The Daily - Netanyahu Won. The Two-State Solution Lost.

Episode Date: April 11, 2019

President Trump has promised to broker the deal of the century between Israelis and Palestinians. His partnership with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may have made such a peace deal all but impossible. Guest: Mark Landler, who covers the White House for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, Donald Trump has promised to broker the deal of the century between Israelis and Palestinians. His partnership with Benjamin Netanyahu has made such a peace deal all but impossible. It's Thursday, April 11th. All right, breaking news, critical elections in Israel.

So on Tuesday morning, Israeli voters woke up and went to the polls in what was, by all accounts, one of the closest Israeli elections in years. Current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a scandal plagued and facing indictment on fraud and corruption charges, faced centrist candidate General Benny Gantz. It pitted the veteran longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against an opponent, Benny Gantz, who was actually far more competitive than anyone Netanyahu has faced for some time.

Mark Landler covers the White House for The Times. And indeed, as the voting played out... Israel held one of its most consequential elections in decades, and as of right now, it's not quite clear who's the winner. It's a very close race. It's a very dramatic election. This has shaped up really to be, frankly, the fight of Mr. Netanyahu's political life. Over the course of the day, and the first exit polls came out, it looked like it was a virtual dead heat. This is a night of a tremendous victory.

You had both Gantz and Netanyahu claiming victory. In elections, there are losers. In elections, there are winners. In elections, there are winners. And we are the winners. In separate rallies on Tuesday evening. Early Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently won an historic fifth term after a tight election race.

But as the counting inched forward later on Tuesday evening, it became clear that Netanyahu had gotten just enough votes that he was probably going to be able to put together a right-wing coalition and continuing government, a feat that is by all accounts remarkable. It would make him, in just a few months,

the longest-serving Israeli prime minister since Ben-Gurion and really a commanding figure on the Israeli political stage. But for all the drama and all the theatrics and all the history that was made in Israel this week, in one important respect, the election actually doesn't change much. The two-state solution, the solution to end the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, this holy grail of diplomacy that the United States has been working toward for the last four decades, is for all intents and purposes dead. On the 29th of November 1947, the United Nations voted to establish two states, one Jewish, one Arab, in a partition Palestine. The dilemma that has faced Israel since its founding in the 1940s was that the land that the Israelis occupied, the ancestral homeland for the Jewish people, was land that was actually also claimed by the Palestinians.

was land that was actually also claimed by the Palestinians. Directly after the United Nations decision to partition Palestine, the euphoric dream of Jewish statehood in the land of Israel was punctured by the harsh reality of gunfire. So what peacemakers have tried to do is figure out if there's a way to create a separate homeland, a separate state for the Palestinians, one where they would manage their own affairs, enjoy the benefits of self-rule, but live in peace with their neighbors, the Israelis. For the third time since its birth as an independent state, Israel is embroiled in a war with the

Arab nations that surround it. This task became more and more difficult over the years. Israeli spearheads race to the Gaza Strip, advance across the entire Sinai. Because through wars and other conquests, the Israelis began to occupy more and more of the land that would form the basis for a Palestinian state. The six-day Middle East war echoes along a second front,

the diplomatic struggle at the United Nations Security Council. And so the really difficult task the peacemakers have had is seeing what kind of formula they could strike that would give the Palestinians enough territory to have a viable state, but leave the Israeli state feeling it had adequate security for its own people. And this is what peacemakers, Israelis and

American, refer to as the two-state solution. And how has the U.S. viewed that plan, the two-state solution, historically? Finally, the time is approaching when there will be safety in Israel's house, when the Palestinian people will write their own destiny, when the clash of arms will be banished from God's holy land. Well, the United States has, since early in the Clinton administration, formally set as a policy objective the creation of a Palestinian state, a two-state solution to the conflict. I would say that a profound and, I believe, lasting change has taken place. But even before then, going all the way back to the Nixon years, the general push of American policy has been to try to find a solution that would give the Palestinians some kind of homeland.

