Can peace in Gaza last?
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This is On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. Two weeks ago, Israel and Hamas announced that they had reached a ceasefire agreement to pause the 15-month war in Gaza. Two more phases of the agreement are yet to be determined. The first phase, involving the exchange of hostages and the end of violence, began on Sunday, January 19th.

But just a day before the ceasefire began, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also sent a warning to Hamas. He said, quote, if we must return to fighting, we will do that in new, forceful ways, end quote. And then he added, quote, we reserve the right to return to fighting if needed, with the backing of the United States, end quote.

The ceasefire proved fragile even before it had begun. Nevertheless, the effort was celebrated. For about 15 months, the only question we asked was when this war will finish, when we will have ceasefire in Gaza. So it was like a dream. Rueda Amer is a journalist and teacher based in southern Gaza. It was very hard.

Really very hard because every second you feel like in danger. There is bombing around you and there is suffering with the lack of food, lack of water, lack of electricity. It's not easy for the people in Gaza because they lose everything, their works, their lives, their future, their schools and universities and homes and everything.

Much of Gaza has been devastated by 15 months of Israeli bombardment, especially northern Gaza, reduced to something like a moonscape, where the majority of buildings have been crumbled to little more than miles of concrete rubble and gray dust. Still, Rueda says that since the ceasefire began, the lives of everyday Gazans have significantly changed.

Many times my friends called me before the ceasefire and said, I want to see you. I miss you. I want to meet you. But I said, no, we need to wait until the ceasefire. We can move on.

and safe so we can meet us. These days, I can meet my friends, my students, my loved people without any worry about my life or their lives. So we are so happy for that. Few people believed, believe I should say, a long-term sustainable peace plan

is guaranteed. Rueda, though, says she still hopes one day it will come. We don't want to go back to the war, no. Back to the bombing, back to lack of food, back to be not safe, no. We want this fire to be forever enough, yeah. The people in Gaza want to go back to their life. I will not say to their homes, because there is no homes in Gaza.

That's Rueda Amer. She is a journalist and teacher based in Gaza. Now, according to Gaza's Hamas authorities, more than 300,000 Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza since Monday.

Negotiations for the next phase of the ceasefire are set to start next week, if the current ceasefire can hold. So today we're going to talk about what it will take for this temporary pause to lead to long-term peace for the region.

And joining us now is Dalia Shendlin. She's a public opinion researcher and international political strategist, also a policy fellow at the Century Foundation and author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel, Promise Unfulfilled. And she joins us from Tel Aviv. Dalia Shendlin, welcome back to On Point. Thank you for having me, Meghna.

Also with us today is Leila Farsak. She is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and author of Palestinian Labor Migration to Israel, Labor, Land, and Occupation. And she joins us from Boston. Professor Farsak, welcome back to On Point as well.

Thank you, Magna, for having me. So, Dahlia, let me start with you. Do you have hope that the current pause can last until the next phase of negotiations is set to begin rather soon?

Well, if the question is, will the current pause last until the negotiations begin? Probably yes, because we've seen that so far the deal has proceeded and has been implemented mostly, I would say more or less, according to what was agreed in this very first phase. However, let me put aside feelings like hope because they're...

You know, they're not helpful for me on trying to understand the situation. Of course, I personally hope things will continue towards a long-term ceasefire. But I have to say that in the analysis of agreements,

between Israelis and Palestinians that are built on conditional phases with no endpoint in sight. The record is very poor. And that's true on some Israeli domestic issues I could name, but let's just talk about the, I think, concerning problem that this agreement mirrors in some way the phased

process of negotiations during the Oslo years of the 1990s. And the big flaw was that they never really named the endpoint. They always postponed final status destination of

The of the negotiations and of the entire process. And there was a reason for that. It's because the sides couldn't agree on the final status. And when you have a struck, you know, an agreement that's structured like that, there is a high likelihood that it will fall apart because the sides don't actually agree where they're going with it. And I think that is a major weakness. And it is, you know, certainly problematic.

I would say leading, or at least, you know, there's significant chances that the next phases would not be implemented, which is something that I think most Israelis are worried about. And we have overwhelming Israeli public opinion in favor of implementing the entire deal. But the government has its own interests. Okay. So, Professor Farsak, let me turn to you. And I'd love to hear not only your reaction to what Dalia just said, but also...

