the two-state solution is exactly what
it sounds like two states for two
peoples one for Israelis one for
Palestinians my vision is two states
living side by side it's not a
slogan it is the only path to Lasting
peace and it can be done as an idea it's
been around for nearly a century it even
looked like it might be about to happen
it was the beginning of an astonishing
new era in Middle East history and
diplomacy but it didn't Israel is
mourning the loss of prime minister
yakin assassinated by a Jewish extremist
and it's pretty much gone backwards ever
since the middle east peace process is
in deep trouble tonight following some
of the worst unrest since the end of the
inter why is it so complicated and why a
two-state solution why not a one-state
solution like like in Northern Ireland
which was another long running violent
conflict that at times probably seem
just as
unsolvable peace agreements are not
fairy stories everyone doesn't get to
live happily ever after what the peace
agreement did was stop the war well more
on that first let's look at a two State
101 to make two states you first of all
need to create the new state of
Palestine and to do that you got to work
out where its borders will go the
outside borders are already fixed you've
got Egypt and Jordan which have peace
treaties with Israel as well as Syria
and Lebanon which very much do
not now after World War I the land
inside those borders was known as
Palestine and it was run by the British
when they split the Middle East up with
France in the divy up of the old Ottoman
Empire now Britain had also just
declared its support for the idea of a
Jew Jewish state which did not impress
the Arabs living in
Palestine tensions turned to
violence the situation was rapidly
getting out of
control hardly a day passed without an
Arab a Jew or a British soldier being
killed in a shooting raid or a terror
bombing by 1937 Britain was looking for
a long-term solution So It produced the
first proposal to split pal
into two states a Jewish state in the
north an Arab state in the South and an
international zone for the holy sites in
Jerusalem but Britain soon realized that
to actually make that happen would mean
massive forced transfers of people and
land and especially of Arabs and they
rejected it
anyway the next attempt was after World
War II in the shadow of the Holocaust in
the newly formed United Nations
the UN petition plan also divided
Palestine into a Jewish State and an
Arab state with Jerusalem once again
carved out Jewish leaders said yes Arab
leaders once again said no but it made
no difference the UN petition plan
passed the UN General Assembly 33 votes
in favor 20 against with 13 countries
abstaining United
Kingdom
obain and one of those was Britain which
really set it apart from the rest of
Europe South America and the anglosphere
including Australia which mostly voted
yes the Arab and the Muslim World voted
no along with Greece India and Cuba the
result of the vote sent both Jews and
Arabs through the streets of Jerusalem
the Jews dancing in joy and the Arabs
rioting in
Anger the 14th of May 1948 Israel
declared its Independence and almost
immediately was invaded by Egypt Syria
Lebanon and Iraq and the Israelis call
the war of independence and Palestinians
call the NAA the Arab word for
catastrophe when hundreds of thousands
of them lost their land their homes and
became refugees when it was over Israel
had not only survived it had captured
another 5,000 square kilm of territory
Egypt now controlled G
Jordan controlled the West Bank and half
of Jerusalem now those borders are the
so-called Green Line map and it's really
important because pretty much every
proposal for a two-state solution since
then has been based on getting back to
something like that and this changed
massively in
1967 what was called the Sixt the war of
1967 started when Israel launched a
preemptive strike against Egypt Egypt's
Gathering forces Jordan's King Hussein
ignored Israel's warning to stay out of
the conflict and launched his own raid
against the half of Jerusalem already in
Israel Egypt Jordan and Syria all
attacked Israel and were all defeated in
L than against numerically overwhelming
odds the Jewish forces crushed the
Arabs when it was over Israel had taken
Gaza and the sin from Egypt as well as
the West Bank and East Jerusalem from
Jordan and most of the Goan Heights from
Syria effectively tripling the size of
territory under hisel control it would
be a long way back to the borders of the
green line map but there were times it
looked like it might actually happen the
alternative to peace in the Middle East
is a future of violence and waste and
tragedy it took until 1991 for everyone
to get in the same room and start
talking about it by now the US was
taking the lead those talks didn't go
anywhere but at the same time there were
other secret talks going on in Norway
and they did get somewhere after nearly
