That is something our moderator was asked earlier today. Observers think the egyptians are in the best position to play that role, but my knowledge they are not playing that role. The conversation today comes at a crucial moment. Who are the palestinians, and what government governs all the palestinians, if any . Does the integration of the amas into side of h the Palestinian Authority reflect the integration of hamas or not . Is the rest of hamas operating separately, and he is that part of hamas contributing to the problem or solution . The Wilson Center has invested attention to the development in the neighborhood. This year we hosted an israeli minister of intelligence, palestinian the chief negotiator. Close to half of our ground truth briefings, something you know about which are telephonic conversations about hot spots, close to half of our nearly 30 iefings have been devoted to the region. Our guests will be introduced by aaron, who is the brandnew father of a son. The senior fellow. A close friend of the Wilson Center is that faster at university of maryland, and rob former secretary of state on near east affairs. Our moderator is thaaron miller. The show begins right now. Much, and forery your leadership in the Wilson Center. I want to acknowledge three people who are not here. They may be watching. Person, who is having cataract surgery today. I know you are watching, and thanks for everything. When i drafted the invitation for this event, it read maything like syrian iraq be dominating the headlines, but but thellyposted israelipalestinian issue remains. None of us who have watched this issue and followed this seriously include my colleagues would reject the idea that violence and terror has been a handmaiden of this process for over a century. What we are witnessing may or may not be new, but it is a reminder of the costs and implications of no resolution of the conflict. Since 1967i would argue you had a different iteration, a sort of perverse dance with its own perverse intimacy between israel as the occupier and palestinians as the occupied. It took the conflict to a different level. I power is strong. Palestinian power is weak, which is also terrifyingly formidable in its own right. Together thesis interaction guaranteed and continues to guarantee real dysfunction, tragedy, and of violence in this content. The answer to this, we know what it is, a twostate solution, the least bad option, but that is happening right now, may not happen in the future. We have chosen to focus on the palestinians and their politics, because i believe the two focused in the months to come. Can influencend i the research to a certain degree my calling is my byleagues presentation arguing they should stay away the Peace Process. I cannot control your questions. It is not a problem of one hand clapping. Israel,is influenced by but we want to drill down now on the palestinian guy mentioned. I want to close by saying one other thing. It is important to focus on the palestinians. The years i was work being. Orking we did not we focused far more on trying to understand the israeli reality, which is necessary, but by no means sufficient if in fact we really want to produce an equitable and durable solution to this conflict. The rules are simple. Five minutes each them and we will start with you. I may ask a question or two. Then we will go to your questions. Again, one last comment. Questions, not station identification. We really want to get in as many questions as we can. Theres only one way to do that no comments, just questions. Make it so much, and thank you for coming. Thank you. The first thing i think that ought to be noted about what is happening at the moment, in the context of this flareup of tensions to the palestinian polity and what it says about where politics are, is that it is inescapably connected to its broader regional context. What has happened to palestinians and within the palestinian polity and what is going to result is reflective of and pendant on broader changes in the arab world. Theres no way to separate the palestinians out from the broader regional context in which they participate. While we look at this, remember that a whole series of questions are being asked of the arab world, which are not resolved yet, and it is reflected in iraq and syria, lebanon, kuwait, and libya, among other places. I can mention those because they are all experiencing their own crises. I think there are related and analogous questions being asked in all of those crises as well. In this context, one of the most difficult aspects, not only for palestinians, but also for israelis and others, is nobody is in clear control of the situation partly because of where it is flaring up and partly because most of the entities, including palestinians, are in their own form of crisis. For one thing, a lot of this has been focused on East Jerusalem and other parts of jerusalem as well. Jerusalem, really, the Palestinian Security forces cannot maintain order because they do not operate there. Toust do not have that do it there or the manpower. President abbas ability to influence what is happening in thatalem is limited, even is being greatly undermined, so that is one thing. Even further, this is being manifested in arab parts of israel as well, and there i think the ability of traditional palestinian leadership to exercise any kind of control is perhaps even less. And so in a certain sense it is very hard to lay the consequences of things that happen outside of their area of purview at the doorstep of say the plo or the pla because they do not control the situation. And their ability to control what happens in areas that they do have authority in is being very much undermined. In addition to which, obviously they do not have control over the people in gaza. Isis fair to say that hamas experiencing a very serious identity crisis and leadership crisis as well. Its politicaly of wing, particularly the politburo, but even others within the Political Leadership to control all its factions is certain the questionable. The extent to which anyone is could in control of the situation as it is unfolding in terms of creating a real break on it or imposing a political solution is quite limited and it is very important. This