The first response that you had when at least this first phase had been agreed to. Take either one of those questions. Yeah, how I felt when the ceasefire was signed. It was both a mixture of incredible relief and anxiety.

Of course, incredible relief that the war stopped after a genocide that killed 47,000 Palestinians, 70% of which are children and women. And we have over 110,000 people injured, not to mention the destruction of 90% of Gaza's housing.

So there is a relief that this is stopped, but also I'm anxious if it's going to hold and also anxious about the changes that has happened on the ground. Because I agree with Dalia that actually this ceasefire is very much like what I call the Oslo Three Agreement in phases, also having stipulation on moving in stages. But we also have Israeli presence on Gaza in ways that we did not have before October 7th.

But let me see also that there are three important things about this ceasefire that we should not forget. First, I think it's very important to bear in mind that this is the longest war that Israel ever conducted since its inception against any Palestinian or resistance or Arab resistance. This is longer than any of the war Israel conducted with Arab countries.

And it lasted 15 months. And despite all what Netanyahu said about destroying and annihilating Hamas and the Palestinian resistance and trying to move the Palestinians out of their land, this did not happen. Hamas is definitely much weakened, no doubt. The Gaza is devastated.

But it's still, from a historical point of view, it's important. And I think that could lead to this ceasefire lasting longer, because I think everybody got the message that Palestinians are here to stay and not going anywhere. Right.

So I think that's a very important point. And the other important point is the fact that the ceasefire allowed Palestinians to return to their homes in the north. Never before since Israel was created in 1948 in this hundred-year-old conflict were Palestinians able to return to their home once they were expelled. So this is symbolically very important, even if they're returning to destroyed houses. But the very fact that Palestinians were able to stipulate

the negotiators were able to separate that Palestinians have to return to their homes and their home will be reconstructed is symbolically very important. And also, again, it's a sign of defiance and also a sign that, you know, the Palestinians also want this deal to work. So I think, yeah, we don't know the negotiation will start next week for the second phase, how far they will really get implemented. The Palestinians are definitely very keen on it.

Dalia said also the Israeli public, but the government is not. I agree with that. But I also think the international and regional configuration is going to be very important. As you know now, Witkoff is going to the region. He's meeting with Saudi Arabia. He's meeting tomorrow with Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister is going to visit Gaza. So I think the regional and international input and determination to make this work can give us a little bit more hope. Okay. Dalia, I'm going to get your response to all that Professor Farsak just said, but Professor, I just want to clarify, have you clarify one thing? Because you initially said that

that the Palestinians are not going anywhere, that that was proved by their survival of this 15-month bombardment. But also you were talking about Hamas still being there but not weakened. So when you say the Palestinians –

Hamas is weakened, but still there. Sorry, that was my misspoken. Hamas is much weakened, its military capability much degraded, but it is still remaining in the Strip. Yes, so that is what you said, and I just misspoke. Forgive me. But the two are not, there's not 100% overlap between the Palestinian people in Gaza and Hamas.

So, I mean, I guess what I'm saying is Hamas is still there, though weakened. Have they proved that they're not going anywhere either? And is that potentially a long-term problem to reach subsequent phases of this agreement? Yeah.

I would like to think it won't because Hamas, I mean, don't forget, if you look at the history of the conflict, you know, in 1982, Israel went to Lebanon to eliminate the PLO, which was considered, which it defined then a terrorist organization, refused to talk with it. And the PLO in that war, which cost 15,000 lives, the PLO was expelled from Lebanon and went all the way to Tunis. This time, after 15 months, some Hamas prisoners were expelled to Egypt.

But Hamas is still staying in the strip and Hamas is negotiating also via Egypt and Qatar with Israel. So Israel, Hamas is still an important political actor.

Hamas has said it doesn't want to rule the strip, but it will be an important political actor. And it showed what an important political actor it is in this release of hostages that took place. It was very choreographed. Yes. So, Professor Farsak, hang on for just a second. Dalia Shindlin, I will get your response to many of the points that the professor just made. On the other side of this quick break, we'll be back in a minute. This is On Point. On Point.

