Host: So, I've been reluctant on the show to talk too much about imagined solutions for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. I don't think any of the underlying conditions for political solution are present.

Voice 1: >> 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Voice 2: >> More than 81% of Gaza's buildings are at least partially damaged.

Voice 3: >> So many other Palestinian families are living with the threat of demolition.

Host: >> We're in a pre-olutionary space. And I worry about it as a form of escapism. It's more comfortable to debate two-state models or one-state imaginings rather than confront the realities of what is happening right now. But the other problem, the other reason I I have kind of backed off of these conversations is that the old solutions don't fit the present reality. I don't see how a two-state solution is still possible given the number and size of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. They're not going away. or the insistence on a right of return for Palestinians. I don't think a one-state solution is plausible or likely. The Jewish people in Israel and around it, they want self-determination and sovereignty. So too do the Palestinians. Neither side, given their history, is going to give the other willingly that kind of power. But a number of people, people I trust, have written to me saying, I should look at the Landforall plan. Land for All was founded in 2012 by a group of Israelis and Palestinians. And it's attempting something different, something I find in some ways beautiful. Not a two-state model of separation, not a one-state model of unification, but this confederation model that centers both people's connections to the land and tries to combine the free movement of people with separated political entities. In this model, you would have an Israel and a Palestine. There would be free movement, but political separation. The borders would be open, but they say hopefully secure. There's a lot to unpack about all this. I have a lot of questions about it. I would describe my own thinking here as intrigued, not convinced. But I do think it is worth considering a new political vision, even I think we're far from the conditions that might make one possible. I mean, if you don't have any idea of where you're going, how do you get there? Ruah Hardal is a Palestinian citizen of Israel who received her doctorate in political science from the University of Hanover in Germany. My Pundak is an Israeli lawyer, activist, and social entrepreneur. Her father Ron Pundock was an Israeli historian who played an important role in the Oso peace process in the 1990s. They're the co-directors of land for all. And so I wanted to ask them both about the plan but also about the politics and questions and social forces that have undermined every other plan. As always, my email esraclans show my times.com. Rua hardall my pundock, welcome to the show.

Guests: >> Thank you so much. Thank you.

Host: >> So, I think that people listening are familiar with the two-state solution concept uh an Israel and a Palestine separated and side by side. People have heard ideas for a single state where you would have uh people throughout the territory, throughout the land all voting within the same political system. I don't think that they tend to be as familiar with what you're offering this confederation model. So Mai, let me begin with you. How does this differ from the two-state solution that has been pursued for so long?

May Pundak: So first of all let me say we are offering what we call a new vision but in that new vision it is still based on two sovereign independent states right Israel and Palestine the two-state solution the classic version of it was based on a paradigm of segregation and separation and we are moving away from that and offering a model that is based not on the zero sum game but rather on acknowledging two very important components of the conflict. Number one, both Israelis and Palestinians have an immense psychological, social connection and sense of belonging to the entire homeland from the river to the sea. That's a fact. Number two, the intertwined reality on the ground. Meaning that today Israel Palestine in a way is already shared. The intertwined reality is everywhere we look. And so the model says yes sovereignity yes nation states yes identity yes borders and there's another layer to that of a shared mechanism of shared institutions that take care of things that have to be taken care of jointly. So there's a human rights court and there are cooperation around economy and there is you know climate challenges are dealt with together because you can't deal with these things separately but also because it's a mechanism to ensure a sustainable peace.

Host: So that that word shared is important in your vision and your father was one of the negotiators at Oslo, spent his life working on the two-state solution paradigm. And that paradigm is built on the idea of security through separation, at least on the Jewish side, that if we can just separate, everybody can live in peace, everybody can leave each other alone.

May Pundak: >> Yeah.

Host: What led you to move away from that vision and towards this idea that peace doesn't come through separation. It comes through a shared set of institutions and interests.

May Pundak: >> Yeah. Well, I would say two main things. The first one was that I found myself um advocating for the two-state solution for many many years. I was um doing much more anti-occupation work. I wasn't really interested in solutions. I kind of we kept that separate um from each other. But at a certain point and this was um after my father passed away and I think that I you know that was part of my reckoning process of of grief you know of just coming to terms with the fact that I've been fighting for the two-state solution but at a certain point I started feeling that this model is crumbling beneath my between my fingers and I can't gra I don't believe in it anymore. The reality is telling me something else. Meeting Palestinian friends are telling me something else. Meeting the international community, I'm learning something else. Be living in Israel, I'm learning something else. And so I'm, you know, there advocating for the two-state solutions as an activist, but everywhere I'm hearing the two-state solutions dead. It's impossible. And at the same time in Israel, this idea of peace, of negotiations, of two-state solution is becoming not relevant in the public discourse. Like there is no conversation about this. And so in 2018, I had my first son and we were living a couple of years in the states and coming back to Israel. Um, no one was talking about a future for my child, about security, about safety, about vision, about horizon, about hope. No one was telling me what we're fighting for. And that two-state solution has become an empty shell for people to talk about something, but not take any action. And by any action, we've been led to October 7th. by not presenting a viable vision and not organizing ourselves around that, we've been we've succumbed to this managing the conflict. Right? So, we'll talk about the two-state solution, but everyone knows it's not going to work. And we find ourselves in international very very important forums with serious decision makers who say two-state solution, we know it's never going to happen. So in a way for me I was I was taking the life of my children into my own hands. I was like okay that's just not good enough. We have to reimagine a two-state solution that can work or a new vision that will actually be able to be pragmatic and practical work but also organize and excite Palestinians and Israelis. And I'll just say one more thing about that kind of transformation. For me, coming from a human rights background, I wanted to be a human rights lawyer to end the occupation. Um, and I understand that sounds a little naive today. Uh, and I still think that Israelis who are doing that work are saints and and and this is the most important work to be done. But at the same time, we haven't politically seen Palestinians as equal politically. we can maybe save them, we can control them. There's there's a dynamic of that power dynamic always underneath. And for me, the positionality of realizing on my my in my skin that until Rola and the Palestinian people are safe and free, we will never be free and liberated and safe either. Our security is dependent on

Interviewer: each other. Rua, I know that you previously were a supporter of a one-state solution. Tell me about how you came to this idea and how your thinking evolved.

