Loading summary
Transcript25 lines
- [00:57]
A
Sam.
- [01:45]
B
I'm Jeremy Scahill From DropSite News, DropSiteNews.com and this is our regular Tuesday live stream. It's January 27th. In a moment, I'm going to be joined by two colleagues who've done some really important, groundbreaking work on what's happening right now in Gaza and the so called Board of Peace, the US Agenda, Trump's agenda, Israel's agenda. But first, I just want to note that as we are sitting here, Donald Trump is reportedly contemplating his next moves regarding Iran. And the reports that we're reading is that he's right now deciding whether to enforce even more economic sanctions on Iran or whether the US Is going to once again engage in some kind of a military assault or attack on Iran. There's been a lot of discussion and certainly the Israelis have been agitating for Donald Trump to try to assassinate the senior leadership of Iran, including the country's supreme leader. And as we've talked about in previous live streams, Iran has made clear through its official channels and even in a somewhat extraordinary op ed that was published last week in the Wall Street Journal, penned by Iran's foreign minister, that Iran is not going to respond in the same way that it has in previous US Or Israeli attacks. And if you remember typically what happens when Israel or the United States have bombed Iran, the Iranians don't immediately launch missiles or declare war. What the Iranians typically have done is to engage in a back channel conversation with the US About a kind of calibrated Iranian response. And what's clear from both Iran's missile strikes against Israel, but also against US Bases in the Arab Gulf is that the Iranians have tried to calibrate their responses so as to not kill large numbers of people so that they're able to respond, but they are trying to impose their own sort of rules of engagement. And the Iranian state seems to be indicating that the rules of the game will change, particularly if the United States or Israel do try to engage in so called leadership strikes or to assassinate the senior leadership of Iran. And when we spoke recently to Dr. Fawad Azadi, a professor at the University of Tehran, he said that his understanding in the upper echelons of Iran's national security apparatus was that there's discussion of 500 US soldiers being an aim of a retaliatory strike in the event that the United States does in fact attack Iran once again. And we're going to continue to monitor this. But before we focus on Gaza and Palestine, which is what we're going to spend this stream doing, I feel like it's necessary because of the way that the discourse is unfolding in public about this issue, to remind people of a basic core fact, and that is that Donald Trump, despite what he said, despite what he said when there were the large protests happening inside of Iran where he was encouraging Iranians to rise up and to seize Iranian institutions, he doesn't care about the Iranian people. The Republican Party and its leaders don't care about the Iranian people. The Democratic Party and its leadership don't care about the Iranian people. None of this is actually about supporting the Iranian people or supporting democracy or supporting freedom of any sort. This is at the end of the day when we're talking about the US Posture here, and that's what I'm talking about. This is about US Imperial aims. This is about oil, this is about gas. It's about the geopolitical war. This is what it's been about in terms of U.S. policy toward Iran for, for decades. It was what it was about in 1953 when the CIA and British intelligence orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh. It was what it was about when the US was supporting the brutal regime of the Shah of Iran all the way up until the dying days of his regime. This has been what the US Sanctions policy against Iran has been about. That hasn't been a policy to support the Iranian people. It's harmed ordinary Iranians, the most vulnerable people in Iran, more than anyone else. And in June, when the US and Israel launched 12 Days of Heavy bombing of Iran in the name of degrading or destroying potential Iranian nuclear capacity, those bombings killed more than a thousand people. And remember that Donald Trump used the veneer, the COVID of negotiations with Iran. They had set a meeting for negotiators to meet in the Sultanate of Oman. And Trump used this false promise of negotiations over the nuclear issue to provide cover to do a surprise 12 day bombing of Iran. So, you know, nothing the US is doing right now, and I mean absolutely nothing, is about supporting any Iranians except those that the US and Israel believe will be pliable, believe will do the bidding of Washington. They want a return to an era in Iran where the US could view the Shah or whoever they want to put in power as a client. And we're going to continue to monitor the developments there and what comes next. And in many ways it is actually connected to, to the discussion about what's happening in Gaza and in Palestine and the through line of that. There are several of them, but one that relates to what we're going to talk about today is that none of what the Trump administration is talking about or this so called board of Peace has been established to do is centering Palestinians in any way. There are no Palestinians on this so called board of peace. And since the so called ceasefire went into effect in early October, Israel has killed nearly 500. And this is the confirmed numbers. It may be greater than this, but what we know of is nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since this so called ceasefire went into effect. And Israel is continuing to kill Palestinians in Gaza as it expands and intensifies its ethnic cleansing operations in the occupied west bank. Not just using official US official Israeli military forces, but also these terrorist settler gangs that on a daily basis are trying to force Palestinians off their land, burning and scorching their olive groves, attacking their homes and their farmlands. But the dominant story right now, to the degree that Gaza is even being covered at all, because it basically is off the pages of the, the news right now is that Israel in the last 48 hours recovered the remains of the last remaining Israeli captive in Gaza. He was a an Israeli Special forces police officer. And Trump and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, have talked about how now this chapter of history is over and the era of peace can be can begin and the hostages have been returned. And of course, Israel used the fact that there was this one body of a deceased Israeli remaining in Gaza to justify all manner of aggressive, brutal, murderous policies since this so called ceasefire went into effect. But no one wants to talk about the fact that there are Palestinian hostages that are still being held. A lot of them, the Palestinian captives, the Palestinian prisoners that are in captivity in Israel who are being tortured and abused and intentionally neglected. And there's talk in Israel of now trying to give the death penalty to Palestinians held in captivity. What we