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July 28, 2024 - RFK Jr. The Defender
55:25
Path To Peace Episode 3

Robert F. Kennedy Jr discusses the pathway to peace in the Middle East with Dan Perry and Ghada Zoabi in this episode.

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Hey everybody, this is the third episode in our Path to Peace series, and I'm very excited about our guest today.
Gata Zawabi is a Palestinian-Israeli.
She is the heir to a long line of Palestinians who have lived in that region.
She's the founder and CEO of Bokra Groups.
Which means tomorrow in Arabic, a popular Arabic online social media platform and news portal for Arabs in Israel and around the world.
She works with the official governmental institutions in Israel.
Ever since the website was established, it has waved the flag to effect change with everything connected to the field of communication within Arab society.
Today, Bokra groups are major influence.
On the agenda of Arab speakers in Israel, Gada is a philanthropist, an active member of organizations that promote awareness in various fields, including child safety, road safety, breast cancer support, and empowerment of people with disabilities.
Thank you for that.
Recently, Gada has focused much of her energies on promoting coexistence between Israeli Arabs and Jews.
She recently initiated the first shared society center in Nazareth called Next Door Neighbor.
She has a long, long biography, and I'm going to omit some important information.
Hopefully we can get to that in the interview.
My other guest is Dan Perry.
Ann Perry is a writer, entrepreneur, communications professional who served as the Middle East editor of the Associated Press News Agency based in Cairo during the Arab Spring and the resultant regional upheaval, a time when the agency won numerous prizes for investigative and visual work in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, and Gaza.
Including a 2018 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting on the Yemen war.
Previously, he led AP in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.
And he was a leader in AP's move to digital distribution.
He served from 2001 to 2004 as chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, driving the industry's efforts to ensure freedom of access and information with both the Israel and Palestinian authorities.
Dan has been a regular delegate to the U.S.
He's been a regular interviewer of some of the most important figures in the Mideast, including Benjamin Netanyahu, John McCain, Tony Blair, Mikhail Gorbachev, and many, many others.
He is an author, and since leaving AP in 2018, he's focused on technology projects.
Strategic communications and opinion writing.
I want to start with you.
Talk a little bit about your history in Palestine, your family's history in Palestine and Israel.
Yes, first of all, it's a great honor to speak with you, and I wish you all the success for the upcoming elections.
Regarding our history, I mentioned before that, you know, on one side, our parents and even though grandparents and old relatives lived in this land, but since the Nakbe in 1948,
Part of them were killed and the other unfortunately decided to leave the land and go to live in the Gulf area, even though in the United States.
But my father and grandpa decided to stay here in this land.
And we grew up with this complicated reality.
And just with the same values that our grant, actually being here in In Israel or in our land, that doesn't mean, you know, that we neglect the history or our history, but actually we grew up with the specific values that my father educate us at home,
just to look to the reality with the part of the harsh reality and complicated reality, to look in different eyes.
That means In positive eyes, in positive perspective, even though, you know, how to try to understand each other, to respect the other communities, and how to think about a better future for all of us.
It's not actually so easy to think about this point, but actually in order to think about our children's future and our new generation's future, we must keep these values and emphasize the values.
And that's why it's in my own philanthropy fields and even though in my efforts I emphasize the points of how just make the connection and how keep the values of co-existence with Jews and Palestinians together in different, you know, projects.
Because I believe that after a million years we will not have any solution.
The best solution that we can Just work hard.
And we need for brave leaders to do that and keep that, that leaders, brave leaders, I mean that leaders that believe and just think anti-humanity, even though we need a solution for a long term, two states for both peoples and both sides.
Otherwise, unfortunately, the violence will continue.
And even though the war will continue.
It's interesting what you say, because you're saying you had family members who were killed in 1948 by the Israeli forces, and I assume, and that other of your family, another large part of your family, was driven out of Israel,
and settled in the Gulf, some of them in the U.S., There's a lot of potential for bitterness that you might have as living side by side with Israelis whose parents were responsible for the deaths and the exile of yours.
I want to share with you that my father was killed in 1968 and one of the people involved in his death was a Palestinian.
I went, you know, I became convinced that he had, although he had been involved in the ambush, he had not fired the bullets that killed my father, but also that he was very elderly and he served no, he posed no threat to society.
And so I reached out to him.
I went and visited him in prison and I became an advocate.
