← Call Me Back - with Dan Senor
Call Me Back - with Dan Senor
EMERGENCY EPISODE: TRUMP & THE FUTURE OF GAZA - with Rich Goldberg
00:52:30
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- [00:00]
Rich Goldberg
I think if you're looking at what Gaza can be and you're laying out a vision of what Gaza could be, if you break outside the box, if you actually executed a plan where you allowed people to leave Gaza for a better life, and you assume control of a Gaza that was not filled with destruction, filled with terrorists, you have to do a whole bunch of steps in between. Let's just stipulate that. And it's not simple. But if you got to the end state on the whiteboard that he's throwing out there for conversation purposes, for negotiation purposes, or for actual realization purposes, what can Gaza be that it is not today? It could be an incredible international zone of commerce. It could be resorts along the Mediterranean. It could be a military base for the United States. It could be port access. It could be an air base. You could move Al UD out of Qatar. I mean, I've seen a lot of ideas being thrown out there.
- [01:08]
Dan Senor
It is 7:00am on Wednesday, February 6, here in New York City. It's 2:00pm On Wednesday, February 6, in Israel, as Israelis and the world at large are trying to make sense of President Trump's dramatic, unexpected, perhaps historic press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House last night. In case you woke up under Iraq this morning. On Tuesday, President Trump suggested that the United States assume control of Gaza for some period of time and that its 2 plus million Palestinian residents be relocated, perhaps permanently, to sites in one or more alternative countries which will be built for them as a substitute for their former communities in Gaza. The President also, throughout the course of the day, announced some new policies that impact other parts of the region, specifically Iran and therefore Israel. To discuss this unconventional idea and some of the executive orders that were signed earlier yesterday about Iran is senior advisor at the foundation for Defense of Democracies, Rich Goldberg, who previously served on the White House National Security Council in the Trump administration and is been on Capitol Hill for a number of years working for Republican senator on Iran policy. And he's been very close to the evolution of US Policy in the Middle east under Republican administration and a Republican Congress over the last number of years. Rich, good morning. Good to be with you.
- [02:51]
Rich Goldberg
Good to be with you.
- [02:53]
Dan Senor
So there's a lot to cover here. Rich, let's just start with the contours of what President Trump outlined yesterday. Can you just walk through the various pieces, including and maybe starting with his discussion about or his proposal to relocate Palestinians in Gaza?
- [03:12]
Rich Goldberg
Yeah, listen, I think first of all, the grand context of all of this is the backdrop of a rather Historic visit by the Prime Minister of Israel. The first foreign leader in the world to come to the White House in a new administration is the Israeli Prime Minister, at the approval of the President. United States, after, let's say, a rather contentious 16 months with the previous administration and obviously a lot of policy differences between some in Washington and some in Israel with a lot of mutual enemies watching to see what's the relationship going to be like. Are we going to have public spats, are we going to have withholding of weapons, are we going to have pressure on Israel, are we going to have a different Iran policy? What's, what's everything going to look like? And this is a show of complete unity, 100% side by side, shoulder. The shoulder, not just in rhetoric, but I mean, I don't know how much more you could actually do to show there's no daylight between the United States and Israel, whether or not there is behind closed doors, the optics, the signal to the Iranians, the signal to Hamas, the signal to anybody, the Europeans, the United nations was very, very strong indeed. So that, that's one big, big, big backdrop because I think it plays in to all the conversation we'll have because it means something for Prime Minister Netanyahu back home domestically with his own coalition, with his government. Now, on the Gaza piece itself and on the press conference, I think also some context here matters. I think for many people who have watched this, we've really seen a very unique situation in the world of how the international community, as it's called, treats the Palestinians, particularly the Palestinians in Gaza. For nearly 16 months, there's been one place in the world where you're not allowed to be a refugee. You're not allowed to leave a war zone by force, by fiat of the international community. It's Gaza. Egypt can't let the wall down, let people come across the border, settle in Sinai. Other Arab countries can't take Palestinians who want to leave. No one's allowed to touch a refugee from Gaza. They have to stay in Gaza and just move around and be inside a war torn situation that the President has said and that Steve Wyckoff is Middle east envoy has just been there and reported in. Is just a lot of devastation at this point after the war with people coming back to the north under the phase one of the ceasefire deal and realizing there's not a lot left. Rebuilding is going to take 10 to 15 years, according to Steve Wykoff, who is a real estate developer. And Donald Trump has been saying now for a couple weeks, I want to see Countries take people who are refugees who want to leave Gaza because there's nowhere to live, and they want to have sanitary lives and, and healthcare and education, and they want to have a better future while Gaza takes over a decade to rebuild. And by the way, de radicalize as you rebuild, which is sort of the big important piece of a rebuilding project in Gaza. How do you do that without Hamas in control or behind the scenes or waiting to come back to power? Rebuilding. And so why is it that they oppose this? Well, it's because they already consider the people in Gaza to be refugees from Israel for 70, almost 77 years. This is one of the strongest political pawns to use, right? That there is a refugee population from 1948. They must return to Israel proper. It doesn't matter to them that Israel withdrew from Gaza 20 years ago and they don't have occupation, they don't