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You're back with On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. And today we are talking about what could it take to turn this temporary pause in the war in Gaza into

into a lasting peace. And I'm joined today by Leila Farsak. She's a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. And Dalia Shendlin is with us as well. She's a public opinion researcher and international political strategist and a fellow at the Century Foundation. And Dalia, I'm going to get to you in a second, but what Professor Farsak said about Hamas still being there, though weakened, is that it's a

Brought to mind this comment from Mike Waltz, now the national security advisor to the Trump administration. Last Sunday, he spoke to CNN and he made clear what the stance the new administration has on Hamas's future in the region. They cannot be a terrorist organization any longer and they will never govern Gaza, period. And the assurances...

to our Israeli partners, where if Hamas backs out of this deal, if Hamas doesn't abide by this deal in any way, we will be with them. And I think what you're seeing is a level of trust and confidence in this incoming Trump administration that wasn't there before, frankly, from the Israelis. And that's why Bibi Netanyahu felt comfortable pushing this through his government as tough as it has been.

So, Dalia, let's keep our focus on Hamas for a moment. I mean, do you agree with what Professor Farsak said, that Hamas no longer wants to rule in Gaza?

I'm not sure if I entirely agree. I think Hamas generally wants to rule and generally has expressed its intention to be the leader of the Palestinian people. But I won't, I certainly won't venture into it, you know, to understand Hamas better than her. I just think that, you know, there's a little bit of a contradiction in what Walt said, because on the one hand, he's saying, no, Hamas can't govern. But on the other hand, we expect Hamas to implement the agreement. I mean, this has been the mistake of both the Israeli government and anybody backing the Israeli government over the last many years. A

a theoretical opposition to Hamas and using Hamas as the excuse why there can never be any sort of progress towards a more sustainable final status accord. And at the same time, having Hamas as the main interlocutor, whether it's direct or indirect. And of course, we know over the years that involved the Israeli government even accepting plans that involved boosting Hamas. It's, you know, sort of accepting its control and boosting it financially through Qatar. And then, you know,

reaching a situation where Gaza is basically a captive audience to Hamas because it's isolated, largely under Israeli effective control over all borders, points of entry, territorial waters and airspace, etc. So there's sort of this isolated bubble that is at the mercy of Hamas, who is then being supported by being the de facto leader that

the rest of the world, including Israel, has tolerated. And so if that situation continues, then we're in the same contradiction. Now, I think that, you know, there are certainly reports and analyses of Hamas that there have been in the past and may now also be prepared for a longer term

kind of understanding of a different role in Palestinian leadership. Again, I don't think it's for me to analyze that, but I do think that, you know, back to the bigger question of whether there can be sustainable peace coming out of this, it will only happen if there's a unified Palestinian leadership and if Hamas is prepared to, you know, enter into some sort of an agreement with the other factions and they all come to an agreement about how to establish a unified leadership, Hamas will by definition have a more limited role. I think that

There should not be this view that there's a solution for Gaza that is in isolation of the West Bank. I think that one of the deep mistakes over the years has been to assume that you can just manage this conflict by separating those two societies. Palestinians are essentially one society.

And if their politics are divided, it's certainly not good for them, but it's also not good for the peace process. And so whatever Hamas wants, I'm not inside their mind. But I do think that there needs to be an understanding that this is the unified people. We've seen that demonstrated time and again over the years. And from Israel's perspective, if it genuinely wants to move ahead, it needs a unified interlocutor, something that Netanyahu and before Netanyahu, Israel's

Israeli prime ministers have tried to avoid because they, you know, in particular, it's very clear that he didn't want a unified leadership that would, um, that would be a legitimate representative for getting to something like a Palestinian state next to Israel, because he doesn't want that outcome. Uh,

And he doesn't want any other income other than the one we see in practice, which has been Israeli expansionism. And so it does get back to these bigger questions. So, Dahlia, just let me follow up on something, though, because you had said that the Israeli government had a theoretical opposition to Hamas. It doesn't seem very theoretical to me. Why do you use that specific framing?

Well, only because over the course of the time since Hamas took over in Gaza in 2007, the opposition from Israel has been strong and rhetorical. And of course, the policy has been very much, you know, to try to control, you know, Gaza through, as I said before, through the perimeters. Yeah.

