Open to Debate: Is the Two-State Solution Still Viable?

In a collaboration between CFR and Open to Debate, panelists debate whether or not the two-state solution is still a viable path for peace in the Middle East.

Open to Debate is the nation’s only nonpartisan, debate-driven media organization dedicated to bringing multiple viewpoints together for a constructive, balanced, respectful exchange of ideas. Open to Debate is a platform for intellectually curious and open-minded people to engage with others holding opposing views on complex issues.

ANNOUNCER: One land, two irreconcilable claims. For Jewish Israelis, a legacy reaching back millennia. For Palestinians, a memory of homes lost in this lifetime. The price paid? Terrorism, occupation, endless war. But can peace be found by dividing the land? A two-state compromise that once seemed promising and that the U.S. endorsed. But after October 7, is there the will? In light of the worst violence in years, we ask: Is the two-state solution still viable? A debate in partnership with the Council on Foreign Relations. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: This is Open to Debate. Hi, everybody. I’m John Donvan, standing on a stage at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City, about to bring on stage four superbly qualified debaters to explore an idea, a proposed way out of the violence—the mutual violence between Israelis and Palestinians that took a worsening turn on October 7 and in the days after, but that has also been a defining factor for decades.  

Also for decades, it’s been proposed that the ultimately necessary compromise for these two peoples to share the land they both claim will be to find a way to share the land by creating two states. Which may sound very naive at this particular moment, but in times past this idea inspired hope and even seemed to have momentum. Can the hope and the momentum return, or is that a pipe dream at this point? The question we’re debating in partnership with our hosts here at the Council on Foreign Relations: Is the two-state solution still viable?  

Now let’s meet our debaters. Please welcome first Ambassador Dennis Ross. (Applause.) Professor Mohammed Dajani Daoudi. (Applause.) Israeli Special Envoy for Trade and Innovation Fleur Hassan-Nahoum. (Applause.) And senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations Elliott Abrams. (Applause.)  

So we’re going to begin in our first round, which is comprised of opening statements by each debater in turn. We have given them two and a half minutes each to make their case to each of you. And speaking first will be Ambassador Dennis Ross. Dennis is a counselor and distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. And he’s a lecturer at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. Dennis has been in the room, literally, in shaping U.S. involvement in Middle East peace process issues for decades, across multiple presidential administrations.  

Dennis, you are answering yes to the question, “Is a two-state solution still viable?” This spot on the floor is yours to tell us why.  

ROSS: Two minutes and twenty-five seconds. I’m going to make my case quite succinctly.  

Let me start off by saying if the question up there was, is a two-state solution still viable today, meaning now, my answer would be no. I would say no, because the Palestinians are split. They have an ideological gap between Hamas and Fatah and the PA. Hamas is an Islamist organization. It is an ideological movement. It is an ideological movement that rejects the idea of Israel, that is driven by an ideology of resistance—armed resistance, and that rejects the very idea of a two-state outcome. The Palestinian Authority and Fatah accept the principle of two states, but you never hear them talking or educating about the issue and promoting coexistence. The governance of the Palestinian Authority is basically bad and it’s fully corrupt.  

On the Israeli side, you have a government that does not accept a two-state outcome. It has some ministers who are working very practically on the ground to try to prevent it. And if you ask the Israeli public, do they accept a Palestinian state today? They’d say, but a Palestinian state will be led by Hamas. So it looks bleak. But the reality is, we’re not asking, is it viable forever. We’re asking, is it viable for now? If you say now, the answer is no. If you say forever, I say yes, there’s a possibility.  

But what’s the alternative to two states? The alternative is one state. And one state, I can tell you, will never be viable. And for a very simple reason. There are two national movements competing for the same space. These are two national movements with distinct national identities. Those national identities are rooted in the land. They’re driven emotionally, historically, psychologically, and culturally. They will not coexist in the same place. They will not disappear. Ahmed Ghneim is someone I knew, who was a member of the Tanzim, who once said: If there is one state either we will dominate the Israelis, or they will dominate us. And you don’t have to take my word for it. You don’t have to take his word for it. Look at the region. Look around the region. There is not one place where you have a state where there’s a national, sectarian or tribal identity that is at peace. If you want the Israelis and the Palestinians to look like Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, or Levin (sic), then you want one state. One state is a prescription for a forever conflict. Thank you. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: To give her opening statement, and answering no to the question, “Is the two-state solution still viable?” I want to welcome Fleur Hassan-Nahoum. Fleur is the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem. She’s also Israel’s special envoy for trade and innovation. She was the first woman to be appointed secretary general for Kol Israel, the ideological successor to the General Zionist Party and the World Zionist Congress. She’s also cofounder of the UAE Business Council.  

Fleur, welcome. You are answering no to the question. This space is yours. (Applause.) 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: So Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. And this is the problem with a two-state solution. We’ve been here before. From 1937, when the Peel Commission expressed the idea of two states and Amin al-Husseini said no. Then he went and allied himself with Hitler to see if he would help him get rid of the problem of the pesky Jews of Palestine. Then we move on to 1947, the partition plan of the U.N. Again, it was a no by the Palestinian leadership when Israel said yes.  

Three horrible existential wars. They weren’t for a piece of land. They were to destroy the state of Israel. And somehow we hobbled with some hope onto the Madrid Conference and onto Oslo. And in Oslo there were unspeakable amount of sacrifices that Israel was ready to do to take part of the heartland—of the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria and give 90 percent of it for a Palestinian state, and also divide Jerusalem, the eternal capital. We lost a prime minister along the way to get to the two-state solution. And Arafat said no. And instead of going and renegotiating, we went towards an Intifada that killed thousands of innocent people in the city of Jerusalem. Now I’m not saying that if we would have had Professor Dajani negotiating we wouldn’t today be celebrating twenty-four years of a Palestinian state. But, alas, that wasn’t the case.  

So then we tried something different—unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. We left a beautiful strip of land. And instead of the Palestinians seeing this as a pilot for a state and creating Dubai, Singapore, they created Beirut. And even as the rockets were falling in 2009 from Gaza, Ehud Olmert offered another state that was rejected. And so the bottom line is that the Palestinian leadership have never wanted a state. It is not their dream. It was our dream, maybe Ambassador Ross’s dream. Maybe even the projection of our own statehood onto another people.  

