Consider This from NPR - Will War Between Israel And Hamas End Hopes For Two-State Solution?

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

During his visit to Tel Aviv this week, President Biden reiterated a desire for peace between Israelis and Palestinians through the implementation of a two-state solution.For years, the idea of establishing a state for the Palestinian people and a state for the Israeli people has been a strategy that presidents - on both sides of the political aisle - have evoked as a framework for peace in the Middle East.With the unprecedented violence playing out between Israel and Hamas for many political analysts, a peaceful, two-state agreement seems impossible. But a little over two decades ago there was hope that it could be achieved.NPR's Scott Detrow talks with ambassador Dennis Ross about how 23 years ago Palestinian leaders and Israel's prime minister came close to an agreement.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Before we jump into our episode today, we want to reach out to you, our listeners, to ask what you think about Consider This. Help us out by telling us what you like and how we could improve by completing a short, anonymous survey at npr.org slash fallsurvey. One more time, npr.org slash fallsurvey. Thank you so much. Don't say anything too mean, but if you do, that's okay, because we're just trying to get better. Now, on to our episode. The death toll continues to rise in the war between Israel and Hamas. During his visit to Tel Aviv this week, President Biden reiterated a desire for a peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Let's keep pursuing a path so that Israel and the Palestinian people can both live safely in security and dignity and in peace.

For me, that means a two-state solution. And any of Biden's predecessors in the White House on both sides of the aisle have sought the same solution. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land. That's Barack Obama speaking in 2013 in Jerusalem. The establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it.

And it will enhance the stability of the region, and it will contribute to the security of the people of Israel. And George W. Bush in 2008. Twenty years before that, in 1978, Jimmy Carter brokered a hard-fought agreement normalizing the relationship between Israel and Egypt after three decades of intense conflict and bloodshed between those two countries. The questions that have brought warfare and bitterness to the Middle East for the last 30 years will not be settled overnight. But we should all recognize the substantial achievements that have been made.

But a similar deal between Israel and Palestinians would elude him as it has every president since. Consider this. With the unprecedented violence playing out between Israel and Hamas, could a deal for a peaceful two-state arrangement ever be a possibility? A little over two decades ago, there was hope. To be honest, I came later on to appreciate we were even closer than I thought. We take a look back after the break. From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Thursday, October 19th.

It's Consider This from NPR. In the final months of his presidency, Bill Clinton threw himself into finding a solution to the anger and violence that plagues the region. And it all came to a head during a historic summit with Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David in July 2000. Clinton had announced the summit a week before from the White House briefing room. If the parties do not seize this moment, if they cannot make progress now, there will be more hostility and more bitterness, perhaps even more violence. And to what end?

For two weeks, Clinton cajoled, talked, yelled, and arm-twisted to try to get the two leaders to agree to a deal that would allow their people to live in peace. How long is it going to take, Mr. President? We pledged to each other we would answer no questions and offer no comments. So I have to set a good example. But despite his best efforts and his formidable political skills, Clinton's efforts failed.

They couldn't get there. That's the truth. They couldn't get there. That's the truth. They couldn't get there. But this was the first time in an organized, disciplined way. They had to work through both for themselves and then with each other how they were going to come to grips with issues that go to the core of their identity. And I think on balance, it was very much the right thing to do. The chief negotiator for the U.S. at those meetings was Ambassador Dennis Ross. He was the point man on the Middle East peace process for both President George H.W. Bush and then President Clinton. Welcome back to All Things Considered, Ambassador Ross.

Always good to be with you. Thank you. So set the scene for us. July 2000, it's Camp David. You have Clinton, Barack, and Arafat there together for two weeks. What was the mood like? Well, the mood coming into it was a little uncertain, and I'll explain why. Yasser Arafat had been saying that we weren't ready to go to a summit, but he wasn't allowing any of his negotiators to actually negotiate. For six weeks prior to this time, Ehud Barak had been pushing us to go to a summit, making the argument that only in the context of a summit would you create, in his words,