Where there was no hope for peace, there is now hope. And Mark, just so I understand, why does the U.S. feel strongly about a two-state solution, and why does it care about it? I think for a couple of reasons. One is a legal reason. Israel took the land in the West Bank by force in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. This move was condemned widely by the United Nations, by other countries, and even by the United States as an unlawful seizure or conquest of territory. So resolving the status of the West Bank is important from an international law perspective. But beyond that, there's a more important recognition here,

which is until and unless we can offer the Palestinian people some sense of homeland, they're always going to be displaced, unhappy, and they pose a threat not only to Israel, their occupying force, but to other countries in the region. So there's a sense to which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is kind of this low-grade powder keg that could explode at any time and bring the rest of the region around it into conflict. And how does Israel respond to this decades-long push from the U.S. and the rest of the world for a two-state solution? Well, it depends very much on who's in government. But the general trend line in Israel is that early in this process, many Israelis felt that the two-state solution was the only solution to their problem. There was a great deal of sympathy and support in Israel for a two-state solution, not just on the Israeli left,

but on the right. But then Benjamin Netanyahu is elected prime minister. And Netanyahu sets in motion a series of programs and policies that have the effect of hardening Israeli attitudes against the desirability of a two-state solution. He really builds up the Israeli economy. He makes Israel a powerhouse in the region. He builds up Israel's military. He makes Israelis feel, for the first time, more secure. He builds a wall between Israel and the West Bank. So he literally walls off Israelis from the problem of the Palestinians. And by making it easier to turn away from the Palestinians,

he contributes to and accelerates this hardening of attitudes in Israel that makes Israelis, not just on the right, but to some extent on the left as well, view the two-state solution as a less urgent priority, as something that's less necessary, less desirable. And how did the U.S. respond to Netanyahu and to this hardening against the two-state solution that he represented? Well, the United States, under Republican and Democratic presidents, has been adamant in their support of a two-state solution. So from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama, you had a series of presidents who always pushed against what they viewed as Israeli efforts to undermine a two-state solution. For example, the building of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

Every time the Israelis announced they were building a new settlement, you could count on the White House to issue a statement condemning it. Because it violated the notion that the Palestinians would have a full state of their own someday. Indeed, because merely by putting a Jewish community into what would

someday be Palestinian territory, you are undermining the viability of a future state. And so this was a very consistent policy. It was really nonpartisan. Republicans and Democrats supported it. It was an article of faith in the American foreign policy community and a feature of our diplomacy up until Donald Trump became president. And what does President Trump do differently than his predecessors? In your vision for the new Middle East peace, are you ready to give up of the notion of two-state solution? Well, for one thing,

the first time President Trump is asked publicly what solution he prefers to resolve the conflict, he says... So I'm looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like. I'm very happy with the one that both parties like. I'm in favor of a two-state solution, a one-state solution, whatever the two sides want. Later on, he then comes around months later and says,

I like a two-state solution. I do like a two-state solution. That's what I think works best. I don't even have to speak to anybody. That's my feeling. But his commitment to it is always far looser, far flimsier than any of his predecessors. We want an agreement that is a great deal for the Israelis and a great deal for the Palestinians. So Donald Trump's words are sort of all over the place, but his actions are far clearer. the place, but his actions are far clearer. What he does, in effect, is he backs up Netanyahu to the hilt. All the actions that Netanyahu wants to do, which would have drawn objections from

Trump's predecessors, he basically gives Netanyahu a blank check. And he himself authorizes several important changes in policy that have the effect of accelerating the undermining of a future Palestinian state. And what are those changes? Well, Trump started off by delivering on a campaign promise. Therefore, I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. To move the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. And the reason this was really significant is that the status of Jerusalem is itself contested. Palestinians aspire to having East Jerusalem be the capital of their future state.

The administration moves the embassy to Jerusalem, and they don't, in moving it, make the point that they still view East Jerusalem as a potential Palestinian capital. Israel is a sovereign nation with the right, like every other sovereign nation, to determine its own capital. They merely declare that the time has come to recognize reality, which is that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. God bless you. God bless Israel.

God bless the Palestinians. And God bless the United States. Thank you very much. And in so doing, seem to say it's not the capital of the future Palestinian state. It would seem to foreclose the possibility of having East Jerusalem be the Palestinian capital. Okay. Did you ever talk about the vast amounts of funds, money,

that we give to the Palestinians? We give, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars. The next thing that President Trump does is... That money is on the table, and that money's not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace. He cuts aid to the Palestinian Authority, to the United Nations agency that helps Palestinian refugees. Today, the Department of State will announce the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office here in Washington, D.C. of the Palestine Liberation Organization office here in Washington, D.C. And he also closes the Palestinian Authority's representative office in Washington.

