- The only viable, long-term viable solution for this conflict in the Middle East remain, unfortunately, the two-state solution.

[gentle music] - Hello, and welcome to GZERO World.

I'm Ian Bremmer, coming to you direct from Paris and the sixth annual Paris Peace Forum.

This gathering of heads of state, government officials and private sector leaders is tasked with mission impossible, finding common ground in a world of rivalry.

- I do believe that peace will come, and I do believe that the planet will be saved.

The question is, at what costs?

- But while the forum sessions focused on climate action, gender equality, and AI governance, it was hard to avoid the disruption ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are causing globally.

Here's Peace Forum Director General, Justin Vaisse.

- We don't ignore this crisis and we do what we can, and what we can, we have to admit, is limited.

It's limited, because we can mostly do humanitarian work because we know how much the two-state solution has been receding on the horizon in the last 10, 20 years, and how much we still need to have some kind of a horizon to address the Palestinian question.

- And so, as this peace forum gets underway, I'm going to focus on one of the areas of the world where violence rages on, the war between Israel and Hamas.

[explosion booms] And I'm joined today by a man who came closer than any Israeli leader in modern history to securing an enduring peace with the Palestinians, though he too failed, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

And later, as hundreds of Israeli hostages remain trapped in Gaza, GZERO's Alex Kliment speaks with a hostage negotiator who has dealt directly with Hamas.

But first, here's a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Narrator 1] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator 2] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains.

With a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Narrator 1] And by: Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... [bright music] [dramatic music] - 23 years ago at Camp David, Palestinian Liberation Organization chairman, Yasser Arafat, was watching the Major League Baseball All-Star game on TV.

As a US diplomat later recalled, Arafat asked at one point when the game would start.

It was, in fact, already the fifth inning.

I can see that happening.

This little exchange, kind of funny, brought the sense of misunderstandings to come.

The summit was only the second time in 40 years of US-led efforts at brokering peace that an American president brought together Israeli and Arab leaders.

In September of 1978, then President Carter successfully brokered an historic peace treaty between Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, and Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin.

But back to that two-week summit in July of 2000.

It was the last six months of President Clinton's presidency, and he was eager to cement his legacy by solving the most intractable problem in the Middle East.

And here's Clinton announcing the summit in the White House briefing room a week prior.

- If the parties do not seize this moment, if they cannot make progress now, there will be more hostility and more bitterness, perhaps even more violence, and to what end?

- But as the three leaders strolled together down a leafy Camp David road, they couldn't have been father apart in their expectations for the summit.

Ehud Barak, the young leftist Israeli Prime Minister, fresh of a series of failed negotiations with Syria, had pushed hard for that summit, arguing that it was, and I quote, "A pressure cooker, "that would require him and Arafat "to make real progress on a two-state solution."

According to Aaron David Miller, an American diplomat who was at the negotiations, Barak's strategy was either to secure a deal, or to expose Arafat as an unreliable partner.

Barak was also feeling a different kind of pressure at home, given his increasing domestic unpopularity.

His own government, in fact, began to unravel just as the summit was underway.

Meanwhile, Yasser Arafat had constraints of his own.

Given his constituency's mistrust of Israel and his resentment of Barak's recent focus on Syria, Arafat was himself in no hurry to reach an agreement.

He had warned President Clinton ahead of the summit that his side was not ready to come to the table, nor did he trust Barak to follow through on his promises.

And given the United States' airtight relationship with Israel, Arafat was right to be suspicious.

Clinton had, in fact, a no surprise policy with Barak, which meant, in essence, that the summit's purported mediator showed everything first to the Israeli delegation.

With Israel as a key ally, it's not like the United States was an honest broker.

And in the end, despite Clinton's best efforts, southern charm, and the summit's lovely setting, the talks did end in failure.

- After 14 days of intensive negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, I have concluded with regret that they will not be able to reach an agreement at this time.

They couldn't get there.

That's the truth.

They couldn't get there.

- The failed summit was followed by the second intifada in September, a violent Palestinian uprising in Israeli occupied territories, and in Israel itself.