For his payroll, for his freedom.
In doing that, I alienated people in my own family and also some in my community who I think were unable to make that transition toward Forgiveness or who just saw the situation differently than I did.
And I'm wondering if you encounter that same thing within your family and community, people who say you should not forgive the Israelis for what they did to you.
Actually, you know, anyone can understand our painful history, the difficulties and the challenges.
And, you know, especially when just evoke memories of what happens to our family.
I know that it's very complicated and harsh.
But I, and not just I, even though my parents decide in order to look for a better future, just not look the reality.
I can't just bring, to come back and just to think about what happens.
I mean, I can't neglect.
I can't even though forget what happened with my grandma and pa and also even though our relatives But I think if all the time we focus on a conflict, all the time focus on what happens, we will stay at the same point.
We just have to look ahead, what we think about, what our children's future will be.
I decide to, how I mentioned before, to look at the same reality in different eyes, like to think about if we want stability, if we want peace, if we want to think or to keep what we have right now, to keep at least to keep the land, if we are talking about West Bank, if we are talking about Gaza, to keep these places.
I think we have To think and to be realistic.
This is a part of our Painful dissipate of what happens to our family.
We have to look ahead and to say this is our reality.
In order to keep a better future, we have to work hard in how to strengthen, how to teach the other side to respect each other.
How, you know, even though my most projects and program and initiative with the Jews and Palestinians, all the time we emphasize, you, I respect The Jewish history, and you have to respect my history, okay?
That doesn't mean if I just keep my history and I'm talking about my history, I will become a traitor.
No.
I just try to make this connection or try to make this message with different meetings with both Jews and Arabs together to deal that the best choice or the best solution will be just to understand, to respect each other, And to know that we have own history and you have your own history.
And this is our harsh reality.
After a million years, nothing will change.
The Palestinians have to have their own states.
And even though they're Israel, we can't change anything, but we have to work.
But if we don't work in order to change the reality, nothing will be done, okay?
Nothing will change.
So we have to work together and to put our efforts to lead the place For peaceful.
Because I think that our new generation here in our region fed up from war and violence.
I think that's enough.
That's enough.
And we all want to seeking for new leaders, brave leaders, and even though with the same voice and a power voice, that they want to lead this place and our region for a better place.
And how I mentioned before, The best solution in order to put the racism and the bad sides that they want to destroy the peace inside just to find the solution of two states for both peoples, both sides.
You've been a very, very harsh critic.
I have my own problems with Bibi Netanyahu since 2002 when he came over to the United States and spoke for Congress and made a very impactful speech urging our country to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein.
And that turned out to be, as many of us predicted at that time, The worst foreign policy blunder in American history, arguably.
And I was very, very critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu on the censorship issues and the judicial reforms.
I'm very proud of Israel's judiciary system.
I think it's the best judiciary system in the world.
And I think those reforms were going to undermine it.
But talk about, you know, about how you see Netanyahu in terms of the peace process.
Is he an impediment to the peace process now with Gaza?
He's a monumental impediment to peace, well, to an endgame of any kind in Gaza.
And he has, for his entire career, done all he can to impede efforts to bring about a two-state solution whereby the West Bank and Gaza are hived off of Israel and become a state in their own right.
Netanyahu is a really fascinating figure, I have to tell you, Mr.
Kennedy.
He may be the most classic example, the most profound example in the world today of how seeming intelligence, how the artifice of intelligence, eloquence, the ability to articulate and to look good and sound good on TV, sometimes has nothing to do with wisdom.
Everything about Netanyahu's strategy is basically bad for Israel.
I realize that sounds extreme, and for me, as someone who values a degree of journalistic remove, not dispassion, but objectivity for sure, it's tough to talk about Netanyahu because His impact on Israel has been so horrific.
His government is so outrageously incompetent and reckless, and I don't know, I mean, it borders on the crime against the country.
So I guess the answer to your question is yes.
Specifically in Gaza, there is a theory that will sound like a conspiracy theory.
But, you know, as you may agree, some of them are true.
And theory says Netanyahu's trying to prolong the war because of a paradigm that he's built, where he said, yeah, sure, a government that failed as spectacularly as we failed on October 7th generally resigns.
But now we're in a war.
And for as long as there's a war, we've got to put politics to one side.
Well, that argues for continuing the war for a long, long time.
And there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that they're going slow in the war to prolong it.