The problem of the conflict is not that there isn’t a Palestinian state. The problem of the conflict is that there’s a Jewish state that the Palestinian leadership and the people have never accepted. And don’t take it from me. Look at the education system. Look at the poetry. Look at the songs. The problem is that the two-state solution was never their dream. And after October 7, we have to conclude that they didn’t want the two-state solution. They simply want the final solution. Thank you. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: Our next speaker is Professor Mohammed Dajani. Mohammed is a Palestinian scholar, a peace activist, the founder of Wasatia, a movement which seeks to promote tolerance, interfaith dialog, and peaceful coexistence. Mohammed, you’ve been saying, and are saying, that a two-state solution is still viable. This space is yours. (Applause.) 

DAJANI: The question I would like to raise is why is peace elusive? Peace is elusive because we are stuck in the past and the present, as we have heard. And the thing is, we need to move on to the future. The two-state solution is the future. Now, the problem is now how to deal with a two-state solution? Is it viable or not? One hundred forty-six states say it’s viable. It took momentum in the last month by five states agreeing to the statehood of Palestine.  

Now the question is, should we move on? Now the other states which do not recognize Palestine are—want negotiations. But negotiations with whom? Between a state and the PLO, an organization like what happened in Oslo? Or between a state and the PA, an entity? No. The right way is to have negotiations between a state and a state. And that’s why it is so important to have the two-state solution.  

Now we have heard that we went out of Gaza and then rockets kept coming. Yes. But you went out of Gaza, and you gave the credibility to Hamas and to the extremists with your unilateral withdrawal. If you would not withdraw unilaterally, and if you would have accepted—if you would have negotiated and gave credit to diplomacy, and then Hamas would not have taken the credit of claiming it threw out the Israeli Army. Now the question is, we have 163 states that recognize Israel. One forty-five states that recognize Palestine.  

Now, if we have two states, then we can have more states recognizing both states—maybe 190 states. And so it is in the best interest. It’s a win-win situation. And so far we have failed because it was either a win-lose situation or, like in Gaza, it’s a lose-lose situation. If we are thinking in terms of a win-win situation, the answer is to have a two-state solution in order for us to be able to have equality, parity, and symmetry within our relationship. Thank you. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: Thank you. And finishing up this round and giving his opening statement, answering no to the question, is Elliott Abrams. Elliott is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies here at the county here at the Council on Foreign Relations. Another person who’s been in the room on U.S. policy. He served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor under President George W. Bush, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House. Elliott, again, you are answering no to the question of “Is a two-state solution still viable?” (Applause.) 

ABRAMS: Thank you. I wish I could be on the other team. I wish I could believe that the two-state solution was a solution. But it’s not. For one thing, neither Israelis nor Palestinians believe in it. On neither side is there a majority support. This is not a new phenomenon. It’s not a product of the—of the Gaza war. In 2006, there was a parliamentary election, the last one, and Hamas won with 43 percent of the vote. Now, if you look at the most recent polls, Hamas is still in the forties, and still has a plurality. So Palestinians aren’t for this solution.  

It’s also much too dangerous. I brought this piece of paper to read a line from Salman Rushdie. “If there were a Palestinian state now it would be run by Hamas and we would have a Taliban-like state, a satellite state of Iran.” Now, the word “now” is in there. And Dennis, of course, said, oh, not now, not now. What’s going to change? I wish I could say that the Islamic Republic were on its last legs. Give it a year or two. It’s not, very, very sadly. 

Palestinian opinion toward Israel has been the same, as Fleur said, for nearly a hundred years now—rejecting the Peel Commission, rejecting partition in ’48, rejecting every peace proposal. Why? Because the main goal of Palestinian nationalism has been negative, not positive. It has never been to build a Palestinian state. It has been about destroying the Jewish state. Not every Palestinian has that view. Salam Fayyad, when he was prime minister, ran in the 2006 elections on a state building line, and got 2 percent of the vote.  

This is a formula for more war. I’ll come back later to the question of the so-called demilitarization, but this creation of a Palestinian state today or tomorrow is a formula for increasing the conflict. As Iran makes that state, as Rushdie said, its own satellite and a launching pad for attacks on Israel. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: Thank you. So that concludes our opening round. And now we move onto—the body of the debate will be much more free-flowing conversation. I just want to ask all of our debaters, are you comfortable with my using first names? I have permission to do that. More sensitively, do I have your permission to interrupt you if I feel that that would be an appropriate cause? 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: At your peril. (Laughter.) 

DONVAN: Yeah, well, when I turned to the Israeli I was wondering about that question. (Laughter.) So we’re going to move onto this discussion. And I guess I am chairing the debate. (Laughter.) I just want to sum up what I think I heard our two teams say.  

We heard from Dennis Ross and Mohammed Dajani an argument. They’re making the point that their framework requires recognizing the difference between “now” versus “forever.” They concede now it doesn’t look like a great time for everybody to be jumping on board for a two-state solution, but their argument is that this is not a permanent state of affairs, that things could change. They’re hoping that things could change. They look back to the to a past where there was more momentum for this idea. They’re also making the argument that if there is any hope of lasting peace there have to be two states. That’s the only basis for which the region can ever reach peace. They make indications also—or, Mohammed did—that the Israelis have made mistakes along the way that, to some degree, explain the failure up to this point. 

Their opponents are saying, look, it’s been tried, it’s been tried, it’s been tried. The time for trying is over. That the Israelis made many, many offers that the Palestinians turned down and instead offered an intifada. And that, frankly, their opinion is that Palestinians fundamentally are not interested in a two-state solution and living in peace with Israel, but that their goal is the destruction of Israel. And you made an allusion to demilitarization, which I think is a topic that we want to return to because that would be one of the terms for the conversation.  

I want to start by asking you, Dennis Ross, to talk a little bit about—more about this notion of—you’re saying it’s not—the present is not necessarily the future, that things could change. Where do you see that impetus coming from? 

ROSS: I think the impetus, in some ways, comes from how terrible the situation is for both sides. You think the people of Gaza right now are looking for more war? You think Israel, given the cost of what has happened, is looking for more war? No. I don’t think so. Is there an easy pathway? No. You know, having played a role in a lot of the failed efforts I can tell you I know that, you know, the history gives us a reason to be pessimistic. But I also come back to the reality that I don’t hear a good alternative to two states. You can criticize two states as an outcome, but you still have to deal with the fact there are two separate national identities and the likelihood of them coexisting in one state I think is close to nil.  

DONVAN: So is your argument that there’s no choice, which I think you just said, or is your argument that conditions could change so that both sides would be more willing?  

