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Foreign.
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Welcome to Ask Khabiv Anything. This is a an interview that I have been looking forward to for some time with Ahmed Fouad Al Khatib. That is an Israeli pronunciation of his name. I'm going to let him pronounce it more accurately to its proper cultural context. I have been following Ahmed for a while. I disagree with him on much. I agree with him on much. And we are recording this a day after the presentation by President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu of Trump's peace plan for Gaza, the plan to end the war the day after, the way the plan deals with Hamas. We're going to dive into all of it. So the timing is amazing and I'm really glad Ahmed is here. Just to lay it out, he is the director of Realign for Palestine. It's a new, fairly new Atlantic Council project that tries to challenge entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse and develops a new policy framework for rejuvenated pro Palestine advocacy. That's reading their description. God knows we can't be doing the same old thing forever and ever. So before we get into it, I want to tell you that today's episode, I'm very happy to tell you, is sponsored by my very good friends at Unpacking Israeli History, a podcast from Unpacked, which is a series of podcasts, a brand from Open Door Media. I have joined that podcast several times to talk about different aspects of Israeli history. It's hosted by my good friend Noam Weissman, who, you know, people who listen to this podcast will know. The show dives into Israel's most fascinating and sometimes controversial moments and all the issues surrounding the debates around Israeli history. It's smart, it's nuanced, it's never afraid of complexity.
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It's.
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It takes the headlines that we think we know and it sort of peels them a little bit and uncovers the deeper story about how we got here. I am myself a partner of Open Door Media. Work with them, consult with them, including on some of the episodes. They're an organization that's reaching young Jews and the peers of young Jews, the entire cohort, with powerful and creative media that deepens their understanding of their story, of the Israeli story, of the Jewish story, the Jewish experience, that whole world. So I know also Ahmed has worked with them. If you want more of that kind of thoughtful conversation, the kind of conversation we have here, go follow Unpacking Israeli History at Unpacked biohavivuih. That's Unpacked biohavuih. And I invite everyone to join our Patreon. On Patreon, Ask Khaviv anything. Uh, every single thing we do is outside the paywall. It's all for public consumption, public education, edification, so that we can have these debates and seriously think about what's happening to us all. Everything is free, everything is available, except for a monthly livestream that's only for Patreon subscribers. The last one lasted two hours in which I answered, literally, questions coming in live. It was exciting. I almost lost my voice, but I can handle two hours. And if you want to ask questions that guide our content, but also join that live stream, please join us. There's a discussion forum there. We are having a great time, except when we're talking about very sad things, and then we're having a sad time, but we're having a sad time together. Ahmed, thank you for joining me.
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A
Thank you for having me, brother. It's been a long time in the making.
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B
Yeah. And what great timing. What great timing. President Trump and Benjamin Signal presented this, President Trump's plan. I mean, he apparently squeezed Netanyahu quite a bit in getting him to agree to the plan. I will get into my view, but my view comes second. I'm extremely excited about this plan. You know what? We're getting to my view first so that you can respond to it, and then I really want to get yours. We're two people who love to talk. This is going to go fine. I have to tell you that I have had one enormous frustration with the Israelis. And it was more than frustration. If the war is about getting out Hamas and building that new day for Gaza, then a whole lot of pain and suffering and sadness is legitimate. And if it is not about that, then none of it's legitimate. In other words, what is the war for? If the war is Smotrich's war to clear Gaza out of Palestinians, I have been dead set against it. And not only that, I have been convinced, and I was at some points fairly alone in the room, that that's not Netanyahu's plan. Now, this plan is the first time, to my knowledge, that Netanyahu commits publicly and to the American president, in other words, with real ramifications for Israel, that this is about the rebuilding of Gaza. This is World War II. This is, yes, there's mass destruction in Germany, that's how dug in the Nazis were, but the destruction almost at any. The defeat at any cost. But after the defeat, the new dawn, the rebuilding, the better day. This plan has that. I am thrilled about that. And the other thing I'm thrilled about is it denies hamas. Well, in 72 hours, the hostages come home. In other words, which I think was put there, I thank God it's there because I feel these hostages every day, we Israelis, they are us. But I think it's there because it's an attempt to give Netanyahu the political cover from Smotrich and Bengvir to be able to sell this back home, including to his own center right base. And so it's all the Israeli victory conditions. In that sense, it's a Gaza without Hamas, but also a Gaza that Israel has committed to the rebuilding of. It's amazing. What do you think?
