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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. This is the week of the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting here in New York. As many of you know, it happens to be the 80th anniversary of the UN this year, founded right after World War II to try to help prevent such conflicts in the future via contact among world leaders among the nations of planet Earth. For the city, it often gets reported mostly as a traffic jam story, but of course, it's so much more for the whole world. President Trump and other heads of state will give their speeches beginning tomorrow.

Today, there is a round of talks, a kind of special summit, they're calling it, on reviving the idea of a two-state solution in the ever-present Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is older than the UN itself, we might say. Just yesterday, in advance of today's summit, Canada, Australia, and the UK, Britain recognized a state of Palestine. The sponsors of today's summit are France and Saudi Arabia, one Western and one Arab nation notably. While they acknowledge the urgency of dealing with the immediate crisis in Gaza, they also hope to go beyond it for another shot at resolving the larger underlying issues.

With us to discuss today's session and the week in general is Richard Gowan, UN Director of the International Crisis Group, which describes itself as working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world. He has previously worked as a consultant to several UN departments, the Foreign Affairs offices of Finland and Canada, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and he has taught at Columbia and Stanford. Richard Gowan has written a preview of this week's General Assembly on the website Just Security. Richard, thank you for giving us some time as this very busy week begins for you. Welcome to WNYC.

Richard Gowan: Thank you very much for having me on the show.

Brian Lehrer: Let's begin with today's special summit on a two-state solution. Why did France and Saudi Arabia begin a new process to aim for that elusive goal at this time?

Richard Gowan: This was something that the UN General Assembly mandated about a year ago, and France and Saudi Arabia have been leading the process forward. The idea is to try and give a glimmer of hope to those Palestinians who want a diplomatic path to statehood. Obviously, the last two years have been dominated by appalling violence by both Hamas and Israel. I think what diplomats and leaders are trying to do today is say, "No, there is a peaceful path to statehood. It doesn't have to be like this. No one thinks that we're going to get a Palestinian state anytime soon, but it is an important signal.

Brian Lehrer: There have been many attempts at a two-state solution dating back to before the state of Israel was created by the UN in 1948. I'm going to go over a few of these things and get your take on where we are in the arc of history. Nobody talks anymore about Britain's Peel Commission. Back in the 1930s, when the area was British-mandate Palestine under British control, they proposed separate Arab and Jewish states with Jerusalem as a neutral zone that would remain under British control. If I have my history right, both sides rejected it.

In the '40s, in 1947, one of the UN's first acts was to propose a similar two-state solution known then as a partition plan. The Arab side rejected that. Then there was the Oslo peace process in the '90s that broke down without an agreement amid rising violence on both sides and failure to resolve persistent issues like the status of Jerusalem and other borders, the right of displaced Palestinians to return to their previous lands in Israel, and security for Israel from militant or terrorist groups like Hamas in a new Palestine. Now, you can correct any of that history if you'd like, but I raise it in that detail to ask, do France and Saudi Arabia think they see a path to resolving these stubborn, complicated issues?

Richard Gowan: I'm not sure that the French or the Saudis really believe that they can make a breakthrough. Obviously, there has been a very clear message from Israel and from Prime Minister Netanyahu that the Israelis are not going to negotiate on the idea of a two-state solution now. Last week, Prime Minister Netanyahu quite explicitly said that the Palestinians would not have a state. I think this conference is driven by a couple of considerations. One is domestic politics.

I think that leaders like President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer are facing huge pressure at home to do something, anything about the war in Gaza. Then secondly, in addition to sending the message that the Palestinians should hold on to diplomacy, the conference is meant to send a message to Israel, "Which is don't go too far. Don't try to aim for the formal annexation of the West Bank," which is something which some Israeli ministers have talked about, because that will invite more serious international blowback.

