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My name is Chuck Freilich. I used to be in the government in Israel. I was the

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Deputy National Security Advisor and for the last decade I've been an

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academic teaching both in Israel and here in the United States. Well there's

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a deep national conflict here that's been going on for the last hundred years.

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There are two sides who claim sovereignty over the same piece of

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territory. I understand the Palestinian position. I believe that they have for

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the most part rejected any compromise proposals. Now I don't want to put all of

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the blame on the Palestinian side. There's a right-wing government in Israel today

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and Israel hasn't accepted all of the Palestinian claims of course. There's the

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settlements issue which is considered to be a big problem by the Palestinian side

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and of course it isn't one of the obstacles to an agreement. But I think

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Israel has put some dramatic proposals on the table which unfortunately the

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Palestinian side has rejected. They've never put a Palestinian proposal on the

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table. I think we have to see change in the government in Israel. I think we have

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to see some more fundamental change on the Palestinian side before we can reach

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an agreement. Well I think that the only realistic solution is the so-called two

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state solution. In other words a Palestinian state which would hopefully live in peace

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and security next to Israel. I don't believe that people throw out some other

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ideas. I don't think they're realistic. Unfortunately after 20 years of ongoing

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contacts between the sides we haven't reached that solution yet. But I don't

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think that there is any alternative. And as I was saying we need change in terms of

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leaderships on both sides before we can potentially reach a breakthrough. I don't

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think that there are various programs to promote understanding between the

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peoples between Israelis and Palestinians between Jews and Muslims as a whole. And I

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think they're very important. But I think the real change has to be at the

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level of national leaderships.

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So we have to change the ideas of the leaders themselves.

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The ideas and the political parties in power. The Palestinians are split between the West

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Bank and Gaza. Gaza is ruled by Hamas which is a radical fundamentalist organization. The

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Palestinian Authority does speak about peace with Israel. Hamas does not. First of all

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they have to reunify and become one unified government again before they can reach a final

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deal even if they wanted to. Mr. Abbas the Palestinian president cannot sign a final deal

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because he doesn't speak on behalf of all of the Palestinians. He doesn't speak on behalf

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of Gaza. And then as I was saying we need a change on the Israeli side as well because

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this government is not one that wants to make concessions. There will be elections sometime

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in the next year maybe even sooner. And we'll see which government is elected next time.