Rua: I came to this idea because I started realizing two things. First of all, we have already a one-state reality or one state construction on the ground between the Jordan and the Sea. But you know under one regime and one power which is the Israeli one and the Palestinians live under daily domination and occupation and military control and apartheide. Needless to say in the last two and a half years ethnic cleansing and genocide um um and annexation of their tiny small part of of the land. I mean uh the Gaza Strip and uh and the West Bank. I'm I'm not sure that even you the audience is understanding what's happening in the West Bank. People hear about you know having checkpoints. There is military control uh terrorism and violence of of the settlers but the reality on the ground is is way worse. um the the immense of daily domination um and control of people's life in in the West Bank is just immense. I don't know if there is something similar or has been in in other places under other conflicts and because we are not speaking about you know uh very direct war. It's an ongoing longterm daily um atrocities and restrictions and humiliation of of of people. So to start from this fact and reality on the ground, it will be hard um for us to move especially now after what happened in the last 2 and a half years to to move immediately for uh um an equal one state reality where actually all Palestinians and all Israelis are equal uh in the same uh one state. The second point I claim from my research and observations that the majority of the Palestinians and the Israeli Jews on the ground in Israel Palestine are not in a postnational mindset the way I thought uh and the way that a lot of people here think. the the sense of ethnational belonging and interests and national symbols and um the desire to have for each group its own political national entity is still very strong and we need to to acknowledge that and to respect that.

Interviewer: Uh the last few years have been staggering in their violence. You've used the word genocide here and domination and here you are also advocating for a plan that at its core would require people to treat each other with trust as equals um in a shared enterprise. It feels hard to not just imagine the plan but imagine the people who would engage in this plan. Yeah. So, this may seem like a simple question, but I think it's a it's an important one to to try to feel. Why are you not held back by the belief that this is impossible to solve?

Rua: Well, I think it's um it's very hard. It's very complicated. We are facing now a very um or maybe the ugliest phase of the history of of both people since October 7th. We are not ignoring all of that. I'm not ignoring that. We've been speaking a couple of days ago with uh some friends and and policy experts in in DC and one of them who is uh Egyptian Egyptian American. We've been speaking about Gaza and and he brought actually an Arabic word to describe what all of us feel and felt while watching the um the second Nakba, the genocide uh 24/7 on our screens, the word that doesn't exist um in in in the English language. It's a combination of being angry and humiliation of your humanity and existence and who you are and with helpless that you you you cannot you you don't have any anything to do and um yeah um that's why Um, I'm I'm doing what I'm doing because if there is something to save in our souls as as Palestinians and if there is something to save in terms of dreaming about Palestine even in in part of historic Palestine, this is something that I'm committed to do after what happened in in Gaza. Gaza is gone and we are involved with a lot of people who are involved with what's going on in Gaza, the board of peace, the executive committee and so on and the many actors in the international community. The amount of helpless and lack of orientation and ability to make decisions and to do things on the ground is just insane. And I don't want to see that in the coming years when it comes to the whole Palestinian situation because what is threatened now since in in a very direct intensive way uh since October 7th is the collective political national being of the Palestinians in Palestine. And I'm doing this work in order to just maybe save what is to save there. If we don't offer um new arrangements, new political vision, if we don't see this uh very bad situation as an opportunity to start, I don't have any illusion. I cannot promise anybody that this solution or any other solution similar or different is going to be implemented tomorrow or next year or I don't know where when but history is not um static and we cannot know now when this opening is going to come. We Palestinians are not going to give up. We are there and we insist to be there. This is our place and we are going to continue to struggle.

Israeli Speaker: Can I say something about the trust? I I think that's a very... as an Israeli I think that's a an important question for for us to to deal with. What is the alternative? The alternative right now is either continuing in the footsteps of this government, which is to destroy the Palestinian peoplehood, or a fake status quo. I don't know if that would be the right term, but this belief that we can just not solve this conflict. And so, the first thing that we need to commit ourselves to is realizing that if we're not going to solve this conflict, it will solve us, right? That is what led us.

Interviewer: What What does that mean? Because I mean, as you know better than me that most Israelis, the center of Israeli political opinion actually does not think there is no alternative. Like the alternative the alternative is the path they're on. The opposition party even in this election is not hugely different than Netanyahu on this. That the idea I think the idea as best I understand it is basically the alternative is

Israeli Speaker: there is Jewish Israeli security supremacy over the land. Mh. and uh the conflict, so to speak, can be controlled and managed.

Interviewer: Absolutely. This is absolutely true. To some people, this is not just an alternative. This is a pathway to realize, you know, quite ancient hopes. So when you're in conversation with that,

Israeli Speaker: Yeah. So that is all true and that we are seeing play out right now in Israel Palestine. This is this is the reality right this is and my question to to you or to us to us Israelis is like has this ensured your safety and security? The answer is no. If you are messianic and you have dreams that are beyond life right that are about eternity that's a different timeline. But for people who are actually concerned with safety and security for their children and a better future and life, the current paradigm has not ensured our safety and security until this day, right? Like it's not only October 7th. What about what's happening now with Israel re-entering Lebanon? What's happening with Iran? What's happening in the south? I mean, what what's happening in the West? There's no place that we actually feel safe right now. And I think that that's an important um realization that we have to say out loud and confront. We're not safe now. This has not given us safety. I'll give you a more concrete example in the place where we have seen the utmost um um commitment to segregation and separation, right? and the billiond dollar wall and and these mechanisms and all the IDF you know security measures and technology that is where all hell broke loose that's Gaza so when people say that big walls will ensure my safety I say no it won't my I live in Jaffa and there's a lot to say about the inequality of Palestinian citizens of Israel but the truth of the matter is that Palestinians who are living within Israel and have more rights, not equal rights at all. That is where we're not slaughtering each other, right? That those are the kindergarten teachers of my baby. So, no one

Israeli Speaker: ...will convince me that security will be given to me or insured to me by bigger, more walls and more separation. That's number one. The other thing that I want to say about is is history. History shows us also in Israel. I think that Egypt is probably the big the the best example. Egypt after 1973 was considered Hitler. Saddat was considered Hitler and Egypt was considered the next biggest threat to Israel. And then 79 h you know we got to 79. There's a peace agreement and that today ensures my safety. Israelis go to, you know, take vacations in Sinai. And that's the safest uh uh border that I have as an Israeli. So, we have to flip the narrative based on history. The last thing that I'll say about this is that when you look at other conflicts around the world but also um in Israel Palestine before negotiations there's no belief that this can be solved. Once negotiations start suddenly the belief in public opinion rises. A month before the Berlin Wall fell people said it will never fall. A month before the Good Friday Agreement was signed people say it will never be solved. Well, guess what it was? And when we need to get to that tipping point and we're doing the work on the ground, but once we get there and that moment will come, are we ready with a good pragmatic relevant solution? That is what we're here to do.

