From last night’s “All-Stars.”
On the Obama administration’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
Well, I think this argument over a two-state solution is a complete red herring.
There is no Israeli government, including Netanyahu’s government, that would not accept a settlement in which a real Palestinian state genuinely accepted a settlement that ends the war with Israel and recognizes a Jewish state.
The problem is such a partner doesn’t exist and hasn’t existed ever. For the last nine years, you’ve had in Israel under Sharon and Olmert governments which accepted a two-state solution, have engaged in negotiations, and have essentially offered what Israel offered nine years ago under Ehud Barack, who’s now the defense minister, with Bill Clinton assisting in that offer of a Palestinian state and a settlement in perpetuity with Israel.
The Palestinians rejected it at the time. They have rejected it ever since, which is why all the negotiations over the last eight years have failed. It’s never been the Israeli problem. It’s been the fact that the Palestinians will not accept a Jewish state.
Look, the Palestinians already have a state. It’s called the Gaza. It’s independent. There are no Israelis in Gaza. It’s a terrorist state that has been at war with Israel ever since the day the Israelis left. It’s an ally of Iran and Islamic radicalism.
The Israelis and Americans understand that if you have a Palestinian state of that sort in the rest of Palestine, it will be a catastrophe.
And what Israel is saying today is unless you talk about what kind of Palestinian state, that it can’t be a Gaza state. It has to be a state that accepts Israel and accepts the peace, all talk of a two-state solution is irrelevant and is headed nowhere.
On the administration’s lack of a plan for closing Guantanamo:
… it isn’t often that in Washington you get to actually witness poetic justice, but this is a perfect example. Obama has grandstanded on this for a year and a half. He basked in the applause. He’s in Europe, he attacks Guantanamo. He promises he will close it. And of course, he loves the warm reception.
The problem was it was never an issue of geography. It was always an issue of policy and principle. What do you do with Khalid Sheik Mohammed, whom you cannot release, no ally will take, who you cannot have in federal court because he was not read his Miranda rights, but that you’re going to have to hold onto.
And the reason there’s all of this anger and pushback in Congress is because he is going to have to end up on American soil. That’s inevitable.
I would say, you know, unless the British will give us St. Helena, or the Italians will give us Elba, and I think he may seriously end up on a Hawaiian island. I’m serious about this — perhaps a leper colony, one of those evacuated leper colonies.
You want to have them outside the contiguous 48 in a place in which if he escapes, he actually has to paddle, and where you are going to have, as Nina indicated, military commissions.
You cannot have him in federal court. And it’s nice to see Obama have to eat crow on the commissions, because there is no other way to try him in which he is not going to end up released as innocent.