On October 19 local time, from Gaza City in the north to Rafah in the south, Israeli airstrikes took place across the Gaza Strip. 24 bodies and 74 wounded were received in the northern Odda hospital in a day, a tent in the refugee camp in central Nasser was hit and six displaced civilians were killed.

Israeli and Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) This is the bloodiest and most violent day since the implementation of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza Strip began. Both Israel and Hamas accuse each other of violating the ceasefire agreement. At present, the two sides are conducting emergency consultations in Egypt. US President Trump also voiced that he hoped the ceasefire would be "very peaceful".

¡°Israel and Hamas are currently testing the ¡®flexibility¡¯ of Trump¡¯s peace plan,¡± senior Israeli politician and former council chairman Abraham Berger told China News Weekly that the probability of the scattered violence escalating into a new comprehensive conflict is not high, but that both sides are testing the extent to which they can be supported by the US president.

Abraham Berg's father is Joseph Berg, who is regarded as one of the "founding fathers of Israel". Two generations of the Berg family have held seats in the Israeli Knesset for more than half a century. In the past 70 years of his life, Abraham Berg has led the world's largest Jewish organization, served as the speaker of the Israeli Knesset, and briefly acted as the president of Israel in 2000. He was an important promoter of the Oslo peace process, and he was also wounded by grenades thrown by far-right radicals.

¡°Unlike many Israeli peace activists, Berger believes that Israel needs to follow Trump¡¯s peace plan and the international community needs to work with it, and I know there¡¯s a lot of controversy around Trump¡¯s peace plan, but in the current political situation, dreams are good and action is based on the reality of each stage.¡±

¡°The key is that the international community needs to remain concerned about the Gaza issue, and that both sides need to realize that a retreat (to war) will ¡®lose a lot¡¯,¡± Berg said.

Abraham Berger chart/interviewer provided

Testing the ¡°flexibility¡± of Trump¡¯s peace plan

"China Newsweek": The first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza has begun. All surviving hostages still held by Hamas have been released, but Israel is still carrying out military operations in Gaza. Both Israel and Hamas accuse each other of violating the ceasefire agreement. Does this mean that the war is far from over? Do you think the Israeli government may launch another large-scale military operation in Gaza?

and Berger:It is still the first few days after the ceasefire began, and it is difficult to assess what stage it is at. Is it the end of the past two years of war, or the beginning of years of war to come? I don't know. But what is certain is that both Israel and Hamas are currently testing how "flexible" Trump's peace plan will be. Hamas will test how much it can gain U.S. understanding; Israel will try to confirm how much it can use Trump's support.

As far as Israel is concerned, the first thing to emphasize is that the release of hostages will not be completed until the body of the last hostage is returned. Bringing all hostage bodies back to the country and properly burying them is as important as the release of all living hostages. Therefore, in the eyes of most Israelis, no matter what Trump claims, everything is not over yet.

But that doesn¡¯t mean that people support the government¡¯s resumption of a comprehensive military operation in Gaza. This is the idea of a minority of extremists within the government. The excuse for resumption is easy to find, but this practice cannot be supported by the public or recognized by the international community, especially by Trump.

We don't know exactly what Trump is thinking, but for him at least for now, if the Gaza ceasefire doesn't happen, then his entire Middle East policy has failed. This is not only a missed opportunity for him to claim himself as a "peacemaker", but also a large loss of potential economic benefits to his own family and the United States.

Overall, the future development of the situation in Gaza does not depend on changes in relations between Israel and Hamas.

China News Weekly: Today's Israel is in severe international isolation. How did Israel get to this point?

and Berger:This is a long process with multiple drivers.First of all, since the 1948 war of the founding state, Israel has been fighting with its neighbors in the Middle East, especially with the Palestinians on the same territory.

Second, over the past half-century, the settler movement has largely shaped Israel's political agenda. As settlers continued to add settlements in the West Bank, this became a political game in Israel. For self-interest, settlers and their supporters oppose reaching any solution on anything with the Palestinians.

Third, Hamas's killing on October 7, 2023 caused major trauma to Israel, and Israeli society believed that revenge was needed. As the war progressed,NetanyahuThe government has taken advantage of this revenge sentiment to legitimize its atrocities in Gaza and its policy of purging Palestinians. In my opinion, what happened afterwards was not Israel's "revenge", but the government's cold-blooded and cynical promotion of its own ideological policies.

In addition to the above three internal causes, there is also an external cause. In recent years, more and more western countries have retreated from the traditional values of "free *". In this context, the wave of populism in Israel is no different from the trend in Europe and the United States. These factors combined to slowly but strongly transform Israeli society.

But when Israel really committed crimes in the Gaza Strip, we saw the international community exerting tremendous pressure on Israel, a pressure we have not seen in any Israeli conflict since 1948.The incredible international reputation that Israel possessed before 2023, all the beautiful images you can imagine ¨C developed countries, high-tech nations, safe nations, innovative nations ¨C have all been lost.Now Israel is the world¡¯s offspring, the ¡°genocidal criminal¡± in the eyes of many.

