October 13, 2025 • 49 mins
After two years of war, a deal has finally been struck. Hostages are coming home, Palestinian prisoners and detainees are being released, and Israel and Hamas have declared that the fighting is over. But can this really be the end?In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin - a man who has spent nearly five decades talking to both sides of the conflict, including Hamas.From back-channel talks to the Trump administration’s surprise role, Baskin reveals how this ceasefire came together, what it means for Gaza’s future, and whether it can last.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
It took me a long time to convince Hamas you have to talk
to Trump. He's the person that you got to
convince. Trump has an unprecedented style
of negotiations and diplomacy. We've never seen anything like
it before. I've never seen anything like it
before. The agreement had the vaguest
possible commitment to a road towards a Palestinian.
(00:21):
State. Yeah, forget it.
As long as Netanyahu's in power,forget it.
Ask anyone in this country who won this war.
I don't think we can talk about winners of this war.
Everyone lost. Hello, and welcome to the
Forecast. We're in Jerusalem today to talk
to Gershwin Baskin. Now, Gershwin is someone we
speak to quite a lot on Channel 4 News.
(00:41):
He is an Israeli negotiator. He's been intimately involved in
the events that have brought about this first stage of the
Trump plan, and he is also an advocate for A2 State Solution.
You say this is a big opportunity for both sides.
This is a very big opportunity. For one, after two horrible
(01:04):
years, the war is over, and thisis the most important thing that
we can talk about this morning. The declaration by both Israel
and Hamas, and of course the United States, Qatar, Egypt and
Turkey that the war is over is different from every other phase
of ceasefire that we've seen throughout the past two years.
This is the end of the war. The hostages will be coming home
(01:25):
in the next days. Palestinian prisoners will be
released, and then we'll see theemergence of everything that has
to happen on the day after, including the establishment of a
new Palestinian government, not Hamas, A Palestinian security
force, not Hamas, the multinational force that will be
on the ground in Gaza, includingtroops from Arab countries and
(01:48):
European countries and others. And this is the primary
guarantee that Israel won't attack Gaza again or that Hamas
won't attack Israel again. There are other elements in
there that the details need to be worked out.
The Egyptians are largely takingresponsibility for the details,
and the Egyptians are good at that.
And, and this agreement is backed by the entire world,
(02:08):
including most Israelis and mostPalestinians.
And do you believe all of that is going to happen in your
heart? I mean, there's enormous
scepticism, of course. This is essentially just a, you
know, a hostage exchange and anda ceasefire and that, you know,
they can just go back to it whenever they want.
So let let me put this with a big reservation.
I am an optimist. It's part of my DNA.
(02:31):
So it's difficult for me to sit here this morning and say to
you, no, it's not going to work.It's going to work.
It's going to work because thereis a determination that it has
to work. There are more than two million
homeless people in Gaza today. Gaza's destroyed.
There's no infrastructure, there's no water, there's no
food. There's no roads, there's no
sewage, no schools, no universities, no nothing.
Gaza is destroyed. People in Gaza, if you ask a
(02:54):
Gaza and what's your political solution to the Israeli
Palestinian conflict, they'll tell you go to hell.
I want to know where my next meal is coming from.
I want to know where I'm going to get my next bottle of water.
This is what's important to them, how we're going to live
tomorrow. And this is a change also
because it's not the politics involved now.
It's life and and life goes on and life will continue.
(03:15):
And the Gazans don't want Hamas there anymore.
The Gazans blame Hamas for destroying them.
So that's a good footing to start on now.
We have very bad leadership in this region.
We have bad leadership in Israel.
We have not so good leadership in Palestine and that needs to
change. So we're not looking at the
longer term future of what Trumpcalled lasting peace.
(03:38):
We're talking about ending the war, creating an ability for
Israelis and Palestinians to breathe.
Look around Israel, look around Gaza.
People are smiling for the firsttime in two years now.
That's not a sign that everything's going to work.
They're going to be difficulties.
There are obstacles, but we knowwhat has to happen.
We know how it has to happen andnow we have to make it happen.
(03:59):
Can you explain your role in allof this?
I mean, it's very unusual to speak to somebody like you who
is outside the government or anygovernment but seems intimately
involved in what's happened. OK, Until December of 2024, I
tried to engage the Israeli negotiators in in pushing them
(04:22):
toward understanding that the only way to get all the Israeli
hostages back was to end the war.
And I was talking to Hamas leadership people throughout the
period of the from the first days of the war and until today.
And and it was clear to me what were the contours of a possible
agreement. How were you able to have
relationships with all of those people?
I know I've been doing this workfor 47 years.
(04:43):
I'm well known. I ran a joint Israeli
Palestinian think tank for 24 years, joint Israeli
Palestinian, where we brought together more than 2000 working
groups of Israelis and Palestinians from every part of
Israeli and Palestinian society.I write a lot in the newspaper,
I'm interviewed in the media. My name is known.
I'm, I'm a peacenik, so I, I have that name dubbed over my
(05:06):
face. But nonetheless, I, I think that
what enables me to engage basically everyone is that I
have some kind of integrity. I am transparent, I tell the
truth, I have my principles, I don't waver from those
principles. And I've been doing this for a
very long time. And and as a self declared
(05:29):
peacenik, the Israeli governmentis interested in your help.
No, no, this is what was very clear.
This Israeli government was not interested in my help at all.
But let's face it, for 18 years I've been talking to Hamas
openly in the media. Everyone knows about it.
Everyone in the world knows about it.
And the police have been come knocking at my door arresting
(05:51):
me. That that is illegal by Israeli
law. And yet, three weeks before
President Trump entered the White House, I was sitting in
the office of the head of the Shin Bet talking to him about
discussions I have with Hamas. This is this is part of what I
do when I am breaking the law. I'm also communicating with
everyone who needs to hear what what the other side is saying.
(06:14):
So you're sort of an unofficial back channel to Hamas.
Yeah, no one appointed me. There have been times over the
last 18 years where I have done this.
Officially, there was a period in May of 2024 for a couple of
weeks where I was asked by the Israeli side to send messages to
Hamas, and I did that. But I was shut down after 2 1/2
weeks, probably when Netanyahu was informed that I was doing
(06:37):
this, and I was ordered to be shut down.
From minute to minute. I was shut down.
But I don't care. If I have a positive
contribution to make, I will make it.
And my main motivation is to save human lives.
Now, in December, when it becameclear to me that there was no
Israeli side to talk to, in September I brought an agreement
from Hamas to do what we're doing today, back in September
(06:59):
2024. And I got into Hamas in writing
in Arabic and English and a voice message, and no one on the
Israeli side would listen. In fact, the head of the
negotiations in Israel told me it's a great deal, but the Prime
Minister refuses to end the war.I went to Qatar and presented it
to them. I was with the Egyptians.
It got to the desk of President Biden, but it was it had got no
traction. So I came to the conclusion at
(07:21):
that point, particularly when Trump came into office and Trump
told Netanyahu that I want a ceasefire before I enter the
Oval Office. And the ceasefire went into
effect on December, on January 19th, the day before Trump
entered the Oval Office. It'd be very keen clear to me
that we don't have to talk to the Israeli side.
We only have to talk to Hamas and the Americans.
(07:42):
And of course the Americans wantto involve the Egyptians and the
Qataris at the time, and now also the Turks.
So it took me a long time to convince Hamas.
Every time they told me we talked about an idea and they
said Israel won't agree to that.I said to them, forget about
Israel. You're sitting in the room with
Donald Trump now. You're not sitting in the room
with Netanyahu. You have to talk to Trump.
(08:04):
He's the person that you got to convince Now.
The problem that I faced was that Trump and Witkoff believed
probably up until the assassination attempt in Doha on
September 9th, that Hamas could be defeated to the point of
surrender. This was the American attitude
(08:25):
and and I had big hopes of Trump's first meeting with
Netanyahu, that Trump would tellNetanyahu to end the war.
But instead, what happened was Netanyahu convinced Trump to let
us continue because we're going to defeat Hamas and they're
going to surrender. And you'd been telling them
that's not possible. I can tell them that Hamas will
never surrender to Israel. Never.
Hamas tell me we're willing to fight to the last Gaza and we
(08:48):
will never raise a white flag, particularly not to Israel.
To the Palestinian people they would, but not to Israel.
Now, they didn't buy that. And they gave me all kinds of
stories going back to World War 2 and the Nazis and Japan and
and even the South Bronx. I couldn't convince them.
But what changed everything was the attack of Israel in Doha
(09:11):
against the Hamas leadership, where there wasn't a single
person in the Middle East who didn't believe that Trump gave
the green light for this. There was no way that Israel
could have done this. Everybody thought they must have
been. Ill that's right.
Now Trump had a big problem because the interest of the
United States and of Donald Trump, the president and the
businessman, are much more in the Arab Gulf than they are in
(09:36):
the state of Israel. He has great affection for the
state of Israel and his political party.
The Republicans and the evangelical Christians all are
very big supporters of Israel. And he can't desert Israel.
But he couldn't allow Israel to jeopardize the relations and the
interests of the United States in the Arab Gulf countries.
So Trump quickly dissociated himself from the attack.
(09:57):
I got a a what's up in the middle of the night from
Witkoff, telling me I should tell everyone that the United
States had nothing to do with the attack. the United States
condemns it. He told me it's going to be in
Trump's Truth Social. And it was in.
The ultimate change came when after the General Assembly
meeting, when Netanyahu was invited to the Oval Office and
(10:20):
Trump handed Netanyahu the telephone and scripted for him
what he needed to say to the Prime Minister of Qatar, the
apology for attacking in Doha. And then when the cameras went
out of the room and the journalists were no longer
there, Trump said to Netanyahu, that's it.
The war is over. You're going to end the war now
and nothing. Y'all can't say no to Trump?
And you, you know that, do you? I know that because they're in
(10:41):
different versions. No, I know that for for a fact
that's what happened. Trump made it real.
You know, there's a new way of working in the world of
diplomacy today. You create reality and Trump put
it on his truth social. The war is over.
Nothing. Y'all agreed to it.
Israel agreed and that's it. He created the reality the way
Israel could not say no. And Netanyahu knew he was going
(11:03):
to have a problem back home withthe coalition, but he had a
majority in the coalition and that was not a real problem.
The next problem was how do we get Hamas to say yes?
Now he was depending upon the Qataris and the Egyptians and
me. I was getting repeated requests
from Witkoff to tell Hamas that they better accept the deal or
else. Hamas has heard the OR else
many, many times. What else could Israel do that
(11:24):
Israel hasn't already done? But nonetheless, I kept giving
them the messages and I kept telling them that that Trump is
serious. And the messages I got from
Hamas was we can't trust the Americans.
