Former Israeli PM Ehud Barak on why 'there is no other solution but two states'

EhudEhud Barak was prime minister of Israel from 1999 to 2001. His distinguished political career saw him serve as leader of Israel’s Labour Party, as foreign affairs minister from 1995-1996, and, in a return to government in 2007, as defence minister in a cabinet led by his political enemy, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Previously, he spent 35 years in the Israeli military, decorated for his role in daring and often covert military operations, rising through the ranks to become Chief of General Staff of Israel’s armed forces between 1991 and 1995.

Barak, now aged 83, once declared that “If I was a Palestinian, I would have joined a terrorist organisation”. Another of his outspoken comments was to declare that the collapse of the Camp Davis talks with PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 2000 was because the latter was “no partner for peace”.

Barak continues to actively participate in political debate in Israel, and is notably a regular contributor of op-ed articles in Israeli daily Haaretz.

This month, as Israel prepared to mark the second anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7th 2023 attacks against Israel, in which close to 1,200 people were killed and around 250 hostages taken, he gave an interview to Mediapart’s Joseph Confavreux. Speaking as a latest plan for peace in Gaza – where an estimated 67,000 people, notably according to Hamas authorities, have died since the beginning of Israel’s retaliatory military action in the Strip – was presented by US President Donald Trump, now the subject of intense negotiations, Barak sets out what he sees as the only way forward for Israelis and Palestinians after two years of Israel's incessant military campaign in Gaza.

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Mediapart: What do you think of the so-called Trump plan? Can it be implemented?

Ehud Barak: Basically, what happened in Washington a few days ago was that Trump coerced Netanyahu like a gum-made doll and imposed upon him this agreement. The framework agreement is very good for Israel. But there is a question. What will be the response of Netanyahu? He might try to dilute it and delay it. If it does not succeed, he might try to modify it in a way that will enable him still to hold the ultra-extremist, right-wing kind of messianic guys in his government.

If he fails on both, which is quite probable, he might turn it over and change direction, making a U-turn and announce an election, trying to show his ‘immense’ achievements, which is basically adopting the achievements of the IDF for his credit and relating all the failures to someone else. And try to create a slogan that he changed the Middle East by hitting the Hamas, hitting the Hezbollah, hitting the Syrians, hitting the Iranians, and asking for permission to be elected once again. I don't believe that our public will buy it. People still remember what happened on October 7th.

Of course, there is the responsibility of the army, intelligence, whatever, but the man responsible is the man at the top, Netanyahu, who basically was responsible for this worst day in the history of the country, in the history of the Jewish people since 1945. And the public still remembers him torpedoing once and again any deals on the table following the 7th of October. He’s responsible for abandoning and sacrificing the hostages.

And the public can still identify that his policies caused major damage to Israel on the diplomatic, political, international arena, so I believe that he will be toppled, but it's still [only] a belief. It has to be materialized.

But this plan is a very good starting point for Israel. I think that if Trump will stick to his position, Israel should agree to certain things that were not acceptable to Netanyahu until weeks ago because the framework says that it should lead to a Palestinian State, that Israel has to withdraw from the whole of Gaza and that the Gazans should stay there, and even that the Hamas leaders who will commit themselves to peaceful behaviour can remain. That's very far from what he put aside.

So in this regard, it is a major failure of his strategy, but it doesn't mean that it's bad for Israel. In France, you have to learn to separate, to see the difference between Israel and Netanyahu. They are not the same. You can believe in the great Zionist project or be against all policies of Israel, it’s not up to the French people or the Saudi government to topple Netanyahu. That's our job. It should come from within.

But having said that, no citizen of the free world should feel any cognitive dissonance, when saying, ‘I'm a supporter of Israel. I think that they have the right to be here. They have the right to live in security and everything. They even have the right to hit Hamas very well after this terrible terror attack. But I don't believe in the policies of Netanyahu’.

There is a saying in Israel, and we even heard Trump talking about it, [which is] now it's time for the Hamas to decide. And they have a binary choice. Either they accept the agreement, or we will open the gate of hell on them. But you are not frightening the Hamas like that. Many of them are yearning to see Israel go into Gaza and try to fight for the last terrorists. They know from experience that this fight will not succeed. Israel cannot win it.

Sinwar, who is now probably sitting in hell, even if probably some Arabs will say he is sitting in paradise,  he's looking and he doesn't believe.