a pressure cooker that would require him and Arafat to make decisions that they wouldn't make unless they were in that environment. And we tried to remove some of our own uncertainties as to whether or not we could close the gaps on the core issues by negotiating with the two sides in advance, by testing them in advance. We moved the Israelis a lot, but Arafat, even though I would talk to him and he would say his negotiators were authorized to negotiate, they didn't actually do so. So Arafat and the Palestinian side of the negotiation, you're saying, was not taking it seriously, was not willing to have real agreement, who created a back channel with the Israelis. They were meeting in a back channel, and I would join them from time to time in the

back channel. And they were very serious about trying to reach an agreement. There were others on the Palestinian delegation who made some efforts, and then there were some who were sitting in Yasser Arafat's cabin every day and playing out, rolling out conspiracy theories with him about what was going on. So there's all these challenges, but still, did it feel in the moment like there was progress and that you could see some sort of final deal coming together? I would say it was a real roller coaster that we were riding all the time. There were moments where I felt we were making progress. And I would say, in the end, when we didn't succeed, and this is what President Clinton was referring to in the

clip that you ran, we, for the first time, had the two sides directly engage on the most fundamental, core existential issues of the conflict. I don't mean borders and security. Those are more technical. I mean Jerusalem and refugees, because those are the kind of issues that went to the heart of self-identification and their own narrative, the sense of who they were. And for the first time, we had that engagement. And the truth is, even though we didn't have agreement, you could see where it could end up. Ultimately, we presented the Clinton parameters in December of 2000, five months later. And it was a product of what we had learned from then and then subsequent discussions we ended up having.

So you have serious meetings, lasting meetings. You have this sense of momentum. We are finally talking about this issue. You have at the very end of the administration, this plan comes forward, one final attempt. Here are the parameters. How close did you come to peace? How close did this come to being real? Well, to be honest, I came later on to appreciate we were even closer than I thought. When President Clinton presented the Clinton parameters to the two sides of the White House on

December 22nd, 2000, And after five days, the Barack government came back, said they approved the parameters. They had some reservations, but the reservations were within the parameters. So on January 2nd, we had Arafat come to the White House and he didn't say yes. He basically was willing to discuss all the areas where the Israelis were making concessions. He wasn't willing to discuss any of the areas where the Palestinians were supposed to make concessions. So it seemed like he had just said no. But what I subsequently learned, about 18 months ago, I had a dinner with a former Palestinian negotiator who'd been part of the delegation. He said the whole Palestinian delegation had decided among themselves they should accept it.

They went back to Arafat, and Arafat said no. I subsequently heard from another Palestinian on that delegation who said Arafat thought he could still do a better deal under Bush because he thought maybe Bush will be even more forthcoming. And the struggle is what defined Arafat. He was prepared to do limited deals because they didn't require him to do something definitive. Arafat was someone who never closed doors, never closed options. The idea of ending the conflict was a step that was too far for him. In retrospect, I think we should have gone for a less ambitious approach and created the circumstances so his successor could have done something that

he wasn't up to doing. You were in all of these rooms. You had a hand in all of these plans. You saw how close it came. And as you're saying, in the years since, you've realized it came even closer than you thought it did at the time. How much has all of that been weighing on you over the past few weeks as we have seen this conflict explode in ways it's never exploded before? You might imagine this has been emotionally difficult for me. I have to say I had a lot of experiences along the way in the 1990s. Almost every time we were making a lot of progress, Hamas would do a suicide bombing, and the purpose was to undermine what was going on. I feel like we've seen Hamas act again in the same way because they saw Saudi-Israeli normalization looming.

To see what the costs are now, to have Israel experience its darkest day ever, to see what's happening to Palestinians right now, for me personally, it's heartbreaking. I'm not the kind who feels that you give in to despair, but I'm looking at kind who feels that you give in to despair. But, you know, I'm looking at what's going on now. And I'm focused on how can we come out of this so there's a day after, because there needs to be a day after. We have to understand Israelis aren't going anyplace and Palestinians aren't going anyplace. Somehow, given that, we have to find

a way towards coexistence. And and obviously we're not there now. Ambassador Dennis Ross, thank you so much for talking to us. My pleasure. As I mentioned earlier, we do want to hear from you. Tell us what you like about the Consider This podcast and what you think we can do better by completing a short anonymous survey at npr.org slash false survey. That's npr.org slash false survey. Thank you so much. It's Consider This from NPR.

I'm Scott Detrow.