Look what they did to Doha. We what?
What kind of American guaranteesif we free the hostages, we're
willing to free all the hostagesall at once.
But how do we know that Israel'snot going to attack us the day
(11:46):
after? Initially, before the Doha
attack, the deal was that Trump was going to give a personal
letter, a personal guarantee from the president of the United
States that Israel will not attack again, Havas said.
That's not enough. That's a piece of paper.
It's not worth anything in. The reality of the creation of
the Multinational Force became much realer at that point
(12:07):
because the Multinational force,an Arab LED international force
with Arab participation, maybe Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, some
European support in Gaza on the ground.
This is unprecedented in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
This is the internationalisationof the conflict in Gaza.
If there are foreign troops in Gaza, that is the best buffer to
prevent Israel from attacking Gaza again and preventing Hamas
(12:30):
from attacking Israel. But haven't they got themselves
in a position where that's not really agreed?
Oh, it is in. Terms of the International.
Force. No, no, it is agreed and the
Internet and the various countries have agreed to send
troops. The question is already it's
going to happen. The question is when it's going
to happen. Who's going to lead the force?
I was telling the American side that in my mind it should be led
by an American general. If Trump doesn't want American
(12:53):
boots on the ground in Gaza, then at least have an American
general have an American administration leading the force
because everyone's afraid of Trump.
So you need to put it together in that way.
We'll see how we'll develop. Trump said they're going to be
200 American troops coming here,apparently this morning they
said they're going to be on the Israeli side or the Egyptian
side of the border and not in Gaza.
Physically. They're going to be dealing with
(13:14):
the logistics of the international aid coming in, the
construction materials and or whatever.
The role the Americans have is good for the process.
I think that this emerged because some of the countries
said why should we send troops if you're not?
So at what point did Hamas agreeto you that they would go along
with this? I mean, can you say who you were
talking to? No, I don't want to give names,
(13:35):
but there were. I've been in communication with
eight people in the leadership of Hamas, all outside, not in
Gaza. Three of them responded to me
regularly. One in particular, and that's
known, Ghazi Hamid, he's been myprimary interlocutor now for 18
years, and he was the main person I was dealing with, but
not the only person in Abbas's response to the initial 21
(13:58):
points that Trump put out was yes, but but Trump in a very
undiplomatic way, this is unprecedented, this kind of
diplomacy forced the way that heforced Netanyahu into saying
yes, he forced Hamas into sayingyes.
He created the reality. He put it on his true social
that Hamas said yes, and it wasn't yes, but Hamas said yes
(14:19):
to. The they hadn't.
They they hadn't at that point. That's amazing.
Yeah, it's really amazing. But what Trump did to make sure
that the yes is a yes is he brought in the Turkish
intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, who has a lot of
leverage. You know, a lot of people don't
know this. They think that the main base of
operation of Hamas is Doha, but the main base of operation of
(14:41):
Hamas is is Istanbul. After the Arab Spring 2012 in
and after the fall of Morsi in Egypt, all the Hamas people who
were in Syria and all the Hamas people were in in Egypt were in
Istanbul. There's a whole neighborhood in
Istanbul made-up of Muslim Brotherhood people from Egypt
and Hamas people. And Turkey has an enormous
amount of leverage on them. They're live free in Turkey as
(15:04):
long as the Turks allow them to live free there.
And Ibram Kalin, who's a good friend of Erdogan, who's a good
friend of Donald Trump and of Steve Witkoff, got him on the
phone and said, Ibrahim, we needyou to lock Hamas into the
steel. And the Turks, together with the
Egyptians and the Qatari strong armed Hamas and Sharm El Sheikh
(15:27):
happened. So, So what does it take to to
keep that on the rails and to stop?
I mean, you know, as we speak, there are Hamas gunmen on the
streets taking up positions where Israeli soldiers were.
Israel is warning that it could be like Lebanon and they remain
the you know. On the like Lebanon, and let's
(15:49):
face it for a moment, we need someone in Gaza to create law
and order because the 1st order of business is returning 20
living hostages and 28 deceased hostages.
Someone has to do that. If there isn't law and order on
the streets of Gaza, that can't be done.
So Israel has an interest, even though it's talking against it
(16:10):
has an interest. And most of the people who are
being deployed are part of the Hamas blue police.
They're not the gunmen of Esadena Qasamu across the border
on October 7th. Most of those are dead or in
Israeli prison. And most of the Israeli
commanders are no longer living either.
We have third, fourth level commanders.
(16:30):
And between you and me, most of those commanders who are alive
will take the option of leaving Gaza with their families,
probably to end up in Turkey or Malaysia or Indonesia or someone
somewhere outside of Gaza. The Hamas leadership abroad
agreed that the decision to leave Gaza is an individual
decision. They didn't rule it out.
(16:51):
They didn't veto it. They didn't say it's not going
to happen. Maybe in their public
announcements they say no, we will never leave Gaza.
Our commanders will stay there. What they said inside the closed
room is that every commander in Gaza wants to leave with their
family. And the Americans promised them
amnesty. Israel will not go after them
and kill them. Now, I can't promise you that,
(17:12):
but Trump told this to Hamas so.So when Hamas spokesman appear
right now saying we're not goingto give up our weapons.
Yeah, everyone has their narrative.
Look, everyone lies. First of all, everyone has their
own narrative. There is no way that Israel or
Hamas will declare defeat. Both sides declare victory.
(17:36):
Ask anyone in this country who won this war.
I don't think we can talk about winners of this war.
Everyone lost. We are a society in trauma.
In Israel, we are in pain. The past two days have been the
first two days in two years thatIsraelis have been able to
smile, to breathe. And in Gaza, there isn't a Gaza
(17:56):
who can stand up and say we won this war.
Why? Because France and England
recognize the state of Palestine.
Nonsense. That doesn't change their lives
this much. They lost the war, Israel lost
the war. There are no winners here.
Everyone lost. Now we have to lick our wounds
and get into the process of healing as societies and in Gaza
(18:18):
the business is to rebuild to tore establish life.
If you ask a Gaza and you do youwant a one state solution or
two, they tell what are you talking about?
I want to know where I'm going to be living tomorrow.
I want a roof above my head. So.
So at what point do you think the weapons get put away?
I think when there is a functioning non Hamas
(18:40):
government, when there's a functioning Palestinian security
force being supported by the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the
Emiratis, the Qatar, whoever's going to be supporting them,
when that security arrangement is working, the Israelis will be
forced by the Americans to totally withdraw from Gaza.
(19:01):
There will be a security perimeter around the Israel Gaza
border that I don't believe. At the end of the day, there
will be a single Israeli troop there, but it will be a no entry
zone, a shoot to kill zone for aperiod, an extended period of
time. All of this will happen
beginning in the coming weeks. We're having this as quickly as
that, I think. So the names of the Palestinians
(19:24):
to run the government have been reviewed.
Some of them have been vetted. Who are they mostly civil
society leaders? Private sector business people?
We'll see. There are different lists
floating around. Myself and my Palestinian
partner Samasin Jalawi have beenhaving repeated zoom meetings
with a group of civil society leaders and private sector
(19:47):
people from Gaza who drafted a letter to President Trump. 2
letters actually, which have already been delivered to
President Trump saying we are non Hamas people, we hold
positions in civil society and in the private sector, and we
want to work with you in rebuilding Gaza.
And are they in Gaza at the moment?
They're in Gaza, all Gazans. We're talking to only Gazans.
(20:08):
The Gazans have to run Gaza. There has to be some linkage to
the Palestinian Authority because one of the biggest fears
of the Palestinians and the Arabneighbors is that the separation
that existed for the past 20 years between the West Bank and
Gaza will become permanent. And that's not in the interest
of the Arab region. It's not, apparently in the
interest of the United States aswell.
(20:29):
And, and has the United Nations been cut out of this?
No, what what is supposed to happen and we'll see if it will
happen, and this is something that the Americans told the
Qataris, the Egyptians, the Turks and Hamas, is that the
deal will be brought to the Security Council for a Security
Council resolution that the Americans will support.
So we'll see if that happens. They understood the importance
(20:51):
of framing whatever is developing in in Gaza within
international legitimacy. And what about the on the ground
operation? Because obviously Unrah was the
primary provider of services in Gaza before and then Israel
could have cut it off. I don't know to what level of
detail they've gotten into this issue, but they have said that
the international organizations that were distributing
(21:11):
humanitarian aid before will come back and do the work.
I heard specifically that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
will be disbanded. I don't know if that's 100%
sure, but that was talked about.There's also a big question if
the aid is going to have to flowthrough Israel or it's going to
(21:32):
go directly to the Rafa crossing.
There's talk about returning to what was some form of the Rafa
Crossing agreement from 2005, which involved European Union
monitors. I don't know if that's robust
enough for the Israelis right now.
The agreement says that the Rafacrossing will be for people in
(21:52):
two directions. It has to become a commercial
crossing. Gaza can't depend on the whim
and will of Israel for everything going into Gaza.
But there has to be a mechanism to guarantee that weapons and
materials to produce weapons will not be entering Gaza.
And, and, you know, has there been a conversation about how
when you come to the rebuilding of Gaza, you're building it as a
(22:16):
potentially viable independence entity that is not entirely
dependent for its supply lines, power, water, whatever it might
be on Israel? That's right.
So there have been preliminary talks and various plans about a
Gaza seaport, even reopening A Gaza airport.
(22:37):
These are very preliminary discussions that will take time.
There's a big question of what to do with all the rubble, the
millions of tons of rubble, and people have said that could be
used for building a seaport, could be used for building an
island. What are the civil society
leaders that we talked about, wetalked with yesterday, was
saying that in the past when we tried to do these things, the
Israelis blocked us. How are we going to have a
(22:59):
situation where Israel is going to block every developmental
issue that we have for Gaza? And that's a big question here.
It's going to rely on the Americans and the Arab partners
and the others involved in the multinational force to ensure
that Israel doesn't have a veto anymore on what happens in Gaza.
Does all this depend entirely onTrump?
Yes. Keeping yes, the pressure on.
(23:19):
Right. Trump has to remain engaged.
People are afraid that Trump will wander off to somewhere
else. His attention span won't stay
focused on Gaza. I don't think that's real.