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A
But that, my friend, is also it's Achilles heel for Hamas in that it loses its chief bargaining chip. And it saddens me that we're talking about human beings as bargaining chips. Nevertheless, that is what the hostages have been for Hamas. It sees Hamas basically surrendering that in the first three days of the plan. You have to keep in mind that after two years of war, after what many in the region perceive as Netanyahu breaking the ceasefire agreement from earlier this year and by not going from phase one to phase two, and I'm discussing here the Wyckoff plan that was implemented at the very beginning of the Trump administrative administration, the second Trump administration. Then you have the strike on Qatar, then you have like the series of Israeli actions against Hamas. So for them, it's like, well, what's to stop Netanyahu or the Israelis from finding a reason a month or two into the proposal to basically wiggle themselves out of the ceasefire? But. But let's step back a little bit and just go into my initial thoughts, which are very similar to yours. I blotted the plan as a very positive one for a variety of reasons. It is a sharp U turn from talk about effectively ethnic cleansing, effectively pushing Palestinians out. A massive improvement from what we saw in February when President Trump declared that in the Gaza Riviera plan, non plan. But what was particularly damaging about the Gaza Riviera is that it gave life to the Smotriches and Ben Guirs of the world. It gave life, I should say, to their nihilistic vision that this war isn't about defeating Hamas and getting the hostages back, it's about pushing the population out. And some would contend that the designs, the tactical decisions of the war and pushing the population down south may have been tactical decisions in service of a nefarious political agenda. But that aside. So you have the departure from. It was like, no, we actually want Gaza developed For Gazans, you have to me the most important the recognition that there is no this massive the war ends and this miraculous day after commences. The there is the recognition of a transitional phase. And to his credit, former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked about this multiple times during the Biden administration about the need for a transitional period. A transitional period is different than a day after and we can get into it later on. But basically a transitional period allows for modular, phased implementation of the plan. It is flexible enough to where if Hamas reneges on its promises in certain areas or if conditions aren't ripe in other areas, you don't have the full collapse of the agreement. You go area by area, you go phase by phase. You're comfortable with slow progress, if you will. So there's the phased implementation of a transitional period. Then you have the effectively thousand mile journey towards rebuilding and the pursuit of a pathway towards Palestinian statehood. And that basically invites Arab involvement, invites the peacekeeping. Well, it's not so much. It's a stabilization mission. And that distinction is very key from peacekeeping forces versus a stabilization force. And the French, actually during Unda Week, the UN General assembly week last week, they also put forth something similar in terms of a regional stabilization mission. It's much faster to stand up. It doesn't go through as many approvals at the bureaucratic level, et cetera. Then finally, I think it sets the stage for a resumption of what many were hoping for before October 7, which is Israel's regional integration through the expansion of the Abraham Accords, Saudi involvement, the Saudis come on board, Gaza becomes part of the broader vision, if you will, for economic and geopolitical cooperation between the Arab Muslim on one hand and Israel on the other. And so yes. Is it ambitious? Sure. Does it need a lot of things to happen in kind of a linear fashion in order for it to be implemented? Definitely. But is it the most, I would say comprehensive that I've seen coming out of this administration? 100%. And so in that regard, as somebody who is from Gaza, who has family there, who lost a bunch of family there, who still has some surviving family there, who has siblings in there right now, I am just desperate for the end of the war. But I also don't want all of that pain and suffering and horror to happen so that we simply go back to rebuilding a bunch of buildings and cinder blocks and that's it. I am very interested in transformation and rejuvenation. And I did meet with Tony Blair months ago and he early on helped speak about the term Reconstituted Gaza needs to be reconstituted, reimagined in terms of just the engineering, the social engineering of what the territory should look like. And so I'm hopeful and optimistic amidst a sea of pessimism, let's just say.
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B
So you, you raised it and I realized I, I didn't introduce you properly. Yes, you're doing this interesting project with the Atlantic Council, but tell us just in two minutes so people really know what it is you just said. Your story, your background, your roots in Gaza, your connection to people in Gaza and to family members who have died.
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In this war, certainly. So I grew up in Gaza City. I was actually born in Saudi Arabia and we lived back and forth between Saudi and Gaza in the part of the 90s and then we lived in the Gaza mid-90s. It was very common for Gaza doctors, engineers, nurses, teachers to work in the Gulf, build up a nest, bring that back to Gaza and build a life for their families. And so my dad worked for the Saudi government as a doctor and then he actually came back to Gaza and was working for unrwa, the not so controversial UN agency. He ran their clinic eventually in the Jabalya camp in northern Gaza, the biggest refugee camp there. I went to UNWRA schools, that's how I learned a lot of my English. And I grew up in Gaza. Both I experienced the tail end of the Oslo process and the hope and optima. I flew into Gaza's airport, short lived airport on the Palestinian Airlines. I got a Palestinian passport instead of the Egyptian travel document. There was hope and optimism and people working in Israel and an industrial zone in the Aras area in northern Gaza Strip. And I also experienced the sadness and the pain and the misery of the second intifada and what that looked like with the bombardment, the instability. I lost a significant amount of my hearing from an IDF bombing that almost killed me and killed a couple of my friends. I had multiple near death experiences that prompted me at a young age to want to seek leaving Gaza. And I benefited from a post 911 initiative by the State Department to come to the United States at the age of 15. I was junior in, in high school, live with a host family for a year, build cultural bridges and then go back to Gaza. Unfortunately I was about. So I finished the program here. I lived in the San Francisco Bay area and then I was about to go back to Gaza. I was stuck in Egypt, about to cross through Rafah. But then Hamas in 2006, in the summer abducted Gilad Shalit, a young Israeli soldier. And that Commenced a mini war. The borders were closed. The European Police mission left the borders. And so I returned to the United States. And due to a variety of safety considerations, due to my participation at the program, I applied for political asylum. And the very day of my interview was June 14, 2007, which is the very day that Hamas violently took over the Gaza Strip and ejected the Palestinian Authority. But the entirety of my family, I have two brothers, two sisters, my mom and dad, they remained in Gaza. And so yeah, over the years I've lived this parallel life and I became a citizen of the United States 11 years ago, but I've had this parallel life in the United States. But throughout there was the degradation of conditions from my folks, from my family. And I come from a middle class family that oscillated between being middle class and lower middle class. But yeah, it's been difficult to. And then October 7th happened and unfortunately the house where I grew up in Gaza City was destroyed by the IDF and it was bombed while my brother and his wife and the rest of my every floor had an uncle and their family while they were in it. I lost a 12 year old niece, Farah. But my brother and, and a bunch of my other folks were injured. But my brother and his wife and children, they pushed their way out of the rubble. They survived. I got his wife and children out eventually, one day before the Rafah border crossing clothes. But he decided to remain there. He's there now, he is working on, he runs the field operations for a major international medical ngo. My mom is out and a few others are out. And then there's a second air strike that killed my dad's brother, Uncle Riyadh in the neighborhood. The first strike was October 13th, second was October 25th. And then the really big strike was December 14th, 2023, and, and that's when 29 people were killed. It wiped out basically my mom's family. And that was my second home in Rafah city and that was before the Rafah invasion, etc. And so cumulatively, you know, this is, this is personal, this is very much so something that I'm doing because I have skin in the game and I want to see the rejuvenation of Gaza. But I'll conclude just this personal segment by saying that it is part of that tragedy that put me on the map in the sense that I had. I mean, I'm angry, I'm upset, I'm furious, I have all the emotions. But I made a decision not to be hateful and not to be vengeful. And I in fact, quadrupled down on my resentment towards Hamas and towards the jihadi nihilism that they have unleashed upon our people for 18 years. And I have chosen to connect with Israeli hostage families and survivors of October 7th and to build bridges and to really use this as a genuine opportunity for healing and reconciliation. And I will say that that's not Kumbaya. Let's hold hands. Everything's going to go away. And also, I don't view myself as a, as a traditional peace activist. There is a mini little peace industry that I'm not interested in being a part of. But what I view this as being is to actually normalize the act that I'm doing, to make it accessible for everybody else so that we could see more Palestinians, more Gazans, and certainly hopefully more Israelis deciding to choose healing instead of revenge. So that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.