Netanyahu with his own hands is working to transform his military defeat from a year ago into a great historic, unprecedented victory on the political, diplomatic and international arena. It sounds like a crazy irony of history. We launched this war against Hamas. The most justifiable war ever. Agreed by the whole world. We inflicted terrible damage on their capability for a year and a half now. They cannot even think of initiating another 7th of October. They were destroyed as an active military force. We carried out several similar blows to Hezbollah. We seized the opportunity as I mentioned in Syria. We hit Iran. And somehow the tiny Hamas is still there after two years.

I say to Israel: “Don’t delude yourself that we have a real leverage on Hamas. We have to compromise, they have to compromise, and we have to find a way to put an end to it now and open a new chapter.” But this new chapter can’t be led by Netanyahu. It’s like telling the captain of the Titanic  – if he had survived – that he could take the new ship of the company.

Mediapart: In your latest opinion piece published by Haaretz at the end of July, you wrote: “The only course of action that could still save the country from becoming democracy's corpse is a total shutdown of the country until the Netanyahu government is replaced.” Under what conditions is this shutdown possible, given that the anti-government protests are large in number but nevertheless limited, and that the unions do not seem willing to lead this kind of protest?

E.B.: I came to this conclusion because I saw that it doesn't happen the other way around. I expected that the general attorney would announce the prime minister incapacitated because, according to Israeli law, a man in such criminal court cases of bribery, fraud and breach of trust cannot be a bus driver, he cannot be a principal of a high school, he cannot be the head of a branch of a bank in a remote peripheral city, he cannot be a member of Knesset or a government minister, he cannot command a squadron in the air force. But he's allowed to build a new government. That's crazy.

So the only way is to bring it back to the public. And the only way is the way used by Gandhi, Martin Luther King or the American youth in the universities and in the streets of Washington who stopped the leaders of America from keeping the war in Vietnam. And in the last two years you saw it in Bangladesh, they kicked out a dictator. You saw it recently in Nepal. You saw it in Georgia. You saw it in many other places.

Mediapart: But at the beginning of 2023, there were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets of Tel Aviv and yet it wasn’t enough to topple the government.

E.B.: We were not successful until now, but we have to continue and mobilize the people. But the public wants to see something really happen from the leaders of opposition parties. If they are not active, not fighting determinedly, the public says probably the time has not yet come. So I, for a year now, demand a concrete action.

It's irrelevant right now because the Knesset is not working, but they will start in three weeks. And the following should happen. On the first day of the new parliament, I expect the leaders of opposition, which have some probably 40 or more members of Knesset - probably almost 60 people with the Arabs today - that they come out of the parliament and say: “We are stopping this circus. We stop cooperating with the parliament. It's a circus there. There is no legislative branch, we have no power whatsoever.” So we leave the parliament but we stay on the hill of the Knesset. We stay, upon and call upon the whole public to come in and have a kind of siege on the government until it falls.

Tell the truth, stand in front of people and say: “We have not changed. We are the same people that you know before. We are divided on almost everything. But there is one thing that we understand: This leadership is illegitimate. They are leading the country into a disaster.”

[…] I should admit that I could not, until now, convince the six leaders of the opposition and neither the president of the country. But it will happen. I’m sure about the direction, but not about the timing. But I'm confident at the end, we will overcome it. The question is how long it will take, how many people will have to be buried on both sides of this conflict, on our side, the Palestinian side, inside, outside.

What will be the depth of damage that will be caused beyond the damage now, which is already huge, and how long it will take to correct it, to repair it? To make what we call in Hebrew tikkun, the responsibility of every Jew to contribute to the reparation of the whole world.

Mediapart: Two years on from October 7th, how do you perceive the state of Israeli society?

E.B.: The 7th of October created a compelling imperative to Israel, to make sure that Hamas does not remain in power in Gaza, and cannot threaten Israel from there. It's a compelling imperative, fully agreed by every Israeli. And it was clear that it will not be solved by fine statements. It should include an action of force against them. And we started it. Since then, Israel has obtained a major achievement. Hamas, as a military organization, does not exist for more than a year now.

But as guerrilla fighters in groups, small groups, they are still there and they will be probably be here for a long time because now it is not a military force. They can disappear within the millions of other Palestinians. You can change from terrorist to civilian in five minutes by just putting on your civilian dress.

To anyone who was ready to look reality face, the only way to defeat Hamas, beyond the first blow, is by replacing them by another entity that will be legitimate in the eyes of international law, international community, members of the peace agreement with Israel, Egypt and Jordan, members of the Abraham Accord, like the Emiratis and others, and by the Palestinian themselves. So it cannot be a Swedish, a French, or even an Israeli entity. It should be an entity with a Palestinian content.