Brian Lehrer: Would you say there is also less of a two-state solution camp on either side of the conflict these days? On the one hand, as you just said, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu opposes it. I'll go into a little more detail on that for our listeners. Just 10 days ago, the Times of Israel had an article called Netanyahu Buried the Two-State Solution. It says paperwork signed by the Prime Minister in a settlement city east of Jerusalem enables construction in what they call E1 area, intended to house 20,000 Israelis within 10 to 15 years, ensuring no territorial contiguity for Palestinians. That from the Times of Israel on September 12.

On the other side, you have a lot of activism since the October 7th, 2023, attacks, calling for the abolition of any such thing as a Jewish state of Israel, as you know, extending all the way to the likely next mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani. On the other side of that, just in the context of the mayoral race, I asked Andrew Cuomo in a candidate interview on the show if he supports a two-state solution, and he basically said he wouldn't go against Netanyahu. Either way, the next mayor of New York, if it's one of those two, will not say he supports a two-state solution, but from different sides.

My question is, are there constituents among the Jewish and Palestinian sides involved who can be elevated to importance by this international process begun by France and Saudi Arabia, or a larger coalition of Western and Arab nations? They can't do it without the actual parties who have to live it, can they?

Richard Gowan: No, they can't. I think that in the short term, the idea of a two-state solution is very far away indeed. I can also see why some people will look at this and say it's a distraction, it's symbolism. What the UN should really be focusing on in a laser-like way is getting a ceasefire and getting the release of the hostages in Gaza. I think what France is trying to do is protect the basic idea of a two-state solution as a landing zone which the parties can return to down the road, presumably after Prime Minister Netanyahu leaves office, whenever that comes about.

I think it's also worth saying that when this conference was initially envisaged, there was meant to be a trade-off because France was encouraging the Saudis to recognize and open normal diplomatic relations with Israel, which is a prize that the Israelis would love to get. The Saudis have backed off from that because, with the campaign in Gaza continuing, they just cannot politically offer Israel recognition. At the end of the day, you're only getting part of the original plan here, the recognition of Palestine without the quid pro quo that would be Saudi recognition of Israel.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think, by the way, just as a point of recent history, as some people argue, but I don't know if it's true, that they were on the verge with the Abraham Accords, various Arab countries recognizing Israel in exchange for mostly security guarantees to help protect the Arab countries from Iran by the United States? That they were on the verge of some kind of a more global Abraham Accords deal that would involve the inclusion of a Palestinian state. There was a lot of pressure on the Arab countries not to recognize Israel without that.

Then, many people even say the reason Hamas launched October 7th, killed all those people, took all those hostages, was because they wanted to stop the Abraham Accords from going forward. Hamas doesn't want a two-state solution either. How accurate do you think any of that history is? That recent history?

Richard Gowan: I think that's a plausible explanation of why Hamas launched the attacks in October, although we don't know for sure. I should add that one element of the preparations for today's summit was that last week, the General Assembly passed a resolution condemning Hamas for the events of the 7th of October, which, remarkably, the General Assembly had never condemned before. Also stating very plainly that Hamas cannot be part of any post-conflict government in Gaza. This is another dimension of a complex process.

The French and the Saudis are trying to delegitimize Hamas and sending a signal that the only way that Palestine gets to statehood is with the Palestinian Authority in the lead. I don't think the Israelis care about that. I think Israel has made it very clear that the simple idea of a two-state solution is currently unpalatable. But it is worth keeping that detail in the mix.

Brian Lehrer: If you're just joining us, we're previewing this week's UN General Assembly session here in New York with a focus primarily for this conversation, but not only on the special summit as it's being described that's taking place today on the potential for a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine being the two states in question, obviously with Richard Gowan, UN Director of the International Crisis Group and previously consultant to several UN departments. The Trump administration rejects this process enough that they rejected a travel visa for Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to even come to the UN General Assembly. He'll have to appear by video; I guess that's scheduled.

Many other countries are expected to recognize, in theory, a state of Palestine, as Canada, Australia, and Britain did yesterday. What's the significance of recognizing a state of Palestine as those countries did, since it doesn't come into being without all those difficult two-state agreement details? Who do you expect to play what role in the summit today?

