the strategy of endless negotiations. to. discuss the prospects for peace in the middle east i'm joined by robert fisk in cairo he's the middle east correspondent for the independent and the author of numerous international bestsellers in jerusalem we cross to dan dyker the director of strategic affairs of the world jewish congress and a foreign policy fellow at the jerusalem center for public affairs and another member of our cross talk team yell on the hunger all right gentlemen both of you have been on the program before you so you know how it works you can jump right in that's crosstalk rules it robert fisk if i can go to you first ok we've seen a public mending offenses with netanyahu and obama not a long time back and the process michel's in the middle east doing as little shuttle can the united states will this be quite blunt can the united states be a fair broker in finding some kind of solution because it seems to have gone on

forever. no i don't think you can the last time that america really complained about israel seriously was when eisenhower ordered the israelis along with the british and the french to get out of so is in one thousand fifty six ever since then the americans basically go along with israeli policy in fact if you listen to department of state spokesman and you listen to israeli spokesman and you mix it all up you can't tell who is which at the end of the day i don't believe in this business there was a chill and then we've mended fences i think this is for the press at the end of the day israel will do what it wants to do and when america objects it will remind the united states of where it stands which is it must back israel for electoral reasons particularly now you know you've got to realize that wonderful quote from netanyahu which is very good israeli source of mine tells me is that the accurate that when obama first objected to further jewish settlements on arab land netanyahu turned around and said this guy just doesn't get it does he well i think obama gets it now mid-term elections be nice to israel again despite what happened in gaza the

aid convoy despite the demolition of palestinian homes in jerusalem the continued building of collen is for israel is an israeli is only on arab land obama goes along with it is the big handshake and that will happen next time will be a little junction from obama and then it'll be the next presidential elections in the next mid-term elections and i think that we all know in israel knows very well that israel has tremendous power which it uses in congress in the senate in washington this means that america cannot be a fair honest broker the real question is since the european union are paying for most of this could the european union or let's get to that but i want to ask dan dan is good in light of what robert fisk just had to say is that in america's best interest to have such a close relationship with israel because the whole perception whatever the arab street people want to define these days doesn't see the united states is a fair broker dollops the same side is israel in its pure and simple.

right is pure and simple in fact the arab world saw. saw barack obama in the united states as a very fair broker back in march two thousand and nine when mr obama gave an unprecedented speech in cairo which i'm sure my colleague mr fyshe represent remembers well and in which the largest gap between the israeli public and a u.s. president was created when mr obama called for the sation of israeli building on disputed land i'm sure anybody who's taken a basic course in middle east understands that israel doesn't colonize arab land but in fact the land is disputed according to the very international law that the united kingdom was involved in drafting in november twenty second one hundred sixty seven when they were the co drafters un security council as in to resolution two forty two but in addition to that it's clear that the united states and on this point i do agree with mr fisk the united states has has had a very difficult time in the middle east trying to create peace among all the parties in middle east look what happened in iran in one nine hundred seventy nine

look what happened in lebanon in one thousand nine hundred three where america lost three hundred peacekeeping soldiers when the iranian backed hizbollah blew them to bits i'm sure mr fisk was in lebanon at that time and then the americans have tried somewhat unsuccessfully to broker a peace agreement with israel the palestinians the bottom line here is that the palestinian leadership under mr abbas have to agree to come to the table and talk with the state of israel mr natanya al much to the surprise of the entire world has actually reached out to mr abbas as much as any left wing liberal israeli government has in the you know as in the sixty two years since israel was created and mr obama and mr abbas for his reasons has decided not to come to the negotiating table i do believe that mr abbas will come to the negotiating table because mr obama is now pressuring mr abbas but clearly the palestinians have got to negotiate directly with israel and the united states in fact can play a much lower profile if the palestinians israelis get together they can come to his accord just like they did in the oslo accords without american interference in.

ninety three ok then again you said something that israeli spokespeople say all of the time you use the d. word disputed robert fisk oh those is that territory the west bank and gaza disputed because that's what they say in american mainstream television that's what americans would buy he told all the time go ahead been to israel and i've also been in the west bank i've been to is on the west bank in the last few weeks and help the area see which is the part of the west bank which israel occupies the palestinians cannot even build a drainpipe on the ground there that area which is sixty percent of the twenty two percent of palestine that's left is occupied by the israelis the israeli checkpoints israeli settlements the rest this little about eleven point seven percent is all the palestinians have got left this land is occupied and it will continue to be it's my view there will not be a palestinian state it's gone it cannot exist in the framework that exists now

