The Opinions - Thomas Friedman: Trump’s Path to a Nobel Peace Prize?

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

The Israel-Gaza war poses multiple challenges for President-elect Donald Trump’s new administration. But the former president has proposed a plan for peace in the region before. The question is: can he be convinced to pursue it again? In this episode, the columnist Thomas L. Friedman argues that Trump has an opportunity to make history.Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail]. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. I'm Thomas Friedman. I'm the Foreign Affairs columnist for the New York Times. You know, people might not believe this, and I'm sure most people have even forgotten it. But in his first term as president, Donald Trump produced the most detailed plan for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians since Bill Clinton. I think there's a place for Donald Trump to find his way into the diplomatic history books by implementing that plan for the Middle East. Invite both parties to Camp David and just tell me you can come on one condition

that you treat this as the floor for your negotiations for two states, for two indigenous people. When President Trump put forward his peace plan back in 2020, it posited that Israel could annex 30% of the West Bank, roughly, The Palestinians would get 70% of the West Bank for a state of their own, plus all of the Gaza strip and two chunks of the Israeli Negev desert. It wouldn't be a one-to-one trade, but probably about a one-to-two trade. And in addition, Palestinians would get a capital outside of Jerusalem. That was the basic plan that Trump put forward. At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally embraced the Trump plan, but never brought it to his cabinet. And the reason he didn't

bring into his cabinet was that he had a very right-wing cabinet, and it was not at 70% for a Palestinian state. It was at zero. And that was the birth of the Abraham Accords. In other words, the Abraham Accords were achieved because the Trump-Israeli-Palestinian peace plan actually failed. The Abraham Accords are a bilateral agreement that really widened Israel's normalization front with the Arab world. So they're a big deal. When the Abraham Accords came out, I was among the first and among the most enthusiastic supporters of it, even though generally I was not a supporter of the Trump administration's foreign policy. But it seemed to me a good plan, a good idea, something to be good for peace in the Middle East, and most importantly good for American interests. So I enthusiastically

wrote, I think, two columns about it. And shortly thereafter, President Trump called me, and basically said, Tom, I can't believe the New York Times let you write that. They said, Donald, I can write whatever I want. And you know that. When you do the right thing, I will support it. When you don't do the right thing, I won't support it. And by the way, I'm not supporting you for re-election even. But this was the right thing, and I support it.

There's no doubt that neither Israelis nor Palestinians would embrace the Trump plan as currently written. there are powerful forces on both sides that would seek to upset any kind of two-state solution. On the Palestinian side, we've already seen Hamas, which rejects any kind of two-state solution with the Jewish state, launch its invasion on October 7, 2023, so we know where Hamas stands. At the same time, there are over half a million settlers now, Jewish settlers in the West Bank, And many already live in areas beyond the blocks that were originally designed to be the areas that Israel would retain in any two-state solution. So this is not a slam dunk by any token of the imagination. It probably has about a 5% chance of succeeding.

But I'm going to devote 100% of my energy to that 5% because you know what the alternative is? It's not a one-state solution. It's not a two-state solution that you want and the other side would totally reject. It's going to be actually no states. No states for two people because it'll be a permanent roiling forever war. What I would say to President Trump is that Israel has presented this war as an Israeli initiative to defend the West from the maligned forces of Hamas, Hisbalah, and Iran. And that's not wrong. But at the same time, while Netanyahu is doing that with one hand, with the other hand,

he is supporting an Israeli initiative to basically install an apartheid regime in the West Bank. And so if we ignore that, if we just throw our arms around Netanyahu as he would want, we will be solid by that other mission that he is on. And if that mission succeeds for Netanyahu, if Israel, in effect, builds a apartheid regime in the West Bank, Then I would say to President Trump, your Jewish grandchildren will be the first generation to know what it is, to be Jewish in a world where the Jewish state is a pariah. Before this war started, President Biden was working on an initiative that would be kind of a three-corner shot. Saudi Arabia and the United States would sign a mutual defense pact. Saudi Arabia would then agree to normalize relations with Israel, and Israel would agree to open negotiations with the Palestinians.

and authority on the West Bank for a two-state solution. Unfortunately, Biden never really aggressively put out in public the peace plan he was working on. And because he never put that plan out there, but continued to provide arms for Israel to defend itself from Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran, it looked like all we were doing was supplying arms to this conflict and not actually in parallel pursuing a peace agreement that would end this conflict in a way that would provide some justice for all sides. And in that vacuum, America's image really got deteriorated around the world. And I think that hurt America.

I think it hurt Israel. And I think it hurt the Jewish people. You know, there are two, we've seen two Donald Trumps. We've seen the Donald Trump who moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. We've seen the Donald Trump who appointed Mike Huir's. could be an evangelical Christian who believes in Israel's right to annex the West Bank as his ambassador to Israel. At the same time, we know there's a Donald Trump out there who not only promoted the Abraham Accords, but put out a Trump peace plan, calling for two states for two people with a Palestinian

capital outside of Jerusalem and a Palestinian state in the West Bank in Gaza, albeit truncated. And so there are clearly two Donald Trumps. they need to sit down and have a conversation and tell us the world and Israelis and Palestinians, which one is it going to be? Because the first Donald Trump will be a pyromaniac, lighting the fires of the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and fanning them even more than they've already been fan. And the second Donald Trump, who knows? Might even win a Nobel Prize. You like this show. Follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Vichaca Durba, Phoebe Lett, Christina Samuelski, and Jillian Weinberger.

It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saburo, and Afim Shapiro. Additional music by Amin Sojota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta, Christina Samuelski, and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Dresser.