is particularly the case given the level of anger that has been brooding over the years, that has driven the situation to the point that people can target children, knowingly, deliberately, callously, and call for revenge as a substitute for politics and policy. And that i think is the fruit of some very serious but by all parties, and there it is, for all to see. It is driving things. In addition, those calls for revenge only increase the cycle of incitement, and obviously, just behind the scenes, settlers are taking advantage of the situation to create more robust attacks on the ground than before, new outposts into digit thats, that are not are much more robust outposts than that, and it is very worrying. The other thing going on is that realities on the ground have been allowed to slide by a concatenation of certain things of which everybody has the share of the blame. State andly since the Institution Building program rubbles bringing live to the ordinary palestinian people, particularly in the west bank, was defunded and allowed to fizzle. Politicalt had a safety net to catch that fought at all. And no obviously Peace Process to back it up. So in that context, you have to ask where political momentum for sustaining and unsustainable status quo might come from. It has not, and everything that defines the status quo who is in crisis come in flocks, and may not survive the president s duration. I am inclined not to prognosticate, although i may be asked to, but to be analytical and rather than prescriptive, i would say you can see all of the different feelings leading up to this Current Situation in almost with the dark inevitability of greek tragedy, and where it is going to go from here could be very grim or it could be attenuated, depending on how responsibly it will behave in the situation. And it is hard to evaluate how that is going to work out because as i say it is not always clear what the ultimate address is, and with that i will suck because ive used up my five minutes. Thank you very much. I would like to make a couple of points. The first point is that the Current Situation reminds me of 1987, the advent of the first intifada. I happened to be visiting in jerusalem just as the three young israelis were abducted, and then went to ramallah after the first israeli operation that led to the death of a was shotand then down while i was there. And my perfection is based on a couple of things. Oft before the abduction these israelis, i had met with a prominent israeli journalist who was frustrated that there was an absence of hope in part because of the absence of urgency, that the israelis live in what appears to be normal lives and theres no sense of urgency, no cost. She was hoping for a followup to the european action against settlements as something. Obviously, these tragic events created a sense of urgency. When i look at it, i reminded of 1987 for two reasons, and that you can capture in the mood. One reason is when you look at the advent of the first was really a marginalization of the palestinian cause internationally. s were characterized by the rniraq war the iraniraq war,k in that mood is similar now, where it clearly the egyptians, and the saudis and the qatarris, everybody is occupied with their problem and not enough attention is being paid to what is happening in the west bank and gaza, and that is what is the problem for the palestinians. If you look back at 1980 seven, it was in the marginalization of the palestinian leadership from the people. What we had seen really beginning with the israeli invasion of lebanon in 1982, was the plo became exiled in tunis and pretty much remote and effective in catering to the palestinians. Leftalestinians were alone. We do not have palestinian leadership in exile, and they are in ramallah and gaza, that you have a sense when you talk to almost everybody, including the moderates who want to work, with the Palestinian Authority, that they are disconnected from the public. The public does not taken seriously. In fact, one of the reasons why we had that National Government is they both risk being totally irrelevant, and each individually, and they came to become more relevant. That is the context in which it takes place. Add to this the fact that there is a creeping realization that twobe the days of the states are numbered if they are not gone already, and there is reconciling kind of themselves to a reality that is not happening. It is only a matter of time because before you will see something take place. As 1. I wanted make him and therefore we risk a major intifada because of the circumstance. The second point, when you witness the ugliness of the death we have witnessed, where there have been horrific murders of young people, coldblooded on both sides, and you would hope and we all have asked that question, and people start asking themselves, is this what i want to become is this what the conflict is making of me, is this going to lead to applying that breaks on violence . I have the unfortunate feeling that it wilma. And this is not that it will not. This is not just because of research ive been doing over the past 10 years. I ask israeli and palestinians and other arabs about emphasized empathizing with the civilian casualties of the others when they witness them. And the liberals and others will feel empathy and pain, but the majority, unfortunately, will not, and they will feel more resentment and say they brought it upon themselves. The first reaction we get from israelis and arabs is when the witness civilian casualties is they say they brought it upon themselves. That appears to be very much a function of one thing their assessment of whether theres going to be peace or war. They have to pardon their heart to prepare for content. When there is peace, they empathize. Prospect foris a peace and up, they empathize. We are at a moment where people are assuming were headed to conflict and they do not want their hearts to emphasize empathize. They want their hearts to harden the bloody war, and that is the reality we face. Under the time limit. Rob . Thank you. As we speak, this afternoon israeli troops are massing on the gaza border and hundreds of rockets have rained down on southern israel. We may be heading for a major