•perhaps the reason there's no two state solution is that only Israel built a state while the Palestinians built only a movement
•contrary to comments in the podcast, the Palestinian movement is not at its core a refugee movement because the only refugees between the river and the sea in 1947 were Jewish refugees. The Palestinian movement at its core was an anti-immigration movement directed at Jewish refugees from Europe, Russia and Arab countries before, during, and after WW2. Palestinian refugees came later, as the result of the failed assault against Israel by the multiple Arab armies (supported by Palestinian Arabs) after partition, and their plight got folded into the core Arab anti-Zionist/anti-immigration movement
•one of the speakers floats the idea that maybe the Palestinians got it all wrong from the start and their "liberation" movement was a mistake foisted upon them by misguided leaders who were not concerned with statehood and nation-building. The discussion would have been much more interesting had this idea been followed up and debated because...
•in the end, Palestinians will end up with less than what they could have had all along, and Israel will end up conceding some version of what it was willing to concede in 1947.
Arafat, the second intifada and 10/7 killed the two state solution.
If you think that 10/7 was "Palestinian resilience" then there is no hope for them. 10/7 was the final manifestation of the Palestinian eliminationist plans for the region.
Here’s Harry S. Truman in video recordings of personal recollections of his presidency, aired in the US sometime in 1964-65:
“..And don’t think the decision to recognize Israel [note: 11 minutes after its May 1948 declaration was announced] was an easy one. I had to make a compromise with the Arabs and divide Palestine. The Jews wanted to chase the Arabs into the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the Arabs wanted to chase all the Jews into the Red Sea. And what I was trying to do was find a homeland for the Jews and still be just with the Arabs.”
“…The Zionists particularly who were against anything that was to be done if they couldn’t get the whole of Palestine and everything handed to them on a silver plate….”
That was the 1948 American understanding of the conflict and their role in it and it still seems to be true in 2025.
There is no reasonable reason why the Palestinians should have accepted partition in 1947. There is an assumption that partition was reasonable and Palestinians should have accepted giving up half their country in ‘47.
It is not true that Palestinians were offered a state. What was offered at Camp David was not a sovereign state. No Israeli government has ever had any intention of ever allowing a viable Palestinian state to come into existence.
But in 47, they were offered a sovereign state... like you can legitimately argue that the state was insufficient, or it was wrong of the UN to attempt to partition the mandate of Palestine into two. You can also legitimately argue that the proposed Palestinian settlement was unfairly divided, and Arab leaders were reckless in their assumptions of what would happen to the Arab Palestinian state in the end. Still, it's not true to say that in 1947, Palestine wasn't offered statehood; that is simply changing history.
If I offer to allow you life without one leg and one arm, will you accept? Palestine was offered less than that under duress, in fighting the "immigrant" Jews, believing they would have a fair hearing before the partition plan went into effect. You wouldn't take the first deal because you want both legs and both arms, but you expect the Palestinians to accept, and every offer since has come with such an expectation to accept the unacceptable.
Where did I say I expected them to accept the offer of the state? I merely highlighted that there was an offer of Palestinian statehood on the table in 47.
I'm still not sure what your point is. The offer of a state was not legitimate in my opinion. I expressed why with my metaphor. If you don't accept that fine, understood. And I don't accept its mention as more than a technicality, the purpose of which is usually to bolster specious accusations that Palestinians are "rejectionists". Now if you don't mind...
A minority persecuted for 2000 years finally decided they must have a state, and they went back to their promised land. Great Britain, a colonial power, was in charge of creating new nations in the middle east after the defeat of the Ottomans, and while they were drawing borders for Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia etc., they also decided to give the jews a state. The idea that zionists have no right to a state in the middle east, but the Palestinian Arabs, who migrated to present day Israel in 1930s to partake in the economic boom that the jews unleashed, have an unalienable right to these lands, does not make sense. Your post assumes that the Palestinian Arabs are uniquely owed the land of Palestine. However most of Palestinian arabs (300-400K) migrated from Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt between 1897 - 1948 for better economic opportunities.
The idea the land cannot be partitioned, and both jews and Arabs must live in an undivided Palestine is a ship that sailed a looong time ago, perhaps in 1929 after the Burāq Uprising, or maybe in 1948 after the Arab–Israeli War, on in 1967 after the 6-day war, after 1973, and definitely no later than after Oct 7 2023.