know right now is there are approximately 9,300, a bit more than that officially Palestinians that are confirmed to be in Israeli captivity. Nearly half of these people, these Palestinians have not been charged or tried at all. I mean, those who are actually tried often face total kangaroo justice. And many Palestinians face what's called administrative detention, where they're held in a Kafkaesque condition, where they don't see lawyers, where they're not given access to any rights. And this also includes children, Palestinian children who are held by Israel. At least 87 Palestinians have been killed inside of Israeli prisons since October 7, 2023. We don't know how many Palestinians that were snatched from Gaza since October 7th are still being held in military camps by Israel. And the focus on this issue of the body of the deceased, the last Israeli captive, his deceased body, I see people still saying, like, why do the Palestinians hold dead bodies? Israel has had a policy going back to 1967 of holding hundreds upon hundreds of Palestinian bodies. Some Palestinians have been held, their bodies have been held for decades, despite the fact that their family members are desperate to try to provide them with a burial. And Israel is holding them in refrigerators or in numbered graves. I spoke recently to Nael barghouti, who spent 45 years in Israeli captivity. He was the longest held Palestinian prisoner. In fact, in 2009, he was in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest held political prisoner in the world. And the person whose record, I mean, it's disgusting to talk about it this way, but the person who Naal Barghouti replaced on that Guinness Book of World Records list was also a Palestinian in terms of longest held political prisoners. And nail. Barghouti was released in January of 2025. In this exchange of captives that accompanied the ceasefire agreement, so called ceasefire agreement that then Israel blew up after 42 days, reimposed a full spectrum siege blockade on Gaza and then resumed its scorched earth terror bombings that still haven't stopped, despite the fact that there's yet another so called, you know, ceasefire. So as you know, Trump and Israel are saying, oh, this chapter of history is over. Remember that there are Palestinian hostages that are being held, that there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held, that there are hundreds and hundreds of dead Palestinian bodies that are not being returned. And now the pivot that we saw at Trump's launch in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum of his so called Board of Peace featured Jared Kushner, the President's son in law, speaking about Gaza as a massive real estate deal. And this all is accompanied by Israel's increasing demands for the Palestinians to totally surrender. And they're using this false issue of disarmament to say that the Palestinians are violating the terms of the agreement. Remember, when the Palestinian side signed this agreement, they didn't sign any paper about disarmament. That has been a total lie. The Palestinian resistance signed a narrowly focused agreement that only covered the issues that as combatants they could cover. Exchange of captives, ceasing of fire and the resumption of aid to the Gaza Strip and the timeline and terms for withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces. But now they're lying and saying, oh well, the Hamas agreed to all of these things. Hamas didn't agree to those things. It's just a basic fact and it's an important one that we keep in mind. But if you look at this so called Board of Peace, it's stacked with Trump cronies, his business friends, with people close to Israel. I also think it's really important to look at how many of these people have deep ties to the United Arab Emirates, which has very close relations with Israel. Many Palestinian resistance figures have told me that they believe that the UAE has been aiding and abetting Israeli surveillance operations and other activities inside of Gaza both before and after October 7th. And the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu has been named to this so called Board of Peace really says all you need to know about it. A man who is wanted by the International Criminal Court who reportedly can't travel to certain countries for fear that one of them may do the unthinkable and actually enforce that arrest warrant. We're going to talk about all of these issues, but also details that we're now learning from leaked documents that Dropsite News has published over the past week that deal with this so called Board of Peace, but also with what's happening inside of this so called control center inside of Israel that's being used to monitor and enforce the policies inside of Gaza. And joining me now are two colleagues who have broken some really significant stories in recent days. Sharif Abdel Kaddus, who is DropSite News's Middle east and North Africa editor. And we're also honored. You know, we interviewed him as a source before when he was a senior UN Official. But Jonathan Whittall just wrote his first piece for Dropsite News. He's no longer with the UN he's an independent political analyst and writer, seasoned humanitarian that has worked in conflict zones for the past two decades with Medicine Sans Frontier in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, other crises most recently. And this is probably where a lot of people watching now are familiar with him. Jonathan was senior UN official in Palestine from 2022 until he was expelled by Israeli authorities last year. He's founded his own political affairs and negotiation organization called Keys K E Y S that's based in Beirut. He's also a researcher affiliated with the Ibrahim Abu Lughad Institute of International Studies at Berzeit University and he is now starting to write pieces about the Middle East. We're encouraging him to do reported pieces, but he also has been writing some really sharp analysis for the Guardian and elsewhere. The first story that he just published yesterday for drop site is called Leaked Board of Peace Resolution Outlines U S Led Plan to rule over Gaza. The draft framework would bestow sweeping authority on Trump to determine all aspects of Gaza's governance and future. Sharif Jonathan, thanks so much for, for joining us here on the stream this morning.
- [17:12]
A
Thanks, Jeremy, thanks for, thanks for having me.
- [17:15]
B
So, Jonathan, let's, let's begin this walk people through this document because what it is, it is the first resolution that has been, and we understand from a variety of sources that it actually has been adopted. You know that no one officially has done that. We went to the White House, they said they don't comment on leaked documents. But this is significant because it's the first real concrete window that's been opened into the technical details of the scope of the agenda and how this so called Board of Peace intends to proceed with implementing this agenda in Gaza. So take it from here, Jonathan, and walk us through this document. And you don't have to speak in sound bites. You can go into a lot of detail. People will want to hear it.
