Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:05 Hi everyone. And welcome to identity crisis. A show about news and ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute in partnership with the Jewish telegraphic agency we're recording today on Thursday, November 12th, 2020. There is needless to say a lot in the news. A lot of it has to do with the uncertainty, the strange uncertainty surrounding the results of the presidential election and the larger question of if and when the Trump administration will cease its legal challenges to the election and allow for a transition to take place. I personally am perplexed about this news story. I'm fixated by it, but also not exactly sure what, what actually might say about it. And in the midst of all of this more news happened that I think has interesting ramifications for the Jewish people and for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. And that was the untimely passing of CYA. Eric had a long time lead negotiator for the Palestinians, with the Israelis as part of the various peace processes.
Speaker 0 00:01:01 Erekat I believe at a very young age, I think he was about 30 or so, uh, was part of the early Madrid peace process. Negotiations played something of a role in Oslow and ultimately was the lead Palestinian negotiator in the two thousands and passed away in his sixties this past week. And it coincides in interesting ways with just about, about a week apart from the 25th anniversary of <inaudible> passing and serves as a kind of interesting referendum moment for both Israeli side and Palestinian side, some of the symbolic figures, so connected to the peace process over a 30 year period and gives us an opportunity to take a pause and reflect on the humanity of these individuals as they relate to this big story. I'm really excited to be joined today by the S Daniel Abraham professor of middle East and policy studies at the Princeton school of public international affairs, formerly at the Woodrow Wilson school, Daniel Kurtzer was ambassador to Egypt under president Clinton, and then appointed as ambassador to Israel under president George W. Bush. I'm also going to refer to them listeners as ABA. So ABA, first of all, thanks for coming on identity crisis today and being in conversation with us.
Speaker 1 00:02:14 Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for the invitation.
Speaker 0 00:02:17 So I know you had a personal relationship with Erekat formed over a long period of time before we get into some of the policy questions and to talk about the conflict itself and the negotiation process. Tell us a little bit about him as a person, how you got to know him, what your personal relationship was. I think that will be really helpful to kind of humanize this,
Speaker 1 00:02:34 The story. Sure. I met Cybercom in 1991. He was about 35 years old having previously received his PhD and was teaching in the West bank in a university. And at that time he was invited to what became the Palestinian peace team. He was a junior member of that team. It was headed by Feisal Husseini. People may remember Hanano <inaudible> who was also of that team. Then the spokesperson and sod was a kind of backbencher who brought intellectual ferment to it. And a certain amount of, I would say, proactive posture in those years, I would characterize sob as a little bit of a, a wild card. He wasn't quite sure of his place in the hierarchy. And he often would say, or do things that were designed to provoke. For example, uh, when we finally did get to the Madrid peace conference in October of 1991, he was sitting in the second row in the Palestinian delegation and he walked into this hole in Madrid with a coffea wrapped around his shoulders, the Palestinian garment that evokes a nationalist sentiment deriving from the Arab revolt and the 1930s, just seeing that drove secretary of state Baker crazy because Baker was not a man of great symbolism.
Speaker 1 00:03:56 The focus he thought should be on achieving progress in the peace process. And the first manifestation of this on the Palestinian side was a symbol. I would say, however, having grown up with Solvera Kat over the years in the peace process that he grew up in a very substantial way. First of all, there was no one more committed to peace on the Palestinian side of their government than Erica, despite all the setbacks and the problems and the crises and the breakdowns of the process, Eric hut never gave up. He just constantly came back at it. And secondly, he was a man who is issued violence. He was never a participant in any violence against Israel, argued against it, pushed back against the Islamicists, who were advocating violence. And what else do you want in a peacemaker? Then those two attributes, my own relationship with him was really quite good. Over the years we fought, we hugged, we thought creatively together, and it was just really sad that he's passed from the scene at the young age of 65, 66.
Speaker 0 00:05:10 There's so many interesting things that you alluded to here that I'm trying to kind of piece together, which is I love the coffea story and the symbolism, obviously, you know, Arafat always wore a coffea himself. I don't know the whole narrative behind that. I'm sure that had to be part of the symbolism that Erica was bringing into the Madrid room. And I guess the thing that I I've always struggled with is you said on one hand that he kind of had this flashy side, which is to say it was really important for him to symbolize Palestinian nationalism in that moment. And at the same time, he was deeply and profoundly committed to peace. And I wonder whether part of the problem that exists between Israelis and Palestinians is that those who are most sincere in their nationalist expressions are probably the people who you're going to have to make peace with.
