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Bulwark Takes
There’s a Ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza War. But Is This Really the End? (w/ Dan Shapiro)
00:23:17
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- [00:01]
A
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- [00:30]
B
Hey, everybody. This is Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark. I'm joined by Dan Shapiro, the former ambassador to Israel. We are speaking here on Monday around 3pm this morning in Israel saw the implementation of phase one of a historic ceasefire deal in which Israeli hostages were returned to the country in exchange for the return of Palestinian prisoners. It's phase one. There's a number of different phases to go. But Dan, I'm curious from your thoughts, let's start with the historical significance of the day, but also the psychic significance for Israel. We're seeing these incredible, incredibly moving footage, but also incredibly sad footage too.
- [01:15]
C
Sure, thanks for having me, Sam. Yeah, it was a big historic day. This is the end of the war, essentially that started on October 7. You mentioned the return of the hostages. That was, of course, the central focus in Israel. And today was an extraordinarily moving day. Obviously, the scenes of families who have not seen their loved ones, who have been in tunnels for 738 days were extraordinary, but it really swept the whole country. I mean, the entire country has been on pins and needles for two years, going out to demonstrate, going out to the lobby for the release of their fellow citizens. And so for the first time in two years, you feel this sense of people beginning to exhale. Of course, people have been serving in the military that whole time. So it's very profound for how it's being felt among Israelis, I would think, for Palestinians too. While it's still a very, very difficult situation in Gaza, and of course there's been great losses and great suffering, there is the relief, if you can call it that, of the end of military operations, a surge of humanitarian assistance, and at least the beginnings of what we hope will become a much bigger reconstruction. So it's a big change.
- [02:31]
B
But as you sit here and you look at this and we're talking tens of thousands of people of Palestinians in Gaza dead, 900 Israelis dead, thousands wounded, PTSD, damage to the international reputation of Israel, damage to the standing of the Palestinian authorities, the only question that not the only question, but the main question everyone is asking is why did it take this long? Could it have been achieved earlier? Could we have gone to this place earlier?
- [03:02]
C
So most of the year 2024, let's say, when I was serving in the Biden administration, I was serving at the Pentagon, so I wasn't directly involved in hostage negotiations. But those negotiations were ongoing after that first hostage deal in the fall of 23. And at various times during those negotiations, you'd have Hamas holding out for very extreme terms and saying they would not release all hostages or only, you know, at the end of an absolute withdrawal of all Israeli troops. At various times, you'd have Prime Minister Netanyahu first sort of agree to various plans that President Biden or his negotiators would put forward and then add new conditions to them. And then, of course, whenever there was public disagreement, as there often was between the United States and Israel, Hamas understood that maybe its bargaining position was improving and it would hold out for its new conditions. So it was a very difficult negotiation all through 2024. Probably by the fall, almost everybody sort of gets into a mode of waiting to see what's the outcome of a US Election, because maybe they'll have a better situation. And so then after the election, Biden and Trump worked together on the hostage deal that went into effect in mid January, just before the inauguration. And that had a two phase component. So that that could have been the end, led to the end of the war. Then what happened after that was that Prime Minister Netanyahu decided not to go to phase two. And so for several months of 2025, President Trump kind of went along with that plan. He proposed his own plan for the Riviera in Gaza that would involve expulsion of a lot of Palestinians. He went along with Israel not continuing with phase two and with cutting off aid for a while, that caused a hunger crisis. He didn't use the Iran strikes in June as a kind of an. To create a narrative of victory. And then he signed off on the Gaza City operation that Israel started over its own military's objection at the end of the summer. Finally, what changed was Trump's attitude after Israel conducted the strike in Doha against the Hamas leaders, an unsuccessful assassination attempt. And that brought the war to the Gulf. It brought it to friends of the presence. He's friendly with the Qataris and other Gulf leaders. And he decided at that point to change his approach and very quickly brought the leverage he had on Netanyahu to say, you know, we need to end this. He brought leverage on Qatar and Turkey and those with influence over Hamas to use their ability to get Hamas to change his positions. And then he went into this very kind of improvisational diplomacy style where he would just put out ideas and dare anybody to say no to them, even if they hadn't actually agreed to them.
- [05:48]
B
Why, Dan, why could. If leverage was key here, and I do agree with you, why was your former boss, President Biden, unable to utilize the very same leverage that Trump had at his disposal?
