00:00Our guest in the studio is Yael Berder, who's an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at the Hebrew University.
00:06Yael is also co-chair of Land for All, a group which I think very much the name explains what it's about.
00:12Can you just give us a little context about the group you represent?
00:14Yeah, so a Land for All, Two States, One Homeland is actually a movement that works to promote two states within a shared homeland, so a confederation model that I can elaborate on in a few minutes, but that's the basic idea.
00:33So when you see what is happening on the ground right now, regardless of who says what and why this has happened, clearly it must leave you feeling not very optimistic about the continuation of this ceasefire.
00:46But that's the thing, right?
00:47So this moment demands a clear political horizon because the ceasefire is so fragile, because there are so many interests.
00:57Any kind of faltering, having not a clear agenda about the endgame, about where we're going from here, gives a lot of room for distractions and power to spoilers, who want to see this break.
01:11But the majorities of both peoples are sick and tired of loss and destruction and war.
01:20And although they still don't see each other as partners, what we view is that we have to envision how we share the homeland.
01:37And this is a very difficult moment to talk about this.
01:40It almost sounds to people, you know, it takes your breath away.
01:44But in order to stop the zero-sum game thinking, which you see here, you see here in the words and trying to, like, catch and show who's to blame all the time, it is this thinking as if someone is going to leave forever, right?
02:00I hear what you're saying.
02:00It's one of these things that, in order to tell the story, journalists, myself included, have to simplify.
02:07And it isn't a simple situation, is it?
02:09It's one of these things.
02:10So, from my simple perspective, if you remove, say, Benjamin Netanyahu from the equation and Habas, does that create the kind of atmosphere that you'd want to see in order to create what you're looking for?
02:21I think it's not as simple as that.
02:23I think that's one of the reasons why political visions require both movements from below and also a continued commitment of the international community to see real change and a real horizon.
02:36And this is what we're offering.
02:38And what we're saying is, even now, as their efforts, which are humanitarian efforts and efforts to stabilize in the interim, we have to have an endgame.
02:49We have to see that there will be a Palestinian state.
02:53Efforts that are led on the ground have to include Palestinian governance.
02:57These are the things that will lend things legitimacy and stability.
03:01And any kind of solution has to be rooted in Palestinian self-determination and in Israeli security.
03:08And the way we perceive this is that you do it not by this idea of separation.
03:14Like, oh, okay, now we're going to have a big wall and that's going to work.
03:18It obviously failed.
03:20And it's been failing for the past 20 years.
03:22So our idea is to, yes, of course, two states, our peoples are not post-national, on the 67 border, but within a confederation model that is well known to Europeans now that allows for freedom of movement, that allows for residency across the land.
03:42And, and first of all, allows for the recognition, even if one doesn't accept it, the recognition that for both peoples, this is their perceived homeland.
03:54And so what we're offering is two states to end the occupation and one homeland to end the conflict.
04:00But when you voice this to certain members of certain political persuasions on the Israeli side, clearly you must get a very skeptical response.
04:10Absolutely.
04:11And the thing is that what we see is also a very weak formal opposition.
04:17I mean, there is a civil opposition on the ground that is very different and much more open to these kind of changes.
04:24But the formal opposition refuses to be courageous enough to move forward.
04:29And we only have a few members of Knesset that are, that are kind of willing to go with these kind of visions.
04:35But when you talk to them privately, people say, oh, we want to see this path.
04:39We wish to see more of it, but we don't know how to get there.
04:42And that's exactly where, again, international community has to work together.
04:47You have to have people on the ground doing the work, but it has to be ushered, helped from the outside with sustained pressure and not to let up for even a moment.
05:01So given what the likes of Donald Trump has been saying about creating a different Gaza Strip and basically expelling Palestinians, that now appears to have been dismissed as a plan.
05:13There still is going to be an amazing redevelopment of that area.
05:16Are you saying that the Palestinians have to be front and centre in that?
05:21Absolutely.
05:21Any kind of scheme that is looking to long-term stability, legitimacy and building networks of governance that are going to actually work,
05:34I mean, infrastructures of governance that are going to work, they have to be Palestinian-led.
05:39They have to include Palestinian decision-making.
05:41And yes, absolutely you need international oversight, you need help, you definitely need a lot of money.
05:49But if it's not, you need Israelis and Palestinians to be involved in their own decision-making.
05:56And this is a very important thing.
05:58Another really important thing is that we have to equalize the terrain.
06:01You can't keep having a situation in which Israel calls the shots and then the Palestinians are left to retaliate against whatever that is.
06:10The point is, we have to see in any kind of motions and shifts that are taken right now, any kind of steps, have to look to the future.
06:21What does this build?
06:23How does this build shared capacities?
06:26How does this work about, you know, how do you build an environmental policy that works for all of this land?
06:34How do you build a health, public health, from the river to the sea?
06:38And, you know, people start to say, you know, they say, oh, we can't even imagine this.
06:42But that's the point.
06:43We have to use this fragile moment to envision future.
06:47Yeah, we could talk forever about this one.
06:50There are so many aspects of this that we haven't covered, but sadly, time is against us.
06:53But please, thank you for coming in.
06:56Please continue your good work, because I think regardless of where you stand on this,
07:00what you're suggesting is something where two people could perhaps, two peoples could be living together, working together, developing together and going forward.
07:07And that's got to be a positive thing, no matter where you stand.
07:10Yale Berder, Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University.
07:14Yale is also co-chair of Land for All.
07:16Thank you for sharing your vision with us and bringing it here to France 24.
07:21We really appreciate it.
07:21Thank you so much.
07:22Yale, thank you very much indeed.
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