unless there is an israeli withdrawal from area c. sixty percent and there is not going to be i am certain of that and i don't think there's any intention of being it is occupied and it has gone and that is the point and that's what mr obama county even admit at least until after the next midterm elections ok dan you know a lot of people say very bluntly they they did i'm sorry going ask my question first is that you know these are just talks for talks sake that under some circumstances the israelis will push the rest of the palestinians out of the west bank because as robert has pointed out more and more people have come to conclusion that there it is impossible to have a two state solution now because there's not a second state to make. right well first of all there certainly can be a two state solution but let me let me just correct this agree just a misstatement of fact and point out the following when mr arafat in mr rabin shook hands in september one thousand nine hundred three and then signed the oslo two agreements in one thousand nine hundred five they actually agreed on the division

of the land of israel in into and what they have palestinians call the west bank which is the former west bank of jordan into three areas a b. and c. so i was so dear god how could area c. be under occupation what mr arafat's himself in an act of bilateral agreement signed a binding agreement accorded international law in which both israel and the palestinian authority have rights to negotiate over the future of that land and certainly mr fisk and other great students of the middle east remember that that land was occupied illegally by the hashemite kingdom of jordan before nine hundred sixty seven so so how could israel occupy a land that had no prior legal sovereign owner to it now as to the reason that if you will just claim. go ahead finish up dan go ahead i just wanted to finish up a point i'd be happy to hear mr yeah the issue about whether there can be a palestinian state certainly there can be in fact israel when it pulled out of the gas a strip in september september two thousand and five you know the palestinians could

have made the gaz a strip into the hong kong of the middle east unfortunately with the rainy and help in the help of the iranian the puts force of the i.r.g.c. they turned it into hell on the mediterranean and you have the iranian regime to thank for that and the people of gaza are crying and cursing the iranian regime because of that in fact when i speak to my friends in gaza they say it all the time they may not say that russia today because they're afraid of retribution from the iranian backed hamas and al qaeda affiliates in gaza will discuss a little bit you're going to be asked that issue a little bit later robert you said you want to draw jump in there while the hong kong of the mediterranean i've never heard that one before go ahead look first of all if you really want to justify israel's occupation of the west bank by referring to a dissolute old king whom the brits put in power without any proper election that's up to you i don't think that's the kind of bedrock and foundation of building settlements i'd want to advertise to viewers around the world but the fact of the

matter is that when out of fact agreed to ninety ninety five agreement it was also agreed there would be further israeli treats retreats within areas see now that agreement was brokered it why river netanyahu broke that agreement because those retreats did not happen and that is the fact daniel in reply to that the fact is a way to say the fact the fact is that israel lost more civilians to terrorism since signing the oslo agreement in one thousand nine hundred three then can you answer the question that can you and i am sure that you know well even the real game can you. please answer the question you change the topic can you answer the question why i didn't make further details a sound agreement israel and why river israel. at wye river as you remember under mr time yeah in one thousand nine hundred eight israel made a pullback from from it made an upgrade from area a to area from area b. to area a and israel because of the terrorism that had washed the streets of tel aviv jerusalem haifa and other cities had frozen other pullbacks because the

palestinian authority as is widely known by the clinton administration and by the bush administration after that had made egregious violations of international law and murdered israelis so i wonder whether after the seven seventy degree lines it all did not whether it. was my mother look at their i didn't hear you what were you saying go ahead robert go ahead what was that so you would agree you do agree that the ninety five agreement and then why river did mean for the pullbacks which were not fulfilled by the israeli. go ahead dan you know both in one thousand nine hundred three exchange of letters the one thousand nine hundred three exchange of letters i'm sure mr fyshe is one of the great scholars of the middle east is aware was all based on the fact that there would be a complete end to palestinian terrorism violence indoctrination and incitement and in fact all of those four. acts of terrorism both verbal and diplomatic as well as physical terror has increased since israel in a very in a great move of passivism

a state pacifism had conceded and conceded and conceded the palestinians are going to have and i have a job here generally to go to a very they will discuss more about settlements after a break we'll continue our discussion on talks to start talks today with aren't. taking. place up to speed to the casio reached the wilderness in the great house so from the. quality goes to central russia with the car industry is rapidly developing where history finds you like to explain . where american citizens can find a new. welcome to the. russian cliffs of.

state provided citizens with. rights to sell my. child. has a problem like. when the couple times. like last. rites. palin to kill an undergrad to. come up. with. the law.

abiding . law.