ROSS: The two are—the two are related. If both sides come to understand there’s no choice, then you create a different impetus for looking at conditions. I don’t believe this is something you can—you can change overnight. I think it does require leadership on the Palestinian side that we have not seen. I think it requires soul searching on the Palestinian side and an introspection about learning their lessons from the past. They’ve had opportunities.  

I’ll just close with one thought. When we were at Camp David we had one session that I organized all night with just two on each side. And at the end of that session, Shlomo Ben-Ami came out—who was then the minister of interior for Israel—and he said, “if we were like them in 1948, we would not have a state.” What we need is to see Palestinians be prepared to assume a set of responsibilities, be prepared to do the kind of things that Mohammed does, which is actually educate for tolerance and coexistence. That’s not impossible, if they come to realize how bleak the future is if they don’t. 

DONVAN: Fleur. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: I just want to say that you’re making this very binary. What you’re saying is you either have a two-state solution or a one-state solution which will then end the Jewish state. You’re 100 percent right. A one-state solution would end the Jewish state. But getting stuck on this mantra that has no connection to reality, not today, not in twenty years, and, I dare say, not in fifty years, prevents other, other more creative solutions from coming to be. Why is it just about the one-state or the two-state solution? Why can’t we push for more autonomy, more prosperity? Why can’t we push for federation? Maybe even a regional arrangement, which, by the way, was another thing that the Palestinians rejected in 2020 with the Abraham Accords. That was a regional arrangement that Trump put forward. But what you’re doing is, I think, getting stuck on this mantra stops us from thinking about other solutions. And that’s what’s concerning. 

ROSS: By the way, can I just add one thing? Trump also provided for a Palestinian state. 

FLEUR: Absolutely. But there had to be milestones. Milestones of taking responsibility, accountability, eliminating corruption. There were milestones. And what did they do with it? They said no. There’s a surprise. 

DONVAN: Mohammed. 

DAJANI: Actually, we keep—we keep talking about the past and the present, and I’m more concerned about the future. Because we keep demonizing each other. We keep delegitimizing each other. We keep blaming each other. And we keep—so we have to put this in the past. And let us think new ideas, the creative ideas you are talking about, about the future. There is—there is no way that you can build a future without parity, without equality, without self-determination for the Palestinians. And the Palestinians feel that they have to have a homeland, like you have had a homeland. 

DONVAN: So on an equal basis, you’re saying. 

DAJANI: On equal basis. 

DONVAN: OK. 

DAJANI: And— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: They could have had one by now.  

DONVAN: Elliott. 

ABRAMS: I just—I am struck by the fact that when you listen to world leaders—the president, Tony Blinken, European foreign ministers, prime ministers—they always talk about two states, a Jewish and democratic state and a viable, independent, sovereign Palestinian state. And the word that’s missing is “democratic.” Why is it missing? Because they know that an independent Palestinian state is going to be a Hamas state. And they don’t want that. Of course, they don’t want that. Therefore, they’re afraid to mention the word “democracy.” That’s the problem. And it isn’t solved by creating, willy-nilly, a Palestinian state and then hoping that, well, maybe people will change their minds. There’s no evidence for it.  

DAJANI: You know what’s the problem? The problem is that you plant weeds and you expect flowers. Now you cannot have a state with occupation and then say, oh, this is—look at what the Palestinians are. You have to end the occupation and then—put me to account. If you end the occupation, you give me my state, and then—and give me democracy, and let me have democracy. And then decide whether I am doing then. But you are judging me with the occupation. And as a result, Hamas emerges. And so you should— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: Sorry, didn’t we leave Gaza? We didn’t leave Gaza in 2005? 

DAJANI: Yeah, but you left it— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: That’s exactly what we did. 

DAJANI: Yeah, but you left it and gave credit to Hamas.  

HASSAN-NAHOUM: Credit?  

DAJANI: Yeah, of course. You left it unilaterally. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: We left it to the PA. 

DAJANI: And so Hamas said, threw them out. You did not sit with the PA at the time, and give diplomacy a chance, and be able to give also negotiations a chance. You just left. And so Hamas— 

DONVAN: So just for those who— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: We tried that in 2000-2001. It didn’t work. 

DONVAN: I know a lot of you know the facts on the ground, but just for those of you who don’t. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. At that time, the Palestinian Authority—which was represented by Yasser Arafat—was supposedly in charge. But within a short amount of time, there was an election. Hamas won. There was a war between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. And the Palestinian Authority was violently ousted as a result of that. And if I’m wrong in any of that, let me know.  

HASSAN-NAHOUM: And somehow that’s still our fault. 

ABRAMS: You know— 

ROSS: No, but, look, to be fair—look, to be fair to Mohammed. What Mohammed is saying is, if the withdrawal from Gaza—had Prime Minister Sharon announced in principle he was withdrawing from Gaza, but he was going to negotiate the withdrawal so that the Palestinian Authority was assuming responsibilities in advance of the withdrawal, and demonstrated the fulfillment of those responsibilities in advance of the withdrawal, then you would be building up those who believed in coexistence as opposed to simply withdrawing and allowing Hamas to say, you see, our violence worked. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: Like we did in the West Bank and Judea and Samaria in 2000-2001, when the Palestinian Authority was formed. Wasn’t that exactly what we did? Ninety-four percent of Palestinians are living under the Palestinian Authority. That was an interim solution within the Oslo Accords.  

ROSS: It was, but— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: Isn’t that exactly what we did? 

ROSS: It is—yes, partially. Did you give full autonomy to the Palestinians in A and B at that time? 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: We kept security control because we had no choice.  

ROSS: It wasn’t just security control. Did you allow— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: In area A and B? Yes, it was. Area C is a different story.  

ROSS: And you allowed them to go ahead and to export goods with no Israeli controls? And you allowed movement with no Israeli controls at all? 

ABRAMS: But you’re arguing, in a sense, that Israel should walk out. Now it walked out in Gaza, and it gave that territory to the PA which governed it for two years, remember. Hamas didn’t take over the next day. The PA had two years to show it could do something positive and constructive, and failed.  

ROSS: Yes, but one of the points that he’s making, and I’m reinforcing, is maybe if there had been more coordination on the issue of withdrawal you would have seen could they fulfill the responsibilities they were being given, number one. Number two, you look at someone like Salam Fayyad, who, in fact, was ready to build a state from the ground up. And it’s not a question of Israel simply has to give and not maintain any control and not have demonstrations. He was asking for the Israelis, frequently, allow me—put me in a position where I have to deliver, put me in a position where I have to fulfill my responsibilities. And frequently, Israel did not do so. They did not act in a way that would have built up the authority of someone like Salam Fayyad. 

