New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman has been thinking about the Middle East since he was 15 years old and he’s been covering the region for 45 years. He remains adamant that the only way forward for Israelis and Palestinians is through a two-state solution. He tells Peter what it will take to get there.
Please note: Our show is produced for the ear and made to be heard. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the audio before quoting in print.
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Thomas Friedman: Everything I'm writing, Peter, has one goal. And that is: to help bring down this Israeli government.
New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman is pretty clear about his desire to see Benjamin Netanyahu’s government out of power.
Thomas Friedman: Because this Israeli government is warped and disturbed and it's not a partner for anything. Bibi Netanyahu, because he needs to stay out of jail, he brought into power in Israel the American equivalent of the Proud Boys.
Thomas Friedman: And so my goal, Peter, uh, openly, I'm, I'm doing everything I can to, um contribute to the downfall of this government, because until it's gone, Israel won't be right. And nothing will be right.
And when he says this Israeli government is not a partner for anything, he has one big thing on his mind: a two-state solution. One for the Israelis and one for the Palestinians. If you're familiar with Tom Friedman's work over the last 45 years, you'll know a few things: He’s not afraid to say what he thinks when it comes to Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the Middle East more generally.
He's also a staunch supporter of Israel's right to exist but is an unabashed critic of Benjamin Netanyahu and some of the people he's put into key positions: most notably the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Thomas Friedman: These are Jewish supremacists who believe Jews were promised every square inch from the river to the sea, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. And it's their biblical patrimony. And part of preparing the ground for the Messiah to return is that Jews should be controlling that territory entirely.
So those beliefs make them an impediment to peace. And the one way out of this war and the endless cycle of conflict, occupation, and terror: The establishment of two states.
And make no mistake, Friedman doesn't believe Hamas is a partner for lasting peace either.
Thomas Friedman: The only way to delegitimize Hamas is if Palestinians do it.
Thomas Friedman: You know, one of my fundamental rules of the Middle East is that extremists go all the way and moderates tend to just go away.
Friedman understands the Middle East. He's been covering it since 1979 when he first went to Lebanon as a reporter.
Thomas Friedman: You know there are vintage years in wine, Peter, and there are vintage years in history, and 1979 was the Chateau Margaux of modern historical years. And I just happened to be there, little Tommy Friedman, in Beirut, working on a typewriter.
He became the Beirut Bureau Chief for the New York Times, then the Jerusalem Bureau Chief.
Thomas Friedman: Whatever Netanyahu says to you in English in private is irrelevant. All that matters is what he says in Hebrew in public. That's my first rule. My second rule as a journalist is if Netanyahu is offering you an interview as a journalist, that's not a compliment.
Thomas Friedman: There's a 90 percent chance that's only happening cause he thinks he can snooker you.
And eventually he became the foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times. He’s written about the two-state solution and what it would mean for Israelis, Palestinians, and many other countries. And he’s also proposed ways to get there.
Thomas Friedman: I am a firm believer in the right of the Jewish people to self determination, but also a firm believer that Palestinians have the same right. Because I know what is a hundred percent the alternative, and that's a forever war.
Coming up, why Friedman believes a two-state solution is still possible and how it can be achieved.
I'm Peter Bergen. And this is In the Room.
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Peter Bergen: Where were you on October 7th and what did you think?
Thomas Friedman: We have a home, in California, in Monterey, and I was there. I was, obviously, shocked, stunned. But I chose actually, Peter, not to, as I might have, get on a plane and rush off to Israel. I'm now 70. I've been reporting on this conflict almost 45 years.
Thomas Friedman: And I have seen Israelis and Palestinians, and Arabs and Arabs, and Americans and Arabs, I have seen them do such terrible, violent things to each other in those 45 years I've just seen terrible, terrible things. And one thing I've learned from all that is that the most dangerous words you can utter as a reporter in the Middle East is: “The world will never be the same.”