And they have refused time after time certain actions that would have enabled an endgame.
So I don't know about a peace process in Gaza, but at this point, after going on nine months of a not very successful operation, there's a lot of support in Israel for calling it a day, cutting your losses, and doing a deal to return the hostages.
Because right now, it may still be possible for Israel to get Hamas to agree to return the hostages in exchange for the end of the war.
If Israel has to end the war because there's nothing more they can do, and it's incredibly unpopular and they leave without the hostages, they've just lost their leverage.
And I fear that's where it's headed towards.
In the grander scheme of things, Netanyahu opposes an end to the occupation of the West Bank, and who knows, maybe they're going to try to reoccupy Gaza for him.
And that, for Israel, is devastating for a whole lot of reasons.
I agree with almost everything my friend Gadot has said about the need for a two-state solution, ultimately, and how Jews and Arabs need to work together.
And I consider myself a person of peace.
But we're the Israeli peace camp.
And Israeli Arab citizens, sometimes there's a bit of awkwardness there, because when Israeli moderates, leftists, peaceniks, say that the occupation in West Bank has to come to an end, and before 2005 West Bank and Gaza, they're not really saying that Palestinians have to have a stay.
It's a very small territory.
There's 22 Arab countries.
Palestinians, and God that you'll forgive me, are not that different from Sunni Lebanese 10 miles north.
Maybe the Kurds have a better case for a state.
What the Israeli peacenaks are thinking is we want a Jewish state with a strong Jewish majority.
And we understand that you can't forever control a situation where half the people are non-Jews, Palestinians, Palestinian Arabs.
Some of them are citizens because they were occupied in 1948.
The majority are not.
And you're never going to give them citizenship.
It's unhealthy.
And primarily, it's anti-Zionistic.
Now, I don't know if God feels as strongly as I do.
And we really are friends and we agree on almost everything.
I don't know if she feels as strongly as I do that there should be a Jewish majority country.
It's almost offensive to say that to Israeli Arabs.
But that's what the Israeli peasants are actually thinking.
And they're right, because if Israel does not apply to the West Bank, eventually it's going to have to give all the Palestinians the right to vote and turn them into the equivalent of Israeli Arabs, and it will be an unhappy binational state.
It'll be at war with itself.
You know, most binational states are not that functional.
Look at Belgium, even Canada.
But this one will be worse than Yugoslavian.
So the practical thing to do is find some way to pull out of the West Bank, again, and Gaza.
Netanyahu doesn't get this.
Now, how can a person so intelligent not get it is genuinely a mystery.
And there have been times when he has said things that make it sound like he gets it.
But his entire political career has been predicated on fighting against All efforts to do a partition in the Holy Land, in Palestine, in Israel-Palestine, that's what he does.
And there's other things that he has done that are devastating to Israel strategically.
One issue involves his coddling of the ultra-Orthodox Haredim in Israel, and that's kind of a separate issue from peace, but that is a huge threat to the country.
And the other is the Iran nuclear deal.
He compelled Trump, Bibi did, to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal because, he said correctly, Iran is fomenting terrorism and Iran is building long-range rockets.
So, how is this good?
Well, it's good because they did stop their nuclear program.
What do we get?
You know, I guess, seven years later?
They're still building rockets.
They're still doing terrorism, like nobody's business.
And now they're in a nuclear threshold state, endangering the lives of me and of Gadda and of Arabs in the region.
And if you ever come visit, this is insanity.
And yet, when he was making this point that most of the Israeli security establishment opposed, he sounded intelligent.
This is the great tragedy of Netanyahu.
His eloquence has been able to ride his eloquence to a career that has done Israel untold damage.
And I fear it may be we're approaching the point where it's fatal.
If this cabal stays in power somehow, another 5-10 years, I'm predicting Israel will not exist by 2048.
And it's a little sad because it's worth preserving.
And if there ever was peace, and if the kinds of attitudes in Jewish and Arab Israel that I think God and I represent were allowed to flourish, it could be one of the finest countries on earth.
It really could.
You're talking about Israel.
Yeah, Israel.
What's the future?
I'll ask you first, Agatha and then Dan.
What's the future of Gaza?
I mean, what would happen, for example, If Israel withdrew today, what would happen to Gaza?
I mean, one of the questions I have is, how do you rebuild Gaza when Hamas is still in charge?
But I'd love you, you know, I'd love your views on that, on both of you.