The reason these moves are significant is because it has the effect of alienating the Palestinian power structure from the U.S. government and also undermining the credibility of the Palestinian leadership. Remember, any deal has to be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinian leadership. But by depriving the Palestinians of these resources, the Trump administration is in essence sending a signal that these people are not worth talking to. And that in turn has contributed to a rift that has opened up between the Palestinians and the United States over the moving of the embassy. In a moment, I will sign a presidential proclamation recognizing Israel's sovereign right over the Golan Heights. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, President Trump recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

The state of Israel took control of the Golan Heights in 1967 to safeguard its security from external threats. Like the West Bank and Gaza, the Golan Heights is a slice of territory that Israel seized during war and remains disputed until this day. In recognizing Israel's claim over the Golan Heights, the Trump administration is in a way giving the Israelis a legal pretext to annex other territory that remains disputed. Look at this. It's amazing. This is what I did in one week, by the way. I went to Washington and received this declaration by President Trump, recognizing Israel's sovereignty in the Golan Heights. Look at this. Look at what we just got. It all amounts to a green light for Prime Minister Netanyahu to make a move on the West Bank. And indeed, a few days later, on the eve of the Israeli election, he did just that.

This was a big last-minute promise from Benjamin Netanyahu in a close race. He says if he's re-elected, he'll annex part of the West Bank, seized by Israel half a century ago and home to nearly half a million settlers. He told the Israeli press that if he was elected, he would begin to annex large Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Which is to say,

he would take as Israelis parts of the West Bank that would be part of the two-state solution. That is exactly right. So let me ask you this. And what did the U.S. do? Is it still the policy

of the United States to oppose Israel's unilateral annexation of any or all of the West Bank? Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked what was the American response. Here's what I can say. I'll give the same answer again to Senator Durbin. We are in the process of laying down our vision for how to resolve a problem that is... So, Mr. Secretary, if I could ask you, I asked about unilateral annexation. And the U.S. response was conspicuous silence. abandoned what has been a bipartisan foreign policy of opposing the annexation of any or part of the West Bank by Israel. Is that what you're telling us today? I think we've seen,

I think it was Senator Durbin that critiqued our decision on the Golan where he would characterize that. I'm not asking you about the Golan. Yeah. I'm asking you about the West Bank. And I'm telling you, you will see our proposal. It basically gives Netanyahu permission if he wants to annex these settlements in the West Bank. There was no evidence that there would be any American pushback to that. And is it safe to assume that if the United States and its president didn't want Israel to take these steps and said, don't take these steps, that Israel might not do them? The answer to that is yes. And the proof of that is if you go back just one president to the Obama administration, you will find plenty of cases

where Barack Obama pushed back on steps that the Netanyahu government was taking, particularly in the area of settlement construction, and actually pressured the prime minister to slow down, or in some cases, even halt that construction in order not to alienate their American friends. And so given that, Mark, why is President Trump doing this? Why would he support Netanyahu in this way? So part of it has to do with the genuine kinship between Trump and Netanyahu.

They're very similar figures in some ways. They view the world the same way. There's also some familial connections. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, has a longstanding relationship with Netanyahu. Netanyahu once famously spent the night at the Kushner home in New Jersey. But there's also a political motive for Donald Trump. Donald Trump knows that his base consists partly of conservative American Jews and evangelical voters. And for their own reasons, some having to do with Israel's biblical history, some having to do with the desire for Israel's security,

these voters believe very strongly in Netanyahu's agenda. So to the extent that President Trump emboldens Netanyahu, he's also really playing to this important part of his own political base. So Netanyahu was very skeptical of the two-state solution from the start. And now after 40 years of the U.S. supporting that two-state solution, Israel's greatest ally, the one whose permission and approval it constantly seeks, is on the same page. It is now skeptical of the two-state solution. That's right. Netanyahu, after years of butting heads with American presidents, Netanyahu, after years of butting heads with American presidents, finally found one who not only is on the same page, but is almost reinforcing his most aggressive instincts.

And it grows out of a belief on the part of both men that a mighty Israel, that a strong Israel is not only in the interest of the Israeli people, but it's also in the American interest. A stabilizing force, an anchor of democracy in the Middle East, a counterweight to Iran, the great enemy that Trump has identified in the Middle East. But the irony is that both of these leaders, in believing that they are securing Israel's future, securing its long-term survival and stability, may actually be undermining it. How so?