have territorial control of Gaza until this war. Doesn't matter to them that Egypt doesn't want anything to do with Gaza post 1967 and has washed their hands of Gaza and won't even allow one person to come across the border unless they're in some sort of hospitalization category and they've been pressured to let some wounded people in to them. They have to be there as political pawns. Now, that being said, you have a ceasefire deal in place. You're in phase one, you're supposed to start negotiations for phase two. Phase two and phase three become far more complicated for the Israeli government because you start getting into the basic fundamental contradictions at the end points of this negotiation. And that are you want to get the hostages out. And we heard the President say he is still committed to getting all of the. All the hostages out. All the hostages out. Important statement. At the same time, you do not want to commit national suicide. You don't want to hand Gaza back to Hamas and just pretend it's not going to happen all over again years from now, at some point, as they reconstitute, as they rebuild, as they retake control of Gaza, what is the answer? So the President's being told, Mr. President, you have two options. Either pressure Israel into moving forward and maybe the coalition collapses, Netanyahu collapses. We don't know what comes next in Israel and the Israelis won't even go for it anyways, because in the end they sort of realize they can't just give Gaza back to Hamas and the ceasefire deal might collapse and you won't get all the hostages out and they might go back to war. Even though you said you wanted to see peace or you would endorse going back to war and you don't get the hostages out. And now you've backed away from your commitment to get all the hostages out and your commitment to bring peace instead of war. And these are all bad options. And in true Trump fashion, it seems he says, why are you giving me just two options? Why are you putting me in a box? Why can't we be thinking outside the box? Why can't there be a situation where people can voluntarily leave and that will give us the space to rebuild and also the space to de radicalize while we see how this plays out.
- [09:13]
Dan Senor
Rich, can you just walk through the details of what the president laid out as it relates to Gaza? So just walk through just mechanically what he's talking about. And I know we don't have all the details and I know he clearly laid out a vision that is perhaps more vision than an implementation plan, but based on, let's just, I just want to go through what he actually taking the administration at their word on what was laid out last night. What did he lay out?
- [09:39]
Rich Goldberg
What is the it he laid out a notional vision is how I would characterize it. He even said my suggestion, my strong suggestion at some point, which I thought was interesting language, in which he says there will be some donors, sounds to me like Arab donors, Gulf donors, who could finance the resettlement of refugees from Gaza in large numbers, 1.8 million, whatever number, we're at 2 million, 2.2 million somewhere else in the Middle east, multiple places, maybe outside the Middle East. He started mentioning other countries that might be involved that are not Arab countries. We think of maybe heavy majority Muslim countries are out there that could be interested outside of the Middle east, maybe it's Indonesia, Malaysia. We've heard rumors of countries even in Europe, maybe Albania, maybe others. And with somebody paying for the construction of large cities, basically, and a strong pro human rights alternative to living in squalor and destruction and unsanitary environments amidst a terrorist organization that still wants to reconstitute and provide space for reconstruction in Gaza. And the president added in this press conference, which was different than his past statements, that the United States would own Gaza, would assume control of Gaza, that it would make it into something that is like the Riviera on the Mediterranean.
- [11:17]
Dan Senor
But does that mean the US Is occupying Gaza, is an occupational authority in Gaza with at least temporary sovereignty responsibility, sovereign responsibility over Gaza.
- [11:29]
Rich Goldberg
What actually becomes of the legal status of Gaza would need to be worked out if you actually played this out and went forward. Like I said, the Israelis don't want to have control of Gaza and they are being asked to militarily withdraw from Gaza at the end of phase two, Phase three, they won't be in charge of Gaza. If Egypt says they don't want to assume control of Gaza and haven't wanted to do so for decades, they're not in charge of Gaza. The state of Palestine is a legal fiction at this point and certainly doesn't include Gaza. Every single peace plan for decades, certainly since Hamas took control of Gaza, has not been able to account for what you do with Gaza. Even the, you know, the President's vision of peace in the last administration, certainly every conversation during the Obama administration and the Biden administration, you just talked about peacemaking and two state solution and all this stuff. Oh, and we'll figure out Gaza somehow. No one's ever been able to tell you a plan for Gaza. But the legal status of Gaza, I think is an open question. Even if the United nations wants to believe it's otherwise or the Human Rights Council wants to say otherwise, or the European Union wants to say otherwise, it's not the state of Palestine, it's Hamas, Stan. And Hamas is being removed from power. So who is the actual owner of Gaza? I think there could be legal arguments made that a new sovereign could be in control. And the Israelis clearly don't want to have sovereign control of Gaza. Some in Israel may want that. It doesn't seem that the Israeli government wants to do that at this point. The Egyptians don't. The Palestinian Authority does. Okay, so that's the position of the Arab government. The Palestinian Authority should assume sovereign control of Gaza. And the Palestinian Authority, which itself is not a state, would then become a state. And then that is the state of Palestine in sovereign control of Gaza. The President's alternative view, if you take what he said literally, would be that it may become sovereign territory of the United States.
- [13:25]
Dan Senor
Okay, he talked about a US run international zone of commerce. What was that about?