Speaker 0 00:05:53 Right? So the less quote unquote pro-Palestinian the are actually going to be, it seems like they're going to be really ineffective at being able to convey to their people that they're real representatives and that they have Palestinian interests in mind. And yet not surprisingly, there was this cascade of right-wing condemnation in Israel about Erika over this week after his passing, you know, Knesset members said crazy things about him. How do you think about the whole sincerity question? You know, that the only Israelis who are ever going to bring peace are going to be those who actually have blood on their hands. And that might also be true about Palestinians as well.
Speaker 1 00:06:25 Look, I think you're exactly right. Erekat as with many of the Palestinian leaders have been staunch nationalists and unrepentant staunch nationalists for them, the Palestinian narrative, and even the symbolism of the Palestinian narrative is as important to their own identity as it is to their national identity. And that's what, in a sense makes them authentic leaders because they evoke from the general population, a sense of authenticity. And that's what you want in a leader. Someone who has assimilated stories of the national movement and represents them. You know, you referenced in your comment, the, uh, really nasty, horrible things that have been said about Erekat since his passing, I would also reference the Israeli officials and others who actually negotiated with him almost all of whom have come out with very strong regret over his passing because they did see him as authentic. And they did understand that even when they got into these very difficult arguments with him, and he could be difficult to argue with because very often he would not yield anything in his position, but they understood that that's exactly the kind of person with whom you have to make peace.
Speaker 1 00:07:47 You don't want a, quisling sitting opposite you with whom you sign an agreement. And then it fades away. The experience in fact, teaches us that right after the 11th non war in 1982, Israel did negotiate a peace treaty with Lebanon, but it was built on nothing and it faded away as soon as it was signed because the people negotiating it and the process was not authentic. So you have to pay attention to those who are critical because many of them are actually sitting in government in Israel now, but they're missing the point. They're not going to make peace with the quislings. They're going to make peace with those who are as staunchly Palestinian nationalist as they are staunchly Israeli nationalist.
Speaker 0 00:08:36 Yeah, I did talk to actually a couple of the folks involved in the Israeli negotiation side. And your story reminds me of something that one of the Israeli negotiators told me years ago, which was there was oftentimes the case that these negotiations where, you know, you have the Israelis and Palestinians and the Americans, and there would be very contentious talks. And then they would take a break. The Americans would leave the room and the Israelis and Palestinians to go stand outside and smoke a cigarette together or eat dinner together. And there's something, there's something very powerful about the whole, the symbolism of what you have to show up with negotiation and the humanity of what happens in negotiation itself. You alluded to before the whole question of story, I'm going to ask it as like a kind of amateur observer of the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Speaker 0 00:09:18 How much of this conflict is about issues and how much is about story? My impression has been that the Israelis have treated for instance, the question of Palestinian refugees as a technical issue, to be solved once we actually solve the real issue and that the Palestinians have always understood the issue of the refugees as affirming the essential story of what it means to be Palestinians. And therefore, I don't want to negotiate that away. That's not a technical issue to be solved. So how much of the gap between Israelis Palestinians is actually about real technical problems that can be solved and how much of it is about, I don't know if they're irreconcilable narratives, but really big stories that they just can't figure out how to listen to each other.
Speaker 1 00:09:57 And I have taught the Arab Israel or Palestinian Israel conflict at Princeton. My first class focuses on narratives, not because it is the key to resolving the conflict, but it is critically important that everybody understands not just their own narrative, but the narrative of the other side. You don't have to accept it. You can try to poke holes in it. You can deride it, but if you don't understand it, you can never understand what's behind their negotiating position. There've been efforts in recent years to try to deal with this. There's in fact, a textbook that was created that had three columns on every page. One was written by an Israeli. One was written by a Palestinian, and there's a blank space in the middle for the students to try to figure out well, what's real about these narratives. And the fact is the textbook didn't succeed because you can't choose.