I think that Gaza is his biggestsuccess and will be probably his
biggest success internationally unless he reveals the Ukraine,
Russia war. We'll see what will happen with
that. Trump has an unprecedented style
(23:43):
of negotiations and diplomacy. We've never seen anything like
it before. I've never seen anything like it
before. It's a completely new style and
apparently, at least here, you need power or fear of power in
order to make politics. So, so, so if he doesn't, then
it it can all collapse because he could also, you know, have
(24:06):
his mind changed by events. I mean, you know, perish the
thought, but I mean, you know, if there was a, if there was a
massive attack somewhere, you know, that was in support of
Hamas or. Right.
Trump is unpredictable, so we don't know.
But I think that the foundationsthat are being laid in Gaza, in
the steel with Israel, placing Israel's interest within the
(24:28):
Middle East, Trump is talking about expanding the Abraham
Accords. It's very important to Israel.
Imagine now if Syria and Lebanonjoin.
Imagine if there's some kind of normalization with Indonesia,
the largest Muslim country in the world.
These are radical changes of events for Israel and changing
the Israeli psyche that we're not an island or as Netanyahu
(24:50):
like to call us, a villa in the jungle.
We're not in a jungle. The Middle East is changing and
Israel needs to be part of this Middle East.
Israel needs to be in good relations with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has conditions for that, and one is ending the
occupation. So we have to look forward to
that as well. I mean, the thing about this
conversation is, it is it is notlike many conversations you have
(25:12):
in Israel, but with political leaders, any of the viable
challenges, most of our Yahoo. Most of our political leaders
have a vision like this. They refuse to see the area that
we live in. Israel has adapted itself to a
belief system where any criticism of Israel is
anti-Semitism. It is not. anti-Semitism is
(25:35):
illegitimate. Always, in every place, at all
times, criticism of Israel is legitimate.
You can't call legitimate criticism, particularly by
friends of Israel, as being anti-Semitism.
Emmanuel Macron is not an anti Semite.
There's not a single inch of hisbeing that's anti-Semitic.
He is a huge critic of Netanyahuand the policies of the Israeli
(25:59):
government. And those are two different
things. And Israel is going to come out
of this trauma. So will the Palestinians.
And we're going to wake up to a new day when people say we've
been doing this for 100 years, we can't keep doing this.
This is the worst war ever. But that's still a big shift,
isn't it, for Israeli society? But it will happen because the
epiphany that will take place isso powerful because of the
(26:22):
losses that we've experienced over the last two years.
It will create a new reality. We need to help shape it from
the bottom up, and we need leaders who are going to voice
these new ideas and most. What's most important for the
Israelis is to hear from Palestinians that they want to
live in peace with Israel. What's most important for the
Palestinians is to hear Israeliswho say we want to live in peace
(26:42):
with Israel and we in civil society organizations like the
one I'm involved in, the Alliance for Two states, We're
going to help to create the reality with a very large
investment in social media campaigns of demonstrating that
the majority of Israelis and themajority of Palestinians want to
live in peace if they believed there were similar people on the
other side. What about the West Bank?
(27:04):
The same thing in the West Bank.I mean, the West Bank is a
disaster zone today. The only reason why the West
Bank is not exploding in violence today is because
everyone's looking around them and say I don't want my town, my
city, my village to become Gaza.They see what happened in Gaza.
(27:25):
They're suffering, they're unemployed.
The they're bankrupt. Israel is holding more than $2
billion of money that belongs tothe Palestinian Authority that
Israel collects in taxes for them. 200,000 Palestinians who
were working in Israel before October 7th have been unemployed
for two years. People don't have money to put
food on the table. There's a lot of mutual aid.
(27:47):
There's a lot of solidarity in the Society of people helping
each other. There's a tremendous amount of
settler violence. Israel is expanding the
settlements. One of the things that I believe
has been told to the Arabs by the Americans is that there will
be no annexation. Trump will not allow Israel to
annex territory in the West. But isn't annexation effectively
(28:09):
happening already? Yes, de facto.
It's happening not to Yuri. Trump won't allow it to be
happen to Yuri. We'll see now if we can get the
attention of the Americans once the Gaza stuff moves forward, if
we can get the Americans to focus on the reality in the West
Bank. They have a problem with Mahmoud
Abbas. They have a problem with the
Palestinian Authority. The Americans have to overcome
(28:32):
that. The Palestinian.
What's that problem? I I don't know where it emerges
from. I'll tell you what someone told
me was in Trump's first term, hehad a great meeting with Mahmoud
Abbas in the White House. He said, this is a great guy,
you know, And then the Israelis came with documentary footage of
every bad statement that Abbas ever made.
(28:53):
And, and, and he's made a lot ofbad statements.
And at that point, Trump said, this guy's got to go.
And that was it. The Americans cut off relations
with the Palestinian Authority. They wouldn't engage with them.
American diplomats here couldn'twork with them.
And, and the Biden administration, which promised
to change that, didn't. And on all the Arab states keen
(29:16):
on, you know, helping the, the, the, the West Bank and the
Palestinian Authority and the people there develop a, a more
plural political culture and, and, and is the PA receptive to
that? Look, the all the Arab states
want Mahmoud Abbas to go. There's a meeting taking place
in Jordan between Sena Sheikh, who's the official appointed
(29:38):
deputy of Mahmoud Abbas, and Tony Blair talking about the
future. And we don't know what kind of
role Tony Blair might play. He's apparently going to have
some role in this whole operation.
The international community is engaging with two people in the
Palestinian Authority, three people, maybe 1, is Hussain
Sheikh, the deputy of Abbas, who's younger Palestinians don't
(29:59):
like him. They think he's the height of
corruption. But he is the person that the
international community is engaging the Israeli security
engagement them. The second person they're
engaging with is Muhammad Mustafa, the appointed Prime
Minister. Hamid Mustafa is a businessman.
He wears a nice business suit. He was the head of the
Palestinian investment fund, thesovereign wealth fund, the
(30:19):
Palestinian Authority. He's been engaging in reform.
The Americans, the Brits, the Europeans have a lot of respect
for him and believe that he's really trying to do the job.
So the international community is willing to engage with them.
The fear of the international community is this separation.
They want to see a unification of the Palestinian territory and
the Palestinian issue and the overwhelming majority of the of
(30:42):
the international community wantto see a 2 state solution, not a
three state solution, not West Bank, Israel and Gaza, but
Israel and Palestine where the Palestinian Authority is, West
Bank and Gaza with some kind of connection between the two
territories. So they're fearful of doing
anything that would cement the separation.
They want to do something that will bring them together.
(31:03):
The French and the Saudis forcedAbbas in his letter to Mohammed
bin Salman in Macron to obligatemake a commitment that will
there will be Palestinian elections within 12 months.
There's an argument if it's 12 months from the date of the
letter, which was in June, or 12months from 2 days ago when the
ceasefire began, doesn't matter.Over the next, over the next 10
(31:24):
to 12 months there will be Palestinian elections.
That is the only way of defeating Hamas ultimately, and
it is the only way of creating Palestinian unity.
And what difference has the the Iran, Israel war had on this
whole process? I think it's not only Iran, it's
also what happened in Lebanon with Hezbollah, what happened in
(31:46):
Syria with, with Ashara taking over.
One of the examples that the Americans gave me to tell Hamas
is that look, look at this guy in in the in Syria, this was a
terrorist, Al Qaeda, ISIS, whatever.
And, and we made him kosher, we remove sanctions and we propped
(32:08):
him up in supporting him. What they said more or less in
or less they said if, if we can do this in Syria, we can do this
in the Palestinian areas as well.
If they cooperate, if their focus is on the positive side,
on rebuilding, on construction, on peace with Israel, everything
(32:29):
is possible. And is there a is there a Al
Shara in Hamas? No, I don't think so.
I think that Hamas, Hamas has been decimated.
I mean, the ideas of Hamas stillexist within Palestine.
They're dead in Gaza. I mean, the Gazans blame Hamas.
Hamas has no chance of reviving itself other than killing
everyone, which they could do. They could kill a lot of people.
(32:52):
And people were afraid of Hamas before and they're afraid of
Hamas now. But they don't want them.
The West Bank less so because they haven't lived under Hamas.
And there is no Hamas leadershipoutside of prison, either
Israeli prison or Palestinian Authority prison.
But the the West Bankers are areseeing the reality of Gaza.
And if it's a positive reality that develops, it will impact
also. But how?
(33:13):
How significantly has Iran been weakened as a as an influence?
I I don't know what to believe because everyone lies and and do
they still have? I mean, did you feel them as a
force in your negotiations? No, not at all.
They weren't there. Right.
They weren't influencing these negotiations at all.
At any point in the last two years.
No. Even the people within the Hamas
(33:34):
leadership who are known to be pro Iranian didn't really have a
voice here there. There was at least one of them
of the four negotiators in SharmEl Sheikh who was thought to
believe to be pro Iranian. I don't know to what extent he
still is, but it didn't impact the negotiations.
So, so let's come to the, you know, to the near.
(33:56):
What are the next steps? What needs to happen?
Monday, Trump will be in Israel speaking to the Israeli public.
I am 100% positive that whateverhe says will not be helpful to
the process that we've created here.
Why? Because he will talk very badly
about Hamas and we will talk very positively about Israel and
he will praise Netanyahu. At the rally in Hostage Square
(34:20):
celebrating the agreement, when Witkoff praised Netanyahu, the
audience booed. Witkoff was stunned.
He was like in shock. What do I do now?
The audience twice he mentions Netanyahu's name and 400,000
people who are in Tel Aviv booedNetanyahu.
Was that just a Tel Aviv thing? No lefty Tel Aviv.
Yeah, look, Netanyahu's support of 25% of the country, not more.
(34:45):
Even people in the court now arequestioning in not in his own
party if he has a future, maybe it's time for him to step down.
But when they called the name ofDonald Trump, the the audience
went crazy. They wow, Trump, Trump is more
popular in Israel than in any other place in the world.
I think he's more popular in Israel than he is in in Mar a
(35:05):
Lago in Florida, to that extent.But yeah, what needs to happen
now is the details of what the international community is
obligating itself. The first thing that needs to
happen is we need the international force to come to
Gaza. And this is what will move the
Israelis to withdraw further back.
Some of the Arab countries won'tsend troops until the Israelis
(35:28):
are further away out of Gaza, maybe entirely out of Gaza.
We need for the Palestinian temporary government of Gaza to
be established quickly. We need that government to
empower a Palestinian security force, which will largely be a
police force. Law and order has to be
established. We have 2 million people who
(35:50):
need to have their lives arranged.
I understand from the Americans that there's already commitment
of $2 billion now to be brought into Gaza for building
materials, to remove rubble, to create open spaces, to create
tent cities or caravan cities where people can reside while
(36:10):
Gaza is being rebuilt. There's a big issue that I
became aware of from discussionswith Gaza, with the Gazans.