Richard Gowan: I think we should keep in mind that I think over 140 countries across the world have already recognized the State of Palestine. I think there's going to be a feeling amongst a lot of leaders like, "What took you so long, oh, UK and France to come to this position?" In symbolic terms, the reason that these recognitions matter is that we're seeing key NATO allies of the United States saying that, given the situation in Gaza, they feel that they have to recognize Palestine. Keep in mind that European capitals have been walking on eggshells around the Trump administration because they're so concerned that if they offend Trump, they will lose American support in Ukraine and for European security.

I think these are key US Allies taking a pretty big risk because they're facing so much domestic and international pressure to find some answer to the war between Israel and Hamas. The irony is that, in practical terms, as you say, nothing much changes for the Palestinians just because they get a few extra recognitions. Nothing much changes even at the UN. Palestine won't suddenly become a fully fledged member of the UN because that requires a positive vote in the Security Council, which the US will veto. Actually, the Biden administration vetoed a proposal to make Palestine a full UN member last year, and Trump would clearly do the same.

We're talking about a long-term horizon. I think everyone has been very clear about this, not least because the Palestinian Authority itself is very weak. It couldn't run a state even if it was offered full statehood tomorrow. Again, the goal is to set a marker and say, "We are not inevitably in a situation where a two-state solution becomes impossible." Although if you look at the history, this may just be, as I think you were implying, another moment where a plan is put on the table and then events continue on their way.

Brian Lehrer: Although some commentators even say this is the wrong time to think big about a two-state solution at all. I think you were referring to this briefly before, because the crisis in Gaza is so intense, with so many deaths every day, and the hostage is still being held, and that all has to be dealt with first before anything more theoretical or sweeping. What would France and Saudi Arabia, who call today's summit, say about that?

Richard Gowan: This challenge has been put to President Macron. There's also the accusation that the summit, in a way, is an indirect reward to Hamas for the events of the 7th of October, because without the war that followed, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. Look, I think the French response, the Saudi response, is that the international community, such as it is, cannot just stand by and watch Hamas and Israel slug it out. There has to be some sort of signal coming from the UN and key members of the UN about where international public opinion wants to see this war end.

I think that Macron, especially who's someone who likes big initiatives, not least big initiatives around the UN, is hoping to do is change the narrative about the situation. Now there are some very seasoned experts on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, such as my former colleague Rob Malley, who say there is no chance of a two-state solution anytime soon. Yes, this process risks taking attention away from the immediate challenge of ending the violence and freeing the hostages. I think that is a fair concern. I think that, given the fact that Israel, in particular, is ignoring almost all forms of international pressure to end the war, trying to set down a marker of this type may just have some value.

Brian Lehrer: I want to ask you about one of the reasons that Israel gets its backup at UN and other international processes like these. In your article on Just Security previewing this week at the UN, you note that other global crises will take a backseat to Israel-Palestine. You mentioned Sudan, the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar as two examples, also Ukraine. This is one reason that the Israelis say anti Semitism is a factor in so much global attention to Palestinian rights. During the first Trump administration, I'm giving a couple of examples here.

The Committee on American Islamic Relations, CAIR, wrote, "According to the Department of Defense, as many as three million members of the Uyghur Muslim community have been placed in concentration camps in the Xinjiang region of China. Tell Congress to put pressure on China to end the Uyghur concentration camps." On Sudan, the BBC reported this summer that "12 million people have fled their homes, 12 million people in what the United Nations has called the world's largest humanitarian crisis. That's the ranking from the UN itself. World's largest humanitarian crisis, Sudan.

Yet we don't see big campus protests or groups forming like Students for Justice in Sudan or in Uyghur, China, or in Ukraine, where even more people than in Gaza are believed to have been killed by Russia. I believe only Students for Justice in Palestine has a big nationwide movement. Now this overwhelming focus at the UN to almost the exclusion of these other intense human rights crises, as you report. Why else would there be such a sole focus but a tendency to vilify Jews more than other people? Israel would ask. How would any world leader respond to that?