Speaker 1 00:10:53 What's real. What's real is what the people on each side believe is real. And the more we understand about it, the more we're able to parse the issues that are being raised and the positions that are being put forward. And I think this has been one of the problems that has beset negotiations over the years, where we have tended, we being the United States, as the third party, have tended to deal with the conflict as a series of core issues, territory, and borders, and security and refugees and Jerusalem and settlements and so forth, all of which will need to be resolved. No question about it and all of which are difficult. But so few of our efforts have involved people to people listening to the way people describe their experiences, understanding why, for example, it's so important for Palestinian refugees to wear a key around their neck of the home that they left behind in Palestine. Do they really think they're going to go back to that home in most cases? No, but it is part of their, their personal and their national history. And we need to understand that even if we don't accept it as legit.
Speaker 0 00:12:08 Yeah, it does seem like one of the less talked about consequences of the second Intifada was that all of the track to people, to people, stuff that had emerged post Oslow basically disappeared because of the securitization of the fence and a whole bunch of other phenomena. And even if track one was failing track, two could have been the 30 year arc that would have made for the plausibility of track. One, again, there's two other criticisms that emerge often around the negotiation schema. And you did this for 30 years. One is the secularism of the negotiators and you alluded to Erekat himself was in a fight against the Islamist swings of the Palestinian national movements. So one is the secularist piece, and I'm also reminded of the iconography of Rabine singing a hyper secular song, the night of his assassination, and how much of an image of secularity he represented and the elitism, those two secularism and he leadism of the negotiators, not fully quote unquote representing the people. I do wonder sometimes whether the only way that this is getting get resolved is through the masses and through religion as opposed to avoidance. So can you talk a little bit about those critiques? Do you think that they're accurate that the negotiating schema has only gone through secular elites and whether you think it's plausible to construct some sort of alternative for the future of these negotiations?
Speaker 1 00:13:28 Well, there's no question that all sides in the peace process have tried to race against time by solving what I called those core issues before. And this was the words that were being used before. This became a religious conflict without realizing that religion was part and parcel of the conflict. It may not have been the core issue from the beginning, but it certainly was a core issue from the beginning. You go back to the critical period of the Palestinian mandate and you look at the alternative leaderships. The leadership on the Jewish side on the Zionist side was all secular. It was the socialists or the Bangorians and so forth. And the leadership on the Palestinian side was Islamists had you mean El Husseini Abdelkader Husseini who was killed in the Arab revolt. They were religious. The British in fact chose had you mean that Husseini because they understood the legitimacy that he would bring to the office.
Speaker 1 00:14:28 And I think all of us miss that in constructing the peace process after Madrid, our objective at that time was to get negotiations started. We did bring about what were called multi-lateral talks that did try to bring in some people to people interactions, but, um, religion was always seen as a kind of let's keep to the side. So it doesn't exacerbate this conflict. And I think now there's more realization that that's not doable. In fact, there are some track two activities which involve rabbis on one side and in mom's on the other side, either within their own communities or even between the two communities. And that can only be helpful, however difficult it is to make those dialogues work.
Speaker 0 00:15:19 It seems though that American Jews are also part of this religious fabric, right. You know, American Jews have for a long time had, I don't know if you want to call it disproportionate interest in resolving this conflict, maybe because of American Jewish attachments to Israel. And that means now not just the liberal majority of American Jews who want to see a reconciliation of this conflict, but also the minority, but quite dominant for the last four years, Orthodox Jews connected to the Trump administration. There's something about the optics of Jews hyper involved in this conflict. And it's hard to separate that for American Jews. There's a religious issue here as well, either a religious vision for greater Israel that you want to help Israel achieve, or a religious vision of peace and reconciliation, which I know you don't talk about a lot. I've heard you talk about it in Schewels. You don't really talk about it as part of your work, but it's got to be part of the story right. Of why American Jews are so dialed into this conversation. I just
Speaker 1 00:16:16 Want to clarify, you're not supposed to talk and shool
Speaker 0 00:16:19 Scholar in residence, things like that, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:16:21 Okay. Gotcha. Now look, the reality is that American Jews have been hyperactive, uh, back in the Madrid days, Madrid Oslow days, the entire peace team was composed of Jews. We were called for Jews on a cruise at the time, which is not necessarily a, uh, a Pat on the back.