ABRAMS: You know, Dennis, that was true of the United States as well. And why was it true? Why is it that the United States did not focus on helping Fayyad do that? Because we were negotiating the two-state solution. All the energy went into the diplomacy, rather than building from the ground up. And again, I would say to you, remember that Fayyad got 2 percent in the election with his state-building formula. It was not popular. People did not want to do that.  

I just want to say one other word about the weeds and flowers thing. (Laughs.) It’s a great line. But most of the countries in the world were once colonies. They were ruled by someone else who walked away. And an awful lot of them built constructive, prosperous liberal democracies.  

DAJANI: You cannot do that with occupation.  

ABRAMS: But you had occupation in all those countries.  

DAJANI: The elephant in the room—the elephant in the room is occupation. You talk as if there is no occupation. Why don’t you go there and see what the occupation is?  

ABRAMS: There was an occupation in every country. 

DAJANI: I live there and I suffer every day from that occupation, although I live in Jerusalem. Yet people in the West Bank and Gaza, you are living in a big prison. So you’re ignoring the occupation. 

ABRAMS: That was true of the British colonies and the French colonies. 

DONVAN: I asked in my opening whether there is still will or not. And you’ve made the argument that the Palestinians don’t have the will. And I think you may have said the Israelis have lost the will— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: They’ve lost the will. 

DONVAN: —to make this work. But in terms of the past—and I don’t want to spend too much time on the past, although I think it’s incredibly relevant—I happen to have been an ABC News correspondent based in Jerusalem in the 1980s. And when I first went out there Menachem Begin was the prime minister. And his government’s policy was to establish settlements with the express—literally, express purpose—what he called creating facts on the ground—to ensure that there never could be a contiguous Palestinian state. The message being that that government was not at all interested in sanctioning the creation of a Palestinian state.  

Things changed when Rabin came along. Vut then Rabin got assassinated by somebody who didn’t like the fact that he was creating a Palestinian state. Netanyahu, at that time, was warning against the creation of a Palestinian state, and has continued in the policy of making it very difficult to create a Palestinian state. So I just want to check in with you on whether the will among Israelis really was ever there, or not. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: The will was there, I would say, in Oslo. The public opinion for a Palestinian state during Oslo was probably at its highest, 60-70 percent. Also, the Palestinian will for a two-state solution, at least the polling that was done then, was more positive than it’s ever been today. And this is the tragedy of the situation. This is why I say that Yasser Arafat has a lot of blame here. Because if he hadn’t walked away, and if he hadn’t unleashed suicide bombers in our city—where Professor Dejani and I live—in 2001, which is when I moved to Israel, we could be celebrating today twenty-four years of a Palestinian state. That was the moment when he cut off the legs of the two-state solution, and Mahmoud Abbas punched it in the stomach, and Yahya Sinwar shot it in the head.  

DONVAN: What do you make of your opponent’s argument that the Palestinians don’t have the will or any interest? That, in fact, the ruling ideology is to destroy Israel?  

ROSS: Look, I was there. I wrote a book that described that Arafat said no when he should have said yes. The Palestinians have not had a leadership that was prepared to assume responsibility. They haven’t had a leadership that was prepared to socialize for peace and education. They haven’t had that. But it doesn’t mean they can never have it. What I don’t want to do is foreclose the possibility.  

Elliott, I’m a huge believer in you build from the ground up. I mean, I also agree that some of our mistakes in the past is we’ve spent too much time negotiating and not building the substance of a state from the ground up, which is what Fayyad wanted. He wanted to build a state from the ground up so no one could deny it. We didn’t do enough to help in that regard. 

We’re at a point, given everything that’s happened, we have to have a ground-up effort. We also have to have a top-down effort. This is not something that can happen overnight. It is something where you have to restore faith. Both sides have lost faith and belief. This isn’t a loss of confidence. This is a loss of a sense of possibility. This is a loss of being able to relate to the other as humans. They demonize each other. So we have to—we’re going to have to reestablish even the idea of functional cooperation as a baseline to be able to work to the future.  

What I don’t want to do is see an impossibility of creating a Palestinian state. The creative solution, Fleur, that you talk about, I’m not against those. I think those could be—A, they could be an outcome. They could be a waystation to an outcome. What I don’t want to see is an approach that produces one state and leaves no other possibility. And I’m afraid some of the things I see, for example, Minister Smotrich doing, creating that kind of an outcome.  

DONVAN: So— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: And I just don’t want to commit suicide. 

ROSS: I don’t want you to. (Laughter.) 

ABRAMS: Well, we agree on that. 

DONVAN: Elliott, you were talking about demilitarization. You were talking about the details.  

ABRAMS: Let me just say, I think, you know, the problem is this has been going on for a long time, right? Since 1967. And we don’t see really—I mean, we all named Fayyad, who’s wonderful. But we don’t see much other than Fayyad. We see election results. We see—after all of the discussions of the need—and, you know, you’re not the only person saying this; many people have said this—the need for changes in Palestinian society.  

Yet, plazas and schools are still being named after murderers. Yet, the pay to slay program is still there, where Palestinians who have committed acts of terrorism are paid salaries by the PA. Not Hamas. By the PA, while they are in prison. And the amount they are paid rises with the severity of the crime. This has been going on for decades, and it hasn’t stopped. Which is what leads me to be more pessimistic than you are about the change in Palestinian society that we would all like to see. It’s just, after all of these decades I don’t see the—I wish I did—I don’t see the basis for the optimism.  

DAJANI: Well, if you walk in the streets of Jerusalem, you will find many streets named after what were supposed to be terrorists before 1948. So basically you are saying the same thing. Israel— 

DONVAN: You mean Israeli names. 

DAJANI: Yeah, Israeli names, Israeli terrorists under the—before 1948. And so basically these things are symbols. The PA cannot back pay people not because they are terrorists or as well, because they are human being, and so there are families. And you they don’t want them to—it’s a humanistic thing to support the families of those who were killed or who are in prison.  

ABRAMS: No, a humanistic system would be based—you could have a welfare system that says, tell me how many children you have and we will—we will give you a certain amount of money. When you pay it in accordance with the—with the grossness and brutality of the crime, that’s not a humanistic system. 

DAJANI: Look, this is your creation. The problem is you are the ones who are supporting the PA. You are the ones who created in Oslo the PA.  

ABRAMS: Blame him. (Laughter.) 

DAJANI: And so basically— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: So let me get this straight.  

DONVAN: Let the audience know that Elliott pointed at Dennis Ross. 