So, there are only three solutions from this point on: 1) Israel is magically destroyed, 2) Palestinians are absorbed into other Arab countries, 3) Both agree to a two-state solution. I happen to think (1) is unlikely, (3) is most likely and (2) is likely if Palestinians are unable to build a viable state (so far they have not shown an ability to govern themselves; they want to be led by an anti-democratic Islamic organization like Hamas - how are they going to build a modern state?). Let us all hope (3) happens so Palestinians can stop suffering.
Sorry I wasn't being clear, what I meant was that offers like '47 and all since, right up to the present obscenity, are not really serious fair offers, they've all come in the context of some form of duress. Later they've been characterized as being the easy way, but they've all been the hard way, from the original imperialist enable land grab the the genocide Bibi told Biden is righteous because the US did it. Maybe I missed your point
I will definitely buy a copy of Rob's book :) It strikes me that that conversation took so many interesting turns. I find the relationship between space interesting. Although the term isn't used, I found it fascinating to revisit discussions from 47, etc. This makes me wonder if statehood is never truly on the table in its proper sense, as it requires some degree of recognition of 'the other', which appears to be an anathema to parts of both sides.
I guess, I'd also like to ask what do you think of this ceasefire? Is it just another chapter in this story or the beginning of something a little more meaningful? I'm not saying Trump is morally for a Palestinian state, but do you think he is willing to do what other Presidents are not willing to do to try and blaze his name in history? Perhaps he thinks forcing Israel's hand and getting them to back down and then roadmap some kind of settlement is the easiest way to achieve that... unlike with Russia and Ukraine where the US does have leverage but not the type of leverage he needs to get a ceasefire, he probably does militarily with Israel and is in a position where he maybe instinctively understands the region's authoritarians in a way other Presidents haven't.
Throughout the past two years, when you have discussed the conflict on this podcast, it has struck me that the discussion has shifted somewhat from locating responsibility for October 7th, the reasons for the attack, and what may happen with Shadi (in my opinion rightfully) locating this as a genocide and a bigger question of moral revulsion to the extent of the response. But, maybe Damir is right and that power speaks more loudly than pretty words....
Btw, sorry if my thoughts are somewhat scrambled, It's been a loooong week!
Would it be glib to suggest that inevitable limitations of the entire endeavor of external mediation of this conflict are contained in the expression 'symbolic right of return'?
Really disappointed in Shadi. One of the few people that seemed interested in understanding what even the most deranged fundamentalists think and now suddenly people are beyond the pale for scholarship. Forget morality, if you want to change the situation you will have to deal with a nuclear armed power where a substantial set of the population believes that God decided that they were the chosen people to live in a chosen land. You cannot wish them away by magic thinking about how the US could pressure them. In that way, it is as important to understand the logic of religious Zionists, as it is Russian imperialists, North Korean communists, Iranian fundamentalists, ISIS extremists, Proud Boys, HAMAS, Nazis, [insert group you hate here].
Shadi’s moral equivalency argument leaves me a little puzzled. Could you not make the same argument about Oct 7th that could/would have been on the same scale as the Israeli response had Hamas been able to pull it off? Damir’s suggestion that it is a political tactic rings true. Excellent podcast!
This was great, thank you! Robert Malley was thoughtful, balanced and circumspect. I badly wanted to disagree with him, but, given his mastery and credibility on the subject I must desist.
The only observation I'll make is this: if the current peace agreement holds, and a final Palestine settlement is reached, it will be mostly on Israel's terms. And what Palestine gets is what it could have gotten anytime after 1947 - in fact more than what it will now.
Regarding the bravery of Palestinians in not accepting a settlement previously (that Shadi seems to be so proud of): it was based on the extraordinary support they got from the international community (as Damir and Robert point out). But why was there so much international support? Could the unequivocal support of Arab and muslim nations be a reason? Even today it is the fear of the Arab street that makes authoritarian leaders of the Arab and muslim nations support the Palestinian cause (of what strategic value is it to them otherwise?). Western nations learnt the downside of destabilization in the Middle East after the 1973 oil embargo.
The Gaza war was allowed to continue for two years and that has forced the Gazans to at last worry about self-preservation. Decimation of most support for the Palestinian cause - Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria - is the reason peace is possible. Bombing of Qatar was the icing on the cake that stripped away last sliver of support for Hamas.