- [06:01]
C
I'm not sure he had the very same leverage. He had leverage. Obviously, the United States has leverage in this relationship with Israel. We're a major provider of assistance. It was not necessarily the case that Hamas would have moved or would have responded positively to the use of that leverage. And of course, he did, even in one occasion, paused the shipment of certain weapon, 2,000 pound bombs that he didn't want to see used. So it wasn't as if he never used it. But there is a different dynamic. President Biden, probably, whichever way he went, would have been sort of criticized. Of course, if he didn't use it, and he was criticized by progressives as not using it. If he did, Republicans and some members of the Democratic Party and members of the Jewish community might have criticized him for that and did so. He got it coming and going. What Trump had was two advantages he had that Prime Minister Netanyahu had tied himself in his own political identity so closely to Trump that he couldn't really say no. Trump didn't need to use leverage. Trump could actually give an instruction and an order, which is really what he did after the Doha strike. And Netanyahu had nowhere to go. He couldn't say no to that, even if he was unhappy about some of the details, which he was. And then Trump also had a different kind of political freedom. I think domestically there's really no criticism of him, no matter what he does from his own party. And Democrats, of course, want the war to end, so weren't going to become a source of blowback for that. So I think he had some unique capabilities and it took him a while to decide to use them. But come September, after that strike in Doha, he did and he did, effectively.
- [07:35]
B
I don't want to reward the ideas that Trump threw out there, which seemed to me to be untethered to reality and callous almost with their indifference to humanitarian suffering. But I do wonder, as you look back, were proposals like turning the Gaza Strip into the Riviera on the Med and just giving Netanyahu carte blanche to go into Gaza City and things like that. Basically an effective tool for resetting the negotiation stage in which Hamas can no longer say, if we hold out, maybe we can get to better terms, because the prospects of complete annihilation were out there.
- [08:17]
C
I would put them in different categories. The Gaza Riviera was a completely unrealistic proposal and a completely, you know, poorly thought out and not acceptable proposal, and it wasn't accepted by anyone in the region. Now, maybe it got some of those other regional players, Egypt, Qatar, the Saudis to figure out, well, we better come up with an alternative so that we don't get stuck with that. His support for the cutoff in aid only produced this hunger crisis, which was, of course, disaster for Palestinians, but it ended up putting a lot of pressure on Israel as well. So I don't know that really carried anything. Now, the Gaza City operation, I think there's a case to be made that it put additional military pressure on Hamas and sort of brought Hamas to the point of worrying that if it didn't cut a deal and that the hostages had become more of a liability than an asset, they would be crushed. Now, it would have come at very high price for both sides, and Israel might have gotten stuck in a permanent occupation in Gaza. That's why the IDF didn't want to do it. But I can accept the argument that that military pressure was part of changing Hamas calculus and maybe even that of Qatar and Turkey.
- [09:24]
B
Yeah, now that I talk about it, you know, the bombing raid in Iran, for instance, was of the same genre, and it didn't seem to dislodge things at the time, so maybe not. You said that this is effectively the end of the war. I don't necessarily disagree, but I'd like to push back a little bit because it is phase one, and we've been at a phase one before, only to the implementations of phase two fall apart. And in this case, among the things that have to happen don't strike me as very small things at all. I mean, we're talking about the disarming of Hamas, which I'm not sure they will agree to that. And then secondly, is setting up, obviously, a governing structure in the Palestinian Gaza region that all parties can find amicable, which is incredibly hard. I'm not sure what talents Tony Blair has that are still at his disposal.
- [10:15]
C
But.
- [10:17]
B
I sit here and I'm not incredibly optimistic, even though I'm happy, obviously, with phase One. What makes you optimistic?
- [10:26]
C
Well, I'm not that optimistic either. I mean, phase two is going to be extraordinarily difficult. And it's going to require an extremely focused diplomatic effort constantly by the President and by a team and a better team or bigger team, I should say, that are really focused on this on a day to day basis. But it starts with what you said, that the kind of condition for any of phase two to advance is that Hamas be disarmed and removed from power in Gaza. That was always my understanding when I was serving the Pentagon, is that unless Hamas is really defeated and taken off the field and certainly no longer a threat to Israel, you couldn't get any of the other things that we want to see happen. All the rest of phase two, an international stabilization force reconstruction fronting from the Gulf, the Palestinian Authority finding a way to get its people and security folks and governing apparatus into Gaza. Gaza and eventual dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians about a two state solution down the road. None of that's possible while Hamas still sits there in control. Nobody's going to insert forces. No one's going to rebuild something that could be destroyed. Again, Israelis are not ready to have a conversation about a Palestinian state and the Palestinian Authority won't get in. So that still remains the most important condition to satisfy so that the rest of phase two can move forward. And it's very difficult. We can see already since the Israelis have pulled back to the lines that were agreed, about 50% of Gaza is in their control, but not, not the cities. Hamas is reestablishing its muscle on the street, putting people with guns on the street. It's conducting reprisal assassinations and battling some of the clans and other groups that came about against it. And it wants to retain power and it wants to do it at the muzzle of a gun. So it's going to require some very intense pressure from those actors who have influence over Hamas. That's chiefly Qatar and Turkey, Egypt, to some extent, just as they were helpful in getting them to the point of releasing these hostages, they're going to need to use the same leverage to get Hamas to say, look, they are no longer a credible or reliable. Reliable, no longer a viable or acceptable political force or military force in Gaza. That's not going to be easy, but that's really important.