Let's issue a personal property.This is one of the holy values
of the American Society. So I think President Trump
should be able to understand this.
If people say, OK, the building that I lived in was destroyed,
but the land under the building is mine.
And every inch of land in Gaza is registered in the Palestinian
(36:33):
Land Registry. And if land ownership is not
respected in the new era, there's going to be total chaos
in Gaza. No one will cooperate.
So you can't just come in and rebuild whatever you want and
they're say, say there's a home.That's right.
And you can't say that this piece of land who belonged to
Muhammad tomorrow belongs to Ahmed.
(36:54):
This is something which is holy.The Palestinian struggle for
freedom is about land, but the internal value within
Palestinian society is this landis mine.
It's not only the Palestinian people, it's mine.
I have a deed on this land and that has to be respected.
I don't know how that's going tobe done.
Guy I was speaking to yesterday was telling me that he owns.
(37:18):
Do we talk in hectares or acres or Dunham?
190 Dunham, which is 78 acres ofland next to the Eris crossing,
which is going to be part of thesecurity perimeter, a no entry
zone, a shoot to kill zone, saidwhat happens to my land?
I used to farm that land. I had a house on that land.
(37:39):
What's going to be the status ofthat land?
I now have an answer for him andI said we're going to have to
kick that can down the road there.
In Arabic we say kaushi bewakto.Everything has to be dealt with
at the right time. This is not the right time for
him to ask the question what's going to be the status of my
land? But that question has to be
asked and answered. In terms of the transitional
(37:59):
authority, you think that can beestablished reasonably quickly?
I think so. They've been talking about the
names now for about two months. Beyond that is the question of
statehood, now that the agreement had the vaguest
possible, yeah, commitment to a road towards a Palestinian.
State, Yeah, forget it as long as Netanyahu's in power, forget
it. There has to be a political
(38:20):
change in Israel, but we. Can keep, not just Netanyahu.
No, of course I, I think. They're all saying the same
thing. Abbas needs to be replaced.
There needs to be new leadershipin Palestine, new leadership in
in Israel. The framework, the framing of
this has to remain within a 2 state solution framework.
The international community willhelp to ensure that that
discussion remains alive. The reality on the ground won't
(38:42):
change until after Israeli elections.
If there are Palestinian elections before Israeli
elections and they actually elect people who support peace
with Israel, that will have a huge impact on the Israeli
electorate. So there's also a sequencing of
events that's important to happen here as well.
We need to generate these new voices on both sides because
people are afraid to speak up. When I speak on Israeli
(39:05):
television or Israeli radio likeI did this morning about peace,
people say, are are you insane? How can you talk about peace?
My answer is how can we not talkabout peace?
This has to be the last Israeli Palestinian war.
There still are 7 million Israeli Jews and 7 million
Palestinian Arabs living on the land between the river and the
sea. Palestine is not going to be
(39:25):
free by killing Israelis. There is no military solution to
this conflict and the conflict can't be managed.
It has to be resolved. You've talked about the turning
points in around the bombing of Qatar.
What are there other moments in the last two years that that we
should pick out and remember? Turning points, low points?
(39:49):
We've had lower low points and lower points and lower points.
And I'm not sure that we hit thethe rock bottom.
We could have gone lower if it wasn't for Trump.
You know, a high point would be in November when we saw the
women and children hostages comehome.
But again, Israel made a stupid decision of not continuing it.
(40:10):
Hamas breached the deal. They were supposed to deliver
more women and more children, and they were trying to deliver
dead bodies and elderly people. And Israel said no, That was
stupid. Because Israel was trigger
happy, they wanted to get back to war.
Israel could have gotten 10s of more hostages back at that
point. And we know that at least 40
hostages were killed in captivity.
They were taken alive and they were killed in captivity.
(40:32):
And that is a moral stain on thegovernment of the state of
Israel, in addition to all of its other sins that are
committed against the Israeli people.
And do you know what the truth is about whether hostages were
killed by Israeli bombing, or byHamas, or just by?
We don't know for sure. Look, every time that they
(40:53):
recovered deceased hostage, the Israelis said that they were
killed by Hamas after October 7th.
I don't buy that thousands of Palestinians are unaccounted for
because they're underneath the rubble of buildings that were
bombed by Israel. More than 80% of the buildings
in Gaza have been bombed by Israel or bulldozed by Israel.
(41:14):
It is very likely that there arehostages who are underneath the
rubble of those buildings as well, maybe some who will never
be recovered. And what, what do you think is
the way to approach the Israeliswho say all of this is lies?
You know, there, there was never, you know, we didn't kill
65,000 people. Or more.
(41:34):
Ignore it, you know. You're not going to change the
narrative. You know, people come up to me
in the street and they say you just broadcast lies.
You just tell the Hamas figures.Just ignore it.
I don't argue with these people and and there's no reason to
argue with them. The reality is what's important,
not what people are saying. We're shaping narratives now.
We're shaping new narratives that are false narratives.
The narrative of victory I already talked about, there's a
(41:55):
false narrative and people will live by them.
And what about the people you know in in European capitals who
believe they are supporters of the Palestinian state, who are
marching, who are holding banners, who are getting into
arguments on a daily basis? Are they?
Are they on the right side of history?
(42:16):
It depends what it is that they're calling for.
Those people who call from the river to the sea, Palestine will
be free and don't have an answerto the existence of Israel, are
doing damage to the Palestinian 'cause if people don't recognize
the reality that there are two nations living on this land that
(42:39):
they both claim as their homeland, then they're doing a
disservice. Whether they're friends of
Israel or friends of Palestine, if they don't acknowledge the
existence of both people here, both people's historic and
religious connection to this land, they're doing us a huge
disservice and they're not helping anyone.
(42:59):
And my advice was either change what you're saying or shut up.
It's not helpful. But Israel is accused of
genocide in Gaza. It is not the Holocaust.
It is not what the Nazis did to the Jews, but by the legal
definition of what genocide is, and I remind Israelis that after
World War Two, there were many Jews who were involved in the
(43:22):
writing of the Convention for the Protection for the
Prevention of Genocide. There were many Jews involved in
that process. If you read the convention for
the Convention for the Prevention of Genocide, what
Israel has done in Jagas is genocide.
And when Gaza opens up to the international media and the
world gets to see the real pictures, not just what the Arab
(43:44):
media has been presenting, but the reality of Gaza, Israel's
going to be in a very difficult situation because what Gaza has
become is unexplainable, unimaginable and unjustified.
And do you think that will happen soon?
Very soon, very soon, Gaza will be open to international
journalism. How long can you shut it off?
(44:07):
They will be there and people will be shooting pictures on the
ground and seeing the reality ofwhat Israel did in Gaza.
I mean, we, we must be careful not to dismiss the journalism
that has been done in Gaza. It's all real.
Those realities have been shown for two years.
By by Palestinian, by the way, the Israelis haven't seen it.
The Israeli media has self-centered itself, censored
(44:28):
itself. We see some of the physical
destruction. Most of the physical destruction
we see is in the loop. I saw, I saw on one Israeli news
site today, you know, drone footage of Gaza shows the
reality of the destruction. And I thought, well, what have
you been watching for two years?You know, we've been watching
that for two years. We haven't been, we haven't been
exposed to it. The Israelis don't watch foreign
(44:49):
media. We don't want to see the foreign
media. Forget about Al Jazeera.
No one watches Al Jazeera and and we don't believe the Gaza
broadcasters. The world has seen it, but you
know, being on the ground and experiencing it will be a whole
new picture that the world will be exposed to.
And your personal role? What?
What happens now? Right now, on this day, I am
(45:12):
trying to make sure that there are Gazans who are involved in
the discussions on the future ofGaza because right now it's
taking place without the participation of Gazans.
That seems to be the number one thing of importance right now is
to make sure the Gazans have a role in this.
Beyond that, the discussions have to continue between the
(45:32):
parties. One of the things that I'm doing
with my Palestinian partner is thinking about how we change the
narrative, how we create forces of partnership between Israelis
and Palestinians, how we demonstrate that we need to
raise a lot of money to do that.Because we're going to invest a
huge amount of money in social media.
That's the way to reach the young generation here.
And that's who we have to reach.And we want to do it in Hebrew
(45:55):
and in Arabic, English subtitles.
But demonstrating partnership, this is the most important,
urgent thing that we need to do because a majority of Israelis
and a majority of Palestinians will be willing to make
concessions for peace, real peace, if they believe there's a
partner on the other side. Right now they say I want peace,
but they don't I. Think just finally, I mean, I
think a lot of people watching this will think how on earth do
(46:17):
you say so positive? I I first of all, this is my
life. This is what I've been doing for
the past 47 years in the only way that I can remain in this
country and stay here with everything that's going on here
and most things that are going on here are against everything I
(46:39):
believe in, is by the hope that we have the power to make the
change. If I lose that hope, then I
don't know how I can stay in this country and I have no other
place in the world. I mean Israeli by choice.
I moved here at the age of 22 years old because I believed
that this was my home. I felt at home here.
(46:59):
That's how when people say what is Israel for you, the one word
that I use is home. My children were born here.
They feel less connected to herethan I do.
It's easier for them. My daughter left Israel 7 1/2
years ago, lives in the South ofFrance.
She lives in a postcard, beautiful place, has a wonderful
life. I have no place to go.
There's no place in the world that I feel at home other than
(47:21):
here. We have to be a society which is
just. We have to be a society which
believes in equality for all of its citizens.
We have to be a society that's at peace with our neighbors.
You know, I wrote my first article calling for A2 state
solution, calling for the establishment of a Palestinian
state next to Israel in a Jewishnewspaper out of California in
1975. That was a long time ago.
(47:44):
I represented about 2% of Israeli public opinion at the
time that I wrote that article. And I believe that that is the
only solution that enables Israel to be the Jewish nation
state, which is democratic, equal and just.
The only way we can do that is if we end the occupation.
We no longer rule over the Palestinian people.
(48:04):
We live at peace with them. And because the Middle East has
changed so much in the last decade, we as Israelis don't
have to see our focus in Europe.We're not European, we're Middle
Eastern and our neighborhood is the Middle East.
We're not the villa in the jungle.
We could be the villa in a very nice neighborhood because the
region is changing. When I talked to some of the
(48:25):
Gazans about how they should seetheir future, I said look at
Dubai, look at Doha. Maybe this is not the ideal
reality of urban life, but anyone who visits those places
is in awe of what was built out of the sand in 30 years.