Thomas Friedman: I've seen just really, really bad stuff and the world is often, you know, just the same. And so my initial reaction was to keep my distance. And to try to think clearly about it, less emotionally if I could. And so, if you read my stuff, my original reaction was, Israel, please ask yourself, what does your worst enemy want you to do right now?
Thomas Friedman: Your worst enemy, Iran, and Hamas, want you to do just what America did after 9/11. Run off, into a war with no plan for the morning after and get stuck in a moral, military, and economic overstretch.
Peter Bergen: Is that what happened?
Thomas Friedman: I think we're in the middle of determining that, but that was my worry.
Thomas Friedman: So my initial argument was: make this Operation Rescue Grandma, is what I called it. That focus entirely on the hostages, the hostage-taking, the abduction of infants and grandparents, the rape of Israeli women. Focus on that. And you have a chance to truly delegitimize Hamas. Unfortunately, that advice wasn't taken.
And it wouldn’t be out of the question to take his advice. After all, American presidents read his columns. Barack Obama sounded him out about the Middle East.
Yet what’s happened since Israel went into Gaza eight months ago, following the brutal attacks on October 7th is this: Some 1200 Israelis were killed. More than 37,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to local health authorities. 12,000 children have been injured in Gaza. And some 116 hostages remain in captivity, about 40 of whom are thought to be dead.
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Friedman believes there needs to be an end to this war AND to the cycle of wars that preceded it through a two-state solution. But that two-state solution has been attempted several times in the past, long before Hamas was even in power in Gaza.
Most notably in the 1990s with the Oslo Accords, a set of agreements negotiated between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO, which among other things established the Palestinian Authority or PA to govern over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The PLO also recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace. The goal was to reach a two-station solution. But that didn’t happen. There was another attempt in 2000 with the Camp David summit, brokered by President Bill Clinton, which brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak - and the Palestinian leader - Yasser Arafat together. And there was also the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, a plan endorsed by the 22 member states of the Arab League, including Saudi Arabia.
But these attempts ultimately failed to negotiate a final agreement.
Thomas Friedman: So you could then say, well, Tom, why are you for a two-state solution now, you know? And you know, I have two answers. One is, you know, everyone's been writing, there's been so many articles of late, some of which I take personally, which is that two-state solution's impossible, it's a delusion, it's a fantasy, to which I say, ‘Oh, thank you. I had no idea. I thought it was a slam dunk. Thank you for telling me it's really, really unlikely.’
Thomas Friedman: I would actually say it's got about a 5 percent chance. And I'm going to devote 110 percent of my energy to making that 5 percent a reality. Because I know what is a hundred percent the alternative, and that's a forever war.
Peter Bergen: I mean, it's worth noting Cromwell went into Ireland several hundred years before the Good Friday Agreement, so, I mean, things can change.
Thomas Friedman: Exactly. They can change and they can change back. You know leadership matters. But it's going to be, it's going to be hard. It's going to be a fight.
Peter Bergen: You mentioned leadership.
Thomas Friedman: Yeah, I'm afraid leadership is necessary, but it's not sufficient. It's more than one person. You know, both Israelis and Palestinians kind of went into Oslo with their fingers crossed.
Thomas Friedman: Arafat basically made peace with one hand and supported terrorism with the other. And Israel made peace with one hand and supported settlements with the other. It's worth to me one more college try, you know, one more good college try, Peter. And when that doesn't work, you know what it's worth then?
Thomas Friedman: One more good college try. Because the alternative is awful.
Friedman has been advocating for that fight for a two-state solution for as long as he's been sharing his opinions. Like for example, in 2002. It wasn’t quite a year since the 9/11 attacks, which had been perpetrated by among others, 15 hijackers who were Saudis.
And Friedman says he held the Saudis responsible for their part in the 9/11 attacks. Friedman thought there was an opportunity here for Saudi Arabia to play a new, more constructive role by brokering a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.
So he wrote a column about it using a clever conceit.