Who goes first?
Yes, yes, yes.
It's okay, Dan, you can answer.
No, please, please.
I think he called me.
Actually, with this current or tragic government with Netanyahu, it's impossible to us just to think what will happen, because unfortunately Netanyahu think about just about to answer his own needs and stay on his position.
And let's think about the citizen in Israel.
Regarding Gaza and the situation and the genocide and the mosque or what happened, the daily mosque or what happens in Gaza, I think it's very difficult to us to think what will happen after or at least to think But I just have a lot of,
you know, I'm with a lot of negotiation with a lot of groups, even though in the West Bank, that we all think together that they have to find, even though in the Palestinian side, in West Bank and Gaza.
New leaders, also peaceful leaders that think about the future of the Palestinian and the West Bank.
It's very difficult how many years Gaza have to build themselves.
And, you know, we are talking about more than 40,000 victims, children, women, regarding what's happening in the current war.
And I think that it's...
I think that they have to think, really, this should be the best point that they have to change all the map and thinking ahead of the future of these children and women and even though for the local Palestinians in this area.
I don't think that Netanyahu will lead the place for a better future or better things in humanity or think about.
Netanyahu destroy everything.
I just look for new leader even in Israel.
And I suppose, with your permission, something that we know that the United States has an important role and influence, even though to move the Middle East and especially our region to a better place and even though to peace around us.
And I think not almost they do the same, you know, they're ill efforts to do that.
If we are talking about our current situation, it's very threatening.
And even though it's complicated more and more, and we have to do all together, and the leaders, even though in Arab countries and all over the world, have to work immediately about how to improve the situation.
Because I think that with Hezbollah open and with, you know, almost done and, you know, even every day we face, I think?
The financial corruption, would you say, is worse than any government in the history of Israel and is really noteworthy around the world.
But there is tremendous corruption also in the West Bank and almost as much in Gaza financial corruption.
Plus, you have leadership that has not built institutions like boards, regulatory agencies that are robust, that can provide stability to a nation,
the backbone to a nation, and you have these pretty outrageous Commitment to violence by the governments of the West Bank and Gaza, where there's a pay-for-slave program that offers any citizen who murders a Jew, man, woman, or children, a bounty and pays lifetime annuity to people who kill Jews.
Where the streets are named after?
Not exactly.
The pay for slaying is basically what's called pay for slaying.
It basically means the Palestinian Authority does pay stipends to Palestinians who are in jail.
Israeli jail.
And that includes Palestinians in Israeli jail for murder.
So the Israelis will say, well, that's pay for slaying.
The Palestinians say, we're in a We're in a harsh and complex situation, and we just got to do this if they're an Israeli agent.
I wouldn't compare the West Bank government, which, sad to say, is a fairly typical Arab world police state with corruption.
Not too impressive, but not the worst thing in the world, like North Korea.
To the situation in Gaza, which is just radioactively evil.
You have a jihadi militia imposing a theocracy on the people of Gaza, brainwashing the youth for martyrdom and for never-ending fight against Israel, provoking A neighboring nuclear power with the express purpose of getting it to react or overreact so the Palestinians are killed because they find some profit in that and they call it martyring.
Hamas is so demonic, so absolutely satanic that I simply apologize for cutting you off, but I have to say there's a real, real difference.
Between them and the Palestinians in Spain.
And as for Israel, look, Israel's a proper democracy.
I don't want to sound like a propagandist and explain why and how an Arab judge in Israel put away an Israeli Jewish prime minister and a Jewish president and sent him to jail, and Arab judges oversaw the last elections, and Gadda and I have the exact same rights.
Israel is a democracy for all its problems, and there are problems for sure.
But the Netanyahu government flirts with illegitimacy in a variety of ways.
And if you ask for the financial corruption, well, the Israeli state has put him on trial on three counts of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
And it would have once seemed incredible that you are on trial for bribery and you're still clinging to power by your fingernails.
And they cannot be prized off.
And everyone thought he would resign when the charges were, you know, tabled.
But we're living in an era where if something's illegal, it can be done.
The fact that it's just not done no longer matters.
So, you know, you find it being done.
And I can't tell you if he's guilty or not of corruption, but it's not a good look.
And even there's a fourth charge involving submarine sales that has already sent Netanyahu's aides to prison and he's somehow denying he was involved.
It's just beyond belief.
Beyond belief.