Having said that, Netanyahu tolerated the situation and also, you know, essentially gave his support to this financial backing for Hamas to be in power through Qatar over all those years under a very fairly explicit, I mean, somewhat implicit, but almost openly communicated policy that it's better to have the Palestinian leadership divided and better to, you know, to do that by having Hamas as a counterweight to Palestinian authority in the West Bank.

And, you know, the clear reason for that was so that Israel and Netanyahu's leadership, so he wouldn't be under pressure to have negotiations towards final status because he could always say there is no unified leadership. And that's why there was so much de facto support that, by the way, needed a lot of Israeli cooperation, including through banks. And so this required waivers of Israeli policy. And so, you know, the entire state had to be prepared to accept this if there was going to be this money coming from Qatar. And that's what happened for years.

So, Professor Farsak, Dalia is providing some very clear-eyed criticism of various Israeli governments' approach to Hamas over time. I mean, we must...

I mean, I hope not to sound too oversimplified, that I'm oversimplifying things, but it's hard for me to imagine that there would be unified Israeli support where the people of Hamas would be the ones who would support the regime.

When, you know, for future agreements, when Hamas and its regional supporters do still adhere to, you know, calls to obliterate the Israeli state off the face of the earth. I mean, it's not as if Hamas's language or intentions have ever been, you know, universally peaceful for the Palestinian people.

Well, I mean, the story is a little bit more complicated than that because people are trying to draw an amount of support of Hamas in any way. But I think the point that Dalia made that the importance of a unified Palestinian leadership is key.

And the point about how Netanyahu and various Israeli government insisted on preventing any unified leadership is a very important point to take in mind. We are working in a context. This is a context of settler colonialism. It's a context of occupation where Israeli policy has always been, since the emergence of Hamas, to divide the Palestinian leadership. And it sabotaged and prevented, you know, we have maybe six or seven

attempts to have a national unity government, which were sabotaged by the Israelis and which the Israeli government told the Palestinian Authority in the PA, if you make anything with Hamas, you're out.

So Israel has been an important party in creating this big split between Palestinians in the West Bank, in the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Hamas. Now, other Palestinian leadership also faulted in that, definitely. But they're also constrained because in the West Bank, you have an ability to have a better life than the life you're having in Gaza.

Now, can we now imagine a more unified leadership? I think that's what everybody is pushing for. And Hamas had indicated that it is willing to have a technocratic government. When I say that Hamas is not interested in governing, what I mean is that Hamas is not interested in being the official government, but no government will take place in Gaza without the approval of Hamas.

Is Hamas willing to scale down its demands? Yeah, for the sake of national unity, yes. Because Hamas is very much interested in showing everybody that it does work with other groups. It's not just an Israeli puppet as the PA is starting to appear increasingly with the attacks on Jenin, with the fact that the PA did not behave in a unified way when it should have. So as your regional actors, the regional actors

You have to understand this is a question of balance of power, of relationship, of how far do you support, at what point you make peace with Israel. When Israel is encroaching on more and more land, is planning to annex the West Bank, has committed a genocide in Gaza. You know, you have to take it in this context because that's the real context. You want to end the occupation. And until you end the occupation, and Palestinian authorities try to end the

by negotiating with Israel. What it got? It got more and more settlements and more and more settlers. We have 700,000 settlers today compared to 250 before Oslo in 2025. We have Palestinians fragmented in Bantustans in population enclaves. They cannot get out of the group.

because of the checkpoints, you're having further loss of sovereignty and further loss of agency in the West Bank rather than coming closer to the statehood. Yes. OK, so Dalia, I'd like to turn back to you. And if I may, I just want to press this line of questioning a little bit more, because Professor Farsak just got us back to what the important point

sort of conclusive analysis is, which is like, what are the endpoints here? But regarding, I'm just trying to understand the various motivations of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government in this broader context of the regional, the community, as Professor Farsak has said. And I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but my reading and my view of the kinds of concerns that

that Israelis have do also verge into the existential when it's not just Hamas, but, you know, Iran. These are all very significant actors in the region who aren't necessarily, you know, champing at the bit to form a lasting peace with Israel. Absolutely. I mean, I think that we have to