ROSS: I didn’t want a corrupt PA. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: We get blamed for creating the PA. We get blamed for not letting the PA rule. We get blamed for letting them rule. So basically, we get blamed for everything.  

DAJANI: No, no— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: And this is the bottom line of the problem with the conflict.  

DONVAN: Is that accurate? 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: That there is zero accountability. There is only the infantilization of the Palestinian people propping up—propping up an education system that is teaching glorification of martyrs, that is teaching antisemitism, that is teaching that the only solution— 

DONVAN: Fleur, can I—can I— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: —the only solution— 

DONVAN: All right, could I ask you a question? 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: The only solution is—the only solution is the right of return and from the river to the sea. This is the schoolbook funded by the U.N., funded by countries around the world. 

DONVAN: All right, you have a very strong point, but— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: Do you know when we’re going to have peace?  

ROSS: Can I—can I ask a question? 

DONVAN: Wait, wait, the interest of time only, I want to let Dennis speak. 

ROSS: I want to ask a question, because everything you just said, by the way, I agree with, OK? But my question to you is, what if, in fact, we’re able to create a new educational system there?  

HASSAN-NAHOUM: I wish. 

ROSS: What if, in fact, you begin to see a different narrative emerge from the Palestinians? Would it change your view? 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: Absolutely. But I’m realistic. I live in this world and not in la-la land. 

ROSS: OK, so let me give you—let me give you—but one point— 

DAJANI: Let me ask you one question. 

ROSS: All right. And then I want one. 

DAJANI: Is there a map in Israel, in the schools or outside the schools, that shows the Palestinian territories, or shows Palestine? 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: So I’m glad you asked me that question because I have four children that have been, and one of them is still, in the Israeli school system. And let me tell you what they come home singing. They come home singing, one day we’re going to have peace. They come home learning about Rabin and about the Oslo Accords. What are the kids in the Palestinian Authority schoolbooks—which, by the way, are the same schoolbooks that you have in Gaza, that you have in East Jerusalem—what are they learning? They’re learning that the best thing they can do with their lives is martyr themselves for the cause to free Palestine. Please, let’s not make a comparison.  

ROSS: So here’s the point I want to make. If you look at the UAE, you look at their educational system, and you look at them— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: I love them. 

ROSS: Right. And you know what? If we think—you want to think creatively? Let’s think creatively. Let’s think about the role that countries like the UAE can actually play with the Palestinians. What if—in the aftermath of Gaza, what if one of the things—what if they’re one of those who go in on the ground in Gaza? What if they— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: I would love that. 

ROSS: — assume responsibility for the educational ministry that would be set up there? 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: It would—great. Absolutely great. The UAE are an example of a deradicalized Muslim society, where Iran haven’t managed to get its tentacles in. 

ROSS: Right. So think—in terms of being creative—think about the role that Arab states can play with the Palestinians from the perspective of, in a sense, helping to shape what is the future—a reformed Palestinian Authority. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: That would be great, but the Palestinian Authority—but who are the people from the Palestinian Authority they’re going to work with? Because the people currently in the Palestinian Authority—or, like Biden wants to call it, revitalized, are still preaching the Jews are monkeys and pigs. These are people today from the revitalized Palestinian Authority. 

ROSS: There is—the issue is not revitalization. The issue is not revitalization. It has to be reform and transformation, for the Palestinian interest. 

DONVAN: We have—we have two minutes before I go to questions, and I just want to get to a piece of your argument, Elliott, that has not surfaced, and that’s kind of the geopolitical considerations. 

ABRAMS: Right, the demilitarization of— 

DONVAN: Yeah, and Iran. 

ABRAMS: Well, it’s very important because everybody who proposes a Palestinian state says, needless to say it has to be demilitarized. That is it’s not an Israeli demand. Everyone says it. And I think— 

DONVAN: By which you mean, the Israelis could have a military and the Palestinians would not. 

ABRAMS: Exactly.  

DONVAN: They would have a police force— 

ABRAMS: And this has been proposed in every agreement. And it’s completely unrealistic. You know, we know what a society looks like that wants to demilitarize bottom up. Think Costa Rica. Bottom-up. The leaders want to. The people want to. We also know what a society looks like when the people do not want to and it is imposed on them. And that’s Germany after the Versailles Treaty. That is a revanchist state. There is no reason to believe that Palestinians would accept this permanently.  

I think that what is more likely to happen is it would have to be enforced. Who’s going to enforce it? Now we have international boundaries—Palestinian state, independent, sovereign. Every act of enforcement by Israel is an act of war. Who’s going to do it? UNIFIL or some other U.N. agency? (Laughter.) The United States?  

HASSAN-NAHOUM: They were so helpful in Lebanon. 

ABRAMS: We are not going to do it. You are creating a monster here. You are creating a state, partly—largely because of the Islamic Republic of Iran, that will be a launching pad for more serious attacks on Israel. The demilitarization of a people who do not want to be demilitarized won’t last.  

DONVAN: Mohammed, I heard your opponent say that it would be creating a monster to create a Palestinian state. And I just want to get your reaction to that.  

DAJANI: They keep saying the same thing. If you create—if you create the state—if there is occupation, and you expect things to be better, no, they will not. I want to go back to the curriculum. I asked the Palestinian Minister of Education, why do you have this curriculum that teaches about martyrdom and death? He said, because this is a national education. I’m against this national education. I would like to have a curriculum that will teach peace education or—(inaudible)—education. But the PA does not believe that. And they believe that this is this the way. This is—to me, this is the wrong way. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: I agree. 

DAJANI: And we have to pave the way to peace. And by paving the way to peace is education. And so but this is something that we are fighting for in order to bring—to bring about a better future for our children. We do not want to change the curriculum just because to please others. We want to change the curriculum in order our children will grow up better, in a better way. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: OK. It’s my pleasure now to invite questions—and, again, I want to—I want to ask you to—the shorter your question is, the more we can get in, in the time we have. In the second row. If you could stand up. Thanks very much.  

Q: Good evening. My name is Roya Hakakian, and I’m a visiting scholar at The Moynihan Center at the City College in New York.  

Whoever is making the arrangement for new conversations and new peace agreement needs to be, obviously, thinking about rebuilding and changing. So is a new education system, is changing this war model that has become an economic model, is part of the negotiations as a new change in the Gaza and in the process of this war? 