And that explains why you mentioned the judicial reform before.
That explains why.
They tried to Putinize the country.
The so-called judicial reform that was meant to, you put it very politely, Mr.
Kennedy, you said to undermine Israel's excellent judiciary.
It wasn't undermining.
They proposed for the government to appoint all the judges, have them be puppets, and should the puppets forget to be puppets and become uppity, to have the parliament be able to overrule judges by majority vote.
Right?
So that means the government controls everything, including the judiciary.
And some people say, well, look, the Americans are also politicized.
You know, the Supreme Court justices have to be approved by the state.
Yeah, but America has a constitution.
And America has all kinds of checks and balances, a bicameral parliament.
I mean, and also America's not perfect.
So yes, yeah, it not only flirts with Personal corruption of Netanyahu, the coalition in particular, is the very picture of cronyism and the most vulgar patronage.
In the middle of this war, to keep the religious parties on side, they are proposing a law that currently is creating a real fracas in the coalition and, God willing, might bring them down.
Handing out, like, scores and hundreds of jobs, fake rabbi jobs, to have these rabbis imposed on townships and neighborhoods and cities and villages.
These secular ones that don't want a rabbi.
They're going to appoint all these rabbis.
And it's costing millions.
And this is purely, purely, purely.
A payoff to keep them voting for the government to keep Bibi in power.
So yes, there's a lot of corruption.
And as for Gaza, I expect nothing to happen as long as the Netanyahu government's in charge.
But odious though that government is, of course, like the West Bank PA, they don't hold a candle of odiousness to Hamas.
I mean, Hamas has just brainwashed the population.
I think God is a little bit optimistic about how the young people are sick and tired of the conflict.
First of all, young Jews in Israel are more right-wing than people my age.
It's very sad.
There's a lot of reasons for it.
But if you look at the polls, it's not like the young people are blazing a path to peace, unfortunately.
And as for young Palestinians, I mean, if you look at the polls and see how much support Hamas still has, It's quite dispiriting.
And some of it I attribute to brainwashing.
A lot of it just to despair because Israel is not moving forward with peace plans right now.
A lot of it, frankly, is stupidity.
I mean, there's no way around it.
It's a very, very dire situation.
What should happen in Gaza, of course, is that they should have more decisively defeated Hamas from the beginning, had a plan to bring in another type of leadership, some version of the PA almost for sure, thus giving the war an endgame and strategy, and then do everything humanly possible to help that new government in Gaza.
And there is a U.S.-sponsored plan.
To do just that.
And moreover, to sort of bribe Israel with a lot of goodies, including regional normalization and peace of Saudi Arabia, a Sunni-Israeli Western-backed alliance, strategic alliance against Iran.
Israel should be grabbing Instead, it's acting indifferent and sniping at President Biden.
So, because of Netanyahu and what he finds politically profitable.
But the primary blame is on Hamas.
To your question, I don't know how You move towards peace with Hamas still in power in Gaza.
And because Israel has failed to completely destroy them, moreover, all is guaranteed they stay in power because they've refused to engage in creating or enabling or allowing an alternative.
It looks like that's the outcome.
And then we're just left with hoping they'll be deterred.
I'm hoping that they have been slapped so hard that they will not do this again.
But I pity the poor people of Gaza, who will be left with these criminals still oppressing them.
Two quick questions.
Dan, if you can answer these and got to chime in if you have a strong opinion.
The banning of Al Jazeera was a step that a lot of people agree with in Israel.
But it's really a violation of the tradition in Israel for freedom of the press.
Dan, how did you react to that?
Well, full disclosure, I sometimes appear in Al Jazeera, but that has nothing to do with my view on it, which is...
It's not only a violation of the tradition of freedom of press in Israel, it is a violation of the tradition that Jews are not completely stupid.
This was a very unintelligent move.
It achieved nothing.
If Al Jazeera spreads poison, they're still spreading poison.
The only place they're not spreading it is in Israel.
And the Israelis don't care.
They don't watch Al Jazeera.
This prevents Al Jazeera from doing reporting in Israel and occasionally bringing across to the Arab world the Israeli side.
Now, they're not a Zionist outlet, and they're certainly borderline hostile to Israel, for sure.
And you could even argue they're not just supportive of Hamas or maybe enabling Hamas.
And Qatar, of course, has something to do with funding Hamas.
All that is true.
But they're not completely unprofessional.