- [13:33]
Rich Goldberg
Again? I think if you're looking at what Gaza can be and you're laying out a vision of what Gaza could be if you break outside the box, if you actually executed a plan where you allowed people to leave Gaza for a better life and you assume control of a Gaza that was not filled with destruction, filled with terrorists, you have to do a whole bunch of steps in between. Let's just stipulate that. And it's not simple. But if you got to the end state on the whiteboard that he's throwing out there for conversation purposes, for negotiation purposes, or for actual realization purposes. And I think we have to defer to President Trump, of which one of those is the reason he's laid it out. But for now, he's the president United States. He's laid out a vision, and we've seen him committed to other visions that he continues to move, to execute towards, Even though for 48 hours people laugh at it and say it's not real. And then after 48 hours, they start realizing, wow, this is real, and he's doing things about it. And now we have to deal with reality. And suddenly reality changes. We've seen that now multiple times in his presidency, and it's like every single day. It's like a rerun. Oh, that's not real. Oh, that's a threat. Oh, he won't do that. And then something happens and then somebody responds to it in a way you didn't expect that ever to happen. So let's not imagine that we're in some paradigm that can't shift. All paradigms keep shifting, certainly in the last couple of weeks. But if you got to that point, okay, now express what is Gaza? What can Gaza be that it is not today? It could be an incredible international zone of commerce. It could be resorts along the Mediterranean. It could be a military base for the United States. It could be port access. It could be an air base. You could move Al Udit out of Qatar. I mean, I've seen a lot of ideas being thrown out there, you know, as I'm sure you have as well.
- [15:23]
Dan Senor
The Al Udida Air Force Base, just for our listeners, is the U.S. central Command base basically in the Middle East. It's the most important US Base in the Middle east, and it's in Qatar. And as Rich I think you're alluding to, there have been many experts who have and members of Congress who've speculated whether or not that's where the largest US Base in the region should be.
- [15:46]
Rich Goldberg
There are a lot of interesting debates you can have on each piece of this and each step that it would take to go along the way, and how would you do it and who would implement it? And well, if everybody's against it, how is this even going to work? All good questions, all good questions. I come back to the fundamental beginning context, and that is you're in phase one of the hostage deal, let's call it. The easy parts of, of Phase 1 are coming to an end. And by the way, easy means for Israel, you know, agreeing to allow hundreds and hundreds of terrorists, many with Blood on their hands, you know, have committed heinous terrorist attacks, murdered people to just leave prison and be celebrated as heroes, to give up certain control of certain parts of Gaza already give Hamas propaganda victories, stomach the putting of hostages on stage, the way you've seen and harassing them on their way out and intimidating them. I mean, just horrific things, right? But all that's the easy part of the deal because you're not yet at the strategic conundrums. You're not yet at the part where you have to start negotiating phase two, which is supposed to now begin, where you have to wonder, is Israel now inside phase one, going to withdraw its forces completely from the East West Corridor of Gaza, the Netsareum corridor, as it's required to do coming up inside phase one, before further hostages are to be released. Are you going to actually see Israel negotiate on its complete withdrawal from Gaza? Oh, and by the way, the end state of Gaza is supposed to be a part of that that Israel has to agree to. And of course, Israel stated goal, and the President's stated goal is that Hamas cannot be in a position of power in Gaza. They must be fully demilitarizing Gaza in that end state, where you go through phase two, into phase three, that has to end in a place where Hamas is not going to say yes. So you're now in this battle to get as many hostages out as you can. And the President said he wants all hostages out, and I believe he's committed to that. And Steve Witkoff has said that as well. How do you keep the process going? How do you get more hostages out as this gets bumpier and still ensure that Israel doesn't commit national suicide and that we don't have to continue to face terrorist threats over and over again from Gaza? How do you change the dynamic here, whether it's the short term to not see the ceasefire collapse and still have hostages out without threatening Israel's security and the long term, so that this doesn't just keep happening again. We don't pour billions and billions and billions of dollars into Gaza to just help Hamas rebuild. So all in that context, the President has put forward something completely outside the box and everybody's gonna take it apart, everybody's gonna attack it. And at some point, somebody has to come back and answer the question, why is it just completely for Bolton to allow somebody to leave Gaza if they want to? The Qataris, by the way, you're looking for space. People have said the Sinai Desert could is a massive amount of space. People could just come to the Sinai Desert. You could build cities there. Sure. The Egyptians won't allow it. The Qataris are sitting on a massive amount of World cup infrastructure that's completely vacant. Housing facilities that could be retrofitted, all kinds of things. Basically villages that they've built for the World Cup. I mean, it's just there, meaning it.
- [19:10]
Dan Senor
Was built for the last World Cup. And now that it's over, there's a lot of physical infrastructure still intact.
- [19:15]
Rich Goldberg
There's a lot of holding up a mirror going on here. I think of the hypocrisies by putting this vision out there, by putting this idea out there. And you know what? At the Saudis and the Emiratis and the Qataris, they want to come back and say, here's what we propose, here's what we want to do. Interesting idea, Mr. President. Maybe we can allow for half a million people to come out of Gaza. A million people to come out of Gaza temporarily. 10 years, 15 years, they'll have refugee status. They're leaving the war situation. We will provide all love and care for them, make sure they are living dignified lives. Maybe they want to resettle. You know, that is something that happens with refugees from war situations. They resettle. All of these are interesting questions. Maybe Indonesia does step up, Malaysia steps up Albania. Others get into the act here. Maybe, I don't know.