And while the Clinton White House continued to push for a peace deal until the last day of the administration, Arafat ultimately balked, and that was the end of that.

Now, today, Israelis and Palestinians are once again at war, and neither side is even entertaining the idea of peace talks, let alone engaging in long-term negotiations like those that were attempted in Camp David two decades ago.

But if, as the saying goes, it's darkest before the dawn, well, maybe now is exactly the right time to talk about an enduring resolution to this conflict.

And that's why I'm joined today by the man who came closer than any other Israeli leader in modern history to securing an enduring peace with the Palestinians, former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak.

Ehud Barak, so good to have you back on GZERO World.

- Thank you for having me.

- So, I mean, this is obviously a difficult topic and one you have a very strong set of views on, but I want to start with your role historically, because back in 2000, you came closer than, really, anybody in managing a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine.

I'm wondering what that experience brings for you in thinking about where we are today and how we respond to the war between Israel and Hamas.

- I think, well, you, know, in the Middle East, things are moving, they are developing very fast.

So to try to draw direct similarities or lines of thought from about almost 25 years ago, it's a little bit too long.

So, basically, I think that different people draw different consequences from the same development.

Many concluded for what happened in 2000.

We've tried, President Clinton and myself, to deal with Arafat, tried to have a breakthrough.

Some people draw the consequence that it can never fly.

It was known in advance.

It can't fly.

They are Arabs.

They are the same, they are all the same, nothing has changed, and it will never fly.

And others, like me, think that it didn't fly.

That's a matter of fact, but it doesn't mean anything beyond the fact that it didn't fly.

And as I put it, Arafat is not, we didn't have a partner in Arafat for that time, for 2000.

It doesn't mean anything about now.

I never lost sight of the idea that the only viable, long-term, viable solution for this conflict in the Middle East remain, unfortunately, the two-state solution.

Not because we're ideal, because we are different nations with different history, different wishes and dreams.

We have compelling imperatives stemming from our own needs, our Israeli needs of our future identity, security, you name it, to disengage from the Palestinians, to master the willpower and the readiness to take tough decision and divorce from the Palestinians.

- When I see the last, the present government, which has been increasing the settlements, the illegal settlements on West Bank land, making it harder and harder for Palestinians to live there, when I see the efforts to try to pressure Egypt, Jordan, other countries into accepting more Palestinians from Gaza, that implies that the solution that they see is less land and fewer Palestinians and Israel just takes over more of it.

Am I correct in reading it that way, or is there something else going on?

- You know, if your conclusion is that Israel is the only or the main responsible for the situation, you are wrong.

- But-- - If you mention as a matter of fact that this government doesn't want to see two-state solution, that's objectively accurate.

A real set of theories that were promoted by Netanyahu along the last, almost a generation, collapsed.

There was a collapse of the idea that he promoted for more than five years now that basically Hamas is an asset and Palestinian Authority is liability rather than the other way around.

And the idea was politically motivated.

He basically said, as long as he can keep the Hamas active, kicking and alive, and suppressing the Palestinian Authority, whenever you or the EU, the UK or the Americans will come to us and ask, "Why the hell you don't negotiate with the Palestinians "about something reasonable?

", You can tell, "Oh, we are ready, but what can we do?"

Abu Mazen doesn't control half of his own people, the half in Gaza.

And the Hamas, no one expects us to deal with Hamas because it's a terrorist organization.

So it was a kind of poison pill against any viable political process.

And now many interpret this event of 7th October as a proof, in a distorted way, to the best of my, a proof that we can never do anything.

These are barbarians, they are like Nazis, like Daesh.

So it's true that the behavior of these perpetrators on the 7th of October was extremely barbarian in nature and in practice, but we determined to destroy the military infrastructure and the protection, to control our immediate other side of the buildings.

- Now, we have seen in the last month a shift away from enormous sympathy for Israel on October 7th to a growing criticism of the way that Israel is fighting the war, the extraordinary numbers of Palestinian civilians.

We're seeing friends like France's Macron, like Canada's Trudeau, increasingly saying that the Israelis need to stop.

Has Israel fallen into a trap in the way they're fighting this war, Ehud?

- Probably there is no easy way to avoid what you call this trap.

