← The SkyePod
The SkyePod
The SkyePod - Todd Deatherage: Israel/Hamas War Update
00:25:16
Todd Deatherage, Co-Founder of the Telos Group, is back to lay out the current situation in Gaza, with the recent short-lived ceasefire, Trump’s vision of a building a resort on the land, and Netanyahu’s incentives to continue the war. What...
Loading summary
Transcript30 lines
- [00:00]
Sky Jethani
Old men never have strokes for any other reason. Todd Dethridge, welcome back. It's good to see you.
- [00:20]
Todd Dethridge
Thank you. It's good to be back and good to see you. Sky.
- [00:23]
Sky Jethani
Okay, so I think the last time you were on with me was back in February of 24.
- [00:27]
Todd Dethridge
So.
- [00:28]
Sky Jethani
So it's been a while, although we spent quite a bit of time together in May when we were both in Israel and the west bank together. And following that trip, I did a number of episodes about my experience there, the conflict we had, folks I met from that interview, from that trip, on the show and on the Holy Post to be interviewed. But a lot's happened, a lot's changed, A lot hasn't changed. So I wanted to have you back on to talk about it again. Before we jump in, though, for those who are not familiar with your past appearances on our show, you spent 16 years in senior positions in the legislative and executive branches of the US government before co founding the Telos Group. From 05 to 09, you were the chief of staff in the Secretary of State's Office of Policy planning at the U.S. state Department. You spent two years as senior advisor in the department's Office of International Religious Freedom. And you worked for a decade in Congress, including six years as chief of staff to Senator Tim Hutchinson. So you have a lot of experience in the government dealing with the Middle east before you were part of TELOS Group. Just a brief update. What has TELOS been doing in the last year? And is your focus still primarily the war in Israel and Gaza? I know you're doing some other things. Just a brief update on what you've been up to.
- [01:44]
Todd Dethridge
Yeah, we're in this historic moment of just of, you know, existential crisis for, for what's going on in the Middle east and what's going on in Gaza. And so we've always, and we, our work began with an emphasis on helping Americans better understand the way we project power and resources and influence into that part of the world and trying to redirect some of our energies and our resources into things that actually make, make for more just and lasting peaceful situations there for the flourishing of all. So that's always been a heavy focus of ours. But since Oct.7th and we have been very, very much focused on trying to do all that we can within our network and using whatever platforms and voices we have to say, this has to stop. What's going on right now is exactly how we get stuck and trapped in these things. Thousands of people are dying, hundreds of thousands of people are insecure Displaced millions even. And this is a dead end game. So we've been calling for ceasefire and for hostage release and for additional things after that in terms of just the delivery of humanitarian aid, conditioning US arms sales on the kinds of things that respect human rights and human dignity. That's been our messaging and a pretty singular focus. We have other work in other programs, other things we've been doing, but the main thing has been trying to use whatever means we can to bring about an end to what we're seeing. And personally, for me, we don't just work with Christians, but most of my work has been with Christian communities, just trying to help Christians understand the calling to live as, as followers of Jesus, as peacemakers in the world. And not in some naive way, but in some muscular way in terms of what peace actually is and requires. And it doesn't look like this. So that's what we've been doing.
- [03:37]
Sky Jethani
Okay, so again, since we last talked, a lot of changes here in the US we have a new administration that has brought a new set of policies to Israel and Gaza. There's been a ceasefire, the end of a ceasefire. We're going to get into some of that. But just a few days ago here in Wheaton, Reverend Munther Isaac was here to speak and we met him when we were in Bethlehem together last May. You've known him for a long time. He's been on our show. He's a Christian pastor in Bethlehem, Palestinian. And during his lecture on Monday night at Wheaton College here, he said that this is probably the darkest moment in the history of, of the conflict. Do you share that view? I mean, you've been involved for a long time, but is this the darkest moment we've seen so far?
- [04:21]
Todd Dethridge
Yeah, I, I, that would be my assessment. I mean, I'm a, like an amateur historian by background. I graduated with a history degree in college and I love history and I know that it's, it's the kind of, the job of the historian some to do one of the jobs is to sometimes help us not to exceptionalize every moment as the darkest in our, you know, in human history, but I do think in the history of this conflict, this really is one of the darkest, if not the darkest. I wasn't around in the beginning when the conflict really began and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1947 and 48. I was involved and I was there on the ground during this period called the second intifada in the early 2000s. That was a really brutal, violent, awful time. But it was Nothing like this. Again, that's when I sort of said this is like a moment of historic and epic and kind of biblical proportions in terms of the absolute devastation that's been visited on Gaza over the last 18 months. The displacement of people, the bombardment, the just absolute ruin of the land, the people dying of disease and hunger and, you know, just. It's horrific. And so, yes, it is a very, very dark and existential time. And for folks like Munter, what I keep hearing is that. And we can talk about this more later, I think, but like it, the fear is not just that this is this kind of thing that's happening in Gaza, but this is. This is an unfolding of a thing that is going to just continue to move into the west bank, as it already kind of has. Yeah.