Interviewer: One of the things I've been curious about how both of you see on in your respective parts of these societies is the role of the religious factions. Something that many people involved in previous negotiations have said to me is they feel that what they never knew how to approach was the people who were not just working off of the interests of today but to use the term you used uh on a more eternal timeline. And I mean these are significant factions in both societies. I mean right now the Netanyahu coalition is uh in a state of instability and fracture because it might lose ultraorththodox support.

Israeli Speaker: Yeah.

Interviewer: How in this vision do you balance people whose belief is that there is a a divine right and rit to a certain outcome. I think both national movements if we consider now for this uh 2 minutes Zionism to be a national movement and it is but not only

Israeli Speaker: >> you see how difficult partnership is right I mean this is a good example of just emphasizing how difficult this work is

Interviewer: >> just by yeah I mean saying Zionism is is a national movement. I mean yes it is also

Rula: >> yeah but also it Zionism has developed also to be to have another component which is actually uh constitute the major problem in Israel Palestine and for the Palestinian people which is the settler colonial uh aspects of of Zionism. So to to go back to the national aspects of Zionism, I think um that all of us Palestinians, Israeli Jews changed and that both societies uh developed to be much more conservative and religious. I think there is a tendency among Israelis, even secular um liberal to use religion and to uh emphasize the role of religion and conservatism uh when it comes to imagining the future and speaking about Israel Palestine while on the Palestinian context less um it's it's more about um the the importance.

Interviewer: >> Can you defend that statement for me? I mean kamas is a very religious organization.

Rula: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's it's part of an Islamic political Islamic uh

Interviewer: >> Right. I understand that. But

Rula: >> movement. Yeah.

Interviewer: >> But what may maybe I can better understand what what what you're saying here. >> You're saying that there's a tendency for secular Israelis to overstate the role of religion as a barrier on either side. But it feels like it's quite real >> on both sides and and the Hamas is religiously informed >> that much of Israeli society is quite religiously informed. >> And you know to take these views sincerely they are not just based on a horse trading of interests around security and >> um prosperity in the moment. they're connected to questions that have uh that that are less vulnerable to transactional solutions.

Rula: >> Absolutely. I I agree with you. But I I was trying to um um to describe the development that we that that actually brought both of us Palestinians and Israelis to this uh situation. We we do not skip in our political vision all of these aspects and developments and we start from acknowledging not only international law and rights and you know all of these liberal approaches uh um and universal approaches but we start from the connection of both people to Israel Palestine as as part of their religious historical cultural and also political identity. So we we we we we know that it's important and that we the way we cannot avoid other lessons learned from um our history and history of negotiations and peace efforts. We cannot ignore also this very important component that describes our societies.

Israeli Speaker: >> Yeah, I I absolutely agree. I I think that one of the lessons learned from Oslo as you said is to this is cannot be a liberal elite um intellectual secular solution. Israel and Palestine today are becoming more and more religious if anything more and more traditional less and less liberal both societies. So this is a very important question for me. One of the reasons why I joined a land for all was because I had to come to terms with my blind spot around this exact exact reality and looking within that and I think that said it so beautifully. We the the beginning the beginning of this solution is emotions. The very strong emotions that have also a religious connection right to the entire homeland. We all love this place literally to death, right? We love it so much. It's making us crazy. So I I would say that that's a really strong part of our work. And I would even say that one of the most beautiful moments in our events in Israel um is that when we have events, religious people come to our events and they say this is the first time we feel part of the peace camp. We don't feel that you've excluded us. We feel that we can be part of this. We can support this. And that's very reassuring right now.

Interviewer: >> So let's talk about what this vision actually calls for. I want to talk through the the dimensions of the plan and then also of course through some of the challenges or questions it it opens. But the first tenant in your paper is open borders. What do open borders mean in this context? Rula.

Rula: >> Yeah. First of all, I I do want to see the day that Israel is going to define its uh its borders because you know we we we are not there now. uh even to speak about borders between Israel and Palestine it's sound imaginary now because Israel is still in the in the ideology of expansion in the whole Middle East and this is one of the problems by by the way with the Zionist ideology

Interviewer: >> but your but your plan does go for

Rula: >> we are speaking about gradually opening the borders between uh Israel and Palestine as two states we will have borders ers. But we want to be to have these borders open in order um first of all to implement and give the people um the the ability to practice what we started uh uh our conversation speaking about the connection to the entire homeland. For me, the whole space is going to be Palestine. It's been Palestine and it's going to continue to be Palestine despite the definitions of two territories and the acknowledgement of the state of Israel and the state of Palestine. Um it will be in my in my blood in my soul Palestine. So and and for for the Jews they they can consider also the whole entire homeland if if they would like to as uh Israel or you know Israel. Um so opening the borders uh will give both people the opportunity to practice this sense of belonging and connection but also to reside from one place to another. For example, if you are an Israeli Jewish citizen and you are practiced as a software engineer and you want to work for a company in Raabi in the West Bank, there is a tech park in Raabi in Ber near near Ramla. You will be able to work there. you will apply for a work permission and if you would like to you can also take your family with you and have an apartment there. It's like in in any other place in the world. uh uh even here you live in New York but you work in I don't know LA or you you was born here and this ability for people to to move between

Guest 1: the two spaces and we are speaking about a very tiny small of of place Israel Palestine it's uh it's like New Jersey I think so it's very natural for people to move also between the two spaces because of their circumstances life uh um conditions and because of their connection.