It's an amazing place. Maybe it doesn't have the best
(48:47):
regime. Maybe we want more democracy and
more human rights. But if Gaza could come close to
the realities that are developing in the Middle East,
we will have peace here. Keshavnaska, thank you very much
indeed. Thank you.
That's the forecast. Until next time, bye bye.
It took me a long time to convince Hamas you have to talk
to Trump. He's the person that you got to
convince. Trump has an unprecedented style
of negotiations and diplomacy. We've never seen anything like
it before. I've never seen anything like it
before. The agreement had the vaguest
possible commitment to a road towards a Palestinian.
(00:21):
State. Yeah, forget it.
As long as Netanyahu's in power,forget it.
Ask anyone in this country who won this war.
I don't think we can talk about winners of this war.
Everyone lost. Hello, and welcome to the
Forecast. We're in Jerusalem today to talk
to Gershwin Baskin. Now, Gershwin is someone we
speak to quite a lot on Channel 4 News.
(00:41):
He is an Israeli negotiator. He's been intimately involved in
the events that have brought about this first stage of the
Trump plan, and he is also an advocate for A2 State Solution.
You say this is a big opportunity for both sides.
This is a very big opportunity. For one, after two horrible
(01:04):
years, the war is over, and thisis the most important thing that
we can talk about this morning. The declaration by both Israel
and Hamas, and of course the United States, Qatar, Egypt and
Turkey that the war is over is different from every other phase
of ceasefire that we've seen throughout the past two years.
This is the end of the war. The hostages will be coming home
(01:25):
in the next days. Palestinian prisoners will be
released, and then we'll see theemergence of everything that has
to happen on the day after, including the establishment of a
new Palestinian government, not Hamas, A Palestinian security
force, not Hamas, the multinational force that will be
on the ground in Gaza, includingtroops from Arab countries and
(01:48):
European countries and others. And this is the primary
guarantee that Israel won't attack Gaza again or that Hamas
won't attack Israel again. There are other elements in
there that the details need to be worked out.
The Egyptians are largely takingresponsibility for the details,
and the Egyptians are good at that.
And, and this agreement is backed by the entire world,
(02:08):
including most Israelis and mostPalestinians.
And do you believe all of that is going to happen in your
heart? I mean, there's enormous
scepticism, of course. This is essentially just a, you
know, a hostage exchange and anda ceasefire and that, you know,
they can just go back to it whenever they want.
So let let me put this with a big reservation.
I am an optimist. It's part of my DNA.
(02:31):
So it's difficult for me to sit here this morning and say to
you, no, it's not going to work.It's going to work.
It's going to work because thereis a determination that it has
to work. There are more than two million
homeless people in Gaza today. Gaza's destroyed.
There's no infrastructure, there's no water, there's no
food. There's no roads, there's no
sewage, no schools, no universities, no nothing.
Gaza is destroyed. People in Gaza, if you ask a
(02:54):
Gaza and what's your political solution to the Israeli
Palestinian conflict, they'll tell you go to hell.
I want to know where my next meal is coming from.
I want to know where I'm going to get my next bottle of water.
This is what's important to them, how we're going to live
tomorrow. And this is a change also
because it's not the politics involved now.
It's life and and life goes on and life will continue.
(03:15):
And the Gazans don't want Hamas there anymore.
The Gazans blame Hamas for destroying them.
So that's a good footing to start on now.
We have very bad leadership in this region.
We have bad leadership in Israel.
We have not so good leadership in Palestine and that needs to
change. So we're not looking at the
longer term future of what Trumpcalled lasting peace.
(03:38):
We're talking about ending the war, creating an ability for
Israelis and Palestinians to breathe.
Look around Israel, look around Gaza.
People are smiling for the firsttime in two years now.
That's not a sign that everything's going to work.
They're going to be difficulties.
There are obstacles, but we knowwhat has to happen.
We know how it has to happen andnow we have to make it happen.
(03:59):
Can you explain your role in allof this?
I mean, it's very unusual to speak to somebody like you who
is outside the government or anygovernment but seems intimately
involved in what's happened. OK, Until December of 2024, I
tried to engage the Israeli negotiators in in pushing them
(04:22):
toward understanding that the only way to get all the Israeli
hostages back was to end the war.
And I was talking to Hamas leadership people throughout the
period of the from the first days of the war and until today.
And and it was clear to me what were the contours of a possible
agreement. How were you able to have
relationships with all of those people?
I know I've been doing this workfor 47 years.
(04:43):
I'm well known. I ran a joint Israeli
Palestinian think tank for 24 years, joint Israeli
Palestinian, where we brought together more than 2000 working
groups of Israelis and Palestinians from every part of
Israeli and Palestinian society.I write a lot in the newspaper,
I'm interviewed in the media. My name is known.
I'm, I'm a peacenik, so I, I have that name dubbed over my
(05:06):
face. But nonetheless, I, I think that
what enables me to engage basically everyone is that I
have some kind of integrity. I am transparent, I tell the
truth, I have my principles, I don't waver from those
principles. And I've been doing this for a
very long time. And and as a self declared
(05:29):
peacenik, the Israeli governmentis interested in your help.
No, no, this is what was very clear.
This Israeli government was not interested in my help at all.
But let's face it, for 18 years I've been talking to Hamas
openly in the media. Everyone knows about it.
Everyone in the world knows about it.
And the police have been come knocking at my door arresting
(05:51):
me. That that is illegal by Israeli
law. And yet, three weeks before
President Trump entered the White House, I was sitting in
the office of the head of the Shin Bet talking to him about
discussions I have with Hamas. This is this is part of what I
do when I am breaking the law. I'm also communicating with
everyone who needs to hear what what the other side is saying.
(06:14):
So you're sort of an unofficial back channel to Hamas.
Yeah, no one appointed me. There have been times over the
last 18 years where I have done this.
Officially, there was a period in May of 2024 for a couple of
weeks where I was asked by the Israeli side to send messages to
Hamas, and I did that. But I was shut down after 2 1/2
weeks, probably when Netanyahu was informed that I was doing
(06:37):
this, and I was ordered to be shut down.
From minute to minute. I was shut down.
But I don't care. If I have a positive
contribution to make, I will make it.
And my main motivation is to save human lives.
Now, in December, when it becameclear to me that there was no
Israeli side to talk to, in September I brought an agreement
from Hamas to do what we're doing today, back in September
(06:59):
2024. And I got into Hamas in writing
in Arabic and English and a voice message, and no one on the
Israeli side would listen. In fact, the head of the
negotiations in Israel told me it's a great deal, but the Prime
Minister refuses to end the war.I went to Qatar and presented it
to them. I was with the Egyptians.
It got to the desk of President Biden, but it was it had got no
traction. So I came to the conclusion at
(07:21):
that point, particularly when Trump came into office and Trump
told Netanyahu that I want a ceasefire before I enter the
Oval Office. And the ceasefire went into
effect on December, on January 19th, the day before Trump
entered the Oval Office. It'd be very keen clear to me
that we don't have to talk to the Israeli side.
We only have to talk to Hamas and the Americans.
(07:42):
And of course the Americans wantto involve the Egyptians and the
Qataris at the time, and now also the Turks.
So it took me a long time to convince Hamas.
Every time they told me we talked about an idea and they
said Israel won't agree to that.I said to them, forget about
Israel. You're sitting in the room with
Donald Trump now. You're not sitting in the room
with Netanyahu. You have to talk to Trump.
(08:04):
He's the person that you got to convince Now.
The problem that I faced was that Trump and Witkoff believed
probably up until the assassination attempt in Doha on
September 9th, that Hamas could be defeated to the point of
surrender. This was the American attitude
(08:25):
and and I had big hopes of Trump's first meeting with
Netanyahu, that Trump would tellNetanyahu to end the war.
But instead, what happened was Netanyahu convinced Trump to let
us continue because we're going to defeat Hamas and they're
going to surrender. And you'd been telling them
that's not possible. I can tell them that Hamas will
never surrender to Israel. Never.
Hamas tell me we're willing to fight to the last Gaza and we
(08:48):
will never raise a white flag, particularly not to Israel.
To the Palestinian people they would, but not to Israel.
Now, they didn't buy that. And they gave me all kinds of
stories going back to World War 2 and the Nazis and Japan and
and even the South Bronx. I couldn't convince them.
But what changed everything was the attack of Israel in Doha
(09:11):
against the Hamas leadership, where there wasn't a single
person in the Middle East who didn't believe that Trump gave
the green light for this. There was no way that Israel
could have done this. Everybody thought they must have
been. Ill that's right.
Now Trump had a big problem because the interest of the
United States and of Donald Trump, the president and the
businessman, are much more in the Arab Gulf than they are in
(09:36):
the state of Israel. He has great affection for the
state of Israel and his political party.
The Republicans and the evangelical Christians all are
very big supporters of Israel. And he can't desert Israel.
But he couldn't allow Israel to jeopardize the relations and the
interests of the United States in the Arab Gulf countries.
So Trump quickly dissociated himself from the attack.
(09:57):
I got a a what's up in the middle of the night from
Witkoff, telling me I should tell everyone that the United
States had nothing to do with the attack. the United States
condemns it. He told me it's going to be in
Trump's Truth Social. And it was in.
The ultimate change came when after the General Assembly
meeting, when Netanyahu was invited to the Oval Office and
(10:20):
Trump handed Netanyahu the telephone and scripted for him
what he needed to say to the Prime Minister of Qatar, the
apology for attacking in Doha. And then when the cameras went
out of the room and the journalists were no longer
there, Trump said to Netanyahu, that's it.
The war is over. You're going to end the war now
and nothing. Y'all can't say no to Trump?
And you, you know that, do you? I know that because they're in
(10:41):
different versions. No, I know that for for a fact
that's what happened. Trump made it real.
You know, there's a new way of working in the world of
diplomacy today. You create reality and Trump put
it on his truth social. The war is over.
Nothing. Y'all agreed to it.
Israel agreed and that's it. He created the reality the way
Israel could not say no. And Netanyahu knew he was going
(11:03):
to have a problem back home withthe coalition, but he had a
majority in the coalition and that was not a real problem.
The next problem was how do we get Hamas to say yes?
Now he was depending upon the Qataris and the Egyptians and
me. I was getting repeated requests
from Witkoff to tell Hamas that they better accept the deal or
else. Hamas has heard the OR else
many, many times. What else could Israel do that
(11:24):
Israel hasn't already done? But nonetheless, I kept giving
them the messages and I kept telling them that that Trump is
serious. And the messages I got from
Hamas was we can't trust the Americans.
Look what they did to Doha. We what?
What kind of American guaranteesif we free the hostages, we're
willing to free all the hostagesall at once.