Speaker 0 00:16:39 Uh, well, it's also, those were the things that were said about you that were relatively nice. There were some other less nice things that in Jewish,
Speaker 1 00:16:46 That was the nicest. Yeah, exactly. But I have to say that until the current administration, the involvement of Jews in the process, I'm not talking about the public, but the involvement of Jews in the process did in a sense, sideline, religion, as a factor, all of us felt that we were well-schooled in the history and the, in the narratives and in the dynamics of the conflict, we all felt that we understood to some extent, both sides, views that changed in the last four years when you had four people who populated the administration's peace team, and all of whom approached this from a religious standpoint, Cushner, Friedman, green Blatt, and Berkowitz did not approach this as I'll say this, and I'll stand behind it as American diplomats, they approach this as Jewish American diplomats, striving to accomplish something for a certain population in Israel. And that's changed a lot. I know I'm getting into, we were thinking a little more broadly, but that's part of what's changed in the official side of government. In the context of the population. You're probably in a better position than I to dissect where the American Jewish community is on it.
Speaker 0 00:18:03 But I guess it goes back to the whole question of negotiating through religion and through the people. And I, as much as I have my own criticism, it's pretty intense and grievances with Friedman's term as an ambassador. And we don't have to adjudicate all of that. I know that's complicated, especially for you having served in that role. There is a piece of this that I just don't know how American Jews are going to reconcile themselves to the ongoing conflict and how Israelis and Palestinians are going to resolve it unless it runs through ideologues. I think there's been an assumption all along that the ideologues can be sidelined and that we're going to have a critical mass of the non ideologues, the rational and the reasonable who are predominantly secular, who are going to be able to work this out. And there was something about the coarseness of the loyalties on display by the Trump people that at least had this whiff of, okay, well, at least we know what people actually think. And these are passionate people who believe strongly in a certain version of Israel. There no version for instance, of a final status agreement that involves basically sidelining the hundreds of thousands of settlers and telling them that the future of Israel is completely out of their hands and that it's going to be coerced on them. So isn't there some middle ground here between the partisan expressions of these American diplomats and some version of actually saying, this is just who Israelis and Palestinians are, and any solutions can have to run through those commitments.
Speaker 1 00:19:31 We dispute the idea that it has to run through religion. I would put it this way. Ideologues on both sides may be able to find a way to open the door for the non ideologues to solve the practical problems. And I'll give you an example of Michael Milky or rabbi Milky, or is deeply involved in a set of dialogues with Muslim counterparts. He is not trying to solve the conflict because the ideologues are not going to be able to figure out how you deal with Jerusalem or figure out how you deal with the aspirations of refugees or of settlers for that matter. But if they provide a sanction religious sanction for the diplomats to work on those issues where it becomes possible to share a Homeland, even if the governance of that Homeland is divided or to share Jerusalem, even if the city has two municipalities, they provide the opening, they provide the religious permission for the diplomats to proceed in a way that would solve the issue.
Speaker 1 00:20:41 I don't think, for example, that it is any less challenging to deal with settlers than it is to deal with refugees because both of them adhere to a vision where the whole land can only be held by them as opposed to the other. And so you do need the ideological or religious leaders to say, well, we can share this land and we can call it ours and we can call it a Homeland or a Molette it or whatever you want to do use it, but let's figure out how to live in it. And we're going to have to live it in a way where there's going to be a line. Israeli jurisdiction goes until point X and Palestinian jurisdiction proceeds from there until the other border.
Speaker 2 00:21:30 Hi, I'm Jenny notice less senior development officer at the Shalom Hartman Institute with so many of us home and looking for ways of being in community. We have launched Hartman at home full calendar of online public events running through the end of 2020 taught by incredible faculty like Macaby tone, Yesi Klein, Halevi Hoppin pin classy, Todd Becker, and Rachel cuisine. You can find out more and register for any of these programs by going to our website, Shallom heartland.org.