- [20:08]
Dan Senor
Rich, your point about putting up a mirror is to me perhaps the most interesting part of what we saw yesterday. Because I think everyone is going to obsess over the details of what the President laid out last night, when in reality we don't have a lot of details. So it's hard to try to imagine the details and then have a debate about the details we're imagining. I think the bigger point here was the President is saying we're not gonna do rinse and repeat, okay? We've been trying the same thing over and over. If you look at the three major areas that Israel has withdrawn from since the 90s, it gradually withdrew from the west bank, obviously maintained security presence in parts of the west bank, but turned over governing authority, civilian governing authority to the Palestinian Authority, to a Palestinian government in the west bank in the 90s. In May of 2, Israel unilaterally withdrew from southern Lebanon. And in 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. In each one of those areas, Israeli soldiers have been killed having to fight in those areas and go back. And Israeli civilians have been slaughtered because of terrorist attacks or rockets launched from each of those areas. So now each of those areas was a Different model in terms of how Israel got out of those territories. But in each one, Israel has effectively, one way or the other, been back. And what we are watching now post October 7th, all the discussion from the international community, primarily Europe, from much of the Arab world, which have, all I should say is panned the President's press conference yesterday and all said what the President laid out is not going to work and they're all attacking it. But all of what they have been proposing since October 7th is basically another version of what we have tried and what Israel has tried going back to the 90s, which is Israel gets out of territory from which Israel is being attacked, and hope that as Israel demilitarizes, if you will, that the area will stay demilitarized. And in every one of those areas, it has not stayed demilitarized. And in some places, really bad actors have come in to fill the vacuum, which is southern Lebanon with Hezbollah and Hamas and Gaza. And so I think the President's looking at this and saying, guys, we're on the path to doing the same thing again. Right here we are, Israel's out of Gaza, so Israel's effectively demilitarizing Gaza, except the vacuum that is about to be filled is Hamas, a Hamas led governing authority. And tell me how this is gonna be different with, by the way, tons of international money going back in to develop it, except with Hamas in charge. Tell me how this is gonna be different than what we had from 2005 to October 7, 2023. So I think I'm watching the discussion about the details, and I don't wanna say details aren't important. Of course the details are important. And there needs to be a lot of scrutiny and discussion and examination of the details as we learn them, if there will be details. But I think the conversation the President is forcing on everyone involved, all the stakeholders, is, are you telling me this is the best you got? By the way, my understanding is the president watched the 47 minute video of the Hamas atrocities against Israelis, the October 7 video that apparently he watched it on Monday. So just imagine he's watching that video and he's hearing where this whole conversation is going and he's thinking we're just gonna be right back in the same stew.
- [24:02]
Rich Goldberg
I think that's exactly right. This is my whole point. This is him trying to break the box, trying to widen the aperture of options and see what else might come from doing that, of people saying, okay, well, I didn't realize we're on a whiteboard now. I thought we were just stuck in These two binary options. Okay, well here's if we can have any option on the table. Let me come forward with this idea. Let me come forward with this idea. Well, whether this work and I think we might see a lot of people come forward in the negotiations, behind the scenes diplomacy, etc. A couple other points here. Number one, people say, well, you can't get a country to take Palestinian refugees out of Gaza. I think you could. I think there's a number of incentives that could be offered to countries that might be interested in doing so from a humanitarian perspective. Those could include elevating a country to major non NATO ally status if it's not there today. By the way, a stick could always be if a certain country that you think should actually do this is unwilling to threatening to remove that country's status as a major non NATO ally. And that has to do with arms sales and just the perception of the closeness of our defense relationship. And it's an elevated status. It's something a lot of countries want. You could do that for them. You could do things in trade preferences, you could do things in financing deals in long term strategic type economic infrastructure projects like the Millennium Challenge Corporation that has these long multi year, multibillion dollar pipelines for massive big deal infrastructure projects. You could think much bigger. As you know, we talk about corridors, right? You know, you've heard about the India, Saudi to Israel corridor. That's, you know, this big infrastructure energy idea sitting behind normalization between Saudi and Israel. You could see things like that put on the table that instead of running through this country, we'll run through your country instead that the US Will support. So I think there's a lot of ways to incentivize countries when you're the United States to see it your way alongside the potential of sticks. That's one piece of this. So is it possible? It's absolutely possible. Number two, there is a shift in the dynamic in the conversation within the right side of Netanyahu's government and those who might be temporarily out of the government in responding to what the President has just done. And Netanyahu will come home with all kinds of tangible policy victories on Iran, on the United nations, on just the support generally for Israel now, on the idea of breaking out of the box on Gaza and not forcing Israel into a situation to accept a Hamas return to Gaza. That is already changing the dynamic inside his coalition, inside his government.
