bank, there will be some inherent problems they have to work out.
08:17There's been some, you know, kind of thinking out there, you know, building a big causeway that would go across Israel that would connect them.
08:24And all these things are very possible, but we're a long way from there.
08:27And right now what's happening is Israel is basically declaring that they have sovereignty over various areas of the West Bank, further encroachment on the Palestinian villages, Palestinian-dominated areas of the West Bank.
08:45So it's putting pressure in the other direction.
08:47And certainly if you listen to Netanyahu, his position is there won't be anything.
08:53There will be no Palestinian state.
08:55So there is really a long way to go to get Israel to go along with this.
08:59And it's definitely not where we were, say, back in the early 90s.
09:02So this is something that we're going to have to continue to follow.
09:08You and I have had countless conversations about the idea of a day-after plan in this war.
09:14You've already alluded to this, but I hope you can expand on it.
09:17What does Benjamin Netanyahu think of a two-state solution?
09:21Where does he stand on this issue today?
09:23Oh, he's adamantly against it.
09:26He just doesn't think there's anywhere to go.
09:28And I think some of it is he's somewhat entrenched.
09:32And his thinking was already this way before, but he's very much become entrenched.
09:36And I think some of it is that there's been no way to work with the, you know, the government, if you will, of Gaza.
09:45The government of Gaza is Hamas.
09:47And obviously there has been no progress working with them on anything.
09:51And so Israel's position is, look, remember October 7th and Hamas has got to go.
09:58One of the things that frustrates them, though, is that the Palestinian authorities and others haven't really come out and fully condemned Hamas and October 7th
10:09in the way that Israel would have liked to hear them kind of, you know, basically frame that.
10:15And there's been a number of countries that haven't done that as well.
10:17Israel would like to normalize relations with all of its Arab neighbors.
10:21They would love to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia.
10:25One of the reasons that's been cited that Hamas did the big October 7th attack was they were afraid that Saudi Arabia was going to normalize relations with Israel
10:33and just forget about Hamas and forget about the Palestinian state.
10:37And so they did this big attack to put it on the table.
10:41Ironically, despite all the devastation and, you know, death and suffering,
10:46it has, in fact, put the Palestinian statehood issue right back on the table.
10:51That has been one of the great ironies of this war, considering how it started.
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