But how do we know that Israel'snot going to attack us the day
(11:46):
after? Initially, before the Doha
attack, the deal was that Trump was going to give a personal
letter, a personal guarantee from the president of the United
States that Israel will not attack again, Havas said.
That's not enough. That's a piece of paper.
It's not worth anything in. The reality of the creation of
the Multinational Force became much realer at that point
(12:07):
because the Multinational force,an Arab LED international force
with Arab participation, maybe Indonesia, Morocco, Turkey, some
European support in Gaza on the ground.
This is unprecedented in the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
This is the internationalisationof the conflict in Gaza.
If there are foreign troops in Gaza, that is the best buffer to
prevent Israel from attacking Gaza again and preventing Hamas
(12:30):
from attacking Israel. But haven't they got themselves
in a position where that's not really agreed?
Oh, it is in. Terms of the International.
Force. No, no, it is agreed and the
Internet and the various countries have agreed to send
troops. The question is already it's
going to happen. The question is when it's going
to happen. Who's going to lead the force?
I was telling the American side that in my mind it should be led
by an American general. If Trump doesn't want American
(12:53):
boots on the ground in Gaza, then at least have an American
general have an American administration leading the force
because everyone's afraid of Trump.
So you need to put it together in that way.
We'll see how we'll develop. Trump said they're going to be
200 American troops coming here,apparently this morning they
said they're going to be on the Israeli side or the Egyptian
side of the border and not in Gaza.
Physically. They're going to be dealing with
(13:14):
the logistics of the international aid coming in, the
construction materials and or whatever.
The role the Americans have is good for the process.
I think that this emerged because some of the countries
said why should we send troops if you're not?
So at what point did Hamas agreeto you that they would go along
with this? I mean, can you say who you were
talking to? No, I don't want to give names,
(13:35):
but there were. I've been in communication with
eight people in the leadership of Hamas, all outside, not in
Gaza. Three of them responded to me
regularly. One in particular, and that's
known, Ghazi Hamid, he's been myprimary interlocutor now for 18
years, and he was the main person I was dealing with, but
not the only person in Abbas's response to the initial 21
(13:58):
points that Trump put out was yes, but but Trump in a very
undiplomatic way, this is unprecedented, this kind of
diplomacy forced the way that heforced Netanyahu into saying
yes, he forced Hamas into sayingyes.
He created the reality. He put it on his true social
that Hamas said yes, and it wasn't yes, but Hamas said yes
(14:19):
to. The they hadn't.
They they hadn't at that point. That's amazing.
Yeah, it's really amazing. But what Trump did to make sure
that the yes is a yes is he brought in the Turkish
intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, who has a lot of
leverage. You know, a lot of people don't
know this. They think that the main base of
operation of Hamas is Doha, but the main base of operation of
(14:41):
Hamas is is Istanbul. After the Arab Spring 2012 in
and after the fall of Morsi in Egypt, all the Hamas people who
were in Syria and all the Hamas people were in in Egypt were in
Istanbul. There's a whole neighborhood in
Istanbul made-up of Muslim Brotherhood people from Egypt
and Hamas people. And Turkey has an enormous
amount of leverage on them. They're live free in Turkey as
(15:04):
long as the Turks allow them to live free there.
And Ibram Kalin, who's a good friend of Erdogan, who's a good
friend of Donald Trump and of Steve Witkoff, got him on the
phone and said, Ibrahim, we needyou to lock Hamas into the
steel. And the Turks, together with the
Egyptians and the Qatari strong armed Hamas and Sharm El Sheikh
(15:27):
happened. So, So what does it take to to
keep that on the rails and to stop?
I mean, you know, as we speak, there are Hamas gunmen on the
streets taking up positions where Israeli soldiers were.
Israel is warning that it could be like Lebanon and they remain
the you know. On the like Lebanon, and let's
(15:49):
face it for a moment, we need someone in Gaza to create law
and order because the 1st order of business is returning 20
living hostages and 28 deceased hostages.
Someone has to do that. If there isn't law and order on
the streets of Gaza, that can't be done.
So Israel has an interest, even though it's talking against it
(16:10):
has an interest. And most of the people who are
being deployed are part of the Hamas blue police.
They're not the gunmen of Esadena Qasamu across the border
on October 7th. Most of those are dead or in
Israeli prison. And most of the Israeli
commanders are no longer living either.
We have third, fourth level commanders.
(16:30):
And between you and me, most of those commanders who are alive
will take the option of leaving Gaza with their families,
probably to end up in Turkey or Malaysia or Indonesia or someone
somewhere outside of Gaza. The Hamas leadership abroad
agreed that the decision to leave Gaza is an individual
decision. They didn't rule it out.
(16:51):
They didn't veto it. They didn't say it's not going
to happen. Maybe in their public
announcements they say no, we will never leave Gaza.
Our commanders will stay there. What they said inside the closed
room is that every commander in Gaza wants to leave with their
family. And the Americans promised them
amnesty. Israel will not go after them
and kill them. Now, I can't promise you that,
(17:12):
but Trump told this to Hamas so.So when Hamas spokesman appear
right now saying we're not goingto give up our weapons.
Yeah, everyone has their narrative.
Look, everyone lies. First of all, everyone has their
own narrative. There is no way that Israel or
Hamas will declare defeat. Both sides declare victory.
(17:36):
Ask anyone in this country who won this war.
I don't think we can talk about winners of this war.
Everyone lost. We are a society in trauma.
In Israel, we are in pain. The past two days have been the
first two days in two years thatIsraelis have been able to
smile, to breathe. And in Gaza, there isn't a Gaza
(17:56):
who can stand up and say we won this war.
Why? Because France and England
recognize the state of Palestine.
Nonsense. That doesn't change their lives
this much. They lost the war, Israel lost
the war. There are no winners here.
Everyone lost. Now we have to lick our wounds
and get into the process of healing as societies and in Gaza
(18:18):
the business is to rebuild to tore establish life.
If you ask a Gaza and you do youwant a one state solution or
two, they tell what are you talking about?
I want to know where I'm going to be living tomorrow.
I want a roof above my head. So.
So at what point do you think the weapons get put away?
I think when there is a functioning non Hamas
(18:40):
government, when there's a functioning Palestinian security
force being supported by the Egyptians, the Jordanians, the
Emiratis, the Qatar, whoever's going to be supporting them,
when that security arrangement is working, the Israelis will be
forced by the Americans to totally withdraw from Gaza.
(19:01):
There will be a security perimeter around the Israel Gaza
border that I don't believe. At the end of the day, there
will be a single Israeli troop there, but it will be a no entry
zone, a shoot to kill zone for aperiod, an extended period of
time. All of this will happen
beginning in the coming weeks. We're having this as quickly as
that, I think. So the names of the Palestinians
(19:24):
to run the government have been reviewed.
Some of them have been vetted. Who are they mostly civil
society leaders? Private sector business people?
We'll see. There are different lists
floating around. Myself and my Palestinian
partner Samasin Jalawi have beenhaving repeated zoom meetings
with a group of civil society leaders and private sector
(19:47):
people from Gaza who drafted a letter to President Trump. 2
letters actually, which have already been delivered to
President Trump saying we are non Hamas people, we hold
positions in civil society and in the private sector, and we
want to work with you in rebuilding Gaza.
And are they in Gaza at the moment?
They're in Gaza, all Gazans. We're talking to only Gazans.
(20:08):
The Gazans have to run Gaza. There has to be some linkage to
the Palestinian Authority because one of the biggest fears
of the Palestinians and the Arabneighbors is that the separation
that existed for the past 20 years between the West Bank and
Gaza will become permanent. And that's not in the interest
of the Arab region. It's not, apparently in the
interest of the United States aswell.
(20:29):
And, and has the United Nations been cut out of this?
No, what what is supposed to happen and we'll see if it will
happen, and this is something that the Americans told the
Qataris, the Egyptians, the Turks and Hamas, is that the
deal will be brought to the Security Council for a Security
Council resolution that the Americans will support.
So we'll see if that happens. They understood the importance
(20:51):
of framing whatever is developing in in Gaza within
international legitimacy. And what about the on the ground
operation? Because obviously Unrah was the
primary provider of services in Gaza before and then Israel
could have cut it off. I don't know to what level of
detail they've gotten into this issue, but they have said that
the international organizations that were distributing
(21:11):
humanitarian aid before will come back and do the work.
I heard specifically that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation
will be disbanded. I don't know if that's 100%
sure, but that was talked about.There's also a big question if
the aid is going to have to flowthrough Israel or it's going to
(21:32):
go directly to the Rafa crossing.
There's talk about returning to what was some form of the Rafa
Crossing agreement from 2005, which involved European Union
monitors. I don't know if that's robust
enough for the Israelis right now.
The agreement says that the Rafacrossing will be for people in
(21:52):
two directions. It has to become a commercial
crossing. Gaza can't depend on the whim
and will of Israel for everything going into Gaza.
But there has to be a mechanism to guarantee that weapons and
materials to produce weapons will not be entering Gaza.
And, and, you know, has there been a conversation about how
when you come to the rebuilding of Gaza, you're building it as a
(22:16):
potentially viable independence entity that is not entirely
dependent for its supply lines, power, water, whatever it might
be on Israel? That's right.
So there have been preliminary talks and various plans about a
Gaza seaport, even reopening A Gaza airport.
(22:37):
These are very preliminary discussions that will take time.
There's a big question of what to do with all the rubble, the
millions of tons of rubble, and people have said that could be
used for building a seaport, could be used for building an
island. What are the civil society
leaders that we talked about, wetalked with yesterday, was
saying that in the past when we tried to do these things, the
Israelis blocked us. How are we going to have a
(22:59):
situation where Israel is going to block every developmental
issue that we have for Gaza? And that's a big question here.
It's going to rely on the Americans and the Arab partners
and the others involved in the multinational force to ensure
that Israel doesn't have a veto anymore on what happens in Gaza.
Does all this depend entirely onTrump?
Yes. Keeping yes, the pressure on.
(23:19):
Right. Trump has to remain engaged.
People are afraid that Trump will wander off to somewhere
else. His attention span won't stay
focused on Gaza. I don't think that's real.
I think that Gaza is his biggestsuccess and will be probably his
biggest success internationally unless he reveals the Ukraine,
Russia war. We'll see what will happen with
that. Trump has an unprecedented style
(23:43):
of negotiations and diplomacy. We've never seen anything like
it before. I've never seen anything like it
before. It's a completely new style and
apparently, at least here, you need power or fear of power in
order to make politics. So, so, so if he doesn't, then
it it can all collapse because he could also, you know, have
(24:06):
his mind changed by events. I mean, you know, perish the
thought, but I mean, you know, if there was a, if there was a
massive attack somewhere, you know, that was in support of
Hamas or. Right.