Interviewer: I'm going to interrupt for one second just to draw out something that you mentioned that I just want to have you explain which is that in in that scenario you just laid out the software engineer who wants to work uh outside Ramala >> it that person even if they moved there >> and this seems to me to be one way this vision differs from from one state visions >> they would still vote for the prime minister

Guest 1: exactly

Interviewer: of Israel and similarly somebody from Ramala who maybe moves to work near a hospital in Tel Aviv they can live in Tel Aviv, but they would still vote for the prime minister

Guest 1: or leader of Palestine.

Interviewer: They will continue having their citizenship rights in their national state. Palestinians vote for the Palestinian uh government. Okay.

Guest 1: Um but they can have residency in Israel and accordingly all the civil rights uh and and local rights that comes with the uh residency uh status and vice versa. But the whole concept is to start with freedom of movement and freedom of residency. Um this concept actually gives us a space to think about arrangements when it comes for example for um solving the very important issue one of the core Palestinian issues which is the right of return and the Palestinian refugees. these refugees they will get um uh citizenship in the state of Palestine but they will be able also to apply for residency in Israel the way that the the place that they will were expelled from originally in in 48. So, I'm going to come back to right of return in a moment because I do want us to talk about it.

Interviewer: But, but my I want to >> ask the question that I think many Israeli Jews would have hearing this, which is how can you possibly have open borders and be safe? How can you have open borders and not have, you know, someone from Islamic jihad in the West Bank coming through with explosives strapped to them and then blowing up a bus in Tel Aviv, as happened many, many times, is, you know, much better than me. Even here uh in America with much more peaceful relations with Mexico and Canada, the idea of open borders is politically lethal >> and the concerns are primarily security and overwhelm. So how do you answer those concerns?

Guest 1: >> So there there's a practical answer to that which is we're not talking about no borders. The question is not if there's going to be a border. It's what kind of a border there will be and in order to achieve what we are committed first and foremost for the security of both people. That is why we do what we do for the security of Israel and for the security of Palestine. That's number one. what we're offering here is moving gradually gradually with all the mechanisms needed and we can look at places like the European Union. So it's important to to keep in mind that the European Union is one good example. Um but there's no exact example for Israel Palestine, right? And and I want to say that because a lot of the time people get stuck and say, "Oh, it's not exactly the same and it's impossible, right? I mean, you know, here's Jews and Arabs. This is the Middle East. it's a different time and because there is no other exact example of this than it's never going to work and that never going to work mentality is part of what got us to this awful situation we're in. Um there is no unique perfect example and it's good to talk about Northern Ireland as another example of power sharing and transitioning from you know a zero sum game into freedom of movement, freedom of residency. I mean decoupling nationality from a geographic space and into sustainable peace. So there are you know other examples out there. What I have been admiring about the European Union and what has helped me is number one the political imagination of it. If you would be 80 years ago in Europe and someone would tell you that in 75 years you would be able to move freely between France and Germany and your grandchildren will be able to reside in Berlin as French hipsters. You would say there's no way lock her up. But that's the reality today. And the reality of that came from a place of interest. And that's very important to say as well. This was not you know that French and Germans were starting to love each other and to say let's how can we live together happily. It was after hundreds of years of bloodshed and the realization that their shared interests can actually ensure their safety. It took 70 years, 60 years, 50 years to get to an arrangement of freedom of movement. That's okay. I have 50 years to wait for peace. I don't have 50 years waiting for what's going on right now to continue.

Interviewer: >> But how do you ensure that security at this border? When people hear open border, they hear >> easeful freedom of movement through a line that barely exists. What are you actually

Guest 1: >> So we are talking about borders for sure, right? What we're suggesting is not not to have security arrangements. It's of course to have very sophisticated security arrangements. And again, I mean, I I think that the European is a great way or Northern Ireland and Ireland and the UK are a great place to see how that works without without compromising on security on on the contrary, but basing it on an individual question rather than a collective question. It will have to be a process, right? So we start with borders and then we start in these borders creating the ability to move freely between the two states based on your individual security I don't know what to say file rather than a collective ethnic religious question right right now if you're a Palestinian you can't cross the border although there's a lot to say about that for sure right with the amount of Palestinian workers entering Israel every day and no one even you talking about that when it comes to security because we depend on it. The other thing that I'll say is that what I think is exceptionally meaningful with the land for all's proposition is that it tackles the motivations of the conflict. Now this does not mean that we're going to sign an agreement and everything will be perfect. But if you have that endgame clear and if you have answered the collective needs of both people, you take away the justification, the normalization of conflict and violence. I think that is the the biggest new thing that we offer.

Guest 2: >> I I have a shorter answer for this question actually. Ezra, let's let's remember how things started. If everything started 48. Okay. Um

Interviewer: >> even earlier

Guest 2: >> of course earlier but the you know the the important point that everything started uh um um is actually 48 uh the the Palestinian Nagbah first Nagbah we have now the second Nagba. So in this case if we are going to have a political settlement and peace and reconciliation and recognition and I'm speaking about you know big concepts but we believe that it's doable um there will be no need to speak about this even question how can we ensure the security of the of the Israeli Jews. I do want to ensure uh their security. But you know what? Um I think who is more threatened and has been threatened equally at least equally like the Jewish Israelis if not more in the last two and a half years are also the are also the the Palestinians. So we need to to mutually revision what happened over the past I don't know eight decades and start from that.

Interviewer: >> I don't disagree with that but I think that creates this chicken and egg question with the plan you're offering >> and to say that if there is no need for violence there will be no violence. >> Uh I mean that's true right but it's somewhat tautologically true. Some people might say, "Look, this is a huge step forward. I'm willing to to to approach this peacefully." >> But every day in the West Bank, radical settlers are committing tremendous acts of violence. Um, in the second inifat, there was constant suicide bombing. The one of the histories of this uh region, as you both know better than I do, is violent spoilers making uh peace projects or settlement projects impossible.

Guest 2: >> Mhm.