You know, I think people do understand, but I'm going to say it again because it continues to be a prominent part of Israeli life. There is a very real and clear and present and immediate threat to Israelis in their consciousness and in their experience of physical attack, violent attack. And for many people, it's also an existential attack. And, you know, there's no way around it. Israel is both an occupying power and it's

And it has suffered terrorism against its own civilians. And of course, for the most part, Israelis see their end of the matter. They see their injuries. They see the attacks on their civilians. And October 7th was an extreme version of that. Now, we've had these dynamics in place for a long time, but October 7th was so big that

that it pushed everything else out. It's very hard to get any critical thought across about the longer standing policy issues. Add to that what you just asked about, the regional dimension. Now, we have a slightly different picture because over the years, Israel had, you know, originally for decades, self-image kind of understanding of its own position as facing a constant threat of external enemies. Surrounded by enemies was a phrase, you know, all of us who are involved with Israel grew up with.

And an understanding that all the immediate neighbors were hostile. And this was not totally imagined because there were genuine state wars with, you know, at regular intervals. And then, however, over recent decades, this really changed very significantly, starting with a full peace agreement with Egypt in 1970, you know, after 1978 Camp David Accords and 1979 peace treaty, then 1928.

1994 peace treaty with Jordan, there has not been an active war with either of those countries since. And as I thought about it, there have been more years of complete peace between those countries than there were years of active wars. It was, you know, I don't want to do the math, but 1948 to 1973, when the last major war ended, is a lot less than 1979 through the present or 1994 through the present. After that, in just over the last few years,

We have to, you know, we have to name the reality that this was the Trump administration and Netanyahu and Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership that brought us to the Abraham Accords, which were ill-conceived because they were designed to marginalize and dismiss the Palestinian problem. But they did also break down to some extent the Israeli perception of being surrounded by a bunch of regional enemies. And I think even at the level of

Such household language, people understood that, yes, Iran is a major threat, but there is a significant and robust counter

threat, you know, or counter front, let's say, of countries who are aligned with more or less formalized agreements. And Israel is one of them, together with other regional alliances that are now, some of them were now open. It's kind of an open understanding that Saudi Arabia would like to get there as well. And, you know, what are the merits of these agreements? And, you know, we can talk about them from many angles, but since you asked about the Israeli perception, I

I think that is a much more malleable issue right now, even now, because there's so much talk every day, even during this war about the possibility of a big breakthrough of normalization with Saudi Arabia. You know, of course, Israelis know that that might actually mean, you know, moving ahead towards Palestinian statehood, but there is a much more sense, I would say, realistic understanding that the Middle East is not this block of enemies trying to wipe Israel off the map. Of course, the Iran and its axis is still considered a major threat,

But Israelis have also regained some confidence, certainly after the major blows that the country dealt to Hezbollah and, you know, and to Iran itself and the, you know, change of

regime in Syria and Israel has struck back pretty heavily against the Houthis. So all of these things are a bit in flux and Israelis are responsive to that too. Well, so both of you have provided us with a very dynamic, broader picture of sort of the pieces that are potentially in motion right now. So with that in mind, Professor Farsak and Dalia Shendlin, hang on for just a second. I want to bring Andrew Miller into the conversation. He's currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

And he's former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the U.S. State Department. He served in that position under the Biden administration from 2022 to 2024. Andrew Miller, welcome to On Point. Thanks, Meghna. Great to be with you. So I want to get straight to the question or sticking point that both Dalia and Professor Farsak brought up at the very beginning of the show.

that a process-oriented approach has failed in the past because there wasn't a commonly agreed upon endpoint in previous Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Your thoughts on that and whether a commonly agreed upon endpoint is even possible this time around?

I largely agree with the analysis, and one of the major flaws of the Oslo process was not only that there wasn't agreement on a final end state, but all of the major substantive issues, the so-called final status issues, were punted down the road and weren't dealt with at the outset.

And in the meantime, developments took place that ran counter to each side's own vision of what should eventually come into being. And that undermined confidence in the process. But the other major reason that Oslo failed, and it's also relevant to the current ceasefire construct, is the absence of enforcement.