We are determined to destroy Hamas.

It cannot be completed from the air.

It needs thousands of boot, pairs of boots, on the ground.

So we're compelled to make this activity and we're compelled, in order to reduce the death toll for our people.

to use these air strikes and so on.

We are committed to the international law.

Every target is processed by different teams, two independent teams.

And a legal advisor is sitting in a place where a target is hit.

We warn everyone ahead of time we are going to attack in this and that place.

And when you think of it, in terms of the causal chain that leads to a human being, be it Palestinian, Israel losing his life, in both cases, it is a direct result of a causal chain where at the head of it sits the Hamas.

- So I understand that situation, but I'm talking about the fact that when the war started, Israel announced a general siege on Gaza.

They did not allow humanitarian goods or equipment in.

And even now, five weeks in, the amount of material coming in is incredibly limited.

I mean, my question is, why couldn't Israel take longer?

Why couldn't Israel wait until more civilians were protected?

Why couldn't they wait until more countries were working together with Israel?

Why did everything have to be done so immediately?

- Well, you know, we probably, in retrospect, would've done it faster, moving from 20 trucks per day to 100, and if needed 200 trucks, as long as there is certain inspection that they do not bring explosives or rockets into the place, or fuel for that purpose, and that it doesn't reach the hands of Hamas.

But we cannot slow down.

From our experience, first of all, it always happen, that whatever you do, you're doomed to lose, gradually, the legitimacy and the support of the world.

So if we would've done it slower, we would lose it before we have any achievement.

And so in military operation, once you start it, you have to ask yourself, what's the faster way to end it, not the slower one.

And it's clear to me that it won't be forever.

I have, in certain way, a question mark about our own tactics.

I think that there is certain gap between what the military armed forces understand and the objectives of the political level.

The political level kind of ordering from the armed forces to provide total destruction of military capabilities and capacity to govern the Gaza Strip by Hamas.

This is, according to the military sources, will take many months, probably a year to complete.

So we are entering into long, long story.

It's not going to be a short story.

- There's been a lot of talk recently about being able to release some of these hostages.

Still over 200 hostages being held now for over a month in the most abysmal conditions imaginable.

Part of the sticking point apparently is whether or not any members of Hamas that are held as prisoners by Israel could be released in return.

Do you think it is appropriate for the Israelis to be involved in a negotiation like that with a terrorist organization like Hamas?

And also, if we see some of these hostages released, is that an off-ramp?

Is that a place that can allow for broader negotiations?

Is that a way that you could get a ceasefire to last for a period of time?

Does that give you some hope?

- I'm not sure that the reality is that Israel is putting up block because it refuses to release some prisoners.

I personally think that Israel should propose publicly that we are ready to exchange all the hostages for all the prisoners.

We have some 6,000 of them.

I think that Israel already, there is certain delay.

The government put the releasing of the hostages on the same level as destroying the Hamas.

It's two different objectives-- - Very different.

Contradictory objectives in many ways, right, yeah.

- In a way, contradictory.

In a way, to certain extent, complementary because the Hamas doesn't have any incentive if it doesn't feel any pressure.

But it's true that, in a way, it's contradictory.

I think that, pro forma, it's stated well, but the question is, what is the real attitude?

Real attitude, to the best of my German, should be that releasing the hostages is, in a way, the more important element, because these are not normal hostages.

This is not a soldier that became hostage because of certain failing military operation or whatever.

These are people who were abandoned in their homes.

They were abandoned by Israel.

They are there because of grand negligence on behalf of our government, armed forces, whatever.

So you cannot seriously now consider in cool head to now sacrifice them.

First, they were abandoned.

The grand negligence is not intentional, but now a decision to give a priority to kill another 300 or 1300 terrorists, but at the same time sacrifice these hostages, it doesn't make sense morally.

It doesn't make sense.

It won't fly in our culture.

So it's a long story.

There will be certain negotiation.

And there are many, many mediators dealing with it.

American, Germans, Turks, Swiss, and Egyptian, [indistinct] Italians.

Whenever there will be a serious practical question, we will need certain signal of seriousness probably to release one in order to, or in order to put one in the hands of the Egyptians to see that they really mean business.