Now, we destroyed Hamas militarily more than a year ago. And as a result of events, we dealt a major blow to Hezbollah. And seizing the opportunity, we destroyed the military assets of Syria. And then, we dealt a major blow to Iran, to its nuclear plant. Based on these achievements of the IDF, we could have announced – half a year or a year ago – a victory, and open a new chapter.

Now, the new chapter has to take the shape of this agreement that Trump coerced Netanyahu into accepting. But it’s not very different with what was on the table a year ago. From day one, the only two demands that Israel should have put were; first, not a single individual who was somehow related to the military branch of Hamas, or participated as a civilian in the massacre, can be a member of any organ of the new entity. Second: Israel withdraws first to the perimeter of half a kilometre to 800 metres, of the Strip, and does not go to the original border before all the pre-agreed security milestones are put in place.

That's all. And it was simple. The only difference is, that a year, or more than a year ago, if this was activated, it would have been perceived as an effort by Arab neighbours to save Gaza and Gazans from further suffering and destruction. Nowadays, it seems more like helping Israel to get out of the mud in Gaza. So, Arabs cannot be the ones who propose it. No one in the streets of Cairo or Riyadh or Abu Dhabi would understand why the hell they are coming to serve Israel. As Ben-Gurion said, a war is a means to an end. It's not the end in itself.

Any war should be navigated by a vision of the day after, what you want to achieve. There is an old Roman saying, “if you don't know which port you want to reach, no wind will take you there”. Netanyahu rejected that because he understands the moment the war stops will be a day of reckoning for him because then, immediately, it will become clear that the demand to establish a national inquiry, a committee to find out what's happening, cannot be blocked. And his criminal court [prosecutions] will accelerate.

It’s about the maxims that Ben-Gurion shaped about how we run a war: it should be very aggressive on the enemy’s territory and very fast in order not to lose legitimacy. You should have a super power on your side, always have a firm grip on the “moral high ground“. And to be concluded and turned into a diplomatic offer.

But Netanyahu rejected all these maxims. Of course, Hamas are crooks and terrible barbarians. But there were at least three – probably four – opportunities to complete a hostage deal. And it was torpedoed by Netanyahu for the only reason he wants the war to continue.

The new threat that we will open the gates of hell on Gaza. We call it war of deception. You know, I spent decades in uniform. I was the armed forces chief of general staff, Minister of Defence and twice prime minister. I can tell you authoritatively that, in the renewed war in Gaza since March 25th, there is nothing to do with any security or national interest of Israel. It's a war of deception that sacrifices the hostages just in order to keep the [Israeli ruling] coalition alive.

Mediapart: But to implement Ben-Gurion’s maxims, you need someone in front of you, and one of your best-known quotes, on the subject of the collapse of the 2000 Camp David talks,  is that “there is no partner” for peace.

E.B.: The history of the conflict has many urban legends attached to it. One of them is that myself and Clinton tried to dictate to Arafat a plan and to tell him take it or leave it. Something that he could not accept. And as a result, it's exploded and Barak said, “there is no partner”. It’s not true. We never tried to dictate it. We never tried to tell him “take it or leave it”. We made a far-reaching proposal at Camp David 25 years ago, which basically answered 95% of whatever he could think of.

I told him personally in front of Clinton, you can have your reservation from any given paragraph or from all paragraphs. Write them down. We don't expect you to agree to it completely. We expect you to take this far-reaching proposal as a basis for negotiation. And he decided to reject it and turned deliberately to terror [editor's note, a reference to the outbreak of the Second Intifada later in 2000].

That's why for both Clinton and myself, unfortunately, we had no partner in Arafat at that time. And I had the responsibility to tell the public the truth. I just reported, accurately, “we have no partner in Arafat at the present”. I didn't even say that Arafat cannot change. I didn't say for sure that anyone else cannot. I didn't say that it's forever. I just described objectively what happened there. And the rest of it is urban legend.

But it's true that it has a political impact here. People who hoped and worked for it were disappointed. But you must remember that Netanyahu, during his first term, from 1996 to 1999, found a friend in Arafat. Neither Rabin nor me ever thought of Arafat as a friend. He was a rival who deserved respect and we should negotiate with him, but he was not a friend. But Netanyahu gave him the second holiest city to Judaism, Hebron. He promised him another 13% of the West Bank.