On October 19, eastern Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip was attacked by Israel. Figure/vision china

How the peace process is "killed"

China News Weekly: Has there been no chance of reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians since 1948?

and Berger:I think there have been three window periods to peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. The first window period was in the late 1970s, when Israel and Egypt achieved reconciliation, and Egypt became the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel. But Israel just viewed the agreement from the perspective of achieving a ¡°long-term ceasefire¡± and did not exploit the opportunity to promote a larger reconciliation between Israeli society and the Arab world.

The second window period was the Oslo peace process in the 1990s. The first Oslo Accords signed in 1993 were a temporary solution, which should have been replaced by final negotiations involving the occupied territories and the status of Palestinians after the transition period. However, during the transition period, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by far-right elements, and the US presidentClinton isBusy with the Lewinsky scandal and other domestic affairs. I don't want to evaluate Palestinian leader Arafat, but in short, all three key leaders "disappeared" in this process. So, a temporary arrangement became a "long-term arrangement", which continues to this day.

The third window began with the ¡°Abraham Agreement¡± that Trump started pushing during his first term of office.In the beginning, the ¡°Abraham Agreement¡± was an agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and other countries to normalize relations, which effectively ignored and avoided the Palestinian issue as the core of the Israeli-Arab relations.

However, after October 7, 2023, no one in this process can ignore the Palestinian issue. Some Arab countries have begun to make the Palestinian issue a prerequisite for normalizing relations with Israel. In this context, Trump's latest "20-point peace plan" has at least made up for the missing Palestinian "jigsaw" in the "Abraham Agreement." This may mean a new window for resolving the Palestinian issue.

China News Weekly: In the ¡°second window¡± you mentioned, you served as a member of the Israeli parliament, as president of the parliament, as president of Israel, as one of the main leaders of the Labour Party and the ruling camp, but just months after you were elected president, a second Palestinian uprising broke out.

and Berger:This process is very complex and difficult to explain clearly.I want to emphasize that the Oslo process does bring hope to both Israel and the Palestinians, but at the same time it also inspires opposition actions within both camps.

On February 25, 1994, six months after the signing of the Oslo Accords, Israeli settlers killed 29 Palestinian civilians in Hebron, in the West Bank. Palestinian militants responded with suicide attacks. This triggered a wave of violence. During this period, Israeli far-right elements assassinated Prime Minister Rabin in 1995 and killed dozens of Israelis committed to the peace movement.

Frankly speaking, Israeli leaders after Rabin did not play their due role in this process. First, Peres, the leader of the Labour Party who inherited Rabin's legacy, lost the election to Netanyahu, who began to retreat from the Oslo process with a series of schemes.

In 1999, Labour won the election again, and Prime Minister Barak tried to force the peace process forward. At that time, Arafat had clearly told Barak that the time was not ripe for a summit, but Barak said "we must do this". In July 2000, Barack, Arafat and Clinton met at Camp David. But that was the last period of Clinton's administration. He was deeply involved in scandals and his mind was not focused on solving the Palestinian-Israeli issue at all.

This hasty summit certainly failed. But the worst detail was that when Barak returned from Camp David, he declared that there were "no partners" on the road to peace. He should be at the helm of the Palestinian-Israeli "boat of peace", but denied the possibility of continuing dialogue with the Palestinians.

Finally, on September 28, 2000, Sharon, then Israeli opposition leader, defiantly entered the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This became the direct trigger for the "Second Palestinian Intifada". In a sense, extremists on both sides "succeeded".

In addition to the inability of leaders in the peace process, we cannot ignore the changes in the external environment. The original background of the Oslo peace process was: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the settlement of the Northern Ireland issue, the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa, and the world is driving the peace and reconciliation process. But after the 2001 "9/11 events", the main melody of the Western world shifted from building peace to launching war. Naturally, the Oslo process was stifled in the New Age wave.

China News Weekly: Regarding Israel's strategic missteps, an Israeli close to the government said in an interview with this magazine that Israel has always lacked a long-term diplomatic and security strategy because Israel is always facing new conflicts and security threats, so Israel's only response is to "constantly fight war." Do you subscribe to this description?

and Berger:This statement is true, but it is too simplistic. The problem with Israel is that we never even have full strategic consultations internally, let alone dialogue with the outside world and even the Palestinians? The key agenda for Israel's survival in the region is to solve the Palestinian question. And Israel's strategy has always been "no solution" because we don't want to face this real problem.

Under this strategy, Israel has always emphasized ¡°manage conflict¡± rather than ¡°solve conflict¡±. The problem is that conflict will not disappear because of such a strategy. You can see that during this round of conflict, Netanyahu has been promising to destroy Hamas, promising to eliminate the ¡°threat¡± from Palestine, but now Hamas is still there and the Palestinians are still there.

The top priority is to "cool down"

China Newsweek: So, what strategic adjustments do you think Israel should make?

and Berger:In the short term, Israel's only correct choice is to obey 100% Trump's peace arrangements. Trump's "20-point peace plan" is not perfect or even a complete solution, but it is very beneficial to Israel and has great potential to promote regional reconciliation.