Trump is unpredictable, so we don't know.
But I think that the foundationsthat are being laid in Gaza, in
the steel with Israel, placing Israel's interest within the
(24:28):
Middle East, Trump is talking about expanding the Abraham
Accords. It's very important to Israel.
Imagine now if Syria and Lebanonjoin.
Imagine if there's some kind of normalization with Indonesia,
the largest Muslim country in the world.
These are radical changes of events for Israel and changing
the Israeli psyche that we're not an island or as Netanyahu
(24:50):
like to call us, a villa in the jungle.
We're not in a jungle. The Middle East is changing and
Israel needs to be part of this Middle East.
Israel needs to be in good relations with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has conditions for that, and one is ending the
occupation. So we have to look forward to
that as well. I mean, the thing about this
conversation is, it is it is notlike many conversations you have
(25:12):
in Israel, but with political leaders, any of the viable
challenges, most of our Yahoo. Most of our political leaders
have a vision like this. They refuse to see the area that
we live in. Israel has adapted itself to a
belief system where any criticism of Israel is
anti-Semitism. It is not. anti-Semitism is
(25:35):
illegitimate. Always, in every place, at all
times, criticism of Israel is legitimate.
You can't call legitimate criticism, particularly by
friends of Israel, as being anti-Semitism.
Emmanuel Macron is not an anti Semite.
There's not a single inch of hisbeing that's anti-Semitic.
He is a huge critic of Netanyahuand the policies of the Israeli
(25:59):
government. And those are two different
things. And Israel is going to come out
of this trauma. So will the Palestinians.
And we're going to wake up to a new day when people say we've
been doing this for 100 years, we can't keep doing this.
This is the worst war ever. But that's still a big shift,
isn't it, for Israeli society? But it will happen because the
epiphany that will take place isso powerful because of the
(26:22):
losses that we've experienced over the last two years.
It will create a new reality. We need to help shape it from
the bottom up, and we need leaders who are going to voice
these new ideas and most. What's most important for the
Israelis is to hear from Palestinians that they want to
live in peace with Israel. What's most important for the
Palestinians is to hear Israeliswho say we want to live in peace
(26:42):
with Israel and we in civil society organizations like the
one I'm involved in, the Alliance for Two states, We're
going to help to create the reality with a very large
investment in social media campaigns of demonstrating that
the majority of Israelis and themajority of Palestinians want to
live in peace if they believed there were similar people on the
other side. What about the West Bank?
(27:04):
The same thing in the West Bank.I mean, the West Bank is a
disaster zone today. The only reason why the West
Bank is not exploding in violence today is because
everyone's looking around them and say I don't want my town, my
city, my village to become Gaza.They see what happened in Gaza.
(27:25):
They're suffering, they're unemployed.
The they're bankrupt. Israel is holding more than $2
billion of money that belongs tothe Palestinian Authority that
Israel collects in taxes for them. 200,000 Palestinians who
were working in Israel before October 7th have been unemployed
for two years. People don't have money to put
food on the table. There's a lot of mutual aid.
(27:47):
There's a lot of solidarity in the Society of people helping
each other. There's a tremendous amount of
settler violence. Israel is expanding the
settlements. One of the things that I believe
has been told to the Arabs by the Americans is that there will
be no annexation. Trump will not allow Israel to
annex territory in the West. But isn't annexation effectively
(28:09):
happening already? Yes, de facto.
It's happening not to Yuri. Trump won't allow it to be
happen to Yuri. We'll see now if we can get the
attention of the Americans once the Gaza stuff moves forward, if
we can get the Americans to focus on the reality in the West
Bank. They have a problem with Mahmoud
Abbas. They have a problem with the
Palestinian Authority. The Americans have to overcome
(28:32):
that. The Palestinian.
What's that problem? I I don't know where it emerges
from. I'll tell you what someone told
me was in Trump's first term, hehad a great meeting with Mahmoud
Abbas in the White House. He said, this is a great guy,
you know, And then the Israelis came with documentary footage of
every bad statement that Abbas ever made.
(28:53):
And, and, and he's made a lot ofbad statements.
And at that point, Trump said, this guy's got to go.
And that was it. The Americans cut off relations
with the Palestinian Authority. They wouldn't engage with them.
American diplomats here couldn'twork with them.
And, and the Biden administration, which promised
to change that, didn't. And on all the Arab states keen
(29:16):
on, you know, helping the, the, the, the West Bank and the
Palestinian Authority and the people there develop a, a more
plural political culture and, and, and is the PA receptive to
that? Look, the all the Arab states
want Mahmoud Abbas to go. There's a meeting taking place
in Jordan between Sena Sheikh, who's the official appointed
(29:38):
deputy of Mahmoud Abbas, and Tony Blair talking about the
future. And we don't know what kind of
role Tony Blair might play. He's apparently going to have
some role in this whole operation.
The international community is engaging with two people in the
Palestinian Authority, three people, maybe 1, is Hussain
Sheikh, the deputy of Abbas, who's younger Palestinians don't
(29:59):
like him. They think he's the height of
corruption. But he is the person that the
international community is engaging the Israeli security
engagement them. The second person they're
engaging with is Muhammad Mustafa, the appointed Prime
Minister. Hamid Mustafa is a businessman.
He wears a nice business suit. He was the head of the
Palestinian investment fund, thesovereign wealth fund, the
(30:19):
Palestinian Authority. He's been engaging in reform.
The Americans, the Brits, the Europeans have a lot of respect
for him and believe that he's really trying to do the job.
So the international community is willing to engage with them.
The fear of the international community is this separation.
They want to see a unification of the Palestinian territory and
the Palestinian issue and the overwhelming majority of the of
(30:42):
the international community wantto see a 2 state solution, not a
three state solution, not West Bank, Israel and Gaza, but
Israel and Palestine where the Palestinian Authority is, West
Bank and Gaza with some kind of connection between the two
territories. So they're fearful of doing
anything that would cement the separation.
They want to do something that will bring them together.
(31:03):
The French and the Saudis forcedAbbas in his letter to Mohammed
bin Salman in Macron to obligatemake a commitment that will
there will be Palestinian elections within 12 months.
There's an argument if it's 12 months from the date of the
letter, which was in June, or 12months from 2 days ago when the
ceasefire began, doesn't matter.Over the next, over the next 10
(31:24):
to 12 months there will be Palestinian elections.
That is the only way of defeating Hamas ultimately, and
it is the only way of creating Palestinian unity.
And what difference has the the Iran, Israel war had on this
whole process? I think it's not only Iran, it's
also what happened in Lebanon with Hezbollah, what happened in
(31:46):
Syria with, with Ashara taking over.
One of the examples that the Americans gave me to tell Hamas
is that look, look at this guy in in the in Syria, this was a
terrorist, Al Qaeda, ISIS, whatever.
And, and we made him kosher, we remove sanctions and we propped
(32:08):
him up in supporting him. What they said more or less in
or less they said if, if we can do this in Syria, we can do this
in the Palestinian areas as well.
If they cooperate, if their focus is on the positive side,
on rebuilding, on construction, on peace with Israel, everything
(32:29):
is possible. And is there a is there a Al
Shara in Hamas? No, I don't think so.
I think that Hamas, Hamas has been decimated.
I mean, the ideas of Hamas stillexist within Palestine.
They're dead in Gaza. I mean, the Gazans blame Hamas.
Hamas has no chance of reviving itself other than killing
everyone, which they could do. They could kill a lot of people.
(32:52):
And people were afraid of Hamas before and they're afraid of
Hamas now. But they don't want them.
The West Bank less so because they haven't lived under Hamas.
And there is no Hamas leadershipoutside of prison, either
Israeli prison or Palestinian Authority prison.
But the the West Bankers are areseeing the reality of Gaza.
And if it's a positive reality that develops, it will impact
also. But how?
(33:13):
How significantly has Iran been weakened as a as an influence?
I I don't know what to believe because everyone lies and and do
they still have? I mean, did you feel them as a
force in your negotiations? No, not at all.
They weren't there. Right.
They weren't influencing these negotiations at all.
At any point in the last two years.
No. Even the people within the Hamas
(33:34):
leadership who are known to be pro Iranian didn't really have a
voice here there. There was at least one of them
of the four negotiators in SharmEl Sheikh who was thought to
believe to be pro Iranian. I don't know to what extent he
still is, but it didn't impact the negotiations.
So, so let's come to the, you know, to the near.
(33:56):
What are the next steps? What needs to happen?
Monday, Trump will be in Israel speaking to the Israeli public.
I am 100% positive that whateverhe says will not be helpful to
the process that we've created here.
Why? Because he will talk very badly
about Hamas and we will talk very positively about Israel and
he will praise Netanyahu. At the rally in Hostage Square
(34:20):
celebrating the agreement, when Witkoff praised Netanyahu, the
audience booed. Witkoff was stunned.
He was like in shock. What do I do now?
The audience twice he mentions Netanyahu's name and 400,000
people who are in Tel Aviv booedNetanyahu.
Was that just a Tel Aviv thing? No lefty Tel Aviv.
Yeah, look, Netanyahu's support of 25% of the country, not more.
(34:45):
Even people in the court now arequestioning in not in his own
party if he has a future, maybe it's time for him to step down.
But when they called the name ofDonald Trump, the the audience
went crazy. They wow, Trump, Trump is more
popular in Israel than in any other place in the world.
I think he's more popular in Israel than he is in in Mar a
(35:05):
Lago in Florida, to that extent.But yeah, what needs to happen
now is the details of what the international community is
obligating itself. The first thing that needs to
happen is we need the international force to come to
Gaza. And this is what will move the
Israelis to withdraw further back.
Some of the Arab countries won'tsend troops until the Israelis
(35:28):
are further away out of Gaza, maybe entirely out of Gaza.
We need for the Palestinian temporary government of Gaza to
be established quickly. We need that government to
empower a Palestinian security force, which will largely be a
police force. Law and order has to be
established. We have 2 million people who
(35:50):
need to have their lives arranged.
I understand from the Americans that there's already commitment
of $2 billion now to be brought into Gaza for building
materials, to remove rubble, to create open spaces, to create
tent cities or caravan cities where people can reside while
(36:10):
Gaza is being rebuilt. There's a big issue that I
became aware of from discussionswith Gaza, with the Gazans.
Let's issue a personal property.This is one of the holy values
of the American Society. So I think President Trump
should be able to understand this.
If people say, OK, the building that I lived in was destroyed,
but the land under the building is mine.
