This article appears in the May 2, 2025 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
[Print version of this article]
Gershon Baskin: Peace Is Possible in Palestine
April 24—Dr. Gershon Baskin is an Israeli peace activist, columnist for the Jerusalem Post, and senior negotiator who has played a major role in multiple attempted peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Alliance for Two States, and the Israeli founder and former co-director of the Israeli-Palestinian Center for Research and Information. Dr. Baskin also served as an advisor to the assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and former President Shimon Peres for peace negotiations with Palestine in the 1990s. The interview was conducted by Gerald Belsky of the Schiller Institute.
Gerald Belsky: Hello Gershon, this is Gerald Belsky with the Schiller Institute and the International Peace Coalition. I know you have been a long-time peace activist, negotiator, researcher, and historian. I would like to ask your opinion of what is going on in Israel today. It seems that the mass of the population wants, and is demanding, an end to this war and a return of the hostages. Of course, the criticism of that, is that they have a certain lack of concern for the Gazans who have been slaughtered in this war. But some people have characterized this as close to civil war; [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has been accused of not being concerned with the hostages, but wanting to stay in power. This means he wants to continue this war. How do you see the situation in Israel?
Gershon Baskin: There’s no question that Netanyahu’s strategy here is to continue the war, to continue to kill Palestinians in Gaza, to create a desire in Palestinians to leave Gaza in accordance with the plan that was presented by [United States President Donald] Trump—which I don’t think Trump even stands behind anymore—of evacuating the Palestinian population from Gaza. But Netanyahu has created an administration within the Ministry of Defense for the “voluntary” departure of Palestinians from Gaza. Netanyahu claims that the military pressure being used now is aimed at getting the hostages back; but in fact, we know from a year-and-a-half of war that military pressure gets hostages killed. There is a false expectation in Israel that the military pressure, with the threats by our Defense Minister Israel Katz, that Israel will take Palestinian territory from Gaza and annex it permanently, will push Hamas to surrender.
Hamas will not surrender; Hamas will never surrender to Israel. In fact, what could happen very easily is that the Hamas, who remain in control of parts of Gaza and are holding 59 Israeli hostages, 24 of whom are believed to be alive, could simply begin executing these hostages. This is the pressure that Hamas has, and no one in Israel is considering that. Of course, Netanyahu’s strategy is based on his desire to stay in power while he’s embroiled from one scandal to another. During his court hearing for corruption, he had to be called to the police to testify in a case now called “Qatargate,” in which close employees to Netanyahu have been apparently paid for by Qatar through third parties over the past couple of years.
With regard to the Israeli public, the polls show clearly that the Israeli public wants this war to end; that they want the hostages to come home; that they want Israel to withdraw from Gaza. But Israel is an exhausted society; traumatized still by October 7, 2023, living that trauma every day. So, even though there are demonstrations taking place all around the country every single day—and they’re not small demonstrations, they’re large, but they’re not large enough to convince the Israeli government and Netanyahu that a majority of the public wants the war to end, or wants Netanyahu to step down and stop being Prime Minister. Even though that’s what the polls say, Netanyahu can always say, “The silent majority support me.”
It’s also very true what you said, that the Israeli society is not very concerned with the tragic deaths, the massive killing of Palestinians in Gaza—more than 50,000; the total destruction of the Gaza Strip. Only a margin of the Israeli society talks about the war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza. That doesn’t mean that they’re not recognized by a much bigger part of Israeli society. But Israel is still in trauma and living in despair; they’re tired, exhausted from this war. So are the Palestinians, by the way. Palestinian society—both societies have gone through the biggest traumas that we’ve experienced since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. What’s been going on the last year-and-a-half to Palestinians in Gaza is worse than the Nakba of 1948 for the Palestinian people; not only in Gaza, but for Palestinians all over the world. And what happened on October 7th was the biggest trauma facing the Israeli Jewish population or the Jewish population around the world since the Holocaust.
And we’re not even post-trauma yet; we’re living in the trauma. So, it’s very difficult to expect the kind of maturity that’s required from a society to come up and stand against the crimes that are being committed by their own society. Eventually it will happen, but it’s a little too fresh still for the majority of Israelis to own up to what the state of Israel has been doing in their name, in our name.
An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Initiative
Belsky: Would you discuss your peace initiative? I know that you have been promoting an initiative of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa. You have been travelling around the world; I know I saw you at the Vatican a month ago, discussing this with the Pope. What is the status of that, and where do you think this could lead?
Baskin: Well, the initiative was to bring these two former leaders together to see if they could agree on a vision for the future. They both state that they’re not in power and don’t have the ability or the justification to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. But they wanted to present a vision which has three components to it. One is ending the war in Gaza, withdrawing from Gaza, returning the Israeli hostages and freeing Palestinian prisoners, and establishing a Palestinian professional technocratic government in Gaza that would then also invite an Arab security presence to be in the Gaza Strip to help stabilize the situation. The second component is the two-state solution; peace for Israel and Palestine based on the June 4, 1967 borders with mutual territorial swaps of around the size of 4.4% of the West Bank today. This would incorporate about 80% of the Israeli settlers within sovereign Israel in exchange for territory that would be annexed to the Palestinian state from within Israel. The third component is the solution for Jerusalem, where Jerusalem would have two capitals of the two states—the Palestinian capital in the Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem; the Israeli capital where it is today in the Israeli neighborhoods of Jerusalem. But the Old City, which is actually less than one square kilometer, would not be under Israeli or Palestinian sovereignty, it would be under the trusteeship of five nations of which Israel and Palestine would be two of the five.