- [17:57]
A
Perfect. That's good. Thanks again, Jeremy. And yeah, it was great to be able to write this piece for Dropsight. Look, I think what's interesting about this is we've heard a lot of different bits and pieces, announcements that have come out in different ways in the last weeks on what this Board of Peace is. There's been a lot of confusion. There were some announcements around the structure of the Board of Peace and how it's going to operationalize itself in Gaza. What this resolution does is really, as you said, it gives us a window into the technical details of how it's going to be operationalized. And I think there's probably three kind of big issues, I would say, with the resolution. The first part of it is that it really outlines a kind of total control strategy. So we're looking at a supreme leadership body that has entire control over, over Gaza. It's structured in the most bureaucratically heavy way. So you have the Board of Peace chaired by Donald Trump with the heads of state that he announced at Davos. And then you have an executive board that is delegated authority to essentially run Gaza. And then you have an executive Gaza board that would support the main board as an advisory function. You have a high representative that implements the, the strategy on the, on the ground. And you have an international stabilization force. So it's a, you know, it's a, it's for an administration that says that they're not keen on, on heavy bureaucracy. It's, it's one of the heaviest bureaucracies you can, you can imagine. So the, the Power that the, this resolution gives to the, the Board of Peace and actually the Executive Board is quite astounding. So I want to give you just one excerpt from the document. It says all legislative and executive authority, emergency powers and the administration of justice are vested in the Board of Peace. So that's all aspects of Palestinian life. It goes on to say things like that the Board of Peace may exercise all power and authorities that it deems necessary to implement the comprehensive Peace Plan. So it's astoundingly detailed in the way that it exerts control. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is the kind of lowest rung of the ladder in this bureaucracy, mega bureaucracy. And that National Committee, what's, what's shocking about how it's spoken about in the resolution is that it says that it's going to be working on civil service administration, other governance functions, but it says as authorized, directed and supervised by the Office of the High Representative. So that's a direct reporting line between the only Palestinians that are represented in this structure. They are directly reporting authorized directors and supervised, the three words that are used by the Office of the High Representative. So one last bit. In this kind of total control, part of concerns is that there's this very concerning use of the phrase eligibility standards. And this eligibility standards are referring to who is allowed to participate in the New Gaza. And that kind of brings us to the second category of issues, if you like, with this resolution. And that's what I would call a kind of conditional survival. It ensures compliance by Palestinians with all of its decrees that are passed down by essentially Trump. And it ensures compliance by conditioning it to the access, access to the means of survival. So, And act consistently with the Board of Peace's directives, will be eligible to participate in governance, reconstruction, economic development or humanitarian assistance. It also mentions that the UN and NGOs or specifically mentions non governmental organizations that have been affiliated or influenced by Hamas would be excluded. We know that Israel has a long track record of alleging without evidence that people are affiliated or connected to Hamas. So the kind of exclusion criteria is really sweeping. And then the last. Sorry, you told me I didn't have to speak in sound bites. So I'll just give you one last kind of reflection on the resolution and that's the, a kind of privatized subjugation. You know, when we saw Jared Kushner in, in Davos presenting this, this slide of, of of new New Gaza and the Master Plan, you know, I couldn't help but think that, that Gaza is being turned into this kind of theme park, of, of dispossession where governments and, and, and companies are being offered a return on their investment in genocide essentially. And the resolution that we've now seen and that's been leaked, it creates this kind of structure for the involvement of the private sector in the board in the decision making. What was interesting is that there was one name in the document that Dropsite received that hadn't been announced or hasn't been announced by the Trump administration. That's a lawyer called Martin Edelman. He's referred to in an article as Manhattan's man in Abu Dhabi. He's been extensively linked to, to, to Emirati private wealth companies that Tony Blair have also has also consulted for. So we can kind of see through the, the list of names of, of people involved just how kind of privatized the, the, the reconstruction, so called reconstruction is, is going to happen. That's the kind of, you know, rundown of the, of the big picture, Jeremy, of, of some of the, of some of the issues that we've, that we've seen.
- [24:57]
C
Thank you, Jonathan. I also wanted to ask you specifically about, you know, there's news now that the Rafah border crossing will open. Israel has said so it will be a, what they call the limited reopening to only pedestrian traffic. And the issue of aid and how it's talked about in this draft resolution, I mean at the UN you were the head of ocha, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs and spent a lot of time on the ground in Gaza overseeing issues of humanitarian aid. You know, the draft resolution says they would establish so called humanitarian zones and what they called controlled civilian protection corridors which would be patrolled by the International Stabilization Force. Can you talk about some of these issues? And also at the end of the resolution as well, it says no one will be forced to leave Gaza and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and to return to Gaza. But as you said, it also makes clear that access to resources and aid and life essentials require participation and compliance in this so called comprehensive plan.
- [26:16]
A
Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Sharif. I think, you know, since the beginning, since October. Well, actually let's take, take a step back before that. I mean, Gaza has been, as we all know, besieged and had the essentials controlled in terms of what can enter and what can exit. On in October 23, what we saw happening was the kind of implementation of a total and complete blockade. So the baseline became zero. Everything was blocked. There was no exception. That was the new starting point. And everything that's been achieved since then in terms of what aid has got in, which is absolutely minimal compared to the scale of the needs and what is needed in Gaza. Everything that's gone in has been a kind of negotiated exception, if you like. And it's been a political and a military strategy from the Israelis. It's a military strategy of collective punishment where everyone is collectively punished and pressure is placed on the entire population of Gaza. And it's a political strategy because the point of departure for negotiations becomes the truck of flour. So the negotiations end up being about how much aid is getting into Gaza, measured by the number of truckloads. And I think that's been one of the, certainly in my time working on humanitarian aid in Gaza has been. One of the frustrating things to watch is how the point of departure of all of the negotiations has been, you know, bare survival for, for Palestinians. And, and I think what we're seeing a continuation of and, and now really a kind of institutionalization of, if you like, through this, through this resolution of the Board of Peace is this kind of controlled compliance. It's, it kind of institutionalizes collective punishment. It institutionalizes the control over aid where it can be turned on and off extremely easily. And we know that this is something that the Israeli authorities have wanted to do for, for some time. When I was working in, in Palestine, we heard about the bubbles that Israeli authorities wanted to, wanted to create. The, you know, these were going to be zones of controlled areas of control where people would be allowed to live after being screened. And I think the aspect of screening of people, biometric screaming screening is something that we see repeatedly coming up now. And we shouldn't forget that the effort of controlling aid and controlling the way in which it's distributed was started with the Gaza Humanitarian foundation, which was a total disaster. People were being killed, shot and killed while, while trying to access basic foods to, to survive. And now we're seeing this progress into, you know, a broader strategy. So when it comes to the Rafah crossing, again, this is, this is, you know, something that we shouldn't be negotiating. It's, it's, it's, it's something that, that is absolutely needed not only for medical cases, be treated, but, you know, as a general, as a general need of Palestinians in Gaza. So, yeah, I guess what I'm saying is that the starting points of all of these negotiations have really been dictated by a bare minimum logic to Palestinian survival. And that's where we're stuck and that's what's being institutionalized.