Thomas Friedman: At the time, I occasionally wrote columns about Bill Clinton that were phony letters from Clinton to world leaders. I would make them up entirely, but based on a lot of reporting, so they would sound really authentic. Anyways, Bush is now president. So I, I thought of writing a letter from George Bush to the leaders of all the Arab League countries saying, uh, guys, uh, in the wake of 9/11, you really need to try to do something constructive.
Thomas Friedman: Why don't you declare a peace plan calling for full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, uh, and East Jerusalem, also Gaza at the time, and in return for full peace, normalization, trade, diplomatic relations, the whole nine yards. I had that idea.
So he wrote the column.
And he proposed that in return for a total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the 22 members of the Arab League would offer full diplomatic relations with Israel, normalized trade, and security guarantees.
That column was published in The New York Times. And then he received an invitation.
Thomas Friedman: The Saudi embassy spokesman, a man named Adel Al Jubeir, comes to me and says, have you ever been to Saudi Arabia?
Thomas Friedman: I said, ‘Well, as a matter of fact, Adel, I have.’ And he says, ‘Well, would you like to come again?’ And I said, ‘Well, you know, I'm beating your brains in as hard as I can, but sure I’ll come.’ And then I went off on this trip to Saudi Arabia.
After about a week in Saudi Arabia, he received an invitation to come to dinner from the Crown Prince Abdullah who was the de-facto ruler of the Saudi kingdom, at the time.
Thomas Friedman: And I went to the dinner and it was one of these big Saudi dinners, all men, a giant buffet stretching miles. At about midnight, he says, come back to my house.
Thomas Friedman: So we walked back to his house and sat at a small desk. And he began by saying, you broke into my drawer. I said, ‘Your highness, what are you talking about?’ ‘Well, that peace plan you put out, that was my idea.’
Thomas Friedman: I said, ‘Oh really? Tell me about it.’ And for the next three hours, basically, he played back my own peace plan and basically said, ‘This is my idea. This is what I want to do it. We want the Jewish people to know they're not a eternal enemy. You know, it's about the occupation.’ And we went around and around on until about three in the morning.
Thomas Friedman: And about 3 a.m., I stood up to go and I said, ‘Your Highness, this is so important. You need to put this out to the world.’ He said, ‘Well, you just say it, you know, as if I'm thinking it.’ I said, ‘No, no, you say it.’ He said, ‘No, no, you say it.’ I said, ‘No, no, you say it.’ He said, ‘No, no, you say it.’ So we went back and forth and Adel translating in between this ping pong match.
Thomas Friedman: And finally, I said, here's the deal. I'm going to write it up as you've said it, on the record, and you'll look at it and you'll tell me if you want to go with it. And I went back to my hotel room, didn't sleep, wrote it up as an interview, and faxed it to them. There was no email at the time.
Thomas Friedman: And a couple hours later, Adel called back and said, ‘Go with it, it's yours.’
Several days passed before the column actually went into print. But in the meantime, as he met with other Saudi officials, Friedman realized that no one else in the Saudi government was aware of the Crown Prince’s decision to put this idea for a peace plan out into the world.
Thomas Friedman: I did tell him one thing. I said, ‘Adel, I'm actually staying here till Monday. My column comes out Sunday and there's only one thing I care about. How you translate this on the Saudi press agency in Arabic. And if you screw me, I have a Wednesday column. And I will screw you back.’ Okay? So I was not going to have my column out there in English and then have them say, ‘Hey, it was a mistranslation. We really meant, you know, uh, this or that.’
Thomas Friedman: Did I understand, Peter, this was an attempt to deflect attention from 9/11? Absolutely. I knew just what was going on. But my attitude was boy, if this is how they want to do it in a constructive way, I'm all for it.
The column came out and Friedman did an interview about it with an Israeli journalist.
Thomas Friedman: ‘Cause I wanted Israelis to understand this was real and important. And then they immediately called an Arab summit for March 27th, 28 in Beirut, to turn this interview into an Arab peace initiative. And tragically, on the evening of March 27…
ARCHIVAL Newscaster: Suicide bomber. Another deadly attack in Israel on one of the holiest days of the year.