ROSS: Look, the answer is we’re going to have to have a different approach to how we think about peacemaking. I said before, it has to be the ground up so it’s tangible. It can’t just be the top down and principles. We stayed way too long on trying to resolve the conflict at a level of principles from the top down. That’s relevant, but if it isn’t—if it doesn’t have the substance and the stuff of peace that’s being built from the ground up, it’s not sustainable anyway. So our approach is going to have to be different than it’s been in the past.  

DONVAN: I’d like to let the other side— 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: I just want to say, it was an Oslo commitment that was never done. It was an Oslo commitment. And then what bothers me more than anything is that the Palestinian education is subsidized by UNRWA, which is supported by the whole world. And I spent five years trying to lobby governments—not saying don’t support Palestinian education. Support them on condition that they take out the hatred. That’s all we ask for. Take out the hatred, then support the Palestinian education. Make it that condition.  

DONVAN: Second row here. 

Q: It seems that both sides agree that the Palestinian Authority is a corrupt leadership that must go. So why is it that the U.S. government views and bolsters the credibility of the Palestinian Authority to be the solution, when, in fact, the Palestinian Authority is the source of the problem?  

ROSS: To be fair to the administration, the administration used a term called “revitalization.” I don’t buy that term. I think it’s a mistake. But there was an understanding, the PA has to be reformed. Its governance is terrible. It’s characterized by corruption. It presides over an educational system that promotes incitement, not education. So you build a rule of law. You build a transparent economic approach. You create a different kind of educational system. And you create a social welfare system that’s based on need, not on—not on the basis of how long someone has served in prison. 

ABRAMS: Yeah. I worry here about the idea that this is a transient problem. That is, the problem was Arafat. And, unfortunately, Arafat’s replaced by Abbas. And Abbas is really not better. It seems to me the problem is deeper. It seems to me to be a deeper, even cultural problem that leaders like this are created and stay in power and have large political empires. And there is no evidence—let me put it a different way. Palestinian people obviously object to the corruption. That’s why the PA is so unpopular. But there’s no evidence, none, that the vast majority of Palestinians actually want a peace-seeking government. That’s a real problem.  

DONVAN: Do you agree with that? 

DAJANI: I think that it is very sad that this is the way. The other thing, I think that if we keep thinking that way, then we are—and this is where peace is elusive, because basically we think—we are thinking we are good, the other is bad. We are just, the other is unjust. We are not corruptible. The other are corruptible. So basically, we have to end up—and we have to take this formula and throw out, and start thinking anew. Now, give the Palestinians the state they want, and then judge them. Take away the occupation, and then judge them. And if you keep the occupation there, then—and then you expect us to be angels, it will not happen. 

ABRAMS: And who takes the risk? Who takes the risk that that state you’re creating will not turn into another Gaza, another Lebanon with a Hezbollah there? You’re imposing that risk on people who have just seen their children murdered. And they don’t want to take that risk. And I can hardly blame them. 

DONVAN: In the back. Yes, sir. If you could stand up. If you could tell us your name as well, please.  

Q: Hello. Dan Motulsky. 

Question for Elliott, and really the whole panel. Which is, in the absence of a two-state solution prospect, what are some of these creative solutions that don’t entail forever wars?  

DONVAN: I’m interested that you put that question to Elliott, because it was really Fleur who was arguing for that. But, Elliott, do you want to pass off, or? 

ABRAMS: Well, let me just say, I think there are other possibilities. Fleur mentioned the word “federation.” One could say confederation. I mean just—I’ll give you one example. Kurdistan. It’s not a country, but it has an enormous amount of autonomy for, let’s call it, the province. There are other possibilities. And, as Fleur said, we just never talk about them. We never explore them. We never try them. It’s probably a great historical mistake. 

DONVAN: So, Mohammed, your objection to that, I think from what you’ve said, is that you feel the Palestinians need to be—to have a status that’s equal to Israel in order there to be peace. Not being a canton, or something like that, or— 

DAJANI: That’s part of the—because what we have here is a dependency. And the Israelis are building that dependency. Even in the idea of the confederation, it is all economic dependency. And we need to give the Palestinians their right to self-determination, to be free, and then to judge them. But without that, don’t judge them.  

DONVAN: Front row, please. 

Q: Hi. Maryum Saifee. Thank you for the debate.  

First off, Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist. So my question is on the one-state solution. If demographics is destiny, and there’s a non-majority Jewish state, how viable is it to have a Jewish democracy that’s equitable, secular, the way the U.S. is structured, and other countries? So I’m sort of curious about that, and also just logistically with the occupation and the sort of Swiss-cheese arrangement of territory, how is—how can that happen? 

DONVAN: I see you making eye contact with Dennis, so. (Laughter.) 

ROSS: Well, actually—no. I actually think it should be directed over there. I mean, it’s—I think there is a risk to the Jewish democracy if you end up with a population where there is, in a sense, two different kind of legal and social systems. So I think Israel has to have an answer to that. I think there is a way to get there. I mean, what really separates us is there is a belief that—I think, of my colleagues over there—who feel the Palestinians are never able to adjust because the essence of the narrative is so deeply embedded in them that they really reject the idea of a Jewish state.  

My answer to that would be, there are—there ways to create benchmarks where there have to be performance. I think we have to get to two states, but I don’t think we can do it right away. I don’t think you can ask the Israelis to accept fundamental risks and sort of take a leap. In a sense, they did it twice. They withdrew from Lebanon unilaterally, and we saw what they got. They withdrew from Gaza unilaterally, and we saw what they got.  

Mohammed would say the reason for that is because you didn’t invest in moderates who believed in coexistence and built their authority by negotiating with them and letting them deliver. And I think there’s something to that, but I also think there is something fundamental here. And I’ll say this, my worry all along has been an unwillingness to create accountability on the Palestinian side as well as the Israeli side. We need it on both sides. Not just on one side. I’m not sure we’ve done that on the Palestinian side. On the Israeli side, I would say we’ve done it from time to time. We haven’t always done it on the Israeli side either. 

DONVAN: I’m not sure you want to refute that.  

ABRAMS: No. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: He’s made the argument. 

ABRAMS: Yeah, I think this is a real danger. And I mean, Roya Hakakian used the word “pawns” to describe the Palestinians. It’s the infantilization. It is the refusal ever to say this was evil, it’s got to stop, it won’t be tolerated. There’s always an excuse. Well, it was a bad leader. Well, it was a bad year. Well, they’re surrounded. But there’s always an excuse. And I think that’s a mistake because if you believe in the two-state solution—I mean, really, I’m just repeating what Dennis said—you need to have accountability. 

ROSS: Yeah. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: I call it the bigotry of low expectation. You want to know what racism is? That’s racism, the low expectation. 