half a century of hatred Israel and the
PLO today signed documents of mutual
recognition the Oslo ACC cords didn't
create a state of Palestine but they
were an agreement to have a serious
crack at it together today with all our
hearts and all our souls we bid them
shalom Salam
peace Israel's prime minister Yak Rabin
agreed to go back to the pre-war
borders yaser Arafat the leader of the
Palestinian Liberation Organization
agreed to renounce terrorism and to
recognize Israel's right to exist in
peace I believe the Lord has made us
born to live in peace not in war in
spite of all the
difficulties which we had faced in the
past we had
signed and we are committed to what we
had signed the Accords also started the
process of setting up limited
Palestinian self-rule with its own
government and police force but there
were still a lot to agree on and that
included the most difficult issues of
all Palestinians wanted East Jerusalem
as their Capital would they get it what
would happen to the Israeli settlements
that were built on Palestinian land was
there a right of return for the
Palestinians who lost their land and
homes in
1948 would a state of Palestine have a
military and what guarantees could
Israel get that it could exist in peace
and
safety even so this was a huge
moment Rabin Arafat and Israel's foreign
minister Shimon pis were jointly awarded
the 1994 Nobel Peace
Prize the the job is difficult complex
try
mistakes could topple the whole
structure and bring disaster down upon
us the following year Yak Rabin was shot
dead by an Israeli religious extremist
opposed to the OS
courts then heras in defiance of Yas
Arafat launched a series of Terror
attacks against Israel
5 years later Bill Clinton was coming to
the end of his presidency and he had one
more go he invited yasa arfat and the
new Israeli PM Edward barck to Camp
David after all these years as hard as
these issues are they don't want to give
up but they couldn't reach agreement on
those most difficult details the borders
security rights of Palestinian
refugees perhaps most sensitive of all
how to share jerus Jerusalem the
breakdown of those talks was followed by
one of the worst waves of Terror attacks
in Israel's history the second
in even while that was going on Arab
countries put forward their own plan the
Arab peace initiative offered full
recognition of Israel in exchange for a
Palestinian state with its capital in
East Jerusalem once again based on those
pre-war
borders then in 2005 Israel unex
expectedly began pulling all of its
citizens out of Gaza almost immediately
Hamas took control violently and has
been in charge of Gaza ever
since a few years after that Barack
Obama was in the white house and took
his turn at trying to solve Middle East
peace the new Israeli Prime Minister was
Benjamin Netanyahu he sat in the Oval
Office opposite the US president and set
out a red line while Israel is prepared
to make generous compromises for peace
it cannot go back to the 1967 lines
Obama didn't directly respond at the
time but 2 days later he did the borders
of Israel and Palestine should be based
on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed
swaps Obama and Netanyahu never had a
particularly good relationship but it
certainly ended far worse than it
started
Netanyahu got along a lot better with
Donald Trump Donald Trump recognized all
of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and
even moved to the US Embassy there after
Donald Trump recognized the Goen Heights
as part of Israel it should have taken
place many decades ago Benjamin nahu
named the settlement
therea
as the years have passed the prospect of
a two-state solution has only become
more remote and perhaps never more so
than
now Israel's ambassador to the UK pretty
much ruled out a two-state solution for
good I think it's about time for the
world to realize the Oslo Paradigm
failed on the 7th of October and we need
to build a new one and in to build does
that new one include the Palestinians
living in a state of their own is that
what it includes think the biggest
question is what type of Palestinians
are in the other side this what Israel
realized the answer is absolutely no and
I'll tell you why
because can there beace the reason there
is no peace is is because the palestin
how without offering a state to
Palestine How can there be peace in
Israel knows today and the world should
know now the reason the O Law Court fail
is because the Palestinians never wanted
to have a state next to Israel they want
to have a state from The River To The
Sea last year Benjamin Netanyahu
returned as prime minister creating a
coalition that's been described as the
most right-wing and religiously
conservative in Israel's history utterly
committed to the long and controversial
practice of building Israeli settlements
in areas of the West Bank under his
government approvals for 13,000 new
housing units in the disputed territory
were either approved or Advanced