And then to run any such proposal of whatever size will be taken into account very seriously in order to allow it to be completed.

- Ehud Barak, thank you for joining us today.

- Thank you.

[gentle music] - More than a month into the conflict, Hamas still holds well over 200 hostages taken during their October 7th terrorist rampage.

Among them, the citizens of at least half a dozen countries.

Is there any way to negotiate their release?

Back in 2011, Israeli writer and human rights activist, Gershon Baskin, successfully negotiated the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who Hamas had held prisoner for five years.

What did Baskin learn about Hamas that could help free the captives today?

GZERO's Alex Kliment sat down with him to find out, and here's their conversation.

- Gershon Baskin, thank you so much for joining us from Jerusalem.

When you look at the current situation, what do you think the biggest obstacle is right now to securing the release of the more than 200 hostages who are still held in Gaza?

- There are a lot of main obstacles.

One is that we're in an acute active war with Hamas right now where the primary objective of the state of Israel is to eliminate Hamas' power, which can govern the Gaza Strip and continue to threaten Israel.

At the same time, Hamas is holding about 240 Israeli civilians, women, children, infants, elderly people, sick and wounded.

We don't even know their condition.

And there's no direct contact between the two sides, which means that we have to use third parties to negotiate each having their own interest and stake in the whole situation on the ground.

So there are a million obstacles.

I mean, how do you fight a war against someone that you're aiming to destroy and at the same time negotiate with them on humanitarian release of people that they're holding?

- What is your sense of what Hamas wants?

- The first thing they want right now is a ceasefire.

And they believe that the longer they can prolong a ceasefire, the more international pressure will be put on Israel to end the war without completing the mission of eliminating Hamas' ability to govern.

The second thing that they want in, Yahya Sinwar the Hamas leader in Gaza who is freed in the prisoner exchange in 2011 that I helped to negotiate, is someone who's dedicated to releasing all the Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

- When you negotiated the release of Gilad Shalit in 2011, I think the Israeli government released more than a thousand prisoners, including some very hardcore Hamas members in exchange for one Israeli soldier.

Talk to me a little bit about why that is and how that shapes what Israel is willing to do in a situation like this.

- Yeah, there were 1027 prisoners released, including more than 300 who had killed Israelis, including four people who killed my wife's cousin.

So this is really personal, in fact.

There's an ethos in Israel that we don't leave anyone behind, and that was something that was well-known when Gilad Shalit was abducted in June of 2006.

It took five years before public pressure on the Israeli government led Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then prime minister as well, to make the deal.

This is entirely an unprecedented situation.

Most of the hostages are infants, eight, nine-month-old babies; senior citizens in their 80s, women, and this is unprecedented where they're holding hostages, and obviously Israel is willing to pay a high price for their release, but not the price that Hamas wants.

- What is the key to establishing a rapport with the people on the other side of the table when you have negotiations like this?

- Yeah, the main thing that worked in the past was time.

It was time to develop a relationship primarily between myself and my interlocutor, who was Ghazi Hamad, who turns to be one of the people in, he's the spokesperson of this war for Hamas.

And he crossed that line between humanity and what's beyond humanity in some of the statements that he's made since being the spokesperson for this war.

But Ghazi and I had known each other for years.

In fact, we've known each other for 17 years.

We've spoken more than a thousand times.

We met face-to-face four times.

We've carried on discussions through war time and through peace time, or not peace time, through calm periods.

We've talked about life and family and friends and what our purpose is on this planet.

In the end, it was the trust that developed between us that enabled us to expose all of our cards and get away from the traditional Middle East zero sum game bizarre negotiations, to more of a sharing type of negotiation where both sides can get most of what they want or most of what they can give.

- Gershon Baskin joining us from Jerusalem.

Thank you so much.

- You're very welcome.

[gentle music] - That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

And if you'd like what you've seen or you'd just like to come back to this Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because it's not going anywhere, why don't you check us out at gzeromedia.com?

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [gentle tune] - [Narrator 1] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Narrator 2] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Narrator 1] And by: Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... [bright music] [bright tune]