DONVAN: Sir.  

Q: Jeff Shafer. 

All of you agree that the two-state solution can’t happen now. Will it be possible at all, as long as Iran is Iran? 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: Nope. 

ABRAMS: No. That, by the way, is a perfect question. (Laughter, applause.) No. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: No. That’s the problem, that pan-Arabism kind of morphed into Islamism. And let me just give you some bad news. Iran is winning right now. Iran’s strategy is going very well. They’ve got pawns. They’ve got Hezbollah. They’ve got the Houthis. They’ve got Hamas. They’ve got Iraq—Shias in Iraq. It’s working. And so, yes, now they’re part of that Iranian tentacles. Before it was something else, Like Elliott says, there’s always an excuse. And the real problem here is Iran. And we really need to understand—I hate to sound like a doomsday merchant—but we need to understand that Iran is the Hitler of today. And until we deal with Iran, none of this is going to get resolved. If we deal with Iran, maybe there’s a chance. And, Dennis, I promise you, if we get to the point that we find the Palestinian Gandhi, I’ll be the first one to support the two-state solution. 

ROSS: I’ll be working with you then. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: You wanted to jump in? 

ROSS: No, I want to—I do want to answer. Look, I think Iran creates enormous difficulties. But, you know, they have what they call the Axis of Resistance. It’s actually the axis of misery. (Laughter.) There isn’t one of their—one of their actors or one of the states where they have dominance that has any sense of possibility, any hope. Their own public is obviously completely alienated. They’re not—this is actually a pretty weak state, in reality. This is a country that is going to run out of water before the end of the decade. They cannot sustain their own population because of the way they’ve managed their water situation, which creates a certain kind of leverage. My point is, yes. We actually have to have an effective strategy against Iran. We don’t have it right now. We’re going to have to have it. If you really want a serious peace strategy, it also has to be related to an effective strategy against Iran. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: Absolutely. 

DAJANI: Also, I think that it is important how to deal with it. Because we should not do—the United States should not do the mistake that it did in Afghanistan, where actually it was importing a Western culture to an Islamic nation, and so Taliban was able to take over. The same thing there. Indeed, in the day after we have to have deradicalization. And in the radicalization, you have to have a moderate Islamic culture fight a radical Islamic culture, in the sense that you have to fight the Hamas not to kill Hamas, but to kill the ideology of Hamas, in the sense, the radical ideology of Hamas, by trying to promote a moderate ideology—Islamic moderate ideology. And— 

DONVAN: Can that ideology prevail?  

DAJANI: Huh? 

DONVAN: That ideology can win, moderate? 

DAJANI: In order to fight a radical ideology, you have to fight it with a moderate Islamic ideology, from the same culture. And so that’s—and the moderate ideology of Islam is much more powerful than the radical ideology.  

ROSS: It’s exactly what he teaches, by the way. 

ABRAMS: Can I just say that this is, in a way, the definition of our differences. Because what Mohammad is saying is you must create the state and then create moderation. And what we’re saying is you—it is too dangerous to create the state until you have seen the moderation. 

DAJANI: Yeah, but you know why? Because, look, five states recognize the state of Palestine. It boosted the morals, and many people felt very good about it. Now, this is why if there will be a state, then you are talking about elections under that state. And so it will be a democratic elections. And you will have new leadership. 

ABRAMS: I wish I believed that. I wish I could believe it. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: Unfortunately, Professor Dajani, any moderate—any country in the Middle East that has had democracy, it’s been an excuse for the Islam—the Muslim Brotherhood to actually get in and radicalize. So it’s one man, one vote, one time, and then it’s over. I wish I could believe different. And I want to commend you for the incredible work you’ve done in taking young Palestinian—young people, and taking them to Auschwitz, and doing all the educational stuff you’ve done. Like I said, if you were in charge maybe we would have had two states by now. 

DONVAN: We’re about to hit the time limit for this section. So I’m going to go over by about what I hope is no more than two minutes by taking one last question.  

Q: Miriam Sapiro.  

I want to follow up on Iran, because one of the motivations of Hamas on October 7 was derailing Saudi-Israeli normalization. And many people think there is a potential for greater regional stability through a framework that would serve Israeli, U.S., Gulf, Jordanian, Egyptian interests. But the leaders of the Arab states have made it clear it depends on the prospect—the prospect, the vision of a two-state solution. So how does one counter the threat, which, as you said, is very grave from Iran, without, again, the prospect of some kind of coexistence on an equal basis? 

ROSS: Could I quickly respond?  

DONVAN: Please do. 

ROSS: Look, we already—this is not an abstraction. On the night of April 13-14, Iran fired 300 projectiles—missiles, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. One hundred of those were intercepted by the U.S., U.K., Jordan. There was—because there’s already an integrated air and missile defense network. The Saudis and the Emiratis participated. We didn’t have normalization yet. We have it with the UAE. We don’t have with Saudi Arabia. But we just saw here was an active way—for the first time in Israel’s history they actually had help from others to help them actively with their defense. The Israeli ethos has always been, we defend ourselves by ourselves. That’s an ethos that isn’t going to disappear, but what they suddenly found is when you face seven fronts, and when you’re facing 300 projectiles, having others intercept a hundred of them makes your task easier and more manageable.  

So this is not an abstraction. It shows it’s a possibility. The issue of normalization is important. But, again, I would come at this from the standpoint, I think we can have Arab states play a role with the Palestinians to affect the Palestinians, to move them in a direction, to help shape the way they approach education. If the UAE is helping to shape the Palestine educational system, they will be promoting exactly what you promote, because that’s exactly what they promote in their own educational system. 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: I totally agree, but you have to—you have to also admit that the Abraham Accords came because the government of the United States left the State Department orthodoxy that you couldn’t have normalization in the Arab world without solving the Palestinian problem first. Maybe we should learn from that.  

DONVAN: OK, that’s a wrap on the discussion portion of the program. (Applause.)  

So we’re heading down the home stretch, and we’re going to be home very shortly. We’re going to go to our closing round, and that’s where each debater makes a brief closing statement of two minutes each to make their argument one more time. Again, they’ll take this space where I’m standing now. And, Dennis, again, you’re up first. Ambassador Dennis Ross, one more time, answering yes to the question, “Is a two-state solution still viable?” His closing statement. (Applause.) 

ROSS: I will say, it’s the first time I’ve ever been accused of accepting State Department orthodoxy. (Laughter.)  