- [30:14]
B
You know, Jonathan, also, I'm Glad that you raised some of this because I want to also bring in Sharif to talk about some of the reporting he's been doing specifically on, on these issues. But just to, you know, to also back up and remind people that prior to the signing of this October agreement, there was, in March, April, May, June, July, August, there were negotiations and discussions that were happening where Hamas was speaking to the mediators from Qatar and Egypt primarily. And then increasingly Turkey got involved. And you know, we did really in depth reporting on this at, at dropsite. My colleague Jawa Ahmed and I followed every single phase of this. We published many of the draft agreements that were being discussed. So, you know, this is an area that we, we had a lot of, we had a lot of detail on. And I just want to remind people that in, in August, Hamas had agreed to the framework that Steve Witkoff, the special envoy of Donald Trump had said was, was the, the paper they needed to sign to make it, make it all stop. And you know, the Qatari mediators, in fact Qatar's Prime Minister said that what Hamas agreed to on August 18 constituted 98% of the demands put forward in the so called Witkoff framework, which was authored by Ron Dermer on the Israeli side and the White House and Israel never formally responded to this, intensified its bombing. And then eventually you had this October agreement which had many of the same components that what Hamas had already agreed to contained. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because in the, in the back and forth that happened over the course of last summer, what we reported was that even when Hamas would come back and agree to the, the terms that the US had put in front of it, Israel would then announce a new plan. And one of the things that was floated by Israeli military officials and the political echelon in Israel was to create what I think most people who've studied history would define as a concentration camp. They were talking about erecting a massive camp on, on this, on what used to be the city of Rafah. And they were going to try to corral Palestinians into this zone, saying, oh, we're going to provide food and we're going to provide medicine. But the actual intent of it was to hold them there until they could be removed from Palestine. And so what we're seeing now, and this often has happened in the kind of back and forth between Trump and Israel. In fact, many Palestinians have told me that what often happens is just Israel and the United States negotiating and then the Palestinians are told what the answer is. So part of what I think we're seeing now, and this is what I want to ask Sharif about, is that there's some meat on the, being put on the bones of this idea to begin the process of corralling Palestinians into areas of Gaza that are under total military occupation by Israel right now. And Sharif, you've, you've obtained documents on this, you've done some really good reporting on it. You take any aspect of that and walk us through it. But I think it's really important for people to understand what's the technical nature of what they're discussing right now in terms of corralling Palestinians who might be in the western parts of Gaza right now into areas that are under full Israeli occupation.
- [33:54]
C
Yeah, it's a very important point. I mean, as we saw with the official launch of the Board of Peace, Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, gave this presentation, what he called the master plan for the redevelopment and so called reconstruction of Gaza. And you know, it had all these renderings of, you know, high rise towers on the coast and this kind of. And also a ridiculous slide with Arabic written the wrong way and the letters not joined, but in the map, you know, he mentions we're not going to have the Hamas zone and the free zone. And what he's referring to are these two sides of the yellow line that Gaza has effectively been cleaved in half. At the moment, close to 60% is controlled by the Israeli military, mostly on the eastern side and on the western side is where the majority, the vast majority of Palestinians are crammed into. And he called for what he called catastrophic success. And you saw the rendering of the entirety of the Gaza Strip redeveloped. But what I think what evidence has shown is that that's not going to be the case. Since the ceasefire, Israel has been increasingly consolidating control over the over more than half of the Gaza Strips that it does control. So it's been building a military outpost. It was doing this before, but, you know, it's built at least 13 military outposts since October. So there's something like 50 military outposts now. It's been bringing in infrastructure and sewage and water lines to these outposts. It's expanded and built Israeli road networks connecting these outposts to bases in Israel, to settlements in Israel. So it's establishing facts on the ground that appear to be coming permanent. Our most recent piece with forensic architecture, through satellite imagery, we can see that they're actually making the yellow line into a physical border. So what they're doing is before, the yellow line was only delineated through either on Israeli maps or these yellow blocks that the Israeli military had placed. And a lot of the times it was placing these military blocks hundreds of meters further into Gaza, taking more Palestinian land than the line where the line was drawn on their maps. And you know, Gaza is a very narrow strip of land. Land is precious. But what they're doing now is actually creating building earth berms. So these very large mounds of earth along the yellow line, along where these blocks are, that prevent Palestinians physically from crossing from one side, the side where they're mostly corralled into right now, to the rest of Gaza where the Israeli military is. So that's, that's kind of like the shape of the geography right now. And I doubt that's going to change much. And then when we're talking about these so called planned communities. So