And they would occasionally bring across the Israeli side.
Now they can't do that.
So what have you achieved?
You make yourself look like Russia.
You prevent them from reporting on the Israeli side, which they sometimes did.
You don't prevent them from reporting from the Palestinian side, because that's not Israel.
So they're still there.
It has literally achieved nothing.
It has only done damage to Israel's reputation as a democracy.
And not just that, it's more than Al Jazeera, because to enable that, they passed a law.
This reckless, almost unpatriotic government passed a law that allows them to shut down anyone on charges of national security, on suspicion of violation of national security.
And as everyone knows, who knows anything about history, The violation of the enemies of the state argument is the last refuge of the scoundrel and of the authoritarian.
It's disgraceful.
And I say that knowing very well that the state is hostile to Israel, but freedom of speech is measured precisely when you don't like the speaker.
It's easy to favor free speech when everyone's in agreement.
So that's my answer to that.
It's disgraceful.
How about you, Gara?
Regarding, with your permission, I just want to relate for when we talk about the democracy.
I think that our current government and also Netanyahu, they destroy even though the basics, the humanity rights of democracy.
I think that, Dan, you notes that after the 7th of October and what happens, the murder.
What actually they did, even if I'm as an Arab-Palestinian citizen, want to convey my own opinion on my own feeling with what happens with the children in Gaza, they took all of us to prison.
Many of the academic students, even though they have problematic with integrating to workforce, and even though the academic in the universities A lot of changes, unfortunately.
When I asked my mom, she told me, look, it seems like back many, many years ago, especially it looks like after the 1948 and what happens for the Palestinians.
So I think not just our complicated now with the war and the harsh reality, I think The current government, especially Netanyahu and Benigvir, destroyed the local meaning of democracy, even though for the Jewish citizen here in Israel.
So it's not just a problem what we think about what would happen with the region.
We have to fix The basic things in our country, they have to work in really moving for new government, new leaders that think about how Israel looks like in all over the world.
Look at Israel now in all over the world.
They look at, you know, what happens and what they did in Gaza.
All of the world against Israel because Netanyahu's decision in how to take looking forward.
So I think that we avoid everything, not just, you know, what happens, unfortunately, with the genocide.
I don't think they destroyed democracy, but they're very, very badly undermined.
And remember, this is a government that doesn't have support from the 20% of society that is Israeli Arabs.
Very few Israeli Arabs.
Some, but very few, vote for the right wing.
So their purpose is to get the Arabs to not vote.
And they do this in a most vulgar, conceivable way.
Sure.
I'm sorry, Dan, but I'm talking about my own experience as a journalist.
I'm a philanthropist, the one that I have a great relation and all my initiatives work and all the country knows how to move for peace and coexistence.
And I was afraid to share a picture that, you know, convey my own feelings through the children or what happens in Gaza.
Because I know that after, the day after, Benigvir come to my house and take me on the present.
I agree.
And nobody can help.
You know, a lot of, I help for, that's what I, in a sensitive period, unfortunately, that's what I, what I did.
And you remember what I did.
I just make a meeting face-to-face in person with Jews and Arabs together to reduce the To reduce the frustration, to reduce the hatred, to reduce an order to transfer it to calm, to peace.
You know, that's a very complicated period that we can't neglect what Netanyahu Benekvir, until today, what they did.
I agree.
I mean, I was engaging in perhaps a journalistic quibble.
It's not yet destroyed.
But it's very bad.
The Israeli, the right wing, the right religious coalition in Israel, currently, very sadly, in power, clinging to power, despite being very unpopular at this point, they don't have democracy in their DNA. They don't have, they certainly don't have liberal democracy.
Their version of democracy is dictatorship of the majority, and once they have a majority, they will try to engineer a permanent majority.
It's a Putin version of democracy.
Israel is really an interesting case.
I said before that if Ghada and I were allowed to run the country, it would be among the best places.
It has tremendous successes.
Israel, in 2002, before Netanyahu was elected, he was elected towards the end of that year, It had a higher per capita GDP than Germany, Britain, and France.
This is not an unsuccessful country.
It punches way above its weight in so many things.
Technology, Nobel Prizes, literature.
It could be great.
But it's self-destructive.
And the self-destruction is happening because of very particular people.
The right religious coalition and their base and their supporters.
So that's quite a dichotomy.
I mean, which way it goes, nobody knows.