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B
Thank you for that. The scale of just the sheer human cost is radically different between the Israelis and the Palestinians, obviously. But I got to tell you, thank God for English, because I lost friends in this war. In Hebrew, this would be a hard conversation to have. And with you, never mind with, you know, and in Hebrew, it's harder in my own head to give a rat's ass what the world thinks because I see these ideologies, because Hamas today says the same thing that it has always. Razi Hamad on CNN said it this week. And so it's never ending and they will never not come for us. And you know, at some point, this endless drum roll of we're going to exterminate you all, just wait and see. We have faith, we have patience. You don't, at some point, you know, you just lose all interest in what anyone else thinks. So getting out of that emotion, that's where I think my Hebrew speaking alter ego is at. And being able to have an English conversation across boundaries, I experience as being able to step out of that. So I think you just talked about a parallel life. And I think now also there's a sense from you that I get, I hope I'm not projecting onto you my own experience, but that there is this parallel. And so anyway, I find this very valuable. And if we disagree vehemently on some things, that's also welcome because it's also honest and serious. But to me, this is very valuable. So, you know, let's get into it. So we have this Trump plan. You have said a few things. For example, I want to challenge you on the regional stabilization force. You have a Transition concept, a transition idea. You put out a tweet that also links to things. I'm happy to put that in the show notes so people can go and dig deep into it. But the things Tony Blair has been talking about or quiet or has leaked about what he's talking I haven't seen him speak officially on this. The things that are in the plan, the French, Saudi proposal. It's very easy as an Israeli to write it off, to be very skeptical, to kind of mock it. UNIFIL came into South Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah and ended up defending, protecting de facto Hezbollah because the Israelis can't hit them and Hezbollah will challenge them on the ground and they'll always pull back. And so they would. Hezbollah would actually create tunnel systems around UNIFIL bases because that's where the Israelis can't hit. And so they ended up just protecting Hezbollah because they're just so utterly useless. That was the Israeli experience of the UN at all times. Abba Eben once said, the former Israeli, legendary Israeli foreign minister once said after the I believe the forces in the Sinai, the separation forces of the UN in the Sinai, as soon as the Egyptians wanted to go to war in 67, they just ran away. And so the UN is an umbrella that doesn't work in the rain. It works right up until there's rain. That's Abba Ebit now, what the heck kind of stabilization force could possibly work in Gaza? What the heck could it do? There is still Hamas and let me just add to it something that you have published that I found absolutely fascinating, which is just interesting intelligence that and you write about this and I'll put this tweet as well in the show notes a Hamas has already given an order for forces to withdraw from Gaza City, to pull back, not stand down the Israelis. There are dozens dying in combat with the Israelis, but not everybody in Gaza City. And to regroup in the central camps. The last really part of Gaza that's still standing Diral Balak area, Nusayrat camp farther south from Gaza City. People can look it up on a map. Hamas already understands that Gaza City will look like Rafah by the end if it doesn't surrender and it doesn't plan to surrender. And so it's already planning the next battle and it's already planning to survive. And you specifically and explicitly write it planning to survive for the next phase or for the day after so that it can make a bid to come back and take over. So there will be Hamas is now in a according to you Hamas is now in a mode to just protect whatever can be protected so that whenever the day after comes, it's there to push back against whatever anyone tries to impose. I submit to you there's zero chance that anything headed by Tony Blair, by the United States, by the Saudis, by the Emiratis, by the Qataris is going to fight Hamas. They won't even try. And as soon as Hamas kills one British soldier, whoever it is, nobody else is going to engage them and they will take over Gaza no matter what. What does the transition force look like that deals with the reality of what Hamas actually is and not just hopes for another UN process?
