Do the Palestinians have a right to form a state? If a one-state solution were implemented, what would happen to the Palestinian population? Why is compromise impossible with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority?

The Danube Institute asked Yossi Dagan, the head of the Shomron Regional Council, about the fading prospects of the two-state solution.

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Yossi Dagan is an Israeli right-wing politician and activist who has served as the head of the Shomron Regional Council since 2015, the de facto leader of the Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in law from Ono Academic College and a master’s degree in law from Bar-Ilan University. He served as an officer in the Israel Defence Forces and currently holds the rank of captain in the reserves.

Dagan became one of the leaders of the struggle against the Israeli Disengagement programme. He is a prominent lobbyist within the Likud party and an official advocate for Israeli settlements in the Western world. Dagan also leads the Homesh First organisation, which is dedicated to resettling and rebuilding the Jewish settlement of Homesh. He resides in an Israeli settlement in the northern West Bank.

There Was a Palestinian State on the Ground before 7 October: Gaza

The following was originally published by the Hungarian Conservative.  Text in bold type is podcast host Tamás Maráczi’s questions or remarks, text in normal type is Yossi Dagan’s response.  Maráczi, a journalist at the Danube Institute.

Will there ever be a Palestinian state?

We have never had a successful Palestinian state on the ground – never before.

The State of Israel existed in the days of the Bible; the whole story of the State of Israel is the story of the Jewish people. The Land of Israel is also the foundation of the heritage found in the Jewish books and the Christian books. I think we have two wars together – we, the European people, and the Israeli people. One war is against terrorists, barbarians, as we witnessed together on 7 October. The new war lies in the realm of legitimation, and the first operation in this war is the one concerning the occupation. I don’t think there is another nation in the world with such a complicated and lengthy relationship between the nation and the land like that of the nation of Israel and the Land of Israel.

But Jewish people already have a state: the state of Israel. However, the Palestinians – the other population that has lived there for over a thousand years, the Arabic-speaking population who identify as Palestinians – do not have a state. They have a language, they have a population, their ancestry lived there, they have a territory and they have a national identity, which is not the same as the Jordanians or the Lebanese people. Do they have a right to form a state?

I think that in Israel we have Jewish people and Muslim people – but never, in all of history, never in the Land of Israel, even during a thousand years of Muslim rule, did anyone speak of a Palestinian state. Some of the people living there were citizens of Egypt, some were citizens of the Jordanian Kingdom and others were citizens of Syria. The idea of a Palestinian state is spin – it’s fake news. Because during all those centuries of Muslim control over the land, they never established such a state, nor even seriously proposed one. Do you know how many times Jerusalem is mentioned in the Quran, the holy book of the Muslims?

It mentions Al-Quds.

How many times is it there?

Probably zero – the name of Jerusalem doesn’t appear in it, as far as I know.

But in the Bible, Jerusalem is mentioned more than 600 times. So, it’s the same with the state.

Never, in all of history, never in the Land of Israel, even during a thousand years of Muslim rule, did anyone speak of a Palestinian state.

The real question – and the real story – is justice. The Jewish state on the land of the Jews is, first of all, a historical justice – especially the Jewish communities and towns in Judea and Samaria, in the biblical land, form the basis of the historical justice for the Jews and for the Christians. And we have a war to destroy the lies, to eliminate ignorance, because I believe that our biggest enemy is ignorance. And we have more and more ignorance from anti-Semitism, and anti-Semitism attacks the truth, attacks justice all the time. So, we must educate people about what happened on the ground. And of course, we have Muslims – in the State of Israel, the one and only democratic state in all the Middle East, we have 20 per cent Muslim citizens. A Muslim judge sent our former president and our former chief rabbi to jail, because we are a real democracy. But the nationality situation should be based on justice and truth. The Land of Israel is the land of the Jewish people. And we know this from the Bible.

I know this, and I know the realities. The question is whether the Palestinians can have a state beside your state. Does the two-state solution work or not?