Interviewer: >> And so it is true that if you

could get to a point where there was no more violence, then a lot of the ideas on this become much easier. I mean, it's not I'm not worried about the absence of aggressive security on the California uh you know, Arizona border. Um, but that's not

but that's exactly the opposite. It's exactly the opposite. I mean,

so we're not going to sign an agreement and open the borders. That is not the plan. We will absolutely have to go through a long process. A long process. And again, that has been done in other places with bloodier conflicts. So, so we have to, you know, let go of the fact that it's impossible because but the truth is that we have left room for spoilers and we have experienced the fallout of previous negotiations because there has never been a commitment to a clear endgame. So during the OS accords there was steps there was uh a process but at no point did Israel say there will be at the end of this process a Palestinian sovereign independent state. Never. And if you don't have that commitment to the endgame then you leave room for spoilers. Palestinians are never going to buy that anymore. Ever. We've we've failed too many times to say, "Oh, yeah, eventually there's going to be kind of a two-state solution without doing that." And so what we are saying is that we need to exactly flip that on its head. I think that the recent moves of several states to recognize Palestine first was a step in that direction, right? Not to say that the two-state solution is the end of the process, but a Palestinian state has to be the beginning of the process in order to get to a reality where we could actually make peace.

But I guess the the the reason I'm pushing on this is that the politics of Israel could not be farther from that.

Absolutely.

In any possible way.

Yeah. And so to say that the only way to think about this plan or the only way to think about this approach is that there needs to be first and foremost an ironclad commitment from let's say a supermaajority of Israeli Jews to go not just to a two-state solution but to a confederacy with shared sovereignty over Jerusalem which is one of the tenants of the plan with a form of right of return throughout the entire uh land. And to say that you know the promise is that security will follow that. I talk to people there and they'll say well look we tried a peace process. We tried also and what we got was a second inifato. We were we are not going to make that mistake again. So when you are trying to pitch it to the audience that you need to get to agree to it.

Yeah.

Which are the people who live near you. What do you say to them?

Things are changing in the Middle East and in Israel Palestine in a way that they haven't in a very very long time. For the past 20 years, we have been under this false um assumption that we can again not solve this conflict. October 7th is not was not a security problem. It's a political problem. It's an outcome of not solving the conflict. Do we have all the answers? Absolutely not. We have invested 30 years in thinking about the paradigm of separation for peace, which I think today is impossible to achieve and also not desirable if we learn from other conflicts. We haven't invested nearly anything in trying to elaborate a vision like this that learns from mistakes of the past and learns from other conflicts that have been solved sustainably. That is what we need to do today. This is not to say that security is not our number one concern. As will said, security for both people, right? Because a lot of the time we say security, we mean security for Israeli Jews. That has been part of the I would say problem with the international discourse around this. But I um as an Israeli trust and know that we have the technical capacity in Israel to deal with this challenge. There's no doubt that we have the technical capacity. But the question is where are you going? Right? What is the vision? What is the endgame? Because if the endgame is what we had 30 years ago that hasn't been relevantly updated, that doesn't tackle the core deadlocks of the two-state solution that we all know, refugees, water, Jerusalem, borders, right? Settlements. If we don't have good answers to these questions and and that's what we're doing, we will never get to a place that we can actually move forward.

Tell tell me a bit more about the way that the vision approaches the settlements. Um I was thinking about some conversations I had when I was there where you said to me, "These lines you all draw are ridiculous." that the idea that there is a deeper if there is any Jewish connection to the land, it is deeper to Hebrron than to Tel Aviv.

Yeah.

That if there's any religious grounding for why we are here, it does not follow the boundaries of the 67 borders. And I also remember realizing just like when I was driving around the West Bank, these are not going away. that uh the is really Jews sort of from the old peace camp who tell me oh maybe we can still that it's too many people it's too big it's too entrenched they're building more every day

one thing that I find very interesting in in in in this project is that you you can frame it different ways but in a way that is different from I think the two-state solutions with all of its land swaps and everything you're able much more directly to simultaneously accept the presence of Jewish people in the West Bank, in East Jerusalem, and accept Palestinian right of return sort of at the same time. When I read it, and I I doubt this is how you all would frame it, though maybe you do, it almost feels like a trade. Well, first of all, we are very careful not to make that symmetry between refugees and settlers.

It's very important for us not to make that symmetry for all the reasons. But what I would say that there

because refugees have a right to be part of their homeland. They have been um subjected to terror and to expulsion from their homes. Settlers right now the settlement enterprise is an illegal and immoral enterprise. It is against international law. A lot of it is against Israeli law and it is based on a system of supremacy. That's there's no question about that and we are all in agreement with that. But what we also see is that Jews have a strong sense of attachment and that's not going to change, right? We that has been going on forever. Jews have forever lived in that piece of land and they will probably forever will because because that attachment is greater than anything else than you know the sovereign. It's greater than that. And what we are offering around that is not to approve the settlements and normalize them and say that that's I mean they're there so whatever they can stay not at all but it is to say that we understand that there needs to be a mechanism to deal with Jews who have a very strong sense of attachment to their homeland and for them to be able to live there safely but with no no privileges control you know terror to Palestinians. And so the I don't want to it's important for me not to make that symmetry, but it is important for me to say that land for all has this elegance to it that it is a holistic approach.

Well, I what I talk about as a trade, the way I read the plan and again this might be wrong. I'm reading it as a person who lives in the United States is that I was thinking about in terms of interests and one of the things that feels different to me about a land for all is that there are certain interests that both societies hold very dear.

Yeah.

That have typically been excluded or pushed to the side.

Yeah.

As too difficult or too extreme for the main negotiations.

Exactly. And the the main ones I think of there are right of return which the Israeli governments have functionally not been willing to discuss at any serious level. Settlements which people have not known what to do with and that the more they have been built the more unlikely their unwinding has become. And the fact that people still talk about it just to me is evidence of a dead paradigm they've not figured out an answer to.

Yeah. Exactly. um and Jerusalem, which is another complex conversation, but but those two specifically have uh I

Speaker A: I guess you would describe it as an elegance, but to me, what it looks like is a bringing into the conversation of two quite profound interests that have been pushed to its margins with arguably somewhat disastrous results.

Speaker B: Yeah. you know, the right of return of the Palestinian refugees is one of the core issues, political, moral, um, um, emotional issues of the Palestinian question. And any solution that tries to avoid referring to this uh uh issue is going to fail. And we we are speaking about half of the Palestinian people. We start from we didn't spoke much about the aspects of recognition and historic rec reconciliation between the two people that are two important principles uh that our paradigm and political platform is based on this political vision needs before saying more about the right of return of the Palestinian people needs needs actually transformative national narratives of both people. Um,

Speaker A: can you say more about what that means and what those narratives would be?