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A
Certainly. And you better believe I think about this stuff 247 and I very much so would loathe the idea of a UNIFIL 2.0 that I am far too aware. I mean, just the other day I saw a Lebanese civilian Hezbollah plain clothes person literally slapped a UNIFIL officer with their full uniforms and military gear and he just did nothing. It was the most embarrassing thing ever. So I have these layered visions for how Gaza's security architecture will look like as part of, of the transitional period. The first component is that, and this is messy and this is more than a lot of people can handle in an average conversation or can be explained in a tweet. But in essence you're going to have to have the presence of an international force that basically secures humanitarian supplies against looters, against merchants of death, against overt acts of aggression toward the truck drivers, the mass looting, like to make sure that it goes into warehouses to be distributed as intended. You're going to need those forces to basically project just the projection of power can have a deterrence effect. I had a security official that told me once about in Sinai when the Egyptian military rolled in there against ISIS. The Americans told them, what are you doing with M60 tanks and this heavy equipment against a bunch of militants and rolling it into different villages and different cities and Al Arish and all of that. And what the Egyptians said, which turned, the Americans confirmed was later true, is that the mere sight of tanks and heavy equipment and armed soldiers actually had a deterring effect on the rest of the population to deter them from aggression towards the state, joining isis, participating in criminal enterprises and activities in the region, in our beautiful region, the projection of force, but also in any other regions, I would say, like there is something about human psychology and the projection of force so that I think could stabilize the population and make them, you know, secure from say when Hamas goes in there and starts executing people and beating them up for being suspected terror collaborators or for Facebook posts that they put out. So there's that component there. Then there is the fact that I very much so believe there's going to have to be the continuation of the fight against Hamas, but that's going to have to be Palestinian led. And the problem with that is what does that look like? Is it malicious? Is it the Palestinian Authority? Is it an organized professional army? Is it like what we had with the Iraq, Iraqi military in Mosul? I don't believe the Israeli military is capable in a sustainable manner of eradicating Hamas from the Gaza Strip. I think the Israeli military has been very heavy handed in the application of firepower. It has succeeded in eliminating a lot of Hamas operatives. It has succeeded in weakening their arsenals. There's been a lot of success, but at such a heavy price and a heavy cost that it lost the goodwill of the international and Arab world. It lost.
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B
Let me just challenge you on that because we skipped through the important part. Let's imagine that the Israeli army isn't able to and can't. And in trying to, it has escalated and escalated, escalated to the point of massive diminishing returns. Okay, we're just talking strategy here, not the actual experience of people on the ground and the death toll and all that. Just literally it's a fail. It can't work as a strategy. But make me imagine something else that can. What, what could, what would this force? This, this. What kind of Palestinian force? What kind of international. I, I asked you about international forces. I don't believe anybody will sacrifice to destroy Hamas. And I don't think. Or remove Hamas or weakened Hamas to the point where it agrees to disarm. I don't think, I don't think anyone out there in the world is willing to lose anything.
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A
I agree, though. I, I'm saying I agree with who.
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B
Is the Palestinian who can do that.
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A
That. But, but the stabilization force can be step one in stabilizing the population. It could be step one in getting a beachhead into Gaza that can allow for the slow entry. You can gather intelligence, you can gather information. You can stabilize bubbles of civilian areas. You can build walls around civilian areas. You can shield civilian areas from Hamas operatives. You can look up Sutter City and what David Petraeus. I spoke to David Petraeus.
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B
You can. Right? This is what Petraeus called the Disneyland strategy. Make it work somewhere. And that's the example that wins hearts and minds elsewhere.
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A
And also, like, think of Gaza as a, like a north, south east, west, axis. And you know, you just, you have to like, think of it as block by block or like, you know, like, basically these areas that need to be secured. And what is in this area? Is it a bunch of civilians? Is it open land? Is it like. I think there is a helpful role for the stabilization force. And where I will agree with you is that I don't believe this force. Like, the French were much more pragmatic in how they framed it. They said it will eventually disarm Hamas. President Trump's plan said this force will help disarm Hamas and de. Radicalize Hamas in Gaza. So, so that. So, so. But my thing though is like, and, and you know, a lot of people are gonna clip this video and put it out of context and be like, Ahmed is supporting militias or whatever. I think, for example, you look at Abu Shabaab and his militias and we're talking in a very, like, forget morality, forget the consequence, forget whatever. Like Abu Shabaab's model, he has been able to replicate his central node in southern Gaza in Rafah. He pushed it in Khan Yunus, and then he had people appear in northern and Beitlahia in the north. And over time, and yes, they do get backing from the idf, direct and indirect. Yes, they're able to operate. Yes, they're able to slowly build up the capacity to basically, if they choose to be, to act ruthlessly. Now, number one, on the one hand, people fear that they'll become death squads. On the other hand, I have spoken to basically the head of the whole enterprise, and it's not Abu Shabaab. Abu Shabaab is, I would argue, as a figurehead. I'd spoken to the head of the operations of the whole thing multiple times. And I swear, man, I was. So, I mean, I'm not saying he's. I mean, I think he's sincere, but I. I don't know, like, I need some time to, like. He spoke of a relentless commitment to human rights, to people's dignity, to de. Radicalization, and that they will not become a death squad and that they will not be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. And so he just said the biggest risk that they face is that they need armored vehicles that can withstand IEDs, because he said, I invest a lot of time in training my guys. And then Hamas's IEDs are deadly and like. But he says in one on one confrontations. And these are Bedouin fighters, these are ruthless guys. These are very fierce from the Tarabeen clan. They're very capable of, of fighting off Hamas In a one on one, they will absolutely. And I mean again, especially against tired, exhausted, confused, demoralized Hamas fighters. So my point is, whether it be the Abu Shabaab militias or something like it, which in Iraq, David Petraeus with the Awakening strategy that was very much so effective, very much so in parallel with the regular army. So you get the Palestinian Authority. The problem with Abu Shabaab though is that they're going to plateau if they're just operating under the idf. So you have to be flexible in thinking, okay, the international force is going to stabilize civilian areas, the Palestinian Authority does heavy policing in Palestinian communities. And then as an auxiliary to the Palestinian forces, you get these militias that all report to the shared command and control structure. And then in addition to that, there could be another private contractor component that provides logistics, intelligence, and possibly some application of firepower in very targeted ways, like calling for a small scale drone airstrike that is not an Israeli one. So there can definitely be a strategy.