Richard Gowan: Firstly, I wish that students were marching on campuses calling for action over Sudan, over Haiti, and so forth. I do think that it is a tragedy that we're in a world where conflicts are on the rise. There were 62 wars taking place worldwide last year. The reality is that the UN is hardly able to pay attention to some of these conflicts because you have two big, big wars, Ukraine and Gaza, that are sucking up a huge amount of diplomatic oxygen. There will be meetings around the General Assembly on some of the other conflicts. I think there are two ministerial meetings on trying to protect Sudanese civilians.

You're right, they're not going to get the same level of attention either from diplomats or from the media. Now, I think if you put this point about anti Semitism to many UN members, they would say you're looking at the wrong part of the equation. I think what a lot of UN members, including countries that are basically close friends of Israel, such as the UK, feel is that the UN has a special responsibility to the Palestinians. The UN, as you said, has been involved in discussing the Palestinian question since the 1940s. It is a crisis that essentially has run through the entire history of the UN like a thread.

There is a feeling that if the UN cannot address the Palestinian question, that is almost an existential problem for the organization. Diplomats do see the UN's responsibility for the Palestinians in a qualitatively different way to the way they perceive the UN's engagement in other crises. I think the other point to add is that since the 7th of October, Israel, from the get-go, has taken a stance of ignoring any and all criticism from the UN. Actually, Israel is trying to dismantle the UN aid agency UNRWA in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel and the US demanded back in August that the UN--

Brian Lehrer: They say there are terrorist links with that group. I don't know if it's been proven, but that's what they say.

Richard Gowan: Oh, it's absolutely been proven that some members of UNRWA were members of Hamas, and a handful certainly at least have been proven to have been involved in the events of the 7th of October. It's also worth saying that UNRWA essentially has been providing basic state services like schooling and sanitation to the Palestinians for decades. Without it, the situation of the Palestinians in all the occupied territories is going to become much, much worse. I was also going to add that the US and Israel succeeded in August in persuading the Security Council to agree that the long-running UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon should shut down.

I think what a lot of people at the UN see at the moment is Israel basically trying to dismantle the entire UN architecture in the Middle East. That does lead to a certain degree of diplomatic panic and resistance.

Brian Lehrer: My guest is Richard Gowan, UN Director of the International Crisis Group, which describes itself as working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world. He wrote a preview of this week's annual General Assembly meeting here in New York on the website Just Security. Let's go on now to other issues that you identify in your article, the changing role of the United States under President Trump, and what you call existential questions about the UN itself. Why existential questions about the UN?

Richard Gowan: The Trump administration has sparked some very big changes in the UN this year through the simple means of cutting off almost all funding to the World organization. For many years, the UN has been very heavily dependent on Washington for funding, especially for its humanitarian agencies such as the World Food Program. WFP got 40% of its budget last year from the US, and that has now been reduced to a trickle. Already, even before President Trump speaks to the United Nations on Tuesday, his administration has forced the UN to start reducing its operations, reducing the aid it's providing around the world.

Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, is firing quite a lot of people. He is trying to reduce the UN's secretariat staff numbers by 20%. Now, none of this adds up to an existential crisis for the UN, but it does feel pretty close to existential for a lot of people who have become used to the UN as providing a huge range of global goods. It's clear we're entering a period where, with the US reducing funding and no one else coming to replace that funding, the World Organization is going to have to shrink. It's going to have to feed fewer people, it's going to have to vaccinate fewer people. No one is quite sure when this process ends because the financial horizon is pretty dark.

We are heading towards a smaller, more limited UN, and we don't know exactly what that looks like and what it means for the world.

Brian Lehrer: Those last two items in your article intersect with each other. The existential crisis for the UN, as you put it, and the Donald Trump role. You note that Trump has already signed off on a rescission package, halting nearly $400 million in UN funding. That's the reason for some of those cuts you just articulated. He's also pulled out of several UN multinational treaties and organizations. Even as he hopes to win a Nobel Peace Prize, some UN officials worry that he might pull the US from the UN entirely after a review that's underway by the administration, as you note. Where do you think he's headed, and what do you expect tomorrow's speech to include that will have consequences for anyone?