- [12:38]
B
That's why I thought it was an interesting tale to see Trump go to Egypt today, in addition to Israel. And obviously I think what you're getting at is that so much of the ceasefire is owed to the fact that the Arab governments got on board and said, all right, enough, we're done. Turkey, Qatar, Egypt. But Netanyahu did not go to Egypt. Today he was supposed to be at Sharm El Sheikh. It was announced he was going to be there, and then apparently he wasn't going to be there. I know you think that was a strategic blunder on his part, but can you explain why you think he did not go there and why you think that was a blunder?
- [13:16]
C
So, first, it was a smart move for the president to go there, not just to see President Sisi of Egypt, but that whole group of leaders, all of whom have something to offer and something to contribute to all those parts of phase two, and so to kind of rally the troops. It was not originally planned for Prime Minister Netanyahu to go, but when President Trump landed in Israel today and he and Netanyahu were driving together from the airport to Jerusalem, they apparently discussed having Netanyahu join. They called President Sisi, and ultimately an invitation was offered and accepted. And then a couple of hours later, it was pulled down. Now, the excuse given, and it's not a completely legitimate excuse, was that it would require Netanyahu to be there over a Jewish holiday which starts at sundown today. Generally, Israel, there are a lot of Jewish holidays. I will say there are a lot. There are a lot. That's the typical Israeli government practice. But you could say, you know, to save lives and, you know, stop a war, might be worth it. He may have faced a political blowback from members of his coalition if he would have gone, because also President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority was going that part of his coalition doesn't recognize the Palestinian Authority as legitimate, doesn't want to talk about two states, doesn't want to have that handshake, and he may have pulled back. There was another problem, which was that some of the other countries that had agreed to come to this summit, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, countries that don't have either relations or good relations with Israel, also let it be known that they were not in any mood at this stage anyway to have handshakes with Netanyahu and have him be present. So it may be just too soon, but that's an indicator that this goal that the president has, one I share, which is to build out this more integrated Middle East. It's going to take time for people to recover from all the trauma of Gaza before they're going to be ready to be in some of those types of engagements.
- [15:02]
B
Well, let's pick up on that thread, because while I'm incredibly happy and I'm sure everyone else is doing to see what happened this morning, grateful, frankly, for the Trump administration to have seen it through, I Do think the psychic shock is about to get really hard. I mean, you have two dozen funerals that are going to happen in Israel. You have images that are going to emerge from Gaza that are going to tell a horrible story of famine and suffering and death and depravity. You have already, as you noted, instances of Hamas militants out on the street patrolling with what seems like almost impunity. The managing of this post war situation, if you want to call it a post war situation, is fraught, honestly. And it could really undo a lot of the standing that Israel has right now. Even. Even acknowledging that Israel's standing is pretty weak internationally right now.
- [15:56]
C
Right. Both societies are totally traumatized. That's not going to change overnight. Obviously, the reach and we mentioned regional players who are, you know, taking upon themselves to take on certain responsibilities, but resisting having to take other responsibilities as well. Listen, when I was still serving in the Pentagon, or actually even the State Department before the Pentagon, and was asked to think about post conflict planning, I realized that, you know, unless you get Hamas removed, you really don't get into a post conflict. And what you end up with is how every other Gaza round has ended, which is Hamas battered and bruised and certainly not an immediate threat to Israel, but still clinging to power, still slowly but surely rebuilding and still committed to its ideology, which is to fight and try to destroy Israel. There's a danger we get stuck in that in between phase. And so President Trump is right to say we can't. And everybody is right to say everyone's got to lean in and put their shoulder to the wheel on what they can offer to not be there. But we have to be honest, that risk exists. And it's partly because wars in the Middle east tend to end messy. There rarely is a clear victory or a total surrender. This was not the total victory that Prime Minister Netanyahu had advertised. Of course, Hamas remained there. The disarmament hasn't taken place yet, but it was a defeat for Hamas, as is appropriate for the perpetrators of October 7th. But it's in that messy zone. And to get it to the next phase, that disarmament has to take place.
