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Middle East
Did Hamas score a big win at the United Nations, or was it actually a win for the much-maligned idea of the two-state solution?
Forgive yourself if you ignored the critical UN vote last week. Like the blaring horns on the streets of New York, many folks tune out the UN as meaningless background noise to the real action in global politics: sound and fury signifying bias. That is a mistake. The controversial May 9 vote on granting Palestine full membership to the UN bears real scrutiny. After all, in plain terms, the vote effectively means recognizing a Palestinian state.
The vote was supported by 143 of the 193 countries that make up the General Assembly – that’s more countries supporting this idea in 2024 than the last time something like this was voted on, back in 2012. Just seven months after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, Palestine has won more support, not less. And Israel is more isolated, not less. Nine countries, including the US and Israel, voted no, but this next bit is telling: 25 countries, including Canada, abstained. This signals a major shift in Canadian policy, as it has historically voted “no” alongside the US.
What changed, and what exactly was the vote saying about who would represent the Palestine state if it was granted full status– the Palestinian Authority or Hamas? Can there be a Palestinian state with Hamas playing a role? Is the current Israeli government trying to kill the idea of a viable two-state solution?
To find out, I spoke with Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations Bob Rae.
Evan Solomon: Ambassador, 143 countries at the UN General Assembly just voted to grant Palestine full member status — essentially recognizing a Palestinian state. Canada was among the 25 countries that abstained, which is a change in policy from a hard “no.” Why the shift in policy?
Ambassador Bob Rae: Largely because we think the situation on the ground is changing so fast. We wanted to make it clear that we still favor a two-state solution, but that we also recognize that it’s going to take a lot of work for that to happen. There’s going to have to be significant changes, frankly, on both sides to get there. Most dramatically on the side of Hamas, which continues to wage war after its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and is not, by any means, defeated. We have to be clear that there can’t be a terrorist group in charge of a state. Israel will never accept the notion of a terrorist state being granted a status in international law, and we would never do it. The only way we can proceed is if that changes.
The other thing that needs to change is the policies that are currently being pursued by the Israelis in political terms, which is refusing to countenance the idea of two states coexisting.
The argument that we’ve always made in the past with this kind of resolution is to say, “No, we can’t support that, but we want to ensure that the parties will get back to the table, and that’s where things will get resolved.” But it's clear that at the moment, the current Israeli government has no intention of negotiating anything approaching sovereignty for Palestinians. So we don’t see how we can simply vote “no” anymore. We also don’t see how we can simply say “yes” either. We don’t think we can responsibly do that either. So that’s why we’ve taken the position we’ve taken.
Solomon: Was this a position that was true before Oct. 7, or has it changed because of the attack and the aftermath?
Rae: The feeling was that you had more of a discussion going on within Israel about the possibilities of two states. However, we know that Mr. Netanyahu has never been enthusiastic and never really admitted to the possibility of a Palestinian state, and now it’d become even clearer that’s not on the table.
On the other side, I do think that there has been, in the last 20 years, a strong endorsement of the two-state position by the Palestinian Authority leadership on the political side in the West Bank, but that has not been matched by Hamas. So that’s why we changed the position from 2012.
Solomon: Back in 2012, only 138 countries voted for the resolution that upgraded the status of Palestine to a non-member observer state within the UN, but Canada voted against it. What does the increase of support tell you? Is this, essentially, a vote for the Hamas cause? Does this show that their horrifying terror attack was a strategic success?
Rae: I don’t think so. I think that this whole “reward theory” is wrongheaded. The support in the General Assembly for two states is overwhelming. If you actually read the speeches of the countries that voted no, and the countries that voted to abstain, and the countries that voted yes, the support for two states was unanimous going from the United States and Hungary and other countries that voted no to the countries that abstained like us.
Solomon: But you had countries voting yes, like Denmark, the Aussies, and New Zealanders. What does that say?
Rae: I think it is a question of asking if a Palestinian state is prepared for membership in the United Nations. Canada looked at that question and we decided it doesn’t meet the test of what it means to be a state. The state is a place that has control over a territory, and the Palestinian Authority doesn't. Now, the Palestinians say, “Yeah, we haven’t been able to exercise control over the territory because of Israel.” And that's partly true. But it's also true to say now that they don't have control over the territory because of Hamas terrorism, which they have not been able to deal with effectively or to the extent that you can say, “This is a state that's ready to go.” The point is that there's real work to be done in the creation of two states, and we've still got to get there.