Speaker B: Yeah, I I I think that we Palestinian I will start from us Palestinians. I I think it's time for all of us to acknowledge the collective history and memory of memory of the Jewish people that is shaping their fears uh insecurities and so on. It doesn't in any mean to give them any legitimacy for what's have been done for the Palestinian people in the last 80 years. But we we we need to understand these people and these are very deep psychological deep aspects of any conflict that we need to acknowledge. The same for the Israeli Jews. They need to also have this national uh uh narrative transformation of moving from denying the Nikkba and what happened there. Um and the injustices and to acknowledge this is something that that they did. Um and in order to move forward uh the the acknowledgement is very important and the reconciliation with our self histories and memories and with the others are very important.

Speaker A: I I think this question of how the people's stories both change and coexist is is really important worth spending time on because it's a hard one to address through policy. plans don't know what to do with stories and identities.

Speaker C: But but it's also a place where for instance the European Union example begins to break down

Speaker C: because one very I think important dimension of the European story was an agreed upon postw World War II narrative. Germany was wrong.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Germany had lost. Germany was defeated. Germany was correctly occupied. Germany was not allowed to have military well right now. uh but you know you got got a fair amount of peace out of it. So we'll you know we'll we'll see the the we'll see what happens with the AFD. But the the point I'm making about that is that one way that Europe as we now think of it was built was on you know a very bloodily agreed to description of what had happened and that's not going to be true here.

Speaker B: No. Yeah.

Speaker C: And I think that's actually as you said I think that's also part of the weakness of these arrangements. I think that Rwanda is also a good example of that. The weakness of this winning history of winners.

Speaker C: Um I think that what we are suggesting is something that is again like breaking away from the binary. This needs to be our work is to and and this is also the origin of land for all. It was a group of people who came to terms with the fact that the two-state solution as we know it is no longer viable. It can't physically happen. Learning from the mistakes and saying why why why has this failed or in the control that we have right? I'm not talking about the assessination of Rabin. I'm not talking about you know what is in our control to say to learn from the reasons why and the the the co-creation which I think is really the secret ingredient right I mean Israelis have been trying to negotiate with Americans over Palestine for a long time that hasn't been successful it has to be co-created in order for it to be acceptable right so another thing we learned from Oslo is that the conflict didn't start in 1967 right the occupation is a problem, but it it's not the problem. It needs to go backwards. It needs to address the motivations, the narratives. And so, if you do not come with a narrative that addresses religion, that addresses belonging, that addresses the the the belonging to the entire homeland, to the refugees, the Nakba, the Holocaust,

Speaker B: not going to work. And now in addition we have October 7th of course and the genocidal war in Gaza without again doing symmetry between both events. Part of this package need to be also to practice accountability for those who were involved in all of these atrocities and massacres and killing and so on.

Speaker A: But so so I want to hold on this for a minute because I think two things you both have said here in the last couple of minutes they they open up questions and certainly in my reading of the plan and the documents are not answered. But one is this question of accountability that you brought up and if your belief is that there cannot be peaceful sharing and you know partnership absence some kind of accountability process. what you imagine that looking like and and why you imagine that players on either side would submit to it and and two you both of you brought up quite a lot of the long historical stories both sides tell but I actually don't understand how this is able to address that right how does this address the completely incompatible narratives of what happened on October 7th and after it how does it address I can sort understand how to dress as an akba right like I I can read that in the um in in the plan and the sort of focus on creating a space of right of return I can see that but there's a lot that has happened since it is not answered there from you know the peace processes to the second so there's a sort of a difference between saying there's a plan for now versus a plan to reconcile this shared history And which of those are we looking at? And if you believe we're looking at the second, a way to change the way Israelis see themselves,

Speaker C: a way to change how Palestinians see themselves.

Speaker A: I mean, that in some ways seems like an even harder challenge than trying to, you know, imagine new border policies.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: What is it? What is the mechanism the levers that you see doing that?

Speaker C: So one of the research groups that we are organizing um is about transitional justice. We are committed to do the learning from other places to ensure that we incorporate those lessons in this program right in this solution. And so I I'm humbled to say that we have amazing um experts international and Israeli and Palestinians who are doing that work with that. I think that this solution, the fact that it does talk about the past in a way that reconciles the main collective needs of both people for freedom, for acknowledgement of their history, for self-determination, for the connection, as we said, to you know, to exercise that relationship with the entire homeland, to address the issue of the Nakba properly and envision a future that is better, right? That is better than what they have. And always says this when we talk to Palestinians, what we often hear is that, well, this is definitely much better than Oslo, right? Like, this is better. I mean, this is much better for Palestinians than what we've been given before.

Speaker B: I do I do want to say a couple of words about about that. Um, I don't want the Israeli Jews to love the Palestinians and vice versa. And we are going not going to love each other. Not at this moment and not in the coming years maybe and we don't need to forget and not to for forgive but we need to ensure having another situation that we can at least continue living and the other pro problems maybe won't be solved uh in our generation but in the other uh generations we have to have to to start implementing um the political vision itself gradually and changing the the reality in order to open the space for deeper transformative conversations between the two people that will come one day. I

Speaker A: I want to pick up on something you just said which is around gradualism. Right. There there's one dimension of looking at this which is like a like a big plan. It's a kind of final uh

Speaker A: equilibrium. that would be a radical transformation of these two societies and their relationships with each other. But to go back to something we were talking about earlier, you know, if you take the EU example, it begins with the steel and coal community. And so, you know, if you imagine a world that is six or seven years down the road, not a world of Netanyahu and Abbas or Bennett, Lapid and Abbas, um, but but there's been a sort of revolution or two in leadership. And it's not that who has come into power is transformationally different, but they're open to something new. And there's a feeling that this has gone the fighting that it has all become destructive, that it is going nowhere. Um there's space for whatever reason. There is space, but there's not space for an end to all these issues. There's just space to try something new. What does gradualism look like? What is the steel and coal uh community? What is the things that could begin to build the sense of trust or belief because you saw it work on a small scale, that then ladders up to larger uh possibilities.