yeah, the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz in July first mentioned this idea of what he called a humanitarian city, that they're going to corral all of these Palestinians, all Palestinians into the so called humanitarian city in southern Gaza and Rafah and eventually kind of pushed them out. The idea was to push them out into Egypt. This idea has evolved, but is essentially similar. But I don't know about the pushing out part, but we first heard in November the Trump administration's plan for what they called alternative safe communities. And this was what they said was temporary housing being built for Palestinians to house them in the side of Gaza that Israel controls. And then just earlier this month, we have a glimpse of what those actual plans really are. And they're called planned communities. There was a presentation by the cmcc, which is a US led organization that was founded a week after the ceasefire. It was established in kind of a massive warehouse building in southern Israel. There's dozens of countries involved and NGOs and different organizations. It's supposed to oversee humanitarian aid and kind of monitor the ceasefire. But the lieutenant army, the US lieutenant general who runs the CMCC, gave a big presentation on January 14 about these so called planned communities. And basically we now have a glimpse of like how it's going to be run. It goes through everything, the municipality, the economy, health, education, justice, like law and order. First of all, as Jonathan mentioned, with biometrics, it provides a set of criteria of which Palestinians are going to be invited, invited to live there. They have to undergo security vetting, so no Hamas elements are brought in. And this will presumably doesn't say who's doing the vetting, but presumably it's going to be Israel Kogat, which has all of the information on Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories. And then there's just some criteria that are really kind of shocking that they're in there. For example, they say intact extended families are preferred because to enable mutual aid and prevent friction, I mean, is there a single intact extended family in Gaza? Israel has completely wiped out 2,700 families in Gaza. There's over 6,000 people. They're the sole surviving member of their bloodline. So it's this kind of language that kind of coldly erases what happened, what we all witnessed in this genocide. But you know, on more practical level, yes, they have to enter this so called plans community, a residential zone. They have to pass through a checkpoint. They'll be registered with biometric documentation. Those biometrics enable them to move around, enable them to access services. And when we say services, these are life essentials, access food and other basics. And this will be in coordination with Kogat, the branch of the Israeli military that oversees the occupation. They're going to have to use something called electronic shekel wallets. So all economic transactions will be monitored. Gaza is historically a cash based economy. And they also, when we're talking about the uae, they propose a schooling curriculum that they say will not be Hamas based, but will follow culture of peace principles modeled after the uae. That phrase, culture of peace, is mentioned in the normalization agreement between the UAE and Israel that was signed in 2020. And since then, as you mentioned, Jeremy, the UAE has normalized relations with Israel more than any other Arab country. And they have, you know, unprecedented levels of trade, of tourism, of defense deals, and security coordination with each other. And so this is kind of like an Emirati inspired re education program to promote the idea of normalization. And you know, there's other parts of this, but that's essentially kind of like in a nutshell, this vision. And the last thing I'll say is that we kind of know exactly where this is being built. Also forensic architecture has done a lot of analysis on this. And you know, they have been systematically constructing military infrastructure in the area it controls and also systematically destroying Palestinian buildings and houses and structures. But there is one square kilometer in Rafah between two military corridors where there's a pattern that's not visible anywhere else in Gaza. And that pattern is raising the land, compacting the ground and clearing the rubble. And we know that the first planned community is going to be built in Rafah. And this is where probably this site, it's being prepared to be built. It's going to take several months. There's going to be Private reconstruction we can talk about. The Guardian, in a follow up piece after we published ours, did a big piece about how the UAE is going to be funding this so called planned community which is referred to in the documents as the Emirati compound. So yeah, this is kind of like the future that is being planned for Gaza. And it is the most consequential change if we think about Gaza as a colonial construct, like the Gaza Strip is a colonial construct. Right. There was a city called Gaza historic city. There was Rafah, also historic, in Khan Yunus. But the Gaza Strip was created after 1948 where Palestinians who are fleeing Zionist militias kind of retreating with the Egyptian army ended up there. And you have the largest concentration of Palestinian refugees in historic Palestine. And that's why it's been the site of the most colonial violence. It's also been the site of the most Palestinian resistance because you have the largest number of Palestinians who want to return to their homes, to want to return to their land. And so, you know, then in 1967, Israel over invaded and occupied Gaza. We had Oslo in 93, we had the removal of Israeli settlers in 2005. And now we have this massive change. So this is, you know, kind of a fulcrum, a pivotal point and we have to see what's going to come out of it. But what we do know is yes, Gaza has been the site of the most colonial violence, but it is also the site of the most Palestinian resistance. And I don't think either of those things are going to change.