Thomas Friedman: A terrorist group blew up a Passover Seder in the Israeli resort town of Netanya killing and wounding close to a hundred people.
ARCHIVAL Newscaster: The bomber entered the hotel through the front door, walked through the lobby, and blew himself up in the dining room.
ARCHIVAL Witness: Sacred night for Jews around the world, a suicide bomber came to destroy himself among Jews celebrating Passover.
Thomas Friedman: And that terrorist group, Peter, it had a name, and its name was Hamas.
Hamas is a militant Islamist movement that was founded in Gaza in 1987 during the first intifada, or uprising, against the Israeli occupation. It grew out of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is an Islamist group that has its roots in Egypt.
In 2006, Hamas won a majority in local elections in Gaza. And it’s often used suicide bombings to attack Israeli civilians and soldiers, like the attack in Netanya.
ARCHIVAL Newscaster: The attack in Israel has obviously cast a pall over the opening session of the Arab League Summit here in Beirut. There was reaction almost immediately afterwards. One from a Hamas official based here in Beirut. This official saying, that those attacks, those kinds of attacks, would continue as long as the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands continue.
Thomas Friedman: So, that's why I detest these people. That on the day that the Arab world came together in the form of the Arab League to pass the first full scale, two-state Arab peace initiative, what was Hamas’ response? It was to blow up a Passover Seder in Netanya.
Peter Bergen: Tom, I remember that column coming out and the reaction was seismic because here we have, I mean, he's the crown prince of the family, he’s the keeper of the holy places. That's part of their title for them to kind of essentially give their, not just political benediction, but religious benediction in a sense to this, I mean, it was, it was a huge, huge deal.
Thomas Friedman: Let me stick on that story because, again, to understand everything I've been writing, Peter, you have to go back to my experience, for me, of being in Beirut in 1979.
Thomas Friedman: Now of all those events that I was witness to and just trying to navigate, the most important was actually the takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, fundamentalist puritanical jihadis took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The Saudis eventually got them out of the mosque, they executed these fundamentalists.
Thomas Friedman: But then they did something. that had one of the most profound impacts in the 20th and 21st centuries. Before 1979, you had women airline attendants on Saudi Airlines. You had women on TV in Saudi Arabia. It was in a process of opening.
Thomas Friedman: And basically the bargain that the Saudi ruling family engaged in after was to say to their religious fundamentalist clergy and hierarchy, ‘You are going to have a free reign in determining social and religious policy, and just leave us alone, we'll control the rest.’ Saudi Arabia was then competing suddenly with Iran for who was the most legitimate. And Saudi Arabia basically took the entire Arab Muslim world on a right turn.
Thomas Friedman: So in 2016, I think it was, I got a call from an Arab journalist friend of mine who said there's a new Saudi crown prince, deputy crown prince. His name is Mohammed bin Salman, and he'd like to meet you. Would you come over and meet him? I said, uh, sure.
Thomas Friedman: I go over and meet him and we did an interview. It was only in Arabic at the time. And I was really impressed. This was a different kettle of fish, this kid. He had a real, totally domestic reform agenda It wasn't just letting women drive or go to soccer games. He took the religious police off the streets. He told the mosques to turn down their volume. He told young people you gotta get a degree in something more than Islamic studies.
Thomas Friedman: And that's why, even though he did one of the most ugly, vile, evil, and stupid things any leader could do, which was kill, actually a reformer who wanted to be part of the process, Jamal Khashoggi, I have continued to support the initiative because I think it is as world-reshaping as 1979 was world-shaping.
Peter Bergen: And of course, part of that is MBS's embrace of the two-state solution.
Thomas Friedman: Absolutely.
Peter Bergen: I mean, it's hard for listeners to recall, but if you go back to October 6th, you have Israeli government officials actually celebrating Jewish prayer rituals in Saudi Arabia, you have an Israeli cabinet minister visiting Saudi Arabia.
Thomas Friedman: Let's go back to October 6th. What was going on in the world on October 6th? Basically my shorthand is that Ukraine was trying to join the West and Israel was trying to join the East.