- [26:57]
Dan Senor
So there's two ways you can think about that, Rich, the hopeful view. I mean, let's just think about this from the perspective of the hostage families, those who still have loved ones in Gaza, one way to look at it is, wow, this holds the government together. While, because we do know that Trump and Witkoff and the team do want Israel to proceed to phase two of the deal. So one way to look at it is this creates a path, for all the reasons you're saying, for Netanyahu's government to hold together while he pursues phase two of the deal, which results in more Israelis coming back, which is extremely important. That's one reaction. The other reaction could be, and I know you and I talked about this last night, we're both in touch with hostage families. Is one of, let's just say, apprehension, which is, wait a minute. Like you say, he's breaking out of the box, turning the chess board upside down, letting the pieces scramble all over the place. However you want to put it, isn't there a risk that Hamas says, we intend to be in power when all this is over? And you're basically saying, we're out Now? Israel has been saying from the beginning of this negotiating process that in no world will Hamas still be in power when this war ends. And the United States has been saying there's no way that Hamas will be in power. And Trump said yesterday, there's no way that Hamas will be in power. That is not a new idea. The question is, does the way Trump laid things out take things to a whole other level of signaling to Hamas they're done? And do you cross a point where Hamas says, we're now transitioning from living to fight another day? Which is, I think, the mode they're in right now, which is why they're incentivized to stay in the game and still negotiate, because even though there's this paradox where Israel says there's no way Hamas will be in power, but Hamas says, yeah, we're going to hang in there? And they both have their own view, Israel and Hamas, of where this whole process is going. Has the US Taken it to a whole other level and saying, not only is Hamas not going to be in power, but we're going to be in Gaza, and could that potentially put this trajectory we had been on, God willing, we are still on where hostages were being returned in jeopardy.
- [29:01]
Rich Goldberg
So I, first of all, let's absolutely agree that every step of this, no matter what, is anguish for the families of hostages and those who still have loved ones in captivity, alive or dead, and therefore, there's never going to be a clean answer to that question. My view has been all along we have set up a process here in this multi phase deal where you are going to increase trepidation and consternation and potential likelihood of collapse of the deal as you go along. That's been obvious to me from the beginning and in some ways the best argument has always been get as many hostages you can out.
- [29:46]
Dan Senor
And just when you say I want to spell this out, you've said why the process was always fragile. Because the reality is a few weeks ago we were talking about this deal in abstract terms, but now you're seeing close to a million over time, Palestinians moving back to northern Gaza. So they're right up there near the Israeli border. You're seeing hundreds of terrorists over time being Palestinian terrorists, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons being released. And then their stories, we're learning the stories of who these people are and how many Israelis they had slaughtered. And now they're back in business. And just as all this becomes real, the weight of it could just collapse it from any number of fronts. I'm here now talking about the Israeli front. So you're just saying the whole process has always been fragile. So it's always been about just kind of keeping it going. Let Hamas believe what it's going to believe and in the process get hostages home.
- [30:42]
Rich Goldberg
Not just that, but you're building in a vagueness of what actually is agreed to after where you are, of end state realities that both parties need to agree to and are fundamentally never going to agree to. Right. Because Hamas is not going to fundamentally agree to saying, don't worry, we're good, we're all leaving, we're done, here's all of our arms, we're de radicalizing, we'll all leave Gaza. We're, we're heading to Qatar, all of us, we're all accounted for mass surrender. And the Israelis are not going to say, yes, we are absolutely out of Gaza forever. You have Gaza back. Hope it goes well, you know, hope we don't have October 7th again, good luck. That's where you're heading. It's a train wreck that you are heading on if you don't change the dynamic at some point and I don't know when the trains collide, if it's within phase one, if it's within phase two, if it's in the final week of phase one where you have to have agreed to phase two. But that's always been true. But by the way, we've already proven, and I think you heard something to this effect in some of the media interviews that you heard from Steve Witkoff yesterday as well, which were potentially more important in some what he was saying than what you heard in the press conference from the President. We've already seen a renegotiation of this deal. So everybody's saying we gotta hold to the deal. The deal is sacred, gotta just move forward. Terms of the deal, by the way, the terms of the deal are left undefined until you get to certain points in the the deal. The deal has already been moving around. It's already been shifting. Hamas has been shifting in what it's supposed to do and Israel has been demanding more in response and getting more by saying we won't accept certain terms unless you do the following things. They just got more hostages out than they were supposed to last week after refusing to do something they were required to do under the deal, which was allow people to move north. And so is it possible you can still do that again? Can you get more hostages out than was originally agreed to in Phase one? And can there be different ways? Can we see Idan Alexander, the American IDF soldier, included in Phase one even though he wasn't included in Phase one to begin with? If there are dead bodies that are supposed to come back in Phase one, why can't that include the rest of the Americans as well? I think that there are a lot of pieces here that we just assume. Well, that's what Phase one is. Well, Phase one is already not Phase one. So the President has the ability to move pieces around, change leverage points, change dynamics and conversation points and see how that impacts with the goal being getting more hostages home, ultimately as many as you can, if not all. He says all ensuring that Israel doesn't actually go back to a situation where they are under attack and under a terror threat long term. And oh, by the way, we haven't even talked about it. Beneath all of this, he is focused on a Saudi Israel normalization deal and how you get there. It's very clear. He talked about it at the press conference. It's sort of overhanging everything. And as you know, yes, the Saudis put out a statement at 4am their time to reject everything the President said. But we also know that everything that comes out of the Saudi Foreign Ministry is complete, completely detached from everything that happens inside the Saudi royal court.