The United States, during the Oslo process, was in a position where it could have applied pressure on both Israel and on the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, to adhere to their commitments under Oslo so that, at the very least, they were preserving the space in which the negotiations over final status issues could take place. But we constantly saw the Israelis pushing off

redeployments from parts of the West Bank on schedule. We saw Palestinian terrorist attacks, which were not perpetrated by the PLO, but by other factions like Hamas. Nevertheless, the absence of enforcement undermined it. And I think that's critical in this case as well. Not only does there need to be an end state in mind, and at

At this point, Israel and Hamas certainly do not share a common objective, but there's going to have to be a major role for the U.S. and regional actors in forcing them to adhere to the terms as much as possible. OK, so we're going to get to how that might happen just on the other side of this break. We'll be right back. This is On Point. You're back with On Point. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. And today we're talking about what could it take to turn this temporary pause into

in the war in Gaza into a lasting peace. And I'm joined today by Professor Leila Farsak. She is a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Dalia Shendlin is also with us as well. She's a fellow at the Century Foundation and a public opinion researcher and international political strategist. And Andrew Miller joins us. He's a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs,

In the Department of State under the Biden administration. And Andrew Miller, another question for you in terms of roadblocks, potential roadblocks to get to a longer term peace here. At first, when this agreement was signed,

It surprised me a little bit because if I'm correct in remembering this, some very right-wing members of Israel's government agreed to this pause, whereas those same members of the government, I'm thinking of Ben-Gavir or Smotrich, were not.

They are very clear in their goals of essentially annexing Gaza, annexing the West Bank. Professor Farsak had mentioned this before. I mean, why would they sign on to even a temporary pause here?

Well, in this case, Ben-Gavir did not support, ultimately support the ceasefire. He voted against it and withdrew from the coalition, although he's continuing to vote with the coalition from the outside. For Smotrich, he said that he ultimately agreed because Netanyahu promised him that Israel would resume the war after the first stage. Now, Netanyahu hasn't confirmed that publicly yet,

But given the statements he's made, including the one you played earlier regarding Israel's right in his mind and U.S. backing for a resumption of the war, that's what allowed this to move forward. It's the...

the ambiguity of the agreement that allowed for irreconcilable preferences to be accommodated. But ambiguity only works for so long. Ultimately, you need to translate that into something more durable and something that actually specifies terms that can be observed and implemented. And that's not the case. That's what is supposed to be discussed over the next several weeks.

And Israel and Hamas are going to be approaching it from nearly diametrically opposed directions. Yeah. I mean, so can you imagine any durable agreement that would put an end or a pause to settlements, especially given the current sort of approach of the Israeli government? I think Gaza is different from the West Bank where – and Dalia is the polling expert. She'll have more on this –

For Israelis who support settlements, the West Bank tends to be much more important than Gaza because of the biblical history of the West Bank, the attachment. It's only a small section of Israeli society that is genuinely interested in rebuilding settlements in Gaza that were dismantled 20 years ago. It just so happens that members of this current coalition are among them.

including members of Netanyahu's own party. I don't think Netanyahu is ideologically committed to settlements in Gaza. And part of the prior modus vivendi with Hamas that Dalia alluded to was that, you know, Israel would give Hamas space within Gaza in exchange for Qom. And Israel would more or less cede that Gaza is Palestinian, not a state, but Israel.

is controlled by Palestinians. Now the context has changed where the extremist parties feel emboldened in pursuing their agenda. They see the level of destruction and most problematically, perhaps, we have heard President Trump now say that he would support the, quote, voluntary

immigration of Palestinians from Gaza to other countries, which is a complete non-starter, not only for Palestinians, but for the regional states that are supposed to take them. Well, on that point, Andrew Miller, let's listen to what President Donald Trump said on Saturday. He spoke to reporters above air, excuse me, on board Air Force One. And here's what he said.

I'm looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it's a mess. It's a real mess. You'd like Jordan to house people from Gaza? I'd like Egypt to take people. I'm meeting with, I'm talking to General El-Sisi tomorrow, sometime I believe. And I'd like Egypt to take people and I'd like Jordan to take people. I mean, you're talking about probably a million and a half people. And

We just clean out that whole thing. You know, it's over the centuries that's had many, many conflicts at site. And I don't know, something has to happen. But it's literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything's demolished. Trump also added that the relocation could either be temporary or permanent. Professor Farsak, you've been patiently listening here, and I appreciate that. Your thoughts?

