'No willingness for peace', even from Israeli left, says senior Palestinian official

Dr Varsen Aghabekian, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, tells The National that the region is 'doomed' if Israel's government ignores Palestinian demands for a lasting settlement

Varsen Aghabekian, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for the State of Palestine, says the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offers its people and Palestinians 'nothing but pessimism and chaos'. ImagoShow less

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Israel's desire to end the war in Gaza has been questioned after no approach to the Palestinian Authority as a “peace partner” was made, the government's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs has told The National.

In her first interview with an international newspaper, Dr Varsen Aghabekian said that without hope of a deal, the region was “doomed” and the risk of extremism among Palestinians would increase.

She also said that if Israel did not consider a two-state solution, it risked becoming a “one-state” where Jews would be outnumbered by people of other faiths.

No willingness for peace

Ms Aghabekian, who has held the position of Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for six months, said there has been no approach from the Israeli government to enter talks with Palestinians.

“There's no peace partner on the Israeli side,” she told The National. “And there's absolutely no willingness for peace, not from the right, not from the middle, not from the left.”

Varsen Aghabekian, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the Palestinian Authority. Thomas Harding / The National

She accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government of promising “nothing but pessimism and chaos”.

“We haven't seen anything on the ground that gives us a glimpse of hope,” Dr Aghabekian added.

The only moment when the war will be resolved will come after the international community says enough is enough, and Israel is not treated as a state above the law

Dr Varsen Aghabekian,
Palestinian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs

Like many Palestinian politicians, she is critical of the US, which has not reached out to her government, for its unequivocal military and political support for Israel in its war on Gaza, now in its second year.

“The only moment when the war will be resolved will come after the international community says enough is enough, and Israel is not treated as a state above the law,” said Dr Aghabekian, the former dean of the University of Jerusalem.

Hope for the future

The war, which has killed more than 41,900 Palestinians in Gaza and about 700 in the occupied West Bank, many by illegal settlers, will go down in the history books “as one of the darkest periods in modern history,” she said from Ramallah.

If Palestinians are not offered any hope for a future then the outcome would be dire, she said. “We would witness much more extremism than what we're seeing today.” But if a promise of a different future is put forward then, “We might forgive”.

If a deal was made, she said, then Palestinians could look to the future with hope “rather than look backward to all the pain inflicted upon them”.

“If you are given something worth living for, then you tend to not forget but you might forgive [Israel] for the time being, because there's a future. But if there's no horizon, no future, then we’re doomed.”

Pressure on the Israeli government as pro-Palestine protesters gather in Berlin, Germany, on the first anniversary of the October 7 attack on Israel. Getty

That horizon she refers to would need to be an end to the war and the occupation, where reconstruction begins and the international community ensures “that nothing of this sort happens again”.

Dr Aghabekian, who was born in Jordan, reiterated that “if nothing comes out of this that satisfies Palestinians’ aspirations” after all their suffering, then the whole region was heading towards a big disaster.

During her time in office, she has officially visited Egypt, Jordan and Qatar, but there has been no dialogue with the US. Dr Aghabekian, who earned a doctorate in political affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, is not particularly surprised, labelling the US-Israeli bond a “toxic relationship”.

The village of Jit near the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya burns after it was stormed by Israeli settlers. Photo: X

“The US should think about what they have been doing for the past decades, because that relationship should be much healthier,” she said. “If you're an ally, you need to advise that state and not go along with whatever that state is doing, especially when it's war crimes.”

Israelis should also be “terrified” of the influence wielded by the far-right faction of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Security Minster Itamar Ben-Gvir. “That terrifies everybody and should terrify Jews themselves,” she said. Their nationalist-Zionist message, that suggests resettling Gaza, was “pushing people towards more wars”.

The two-state question

A point increasingly being made by academics and politicians is that if Israel does not accept a two-state solution it will find itself pushed into a “one-state” solution, where everyone within its borders has a vote.

This would mean there would be roughly seven million Jewish Israelis and a similar number or more of Palestinians and others.

“If you're not for a two-state solution, what other solutions are there?” Dr Aghabekian said. “What are the parameters of that one state? Will Israelis accept to live in a one state, where at one point the Arabs, Muslims, Christians will be a majority?”

There had to be a rational debate with Israelis, she said, understanding that the other ethnicities would not accept living in an “apartheid-like system” of a single state.

Dr Aghabekian said that all illegal settlers, who number more than 500,000 in the occupied West Bank, would have to leave although she agreed that “there might be some border modification” in land swaps in a two-state solution.

Her priority now was to establish an international conference on the future of Palestine, something that has been pushed by Saudi Arabia.