confrontation that i would argue neither side really wants, but neither side baby able to avoid. I will focus on the israeli side. What we have today is really the utter despair of palestinian politics. Are bothajor forces reacting to events, not leading them. Neither of them have a strategy for attaining their National Goals right now. What it means reyna is they are what ithe is means is they are locked in the politics for survival. Thereve been no Palestinian Elections since 2008. No president ial or legislative elections since 2006. Palestinian issue to tuitions not meet them palestinian and otherns to meet, groups are widening. It is against that backdrop that you have to look at the National Agreement reached in april between the two sides. They did not agree on any vision, on politics, on how to recognize reconcile their competing services. They set up a mechanism to try to address the absence of legitimacy, and that was elections. To somethingonse that is popular amongst their populace, the clamor for unity on the ground. Now, the problem has been for hamas, patrolling gaza did not really produce anything. They were being squeezed by since he spends chile july 3, and likewise talk talk fatah wasoducing not producing anything. A trader has been branded for. Ecurity cooperation the backdrop of the recent violence. Inst that actor up, we had backdrop, we had the National Unity government since april, and it has hurt the palestinians, where 50,000 palestinians under, have been not receiving their salary payments since the agreement was reached. Thomas is under pressure now by israel at the same time hamas is under pressure to rein in radicals, but it needs to show israel. T apassive to we you see neither side within palestinian politics really watching wanting this government to survive, but not wanting to be blamed for bringing it down. Both are having a since it will just atrophy by itself. Are we on the verge of a new intifada . Realee that there are are analogies to the situation in 1987 and 2000. Both cases was popular discontent with the official plo leadership, when they seem to be so removed from hardships on the ground. In that situation you had ousted the leadership plate catch up with developments on the ground, not lead them, and that situation is rife today for the similar type of situation, even the absence of leadership within palestinian politics. What isdo not know is brewing underneath the surface. Thereve been committees that have come out that are added hating a third into the topic, but we do not know yet. What we do know is the leadership is reacting and not leaving. This is not a strategy forward. Short of an intifada, there are things that count and rob will that can unravel. Tomorrow there was a busy tomorrow there was supposed to be a conference. Palestinians pulled out because they felt under pressure not to go. Oft this shows is any kind being seen to be cooperating with israel will break you. Breakdown lead to the in security cooperation, the one major attainment we have seen in the last decade between israelis and palestinians, and the third thing is that price now for returning to negotiations is going to go up, not down, and it was already pretty high. With that i will turn it back to aaron. I never thought the three of you could be more annoyingly negative than me. You manage. I will post each of you a question. Societies and up at some point having to take a long look in the mirror. Whether or not we took a long look in the wake of jack assassination, i do not know. Im not assassination, i do not know. Im not sure israelis did in the wake of rabins murder. Tribal is asian, personalization, this kind of anyway have ad in salutary or ameliorating effect on the situation, and what would it require from an external process to break a potentially as catholic tory cycle a potentially as tory cycle now . I know my research is pretty negative on this. When people assume conflict is not on its way toward a resolution, they simply find it hard to empathize or question themselves or question the moral stance. The two things i think that actually works for both israelis and palestinians, having more reflection. One thing is what is happening in the region. People are terrified by anarchy. Know how ugly it can get. It is ugly. We have witnessed the death of several people over the past couple of weeks, horrific, but when you compare it to what is happening in syria or iraq, people do not want that. You can see the backlash. We can see it in the polling about people rallying behind the state when they see anarchy. There is a mood that does not want to see an explosion. They know it can get a lot luckier, a lot worse for all of them. The second, i think perhaps on the israeli side, more than any other time there is a real internalization that if the two state solution is going cap and now it is never going to happen. We have never seen that in the past. There was always a sense that maybe there is more time. I do not think anybody really believes there is any more time. So maybe they have to figure out another way, or they are going to have to come to grips with the reality. Those are the only that are providing some restraint at the moment. When you get a netanyahu looking at the moderate right now in the to restrainrnment, in the reaction to this, it gives you a flavor of where things are. I think that is a point. Whether that is going to be enough, it does require leadership. I think in the end, events on the ground can preempt leaders, and we see that now. Neither thomas nor nothing ands nor netanyahu wants escalation, but they might find themselves on the path that is unavoidable. Leaders can make a difference, and we do not see that. Way, what came before, might actually be an ally, including what happened in the first and second intifada. Men, are there any hopeful stanceds here . If the majority of the intifadaans want an they could have one. It does not mean that things could spiral out of control. You asked about third parties. I will take you up on that one, if that is ok. That is an area for hope. I think there are two ways, where you look up why look beyond the immediate isis, the lend themselves to the question, what can be done by third parties, whether regional or