- [34:04]
Dan Senor
He did say, the President did say that a Palestinian state, I forget his exact wording, but he basically said a Palestinian state is not as important to the Saudis as we may think.
- [34:15]
Rich Goldberg
He said the Saudis want peace.
- [34:16]
Dan Senor
Right?
- [34:17]
Rich Goldberg
He didn't answer the question. He said the Saudis Want peace. We all want peace. Israel wants peace. America wants peace. It was a smart answer. But it does mean that there is a negotiation still ongoing. It's still to be had. There's a lot of pieces to it. Things that Saudi wants, things that the President wants, things that Israel wants, things that the Palestinians want. Gaza's one piece of this. So this is one of the most complicated situations one can imagine. But fundamentally, if you are somebody who wants to see more hostages come out, the question is, are you more likely right now to get towards phase two, to get more concessions in phase one, to change the dynamic in a way where you can at least proceed and get more hostages out than you were yesterday? I think there's a strong argument that you are. And I understand the trepidation that Hamas on Friday might say, we're done, we're out, we're not doing this anymore.
- [35:11]
Dan Senor
Which would mean, by the way, to be clear, Hamas saying we're done could mean, I just want to be. You know, it could mean we're done sending Israeli hostages back to Israel. We're pausing things.
- [35:21]
Rich Goldberg
But what's their incentive? You know, but we can go hypotheticals back and forth on this. And I would say, what's their incentive to doing that? They still are in a situation where they are moving population north. They have more concessions on the table that the Israelis will be under pressure to deliver, actually removing themselves from the, from the Netsarium corridor, other repositioning in the future, getting more of these terrorists, hundreds, thousands of terrorists, more coming home to celebrations. I mean, there's a lot of potential wins for Hamas in this deal, which is why they agreed to the deal, which is why they're doing the deal, which is why when Israel says, hey, we're going to, we're not going to allow you to cross Netzarim, you're not going to come north. We're not going to allow population to flow north unless you give us confirmation and a process to get these three other four other hostages out. And Hamas says okay. I mean, that could have been the moment the deal collapsed and it didn't. Which clearly shows a certain perspective and motivation by Hamas at the moment.
- [36:20]
Dan Senor
Look, my view of this, informed in part by many in the region, not just those in Israel, is that. Cuz I keep focusing and have been on this podcast over the last few months. Unlike most negotiations, call it begin and Sadat, Israel and Egypt call it the Abraham Accords. Pick your Israel and Jordan in the mid-90s, the negotiation with King Hussein, and in every one of these Deals. There's basically, I hate to use the cliche, but I'll use it. A win win. This negotiation, there is no win win. It's zero sum. Israel wants all the hostages back and it wants Hamas gone forever. Hamas wants to retake Gaza and they both have agreed to a path where they both can envision, they can each achieve these two outcomes that are in direct conflict with one another. So one side has to be wrong. And it's clear that Hamas has calculated we can play for time if we can get Israel out of Gaza and we can gradually retake Gaza and rebuild Gaza and reassert our authority. If we're on a path to doing that, we're winning. And every day Israel's not in Gaza, we can do that. And now Israel can say all it wants that Hamas is not going to be in power. Time will tell. And they could have the same reaction to what Trump said last night, which is okay. The President thinks the US Is gonna run with Gaza. Good luck. All we know is each day we're still here, we're reasserting ourselves and we make that possibility less likely. Again, I'm not getting into this is total speculative.
- [37:55]
Rich Goldberg
No, exactly. It's all speculative. Right. And in the end, if you come to the President with that statement, with that assessment, which is the sober assessment of the path you're on, he, as is his practice, says, I reject the premise here. I reject the options you've brought. I want more options. Why are we in this box? Why can't somebody else be another option, be on the table? So he's thrown more options on the table and now it's up to all the stakeholders to react.
- [38:24]
Dan Senor
Yeah. And putting pressure on the region to do more. Again, as I've said, the US has operated like Egypt does the US a favor by simply, you know, complying with the Camp David agreement of 40 plus years ago and has no responsibility for figuring out security inside Gaza. That's Israel's problem. And the President is saying, guess what guys, it's not your problem too. And Jordan, this is your problem too. In the Sunni Gulf, like you kind of having a hands off approach and just saying from your capitals throughout the Gulf, there needs to be a Palestinian state. Okay, guys, well, you know, this is now your problem too. So I do think that that is powerful input here. Before we wrap, Rich, I want to talk to you about this. There were a number of executive orders on the UN Human Rights Council, on unrwa, on UNESCO. But the one I want to focus on, which I think was all of it was important. But the one that I thought was most important was what the President did yesterday on Iran which got eclipsed. The news of it got. And the importance of it got eclipsed by this historic press conference. But can you talk a little bit about what, what he did on Iran?