I must tell you, we are very respectful of all people – Jews and Muslims. God created us. The Palestinian Authority is not a state, but it has autonomy. They have a separate system. They have a parliament. Unfortunately, they voted Hamas into their parliament. They have municipal systems. They vote – Hamas spends much of their budget on hospitals, so they vote for Hamas all the time. They have police – half an army – but unfortunately, it’s like a dictatorship with a lot of corruption. What they do not have is the equipment they could use to destroy Israel. But besides this, their autonomy is no different from the autonomy of Greenland. The Palestinian Authority has separate officials, a separate budget and a separate system. But they can’t have the option to build an army with rockets. Hamas did have – but in Judea and Samaria, they have no rockets, they have no tanks. They do not control the borders either. They have no tools they could use to destroy Israel and carry out a second Holocaust – like they constantly publish that they want to do.

I read the charter of Hamas, and their big problem is not with the State of Israel, but with the Jews themselves. It’s not the State of Israel, but the presence of the Jews that is the problem. They want a caliphate there – they want 100 per cent of the territory. I understand there is no compromise with Hamas. But you are a religious man, and you have the Bible, and you have the conviction that Yahweh – God – gave the whole land, from river to sea, to the Jews. So, I’m asking you: is there any compromise on your side?

All the Land of Israel is ours because God brought it to us – by the holy rules and by historical justice. He gave us the Land of Israel for the next generations of Abraham. It is not just a gift – it’s also an order to build our homeland. If you take a look at all the stories of the Bible, if you zoom out, they show the same direction all the time: the way to the Land of Israel. Also in Samaria, God gave two testimonies to Abraham: one, God swore to Abraham that this land was for your next generations; and two, that all the nations who bless the people of Israel, God will bless them, and all the nations that curse Israel, God will curse them. But we know that God also placed the Muslims in this land.

You need to do something with this reality.

I think we must respect the people and help them create life – to create an education system. But the Europeans and the left-wing government of Israel created a monster together. I mean, we had a few options to start a peace process in the Middle East. Maybe the biggest “success” of the Oslo Agreement – which was formed by the ideology and dreams of the European Union administration from the progressive side of Europe – is the Gaza Strip. Why? Because the Gaza Strip is the first Palestinian state.

In 2005, we destroyed all the Jewish houses, we destroyed all the industrial zones, all the agricultural zones and we built a new border. 80 years ago in Europe, they said: It will be without the Jews. And it was the same in Gaza – only the Muslims remained. There was the Palestinian state. Our former president, Shimon Peres, said – before they evacuated the Jewish community from the Gaza Strip – that after the evacuation, Gaza would become the Singapore of the Middle East. Before 7 October, there was a Palestinian state on the ground. So, for this project, we have to find a solution – but not a Palestinian state.

I understand that this project didn’t work. But there is another project: Trump said it would be a Riviera. Will that work? I read that you advised Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Jewish settlers should return to Gaza, which is a scandal for the international community.

I don’t want to bring Jewish communities into Gaza now. We must win – not just for ourselves, but for all of us – because I think most of the smart people in Europe understand that we are just the appetiser, and you are the steak. The goal of Hamas is not just to kill or get rid of all the Jews – Hamas also has the Muslim Brotherhood ideology that they must cleanse the world of Christians and Jews. We are standing together against this. We have a mission to win. Hungary, for example, would never think of doing this: giving a country to others, destroying all the houses, taking all the citizens out – and after that, they bring us 7 October. I didn’t think that we would make it like Singapore, but part of the people of Israel thought we should try to do this. But after 7 October, we take Gaza back. Also, I believe in the sovereignty of Judea and Samaria, and it’s not just historical justice – because after 7 October, all the people understood that we must control the high ground near Tel Aviv. But it’s also a message to all the bad guys in the Middle East that we are winning.

Did you come to Budapest for this reason – lobbying the Hungarian government for its support of the sovereignty plan for Judea and Samaria?

We appreciate it – the people of Hungary must know this. There are a lot of people in the United States I work very closely with: people in Congress and in the Senate, people from the Republican Party and the Jewish communities in the States, and of course, people in Israel – they very much appreciate your government for its support, for the partnership. Because we have a problem: ignorance, and people who are liars – like Macron – who try to create the theatre of the two-state illusion. They don’t understand that they attacked Europe more than they attacked us. Your government understands the situation, and their agenda is, I think, the hope for the future of Europe.

We understand there are two networks in the world: the bad network – which is a strange alliance, by the way, of the extreme left, the progressive movement, and radical Islam – and the good network of the culture of the Jews, the culture of the Christians. And through this network, we must win together.

Mr. Dagan, Hungary is only one country in Europe, but many European countries plan to officially recognise the Palestinian state. What will you do if they do this?