Thomas Friedman: If Ukraine is able to join the European Union over time, can't happen overnight, we will have the biggest expansion of a Europe whole and free since East Germany joined West Germany.
Thomas Friedman: Putin understood that if Ukraine is allowed to join the West, it is a fundamental game changer so he moved to stop it. The same thing with Israel. If Israel were able to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia on terms, I would argue, hopefully, that would also make a significant advance toward a two-state solution with Palestinians, it would have been the biggest expansion of an inclusive Middle East since Camp David.
Thomas Friedman: And what happened on October 7th was a fundamental battle over that. Because if Ukraine can join the West and Israel can join the East, we're going to have a post-post-Cold War world of much greater inclusion.
Thomas Friedman: And if we don't, we're going to have one of much greater resistance.
Peter Bergen: You wrote a piece, “Israel has a choice to make: Rafa or Riyadh.”
Thomas Friedman: Yes.
Peter Bergen: So walk us through, kind of, the main points of that.
Thomas Friedman: Well, I think that the Saudis, I was just in Riyadh a few weeks ago, uh, remain committed to normalizing with Israel as part of this new security agreement it wants to forge with the United States, because MBS does have a vision, and his vision is of a Middle East that looks a lot like the European Union, with Saudi Arabia playing Germany. And that’s what he’s focused on.
Peter Bergen: The fact that they're the keeper of the holy places does sort of—and as I understand it, King Salman, the father has always been, you know, very much in favor of a real Palestinian state. So what are the Saudis looking for? They must be looking for some real guarantees not just some sort of idle chatter.
Thomas Friedman: MBS told me that he took a poll before October 6th and asked Saudis how they felt about normalization with Israel. And roughly 70 percent said they were good with it as long as it was paired with a process for Palestinian statehood one day. Might not have been quite that specific, but they wanted to make sure Palestinians weren't abandoned.
Thomas Friedman: But otherwise that the majority was good with it. Not today. I don't think he'd take the poll.
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In May, Israel, at least for the moment, chose Rafah and not Riyadh. Despite pleas from the United States and other countries, Israeli forces entered into the heavily populated area of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians were then living.
ARCHIVAL Newscaster: At least 45 people were killed after an Israeli airstrike targeted this camp for displaced Palestinians in Western Rafah, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Their bloodcurdling screams tell the story of the unfolding horror more than words ever could. But it is only as bodies are pulled out of the inferno that the scale of this attack becomes clear.
And just as Israeli battalions were moving deeper into central Rafah, President Joe Biden laid out what he said was an Israeli proposal to get to a permanent ceasefire.
ARCHIVAL Joe Biden: After intensive diplomacy carried out by my team, my many conversations, leaders of Israel, Qatar and Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, Israel has now offered, Israel has offered, a comprehensive new proposal. It's a road map to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages. That's the offer that's now on the table.
The plan would take place in three phases. And President Biden urged the Israelis to accept it.
ARCHIVAL Joe Biden: The people of Israel should know they can make this offer without any further risk to their own security because they've devastated Hamas forces over the past eight months. At this point, Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another October 7th.
Peter Bergen: I mean, is there an alternative other than this sort of three-phase plan that Biden has laid out? You talked about the lack of a plan for a day after. Obviously you've got the defense minister saying that they have some kind of notional plan for a post-Hamas leadership in Gaza. You’ve also had Netanyahu saying the Palestinian Authority can't be part of it. You've criticized Netanyahu for that.
Thomas Friedman: I have a very radical view on this, and that is, what I would do if I were Israel right now. Which is that I would tell Hamas, basically, we are ready for a permanent ceasefire. We're ready to get entirely out of Gaza. And, we just want all our hostages back.
Thomas Friedman: Whatever, prisoners you want, there they are, okay? Why do I say that? Because the first reaction is, but then Hamas would, Sinoir would, just retake Gaza. To which I say, uh, yes, that is the most likely outcome. But let's just think about that outcome for a second.