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B
You mean there's also a sort of Western envelope that is American, British, Saudi, they're not Western obviously, but Emirati. But they have, you know, modern drones, modern planes, things like that. You foresee that maybe Israeli intelligence would help them see on the ground in Gaza or Abu Shabaab would provide that in those. You, you can imagine. I'm starting to be able to imagine it. I still don't know if it's a doable. I frankly don't know what Hamas's situation is. And, and I'm not 100% sure Israeli intelligence is 100% sure what it is. But you can foresee a multi piece if it, if it's synergized properly, if it's, if it coordinates properly that it can function with the abilities of the idf, plus the ground forces that are Palestinian and therefore also more integrated deeply into Palestinian refugee camps, tent encampments, et cetera, that can also be committed to uprooting Hamas and is by the way, willing to fight and die to do so.
- [36:22]
A
Precisely that. Precisely that. And what I'm saying is that will both take time. It can be messy. It's not going to be articulated in advance. Like this is what's so frustrating with some Israeli commentators and analysts. And I get the trauma, I get the skepticism from unifil, I get the, like, we can't trust anybody. I get the paranoia. But what's difficult, man, is I listen and I try to engage a lot of different, I'm not talking about you. I try to engage a, a wide variety of Israelis really interested in hearing the answer no, no, but like there is no silver bullet. Like there is no. I get like some Israelis speak as if there's this ready to be served formula. And Taklis Khalas, this is it, this is going to happen. And Yallah, your paranoia is gone. It's not going to be UNIFL 2.0. It's going to be a. Everything is going to be perfect. No, guys, the military, the IDF hasn't been able to takhlis for two years. Like this is messy business. The tunnels, the civilians in between the international community, the Arabs and the fatigue and the hostages, etc. So what I'm trying to say is right now you've largely had a situation where it's just the IDF and Hamas. And so on the margins you have a small presence of Abu Shabaab. And there I would literally. And Abu Shabaab militias. What excites me about the idea of the regional and international stabilization force or peacekeeping force, however ends up being classified is that then you're introducing new elements, new people with guns under new legitimate umbrellas. And then under that force could be an auxiliary attachment of a Palestinian Authority or an Egyptian and Jordanian trained Palestinian Authority forces the 10,000 number and then auxiliary to the auxiliary. We could attach, have the Palestinian Authority unify the different clans and unify every person with gun, train them, professionalize them, and then all of a sudden the 10,000 number that's been thrown out could become 50,000 and boom, you have a force that is able to go house to house, neighborhood to neighborhood. They know Arabic, they know the areas, they know the culture, they know the cultural sensitivities. They're not going to act in a completely ruthless foreign manner. And they're going to take the fight to Hamas in a way that, yes, entails a lot of danger to themselves and to their lives. But it's going to be in a way that is both culturally sensitive but also culturally ruthless at the same time. I know that sounds contradictory.
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B
Let me be optimistic. What the Trump plan offers is that if there is such a cadre of Palestinians, they get Gaza, they get to rule Gaza. In other words, there is a huge upside to their willingness to actually fight. We haven't seen a willingness of anyone to actually fight in any serious way. And I mean Abu Shabaab, but in a very, very contained and narrow and under the aegis of IDF protection. He isn't idf. He's taking IDF help because how else do you stand against Hamas but the ability to expand that. The IDF withdraws The ability to expand that to a entirely different Gazan social system, hierarchy, political world that can therefore, because it wants to have that control, faces down Hamas. That's the optimistic scenario. I take your point. I take your optimism. One of the things that the Trump plan also talks about is that I think largely avoids talking about. And one of the things I really want to get your say in is the paper Netanyahu is. I have always, I have argued for two years, okay, that Netanyahu wants a better day after in Gaza and that every time he sounds like Smotrich, it's because he needs to hold on to Smotrich. I have sometimes been the only guy in the room arguing it. I also have criticized Netanyahu bitterly on a thousand things. And so it doesn't come from love of Netanyahu. I genuinely think that is his vision of the war. And it looks like he's just committed to that. And it looks like that is something that he's willing to do or at least can be pressured by Trump into doing. But at the same time, what Netanyahu authentically, I think, and this is true Netanyahu, and not a SOP to the far right, he really, genuinely thinks that the PA is, over the long term, another version of Hamas. And the reason he thinks it is not that he thinks the PA is going to, you know, launch the kind of suicidal war, self destructive and total burn everything to the ground kind of wars that Hamas is deeply committed to for religious reasons, but that it has the same fundamental story that Israel is an evil, artificial thing that it is too evil to make peace with, and it is just artificial enough to eventually fall. And so the war is always worth it. And as long as they don't sell a different story, they're just building the next Hamas. They're laying the groundwork culturally for just a new Hamas that has a different name. And so the PA is not fit for purpose. If the purpose is a Palestine that is next to us, safe, peaceful, prosperous, an Emirati kind of state with Gaza and some piece of the west bank, let's say, that also has Gaza's natural gas reserves and wants that better future, that is not something the PA can deliver because it's basic narrative about us is no different. You will have a hard time convincing him otherwise, I think. And my question to you is, does it have to be the pa? And how do you get that through the Israelis?