Richard Gowan: I don't think that Donald Trump is actually going to announce that the US is leaving the UN. That is something which I've heard very senior UN Officials speculate about. I think that this administration understands that if it were to leave the UN, that could have pretty big downsides for American interests. A UN without the US would be a place where China would have vastly more influence. It would also be a place where countries that are opposed to Israel would have a lot more leverage because you wouldn't have the US sitting in the Security Council with a veto to defend Israel.

I don't think Trump is leaving. I actually think that Trump may be in a surprisingly upbeat mood when he speaks to other leaders on Tuesday morning. Trump actually may not like the UN, but he does like the experience of being at the UN, being applauded by other presidents and prime ministers. I'm fairly sure I'm willing to bet that he's going to talk about how he's been making peace all around the world and how he should get a Nobel Prize for all his efforts. Now, all that said, I think he's going to have some pretty tough messages for the UN. I think that he may clarify that the US funding that he's been withholding is going to be withheld indefinitely.

I think he's going to demand that the UN probably make even bigger reforms, bigger cuts than it's made so far. It's quite possible that he could condition continued US Support for the UN on the organization taking a less critical approach to Israel. I think there'll be some Trumpian sugar coating. I think he will try and make nice with fellow leaders, but I suspect that he will also be sending some pretty hard messages about Washington's willingness to work through the UN System.

Brian Lehrer: We know that Trump will make headlines no matter what he says tomorrow. On the other side of that, you wrote that when Secretary General Guterres, who's from Portugal, speaks tomorrow, he might try to create a wow moment. You wrote a wow moment, possibly by floating some big UN reforms or maybe something else. What do you think a wow moment might include from the Secretary General, or what would it take?

Richard Gowan: I think that even if António Guterres gave the speech of a lifetime, and if he came up with the most brilliant plan to reform the UN conceivable, it still wouldn't get very much attention because not long afterwards, President Trump will speak. Obviously, Trump's speech is going to be the one that people notice. I think that Guterres, recognizing the pressure that the UN is under, at least wants to lay out some ideas about really big changes that could make the organization more efficient. This year, he's been focusing on immediate budget cuts, immediate staff cuts. He's just been trying to keep the institution afloat.

I think he could try and set out a more strategic vision this week, possibly by talking about the need to merge some of the really big UN agencies that often do duplicate each other's work. For example, we have three different agencies based in Rome that deal with global food issues. If he's feeling bold, Guterres could set out ideas for a much more rational, streamlined international architecture. That said, it's worth keeping in mind that Guterres only has 15 more months in the post. He stands down after 10 years as Secretary General at the end of 2026. The UN moves slowly, even in a crisis. He can offer some big ideas, but he's not going to have time to implement them.

Brian Lehrer: Last question as we begin to run out of time, on the UN itself at its 80th anniversary, you write that, as you and your colleagues at the International Crisis Group have underlined, the UN's place on the world stage is much diminished, but it plugs away at a huge range of humanitarian peacemaking and other initiatives that get little attention. You referred briefly to some of these before. I wonder if you would do a little bit of a list of what kind of work you have in mind. We'll go on after the last leader's limousine sweeps out of midtown, as you put it, a little bit of that, and how we look at the UN generally.

The League of Nations, after World War I, was created to help prevent major wars. That failed, and the organization was disbanded with the beginning of World War II. Has the UN ever prevented a war or shortened one? Does it work in that respect, or is it just a place ultimately, especially at the Security Council, the countries that have the real power, with the world divided so often between China and Russia on one side and the United States and maybe a few of the others on the other side? Has it worked in the context of peace? What are some of those other things that maybe don't get enough press that they're going to plug away at no Matter what?