•perhaps the reason there's no two state solution is that only Israel built a state while the Palestinians built only a movement
•contrary to comments in the podcast, the Palestinian movement is not at its core a refugee movement because the only refugees between the river and the sea in 1947 were Jewish refugees. The Palestinian movement at its core was an anti-immigration movement directed at Jewish refugees from Europe, Russia and Arab countries before, during, and after WW2. Palestinian refugees came later, as the result of the failed assault against Israel by the multiple Arab armies (supported by Palestinian Arabs) after partition, and their plight got folded into the core Arab anti-Zionist/anti-immigration movement
•one of the speakers floats the idea that maybe the Palestinians got it all wrong from the start and their "liberation" movement was a mistake foisted upon them by misguided leaders who were not concerned with statehood and nation-building. The discussion would have been much more interesting had this idea been followed up and debated because...
•in the end, Palestinians will end up with less than what they could have had all along, and Israel will end up conceding some version of what it was willing to concede in 1947.
Arafat, the second intifada and 10/7 killed the two state solution.
If you think that 10/7 was "Palestinian resilience" then there is no hope for them. 10/7 was the final manifestation of the Palestinian eliminationist plans for the region.
Here’s Harry S. Truman in video recordings of personal recollections of his presidency, aired in the US sometime in 1964-65:
“..And don’t think the decision to recognize Israel [note: 11 minutes after its May 1948 declaration was announced] was an easy one. I had to make a compromise with the Arabs and divide Palestine. The Jews wanted to chase the Arabs into the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the Arabs wanted to chase all the Jews into the Red Sea. And what I was trying to do was find a homeland for the Jews and still be just with the Arabs.”
“…The Zionists particularly who were against anything that was to be done if they couldn’t get the whole of Palestine and everything handed to them on a silver plate….”
That was the 1948 American understanding of the conflict and their role in it and it still seems to be true in 2025.
The idea behind Zionism was always transfer; as much land as possible with as few Arabs as possible.
There is no reasonable reason why the Palestinians should have accepted partition in 1947. There is an assumption that partition was reasonable and Palestinians should have accepted giving up half their country in ‘47.
It is not true that Palestinians were offered a state. What was offered at Camp David was not a sovereign state. No Israeli government has ever had any intention of ever allowing a viable Palestinian state to come into existence.
But in 47, they were offered a sovereign state... like you can legitimately argue that the state was insufficient, or it was wrong of the UN to attempt to partition the mandate of Palestine into two. You can also legitimately argue that the proposed Palestinian settlement was unfairly divided, and Arab leaders were reckless in their assumptions of what would happen to the Arab Palestinian state in the end. Still, it's not true to say that in 1947, Palestine wasn't offered statehood; that is simply changing history.
If I offer to allow you life without one leg and one arm, will you accept? Palestine was offered less than that under duress, in fighting the "immigrant" Jews, believing they would have a fair hearing before the partition plan went into effect. You wouldn't take the first deal because you want both legs and both arms, but you expect the Palestinians to accept, and every offer since has come with such an expectation to accept the unacceptable.
Where did I say I expected them to accept the offer of the state? I merely highlighted that there was an offer of Palestinian statehood on the table in 47.
I'm still not sure what your point is. The offer of a state was not legitimate in my opinion. I expressed why with my metaphor. If you don't accept that fine, understood. And I don't accept its mention as more than a technicality, the purpose of which is usually to bolster specious accusations that Palestinians are "rejectionists". Now if you don't mind...
A minority persecuted for 2000 years finally decided they must have a state, and they went back to their promised land. Great Britain, a colonial power, was in charge of creating new nations in the middle east after the defeat of the Ottomans, and while they were drawing borders for Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia etc., they also decided to give the jews a state. The idea that zionists have no right to a state in the middle east, but the Palestinian Arabs, who migrated to present day Israel in 1930s to partake in the economic boom that the jews unleashed, have an unalienable right to these lands, does not make sense. Your post assumes that the Palestinian Arabs are uniquely owed the land of Palestine. However most of Palestinian arabs (300-400K) migrated from Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt between 1897 - 1948 for better economic opportunities.
The idea the land cannot be partitioned, and both jews and Arabs must live in an undivided Palestine is a ship that sailed a looong time ago, perhaps in 1929 after the Burāq Uprising, or maybe in 1948 after the Arab–Israeli War, on in 1967 after the 6-day war, after 1973, and definitely no later than after Oct 7 2023.