We brought them to meet with world leaders to discuss their initiative. They have met with about 39 heads of state, foreign ministers, and other senior representatives of various countries. And in February, we held the first meeting, where we brought together 100 Israeli and Palestinian influencers, people from Israeli and Palestinian society, who were required to say that they agreed with the principles in the Olmert/al-Kidwa document in order to attend the conference. It was already a very interesting meeting that we held in Larnaca [Cyprus], which was very forward-looking, not the traditional Israeli-Palestinian meeting of mutual recriminations and blaming who is responsible and arguments over narratives. But it was really about: How do we get out of the mess that we’re in, how do we move forward, and how do we create a situation of self-determination and national dignity and freedom for both peoples—the Israeli people and the Palestinian people?
We are now focusing this initiative in Israel and Palestine, and myself and my Palestinian partner Samer Sinijlawi have established the Alliance for Two States, which is working alongside what was established in September 2024 in New York by the Saudis, the European Union, and the Norwegians at the time, called the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. The Global Alliance has now held meetings in New York, in Riyadh, in Brussels, in Oslo, in Cairo; the next meeting is planned for Rabat, Morocco. There are 90 countries participating in this meeting. The Morocco meeting is going to be co-sponsored by the Dutch government and the Moroccan government. We hope that they will be inviting Olmert and Nasser al-Kidwa to address this meeting. This will be the first time that this governmental forum of 90 countries will actually be bringing in civil society.
We’re also planning a meeting in June in Paris, at the invitation of [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron, of up to 1,000 Israelis and Palestinians, if we have the financial resources to do it. Israeli and Palestinian influencers, activists, people from both societies in support of the al-Kidwa/Olmert initiative. We are stepping outside of the framework that’s traditionally used in Israeli-Palestinian meetings of Chatham House rules; we want to shine the light on this. We want to bring in the media, and show that Israelis and Palestinians are meeting and talking about peace. We need to break this deadlock that’s existed for two decades now, where both societies believe that there’s no partner for peace on the other side. We are standing up in the light of day, in front of cameras, and saying, “Yes, there are partners.” A majority of Israelis and a majority of Palestinians do, in fact, want to live in peace. They just don’t believe that there are partners on the other side. We want to demonstrate that we can build partnership; we can create partnership; we can implement a policy based on partnership and move us forward.
So, that’s what we’re doing.
Cooperation Is a Pathway to Peace
Belsky: Finally, as you are well aware, the Egyptians have put forward a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza which was endorsed by the Arab League. We think that’s a good first step, but still only a first step. As you know, the Schiller Institute has long been promoting the idea of an Oasis Plan; which, as I’ve discussed with you and as you pointed out to me, some people think this is an alternative to a political solution. We see this as the means to a political solution. The reason is something that I think you, yourself, have said in your writing on your website. That is, the problem is that neither side sees the other as a partner for peace. There has to be a shared commitment to a future that benefits both sides; where they see that their interest is in the future of each side. The concept of this Oasis Plan, to bring in doubling of fresh water, desalination, and transform the whole region, is not only to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine, but to create a shared future for the whole region, of all these countries that you’re responding to, that are involved in the Global Alliance for Peace.
We’re getting endorsements of this Oasis Plan from many people now. The most prominent endorsement is from the current Palestinian ambassador to Denmark, Dr. Manuel Hassassian. Dr. Naledi Pandor, the former Minister of International Relations and Cooperation for South Africa, the foreign minister, has endorsed it. But the idea is to get a shared future, so it’s not just a piece of paper, but an agreement that we’re going to change the entire situation. What do you think about that idea?
Baskin: Look, you’re not alone in this. There are organizations like the Arava Institute, which is an environmental center bringing students from Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and the rest of the world together to study. They have a diplomatic program in which they’re advancing environmental solutions, saying that the environment knows no border. There’s EcoPeace also, which is a joint Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian organization working on issues of water and environment and energy. These are all common issues to everyone in the region.
There’s no doubt that any political arrangement needs to include a vision for an environment which is shared by all of us. Myself, in my former position as the founder and co-director of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), we started working on environmental issues back in 1994, when we had every year a conference under the title “Our Shared Environment.” The issue of water needs to be de-politicized; it’s ridiculous to think that water has a national flag on it. All the water between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea belongs to all the people between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be sufficient water for everyone here. Water equals money today, and the amount of money needed to produce water is decreasing all the time, particularly when you add to it a renewable energy [source] as the means of desalinating water. We have an unlimited amount of water available to everyone here. So, we need to combine these environmental water-energy solutions. The same thing for energy; there’s enough sunlight here—God-given energy—to solve the energy problems of Israel and Palestine and other nations in the region. We live in one of the sunniest areas of the world, where there’s enough land available to have renewable energy solutions for everyone here. So, it’s really this nexus of water, energy, and environment that we need to work on. These things can all help bring about the political solution.
But we need the political will of the leaders here, and we don’t have that. We don’t have political leaders with the will for making peace. We need to incorporate economic solutions, environmental solutions as part of the work that we’re doing. I have always supported these cooperative issues that require us to work together, whether it’s public health, or the environment and water and energy; they don’t know borders. We need to understand that cooperation will produce a better future for all of us.
Belsky: Thank you very much, Gershon, for your remarks.