Speaker B: you know when we met with a very I would say um important regional player in the past few months the one the first thing that they said is like do not talk to us about a road map we never want to hear that word again ever like if you just don't even mention it our commitment is to present an endgame that can because we know that without that clear endgame, you just repeat mistakes of the past.

Speaker A: Okay. But you have to start somewhere.

Speaker B: Yes. Yes. But I'm I'm just important for me to say yes. Absolutely. But it's important for me to just reiterate how important that is. Um and how we have examples on the ground that show that. What I would say is except for that commitment to an endgame, right? like that clarity of where this is leading us and no questions about that is issues like public health. I think that public health and economy and climate are things that um impact our day-to-day life are a great example of places where we know we can't work separately. If you have COVID in Tel Aviv, you will have COVID in Ramallah. Uh and so that's in my imagination of this um without developing the blueprint exactly yet of the how to get there and again we're working on it. Uh I would say that those are the places where I would imagine this starting from healthcare, economy, climate, water, Jerusalem, the places where it actually

Speaker A: Do you want to say a word on what that would mean for Jerusalem? I would I I would add to that also security security cooperation not under a system of control and violence.

Speaker B: I I want to dig in on this a little bit because sort of that was a list of I would say issues escalating in their scale, right? You can imagine modest levels of community of cooperation and public health all the way up to Jerusalem and security which are core.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, I think the reason I'm asking this and the reason I I'm I'm pushing a little bit on on this question is that I don't think people will believe in your endgame until they see it work in miniature.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Your your view as I hear it is that people have to be committed to the endgame for this to even begin. But, you know, I can I can read the polling. You do not have the support for that right now.

Speaker B: Right. So if

Speaker A: but again you didn't have the support for Oslo before Oslo or

Speaker B: but Oslo didn't work.

Speaker A: Sure. Absolutely. But and again that's because no work was also done on the ground to complement it.

Speaker B: So so the the question I'm having is if there is a moment of opportunity and you could implement something. I mean you know security or trust are both good examples. I I am actually I find it to be one of the more depressing realities of the situation that the degree of cooperation and the effectiveness of the cooperation on security.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Between the PA and the Israeli government has been sort of pocketed by the Israeli government as opposed to been the basis of something bigger.

Speaker A: Yeah. But you know you were say so you you put that on the table as something that you know you can imagine that being a place where there could be a more transformation thing because it has also created a negative outcome where the PA's lost and eroded support and legitimacy. Now I would say that was sort of the way the Israeli government wanted it. Talk me through one place that be it Jerusalem security something else where people would look at this and in your view they would see it and then they say oh maybe these land for all people are right. Maybe if we share as opposed to separate, maybe if we cooperate as opposed to um dominate, you get an outcome that is, you know, for in this case Jewish Israelis, safer and more stable and more just without having to be committed to the entire vision.

Speaker B: there there are a lot of uh examples in the in the health um um field for for example but um I'm I'm I'm not sure that I do want to uh cooperate with you in this uh in this conversation on on this topic because I think it's um it it needs to be to be in a different way that the Palestinians are not going now to um you know uh accept or agree for actual partial steps on the ground until I think there is a need for something uh dramatic and people from both sides need to see a plan with a timeline not again some steps here like what what is happening since the last fall with with Gaza people are in and believe me we are in these conversations um in in a lot of international uh context people are speaking about the reconstruction of Gaza and the human humanitarian situation of course without doing anything that this is for sure since September or October but nobody is speaking about uh um the rest of the the Israelis and the Palestinians and about where are we heading this time. So no, I'm I'm not going to accept all of these failures. We start first of all from acknowledging um in transformative acknowledgement and recognition the state of Palestine. Countries and states need to start filling this recognition in actions diplomatic, political, legal, economic and so on. Okay to start with and presenting a platform for the political vision. I hope it's going to be our political vision and we are happy to to bring um much more insights and blueprints and content to the whole phases but we know all of us we know in I don't know 2050 we will be there and people will start also seeing the improvement of of the conditions of their lives. I think that's number one

Speaker A: immediately but we cannot do it the way it has been done before 30 years. It it for me it creates an interesting instability in how to think about what you all have released here and and the way I'd put it is this that I take the point that you need a vision you're working towards and I also take the point that I think you're making here which is that it would be folly right now to think that every sentence put down on a plan in 2026 even in a world where that plan became viable would be the final structure of the plan or would be how it would be implemented like that that's that requires a level of um policy literalism that that even I am not not willing to do. But I guess what you're both getting at on some level and I agree with but is in some ways a harder question is not what kinds of answers you might imagine a constructive process with people committed to a just outcome might entertain. It's how do you get to the point where there's a room with a table with people who can begin debating the finer points of the plan. Israel is at this moment undoubtedly the stronger actor in this conflict and there is very very little room for much that is in this vision in Israeli politics. the coming election is going to pit Benjamin Netanyahu who's I think politics are well understood against Napali Bennett and Laid and and and Bennett is I think you know one of the leaders of that coalition I mean he's on he has traditionally on many of these issues been to Netanyahu's right

Speaker B: correct

Speaker A: and so you know I can read the polling there uh for the commitment to this kind of vision that you've described needing you would need a wholesale change a wholesale change in the structure of

Host: Israeli public opinion and leadership. What is your theory of what creates that change that makes this possible?

Speaker B: Well, yeah, that's kind of what we're doing, right? Like that is that's the work. I we've never said that it's easy work. And even more so, I mean, there are no shortcuts, right? There are no shortcuts. Um, when you think about Northern Ireland for example, as I said earlier, yes, a month before the Good Friday Agreement, no one believed it will ever end. But there were at least three, if not more, very intense years of working bottom up to make people start imagining that the Good Friday Agreement can and will happen with civil society, with journalists, with artists, with I mean There needs to be a whole mechanism of moving the society from where we are today which is annihilation of the Palestinian people.

Host: But what moves it? I mean the young in Israel today are to the right of older generations.

Speaker B: Yeah. Absolutely. That's one of the biggest problems.

Host: Society has moved and it is moving and it is changing but not in the direction of this. So,

Speaker B: No, no, and I would say...