according to the Israeli Watchdog peace
now on the other side Palestinian
politics is split the West Bank is
controlled by the Palestinian Authority
that's the government that was created
under the Oslo
Accords The Authority is largely
controlled by a party called fata it's
the party of yasa Arafat it's dominated
Palestinian politics for decades and the
pal Palestinian Authority is not
particularly popular amongst
Palestinians it's got a reputation for
corruption nepotism and incompetence let
alone seemingly being unable to do
anything to improve the situations or
the lives of Palestinians in the
occupied
territories the radical Islamic
organization Hamas is claiming a
landslide victory in the elections in
Northern
Gaza in 2006 fat shocked its Western
backers and Israel by losing an election
to Hamas an islamist party that doesn't
recognize Israel and is declared as a
terrorist organization by the US the UK
and
Australia the West responded to that
election result by temporarily shutting
off Aid to the Palestinian Authority
Israel responded by arresting dozens of
members of Hamas including some who'
just been elected to the parliament the
following year fata and Hamas literally
went to war with each other in Gaza when
it was over Hamas controlled Gaza the
Palestinian Authority had the West Bank
and that's how it's been ever
since and support for a two-state
solution has tanked there was a Gallop
pole of Palestinians which ended just
before the October 7th attacks it showed
support for a two-state solution at
25% now that's down from nearly 60% a
decade ago support also dropped among
Jewish
Israelis so what's the alternative why
not a one-state solution then well
here's what the then us Vice President
Joe Biden said about that back in 2016
the actions that Israel's government has
taken over the past several years the
steady and systematic expansion of
settlements their moving is toward a
one-state reality and that reality is
dangerous that reality is is riddle with
profound questions about future
political and demographic character of
Israel how would Israel remain a Jewish
state if the majority of its population
is
Palestinian and that's why most Jewish
Israelis are also opposed to a one-state
solution so what do people need well in
2019 the Rand Corporation held 33 focus
groups in the region and they tested
five Alternatives the two-state solution
a one-state solution a
Confederation Israel annexing parts of
Palestinian territory and the status quo
now none of those options was acceptable
to a majority of Israelis and
Palestinians Israelis preferred the
status quo but Palestinians hated it it
found that the most viable political
alternative was the two-state solution
but it also found there was pretty heavy
skepticism that it would ever happen the
only group that preferred a one-state
solution over a two-state solution with
Palestinians in Gaza and even then not
by much and that's why the two-state
solution is still regarded as the only
viable way out of this conflict so where
to from here the UAE says it will help
to rebuild Gaza but it's put a condition
on it the progress of a us-backed
initiative towards a two-state solution
and the US has been taking a tough Aline
with Israel particularly on the issue of
settlements
advancing settlements in the West Bank
undermines the prospects of a future
Palestinian State and a two-state
solution as do any actions that
undermine stability in the West Bank
including attacks by Israel Israeli
settlers against Palestinians and
Palestinian attacks against Israelis as
President Biden has repeatedly said
those attacks are
unacceptable but if Donald Trump wins
another term in the White House that
pressure will almost certainly back
right
off Benjamin Netanyahu is deeply
unpopular with Israelis not just for the
massive security failure on October 7th
but also for his recent attempt to try
to knobble the Supreme Court which was
seen as a grasp for more
power the Palestinian Authority
president mahmur abas is 88 years
old whoever might replace both of those
leaders and whenever that happen
will face this massive challenge of
uniting their own people before even
thinking of uniting Israelis and
Palestinians Israel is a very different
country today to the secular nation that
was created in
1948 there are a lot more religious and
nationalist citizens who believe that
God literally gave all the land to them
and who hold a lot more political
power a Palestinian leader would need to
bridge that Mass massive divide between
fata and Hamas because as much as the
world might condemn and reject Hamas for
the atrocities of October the 7th it's
still there and in fact at moments like
this its popularity among Palestinians
tends to go
up and that's before getting to those
same difficult details that have tripped
up every previous attempt borders
security refugees and
Jerusalem but there doesn't seem to be a
better suggestion than to keep
trying