Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Andrew Ross Sorkin, the founder of Dealbook. Every year, I interview some of the world's most influential leaders across politics, culture, and business at the Dealbook Summit, a live event in New York City. On this year's podcast, you'll hear my unfiltered conversations with Gavin Newsom, the CEO of Palantir and Anthropic, and Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk.
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From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily.
Chapter 2: What has fueled international recognition of Palestinian statehood?
It's been nearly two years since Hamas carried out its deadly attacks on Israel on October 7th, and Israel began its bombardment of Gaza. Since then, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has only worsened, and Hamas is still holding hostages.
But the images of Palestinian suffering have lately fueled international pressure on Israel to end the war and pushed Western powers to recognize a Palestinian state. This culminated last week at the United Nations, where a group of world leaders formally recognized Palestinian statehood, which deepened Israel's isolation.
But just a week later, a new peace plan unveiled by President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underscored the reality that Palestinian statehood is a long way off.
Chapter 3: How did the United Nations respond to Palestinian statehood?
Today, the optimism and the fury of this moment and what this recognition actually means. It's Friday, October 3rd. Jess Chung, you are one of the producers on our show. And last week, you spent time on the ground at the UN to document this historic moment in which the question of Palestinian statehood was really front and center. So talk to us a little bit about what you were there to capture.
Well, over the past two years, the international community has grown increasingly frustrated with Israel's tactics in the war. And what we've seen recently is a push by a number of Western countries like the U.K., France, Australia, and Canada to formally recognize the Palestinian state as a way to put pressure on Israel to end the war.
Now, up until this point, over 140 countries had already done this. But what's interesting about this new group of countries is that they're traditionally Israeli allies. That infuriates Israel and the U.S., who say what this is going to do is reward Hamas for its terrorism on October 7th. But regardless, 10 countries were planning to come to the U.N.
General Assembly last week to stand up and say for the first time, we recognize the Palestinian state. So it was going to be a huge moment, and I wanted to capture that. Particularly through the eyes of this one guy, Riyad Mansour. It was a pleasure to meet you, Ambassador.
Chapter 4: What does Riyad Mansour believe about the future of Palestine?
Mansour is the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, and he's worked toward this moment for pretty much his entire life.
We are in the Rose Garden here at the United Nations.
Yes.
I have beautiful memories here.
I meet him in the gardens of the U.N. in midtown Manhattan. This was all before the big meeting was set to take place. He's dressed in a suit. He's got a small Palestinian flag pinned on his lapel. And how long have you been serving in this role?
In September, 20 years straight.
20 years straight. Mansour is in his late 70s, and he's been representing Palestinians here for decades.
For me, you know, I was working for these things from long time ago.
How does it feel to have these countries now on board?
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Chapter 5: What historical context is important for understanding Palestinian statehood?
Thank you. Thank you so much. We'll touch base. Because he's been here for so long, Mansour seems to be a kind of fixture in this place. He scurries around these halls, doing a seemingly endless amount of press gaggles, shaking a seemingly endless amount of hands, meeting a seemingly endless amount of diplomats. But sitting down with him, I realize that the U.N.
has long been a fixture in his life, too.
I was born in Palestine, a child of a Palestinian refugee family.
Onsor spent his childhood in Ramallah, in the West Bank.
And we lived in caves and in the valleys before Onorwa came to the picture.
His family was among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled or fled from their homes amid the wars surrounding the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, a period known to Palestinians as the Nakba. And the U.N. provided food, schools, and medical care to those displaced Palestinian families, including Mansour's.
Do you have an early memory about how you understood that Palestinians didn't have a state of your own?
I don't know exactly what in those days the idea of statehood was. What was in our mind is we want to return to our towns, to our villages, to our homes. Like the key for our house in Palestine, from the town where we were expelled from, was hanging inside the house. So that's a symbol of returning to it.
In the 1950s, Mansour's father immigrated to the U.S. He took a job as a steel worker in Youngstown, Ohio. Mansour was around 17 years old when he followed his father here. He went on to study at Youngstown State.
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Chapter 6: How did the October 7 attacks influence global perceptions?
So should I express my welcome to the president of the Palestinian Liberation Organization?
And I was among the lucky ones to go to the United Nations to shake hands with Chairman Arafat after he gave his famous speech. So that was the first time that I entered the U.N.
Palestinians were talking about statehood and what it would mean.
Is this what we want? Is it one state, two states?
And a decade later, Mansour would take a job at the U.N. and keep pushing for the same goal.
And that journey took a long time, the 80s. the 90s, then the Oslo Agreement.
For years, Mansour worked through cycles of Palestinian intifadas and militancy, Israeli retaliation and expanding settlements, new wars, new ceasefires, new peace agreements, like the Oslo Accords, which were seen as the closest the international community came to resolving the conflict. But in the end, they didn't achieve what they set out to.
You see, we went through cycles. Hopes, then they go down. The same thing after October 7.
When Hamas, in a surprise attack, killed 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others. Pictures emerge of the destroyed Kibbutzim. Videos of hostages being carried away on the backs of motorcycles and trucks driven by militants. Stories of people shot in their homes and trapped in burning buildings. All of it shocked the world.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the new peace plan proposed by Trump?
There were sympathies in the first few days with the families of the victims as a result of October 7th.
But after Israel launched the war against Hamas in Gaza, as that war entered its second year with more than 60,000 Palestinians dead and the humanitarian situation worsening, people around the world also saw those pictures and heard those stories, including Mansour, who described what he was seeing in Gaza to the United Nations Security Council this spring.
the images of mothers embracing their motionless bodies, caressing their hair, talking to them, apologizing to them. It's unbearable. How could anyone tolerate this sorrow? Excuse me, Mr. President.
It was around that time that Mansour said he felt things begin to shift. And I asked him about that.
It created a tremendous amount of support and empathy and solidarity with the Palestinian people. Now the international community, enough is enough. We're not going to continue going through cycles, up and down, up and down. This time, we're going to stop this war and allow the two-state solution to become a reality. This is the moment.
This is why I declare that France today recognizes the state of Palestine.
I stand before you today beneath the emblem of the United Nations to confirm the historic decision of the British government to recognize the state of Palestine. Portugal formally recognized the state of Palestine. A two-state solution. Australia recognized the state of Palestine. Canada recognizes the state of Palestine.
Belgium announces the recognition of the state of Palestine. And that is why Ireland last year, with Spain, Norway and Slovenia, recognized the state of Palestine.
The systematic decimation of Gaza. The use of food as a weapon of war. Children dying of starvation while food rots at the border.
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Chapter 8: How do Israeli and Palestinian perspectives differ on statehood?
The killing of tens of thousands. Tens of thousands of civilians.
More than 65,000 people killed in Gaza. Most of them women and children. Horrifically, more than 20,000 of them children. and hundreds of our own humanitarians. Aid workers.
Aid workers killed. Journalists. Journalists killed. Doctors targeted and killed.
We have reached a point where what has been credibly described as a genocide is being carried out in front of the eyes of the world.
Statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people and the two states is the only path to security and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Israel denies many of these allegations and strongly refutes the accusation of genocide. The Israeli delegation didn't come to the meeting. Their seats stayed empty.
Today felt so great. I think that my tears were coming down on my face.
But Mansour was moved to tears.
It's a historic day. We are climbing a very tall mountain and we are approaching the top of the mountain.
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