- [17:26]
B
Can you just talk a little bit about. I mean, you've been in Israel a ton. You know, the people there, just how they're handling this, grappling with this as a society, both culturally and politically. I mean, you see these, the footage that emerges of these families reunited after two years of hell, and it's just incredibly moving. And yet you read anecdotes too, of people who were hostage Coming home thinking they're going to see loved ones, only to discover that they were killed on October 7th. They didn't even know for two years. The psychic shock. I keep coming back to that word of the psychic shock in Israel specifically. Can you speak to that today?
- [18:03]
C
I would describe what happened was kind of the beginning of exhaling after two years, but it's not the end of the trauma. You mentioned people coming out after two years and only then discovering the losses that they had in their families. On October 7, of course, 28 of the hostages are going to come home deceased, or maybe not even come home. It's a question of whether Hamas can find or is willing to find all of the remains of that group. So there may be some open wounds of unresolved cases. There's, of course, all the people who have been lost their homes or been wounded in battle or lost family members in battle. So the, the. There's a long tail. Right? It doesn't end on the day that the ceasefire is declared. And, of course, that affects the politics in lots of ways. You may have seen that when Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff addressed the hostage square rally on Saturday night. They came. Steve Witkoff got up to the microphone and wanted to say some nice things about Prime Minister Netanyahu as a partner in getting to the ceasefire. And just the very mention of his name, he was boo mercilessly. Now, that's that part of Israeli society. There are other parts that support him, but there's a lot of anger still about choices the government made, and not always making release of hostages the highest priority and seeming to want to continue the war without making that a priority. So that's going to play out especially as Israel goes into an election campaign sometime in 2026. So that's very, very strong. And, you know, at the same time, you could see the. The relief and a lot of joy and a great deal of appreciation. Of course, President Trump's a hero right now in Israel. And, you know, for people who were desperate to see this war end and desperate to see these hostages out, he gave them kind of a lifeline. He did it by finally turning that pressure on Netanyahu in the way he was capable of.
- [19:53]
B
My last question for you, because, you know, you are involved in politics, and we want to talk about the politics of this, but it's a good point to have. It's a good moment for an inflection point about US Israeli relations, I think, and just sort of curious, you know, what have the last two years sort of in what ways have they readjusted, if any, Your view of U.S. israel relations?
- [20:18]
C
Well, I'm not sure I'm going to be the one to say there's like a sea change. I think it remains an important US Interest, both a strategic interest and a moral interest, to ensure Israel's security and that it can defend itself. And it still faces enemies that want to destroy it. And so that hasn't changed. It does, I think, mean, though, that we, as Israel's partner and security partner have, can have views and have used our leverage and try to make sure that the way Israel conducts itself when it has to fight those enemies minimize to the maximum extent civilian casualties, humanitarian suffering. And that's something we should talk about. There are better and worse tools, I think, about how to do that. I don't think. I think the executive branch and the military is talking to each other and reaching agreements on that is doable and effective. I think sometimes when things go to votes in Congress, it's kind of a blunt instrument and doesn't produce the same kind of result. I don't think it produces that kind of result. But I don't think we want to lose what we benefit from in terms of our influence and our interests in the region by having that partnership. But it gets better, better for us and better for our interests and influence as that regional integration project proceeds. And that's only going to proceed if those other countries see that there's also a pathway to some kind of Israeli Palestinian future as well.
- [21:42]
B
I don't disagree with that necessarily, but I do wonder if one of the lessons we've learned as a society or body politic, I guess, is that sometimes you do need to say no or exert leverage or say no. This path that you're going down is not one that we think has long term viability. And yeah, maybe Donald Trump was able to do that for a variety of reasons and Joe Biden was not. But I think waiting two years to really push the proposition may have been a mistake in retrospect. Do you not agree with that?
- [22:12]
C
Look, I don't think that everything that happened in the Biden administration was perfect and there were things that could have been done better. I also don't think that about President Trump's first nine months. I think there were very, very difficult challenges and decisions. And I think sometimes people believe that there's just sort of a button the United States can push and that changes things. That's not my experience. Even pre October 7th and certainly post October 7th, I think a good understanding of Israeli society and politics would suggest that that's not the way things work. But there's no reason that allies and partners as we are with Israel can't have very tough conversations, can't have very heart to heart explanations of expectations and procedures and protocols to try to make sure that. But as we support them and as they support our interests in the Middle east, which they do a lot, we are avoiding the worst outcomes, whether they're humanitarian or strategic. So that's a fine for allies and partners to have those very tough conversations and we aren't going to agree every time. That's the other thing I learned in five and a half years as the ambassador is that we will disagree. But when we disagree, that doesn't mean you throw the entire relationship out. You try to deal with the disagreement you have and see if you can come to a common understanding.
- [23:31]
B
Fair enough. All right. Ambassador Dan Shapiro, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate was a good day and that's hard to say. Over the past two years we haven't had many of those. So Ambassador Jan Shapiro, thank you so much.