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A
Well, so, I mean, I think it's important to remember, like, I am no fan of the PA for a variety.
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B
Yeah, let Me just add to that sentence, I'm sorry, forgive me for the interruption. And Abu Mazen is polling like 7% polls of Palestinians. In other words, he's more hated in Palestine than he is in Israel.
- [43:14]
A
Precisely that. Precisely that. And so there's a lot of pragmatism that drives my interest in seeing the PA sustain in some fashion and be involved in some fashion in Gaza's future than it is ideological, political, or because I think they are the best that exists. So I wouldn't dismiss the resentment that the PA has towards Netanyahu for what they feel has been a deliberate strategy to empower Hamas in Gaza over the last 18 years since they took over. And a lot of that is documented. Some of that it's exaggerated. Some of that is true, Some of that is in between. They feel that they, I mean Abu Mazen feels like he continued the security coordination and he was really willing to, you know, keep the West Fang calm and that Netanyahu basically expanded the settlements, undermined him, helped delegitimize him. Abu Mazen will claim that his lack of legitimacy comes from the fact that Israel's heavy handed tactics in the west bang, is what got him there. Some will disagree. That's up for debate. Then there is the fact that I think unfortunately, as a way for the pa, which is Fatah and some of those guys to posture against Hamas. The thing that used to frustrate me the most about the PA and their Fatah guys is they would, when Hamas would be like, we're the real resistance. Fatah would say like, well, we're the first bullet. On the Israelis, we fired the first. That's their slogan is we're the first bullet. Some will say we're the first bullet and we realized that's not effective anymore. Or some will just say that we're the first bullet. Like we're the real resisters and you Muslim Brotherhood guys, you know, so I agree that there are some elements of Fatah who are ideologically problematic, but I would never, not out of defense of these guys, I would never even remotely put them in the same boat as Hamas in that I think if their conditions are right, these guys will be interested in their VIP benefits. They want to go to Tel Aviv and have sushi. They want to basically have a nice comfortable life. They are not even remotely interested in the removal of Israel and in fact Israel is a central economic foundation for their rise and I would argue for their corruption. I'm not saying that to blame Israel per se. I'm just saying that Israeli business and enterprise and the intersection of their interests with Israeli infrastructure and economic prowess is what enables them to be relevant and to be so. Going back to the PA in Gaza, you have just the list of medications, for example, that the PA publishes for the health system that is imported from Israel. And like they've done a lot of work. You have the list of, you have the passport printing, you have like the students and like the issuance of all sorts of documents that Palestinian students around the world need. You have a whole host of administrative functions that the PA already does, without which trying to reinvent the wheel of what's already there is going to set the Palestinians back by decades unnecessarily. So, so there's that component. Then there's the belief. And I've met with some of them, very senior Arab leadership. There is a belief that they all know how pathetic the PA is in some regards and corrupt it is. And there are some good people in the pa, but they view their corruption as irrelevant right now because they view their corruption as something that could be addressed down the road. What they are more fearful of is an existential crisis facing the Palestinian people without the PA, without there is not going to be the next PLO, PA consortium. The Palestinians are so extraordinarily divided. I mean, I. The, like in the English speaking world, you know, like the six of us who are speaking out against Hamas and like we're united by our hatred for Hamas, but like a lot of us, like we have, we have interpersonal conflict. Like every one of us is launching their own organization. Like we, like, like I'm using that as a tongue in cheek example for how Palestinians are so chronically divided without the pa. The Arabs see it, they know it. So that's why they're desperate. The Saudis, the Egyptians and to a certain extent the Emiratis. Though the Emiratis are a lot more pushy in wanting to see new characters. So, so just two, two things real quick about the pa and finally, like they deliberately, the problem with the PA is that they deliberately block out new rising characters and leadership personalities. Mid level people, young people like the PA would look at me and they'd be like, no, no, no, no. Let's literally like build every wall around this guy and prevent him from ever. They would hate the fact that I speak good English. They would hate the fact that I can design plans. They would hate the fact that I have good connections and contacts. They would like, no, that's seen as a threat to them. And I speak to so many Let me counter.
- [50:04]
B
I'm sorry, let me counter this because you're describing a situation that I can't help feeling is parallel to many, many national movements, especially before they found their sight state. You have this elite, you have this group that is the movement and it is extremely jealous of its position and it doesn't have anything except that position and it pushes out and holds back. Now, for example, the Israelis had this, but everybody had them. I mean, India had this. Everybody had this kind of early state or pre state kind of group. Ben Gurion did not open the ranks of Mapai, the ruling party that would rule for 29 years, did not open their ranks to new Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews from the Arab world and the Muslim world and other places, did not open the ranks to the right, did not open political power and bring in other groups, ultra orthodox, etc. Largely, sometimes a little bit, but largely not. Or Arab community largely. But they were exactly as jealous as what you're describing and as what the early founders of, again, you know, India, a lot of postcolonial states, Algeria, etcetera, etcetera. But they themselves were so phenomenally competent and serious and they built out so many institutions and they understood the international environment and how to navigate the American, Soviet Cold War. And they built out an IDF from nothing. The IDF that did what it did in 56, 56 was not generally considered a successful war, but the military aspect of it was extraordinary. And it was a staple that was rationing eggs to children until I think 54, because there wasn't enough food in the country. It was a third world country that absorbed, that doubled its population because of the emptying of the Arab world. And so you had an elite that was everything wrong with, in terms of gatekeeping that you're describing, but they themselves were extraordinarily good nation builders. And what the problem with the PA from a Palestinian side, I'm suggesting is that you don't have the second part. In other words, okay, gatekeep, fine, everybody gatekeeps. Who doesn't gatekeep? Especially the people who. Everything depends on them having that position. But they're ruining it. They can't do a damn thing. They can't build anything. I mean, you look at the power grid of Jenin, never mind the, you know, if you get into the mismanagement of everything that's actually under the pa, okay? And yes, they're operating under the Israeli military rule and it's impossible and it's. But the things that are purely. That them are the things that look the worst in the West Bank. And so you have the deep incompetence that maybe is going to cost them everything. What about not? What about toppling the damn thing and building something completely new just because it won't deliver what you hope it delivers?
