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00:00We can now bring in Hossein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in
00:06Washington DC. Thank you so much for joining us here on the program today. It seemed like
00:10the ceasefire deal in place between Israel and Hamas was on very shaky ground last week,
00:16but then over the weekend, we saw Hamas release the hostages on its end and then Palestinian
00:21prisoners were freed by Israel. Are things more solid now?
00:27I think a little bit, yes. Look, Hamas really wants the second phase to go forward because
00:32they are reemerging as the power in Gaza. They're rebuilding their civil authority
00:38every day in different parts of Gaza. And this is a strategic choice by Israel to prefer the
00:46reemergence of Hamas in Gaza to anything that might be connected to the PLO and the PA in Ramallah,
00:52because that's the Palestinian entity that could form a state. Hamas is not going to be able to
00:58form a state. It's too radioactive, too extreme, and that's not even its project. So ultimately,
01:05Israel has a choice. Either it can go along with President Trump and enter into phase two, which,
01:14as Noga just pointed out really well, will mean the end of the war. And that will mean, essentially,
01:20the return of Hamas rule in Gaza, the one thing Israel said it would never accept. Or they can go
01:27ahead and start scrambling to do the thing they've never done since the beginning of the war, which is
01:32start arranging for an alternative, which would be a PLO-PA connected alternative regime in Gaza.
01:41And they just don't know what to do. Or they could go back to the war, which would really infuriate
01:46Donald Trump. Now, Marco Rubio was in Israel over the weekend, where he discussed Donald Trump's
01:52plan to transfer the Palestinian population out of Gaza. This is ethnic cleansing. It's a non-starter
02:00for Arab states. So why are we still talking about it if the only one on board is Benjamin Netanyahu?
02:06Well, we're talking about it because the person who's blathering this gibberish is in the White
02:12House, right? So that means that diplomats and government officials and journalists all over the
02:17world have no choice but to take it seriously. I mean, he could say, and then we're going to
02:22colonize Jupiter. And people would all run around talking about the feasibility of colonizing
02:29Jupiter. It's about as remote as that. I think those of us who are not diplomats and government
02:35officials ought to just do the public a favor and say, there's no Trump-Gaza plan, there's no
02:41alternative Gaza plan. This is all just complete, you know, lysergic LSD nonsense, right?
02:49What it is, is some sort of either negotiating ploy or bloviating, or maybe Trump is setting
03:00up something for the West Bank, for annexation in the West Bank as compensation to Israel
03:06when he tries to do a nuclear deal with Iran, which is a relatively light lift. It could be
03:11something like that. But the Palestinians in Gaza are not going anywhere. There's nowhere for them
03:17to go. Because it seems that Donald Trump would not want to put his ultimate goal, which is
03:22normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia in jeopardy, given that Saudi Arabia has said
03:27there won't be any normalization with Israel without a Palestinian state. So my view, honestly,
03:34is that Saudi normalization has now taken a back seat to a deal with Iran. I think Saudi
03:40normalization is a very heavy lift because it requires Israel to at least recognize the Palestinian
03:47right to a state between the river and the sea, in what they call Eretz Israel, in Israel
03:54and the occupied territories. The Israelis are not prepared to do that. And that's the minimum
03:59the Saudis could take. And they're not going to do it. Whereas a deal with Iran is just sitting
04:05there ready to be done. It's a very light lift at this point, because Trump needs it. The Iranians
04:12need it. Both sides need it. And the only problem is it's going to infuriate the Israelis and their
04:19evangelical and Jewish friends in the United States. So Trump has to compensate them with
04:24something. And I think he's teeing up annexation in the West Bank. And all this talk about Gaza
04:31just sets an atmosphere about Palestinians and their rights and their obligations and where
04:38they should be and go and their land that can be then transferred into the West Bank from a fake
04:45thing in Gaza that can't be done to a very real thing that can easily be done in the West Bank.
04:51Hussein, talks to enter phase two of the current ceasefire that's in place were due to begin
04:57two weeks ago. They haven't started. Netanyahu has been dragging his feet more so after he visited
05:02his friend Donald Trump in the White House. But at the same time, it's been 500 days since those
05:07hostages were taken into Gaza. Where's the sense of urgency on the part of the Israelis?
05:14Well, there is one, in fact. It's there in the public, which wants all the hostages released.
05:21And that means doing phase two, because all the hostages are released at the end of phase two,
05:27which, as Noga pointed out in your package there, means the end of the war. And Netanyahu doesn't
05:35want that. But you know who does? The Israeli public wants it. And the Israeli military wants
05:40it, because right now they're fighting a war and they're bleeding soldiers. Every week they
05:46lose several to an insurgency with no goal. There's no purpose here. There's no articulated
05:52end. So they're pressuring him. Donald Trump is pressuring him because he wants all the hostages
05:58out, which means phase two. Everybody's pressuring him except the ultra right in Israel, which he
06:06relies on to stay in power. So he's in a complete bind. Everyone wants phase two except the people
06:12he relies on to stay in power within the cabinet. He doesn't know what to do. So it's really a big
06:19problem. And by the way, the ultimate question is, that means Israel would be making a strategic
06:25choice to leave Hamas in power in Gaza. And that would mean a total failure of this devastating,
06:32brutal, near-genocidal war that they fought for the past year and a half. And that's a terrible
06:37thing. Because at the end of 15 months, what we have seen every time Hamas releases a batch of
06:43hostages, it's demonstrating to the world with those Hollywood-style productions, which we've
06:48seen, that they are very much in control. Of course. But there's no one else, because
06:54Israel, they're in control because Israel decided to leave them in control. There has been an
06:59alternative on the table since November of 2023. Since a few weeks after the war began,
07:07everybody from the Americans to the Europeans to the Arabs and Asians and others were talking about
07:13the need for an alternative civil administration in Gaza. But the problem for Israel is it would
07:20be tied directly or indirectly back to Ramallah, back to the PLO and the PA. And they fear the PLO
07:27and the PA more than they fear Hamas, because they are the ones who could create a Palestinian
07:32state. And Hamas will not, because it's radioactive and it's not even Hamas' project to create a
07:38Palestinian state. So they have preferred to leave Hamas in power. It's a strategic decision.
07:44But I just want to jump in there, because the problem with the Palestinian Authority is,
07:48does it have any legitimacy given Mahmoud Abbas's tenure, which has gone on forever?
07:56Yeah. Okay. So the Palestinian Authority has a lot of legitimacy problems, but it has
08:04legitimacy in the international community. He's not only the head of the PA, he's the head of the
08:10PLO. And everyone, even Hamas, agrees that the PLO represents the Palestinians diplomatically.
08:17And he is still the leading Palestinian. There's never been a leader of Hamas who could challenge
08:24him as a national leader. And so despite all the crisis of legitimacy, you rightly point out,
08:31yes, he could. And it wouldn't be him. It would be someone else like Salam Fayyad or
08:37Mahmoud Al-Anon or some businessman or somebody who would be the titular head of a civic
08:42administration. And it might even, to please the Israelis, be nominally independent. But in fact,
08:49it would draw its legitimacy from the PLO, ultimately, leading back not just to Abbas,
08:54but the whole wretched crew in Ramallah. But are they legitimate? Well, sure they are. Yes.
09:01Hussein Ibish, thank you so much for joining us on the program today with your insights.