Former diplomat Navtej Sarna: ‘Two-state solution is dead. If Trump wants true peace, he has to get real about Palestine issue’

But it has not been eradicated. Now, how does Hamas get eradicated? A very senior Israeli army officer has said in an interview that Hamas can only be eradicated once 100 per cent of the territory of Gaza is taken over and there’s nobody there. That means when Gaza has been ethnically cleansed, to put it bluntly. I think that quite deliberately the goalposts have been kept movable. I don’t think [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is going to say that it’s all done and dusted and we’re walking off.

On the disproportionate Israeli response to the October 7 terrorist attack

It was expected that Israel would respond disproportionately to the October 7 terrorist attack because that is the Israeli doctrine. But I don’t think it was imagined that this response would continue for 21 months in the face of increasing international pressure. It has continued because of the real objective that Netanyahu probably has – which is not just revenge. The objective is to use this opportunity to make sure that Gaza is taken over, that Palestinians are put into a situation in which the entire paradigm of the two-state solution becomes unachievable. If Gaza becomes uninhabitable, where are the Palestinians going to return to? And Israeli ministers have said as much. If the US, both under [Joe] Biden and [Donald] Trump, had wanted, this would have ended a very long time ago.

On Israel’s strike on Iran

Israel has planned and practised this for years. With the first circle of Hamas and Hezbollah degraded, and [Bashar al-] Assad’s regime in Syria, which was another proxy of Iran, ousted, there would never be a better window of opportunity for Netanyahu. All he needed was the green signal from the White House and he got it from Trump. Now Trump had campaigned for America to stay away from forever wars but this was an opportunity to take a huge amount of credit, which he could not resist. He obviously thought that if somebody has already done the heavy lifting, I can go in when they really need me, make it short and sweet, claim victory and [get] out, and that’s exactly what happened.

It has now emerged that he gave the green signal for the Israeli attack in June and said that you’ll have my support if it goes well. And it did go well, there were exceptionally effective air strikes which completely took over the Iranian airspace and the Israelis could hit everything at will.

Role played by other West Asian countries

It’s very difficult to assess exactly who did how much. Jordan and possibly Saudi Arabia gave airspace clearance but the other countries were a bit ambivalent because for the last few years the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been trying to build bridges with Iran. But at the same time, they don’t want a nuclear Iran, they don’t want an overpowering Shia presence cutting across Sunni heartlands. This ambivalence came out more post the conflict because Iran attacked the US base in Qatar, and this was all signalled in advance, there was nobody at the base. Iran had to do it to save face and Qatar was warned but Qatar made a very strong statement and then immediately the Iranians expressed regret. They also called up everybody else in the region and expressed regret. So it was all a kind of well-calibrated little cameo…But the fact remains that this conflict really does not help the other countries.

They have been in the last few years trying to concentrate on reforming themselves… Saudi Arabia is trying to change everything about its image, the UAE has done a considerable amount, normalisation with Israel under the Abraham Accords has been done. Despite what’s happened in Gaza, none of them has actually broken relations [with Israel] or gone back. This conflict, particularly Gaza, has put a spanner in the works.

On the situation inside Iran

One, there is economic turmoil within Iran. The 12 days [of war] resulted in a substantial loss of oil revenue, and a very large number of people could not get any income. This builds on the unrest which is already there among the poor, who are probably the strongest base of the clerical regime. Two, politically, the leadership has pivoted away from its pan-Islamic revolutionary rhetoric. The average Iranian has a positive view of the US. But now there is also a growing sense that you can’t trust America. It is that Iran was negotiating in good faith and [the US] walked away and attacked us.

This is another shift, more towards nationalism. The average Iranian may want regime change but they don’t want it [done] by foreign powers. If there is a regime change, it will be done on their own terms, and by themselves. This [war] would have also given rise to a very strong lobby for a nuclear weapon. Because nobody says anything to countries who have nuclear weapons… So this may actually go the other way.

However, this is easier said than done because they are completely penetrated in intelligence terms, and it would be very difficult to pick up the fissile material if they still have it, and to actually do what they need to weaponise. If Iran were to walk out of the NPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty), it would be a good signal that they’ve figured out that they can’t be a threshold state. At the moment the focus will be on the regime’s survival.

On the future of the two-state solution

A lot of the hand-wringing [about Gaza] in Europe is [the] easing of their guilt for the uncompromising support to Israel for decades, and also domestic considerations.

I think the two-state solution is pretty much dead at the moment. The second state needs land. It needs people to govern that land and Gaza is clearly not something on which a Palestinian state will ever be allowed by the Israelis. In fact, they are saying that a Palestinian state is an existential threat to Israel. A majority in [Israel’s] Parliament is in favour of annexation of the West Bank. Unless there is a massive move by the US, by Donald Trump to completely rejig the Middle East, it [the two-state solution] is [only] a statement of intent.

On the position taken by India

We have been fairly consistent that we are not in favour of a humanitarian crisis and the killing of civilians, we would like a two-state solution. We are very conscious of our very strong bilateral relationship with Israel and, therefore, we have been treading gently on this. But when even [Israel’s] allies or the Europeans protest, when you are faced with a man-made famine situation in the 21st century, then India, as the putative leader of the Global South, will begin to speak up. As things get more drastic, the Indian situation will be constantly under review. When it comes to starvation, when it comes to forced displacement of Palestinians which Israeli ministers are talking about and which is a war crime, the situation will have to be met with the appropriateness it deserves.

On the ‘ideal’ solution in Gaza

The ideal solution would be a two-state solution. Sending the Palestinians away to another country is not a solution; it is an admission that there is no solution. You need a rethink within the Israeli leadership, the Palestinian leadership and the American leadership, and only then can you have a true two-state solution. The 2020 plan of Donald Trump was not a true solution. Israel will never leave the West Bank, settlers will continue, Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel…that is not a solution. There has to be a deep rethink.

(The session was conducted on July 30)