And every inch of land in Gaza is registered in the Palestinian
(36:33):
Land Registry. And if land ownership is not
respected in the new era, there's going to be total chaos
in Gaza. No one will cooperate.
So you can't just come in and rebuild whatever you want and
they're say, say there's a home.That's right.
And you can't say that this piece of land who belonged to
Muhammad tomorrow belongs to Ahmed.
(36:54):
This is something which is holy.The Palestinian struggle for
freedom is about land, but the internal value within
Palestinian society is this landis mine.
It's not only the Palestinian people, it's mine.
I have a deed on this land and that has to be respected.
I don't know how that's going tobe done.
Guy I was speaking to yesterday was telling me that he owns.
(37:18):
Do we talk in hectares or acres or Dunham?
190 Dunham, which is 78 acres ofland next to the Eris crossing,
which is going to be part of thesecurity perimeter, a no entry
zone, a shoot to kill zone, saidwhat happens to my land?
I used to farm that land. I had a house on that land.
(37:39):
What's going to be the status ofthat land?
I now have an answer for him andI said we're going to have to
kick that can down the road there.
In Arabic we say kaushi bewakto.Everything has to be dealt with
at the right time. This is not the right time for
him to ask the question what's going to be the status of my
land? But that question has to be
asked and answered. In terms of the transitional
(37:59):
authority, you think that can beestablished reasonably quickly?
I think so. They've been talking about the
names now for about two months. Beyond that is the question of
statehood, now that the agreement had the vaguest
possible, yeah, commitment to a road towards a Palestinian.
State, Yeah, forget it as long as Netanyahu's in power, forget
it. There has to be a political
(38:20):
change in Israel, but we. Can keep, not just Netanyahu.
No, of course I, I think. They're all saying the same
thing. Abbas needs to be replaced.
There needs to be new leadershipin Palestine, new leadership in
in Israel. The framework, the framing of
this has to remain within a 2 state solution framework.
The international community willhelp to ensure that that
discussion remains alive. The reality on the ground won't
(38:42):
change until after Israeli elections.
If there are Palestinian elections before Israeli
elections and they actually elect people who support peace
with Israel, that will have a huge impact on the Israeli
electorate. So there's also a sequencing of
events that's important to happen here as well.
We need to generate these new voices on both sides because
people are afraid to speak up. When I speak on Israeli
(39:05):
television or Israeli radio likeI did this morning about peace,
people say, are are you insane? How can you talk about peace?
My answer is how can we not talkabout peace?
This has to be the last Israeli Palestinian war.
There still are 7 million Israeli Jews and 7 million
Palestinian Arabs living on the land between the river and the
sea. Palestine is not going to be
(39:25):
free by killing Israelis. There is no military solution to
this conflict and the conflict can't be managed.
It has to be resolved. You've talked about the turning
points in around the bombing of Qatar.
What are there other moments in the last two years that that we
should pick out and remember? Turning points, low points?
(39:49):
We've had lower low points and lower points and lower points.
And I'm not sure that we hit thethe rock bottom.
We could have gone lower if it wasn't for Trump.
You know, a high point would be in November when we saw the
women and children hostages comehome.
But again, Israel made a stupid decision of not continuing it.
(40:10):
Hamas breached the deal. They were supposed to deliver
more women and more children, and they were trying to deliver
dead bodies and elderly people. And Israel said no, That was
stupid. Because Israel was trigger
happy, they wanted to get back to war.
Israel could have gotten 10s of more hostages back at that
point. And we know that at least 40
hostages were killed in captivity.
They were taken alive and they were killed in captivity.
(40:32):
And that is a moral stain on thegovernment of the state of
Israel, in addition to all of its other sins that are
committed against the Israeli people.
And do you know what the truth is about whether hostages were
killed by Israeli bombing, or byHamas, or just by?
We don't know for sure. Look, every time that they
(40:53):
recovered deceased hostage, the Israelis said that they were
killed by Hamas after October 7th.
I don't buy that thousands of Palestinians are unaccounted for
because they're underneath the rubble of buildings that were
bombed by Israel. More than 80% of the buildings
in Gaza have been bombed by Israel or bulldozed by Israel.
(41:14):
It is very likely that there arehostages who are underneath the
rubble of those buildings as well, maybe some who will never
be recovered. And what, what do you think is
the way to approach the Israeliswho say all of this is lies?
You know, there, there was never, you know, we didn't kill
65,000 people. Or more.
(41:34):
Ignore it, you know. You're not going to change the
narrative. You know, people come up to me
in the street and they say you just broadcast lies.
You just tell the Hamas figures.Just ignore it.
I don't argue with these people and and there's no reason to
argue with them. The reality is what's important,
not what people are saying. We're shaping narratives now.
We're shaping new narratives that are false narratives.
The narrative of victory I already talked about, there's a
(41:55):
false narrative and people will live by them.
And what about the people you know in in European capitals who
believe they are supporters of the Palestinian state, who are
marching, who are holding banners, who are getting into
arguments on a daily basis? Are they?
Are they on the right side of history?
(42:16):
It depends what it is that they're calling for.
Those people who call from the river to the sea, Palestine will
be free and don't have an answerto the existence of Israel, are
doing damage to the Palestinian 'cause if people don't recognize
the reality that there are two nations living on this land that
(42:39):
they both claim as their homeland, then they're doing a
disservice. Whether they're friends of
Israel or friends of Palestine, if they don't acknowledge the
existence of both people here, both people's historic and
religious connection to this land, they're doing us a huge
disservice and they're not helping anyone.
(42:59):
And my advice was either change what you're saying or shut up.
It's not helpful. But Israel is accused of
genocide in Gaza. It is not the Holocaust.
It is not what the Nazis did to the Jews, but by the legal
definition of what genocide is, and I remind Israelis that after
World War Two, there were many Jews who were involved in the
(43:22):
writing of the Convention for the Protection for the
Prevention of Genocide. There were many Jews involved in
that process. If you read the convention for
the Convention for the Prevention of Genocide, what
Israel has done in Jagas is genocide.
And when Gaza opens up to the international media and the
world gets to see the real pictures, not just what the Arab
(43:44):
media has been presenting, but the reality of Gaza, Israel's
going to be in a very difficult situation because what Gaza has
become is unexplainable, unimaginable and unjustified.
And do you think that will happen soon?
Very soon, very soon, Gaza will be open to international
journalism. How long can you shut it off?
(44:07):
They will be there and people will be shooting pictures on the
ground and seeing the reality ofwhat Israel did in Gaza.
I mean, we, we must be careful not to dismiss the journalism
that has been done in Gaza. It's all real.
Those realities have been shown for two years.
By by Palestinian, by the way, the Israelis haven't seen it.
The Israeli media has self-centered itself, censored
(44:28):
itself. We see some of the physical
destruction. Most of the physical destruction
we see is in the loop. I saw, I saw on one Israeli news
site today, you know, drone footage of Gaza shows the
reality of the destruction. And I thought, well, what have
you been watching for two years?You know, we've been watching
that for two years. We haven't been, we haven't been
exposed to it. The Israelis don't watch foreign
(44:49):
media. We don't want to see the foreign
media. Forget about Al Jazeera.
No one watches Al Jazeera and and we don't believe the Gaza
broadcasters. The world has seen it, but you
know, being on the ground and experiencing it will be a whole
new picture that the world will be exposed to.
And your personal role? What?
What happens now? Right now, on this day, I am
(45:12):
trying to make sure that there are Gazans who are involved in
the discussions on the future ofGaza because right now it's
taking place without the participation of Gazans.
That seems to be the number one thing of importance right now is
to make sure the Gazans have a role in this.
Beyond that, the discussions have to continue between the
(45:32):
parties. One of the things that I'm doing
with my Palestinian partner is thinking about how we change the
narrative, how we create forces of partnership between Israelis
and Palestinians, how we demonstrate that we need to
raise a lot of money to do that.Because we're going to invest a
huge amount of money in social media.
That's the way to reach the young generation here.
And that's who we have to reach.And we want to do it in Hebrew
(45:55):
and in Arabic, English subtitles.
But demonstrating partnership, this is the most important,
urgent thing that we need to do because a majority of Israelis
and a majority of Palestinians will be willing to make
concessions for peace, real peace, if they believe there's a
partner on the other side. Right now they say I want peace,
but they don't I. Think just finally, I mean, I
think a lot of people watching this will think how on earth do
(46:17):
you say so positive? I I first of all, this is my
life. This is what I've been doing for
the past 47 years in the only way that I can remain in this
country and stay here with everything that's going on here
and most things that are going on here are against everything I
(46:39):
believe in, is by the hope that we have the power to make the
change. If I lose that hope, then I
don't know how I can stay in this country and I have no other
place in the world. I mean Israeli by choice.
I moved here at the age of 22 years old because I believed
that this was my home. I felt at home here.
(46:59):
That's how when people say what is Israel for you, the one word
that I use is home. My children were born here.
They feel less connected to herethan I do.
It's easier for them. My daughter left Israel 7 1/2
years ago, lives in the South ofFrance.
She lives in a postcard, beautiful place, has a wonderful
life. I have no place to go.
There's no place in the world that I feel at home other than
(47:21):
here. We have to be a society which is
just. We have to be a society which
believes in equality for all of its citizens.
We have to be a society that's at peace with our neighbors.
You know, I wrote my first article calling for A2 state
solution, calling for the establishment of a Palestinian
state next to Israel in a Jewishnewspaper out of California in
1975. That was a long time ago.
(47:44):
I represented about 2% of Israeli public opinion at the
time that I wrote that article. And I believe that that is the
only solution that enables Israel to be the Jewish nation
state, which is democratic, equal and just.
The only way we can do that is if we end the occupation.
We no longer rule over the Palestinian people.
(48:04):
We live at peace with them. And because the Middle East has
changed so much in the last decade, we as Israelis don't
have to see our focus in Europe.We're not European, we're Middle
Eastern and our neighborhood is the Middle East.
We're not the villa in the jungle.
We could be the villa in a very nice neighborhood because the
region is changing. When I talked to some of the
(48:25):
Gazans about how they should seetheir future, I said look at
Dubai, look at Doha. Maybe this is not the ideal
reality of urban life, but anyone who visits those places
is in awe of what was built out of the sand in 30 years.
It's an amazing place. Maybe it doesn't have the best
(48:47):
regime. Maybe we want more democracy and
more human rights. But if Gaza could come close to
the realities that are developing in the Middle East,
we will have peace here. Keshavnaska, thank you very much
indeed. Thank you.
That's the forecast. Until next time, bye bye.
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