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Speaker 1: Jason Greenblatt is former Special Envoy to the Middle East

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Speaker 1: and the Trump administration and now as a partner at

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Speaker 1: Our Crowd. Last week he published a piece in the

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Speaker 1: Jerusalem Post headlined Israelis and Palestinians worked together against coronavirus.

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Speaker 1: What can you tell us, Jason, about how this has happened?

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Kevin. A couple of things. First

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Speaker 1: of all, the pieces published in Hebrew in Israel, he

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Speaker 1: Home English and Jerusalem Post, and Arabic in Al Jazeera

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Speaker 1: because people were fascinated by peace. In fact, I got

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Speaker 1: a call from the President of the State of Israel,

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Speaker 1: President of Eblin about the piece. And what it highlights

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Speaker 1: is that the Israelis and the Palestinians and the region

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Speaker 1: really share a trench in this battle against the invisible,

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Speaker 1: deadly enemy, and they recognize that and they want to

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Speaker 1: work together. More importantly, they need and they need to

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Speaker 1: work together, and they recognize this in order to fight

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Speaker 1: against it and prevented from coming back or handling it

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Speaker 1: when it comes back. You outline this in your piece,

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Speaker 1: But what are some of the ways that the Israelis

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Speaker 1: and the Palestinians had worked together on combat and COVID

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Speaker 1: night well, their security cooperation has been strengthened. The Israeli

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Speaker 1: government has given Palestinian healthcare worker professionals training, They've sponsored

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Speaker 1: joint workshops. Both sides are exchanging information together. The Israelis

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Speaker 1: have given a lot of protective gear to the Palestinian

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Speaker 1: healthcare workers and security personnel. Palestinian workers who normally come

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Speaker 1: in in droves to the Israeli side for money, which

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Speaker 1: is essential for their economy, are able to now stay

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Speaker 1: longer in Israel to make sure that they don't bring

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Speaker 1: the virus back into the Palestinian territories. So there's a

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Speaker 1: tremendous amount of cooperation and I think President Rivlin said

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Speaker 1: it best when he spoke to President of BOSS where

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Speaker 1: he recognized that the world is dealing with a crisis

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Speaker 1: that doesn't distinguish between people or where they live, and

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Speaker 1: he emphasized the need for cooperation, and President of BOS

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Speaker 1: was reciprocal when he said he pledged his full cooperation. Jason, Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: there have been some examples of mistrus. They're not they

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Speaker 1: have and we can't ignore that. It's very important. I

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Speaker 1: want to go through a few of them because despite

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Speaker 1: the optimistic nature of the opinion that I wrote together

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Speaker 1: with a Palestinian friend of mine. These these are important.

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Speaker 1: You have a guy like Omar bar Goody, who is

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Speaker 1: the founder of the anti Israel, anti Semitic Boycott Investment

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Speaker 1: Sanctions BDS movement, which by the way, harms Palestinians more

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Speaker 1: than anything else, so happily and hypocritically declares that although

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Speaker 1: we'll bash Israel and hate on Israel all the time,

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Speaker 1: it's okay for him to accept Israeli healthcare, including any

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Speaker 1: vaccine that might be developed out of Israel. Or the

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Speaker 1: recent couple of days ago glorification by certain Palestinian leaders

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Speaker 1: of the those terrorists who planned the massacre of the

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Speaker 1: Israeli Olympic athletes in the nineteen Munich Olympics. So even

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Speaker 1: though there are a lot of bright spots of cooperation,

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Speaker 1: there's also a lot of peace. We saw it also

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Speaker 1: with the new Israeli government formation. We saw some terrible

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Speaker 1: comments coming out of some Palestinian leaders about unity government.

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister Stet falsely claimed that this new government means

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Speaker 1: the dismantling of Palestinian rights has established under international law

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Speaker 1: and resolutions. That's always part of the problem. There is

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Speaker 1: no international law or resolutions that are binding on this

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Speaker 1: conflict where they will solve this conflict. And the more

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Speaker 1: they say that, the deeper into the whole we yet

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Speaker 1: sab air God who claims that the annexation of occupied

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Speaker 1: Palestinian territory is a threat to the world's where it's

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Speaker 1: not occupied Palestinian territory, it's disputed territory. I'm curious from

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Speaker 1: your perspective, Jason, have you ever seen historically in recent

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Speaker 1: history and in the past twenty years, for example, have

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Speaker 1: you ever seen a situation where the Israelis and the

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Speaker 1: Palestinians have have worked together like this? Primarily No, not

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Speaker 1: to this degree, especially when it especially when it comes

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Speaker 1: to godza As weel As has allowed a lot of

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Speaker 1: things to go into Gods in a way that has

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Speaker 1: not happened recently. The people in God's are suffering tremendously.

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Speaker 1: So I think Israel's action was critical and I think

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Speaker 1: we need to look at the bright spot despite the

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Speaker 1: ugly comments from some, we need to look at these

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Speaker 1: positive actions, positive comments. Comments like King of Bill of Jordan's,

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Speaker 1: who always very thoughtful, spoke about how the enemies of

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Speaker 1: yesterday and countries who weren't previously friendly on their parties

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Speaker 1: partners together, whether they like it or not. So I

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Speaker 1: believe that COVID nineteen offers a great wind of hope,

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Speaker 1: and it shows how the two sides and the region

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Speaker 1: to get past this issue of not working together to

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Speaker 1: better the lives of millions of people. Whether it solves

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Speaker 1: the piece issue or not, whether we can actually resolve

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Speaker 1: these longstanding issues remains to be seen. But I think

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Speaker 1: at the very least we can get cooperation between the

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Speaker 1: two sides and hopefully build enough trust and respect that

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Speaker 1: maybe it begins everybody taking down the path towards building

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Speaker 1: a true and lasting piece. All right. Jason Greenbot, former

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Speaker 1: Special Envoy to the Middle East and the Trump Administration

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Speaker 1: and now a partner at our crowd. Jason, thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for your time. Thank you, Kevin. Good to

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Speaker 1: hear from you.