Solomon: Did the vote at the UN signal that most countries are ready to recognize a Palestinian state, even if Hamas is part of the governing body?
Rae: No, I don’t think that’s the case. I really don’t. What has to be very clear is that there's no room for a Hamas state at the UN. That’s something where there’s a very strong consensus.
Solomon: But the vote doesn’t make that distinction.
Rae: That’s why I say the decision on who gets admitted to the UN is not based on high hopes. It is based on what are the realities on the ground. We have to get real about it. That's where I think Canada is not alone. Many other countries feel the same way. The real work starts now with saying: How do you get to a cease-fire? How do you get to where you want to go, which is a two-state solution?
Solomon: Is a two-state solution effectively dead?
Rae: The trouble with that argument, Evan, is that you’ve got to then say, ok, if the two-state solution is dead, then what? When you look at the other alternatives, they don’t work either. For example, if you take a “river to the sea” approach, whether it's from a terrorist position or an Israeli perspective, that doesn't work. So it's really important for people to come to grips with the fact that the most fact-based, realistic solution has got to be based on the notion of two sovereign states living side by side in security and in peace. And, one hopes, eventually in partnership. It takes a long time to get there. But if you drop the idea of any possibility of sovereignty to realize Palestinian aspirations, then you've really abandoned all hope.
Solomon: From the Netanyahu government point of view, the argument is that Hamas doesn’t even recognize Israel’s right to exist, and neither do many other countries in the region. So a two-state solution is, at best, a naive hope. At worst, a serious security risk.
Rae: All that is part of the solution. That’s all part of what needs to happen. These things can change. We've seen things can change. It's all about building the basis for change. To rule it out entirely is a mistake.
Solomon: Does Hamas, a listed terror group in Canada and the US, need to be destroyed, as Netanyahu argues, or can they evolve out of that status, and transition toward governance?
Rae: No terrorist entity can become part of a state. That’s not possible. Can terrorist groups change? History points to some examples of that. The IRA, the African National Union, which was listed in many countries as a terrorist organization. It transformed itself. It changed. But the problem with Hamas — and it is in their charter — is that it is based on the obliteration of the state of Israel. That's not something that anybody can accept. It isn't good enough to say if this and if that. We can't get into too many hypotheticals. Right now Hamas' official policy is to obliterate the state of Israel. Israel is a sovereign state and a member of the United Nations, so while Canada has strong disagreements with the current policies of the current government, that's very different from saying that we are going to pretend that Hamas is not Hamas. I mean, that would be wrong.
Solomon: Neither Joe Biden nor Justin Trudeau gets on well with Benjamin Netanyahu. How isolated is this Israeli government right now?
Rae: That’s a very important question. My own view is it’s not simply about Prime Minister Netanyahu or the state of Israel. Anybody with any degree of empathy would understand that the activities of Hamas – the sexual and gender atrocities, the atrocities on children and families, and the sheer brutality of the attacks on civilians – are unprecedented. It's been deeply traumatic for the Israeli people. So if you ask them, “How do you feel about two states?,” you can understand them saying, “For God's sake, don't talk to me about that until you've dealt with what we're dealing with.” You have to understand that the current disagreement that we have with Israel is not irreparable. It's not like we're stopping talking or engaging.
It’s important for everybody to be clearheaded about how we need to go forward and the work that’s involved. But any tactic or strategy that doesn't recognize the democratic rights of either the Israeli people or the Palestinian people is doomed to fail.
Displaced Palestinian woman Mai Anseir stands with children at a school where they shelter as they prepare to flee Rafah after Israeli forces launched a ground and air operation in the eastern part of the southern Gaza City, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip May 13, 2024.
500,000: Over half a million people have been displaced in Gaza by recent Israeli military operations in Rafah and the northern part of the enclave, according to the UN. As the Israel-Hamas war rages on, over a million people in Gaza are on the verge of starvation, and a “full-blown famine” is occurring in the north.
11: Recent clashes between rival cartels in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas have killed at least 11 people, with two nuns and a teenager reportedly among the dead. The Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel are fighting for control of the area.