Speaker 0 00:22:02 We'll have to go back a little bit to talking about the interpersonal relationships that emerged between you and your counterparts. Throughout this time, there were a lot of strange things about my upbringing. One of them was, you know, just picking up the phone in high school and <inaudible> being, being there on the phone and be like, Hey, who does your dad around? I knew at the time that it was strange and in retrospect even more. So it also sensitized me to what these personal relationships are actually about. I guess I'm curious, what would people who are completely on the outside of these processes, what would you want them to see and know about the friendships and the animosities and the difficulties that existed on the interpersonal level between these folks who were extensively representatives of their people and here, I mean the Israelis, Palestinians and Americans to try to quote unquote, solve a problem, but who were actually really just human beings, also trying to negotiate their national loyalties and their responsibilities. I mean, just I'd love for you to bring us into some of that.
Speaker 1 00:22:59 Since coming to Princeton, I've spent these 15 years studying protracted conflicts globally. And I can't say that it exists in all of them, but in many of them, the relationship between the negotiators is a thousand percent better than it is between the peoples who are in conflict. And the reason is because the interaction between the negotiators ends up humanizing them, you meet them and you learn about their families. I mean, how many people who have vilified cyber Erica know that three of his four children were sent to seeds of peace. He insisted that his kids go because he wanted them to grow up meeting Israelis. I think two of them are doctors. So they're not even involved in the peace process, but that was the human side. Or as you mentioned earlier, the true story, and one of the most contentious meetings that I ever participated in it was after the Intifada had started.
Speaker 1 00:23:57 And there was a summit meeting in Sharma Shea Cairo, where the venom across the table between Israelis, Palestinians and outside players was palpable. And yet when the rest of us walked out of the room, these Raley's and Palestinians hung back and they literally went for a cup of coffee together talking casually. And that's, I think one of the most interesting aspects of many conflict resolution situations, I would argue that when this conflict is resolved and it will be that one of the unsung heroes is a former professor at Harvard, Herbert Kelman, who back in the seventies, brought Israelis and Palestinians together in what he called socialization. Just get to know each other and start talking. Now he chose carefully. He did choose people, many of whom went on to become negotiators over the years, but his purpose was socialization. Get to know the enemy. And all of a sudden you are an enemy with respect to issues, but you're not a personal enemy. And that helps presumably helps in the problem solving mediation effort.
Speaker 0 00:25:06 I remember you telling me about what was happening behind the scenes, right before the Oslo agreement signing and the white house. I think you were assigned to Rabine, if I'm not mistaken, can you maybe share a little bit about what that was like on the verge of what was at the time, really an earthquake for Israelis and Palestinians, and then since then has been such a huge symbol of either what was great or what was terrible about Israelis and Palestinians, trying to reach a peace.
Speaker 1 00:25:32 Yeah. I was actually assigned to our foot, which you may want to edit out of this at this podcast. You know, it was a wild, a few hours, arguments galore would our footwear, his military uniform, which he did, would he wear his coffea, which he did? Would he brandish a gun, which he did not. I mean, that was, that was a point on which everybody stood firm would there be a handshake, every aspect of the Oslow signing ceremony was negotiated and fought over, but it was also one of the most emotional moments possible. I was actually standing on the white house lawn kind of to the side of the podium, because I was supposed to escort our fought from the podium back into the map room, inside the white house. And I was standing next to hanana shroud and she was extremely upset. And I turned around.
Speaker 1 00:26:29 I said, hand-on why are you upset? And she said, you know, we could have gotten a better deal in the first camp David, at that time, it wasn't the first camp David. It was the only camp David back in 1978. And I said that hand-on you rejected at camp David. And if you were not here today in 10 years, you would get an even worse deal. I said, you know, just take this and run with it, build on it, see how far you can go with it. So, you know, it was a combination of emotion and substance and symbolism, everything was attached. And that's why, when you look back at that video of the handshake, there was this collective roar that took place, even though people kind of assumed it was going to happen. But when it actually happened, when it's not Rabine, who had spent his entire life fighting against our fought and our father who had spent his entire life fighting against Rabin and Israelis, when they shook hands, it was an amazing, amazing moment.
