Danny Danon on Israeli Elections and Peace Plan

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: There’s a whole sort of plan that some people are talking about with all sorts of different parts, like a Rubik’s Cube of the regional powers in economic and land transfers and all sorts of things like that. Is that, to your understanding, that it will involve very intricate swaps of money, for land, for jobs, for economic?

DANNY DANON, PERMANENT ISRAELI REPRESENTATIVE TO THE U.N.: We do understand it’s going to be a regional plan. So, it will not involve only the Israelis and the Palestinians, it would include the neighboring countries, which we welcome. We believe that in any future agreement, we welcome the involvement of Jordan, Egypt, some of the Gulf countries, economical support to the Palestinians. So, we are openminded. But I’m a little bit pessimistic when I hear with Palestinians. The thing, we don’t want to look at the plan.

AMANPOUR: I was going to say, you say you have all the regionals but not Palestinians.

DANON: Don’t even send it to us. We don’t accept the U.S. as mediators. We don’t accept these Israeli’s as partners. So, it would be very hard with all the support of the regional players if you don’t have the Palestinians on board —

AMANPOUR: Correct.

DANON: — it would very hard to move forward.

AMANPOUR: Well — so, the first question on that is, will it be implemented nonetheless or do you obviously have to have the Palestinians as the other party to a peace accord?

DANON: You cannot implement without the Palestinians.

AMANPOUR: Right.

DANON: You can maybe do other things in the region, we can work with other countries on other projects, but you cannot do anything without the Palestinians. And this week, we celebrated the anniversary of the peace treaty with Egypt, 40 years since the day —

AMANPOUR: Camp David.

DANON: Camp David when Menachem Begin signed the treaty with President Sadat and it was an amazing moment. We are waiting for the Palestinians for that.

AMANPOUR: OK.

DANON: To emerge, to come to Jerusalem, to say, “Enough with the bloodshed, enough with the walls, let’s talk peace.”

AMANPOUR: Well, to that end, I’m really glad you mentioned it because at that time, there was an American president who was taken by the whole world as an honest broker and there was Palestinian engagement and there was a gift from Israel and from the Palestinians and — rather from Egypt and from Israel, land swaps and all the rest of it. It was a real negotiation, it wasn’t just a surrender. So, what I want to ask you is this, how do you expect — how does Israel expect the Palestinians to feel like there is a place for them in an honest peace negotiation when the president has done everything he can to enable Israel? From the very beginning, campaign promises to move the embassy, he did — despite the international consensus. Just last week, he tweets that he is totally OK with Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, again, against the international consensus. In fact, when they tried in Ronald Reagan’s term, he cut off aid. I mean, he was pretty furious when Israel tried to take hold of the Golan Heights, cutting off aid for Palestinian refugees. I mean, what is there for the Palestinians to feel that they can bring to the table or that there’s going to be a fair peace deal offered?

DANON: President Trump is actually exposing the realities of the Palestinians. It’s a reality check. The Golan Heights is not going anywhere. To whom exactly, we should give it back to the Assad regime, to the Iranians, to ISIS, we know it’s a place for stability today in the region. So, we welcome this decision.