U.S. President Trump Information

There are serious security concerns in Israeli society. But without a peace agreement as the core support, we can¡¯t get any sustainable security. At the moment, we¡¯re still staying in the most primitive mode of confrontation. While in Trump¡¯s plan, at least Gaza would have a ¡°international stability force,¡± which would be difficult for both Hamas and Israel to shoot at. This could the actual ¡°disconnection¡± between Israel and Hamas.

This is an important beginning.Before we really talk about peace, security and further solutions, the parties to the conflict need to calm down first.After more than two years of disaster and so much pain, we must first shut down this "boiler" and "cool down" by insulating the buffer.

I know that there is a lot of controversy around the world about Trump¡¯s peace plan, but in the current political situation, dreams are beautiful and action is based on the reality of each phase. When a ceasefire starts and international forces begin to intervene, we will see some positive and negative effects; if we accumulate enough positive factors, we can go further and backwards. In this process, the international community needs to maintain concern for the issue of Gaza and need to make both parties realize that a backback will ¡°lose a lot.¡±

In conclusion, the best route for Israel now is to follow Trump's peace arrangement first, and then see how Israel can benefit from it. However, realistically, I think the Netanyahu government will ignore and evade the implementation of the "20-point peace plan", and then find a way to shift the blame to the Palestinians and other mediators.

China Newsweek: Netanyahu has only one year left in his term. Will Israeli voters support him again in elections at the end of next year?

and Berger:I can¡¯t predict.Now, Israel¡¯s ¡°year¡± may be equivalent to other countries¡¯ ¡°years¡± where there is day after day of political struggle, and Netanyahu will try to avoid war responsibility and judicial trial.

China Newsweek: So it¡¯s not as simple as some analysts say ¨C once the war is over, is Netanyahu¡¯s political life over?

and Berger:It's not that simple, don't "gamble". The political reality in Israel is very complex, and the change of public opinion in wartime also requires a long process. Netanyahu's political life may not be ended so soon.

New regional political and economic structures should be established

China Newsweek: If the Gaza peace process can enter the next stage, how can we establish an equal dialogue mechanism between Israel and Palestine to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Oslo process? Who do you think should negotiate on behalf of Palestine and Israel?

and Berger:We need to start from two sides.On the one hand, according to Trump¡¯s plan, in the post-war transitional period of governance in Gaza, former British Prime Minister Blair will lead an international committee to oversee management. This committee is trying to incubate an experienced ¡°better¡± Palestinian governance entity. At the same time, the international community is also actively pushing for internal reforms in the Palestinian authorities.

On the other hand, we need a paradigm shift. The paradigm of the Oslo process is that at the end of endless negotiations, if the Palestinians ¡°perform well¡± they will get a country. In this paradigm, ¡°Palestinian independence¡± is just a carrot that continues to shake in front of the Palestinians, but the mediator has never intended to fulfill that promise.

So now France, Saudi Arabia and other European and Middle Eastern Arab countries have put forward a new paradigm that the international community should first recognize the State of Palestine. First recognize Palestine as a sovereign state like Israel and then push for equal negotiations between the two sides. This paradigm, combined with a new and effective Palestinian governance entity, could create a truly equal negotiation situation.

In short, ideally, under the dominance of external forces, this would not be the ¡°second Oslo process¡±, but rather the establishment of a new regional political and economic architecture. In this architecture, Israel and Palestine are not seen as the ¡°problems¡± themselves, but are all part of the solution.

"China Newsweek": Recognizing a Palestinian state is a policy continuation of the "two-state solution," but you only advocate that this can be used as a basis for negotiations and propose a "confederation" concept for the final Palestinian-Israeli coexistence. Why do you think a confederation system would be more effective than a two-state solution?

and Berger:But if it were true that day, let us ask ourselves: What could be the most beneficial and realistic way of coexistence for both sides?Confederation is a state between ¡°two countries¡± and ¡°one country¡± where many Israelis do not want Palestine to be an independent state, and vice versa, where the Confederation can declare that ¡°they do not have an independent state¡±. In this framework, each of the sides becomes a political entity. This will maximize the coexistence and coordination of both sides in the event of differences. Both sides can benefit from this special structure.

China News Weekly: After so many disasters, do you think it is possible for Israel and Palestine to go that far?

and Berger:I never give up hope because I know that we cannot escape the Palestinian issue and that the issue of peaceful coexistence between the two sides must eventually be resolved.

For years, Netanyahu and his far-right allies thought that the Palestinian issue would naturally disappear during the "Abraham Accords" process. The thought is both scary and pathetic. The reality is that the Palestinian issue has now returned to the center of regional issues, and not one or two countries, but the entire international community is eager to find a way to achieve peace.

This is why I am optimistic about the future: history is moving forward, new realities are forming, and fanatical radicals are ultimately unable to stop the course of history.

Reporter: Cao Ran

Edited by:Ðì·½Çå