4: At least four people are dead due to riots over electoral reform in New Caledonia, a Pacific island and French overseas territory. France declared a state of emergency over the situation, which grants authorities more power to ban gatherings and restrict movement.
250: The Biden administration on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Nicaraguan companies and visa restrictions on 250 people, accusing President Daniel Ortega’s government of “profiting off of irregular migration” to the US. Officials say the Nicaraguan government is exploiting migrants trying to reach the US by selling visas that require them to leave the country within 96 hours. Biden’s move aims to reduce the flow of migrants to the US — an issue that he continues to face pressure over with an election looming.
5: Five Israeli soldiers were killed in a friendly fire incident in northern Gaza on Wednesday, Israel’s military said today. The Israel Defense Forces have opened an investigation into the incident, which involved tank cross-fire in the town of Jabalia. Seven others were injured.
Mourners react next to the body of a Palestinian killed in Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Al-Aqsa hospital, in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, May 12, 2024.
Months of fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces have resulted in a mounting death toll in Gaza. Most news outlets have relied upon the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry for casualty figures, which show roughly 35,000 dead, but there have been questions about accuracy. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, recently offered a new breakdown of the death toll — based on health ministry numbers — that aimed to paint a clearer picture of how many of those killed have been identified.
But rather than provide clarity, the new numbers have led to a wave of confusion and misleading claims. By focusing on those killed who have been identified, the UN agency appeared to report a lower number of women and children killed than in previous reports.
UN tries to clarify. The UN is now playing cleanup, maintaining that the overall death toll has not changed and is roughly 35,000. What’s changed, it says, is that nearly 25,000 bodies have been “fully identified,” and more than half are women and children. In other words, approximately 10,000 bodies are unidentified — and thousands of people, many of them women and children, are still missing under the rubble.
The confusion is indicative of the extraordinarily difficult — and often politicized — process of tallying war deaths.
But it is also sowing distrust. The Jewish state’s top diplomat pointed to the update as evidence that the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry’s numbers, which the UN largely relies on for its figures, cannot be trusted.
“Anyone who relies on fake data from a terrorist organization in order to promote blood libels against Israel is antisemitic and supports terrorism,” Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister, tweeted Monday.
Part of the process. Death tolls from conflicts and other fatal events are routinely revised as more information is gathered: After the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, for example, Israel initially reported that around 1,400 Israelis were killed. The Israeli government has since revised that to around 1,200.
Accurately tallying how many people have been killed in an active war zone is notoriously difficult, and fully identifying all of the dead can take decades. In March, for example, a US sailor killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, was finally identified over 80 years later.
Looking at it another way, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that the fact that 25,000 people have now been identified, is actually “a step forward.”
So can the Gaza Health Ministry numbers be trusted? Israel has repeatedly claimed that the death toll reported by the health ministry is manipulated. Skeptics of the numbers also take issue with the fact that it doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
But top humanitarian organizations and leading experts say that the numbers from the health ministry have historically proven reliable. The ministry’s tally is largely calculated via hospital records, and it releases casualty updates every couple of hours. Though the Israeli government has publicly cast doubt on the veracity of the health ministry’s estimates, Israeli intelligence services have also reportedly concluded that the figures are generally accurate.
The WHO on Tuesday also said it remained confident in the overall figures from Gaza’s health ministry, stating that there’s “nothing wrong with the data.”
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Does Putin's upcoming visit with Xi Jinping signal a continuing “no limits” partnership between China and Russia?
The relationship is certainly becoming more strategic over time. Not so much because the Russians are changing their behavior. They have very few options at this point. North Korea and Iran are their top allies. Belarus, Syria. I mean, it's a rogues’ gallery, but China is increasingly finding that their ability to work long term in a stable and sustainable way with America's allies in Asia, with the Europeans, and with the United States itself becoming more constrained. And given all of that, willingness to be a closer ally with Russia is increasing over time. Just look at Biden putting 100% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle exports. All of this is sending a message to the Chinese that no matter who's elected in November, that the US is trying to contain them. And yeah, I think longer term, the more they see that from the US and their allies, the closer with the Russians they will eventually be.
Why is Europe alarmed with Georgia's “foreign agents” law?
