Israel and Palestine must find way to co-exist – ex-IDF officer – Channel 4 News
14m
15 Jan 2025

Israel and Palestine must find way to co-exist – ex-IDF officer

Europe Editor and Presenter

We spoke to Miri Eisin, who’s a retired colonel from the Israel Defense Forces and is now at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism.

Matt Frei: What do you think was the decisive factor that led to Benjamin Netanyahu agreeing this deal? Was it Donald Trump basically reading him the riot act?

Miri Eisin: I’m going to answer you, but for a moment I am also breathless after your talk with Sharone Lifschitz. She makes me feel stronger, and I’m saying that sitting in Tel Aviv and she’s sitting next to you and I just want to say, wow. That’s the resilience of Israeli people. I absolutely think that the Trump administration, the change of administration, meaning the fact that not Kamala Harris, but Donald Trump and that change from the Democratic administration to the Republican administration makes a big change. It makes a change for all of the region, not just for Israel. And I think that that is part of it. But if I can gently push back at your question, why is everybody saying all of the time that this is about Israel? Because Hamas was on board? Because Hamas agreed to everything? Because we believe that Hamas in May was not the problem? I just say gently push back at that, because I think we forget who Hamas is.

Matt Frei: I was going to put that question to my Palestinian guest after this interview, but there you go, you raised the question yourself. But whether I’m talking to you or talking to a Palestinian official, the fact that this deal was delayed by six months and it could have been signed and in those six months, thousands more people had to die. And the agony of families like the Lifschitzes had to continue and the rubble had to get worse. That surely must fill you with horror.

Miri Eisin: It fills me with horror because war is horror. It also fills me with horror, and I say this openly to everybody, it fills me with horror the idea that today Yahya Sinwar is revered around the world. The people wear t-shirts with Yahya Sinwar…

Matt Frei: But is he really revered around the world? I don’t see people wearing his t-shirts on the streets of London, Berlin or Paris or Washington.

Miri Eisin: I’ll show them to you. You may not have seen them, but I checked them out.

Matt Frei: But are they representative of a wider opinion?

Miri Eisin: But the thing is that in that sense, as I look at it, first of all, I don’t absolve the government that I live inside of from any blame whatsoever. We were in a very challenging situation before the war started. It stepped into the war and the issues, not just of the hostages, but of the running of this war, became something political. And I say that because it’s absolutely on the table. I do not think that the war could have ended in May, but that’s my opinion. But I think that because of Hamas, not because of the Israeli government. Having said that, I definitely think that the Israeli government could have done more before. I wish we would have done more before, even if I think that Hamas at the time would not have fulfilled any of the things that it said it would.

Matt Frei: And do you think that after all this horror of the last year and few months, it is possible or should be possible that something good will come out of it that will last? And I’m talking here about the thing that Mr Biden wants, and Mr Trump may want, a two-state solution.

Miri Eisin: Can I make the worst comparison and say that after World War Two, which was a just war and an important war, at the end of the war, the world changed. And that’s the only very positive aspect of every war, including this horrific war. It changes people, it changes the situation.

Matt Frei: Yes, but how would it change?

Miri Eisin: At the end, as Sharone said before, between the river and the sea, as we like to call it, are 15 million people. We’re not going away. We’re not going away. The Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Christians. There are so many ways to define them. We’re all here and we’re going to have to find a way to live here together. And that doesn’t make a happily ever after, by the way.

Matt Frei: But do the Palestinians, after all this, deserve the dignity of their own self-determination, their own state?

Miri Eisin: They deserved it before. They deserve it after. Can we distinguish between the Palestinians, and I have supported the two-state solution my entire life, and Hamas, the murderous organisation that planned for over two years, the most murderous attack you can imagine.