- [52:49]
A
I mean, that's the challenge, right? That's the issue is I don't see, like, there are so many Palestinians in Gaza who are truly, truly upset with the Palestinian Authority having not done enough during the war since October 7th to renounce Hamas. Why did it take Abu Mazen a year to denounce October 7th? Because he was worried about his legitimacy. Why did it take the Palestinian Authority this long to call on Hamas to release the hostages? Why hasn't Abu Mazen declared Hamas a terror organization or threatened to declare them a terror organization retroactively? Did you know that sinwar, up until October 7, was receiving a salary as a former prisoner in Israel from the Palestinian Authority? Why hasn't the Palestinian Authority severed all contacts with active Hamas members in Gaza? And so I share with you the frustration. I really do. I simply am of the belief that for the Palestinian National Project to have any hope of maturing into statehood, this is what we have, and it's not good enough. We deserve better. I despise the fact that the international community is heaping statehood recognition onto a political class that has basically no legitimacy amongst its people. But we should actually also address that a little bit part of the problem. And this will upset some of my fellow Palestinians. We do have our own internal problems as to why the PA is viewed as illegitimate. People talk smack about the PA until they want their monthly salary or paycheck. People talk smack about the PA until they want to issue a document or go to a school or a hospital. People want to talk smack about the paper until they want to use financial transactions that the financial authority within the PA system have built over the last 30 years that didn't exist before Oslo. I guess what I'm trying to say is that part of that lack of legitimacy comes from the fact that people view the PA as not radical enough, as not pro resistance enough, as not pro Hamas enough, as not pro, you know, third intifada enough. And some people, they want to have their cake and eat it, too. Some people, they want the stability and to get married and to have kids and the monthly salaries, and they want all the benefits of a stable society. But when there are consequences for terror or for a third intifada, or for random acts of violence or for car rammings or shootings or October 7th. Then they're like, oh no, this is so terrible, this is horrible. And I think there's a messaging issue that the PA has not been. And a lot of Palestinian leadership have been, quite frankly, too cowardly to share with our people. They're too cowardly to tell our people that there is no right of return, There is no Haifa and Akka, There is no return of millions of descendants of refugees to what is now mainland Israel. I would not go back and say, I would not go as far as saying, however, that the PA and Fatah and others are just biding their time until Israel disappears and collapses. I would not go and say that they're not willing to truly recognize Israel and evolve that relationship. And I would actually say that behind any public posturing they do to manage the population, they're all going to Israel and buying wine and they're all sitting down. I sat down in Geneva with a series of Palestinian officials and it was the whole meeting and it was Israelis and Palestinians as well as a series of other NGOs meeting together. A series of folks being there.
- [57:38]
B
To.
- [57:38]
A
Discuss Peace post October 7th. It was the first convening of Palestinians and Israelis after October 7th and the whole thing was made. Chatham House rules. You can't discuss it. It's like under the table, just for the Palestinian officials, just for covering their participation. So behind the scenes they were sitting with Israelis and it was like we were all best friends and stuff. So that's what is missing in the pa, is to break that public private seal and message that publicly. And I think then you might stand a chance of convincing Bibi and other skeptics in Israel that their presence in the Gaza Strip as part of a transitional phase is not so bad after all.
- [58:33]
B
If they could do that, then they wouldn't be them. If they could do that, it would be a different PA and it would not look the way it looks. I remain skeptical. Not that it's a good or bad thing. If it is part of this larger thing spearheaded by a Trump administration and a military that is willing somehow this multi arm thing you described that can actually face Hamas and even if it begins slow, but then it finally does actually do the work work. And the Israelis have battered Hamas enough for it to be doable and all these conditions all come to fruition, which is what is needed. So maybe it's doable in the sense that we'll fail until we succeed, right? Which is generally how things work. I am willing to say that if it's part of that larger thing. Gee, that's very optimistic. I'm unconvinced that that's the pa. I'm sorry. You have a right to.