Richard Gowan: Even just in terms of humanitarian crises and conflicts, the UN is right now focusing on a lot of situations that don't get enough headlines, as we were saying. I think this week the Security Council will be discussing a proposal, in fact, a US proposal, to expand the international police force in Haiti to try and deal with the gangs that have taken over the capital, Port au Prince. Then next week, on the 30th of September, there's going to be a special conference just after most leaders have left, talking about Burmese refugees in Myanmar who are trapped in camps, which are in appalling conditions.

There's a push by Bangladesh, which hosts the refugees, to try and get more support for them. We see some signs of more diplomacy now about ending the war in Sudan. By the end of the year, the Security Council has to renew the mandate for peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the US has actually been working to try and get a peace deal in the east of the country. The list is very, very long. The UN still runs peace operations involving about 60,000 personnel. It still runs about a dozen sanctions regimes, including sanctions regimes targeting Al Qaeda that actually pretty much every power likes.

Then the UN does a huge amount of work that we never think about, mostly not in New York, but work on keeping the wiring of a global order going. We have the International Telecommunications Union, which promotes cooperation on things like 5G. We have the Atomic Energy Agency, which assists countries on civilian nuclear programs. If you look across the UN, you realize that it's almost everywhere. It's involved in huge parts of international life. A lot of that technical work is actually continuing much as before, despite all the ructions in New York and in the Security Council.

Even if the Security Council were to become quasi-dormant, as it was for parts of the Cold War, I think there would be lots of bits of the UN that continued to plug away, doing some good. I think you point to a central question that a lot of diplomats and a lot of leaders are going to be asking this week, which is, can the UN maintain international peace and security? Now, if you look back over the UN's history, it's had some disastrous failures, such as the failure to stop the Rwandan genocide. Actually, there have been a lot of conflicts, including Cold War conflicts between India and Pakistan, where the UN played a key role in mediation.

Since the end of the Cold War, UN peacekeeping has done a pretty solid job in a lot of countries, like Liberia, ending civil wars and getting countries back on their feet. The UN can be a serious actor on peace and security issues, but it is worth saying that the way the UN is structured means that the organization can only really work on security matters if the big powers that have vetoes in the Security Council want it to. What we've seen in the last couple of years is a series of conflicts. Ukraine, Gaza, but also Sudan and Myanmar, where at least one of the three strongest veto powers, China, Russia, and the US, have not wanted the UN to act.

I think we're getting into a situation where the UN continues to do an enormous amount of underappreciated, solid work dealing with second-order challenges, including second-order peace and security challenges. It isn't in a position to stop the escalation of some of the really big crises that are threatening to blow up the post-1945 order. Now, that's bad for the UN, but you should keep in mind that it's not necessarily all the UN's fault. It is also the fault of the powers that are blocking action in the Security Council and elsewhere.

Brian Lehrer: On the post-1945 world order. It's amazing in a way, isn't it? I'll throw in this one, just really briefly, that after all these decades, it's still the United States, Russia, and China. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, after China opened to the West, after all of this, it's still the United States, Russia, and China 80 years later that are the three big powers in the world.

Richard Gowan: You're forgetting my country, the UK, which also retains a seat in the Security Council.

Brian Lehrer: Retains a seat, but I don't know, maybe we heard even last week in the Trump visit with Prime Minister Starmer, the UK is not what it was in terms of influence as a global power that rivals the US, Russia, or China, or disagree if you want, and then we're out of time.

Richard Gowan: No, I'm not going to stand up for my nation. I think just to end, this is a setup that also frustrates a lot of countries, because if you're India or if you're Brazil, you have seen your real-world influence expand a huge amount since 1945, but the structure of the UN has remained the same. There are a huge number of calls for UN reform. There will be innumerable meetings this week, some of which I will be sitting in, where people will talk about the importance of reforming the UN Charter. I think the politics of reforming the Charter are exceptionally hard right now. We're stuck with the UN that we've got rather than the one we would like to have.

Brian Lehrer: Richard Gowan, UN Director of the International Crisis Group. He wrote a preview of this week's annual General Assembly meeting on the website, Just Security. Thank you so much for this conversation.

Richard Gowan: Thank you so much.

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