Fox News’s former correspondent in Jerusalem, Leland Vittert, explained how his view on the Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution changed after his work in the Middle East during an interview with Bari Weiss for The Free Press last week.
“I used to have the conventional way of thinking, I sort of call it brainwashing, of a two-state solution before going to Israel,” Vittert told Weiss and detailed that the changing point happened after the Gilad Schalit deal.
“The deal included a woman named Waffa who was convicted for attempting to enter Israel with a suicide vest,” he explained.
Waffa was born in the West Bank and suffered from burns when she was very young, Vittert added. “She was treated twice by Israel, once when she was young and again after her failed attempt to enter the country with bombs,” he said.
According to Vittert, Waffa planned to bomb the same hospital that had threatened her when she was a child, and she failed to smuggle the explosives from the border.
“After being freed, I went to Gaza to interview her, showed her the video of her capture, and asked her if she had any regrets with what she did,” he explained, and then said that she not only had “no regrets, she actually thought it was her calling in life.”
Vittert's views on Israel, Palestine
Vittert also talked about how Israel did everything possible to de-radicalize Waffa, from the medical attention to even giving her the opportunity to study while detained and get a university degree.
“Israelis treated your burns, saved your life, you tried to blow them up, they still treated you again, they educated you, and now that you have a chance at life back in Gaza, you still want to blow them up?”
“That’s when I made up my mind about the Palestinian-Israeli debate. Israelis have their flaws, but that is what they are up against. And that’s not the exception, if you go to Gaza and stay a couple of days, you’ll see it,” he concluded.