Well, I mean, it's an old idea ever since Israel was created, the idea that the Palestinians can be displaced, that the Palestinians are part of the Arab world, that they should be absorbed by their countries. I think the past 15 months revealed very well to you and also the pictures of the past two days that peoples are returning to their demolished houses shows you that Palestinians have no intention of leaving. And also Arab states have clearly said that this is unfavorable.

unjustifiable. This is ethnic cleansing. And according to international law, ethnic cleansing is illegal, even if the president of the United States is advising it or promoting it. So I think this is part of maybe appealing to the right of trying to appease Israeli right as well. But I don't see this happening

anytime soon or being accepted by the region. But I want to come back to your point about, and the point made by Andrew, about what is the end result. I think we know very well what is the end result and who wants peace and who doesn't want, you know. The Palestinians have said since also that what they want is a Palestinian state. The U.S. sponsored roadmap in 2003, 22 years ago, said the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the creation of

of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. But what has happened over the past 20 years is this Palestinian state has been destroyed through the apartheid system that Israel has instituted, through the construction of settlements, through the expansion of settlements, through not holding Israel accountable to the illegality of the settlement. And we have now an ICJ ruling saying that the occupation is illegal and Israel's attempt to make it permanent is void according to international law.

So we're having now a dilemma because on the one hand, we know the solution, which is according to the international community, the establishment of a Palestinian state. But facts on the ground show us that we don't have a Palestinian state. And what I fear is that now what Israel is doing, as Andrew explained, they are much more attached to the West Bank in terms of settlement and expanding the settlements and the settlers terrorizing Palestinians and not being held accountable or taken to court about it.

I fear that the idea is Trump is going to promote his idea that he proposed in 2020 about what a Palestinian state would look like, which would include 70% of the West Bank, I think now even less, and Gaza. I think the big problem, we go back again, is Israel really interested in solving the problem or not?

Israel is hoping, and as Dalia explained, everybody understood the Abraham Accords are good for Israel, but you cannot bypass the Palestinian question. And Palestinians have political rights. They have a right to self-determination, to freedom and equality. And so long as Israel tries to bypass this question through regional agreement, it's only going to backfire and lead to catastrophic results like happened on October 7th.

Well, Dalia, let me turn to you here because I'm looking at a column that you wrote just a few days ago. And in it, you write the following, quote,

Hostages will die. Fighting will resume. The Palestinian national movement is smashed and Israel becomes a theocratic imperial actor ruling through subjugation of non-citizens mounting permanent insurgency. And you say that option or that outcome should no longer sound shocking. But then in the column you say –

What is also possible, even if improbable, is something entirely different because we've seen major paradigm shifts in history before. You talk about the collapse of the Soviet Union, the recent outing of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. I mean, I acknowledge, I can see that those are huge paradigm shifts. But do you think something realistically different

a complete change of thinking or a sudden historical turn is possible in Israel? Yeah, thank you for such extensive reference to the analysis that I wrote. I mean, of course, I think it's possible because I was trying to argue that none of those colossal shifts that you just mentioned that I talked about in the article happened out of the blue. I mean, they look like they're out of the blue in the moment they're happening because we all missed them.

the signs and the processes that led up to them. And with good reason, because we didn't really know where they were coming from and we didn't know what to make of them, or maybe we didn't put those processes together. But in hindsight, we really understand that there were all sorts of things happening for some years before the collapse of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Assad regime. And by the same logic, what I tried to do was look at things that are already underway, many disparate things that

could potentially come together in this region among Israelis and Palestinians, very likely, and I think the only possible way will be through a confluence of global forces, including the interests, and this is always gonna be interest-based, of the US government and the Saudi government and other Arab governments, the Gulf states, even Qatar, Egypt,

If they all share certain interests in stabilization, in making quid pro quo transactional deals, which we can like them or not, but they do drive the interest, for example, of Saudi Arabia and the U.S.,

to get to a deal. And that carries with it the normalization with Israel. And, you know, combining that with what I think both Andrew and Leila have mentioned, which is that the Israeli government is going to come to serious blows in the next phase of the agreement, going from first to the second phase. This could certainly cause the coalition to shake

There are other reasons why the Israeli coalition might teeter and possibly topple. And if that happens, Israel will go into an election cycle, which means these questions will be hotly debated within Israeli society.