Thomas Friedman: Sinwar would have to come out of his tunnel. And two things would happen, I suspect. One is the morning after he would be carried around on people's shoulders saying you, took on al Yehudis for eight months. You took on their army. You know, “ثورة حتى النصر” you are our hero. The morning after the morning after and every morning after that, I think he'd have a huge problem.
Thomas Friedman: Problem number one, let's see Yahya. What is your great achievement? What is your great achievement? You got a permanent ceasefire from the Israelis and you got them entirely out of Gaza. Oh, oh, wait a minute, Yahya. What existed on October 6th? You had a permanent ceasefire and all the Israelis out of Gaza.
Thomas Friedman: You mean we fought this war, you took us into a war for 8 months. You basically destroyed most of the housing stock in Gaza. Thousands of our brothers and sisters were killed to get back to where we were on October 6th. That's your heroic action? Oh, I want to be around for that conversation, okay?
Thomas Friedman: I want him to own the rebuilding of Gaza. I want him to have to look his people in the eye. I want him to have to go to the world and say, we need help. We need help. Oh, but we're still going to fire rockets at Israel and dig more tunnels. No, I don't think that's going to happen. And now that Israel controls the Philadelphi Corridor, the Egyptian entrance and exit into Gaza, and they now know how he got all these arms, he's not going to be able to rebuild.
Thomas Friedman: The only way to delegitimize Hamas is if Palestinians do it.
Peter Bergen: You have been a very prominent advocate of the two-state solution in the past several months, since October 7th. And you've also correctly said, you know, that you understand that it's not going to be easy. But how would it take place step by step, do you think?
Thomas Friedman: Well, the first step has to be a new Israeli government that's ready to engage with the idea, uh, legitimately and positively, not reluctantly and subversively. We have to have a new Israeli government, just as you need a new Palestinian government on the other side.
Thomas Friedman: Uh, and I'm talking about both eliminating Hamas, unless it embraces Oslo. And getting the PA to be transformed. You know, I think that's really the necessary ingredient. I think the first step would have to be giving greater Palestinian Authority, you know, over areas they now control, lifting checkpoints wherever you can, and getting a commitment to Israel to simply stop building any new settlements anywhere beyond the settlement blocks. And making that commitment as a commitment of seriousness.
Thomas Friedman: That would have to be step one. Where you'd go after that, two, three, four, I'm not sure, but that would have to be step one.
So Friedman says in the first step you’d have to get rid of the current Israeli government. So what would it take to bring down the Netanyahu government?
Thomas Friedman: I think the way you get this government down is to uh, multi-step process, you tell Netanyahu that if he will abandon Smotrich and Ben Gvir and their 14 seats, and agree to some kind of horizon for Palestinians, he can be remembered not as the Prime Minister on October 7th, but the father of uh, normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Thomas Friedman: And if he does that, the President will then give him a plea bargain in which if he agrees to retire from politics the cases against him will be dropped. I think that's the way to do it. It's got to be a combination of the personal and the political. Because he's motivated by both, so you've got to address both. And, presto change-o, you could have a very different Israel as a result.
Peter Bergen: Have you ever seen the 2012 film, The Gatekeepers?
Thomas Friedman: Yes, I have. Yeah.
Peter Bergen: I thought it was a revelation, because as you know, it's six former leaders of Shin Bet, the domestic intelligence service, all of whom said versions of the same thing, which is we win every battle, but we're losing the war.
Peter Bergen: Now, this is back in 2012 the film really struck home for me because these are the people who are in charge of these domestic intelligence services, and they all seem to have the same view.
Thomas Friedman: So in my book that I'm writing I have a chapter on sort of just lessons I've learned over the years and one of the lessons I've learned — I have in that chapter is — it's in the form of a question. Why has every Israeli intelligence chief, military and Mossad and Shin Bet, whom I've gotten to know. Why are virtually all of them doves?