Well, if you believe, as many do, that the future of Israel lies in being both genuinely a Jewish state and genuinely a democratic state, the question is, can you have both? What do you mean? If you don't have a two-state solution, if you don't give the Palestinians their own sovereign state, you face the prospect of what people call a greater Israel. This is the one-state solution, where Israel simply annexes all the territory on the West Bank and Gaza and becomes one nation with both Palestinian Arabs and Jews living inside of it. And you have essentially two alternatives for how that state would look. Under one scenario, you remain a Jewish state.

You don't give Palestinians the right to vote. You essentially have a disenfranchised part of your country stretching into the future. The other alternative is you give everybody the right to vote. And under that scenario, given demographic trends, with a much faster-growing Arab population, you face the prospect of, over time, losing the Jewish character of Israel.

And so that's why I say that you can either be a Jewish state or a democratic state, but under a one-state solution, it's very hard to see how you can be both. It seems, from what you're saying that democracy is what's being sacrificed for the maintenance of a Jewish state. Well, at the moment, the Palestinians who live on the West Bank are a disenfranchised people. They don't have the same rights as Israelis who live in the state of Israel. So yes, there is already a degree of disenfranchisement that is necessary to maintain Israel as it exists today. The question is whether the Israelis are willing to institutionalize that arrangement

permanently, to make it a permanent feature of a future state of Israel, rather than what we have now, which is by all accounts still a temporary situation, an Israeli occupation that everyone hoped would someday come to an end. Mark, you said that it really didn't matter who wins the Israeli election because of these changes that both Netanyahu and President Trump were able to accomplish during their overlapping tenures. But why is this really irreversible? Couldn't a future U.S. president, after Trump, essentially take back those steps, reverse them, once they get into office? Well, I think the problem is that is much easier said than done. Several of the things that President Trump did are not going to be easily undone by anyone,

either a new American president or a new Israeli prime minister. Take Israel's control of the Golan Heights. Yes, it is true that there are already hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank. But by giving the Israelis some legal credibility for settling and holding on to that area and exerting sovereignty over that area, you're only going to invite even greater construction, new houses, new schools, new communities that will make it even more unrealistic or far-fetched to think about a viable Palestinian state being built on that territory. So essentially, the reality on the ground has been changed in such a way that cannot be changed back. Yeah, I think that's right.

Yeah, I think that's right. These two leaders have changed the facts on the ground in a way that won't be easily undone, no matter how fervent a supporter of the two-state solution follows Donald Trump in the White House or follows Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. They have changed the equation. They have, in a sense, retired the old paradigm. Mark, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. On Wednesday, President Trump congratulated Benjamin Netanyahu on his apparent victory, saying it means there is now a better chance of reaching a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. But everybody said you can't have peace in the Middle East with Israel and the Palestinians. I think we have a chance, and I think we have now a better chance with Bibi having won. Yes, please, thank you. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. Because the UK should have left the EU by now. And I greatly regret the fact that Parliament has not been able to pass a deal that would enable us to leave in a smooth and orderly way. In its latest last-minute reprieve, the European Union has given Britain six more months to negotiate a Brexit deal after Prime Minister Theresa May

once again failed to reach an agreement with Parliament before a deadline. The purpose of this summit is to agree an extension which gives us more time to agree a deal to enable us to leave the EU in that smooth and orderly way. The latest deadline for leaving the EU was April 12. On Wednesday, May had sought a new delay until June, but EU officials, sceptical that she could reach a deal by then, gave her until the end of October. And.

We are delighted to be able to report to you today that we have seen what we thought was unseeable. On Wednesday, astronomers announced that they had captured an image of what began a century ago as a mathematical concept from Albert Einstein. A cosmic abyss so deep and dense that not even light could escape it. We have seen and taken a picture of a black hole. Here it is. The image of the black hole, which has a mass several billion times larger than the sun, was captured using data from telescopes in Hawaii, Mexico, the South Pole, and Spain, among other places.

Radio waves from the black hole hit radio telescopes, where they're recorded with the precision of atomic clocks that lose only one second every 10 million years. When you've registered these radio waves so precisely, you can then store them on hard disk drives, send them to a central facility where they can be combined precisely. The image settles a century-long quest to confirm that black holes actually exist, a possibility Einstein himself resisted because, according to his theory, matter, space, and time are all obliterated inside a black hole. And this is the strongest evidence that we have to date for the existence of black holes.

And it is also consistent, the shape of this shadow, to the precision of our measurements with Einstein's predictions. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.