Host: I know I know there are no shortcuts, but but what you know, even on a 10-year time frame, what do you believe will change attitudes sufficiently? Uh, that something like this becomes possible.

Speaker B: We're not in a post war election. We're not um the there isn't even a ceasefire in Gaza right now. People are, you know, there's no ceasefire and the war continues and people are very much still entrenched in the reality of October 7th. And so I am not counting on these elections to get us to that vision. Not at all. But right now within these elections, within the political framework in Israel, the conversation is so limited. It's between really the political imagination which is becoming our reality of the reality in Gaza and the West Bank and eliminating Palestinian people and then delegitimizing Palestinian citizens of Israel. That's like the other part of that spectrum and it's basically all we have within the Jewish parties. There is no vision. I mean I come back to this point because I think and I know as an Israeli that young people are looking for hope and for alternative

Host: But sorry I want to push us from a space of realism here. Young people move to the right in Israel. There are leftwing politicians in Israel they are not popular.

Speaker B: No, but that is also the not offering hope, real hope to solve this conflict and for security. It is not you cannot I don't think and I think

Host: But are people lacking for vision or do they not want a vision like

Speaker B: No I think that we have been trained and grown and normalized this thinking that we do not need to solve this conflict and I think that October 7th is the worst wakeup call that we could imagine. We said that this will blow in our face. We never imagined to be so bad. But this is and should be and I believe again that this is not the postwar election that we're waiting for. But I do believe that this is the time to integrate into the Israeli public conversation discourse the fact that this conflict needs to end and that there is a solution. I will say and this is not to counter um the reality where Israelis are not at all interested in anything right now of this such but we have met in 2023 15,000 Israelis that is equivalent to half a million Americans who have been looking for vision and hope and alternatives and ways out and political imagination and we've been doing it I would say the majority of these with young people with political imagination workshops with soft entering points, right? Not immediately with say this is the vision, you know, vote for this vision. No, but to say guys, wake up. Your future is in your hands. The leaders are not giving us that. It has to come from us, from civil society, from artists, from journalists, from small politicians. And that is something that we are very committed to doing.

And we see that our movement has been growing exponentially since October 7th. People are looking. Are we there yet? No. But for example, our dear friends at Standing Together, who are the largest bottomup ground Jewish Arabic movement on the ground today in Israel, Palestine in Israel I should say. um they a few months ago have announced that they for their 10th anniversary and around everything that's going on they're committed to presenting a political vision. That political vision is ours, right? And so you see that there's an emergence coming out of October 7th of people looking for a new big idea because everything has been shattered and paradigms that we've been you know working around are crumbling. And so when you ask me about like where do I find hope when I read the polls when I see the young people voting right more and more when I see how saturated Israeli society today is with violence because the violence is getting from everywhere it is by these young people who are asking me how can I join and we've been getting these by the thousands. So I'm not looking for shortcuts. We are here to do that work, but if we don't start now and present that alternative now, we're absolutely never going to get there.

Rula: I agreeing with about all of that. I think we need a lot of pressure from outside in order to promote for this change inside Israel. I think it's not only the void of people and it's not only that people got used not to speak about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and not to even we've been seeing how they speak and treat Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank. So there is something and inside of Israel as well by the way.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Rula: And against us Palestinian citizens in Israel. The degrees of the dehumanization of the Palestinian people in the Israeli public conversation and political conversation is just insane and not surprising because this is actually the nature of settler colonial violent arrogant societies. But also of separation and also of you know propaganda over propaganda in the media and in the whole political conversation and discourse in Israel over years. Um and that's why I think there is a place for top-down change in Israel and for pressure from outside. I think I just want to say we are taking the agency of Israelis and Palestinians leading a vision but we can't do it alone. We can't at this point thinking that Israeli can ensure the safety or security of Israel or of Palestinians for sure is wrong. There is no way we can't do this without serious pressure and without serious commitments of international actors. So this is absolutely yeah to say that this should be a wake-up call for the international community not to talk about the two-state solution but to end the atrocities on the ground first and foremost and by then securing and committing to a real solution.

Host: I think that is a good place to end our final question. What are three books you recommend to the audience? And Rula, why don't we begin with you?

Rula: I decided to choose three books that are related to the conversation that we are having today. Uh the first one is The Holocaust and the Nakba edited by good colleagues and friends Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg. It's very important to understand what's happening now. It was written before October 7th and the genocide in Gaza but it's still very important essential book.

The second is States of Denial. It's not about Israel Palestine, but I claim all the time that the Israelis are suffering from severe denial, collective denial and blindness. And I'm trying to understand that and I think a lot of people need want maybe to understand and this book States of Denial written by Stanley Cohen is very important and helpful.

The last book is our colleague and friend Omer Bartov his very recent latest book Israel: What Went Wrong.

Speaker B: I'm also kind of where thinking about where I'm at today and so I was thinking of uh

May Pundak: Three books that are kind of... one is looking to the past and learning from it, and that is Rob Malley's book, Tomorrow is Yesterday. You know, we're doing this as people on the ground who are committing to doing this bottom-up work of building the movement and vision, but they've been there in the negotiations learning from the mistakes. And I think that is a practice we overlook, and we need to really do more often: learning from our mistakes. So that's the past. The second is A Psalm for the Wild-Built. It's a genre that I... do you know this book?

Host: Yeah. I didn't expect it to pop up here.

May Pundak: Yeah. It's from a different world, which is very kind of off-genre for me, but I'm so grateful that I have read it. We've been in the business of dystopias for a long time. As a Jew, I am committed to practice my political imagination. It's part of my heritage and we've neglected that. And so, this book by Becky Chambers has really allowed me to kind of sit with alternative futures and help me imagine beyond what I think is possible. I think that's so important. And the third is, for me, kind of a book for the present, which is a children's book. There are never enough good recommendations for a children's book. It's a book by Tove Jansson. It's the Moomin series. Which allows me to first of all read a book to both my four- and 8-year-old, which is not so easy to find something that we all enjoy, but also is like a profound... I want to say humanist, but of course it's not only about humans. But a very sensitive book that allows for room for emotions and for tackling very serious philosophic questions and fears, in a way that helps me be present with my children and kind of remember why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Host: May Pundak, well, thank you very much.

May Pundak: Thank you. Yeah.