I can't predict.
But I know that a very big storm is coming.
I think that we have to work together.
We don't have to wait for somebody to get the peace.
We have Jews as Palestinians work together, hand by hand.
I'm not optimistic, but I think how I mentioned in the beginning, it's very difficult for me to neglect my own history and what happens to my grandpa and father.
And part of them, you know, left the land.
But I just look for my children and the future of my children.
That's enough.
I think that we have to work together and not let people like Netanyahu and other racism sides just to move the region or the place for and destroy it.
We have to think about better futures and we just not wait for Anyone to think about it.
We have just to work hard.
And we can't do that, and it's impossible.
We can't say, on one hand, we can say that it's not easy to do it, but we can succeed to do it, I think, if we want to do that.
No one can disagree, and I believe that's what we actually try to do.
I would add, it's so complex and difficult that we need Israel needs help from its friends, American friends in particular.
It's critical.
There's a lot the Americans can do to ease the process, to provide global leadership and regional leadership.
And my sense is, Mr.
Kennedy, that if you are elected in November, you would.
I think you know this very well.
What should America be doing right now?
What should the U.S. president be doing right now?
First of all, the U.S. President should not display such weakness vis-a-vis outrages happening in the region like the Hussies, blocking...
It's not just Israel-Palestin.
I find the Biden administration, like...
Much of the liberal world doesn't really carry a big stick.
I carry a bigger stick.
I carry that big stick with the Houthis, with the Iranians, with Lebanon and Hezbollah, where what's going on is an outrage, with Netanyahu, with Hamas and the supporters of Hamas.
I would lay down the law.
And instead, they're running around trying to persuade a bunch of miscreants to not spit in their face.
I find it pathetic.
What do you mean what's going on with Hezbollah?
What do we do about Hezbollah?
This could so easily trip into a world war.
Absolutely.
I think nobody's really talking about the reality that this is existential for Israel.
Israel could disappear.
This is the first time That people have entertained that thought for a long time, you know, that, and then what happens, I mean, the Palestinians that are under control of Iran, and it's not, that's not good for them.
What happened, you know, do we...
Do we, you know, we need to contemplate a world without Israel.
And, you know, is that, you know, what is that world going to look like?
And so, I interrupted you.
Let's just talk a little bit.
I can't disagree with what you said.
Clearly, my long-term strategies and short-term strategies is in the direction of peace and partition of Israel into Israel as it currently stands and a Palestinian state, probably.
But in any case, no longer Israeli occupation in the West Bank or Gaza.
But I do think Israel's legitimate...
Concerns on the security side need to be addressed.
The West Bank is really, really close to Israel.
It comes within 30 miles of Tel Aviv or less, surrounds Jerusalem on three sides, and should that fall under the control of Hamas, you're looking at a very big problem.
So that is not paranoia on the part of the Israelis.
That's a legitimate concern.
I think the U.S. has kind of left Israel and the Palestinians and all their variants and the region to their own devices because of a combination of Trump's isolationist instinct and transactionalism and Biden's.
And in general, the left liberal sides, not indifference, but reluctance to impose anything on anyone.
They're always talking.
And I think this region needs help.
It needs a very tough love to somehow engineer this future where this partition is possible.
And you're right, you can't just blunder into Lebanon and have World War III, because there's a series of domino-like tripwires where that could happen.
But on the other hand, the U.S. should make very clear, I think, to France and to the government of Lebanon that this is in no way acceptable to have the territory of Lebanon being used by a militia that's larger than the army of Lebanon to fire rockets at a neighboring country.
And by the way, the Galilee, which is taking the brunt of the rockets, half of it is Israeli Arabs.
I mean, it's insane.
And if this is somehow treated as a reasonable thing, and Amos Hochstein goes around, like, trying to get someone to talk to him, and no clear statement is made, I don't think is necessarily good.
And God, should we take...
I just want to say...
Yes.
Go ahead.
I just want to say regarding the question about what we expect from the United States.
I'm so disappointed, sorry to tell that, for what happens or the reaction of the United States government nowadays of dealing and all what happens around Gaza and our war in our region.
How I mentioned before that I expect from United States as a state as a country, move the place for better and peaceful worldwide, especially in our region.
I think in order to bring, to make this place more safety or more, you know, for a long term, just peace.
And when I said peace, that's give both states States for both peoples.