Speaker 0 00:27:34 I remember it. I get chills thinking about it. Those are the best seats to any event that you ever scored for us. Let's talk about rubbing for a second. It's the 25th anniversary of his assassination. Last week, there was a really, I found regrettable phenomenon with Congresswoman Alexandria, Ocasio Cortez, who had been invited by Americans for peace now to join in the 25th anniversary, commemoration of his death extensively agreed to came under assault largely on Twitter by the pro-Palestinian left here in America, actually not Palestinians in Palestine, but here claiming, you know, rubbing has this history of legacy of violence and she backed out of the event and it struck me at least see this a lot with our work, with building bridges between the Muslim American and the Jewish community in America of deep purity tests, around who you talk to. And paradoxically, what I think a belief that the path for justice for the Palestinians is to stand against and insist on a version of reconciliation that can't make room for Israelis. And this concerns me deeply. It was so sad to me that she dropped out of it. I felt it was a powerful symbol for someone who has become such an important voice of American political progressivism to not be able to participate in this kind of gathering and for it to be like politically implausible for her to be able to do so. I guess I'm curious how you see that and what you make of the indictment of Rehbein and his legacy. It's a claim that it wasn't quote unquote, really a peacemaker.
Speaker 1 00:28:58 You know, I think she missed a moment that would have been extremely important for her, for what she purports to represent progressive action. And for those who argued against her participation, and the reason I say that is if you're prepared to talk to your enemy, and if you prepare to talk to people who are considered outside the fold, why would you not be prepared to talk to, or to at least honor those who may have been involved in activities that you didn't like, but who came around and became a peacemaker? Why, why would you find them to be outside the pail? I speak personally on this issue because in the mid 1980s, the United States was not talking to the PLO. And at one point the us government decided not to talk to a group that had been formed in the West bank called the village leaks.
Speaker 1 00:29:57 These were kind of rural Palestinians, clans and families. And the argument was they really didn't represent anybody. And I wrote a dissent message to Washington state department has this channel where an individual can write a dissent that goes to the secretary of state and argues for whatever the individual wants. And I said, who are we going to talk to? I argued, we should have been talking to the PLO and we should have been talking to the village leagues. And we should be talking to anybody who walks through the door, because if they're willing to talk, then I'm willing to talk to them. And I think that the Congresswoman missed this opportunity. She could have participated in the event and then written an op ed that said, Rabine has a mixed legacy. He did say, during the first Intifada let's break their bones. And that was a horrible thing to say, but he then brought Israel into a peace process, including bringing the representative of the Palestinian people, the PLO into that process where no other Israeli leader had done that. And so I think there was a moment in which she could have established significant bone of fees within a more mainstream community and not just within her own progressive community. And she blew it.
Speaker 0 00:31:14 Yeah, it is astonishing to me to think of the last 30 years of Israeli leadership and that the symbolic prime minister, who you're going to play out your antipathy for Israeli leadership being of all of them ravine and especially a reminded of like your wonderfully combative relationship with former prime minister Sharon, where the fact that you were talking to each other didn't mean you agreed. In fact, I think I was in the house when I could actually hear him shouting, you were on the phone. So it wasn't even speaker phone, but I could hear him shouting on the other end, but it didn't connote that you were agreement. You were representing American policy and he oftentimes disagreed with that policy, but it does seem like a disappearing art, the ability to actually put ourselves into environments where we disagree politically with the overarching idea of what's being represented, but feel implicated by, it
Speaker 1 00:32:00 Told me a story. Once in this regard, it was really amazing to interact with him because we would do business. I saw him almost every week and we would do business and then he would tell stories and all the stories had a meaning. They weren't just, you know, tales from my life. And he told the story once we're at another general, when he was in the army, came to him, nervous that the inspector general of the IDF had called him in on the carpet for something he had done. And he said to Sharon, you know, what do I do? I'm so nervous. And Sharon said, nervous. If you have not been called in on the carpet before, then you haven't done your job. In other words, that's part of the interaction it's being able to speak, frankly, and listen carefully and argue the conversation. I think you were referring to Sharon was yelling and really quite how out of control, but in a sense, I took it as a positive sign that he thought it worthwhile to do it. And first of all, didn't ignore me. And second of all was passionate enough to have the argument with me over whatever the issue was that day. And so not engaging with those who are honoring Rabin's legacy. Again, I say was a terrible mistake and a missed opportunity.