Look, I think there is a way to think about this. And Mohammad and I may be on the same team. We may not see everything exactly the same, even though we look towards the same outcome. And in some ways, we think in terms of how you have to transform the Palestinian reality. Here’s what I would like to see us do. I would like to see the United States say we recognize the Palestinians as a people. And as a people, they have a right to self-determination. But what comes with self-determination and a state is responsibility. So you cannot fulfill the state until we see you fulfill the responsibility.  

Which means the struggle between those who believe in resistance versus coexistence has to be resolved unmistakably in terms of those who favor coexistence. There cannot be independent militias who operate in the context of a state. That’s not a state. There has to be an acceptance, by the way, that there would be a nonmilitarized state. Elliott, I can tell you at Camp David we didn’t impose a nonmilitarized state on the Palestinian side. They accepted the idea of a nonmilitarized state. My point is, there are a series of benchmarks that could be built, and that should be part of a process.  

I would say to Mohammed, if Palestinians know self-determination is being recognized as a principle, but now they have to fulfill a set of responsibilities to be able to achieve it, I would suggest there’s a very good chance that they might be able to do it—especially if they have support from Arab states who reinforce a sense of accountability. The idea that the Palestinians can have a state without responsibility ultimately doesn’t serve Palestinian interests. For sure, it doesn’t serve Israeli interests. But it’s also in Israel’s interest not to take steps that makes a Palestinian state impossible. You cannot act on the ground in a way that precludes a Palestinian state and then say, how can you have a Palestinian state? (Applause.) 

DONVAN: Next up with her closing statement is Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, Israel’s special envoy. You, again, are arguing no. And your last chance to tell us why. (Applause.) 

HASSAN-NAHOUM: So my husband and I immigrated to Israel in March of 2001, which was the middle of the Second Intifada. Before that, I had believed in a two-state solution. When my husband and I decided we wanted to go to Israel and be part of Jewish self-determination, of a common destiny with our people, we believed in the two-state solution. We moved to Israel in the middle of a raging Intifada, with cafes being blown up, with busses being blown up for the audacity that we had of offering everything that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian government at the time said they wanted.  

And let me tell you something, I still believe in Palestinian self-determination. But Palestinian self-determination, at least in the near term or even the long term, does not have to mean statehood. There’s so many examples around the world of different nations that don’t have complete statehood, but are self-determining. And let me tell you one of them. I’m from Gibraltar. So Gibraltar is a small British protectorate in southern Spain. And Gibraltar was 500 years ago Spanish. Then it was handed to the British. And Gibraltar remains British today. But in the last a hundred years, it has gone from being a complete colony to having self-determination, full autonomy.  

Call us the Puerto Rico of the U.K., because that’s—(laughter)—because we are. But, again, my point is this, that we have to open our minds. We are the startup nation. We can also be the startup nation and think innovation when it comes to peace. Let’s not box ourselves in in something which so far has not worked and, looking at the prospects in the region, is not going to work. Let’s give every autonomy we can to the Palestinian people without any of the tools to destroy the state of Israel. I’m a mother of four and I want a better future for my children as well as for the Palestinian children of my region. Thank you. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: Thank you. Next, we’ll hear from Mohammed Dajani. Professor Mohammed, you have been arguing for a two-state solution is still viable. Your last chance to tell us why. 

DAJANI: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you.  

A king asked his minister to inscribe on his ring a statement that if he reads it when he is sad, he will feel happy. If he reads it when he is happy, he will feel sad. And the minister inscribed, saying “this time will pass.” And so we are living today in difficult times, but this time will pass. So we should not judge things on the basis of what is taking place today, and the war that’s taking place not only in Gaza, but in South Lebanon, and the West Bank.  

Now another king was walking in the fields, and he saw this old man planting an olive tree. And he wanted to tease him, and he said, old man, will you be eating—will you be benefiting from the fruit of this tree? And the old man said, our grandparents planted, we ate. And we plant so that our children will eat. Now, this is exactly what we need to do. We need to plant seeds of peace so that our children will live in peace. Unfortunately, we inherited this war and this conflict and this hostility and this enmity from our grandparents. This is not the heritage we want to leave to our grandchildren.  

And so basically, this is exactly where we stand. Two Jews came to the rabbi—(laughter)—and in order to judge among them any problem they had. And the first said their side of this story. And the rabbi said to him, you are right. The second said his side of the story. And the rabbi said, you are right. After they left, the wife asked the rabbi, but how can they both be right? He said to her, you are also right. (Laughter.) This is—this is exactly our situation. This is—we are both right, but in the sense we see things from different perspectives. And that’s how we can build a better future, so that we can be light to the nations. Thank you. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: I did not see that coming. (Laughter.) 

Elliott, you get the last word. Elliott Abrams, arguing that a two-state solution is not viable. Your last chance to tell us why. (Applause.) 

ABRAMS: The last word. In 2002, President George W. Bush said a number of the things that have been said here tonight. He said to the Palestinians in public speeches: If you will build, if you will promise to build, if you will try to build a state based on tolerance and liberty that fights corruption, that prevents terror, the United States will support you. And we tried to push Arafat aside. And we tried to help Salam Fayyad come in as prime minister. Twenty-two years ago. Progress—how we all wish there had been progress. But there hasn’t been progress. In fact, look at the polls from then to now. Steady support for Hamas and for this idea of replacing the Jewish state. Not building a new, sovereign, independent Palestinian state, based—to use those words again—on tolerance and liberty. 

I wish I did believe what Mohammed Dajani is staying. I really wish. I do. I wish the two-state solution were a solution. But I think that when you create that sovereign, independent state, what you have created, like Gaza when Israel left there, like South Lebanon when Israel left there, is a launching pad. A launching pad in the heart of Israel this time, not far north, not—in the heart, near the international airport, near Jerusalem, near the coastal plain where the economy is. You will be creating a launching pad for another generation or two or three or four of war. That is the last thing any of us should want to do. Thank you. (Applause.) 

DONVAN: What happened here tonight so captures what we try to do. These four debaters brought their truth, they brought facts, they brought reason, they brought passion and commitment. But, most of all, they brought intellectual honesty and they brought mutual respect for one another. And that’s what we are aiming for and we achieve, I think, all the time. And you’ve got to see it happen. So to our four debaters, to Dennis, and Mohammed, and Fleur, and Elliott, thank you so much for taking part and for taking part in the way you did. We deeply appreciate it. (Applause.)  

ABRAMS: Thank you.  

DONVAN: And I—and I’m John Donvan. This has been Open to Debate. 

(END) 

This is an uncorrected transcript.