So he gave them and didn't get anything. I never gave anything, but I was ready to give, but only if Arafat will be ready to discuss seriously the five issues: borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem, and end of conflict. You cannot just give them the area and say that somehow a Kantian peace will parachute down from heaven.

I told Arafat more than once, the toughest decision you will have to make is facing your own people. And the toughest decision I will have is not vis-à-vis you, but vis-à-vis my own people. Because we cannot bring whatever they dream of. But it won't be solved in heaven. It's about human beings. And we happen to be these human beings. If we do not succeed, we will pass it to our successors and nothing will change. The same mountains, the same wadis, the same everything, except the size of graveyards. And I tell you, your graveyards will grow much faster than mine. And it's time to do, to make a decision. He was not there. I don't know why, but he was not there. That was the reason.

Mediapart: Who could be the partner now?

E.B.: The mood in Israel is still one of fresh trauma. The whole collective is still feeling very strongly, very freshly, the pain from October 7th, two years ago. It’s a rage, a kind of huge rage among the people, even moderate people who believed in peace. Some people say there are no innocent people in Gaza. Of course, that's stupid, but basically it reflects a certain kind of mood that says we cannot deal with anyone on the Palestinian side.

Nowadays, if you start to talk about a two-state solution, you lose the attention of Israelis. They can't listen, but that's temporary and we have to understand it. It's understandable under the impact of this attack and leaders should have a certain compassion, tolerance, patience with this process. But leaders should never lose the sight of where they have to head. They have to have both a small weather vane to judge where the public is sitting and they have to have an inner compass that tells them where they have to lead.

So reality is simple but painful. There is no other solution but two states. The reason is very simple. Between the River and the Sea, live 15 million people. About half of them Jews, half non-Jews, mainly Muslims.

So if there is only one political entity named Israel reigning over this whole area from the river to the sea, it will become inevitably – that’s the key word – inevitably either non-Jewish or non-democratic. Because if this block of millions of Palestinians - about 2 millions in Israel, 3 millions in the West Bank, 2 millions in Gaza - can vote to the Knesset, it will become immediately, overnight, a bi-national state. And within a very short time, historically speaking, a bi-national state with a Muslim majority. That's not the Zionist vision. But if they can’t vote, it’s not a democracy.

So, the conclusion is that we have a compelling imperative, for Israeli reasons, not as a favour to the Palestinians, not because they deserve justice, which they probably deserve. It's because of Israel. It's because of our future, our identity, our security. You have a compelling imperative to separate, to find the power to delineate a line within the promised land in a way that it will include 80% probably of the settlers and all our strategic sites but doesn't cover more than few percent of the area. And allow a Palestinian demilitarized but viable state on the other side, which would include the West Bank and Gaza Strip and a connection between them, probably through a tunnel, like the tunnel under the Channel. That's the only way.

Mediapart: The current Israeli government brandishes accusations of anti-Semitism against anyone who criticizes its policies. Do you think this rhetoric is false and even dangerous for Jews abroad beyond the fact that anti-Semitism exists, as witnessed in the recent attack against a synagogue in Manchester?

E.B.: Anti-Semitism is a very bad phenomenon, especially in the Western world, even if European countries are fighting against anti-Semitism very effectively, very aggressively.

I never saw anti-Semitism in the Confucian society, or in the Hindu society, societies which together make up almost 35% of humanity. I didn't find it in Japan. I didn't see it in Thailand or even in sub-Saharan Africa. You find it in the Western world, in the Christian world. It had been there, it is always there, it will remain there. It's bad, but it's a matter of fact. It's always simmering a millimetre under the surface.

But to think that the criticism against this government these days by people around the world is a proof of anti-Semitism, that's quite an exaggeration. I don't like some of the criticism. I think that we deserve more attention to what we have gone through on this way. But I told people we have to be realistic. Young generations all around the world see Gaza through the pictures.

We can tell them that we had a terrible event for the Jewish people in the unprecedented history of humanity eighty years ago. And it's true. But there is no chance of convincing people that this gives us a kind of blank check to act. The young generation of the world, even in the Jewish people, they see the pictures.

The Middle East is still, in the 21st century, a tough neighbourhood. No mercy for the weak, no second opportunity for those who cannot defend themselves. We have to defend ourselves. And we will.

But in spite of the fact that we are in a very tough neighbourhood, it’s not because of anti-Semitism per se that we are criticized. We have to be accountable and at least part of what we see is about the actions of the government that runs the country.

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• An abridged translation of this interview into French can be found here.

Editing of English version by Graham Tearse