Speaker 0 00:33:13 Yeah. And then I remember Sharon coming and paying a Shivah visit when my grandmother passed away. And those two things could actually exist at the same time. Two last questions. The first is what was the most candid moment that you saw between Israelis and Palestinians over the years in these negotiations? I imagine that there were extraordinary moments of directness or truth telling that you got to witness. I'm curious if you could give us one.
Speaker 1 00:33:36 Well, the one that I saw most personally was the one I recounted on the, the white house lawn where, you know, a senior Palestinian negotiator let her hair down. And I think began to understand what missed opportunities meant in terms of future prospects, the more general moment, which was quite extraordinary. And I'm not even sure I can capture it in a way that conveys it on October 18th, 1991, which was the day that Baker and the then Soviet foreign minister announced the agreement to hold the Madrid peace conference. We were in Jerusalem. It was a Friday and Baker was having what turned out to be the last meeting with the Palestinians before the announcement. And they had not received the go-ahead from our fought to say yes and Baker went through what can only be called five acts of a passionate drama in which at one point he literally threw his briefing book across the table at them and said, if you think, you know how to make peace better than I take this and go with it.
Speaker 1 00:34:50 And 10 minutes later, he had them in a huddle like before a football game in a kind of prayer session. And it was this range of emotions that everybody went through. You know, we're all negotiators and we're supposed to be buttoned up and wearing our suits and all that. But it was this real five act play designed to bring the Palestinians on board. Now, the fact is that he never did bring them on board. And his announcement of Madrid was taken as a leap of faith. The assumption being that if he announced that they'd have to come and in fact they came, but that meeting was just amazing in terms of the mix of reason and emotion that went into diplomacy, something that you don't normally see.
Speaker 0 00:35:39 The last question you alluded earlier to seeds of peace, which is a summer camp that brings together originally with just Israelis and Palestinians, but it brings together kids from across the middle East, basically to create purposeful community. I'm curious, there's so much peace process fatigue among Israelis, certainly since the second Intifada and skepticism there is what appears to be a kind of giving up that you almost see from Palestinians and Palestinian leadership. And certainly even in the American Jewish community, the passion appears on the margins for Israel, either on the right or on the left and the momentum that was so profound in the mid to late nineties, that this was the process through which we were going to reach a reconciliation seems to have diminished. What do you think has to happen in America in the Jewish community, but also for Israelis and Palestinians to, to reawaken, to re engender that passion for a peace process. Even if you know that it may not work, and even if it's going to be imperfect and event's going to be difficult, what do you think has to happen to kind of bring that further back?
Speaker 1 00:36:38 I hope what doesn't have to happen is a new round of it default, a violence in which everybody gets hurt and killed. And we're reminded that there's still an underlying conflict. I think everybody's too comfortable now. And therefore there's a deliberate effort to pretend, to assume, to try to rationalize the status quo, which is inherently unstable status. Crows are never static. They change in one direction or the other normally get worse unless you work on them. And I think even some of the very positive things that have happened recently, you know, the UAE Bahrain Sudan normalization, which is a very positive development, is being used tactically by opponents of peace with the Palestinians to say, well, we don't have to make peace with the Palestinians. We can have peace with the Arab world. I don't want to see the agreements with the Arab world diminish. I want to see them expand, but that doesn't solve this problem. And if we don't get back to it in a period, when there isn't violence, at some point we're faded to see violence and I'm not predicting it. And I'm praying against the possibility, but people get frustrated and pressure cooker builds up and there are no other outlets unless you're in a peace process to deal with that kind of pressure.
Speaker 0 00:38:01 Well, thank you so much for listening to our show this week and special. Thanks to my dad, investigator Daniel Kurtzer for joining us identity crisis is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute in partnership with the Jewish telegraphic agency. It was produced this week by Devinsky Kellman and edited by Alex Dylan or managing producers. Dan Friedman with music provided by so-called. As of this week, we'll be publishing transcripts of our episodes. You can find the link to the transcript in the show notes, to learn more about the show department Institute, visit us online. She'll apartment that, or we'd love to know what you think about the show. You can rate, review us on iTunes to help more people find the show. And you can also write to us identity crisis at shul apartment that org tell us what you think you can subscribe to our show in the Apple podcast app, Spotify, SoundCloud, audible, and everywhere else. Podcasts are available. See you next week.