- [59:32]
A
What I will say, though briefly, is that what I am hoping for in the not so distant future is that if you create the right environment, there are thousands and thousands of Palestinians. And I say this regularly, mid tier level professionals, the academics, the technocrats, the bureaucrats, the teachers, the doctors, the poets, the artists, the engineers, the commentators, people that you and I, we don't know their names. Some of their names are known, Some of them are like well known. Some of them have Facebook and Twitter profile, some of them don't. But if you create a space that can allow them to rise, they will absolutely perform miracles in terms of governance, nation building, state building and capacity creation. And capacity building. And I am confident that the Gaza Strip has the highest per capita rate of PhDs, the highest per capita rate of master's degree as well, and the Palestinian territories the lowest illiteracy rates in the entire Arab region. And so I feel confident that our folks with the right leadership creating the condition. I don't want the leadership to inspire. Our people are self inspired, okay? The leadership, like we're not. We've long given up on the leaders. Somehow, miraculously, there is no Palestinian Mandela or Gandhi. What we need is the leadership to create the minimal conditions for the aforementioned categories to rise to the mid tier professional class, to create a new class of Palestinian professionals coupled with external support and endorsement and the shifting of political life in Gaza to become more than Hamas or Fatah. That's the problem right now, is that you have Palestinian political life for the past, especially three decades in general, forever, but especially the last three decades is this very binary. Like if you want to be in politics, you have to be with Hamas or with Fatah. And I'm thinking about like fundamentally re engineering the Palestinian landscape such that I can be a secular, I can be a nonpartisan, I can be a part of this apolitical politics, if you will. I can be, you know, it's sort of like we do have a professional managerial class in the United States. We also need to account for the working class in Gaza. And I don't mean this in like Marxist terms or whatever, but you have a heavy working class, you have a poor class, you have the refugee class that you have people that have been segmented and broken down and some of that needs to be reshuffled. Like some of the folks who are less, quote, unquote, less educated. I've actually seen them come up with the most revolutionary ideas. Like a good friend of mine, let's just call him Ashraf, who has been offering political commentary about. And this man is like, this man didn't even finish high school school by the way. And he talks about peace with Israelis. He talks in like very daring ways on, on, on Facebook. He talks about like rejecting Palestinian violence. He talks against Hamas and the pa. He talks against the, the cultural norms because our society, we have internal problems. And this guy is talking in a way that no college educated Palestinian in Gaza would dare on their own too, because, oh, I'm gonna upset people. It's like that's where I think they're, they're there, the Palestinians of Gaza, the renaissance of Gaza is there, it's ready. And I want to use the opportunity that maybe this deal could be the beginning of that. I call it the thousand mile journey towards, you know, the surge humanitarian aid. Let's stop the killing, release the hostages, let's create beachheads, four different entities, four of fours for more different people with guns so that it's not just Hamas or the idf, but also let's create pockets of like complete intellectual freedom, like Hamas sterile zones so that Gazans can actually speak their minds. And I'll conclude with this that I very much so believe there is an element of this war, as much as it has been horrendous, that has actually indirectly helped de. Radicalize people. And what I mean by that is that the destruction and the death and the pain and the horror has made it such that folks, and Hamas's behavior and the consequences of October 7th and the way that Hamas and Iran and the resistance, this, the collapse of the armed resistance narrative and just the like, you know, all of these things, the, the, the linear progression of the collapse of Hamas's narratives and, and its allies and proxies and then how Hamas behaved during the war towards the people of Gaza and stealing the aid and dragging its feet with the ceasefire negotiations. I think there will never be a Hamas two point on a massive scale. Hamas will always have ideological supporters, that's a given. But Hamas will never, neither Hamas nor Hamas 2.0 will never be able to brainwash Gazans or other Palestinians in the way that it once could have. It will never be able to say, oh gee, let's try this again. Oh gee, let's redirect billions of your resources to build tunnels and build resistance and let's isolate you from the rest of the world for two decades so that we can fight off Israel for the mother of all battles in which we literally gave directives to evacuate and we lost miserably to the idf. I genuinely believe that. And again, it's not just the consequences of October 7th, but because there's always been ideological opposition to Hamas. But it's the totality of the package. I think there will never be any party capable of, like, brainwashing people into the armed resistance narrative.
- [66:31]
B
Ahman, thank you for joining me. I hope you're right. My sense is that if you want to understand a conflict, go to the stories people are telling to the narratives. One of the things I love, as I said about the Trump plan, is that that that new day is on paper with Israeli agreement before the American president. And so Hamas now has to explain to Palestinians why it would refuse. Why would you refuse the rebuilding with the Arab world behind you, that is. Now, you started this by saying, well, I asked you, what do you think of the plan? You say, well, Hamas, why would they agree to this? Right? What's to stop the Israelis in a month from reneging and killing them all? They don't have hostages. And I think that the simple answer is also, but. But the Israelis have committed before a Trump that they need to have that better day after. And so now how can Hamas refuse and say, I used to pretend I'm standing in the way of the Israelis. Now I actually have to explain to you why I'm standing in the way of the Arab rebuilding and the American rebuilding. That's a story and Hamas doesn't have an answer to that story. And so if, as you say, the story is changing, I have met these Palestinians, grew up, spent almost all my life living in Jerusalem, made a point of meeting Palestinians. Some of them are more radical than you'd think. The middle class who speak beautiful English and communicate with Israelis. Then explain to you why you're a colonialist project doomed to fail. But a lot of them are really just out to build and accept Israelis and understand that Israelis are a people that's not going anywhere. So, you know, if this creates those conditions, if that's the silver lining of the war, it's not a bad silver lining. It's not a bad silver lining.
- [68:08]
A
And I was specifically referencing the Gaza Strip, by the way. I will be honest with you and say I've never been to Jerusalem. I've never been to the West Bank. And Hamas is popular in the west bank for a whole host of other reasons. But that's for another podcast. But I believe in a Gaza first approach to create a model, a successful blueprint for what effective Palestinian self governance looks like, what a de radicalized population looks like, what a transformed territory that's well integrated in the region looks like. And that is my hope and that is my goal and aspiration. If others who have the benefit of connectivity with the world and access to. I mean, Gazans have been isolated. Gazans don't have the privileges that many in the west bank and in East Jerusalem and in Jerusalem in general have, have. So if that's what people choose, then that's really on them. Gins didn't have that choice. It was imp. It was Hamas chose for them. And that's what I'm hoping to change.
- [69:16]
B
Thank you, Ahman. Thank you for joining me.
- [69:17]
A
Thank you, brother.