- [43:45]
B
You know, Sharif, also, and I want to ask Jonathan about this. I mean, coinciding with everything that you've said has been Israel's war against the United nations and you know, specifically unrwa, you know, the agency whose explicit mandate is not just limited to providing aid to the Palestinians, but also ensuring that codification of the right of return. And, and that has always been in the sniper scope of Israeli leaders, but in the most intense way under this particular Israeli government at this moment in time. And as Jonathan indicated before, you know, Israel and at times both the Biden administration and Trump administration have made these sweeping allegations about UN institutions being, you know, effectively fronts for or enablers of terrorism or of groups that have been designated as terror organizations or explicitly saying that they are Hamas. And you know, if you, if you look at, and you know, we all, all three of us have followed this very closely. If you look at this sort of war against the UN and these specific UN bodies and specific UN personnel, I mean, Jonathan himself says he was expelled you have Francesca Albanese and others being sanctioned. You have people from the International Criminal Court being sanctioned for having the audacity to engage in any kind of independent analysis of what justice might look like for the war crimes that we've seen. When you combine that with then the macro picture of what we are hearing, the messaging about this so called Board of Peace, on the one hand, we can talk about the situation of Gaza and the colonial agenda that Jonathan laid out in his piece in the form of this leaked document and also the reporting you've done, Sharif. But also the ambitions are bigger than that. And you know, it's not just about Gaza. It's very clear that what Trump and his cronies are trying to do is build up a parallel infrastructure that they can say negates the need for the United nations, that they're creating their own cartoonized, privatized version of an international body. And you know, Gaza is the rollout. It's the premier of this. Actually, one of the, a senior official from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ihsan Ataya, told me months ago when he first started reading about the Board of Peace, contained within it is language that means, that appears to mean that Trump can remain the chair of the Board of Peace beyond his presidential term. And that didn't get much attention, but it was an Islamic Jihad guy who pointed it out. And then lo and behold, in recent days there's been reporting that Trump is pointing out himself privately, hey, I can stay as the chairman of this board even if I'm no longer president. Yes. There's a kind of paper tiger thing at the UN about reviewing the mandate in December of 2027, but it's pretty clear that they're establishing this not just about Gaza. So, Jonathan, what I wanted to ask you is given these players that are now on this initial constitution of this so called Board of Peace, the connections to Israel, the connections to the United Arab Emirates, the connections to Trump business world, the fact that he has people like Netanyahu on the board or other leaders of, let's say undemocratic countries, take any part of that you want to talk about. But this sort of overarching vibe that's, that's being given here, where this is not just about Gaza, it's about creating a new institution where they can say we don't need the UN anymore or, yeah, let's just, let's get rid of unra, that was a terrorist front anyway, get rid of it. We have this new privatized way of doing things.
- [47:37]
A
Yeah, I think Jeremy what's striking on all of that and what you've said is, and sorry to link back to your reporting on these new Gaza communities, is that it's, you know, the creation of these new communities is essentially, you know, a continuation of war or genocide by other means. Right. It's these areas of control where you get to survive if you comply. And the war that's being waged is not on Hamas, it's on Palestinian statehood, it's on Palestinian ability to decolonize. And that's not linked only to Gaza. That's where I think we have to also bring in the west bank into the picture of what we're looking at. And the amount of settler violence in the west bank that's, you know, surging at the moment, the demolitions of people's homes for lacking building permits that are impossible to obtain, the displacement of Bedouin communities for settlement, expansion. I mean, all of these elements are pointing towards a much bigger project that's underway. And if you look at what Gaza was pre Oslo and what it was immediately after Oslo was it was the kind of test ground for the expansion of Palestinian governance. So if Gaza went well, then governance and the ability of Palestinians to govern would expand out into the west bank from Gaza. After October 2023, we're seeing Gaza being another test ground potentially, but not for the expansion of Palestinian governance and statehood, for its complete fragmentation and destruction. And I think that's the risk that we're seeing with these new Gaza communities, with attack on the UN on NGOs. There's 37 NGOs that have been told that they're not going to be able to operate in Gaza. It's a move towards the final stages, I would say, of a plan of total fragmentation, where bubbles or cantons are disconnected from each other. You can see it on the map of the Jarakushna prison presented in, in Davos. And you can see it in the way that, that the, the provision of, of services is being privatized and the privatization means there's a, there's a more sinister element behind the privatization, which is that you don't have Palestinian service delivery. You don't allow for the establishment or the continuation of, of, of. Of social services that are provided by a municipality. Everything that becomes privatized and your access to those services is based on your compliance and is controlled through a biometric screening process. And that's where I mentioned this kind of image of Gaza being turned into a museum of dispossession or a theme park of dispossession and it's a deeply fragmented one where there's a return on your investment in genocide. So states and companies that have played.
- [51:03]
C
A role.
- [51:06]
A
In the genocide are now able to see a return on their investment in the attack on Palestinian statehood. So yeah, I think that's the bigger picture of where, you know, the attack on UNRWA or the or NGOs. This is about something much, much, much bigger than that alone.
- [51:34]
B
One brief follow up though, Jonathan, on the issue of some of these connections that members of the board have. I mean, obviously you have the explicit, you know, appointment of Netanyahu, but it does seem like the UAE and Israel both have quite a bit of influence in terms of the people that have been placed on this, on this board. And it's not limited to them, but I'm just pointing them out because they've been two players in, in the Gaza genocide.
- [51:59]
A
No, if you look at the, if you look at the, the so Board of Peace asides, which is the, the, you know, the body that is, is the heads of states where you have Netanyahu himself represented. The two structures beneath that for Gaza are the, the board and the Gaza Board. And on both of those you have individuals that are representatives of states. So there's a broader expansion of people related to states in the region. But then you have key business figures and those business figures represent big tech and infrastructure property essentially. And you can start to draw links between, between the, if you follow the money, it most certainly is a, a group of people that will or that are lining themselves up to, to benefit significantly in the, in the tech and in the, in the infrastructure realms and most certainly with extensive links to, to the, to the Emirates and to, and to Israel. And that is a kind of continuation of what the Abraham Accords has brought to the Emirates is its ability to economically benefit and create a regional expansion, if you like.
- [53:33]
C
Jeremy, I also wanted to ask you something about, you know, when we talk about this, what, you know, they call a committee of Palestinian technocrats that are, that are on the bottom kind of rung of this, this bureaucratic structure for supposed governance of Gaza. It was, it's headed by Ali Shah, who's a former PA official. He's the one who announced by video link last week at Davos that Rafah will be opening. They're supposed to go to Gaza and implement these policies on the ground. What has been the reaction to them joining this committee being a part of the Board of Peace in this structure by the Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza and elsewhere?