which brightened. about song from dallas to. totty don't come. cheap. stood. in the book. welcome after all the talking purely about tree mind you were talking about the so-called middle east peace process. and it. started. but before let's see what russians think about the gaza blockade. despite a little something they get as a blockade after the attack on the freedom flotilla menace a israel's just is not and up the e.u. is high representative of foreign policy insist on a full lifting of the blockade claiming it would allow gazundering rebuild their

lives rushes live on us and our citizens if they approve of israel's blockade of the gas us three twenty eight percent said they do however another thirty five percent disapprove of is room blocking the delivery to the region back to. ok if i go back to you robert i mean these release always mention are slow is the point of reference can you explain to my audience what is the palestinians got of out of our slow because eighteen years ago there were direct talks today we don't even have direct talks and and water people will claim you see this amazing colonization of the west bank which is supposed to be the second state. well that is exactly factually what is happening if we go back to something down said it sounds as if he's saying you know there was terrorism there was incitement so we decided to build some more settlements those settlements are not being built there as tents for a couple of years so israelis can live there permanent and they are taking and

eating and gobbling up the land as the israelis know are we therefore saying that the settlements are being built because of a so much terrorism i don't think so indeed israelis who live in the settlements are more in danger of being attacked than they would be if they did live in israel and we know that is a fact that there are attacks and have been in israel but it is a fact there when we go back to the gaza thing you see you've got to look at it as a human being. the ceasefire with hamas was actually broken in november two thousand and eight by the israelis then the rockets came in much more than they were before on times likes to rot then the israelis had the big gaza war and it was about one thousand three hundred most civilians palestinians dead and thirteen israelis to from actually were arab israelis now at an exchange rate of death of one to one hundred the real question is do you really think palestinians think they can do a deal with israel now i doubt it very much i don't think there's many people i meet in the middle east as a whole and i include israeli friends who really believe that he's going to happen i think we're entering a very dark period in a dark period not just for the palestinians but for the israelis for the iranians

for the whole region and i think that it is a fact as we know that other senior officials in the u.s. administration have said that what israel does directly does affect our actions in other muslim countries and it has a deleterious effect when i go to afghanistan why do i see philistine written on the wall and the people who write that shoot american soldiers and the question is how long can this go on but i think as long as americans will want to be reelected as president it will go on indefinitely and eventually israel will have the whole of the west bank and they'll be little tiny tiny little villages for the palestinians are going to work for the israelis to live there and that's what we know quite a lot of israelis in the present government of netanyahu would rather live all of it in germany in their head go ahead. mr mr if mr fish doesn't really believe that america that america's position in somalia or in sudan in the civil war there or in the in the civil war that's been going on between the

iranian backed hizbollah and the druze and the christians in lebanon or with the shiite militias in iraq or or the taliban in afghanistan have anything to do with the palestinian israeli conflict i mean that's just simply patiently absurd and you think you know something about one thousand nine hundred i mean dan dan if i could end here dan if i could tell me where general petraeus set is much. mr well let's let since he said he did as he did comments to the senate mr patricio mr portrays himself said on the record mr patris general petraeus himself said general petraeus himself said on the record that his words were completely distorted by a politically charged government representatives following his testimony to the senate and what mr patris said which is that if the israeli the israeli palestinian conflict is won and you can check the protocols of what i'm telling you here go to google and check out what he said is one of

a number of different problems in the middle east now you know extremely well that in fact the majority just answer one of mr mr fix misstatements of fact that the majority of the injured wounded and murdered israelis in the in the intifada after israel made a far reaching statehood offer in two thousand and one of two they made a second one in two thousand and eight which was rejected the majority of israelis that were killed live in priest sixty seven israel and if mr fisk thinks that the israeli the israeli settlements are illegal or are not proper it outside of israel which is absolutely not true in fact there are two claimants here israel is a claimant to its own land the land of israel the palestinians are another claim and there happened to be a million two hundred thousand palestinians living with the in one thousand nine hundred sixty seven so are we suggesting that there should be a transfer of population bilaterally and that the palestinians that are living increase sixty seven israel should be transferred to the west bank today in some area and that you do and some people do you know and you know jay and how you did

you know how do you define israel that may not necessarily coincide with international robert and you know i don't think i've ever come across someone that knows the greater middle east better than you do all right and i when i don't want to change the subject i hate when that happens and we talk about this issue you know the greater middle east very well tell me in your opinion after what thirty four years of living in the region if the palestinian issue resolved with dignity with justice how would that change the face of greater middle east politics in your opinion. it would be like spraying salt water on al qaeda i think al qaeda would start to wither because the idea of injustice is what feeds these vicious warriors in afghanistan in pakistan in iraq and at the center of that is the belief in much of the muslim world which down of course will disagree with that israel is in effect a state of the united states and that israel is a colonizing power and that therefore america is but i've just got one question to come back to why is israel building more colonies for jews and jews only on land