Peter Bergen: [Laughs]
Thomas Friedman: That's really interesting. Like, of all, of all people, why are they all doves? And the reason is twofold. One is, they know the real balance of power. They know how strong Israel is. And number two, more importantly, they see every day how corrosive and corrupting is the occupation. Morally, financially, politically, militarily. And they know just how bad it is for Israel.
Peter Bergen: You've written that, you know, Hamas is not a partner for a secure peace with Israel. So who might be?
Thomas Friedman: I think you have to go back to the Palestinian Authority and to the PLO and you have to challenge them to come up with a negotiating team that is legitimate in Palestinian eyes — legitimate because it has the blessings of the PLO and legitimate because it's led by the best and the brightest of Palestinians. And as part of that blessing, as part of that coalition, there's going to have to be a Muslim Brotherhood element. They can't be called Hamas as a party unless they want to embrace Oslo and become part of the solution.
Thomas Friedman: I think it’s very naive to think that you can have a legitimate, effective Palestinian Authority that doesn't have political representation of Hamas in the context of those people embracing the Oslo Peace Treaty.
Peter Bergen: Are you suggesting that, you know, if you got rid of anybody who'd had any association with Hamas, you wouldn't have a functional civil society in Gaza?
Thomas Friedman: Yeah, this was a social movement, as well as a terrorist organization, as well as, recently, an army, and it's embedded in Gazan society. It's also a tyrannical organization, feared and disliked also. So, I'm not making a case for Hamas, but there is an Islamist trend in Palestinian politics just as there is in Israeli-Arab politics.
Thomas Friedman: I think it'd be, it would be very unwise to tell Palestinians, ‘this is who can represent you and this is who can’t.’ That's how you get a lot of Palestinians who will be taken out by Hamas.
Peter Bergen: Two of your colleagues, uh, Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti, wrote a very deep account of the settler movement, and I'm just going to quote one sentence from it: “After fifty years of crime without punishment, in many ways the violent settlers and the state have become one.”
Thomas Friedman: That's just absolutely what's gone on here, you know. And um, I've watched it all happen and found it appalling. And opposed it. And believe it's the, it is a fundamental threat to the prospect that Israel will have a 150th anniversary.
While the settler movement represents only one small piece of Israeli society, a recent poll shows that 65 percent of Israelis oppose a two-state solution. Friedman says he doesn’t pay much attention to those polls while the hostages are still held in captivity by Hamas because it’s disturbed the Israeli psyche.
But he does acknowledge that the larger peace movement that once existed in Israel, known as the Peace Now movement, which was once a political force to reckon with, doesn’t really exist anymore. Friedman thinks that instead there are many Israelis that are looking just for a way to just completely sever ties with the Palestinians.
Thomas Friedman: I don't think there is a peace movement in the sense you had with Peace Now back in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s. But I think there's an even bigger separation movement. Can we separate? I'm talking about divorce, not marriage. And I think after the dust settles here, the movement for safe separation, I think there'll be a real case for that.
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Thomas Friedman: I've been doing this, Peter, since 1979 and I'm pretty much an open book fortunately today with both readers and parties on both sides. What you see with me is what you get.
Thomas Friedman: I'm always proud of my religious background and I’m for a two-state solution because I believe the Jewish people have a right to self-determination and a right to self-defense in their historic homeland.
Thomas Friedman: And because I believe that Palestinians have a right to self-determination uh, and self-defense in their historic homeland. And the only way for both to be at home is if the other is. That's what I believed when I was an undergrad at Brandeis, and that's what I believe as I'm in the sunset years at The New York Times.
Thomas Friedman: Never changed, never wavered. That's how I see it. And if you believe that, you're my friend. If you don't believe that, you're not my friend. And over the years, there have been a lot of people tried to do psychological diagnosis of me and I'm this and I'm that and I'm secretly this and I'm secretly that. No, it's all here. If it's not clear to you after 45 years, then it's not going to be clear.
Thomas Friedman: So that's, uh, who I am.
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If you want to learn more about the issues we discussed in today’s episode we recommend From Beirut to Jerusalem, by Thomas Friedman. A new edition comes out in October. The book is available on Audible.
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