It is not relevant. Europe cannot create a real state in our region. By the way, it’s the opposite of the Oslo Agreement – because, based on the Oslo Agreement, only these two sides can negotiate together and the Palestinian Authority cannot decide unilaterally on any international issues. But it’s very dangerous, because every time people like Macron, and terrible leaders like Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas, try to create changes, we unfortunately see a lot of terror attacks in Israel – and in Europe too.

I must tell you, I’ve worked for years with local leaders and sheikhs in the Palestinian Authority; they are good men, brave men. Why brave? Because the Palestinian Authority is a dictatorship. Part of the Palestinian police tries to attack and arrest them. They work with me on a few plans about, for example, the Emirates Plan, that they can be separate from the Palestinian Authority, because the government takes your tax money from Europe not for education or hospitals, but for big salaries or for terrorists.

32 years have passed since the Oslo Accords. We have seen many conferences for peace, we have many agreements – but we have no peace. A lot of politicians in Europe keep talking about guidelines to boycott our industrial zones. Why? Because they don’t want to create peaceful coexistence. In all the Middle East, only in our industrial zones in Judea and Samaria do Jews and Arabs work together, near the same machine and receive the same salary. But these brave leaders want to create more industrial zones and foster more relationships. We must recognise the reality that we have a lot of Muslims – and they must recognise the reality that God brought the Jewish people back to the Land of Israel.

If the two-state solution doesn’t work, there will be then a one-state solution. If you want a Jewish state, an ethnic Jewish homeland, where do you put the Palestinian Arabic population?

We must recognise the reality on the ground. After the Oslo Accords, we had a lot of bad situations. I don’t know if you know this, but the first anti-Semitic education system in the world is in the Palestinian Authority. Part of the curriculum includes ‘Mein Kampf’. And all of this is funded by your tax money.

I’ll tell you what I asked one important senator from the States four months ago. I said: “I got elected three times in the Samaria Regional Council with 80 per cent – so it’s not 10 per cent. If I run in the election in the Palestinian Authority, maybe I have a chance to be elected.” He smiled and said: “Yes, I don’t know if they like you, but there is huge corruption in the Palestinian Authority. They take all the money from all over the world for corruption and terror – and not for hospitals and schools.” So, I asked the senator: “Why can’t I then be elected in the Palestinian Authority?” “Because you don’t have a Palestinian ID,” he said. OK, this is the answer. After the Oslo Agreement, I cannot be elected to the parliament in Ramallah, because they have a separate parliament. They cannot be elected either to the Israeli parliament – the Knesset in Jerusalem – because of this. I don’t think it’s realistic, and we must be realistic. To bring sovereignty, we don’t need to bring sovereignty to all the Muslim villages. We need to win.

Where will you put the Palestinian population, if you have a one-state solution?

They have the Palestinian Authority. They have autonomy now. If we take out the base of terrorism from the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and help local sheikh leaders, for example, we should bring the European funds not to the terrorists, but to the good people who want to build hospitals and schools, who want to work with the Jews and not kill the Jews – that could create a completely different situation. We need sovereignty, which is not just about historical justice; it is about taking control of the strategically located mountains and keeping the State of Israel alive on the ground. We must do as you did in Europe after the Second World War: the Marshall Plan was implemented to change the situation, to educate that we must live together.

We need to bring sovereignty and historical justice because it’s in the Bible. We don’t want to push out the Muslims. They have autonomy, but there shouldn’t be a Palestinian state with the power to do a second Holocaust. We, the good people in Europe – especially your government, Hungary – we, the people in Israel, and of course, the people in the United States, need to work together to fix these terrible issues left unsolved after the Oslo Agreement, to create a safe common future.

Watch the full podcast below.

Chapters and timestamps:

• 0:00 – Introduction
• 0:27 – Will there ever be a Palestinian state?
• 2:09 – Do the Palestinians have a right to form a state?
• 5:29 – Is there any chance of realising the two-state solution?
• 8:44 – Is there any room for compromise on the Jewish settlers’ side?
• 12:58 – What is the settlers’ plan regarding Gaza?
• 15:32 – What did Mr. Dagan lobby for in Budapest?
• 17:46 – If European countries officially recognise the Palestinian state, what will Israel do?
• 22:38 – If there is a one-state solution, what will happen to the Palestinian population?