- [39:33]
Rich Goldberg
So the National Security Presidential Memorandum two, the second one he's issued, the first one was simply basically organizing the National Security Council, which is pro forma. This is his first policy order of a national security memo to the interagency to the departments of the US Government that are relevant. And he has ordered them to reimpose maximum pressure on Iran in very clear terms, in a way where he very much lays out what is the policy United States, what are the threats posed by Iran, what are the end state objectives? Here we want to see which is an Iran that not only doesn't have nuclear weapons, but can't continually play a nuclear extortion racket against us, to extort us and the international community with the threat of crossing the nuclear threshold. And you see this in the fact sheet that they issued as well about not tolerating Iran having a nuclear weapons capability. Until Iran agrees to give that up and stops its sponsorship of terrorism. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of the treasury, need to find every possible valve to increase pressure. That's removing waivers. You know, these are the exceptions, sort of the pauses to sanctions that sometimes the President can give a country to get access to cash or a different transaction. Several of these waivers were issued by the Biden administration, General licenses, as they're called in the Treasury Department. These are relaxation of sanctions without formally waiving them. Again, things that were issued in the, in the Biden administration as part of an accommodationist approach towards Iran. So there's $10 billion in Iraq and Oman that's likely to get closed off. There's $6 billion sitting in Qatar, we remember, from that hostage deal with Iran right before October 7th. That's likely to get closed off formally. Any other valves that have been opened up will be closed off. Very important direction to try to drive Iran's exports of oil towards zero. They have skyrocketed over the last couple of years. We've gone from a low near zero at the height of maximum pressure. 2019, 2020, sort of around 300 to 500,000 barrels per day of Iranian exports of oil in 2020, when the president was leaving office, which is accounted for a lot of illicit activity that you, you try to crack down, but you can't quite. And we have seen A high point of 2 million barrels per day at the height of the accommodationist policies of the Biden administration in 2023, shortly before October 7th. And in fact, we still see, you know, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 million barrels per day, which is a policy basically of allowing it to happen, not sanctions evasions, effects. Additionally, interesting stuff in here. Ordering the Attorney General to launch investigations to crack down on Iranian networks here. Financing networks, operational networks, protect U.S. citizens from various plots that might be happening inside the homeland. Cyber threats from Iran, a lot of very important things. Comprehensive view. Talking to the UN Ambassador designee Elise Stefanik, about moving forward with the snapback of UN sanctions on Iran, which has been something the Europeans have resisted doing now for many years. And that alone, by the way, expires later in October if we don't do it. So all of these things are baked in here, which means the pressure is going to go up on Iran. And the public way of doing it signals to the market, hey, I know there's a lot of rumors of, there's back deal negotiations. We're offering appeasement, we're offering. We might be getting back to jcpoa. Maybe there's. You see, the Iranians are the ones doing the talking until now, leaking out to the press all kinds of stories. You don't know exactly what the policy is of the United States government. You now know what the policy of the United States government is. Now, I'll caveat that by saying the president, as he signed the order said, I'm torn about doing this, I don't want to do this.
- [43:23]
Dan Senor
I was struck by that in the Oval Office. He kept caveating it. I hope I won't have to use all these tools. I'm not happy about having to sign this. That point was striking to me.
- [43:32]
Rich Goldberg
And he's followed this up with a truth social post where he says, we can have a great deal with Iran. We can do a verified nuclear peace deal, as he calls it. They just can't have nuclear weapons. They can't threaten us with nuclear weapons. He always comes back to that basic point, and it's on the Iranians, by the way, to now come back and say, well, here's what we would do to actually dismantle all of our nuclear capabilities and verifiably do so. And we could talk about what goes into that process to make sure you don't fall into Iranian traps along the way.
- [44:04]
Dan Senor
I just want to. You mentioned the truth social post. He I just want to quote from it. I just pulled it up and I'm going to read. The President wrote reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens. Are all caps greatly exaggerated. I would much prefer a verified nuclear peace agreement which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper. And he said in the press conference, again, Iran, no nuclear bomb for Iran. There cannot be a nuclear bomb for Iran.