Well, here it's because this is a law. that is, in principle. nothing wrong with it. In principle, just talking about publishing those NGOs, those organizations that get at least 20% funding from external sources. In reality, it's being put in place by a bunch of political leaders that are aligned with Russia. It is almost identical to Russia's own foreign agents law, and it has been used in Russia to chilling effect, to shut down anything that feels like pro-Western democratic opposition in government institutions that in Russia are authoritarian and Georgia are leaning more authoritarian. Keep in mind, this is a Georgia that has constitutionally enshrined that they want to join the European Union and NATO. But the reality is that political officials are moving farther away from that. Big, big demonstrations and potential for violence on the ground in Georgia going forward.
How will Biden respond if Israel continues to push into Rafah?
Well, he said it's a red line, but ultimately it's going to feel like as much of a red line, I suspect, as Obama was on Syria. Yes, they will reduce some level of offensive weaponry that can be used by Israel, in Rafah. But the reality is they're going to keep providing intelligence, keep providing the vast majority of the defense spending that Israel gets from the United States and the weaponry. And there are a lot of members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, that are really upset about the idea of suspending any support to Israel and are moving to try to block Biden legislation, which means he has to find a compromise with them in an election year. All of this puts him firmly in no man's land on the Israel-Palestine issue, not where Biden wants to be.
That's it for me and I'll talk to you all real soon.
- The limits of a China-Russia partnership ›
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Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Al Yamamah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 29, 2024.
Saudi Arabia is reportedly showing fresh interest in a roadmap to peace in Yemen that was iced late last year in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
The background: For a decade, Saudi Arabia has backed the Yemeni government in a brutal civil war against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels who now control most of the country. The conflict plunged Yemen into a hellish humanitarian catastrophe.
A peace roadmap from last year, which envisions power-sharing and cash transfers to the Houthis for public salaries, was shelved when the group began attacking Red Sea shipping in solidarity with the Palestinians, driving down shipping volumes through the crucial commercial waterway by half.
The Houthis would have to stop those as part of any peace deal.
Wider lens: The Saudis are keen to stabilize the Yemen situation. At the same time, Washington wants to keep Riyadh interested in normalizing ties with Israel as part of a deal that would include a US security guarantee and progress towards a Palestinian state.
But Saudi’s peace push is a gamble for Biden. “A deal would hand the Houthis basically everything they want,” says Gregory Brew, an Iran specialist at Eurasia Group. “Hard for Biden to spin that as a win, even if Red Sea commerce picks back up.”
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. A security personnel looks on at oil docks at the port of Kalantari in the city of Chabahar, 300km (186 miles) east of the Strait of Hormuz January 17, 2012.
On Monday, India signed a10-year-long agreement to operate and develop Iran’s Chabahar port. The move is meant to expand India’s agriculture exports to Afghanistan and Central Asia while bypassing existing routes through neighboring Pakistan, New Delhi’s main rival.
Flexing muscles. New Delhi, on track toovertake Japan as the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2025, has only managed the port under short-term contracts since 2018 and has already transported 2.5 million tonnes of wheat and 2,000 tonnes of pulses to Afghanistan. This new longer-term deal with a contractual value of roughly $370 million will reduce transit times between India, Iran, and Afghanistan.
But India is sailing at a risk. Just hours after the contract was signed, the US warned ofpotential sanctions on any country doing business deals with Tehran. Over the last three years, Washington has imposed over 600 sanctions on Iran-related entities.
India has not formally responded to Washington's warning yet, setting up a potential diplomatic clash that may test the limits of India’s willingness to defy its Western allies in order to pursue its own strategic interests in the region.
Gaza protests highlight the need to build cooperation vs. confrontation, says Eboo Patel
It’s time for college students to rethink how they protest, says Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith America, a nonprofit that works with hundreds of campuses to foster healthier dialogue. In a wide-ranging interview with Ian Bremmer for the latest episode of GZERO World, Patel criticizes the confrontational culture on campuses, urging a shift from romanticizing conflict to embracing cooperation. He challenges the dichotomy of oppressors and oppressed, advocating for a more nuanced approach to diversity that resembles a potluck of ideas.
“We absolutely need to change the default setting on campuses from confrontation is romanticized to cooperation is the norm."
College campuses are actually the perfect venues for this kind of dialogue, Patel says, and professors and administrators can leverage their intellectual backgrounds to foster the kinds of productive dialogue that students need more than ever. Everything else, like demanding the disbanding of campus police, Patel says, is nothing more than a distraction.
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
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