- [54:23]
B
This has been a story that doesn't get much attention because it's in the weeds and it deals with the internal Palestinian dynamics. But it's something we've also been doing a lot of reporting on. And, you know, I think there's been a really interesting sort of parallel track that hasn't gotten much media attention that's occurred since the genocide was kicked into full force on October 7, 2023, and that is that there have been unprecedented meetings of Palestinian factions in Beijing, in Cairo and elsewhere. And there's been a series of declarations signed that included signatures of both the leadership of Hamas and Fatah, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority, and Mahmoud Abbas. And one of the Palestinian leaders that has been influential or key to drafting these is someone that doesn't even control an armed faction, and that is Dr. Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative. We've spoken to him multiple times about this. But, Sharif, to answer your question, one of the criticisms you hear of Mahmoud Abbas, and there's many criticisms of Mahmoud Abbas that you hear from Palestinians, but is that early on in the genocide, in early 2024, there was an opportunity to develop a unified stance among all Palestinian factions that people from Fatah all the way to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, I believe, would have sent the world a message that Palestinians are united. And instead, you had Abbas calling Hamas dogs. And really, the perception, I think widely among many Palestin, is that he actively did nothing to confront the genocide and at times aided and abetted the Israelis in enacting the single largest ethnic cleansing campaign in the West bank since 1967. But setting that aside, if you talk about it as political factions, there's sort of unprecedented unity right now among these Palestinian groups. And so when the discussion began, who is going to govern or be in charge of Gaza after the genocide is halted, it was interesting to hear from both Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas that they didn't have real ultimatums other than they wanted Palestinians to be in charge. In fact, one of the founders of Islamic Jihad, Dr. Muhammad Al Hindi, said, if Mahmoud Abbas wants to come in and he wants to take control of Gaza on a governance level, we're all for it. Now, these are bitter political enemies in terms of the stances that they're taking about Palestinian liberation and what, you know, the path forward. And yet that has been the position of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. So roughly a year ago, the Egyptian mediators started fielding names, suggestions from Palestinian factions for an independent, technocratic, apolitical committee. Hamas submitted names, Islamic Jihad submitted names. Fatah submitted names, PFLP submitted names. And these have been circulating for months and months and months. So my understanding is that the vast majority of the Palestinians who ended up being named to this board were people who were in discussion among all of these factions and in one way or another had been acceptable to a kind of plurality of the Palestinian factions. There may be people on there that Hamas doesn't like politically or Islamic Jihad doesn't, or Fatah doesn't, but I think that all of them wanted to have as big of a tent as possible and said, okay, as long as we have Palestinians, particularly those from Gaza, and they're independent experts in their field, we will support that. So what you haven't heard is Hamas taking a flamethrower to any of the Palestinians that have been appointed to this board or denouncing them as collaborators. And the sense that I get is that Hamas long ago started to regret being the government, the governing authority. I think many people within Hamas viewed it as an albatross around their neck. They blame Mahmoud Abbas for not allowing elections to proceed in Gaza, and they felt that it had become a burden. So in a sense, I think they were ready to relinquish governing authority. And they were on record as saying that even when the US And Israel were lying and saying Hamas refuses to give up power. Hamas has always said that. So I think that they understand, or I don't think I know that they understand that this board is intentionally being structured in a way to have no actual authority. But I think that there's also a sense that it's their foothold right now to say there are Palestinians, including from Gaza, who are in place there. And now we have to hold the.
- [58:53]
C
Line on that and we have to.
- [58:54]
B
Insist that Palestine is to be run by Palestinians. So it's a complicated internal dynamic. But I've heard very diplomatic talk coming from Palestinian leaders that I, that I speak with. And you know, there's a story now that's being pushed. There's every day there's these leaks and you know, you talk to Hamas or Islamic job people, and a lot of it is nonsense. It's garbage, completely fictional, made up stuff that gets slapped on Sky Arabia or some other, you know, outlet that has an agenda linked to another foreign country. But there is this discussion now about like, what is the police force going to be in Gaza? And this is something I want people to watch out for. When you read the phrase Hamas run police force, replace the word Hamas and just say government run police force, because the police in Gaza are not the Qassam Brigades. They're not Soraya Al Quds from Palestinian Islamic Jihad. You have police commanders who have been there for a very long time. And Israel has been systematically assassinating police officers and commanders in Gaza. They are not, as a rule, those police are not political, ideological, Hamas members. It is meant to be the police force. And there's a lot of respect for the police among Palestinians in Gaza and polls have shown that over the years. So, you know, there's a discussion of who's going to implement security. Israel's continuing to back gangs, armed gangs inside of Gaza. Israel clearly wants civil war among Palestinians. They want this kind of hunger games atmosphere to endure, particularly in the western parts of Gaza that Israel is not in full occupation of right now. So as you watch all of this, understand that in general, I think that there is a level of unity on some core issues among Palestinian factions that is historic in nature and doesn't get media attention. And also be vigilant in the terms that are used. This Hamas run, Hamas run, Hamas run is a way of undermining the idea that Palestinians should be in control of their own destiny or their own law and order.
- [60:55]
C
Yeah, I mean, yeah. And I think as we speak also there has been, I think it's very hard to push back against this, but there is a normalization of death, of Palestinian death that we are all getting inured to today. Another child froze to death, essentially a 12 day old infant from exposure to cold. And that I think brings the number of children who have just died of hypothermia this winter to something like 11. That's, you know, there's something like two dozen people have, have been, have died because buildings have collapsed on them or on their tents because no reconstruction is allowed. And they're very flimsy. And there's winter storms. These are not, you know, included in, in the health Ministry's tolls of the dead who are considered martyrs from the war, direct war related deaths. But yeah, I think as we wrap up, Jonathan, I just wanted to kind of leave you with kind of a broad question of where you see things going. We have this picture now of these controlled, privatized colonial spaces where compliance, as you said, is a requirement as a condition of life, essentially. And then the other half of Gaza is kind of this genocidal wasteland where you, you know, it's kind of impossible to live and it's under constant bombardment and local reconstruction and kind of very little food. What do you think is most important for people to understand now, as we're talking about this, you know, so called stage two of the ceasefire.