Israeli society. We have reason to think based on polling, which I can't, you know, I don't have time to get into every number, but there's plenty of indications that there's a majority of Israelis who, you know, when you wipe out the kinds of terms that make Israelis cynical, like peace with the Palestinians, and you talk about, you know, regional security alliance and normalization with Saudi Arabia backed by the U.S. that involves, you know, a

arrangement with the Palestinians, something much more hard-nosed and pragmatic, you see a striking majority of Israelis who would support it. If that starts to drive the Israeli elections, you could see the election of a more pragmatic, it will be a right-wing leadership, but it will not be as ideologically or theologically driven. And if you have all of these things come together, which I admit is a very far stretch, then you could see Israel taking a different path. And of course, we need, at the same time, you would have to see a process towards

Again, unified, accountable, representative Palestinian leadership in order to make those kinds of decisions. You know, all of these things are very difficult, but I don't think any of them are beyond the range of plausibility, which is why I tried to, you know, enumerate the kinds of things that are emerging from reality that if they either come together by coincidence, what I was arguing, we should try to make them happen. Those of us who are in any, you know, in any position to try to influence anybody else, we're at least trying to make the case.

they could come together in a more, you know, concerted way to lead to a different outcome. OK, so we're approaching sort of the end of the last few minutes of the conversation here. Andrew Miller, I'm listening to what both Dahlia and Leila have been saying. And I mean, we have to discuss for a minute, like, what is the U.S.'s role in making these things happen? As Dahlia just said, I mean, what do you think that role is? And practically speaking, what do you think the Trump administration should do now?

Well, there is increasing debate about the U.S. role and about what is perceived as U.S. bias toward Israel. And I think that's certainly an accurate statement in terms of the policy of administrations from both parties. However, that doesn't disqualify the United States as a mediator. What has enabled the

The United States to be the mediator of choice in the Arab-Israeli conflict is precisely its biased relationship with Israel. The U.S. is the only external country that is capable of getting Israel to make necessary concessions, as well as provide Israel with

credible assurances regarding outcomes and Israeli security. So in that sense, I think the U.S. role, notwithstanding the criticism that the Biden administration and Trump administration are receiving, remains indispensable. But it will require a great deal of brute force, and

And on both sides. Now, it's particularly difficult with the Palestinians because we don't have the same type of relationship and we don't even directly deal with Hamas. We do deal with the Palestinian Authority. We do deal with the PLO. The bigger issue is...

Regardless of what the U.S. does, it's not clear that we can make sustainable progress absent some consolidation of politics within both Israel and within Palestine, as both Dalia and Leila have said, that there needs to be a consolidation in Israel around a pro-peace agenda, and there needs to be a consolidation within Palestinian politics around a pro-peace agenda that enjoys the support of Israel

of most of Palestinian society and that neither of those exists at the moment. Do you think there are, I mean, there are, excuse me, are there any internal fractures within the Trump administration that could prevent the United States from being as effective as it could be whatever that level of effectiveness is? Well, I,

I think there are major fissures within the Trump administration, just as there were during his first term. The president himself is not ideological regarding Israel, although he's taken steps that have satisfied the Israeli right wing. That was done out of political opportunism, not out of a sincere belief.

And President Trump is reported not to particularly like Prime Minister Netanyahu, who will deal with him when he has to. He won't when he doesn't have to. I think President Trump's thinking is actually more flexible in certain respects.

than many others in his administration. And based on what we've seen so far, Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, he doesn't appear to be another David Friedman, who was the U.S. ambassador to Israel in the first term. He appears more pragmatic, another real estate guy who's looking to cut a deal above everything else. But Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hegseth, Ambassador Huckabee, if he's confirmed, these are individuals who are much more ideological, and they're going to be pushing against

the pragmatism, the flexibility that would be required to make progress. Well, Andrew Miller, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs in the Biden administration, and Dalia Shendlin, Policy Fellow at the Century Foundation, and Professor Leila Farsak, Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Thank you to all three of you for joining us today. I'm Meghna Chakrabarty. This is On Point.