So, there are only three solutions from this point on: 1) Israel is magically destroyed, 2) Palestinians are absorbed into other Arab countries, 3) Both agree to a two-state solution. I happen to think (1) is unlikely, (3) is most likely and (2) is likely if Palestinians are unable to build a viable state (so far they have not shown an ability to govern themselves; they want to be led by an anti-democratic Islamic organization like Hamas - how are they going to build a modern state?). Let us all hope (3) happens so Palestinians can stop suffering.
Would like to see someone on the podcast to give some pushback on the ludicrous genocide accusations.
Sorry I wasn't being clear, what I meant was that offers like '47 and all since, right up to the present obscenity, are not really serious fair offers, they've all come in the context of some form of duress. Later they've been characterized as being the easy way, but they've all been the hard way, from the original imperialist enable land grab the the genocide Bibi told Biden is righteous because the US did it. Maybe I missed your point
I will definitely buy a copy of Rob's book :) It strikes me that that conversation took so many interesting turns. I find the relationship between space interesting. Although the term isn't used, I found it fascinating to revisit discussions from 47, etc. This makes me wonder if statehood is never truly on the table in its proper sense, as it requires some degree of recognition of 'the other', which appears to be an anathema to parts of both sides.
I guess, I'd also like to ask what do you think of this ceasefire? Is it just another chapter in this story or the beginning of something a little more meaningful? I'm not saying Trump is morally for a Palestinian state, but do you think he is willing to do what other Presidents are not willing to do to try and blaze his name in history? Perhaps he thinks forcing Israel's hand and getting them to back down and then roadmap some kind of settlement is the easiest way to achieve that... unlike with Russia and Ukraine where the US does have leverage but not the type of leverage he needs to get a ceasefire, he probably does militarily with Israel and is in a position where he maybe instinctively understands the region's authoritarians in a way other Presidents haven't.
Throughout the past two years, when you have discussed the conflict on this podcast, it has struck me that the discussion has shifted somewhat from locating responsibility for October 7th, the reasons for the attack, and what may happen with Shadi (in my opinion rightfully) locating this as a genocide and a bigger question of moral revulsion to the extent of the response. But, maybe Damir is right and that power speaks more loudly than pretty words....
Btw, sorry if my thoughts are somewhat scrambled, It's been a loooong week!
Would it be glib to suggest that inevitable limitations of the entire endeavor of external mediation of this conflict are contained in the expression 'symbolic right of return'?
Really disappointed in Shadi. One of the few people that seemed interested in understanding what even the most deranged fundamentalists think and now suddenly people are beyond the pale for scholarship. Forget morality, if you want to change the situation you will have to deal with a nuclear armed power where a substantial set of the population believes that God decided that they were the chosen people to live in a chosen land. You cannot wish them away by magic thinking about how the US could pressure them. In that way, it is as important to understand the logic of religious Zionists, as it is Russian imperialists, North Korean communists, Iranian fundamentalists, ISIS extremists, Proud Boys, HAMAS, Nazis, [insert group you hate here].
Shadi’s moral equivalency argument leaves me a little puzzled. Could you not make the same argument about Oct 7th that could/would have been on the same scale as the Israeli response had Hamas been able to pull it off? Damir’s suggestion that it is a political tactic rings true. Excellent podcast!
This was great, thank you! Robert Malley was thoughtful, balanced and circumspect. I badly wanted to disagree with him, but, given his mastery and credibility on the subject I must desist.
The only observation I'll make is this: if the current peace agreement holds, and a final Palestine settlement is reached, it will be mostly on Israel's terms. And what Palestine gets is what it could have gotten anytime after 1947 - in fact more than what it will now.
Regarding the bravery of Palestinians in not accepting a settlement previously (that Shadi seems to be so proud of): it was based on the extraordinary support they got from the international community (as Damir and Robert point out). But why was there so much international support? Could the unequivocal support of Arab and muslim nations be a reason? Even today it is the fear of the Arab street that makes authoritarian leaders of the Arab and muslim nations support the Palestinian cause (of what strategic value is it to them otherwise?). Western nations learnt the downside of destabilization in the Middle East after the 1973 oil embargo.
The Gaza war was allowed to continue for two years and that has forced the Gazans to at last worry about self-preservation. Decimation of most support for the Palestinian cause - Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria - is the reason peace is possible. Bombing of Qatar was the icing on the cake that stripped away last sliver of support for Hamas.