Because if you want to just talk with Lebanese and talk with Syria and others, the theft will come after we'll give the Palestinians their own states.
How to give it?
Where to give it?
I don't discuss this point now, but I think the solution for long-term To bring, to transfer all the hatred or transfer all the complicated reality, our complicated reality here to more, to be more safe and more calm here.
I think just, you know, we have to work to bring or to recognition in Palestinian states.
Otherwise, unfortunately.
Here's one thing.
Here are two things the U.S. could do.
The U.S. could tell Qatar not another dollar goes to Hamas.
Otherwise, there will be consequences.
And the U.S. can tell Netanyahu not another settler goes to the West Bank.
Not one.
Or there will be consequences.
I don't want to talk to you.
I'm not sending Hochstein.
I'm not sending Blinken.
I'm telling you, I'm your big friend.
Everything will continue as is, but not one more settlement.
Lay down the law.
Is it out of respect for Israel's democracy that it doesn't do this?
Or for Qatar's democracy?
It's out of weakness.
And it's enabling bad faith players to run riot.
So I guess, in different ways, you're getting the same answer from both myself and Gada, which is the US needs to be involved.
Should be.
I mean, do we take any encouragement from the fact that there have not been mass protests from Palestinians within Israel?
And is there a growing tension among those Palestinians about what's happening in Gaza and up in the north on the Lebanese border?
How did the Palestinians in Israel, the 18% of Israel's population that is Palestinian, how are they reacting to this?
Look, actually, you are talking about the same Palestinians.
It's not different, you can't make the distinction between Palestinians who live in Israel, who live in Kuwait, who live in the United States.
All Palestinians are in the same, you know, circle.
But when you're talking about the Arab Palestinian who lives in Israel, They are aware of the complicated reality, but they behave differently with more reality, like how I mentioned before, that I look for not dealing with conflict more by how to find or how to build or strengthen the ties between Jews and Palestinians.
Okay, indifferent, but we can't, you know, separate the feelings.
Almost all the Palestinians inside Israel They disagree what happens nowadays in Gaza and even though in the West Bank.
And not just the Arab Palestinians, even though the Jews in Israel, most of them disagree what happens with the war.
More and more victims and just the citizens paid the high price in this war.
So we can't separate the feelings.
The same feelings And most of them, you know, feel that they have to stop immediately the war and think about other strategies, even though people who live in Israel and other countries.
But how I mentioned, the Arab Palestinians as a minority in Israel look With worldwide circle, look at the conflict in different corners, different eyes, because they want to lead the place or the region to improve it, more or less, to say.
But the same feeling, and almost most of them, you know, feel, even though disappointed from most of the leaders, that they don't take any decision to stop the war until today, after eight months.
Dan, we're about out of time.
Can you close us out with some reasons to be optimistic?
Look, yes, Glenn.
I think the optimistic thing I can say is that, I mean, almost something that aligns with the "it's always darkest before the dawn" cliche.
If you wanted to show Israelis how bad the current path could be and how much they need of political change, events of the past year and a half, the Putinization and then the war with Gaza and then the reaction of the world, does that in a pretty condensed way.
It focuses the mind and polls show that if there was a new election, you'd have a very different outcome.
That's one reason to be optimistic.
And on the Palestinian side, I struggled to come up with a similar outcome or notion, but I'm hopeful, hopeful that voices like others will prevail when the dust settles, because they too have seen what tremendous destruction looks like.
And how if you dance with the devil, devil being Hamas, you're going to end up in hell.
I mean, they must be able to see.
So, yeah, that's the reason to be optimistic, that we've seen how bad things can get, and you can sort of see the contours of the better future.
And Gada, final words.
I just, I believe that all the time they tell me, Rata, you're all the time optimistic.
I think that I should be like that in order to think about my children's future and my children's future.
And even though if all the time I will evoke memories and just back to the past and to the, you know, the history of my family, it's destroyed my dreams.
I don't want to think about destroying dreams.
I want to look ahead and to look at the reality in my, through my eyes and try to change the reality for best future and healthier future.
So I think we should be sometimes optimistic at work to be optimistic, work hard in order to be optimistic also.
And Dan Perry, thank you very much for joining us on the Path to Peace.
And I wish you both best of luck, and I'm very, very grateful to you for your wisdom, and particularly you, God, for the hard work and dangerous work you do.
To try to find a path to healing and kindness and compassion and coexistence.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
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