- [62:45]
A
Thanks, Sharif. I think, you know, I was talking to, to a, a good friend in Gaza yesterday who was, who was saying to me that, you know, the, they don't want a new Rafah, new Gaza. They want to be able to rebuild their homes on, on, on the land that their homes was destroyed on, where their homes existed before. And I don't think that's a, a radical or, or extreme demand which is that Gaza should be rebuilt by Palestinians based on a Palestinian vision for what Gaza should be, could be and that it should be based on a rebuilding of what people had before. I think anything that deviates from that is. You said the colonial construct. I think it's, it's a colonial construct, absolutely. And I think it's also a way of bringing a total end to Palestinian statehood aspirations of decolonization. So I would encourage all of us, I think to keep in mind that the basic demand of Palestinian autonomy in decision making and leading the, the recovery of what's to come is basic, while also keeping in mind that the ceasefire as it's being called, is not a ceasefire in the sense of people continue to be killed. We continue to see people that get too close to the yellow line that you've mentioned, Sharif, being killed. That was something that I saw a lot of during my time in Gaza. Is that anyone that is kind of outside of, or that hasn't moved in response to evacuation orders or who gets too close to invisible lines that the Israeli forces have drawn in Gaza are killed. And that's one of the ways in which the genocide is perpetrated is by these kind of lines of inclusion and exclusion that crisscross over Gaza. And it's true that the Red Zone or the zone that doesn't include these, these new Gaza communities risk becoming sites of continuous attack and deprivation. And that's something that's certainly concerning when you look at how all of these plans, the resolutions, the slides that you saw from the cmcc, all of these are bits of the puzzle that make up a picture where absolutely people are, are excluded. And I would just end on the one last point is that, I mean, Jeremy, you mentioned the, the discussions around Palestinian leadership and, and I think you're absolutely, I fully agree with you. Hamas has been very clear that they, they have no desire to continue governing. But the con, the desire has been for Palestinian leadership in, in Gaza. And yet in this resolution that was, that was leaked, that we've, that we've seen the language that's being used is that the National Administration, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which is the only Palestinian body, will operate when it's authorized, directed and supervised. Those are the three language words that are being used. Authorized, supervised, and directed by the Board of Peace, which is a foreign entity. So I think, you know, we've taken steps back in terms of rights to self determination and even very basic rights to rebuild your own home where you had your home before. And we shouldn't lose sight of those basics.
- [66:34]
B
Yeah, well said, Jonathan. I think that puts the fine point on it that Palestinians, whether they're from Hamas or Fatah or they're independent Palestinians are looking at this and saying, we are now in a fight for our life again as a people. And it's been that way for 77 years. But this is the most acute threat that the Palestinians have faced, especially given all of the powerful forces aligned against it. And we're going to continue to monitor this. And Jonathan, thank you for, you know, not just for the piece that you wrote, but also for all the work you did on the ground. You know, we would watch you from there and you know, just really, I think it was so important that someone with your conscience and heart was there and that you were willing to speak up. And clearly you angered people that didn't want people like you witnessing it or being there. So thank you for both your journalistic work and the work you did on the ground in Gaza.
- [67:33]
A
Thanks for that, Jerry. Means a lot.
- [67:34]
B
Thank you. Jonathan Wittall is independent political analyst and writer, most recently a senior UN official who was on the ground in Palestine, specifically also in Gaza. His new organization that does negotiation and political affairs is called Keys. It's based in Beirut. His first story for Drop site was a really important one. It was leaked. Board of Peace Resolution outlines US Led plan to rule over Gaza. Make sure to check that out at Dropsite News anytime you have a moment to look at that. And Sharif Abdel Koudous, of course, is the Middle east and North Africa editor at Dropsite News, also a phenomenal reporter in his own right. And make sure to check out Sharif's most recent piece, which is also based on leaked documents, called the Planned Community in Rafah Would Force Palestinians into Israeli Panopticon. Sharif's also done a bunch of really good reports with forensic architecture. I encourage everybody to read them. Thanks so much, Sharif and Jonathan. And that does it for this live stream at dropsitenews. Dropsitenews.com we should be back next Tuesday. At 9:30am Eastern time. I also wanted to give a heads up that Dropsite is now on upscrolled, which is a it's not brand new, but it's a relatively new social media site that kind of weaves together some of the functions that people go to Instagram, TikTok and X Twitter for. It was started, though, by a Palestinian, and many of the initial people that signed up there were people whose primary focus is Palestine. But I've noticed over the last several days it has risen through the ranks that even hit number one in terms of social media downloads in the Apple App Store in the United States. And it's really high up in the ranks in many other countries because a lot of people are flocking to it and they're looking for freedom of speech, places where the algorithm isn't stifling political content, where Elon Musk and Donald Trump and Trump's cronies don't seem to be in charge of what gets posted and what gets seen by people. So make sure to follow Dropsite News on upscrolled. You can also get your own account. I'm on there. Sharif's on there. Ryan Grimm. Many of the Democracy now team are starting to get on, so check us out on upscrolled. On behalf of everybody at Dropsite News, I want to thank you. If you're a paid subscriber, you help to fuel this journalism. Nothing's behind a paywall. You're not required to become a paid subscriber. But if you want to support our work and the kind of reporting you saw Jonathan doing, Sharif doing, and that we do on a daily basis voluntarily become a paid subscriber. Until next time, thank you so much. I'm Jeremy Scahill.
- [71:22]
A
It.