that does not belong to it the west bank was never israeli it's not acknowledged as israeli by the international community that's why all the embassies including the american embassy is in turkey so why does it go on building these massive colonies on arab land all right dan go ahead why why does it it do. first of all i have to correct you mr fyshe israel as you know is a scholar of the middle east that the land you cannot have an occupied land a when israel has had a two thousand year connection to that land and b. when mr arafat himself and mr rabin signed a bilateral agreement in which they both recognized that there are dual claims to the same land how can you and you know international law of course because you're a scholar of the region how can you possibly have an occupation which by definition is the act is the unilateral action of a belligerent state against another state when the land itself never had the last sovereign of that of that land was the ottoman empire which you know very well so

how could it be that jordan. davis and then as part of the attacking party against israel go ahead robert jump in there go ahead so i you know i've got documents photo copies of hundreds and hundreds of palestinian documents which go right back to the ottomans on the british mandate showing that they pay taxes they own the land they buy the litle right to landowners i have never seen a document in parts of the west bank because i have you know i have. a hard finish and so here we play robert finish your point i mean i have only seen it here right in hebron there are documents showing that jews on the land i'm not the pump room in the thirty's they had to flee but that is the only example everybody else legally own the land god did not give it to the palestinians i suppose he gave it only to the israelis this is ridiculous you know i didn't you haven't come to the question down whether you think there are two conflicting claims why does israel continue to build colonies for jews and jews only on land which belongs to arabs go

ahead dan is really exists in its own front well the truth of the matter is that the. well the truth of matter is that you have if you come to israel i would invite you to come to my home and i will show you areas of good shit cion in which jews were murdered in one thousand nine hundred forty eight when the jordanians again he legally took that part of the land on their way to trying to destroy jerusalem and i will show you hundreds of jewish deeds to that land in which there are there are jewish communities built on jewish land there are many deeds that jews own and as a matter of fact it is in it is a matter of official israeli law not to build jewish communities on privately owned land that is a matter of fact the vast majority of the west bank is called state land which means that land that has absolutely no owner all right has gentlemen gentlemen i want to i want to move forward and as a man i want to move forward. and i move forward and i to stay with you ok so robert thinks a two state solution is not viable anymore more and more people are coming to that

opinion what is a viable state for the palestinians if you still believe in the two state solution what is viable what's fair i very much believe west by believe that there could be a two state solution where you have the palace if you have a palestinian state and a jewish state dividing judea and samaria and what others call the former west bank of jordan let's remember that israel in order for israel to be a viable jewish state it has to be able to protect itself against the most simplest of rockets that are now position by the hamas and by fatah militias in the us they means people to her teddy themselves and wait until the palestinians be able to protect themselves as well. i hope so i will what you should do is ask the five tough whether hundreds of their fellow members of the fatah who've been thrown out of windows in gaza by the hamas and killed in other areas of the west bank by the hamas will be able to be protected by their own people from their own people by

their own people right now the israeli army as is well known by insiders is the only force that is protecting the palestinian authority in ramallah the jordanian monarchy in jordan and the jewish people and the and the israeli people who are not jewish and i'm going to have to jump in here the muslim again to jump in here robert i want to give you the last word robert i want to give you last word go ahead one minute. this first of all ma'ale adumim is partly built on totally provable arab land i know one of the land i watched him being thrown off i watched him going to court in the court they said this he said i would like to live in my ma'ale adumim with the jews and he was told you are not one of the people who is going to live in ma'ale adumim so he was trying off his land and went to a village where other members of his family lived six miles away and now every trace every stone of his house has disappeared that is simply not fair that is not just that is wrong but you know the overall point of this is come back to it why is

israel continuing to build more color news for jews and jews only on arab land why does it go on building these colonies israel exists as a state well he's living in the nose gentlemen joe in a way right i'd like to get back together again and will answer that question many thanks to our guest today robert fisk and then die green thanks to our viewers for watching us here at our peak see you next time and remember. you can. come to the future. steve. speak from the cinema and landed in your living room. specialises street or street your stereo display the life glasses

no problem. the three d. plan to see our day here on. leave the country. let's. listen a. little. listen to. the little. silly little. pill.

she's available in. the it's a. holiday in. the really emotional the indian country so sure there's each of the first. team coach on. it watching our team here in moscow and the top stories security experts advise the u.s. senate to negotiate with insurgent leaders in afghanistan to stop fighting politicians say a new thirty three billion dollar legislation that. will cost more lives. and

jumping on the spot. a lot. in new york sparks a media frenzy with americans comparing her to the all of the. twenty four year olds who also has american citizenship has this allegation saying. this cold war. will hunting. and a judge in russia's far east bans websites with extremist content including the popular video sharing site you tube in a ruling that's already raising fears for freedom of speech in the country. and those are the headlines up next our teens technology update delves into the world of three d. and how it could soon be entering all our living rooms that's coming your way in just a moment.