- [44:31]
Rich Goldberg
These are not new comments from him. He made these statements throughout the maximum pressure campaign in his first term. 2018, 2019, 2020. He's always said this. And it's the Iranians, within their own system, within their own way of, you know, their mania, their irrationality that can never bring themselves in a serious way to credibly, verifiably, comprehensively dismantle their nuclear capabilities. That would mean their enrichment capabilities, any future reprocessing capabilities. They still have a plant that can do that. Their nuclear capable missiles that threaten us. All of their weaponization activities and their personnel and their facilities that we don't even know about, that we don't haven't seen, but we know exist because we know the organization that runs them and we've gotten some intel leaks on computer modeling that's going on, all of those things, right? To actually start any sort of process like that, the first request would need to be information. If you're serious about doing a nuclear peace deal, if you're serious about dismantlement of your nuclear capabilities responsibility, you need to come forward and fully declare your nuclear program. This was one of the fundamental flaws of the jcpoa. I think the President fully understands that. How do you do a nuclear deal where you supposedly are getting concessions and restrictions on a program you have not even provided, been provided the full extent of? You would need to first know where are all your sites? What have you done? What have you done since the Ahmad program 20 plus years ago? What are happening at these other sites that the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency has visited in 2018, 2019, 2020, where they collected environmental samples, found nuclear material traces, where satellite photos showed people moving things at these sites right beforehand, taking containers out of buildings, trying to cover up the ground so you wouldn't find things? What were you doing there? How is it linked to your crash nuclear weapons program of the last couple of decades? Who's working at this secret organization that we know runs the nuclear weapons program? Spnd where are they? Let's talk to them. Where are all your missiles at? How many do you have that are nuclear capable? How many centrifuges do you have, where are they all? How do we verify that? These are like basic inventory questions. Because if the Iranians say, okay, we're willing to stop doing this, we're willing to dismantle that, how do you know they've actually made a concession to you if they haven't fully declared verifiably the program to begin with? So if I was the president, I would say maximum pressure is on. I don't want to have to do this. I'm not a warmonger. His inaugural address talked about ending wars. He's not looking for a war with Irani. They. He also understands that you're in perpetual war in the Middle East. If Iran threatens a nuclear weapon and holds the region hostage, why do we have a force posture the way we have in the Middle East? You have people who say get out of the Middle east, move to China, move to Indo Pacific if Iran has a nuclear weapon, never going to happen. If Iran can always threaten us with a nuclear weapon, still never going to happen. And he knows that. So this is basic fundamentals to extract the United States from a forward leaning force posture, to actually be able to save money long term and not get drawn back into conflict. And Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and ships being seized in the Gulf and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and soon intercontinental ballistic missiles tipped with a nuclear weapon that can hit the United States homeland at some point, which is their goal. So all of these things are in, I believe his mind when he says these things. He doesn't want to be a warmonger. And by the way, here's another smart reason to say it. The Iranian playbook from the first Trump administration was try to drive a wedge between the United States and our European allies where the Iranians play the victim card. Oh, woe is us. Trump is putting maximum pressure. He doesn't really want a deal. Let's talk to the Europeans. You'll save us. We can do a deal. Let's have talks. Well, the Iranians have started setting that process up. You've seen it. They're having negotiations with the European three, as they're called, the uk, France and Germany. Two rounds already talking about how they want a nuclear deal. But the bad United States needs to come back and do more things than just say they want a deal. And they want to say, oh, we could negotiate. And you've seen key leaders go back out into the public realm. TV interviews, think tank interviews, all this kind of stuff. Oh yeah, we could do a deal. So the President comes out of the gate and Says with Netanyahu next to him, maximum pressure is back. We're going to crush this regime. We're going to put you into the ground. He fears looking like a warmonger. And there are various people even within his own constituencies who don't want that. I don't want that. But he also knows that it's unacceptable for Iran to be in the situation to extort us with a nuclear weapon capability. So how do you get there? How do you bridge that? How do you diplomatically get there? How do you save the idea that you do want to deal while you're putting maximum pressure on, which is a rather hawkish thing to do. And so he's really sort of disguised a move to vastly increase his leverage with talk of diplomacy on top of it, which I think is genuine. And it's on the Iranians now to respond. And if I were the president, I would issue one request to them, one precondition to a nuclear. I like the word verified in his true social post, the verified nuclear peace deal. Give us information. We can't start talks without basic information. Declare your program, declare the full extent of it, let us know your inventory, then we can see what you're actually offering to do.
- [50:17]
Dan Senor
And again, much like he said about Gaza, and we didn't even get into it, but we can do it in a subsequent episode, alluding to some decision coming on, recognizing potential Israeli annexation and long standing settlement, certain settlement blocks in the west bank, and then what you're laying out here on Iran, he's giving the Israelis a lot to work with and a lot of wins, while at the same time I think he's expecting them to keep proceeding with this ceasefire and hostage deal, so.
- [50:49]
Rich Goldberg
That's right. And Dan, he got asked directly, you know, would you support an Israeli strike on Iran? You know, would you support that? He didn't answer the question. Straight face, you know, looks back and says, we'll have to see. Right. You know, that is projection of a credible military threat to Iran alongside the declaration of maximum pressure, alongside comments, rhetoric. I don't want to have to do this. We could have a deal. It could be great. You just have to verifiably give up all of your things that threaten us in a very existential way.
- [51:22]
Dan Senor
Rich, we will leave it there. Thank you, as always. I'm sure we will be circling back pretty soon, but there's still a lot to unpack on this and all sorts of different angles and reactions both from within Israel and from within the United States and from throughout the region. Thanks for your first immediate reactions to it.
- [51:39]
Rich Goldberg
You bet.
- [51:45]
Rebecca Strom
That's our show for today. You can head to our website, arc media.org that's Ark. Ark media.org to sign up for updates. Get in touch with us, access our transcripts, all of which have been hyperlinked to resources that we hope will enrich your understanding of the topics covered in the episodes on this podcast. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Lon Benatar, additional editing by Martin Juergo. Rebecca Strom is our operations director, research by Stav Slama and Gabe Silverstein, and our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.