- [05:51]
Sky Jethani
Yes, I definitely want to talk about the west bank because that gets overlooked a lot in this. But before we get there.
- [05:56]
Todd Dethridge
Yeah.
- [05:57]
Sky Jethani
Let's talk about what has happened in Gaza since the Trump administration has taken over. There was a ceasefire agreed to, which, if I recall, started almost immediately upon Trump's inauguration. When the ceasefire was announced, what was your reaction? Were you optimistic, hopeful that. Okay. That maybe the war aspect of this tragedy is behind us? We now know the ceasefire is no longer ceased. As of March 18, I believe hostilities have started up again. But during that ceasefire, 33 Israeli hostages were returned. 1800 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for them. From last I saw in the media, there are still believed to be 59 hostages in Gaza, of which the Israelis believe 35 of them are probably dead. What came of this ceasefire? Is there any good that came of this? Or was it just a political calculation on the part of the Israeli government or even the American government? And it ultimately means nothing?
- [06:58]
Todd Dethridge
Yeah, no, it meant something, and it means something. And the fact that it's been broken and there have been hundreds now who've died just in the, you know, There was like 700 in the first three days after it was broken. There were 700 Palestinians that were killed. That's a. It's a horror and a tragedy and such a backset. I mean, we have always argued for, again, for ceasefire, hostage release. That's been our central call from the beginning and so definitely welcomed it was not, like, optimistic about it at all, that. But. But it was the minimum that needed to happen. There's a whole lot more that needed to happen. And there was a reason to be cynical about why we got there, because it was obvious that not everybody wanted to be there. But it was. I mean, I, like, I have come out of Republican politics. And I have been a, I've not been a supporter of the current President in any stage of his entry into political life over the last nine years. In fact, I've been a pretty sharp critic of all of that. And yet I do feel like that the special envoy he sent to be a part of those talks during the change of transfer of power really played a critical role. He did something that the Biden administration had never been willing to do in all of its efforts to achieve a ceasefire, but which was to really like, use American leverage and pressure to force the agreement. And I gave some credit at the time to the fact that the President didn't want to start his term with this raging. He doesn't really want to be stuck in the Middle East. He has a whole other domestic agenda. He's trying to enact creating lots of chaos here in D.C. where I live and around the country with the kind of slash and burn approach to the federal government. But the, but the point is he didn't want to be involved in that and I think did use some resources to, to get us there.
- [08:55]
Sky Jethani
If you don't mind, I'm curious because I haven't heard this elsewhere in the media. What leverage did the Trump envoy bring that brought the ceasefire to reality in a way that the Biden administration failed?
- [09:07]
Todd Dethridge
You know, I mean, those, those conversations are probably not yet public. I mean, I, because I don't have access to them, I know that Israeli media was reporting just some really kind of strong arm tactics that the special envoy was using. They are fully representing the President, having all the authority of the President to speak on the President's behalf and just demanding that this thing, this not continue. I don't know what the consequences would have been or what they were, what suggested that may ultimately come out. And again, there's been some chatter in this, in the Israeli press in particular and some other places that might, you know, speculated about that. But, but the point was like, I just can't. I mean, this is something that, this, this is something that been really like on the table since May of the previous year.
- [09:53]
Sky Jethani
Right.
- [09:54]
Todd Dethridge
And Biden had never been able to translate it into anything. And, and his team and, and for, for whatever reason that there was a willingness to listen or a willingness to, to do something different when, when the new special envoy got in the room and that held. And again, it was fragile and there was a lot of things that were working against it. But the hope was that every day that went by in which we weren't you know, we weren't. People weren't dying. Humanitarian aid was being delivered and this would get us to the next step that we people would be so invested in the successes of it. And obviously that all, you know, fell apart last week when Israel decided to go back in, break the ceasefire and not just, you know, return to bombardment and all that, but also to forcing people out of their homes again, or whatever was left of their homes, moving them into other zones, sending the Israeli army again to occupy reoccupied parts of Gaza that they had withdrawn from. And so it's like we're really receded back in the last few days to a pretty difficult position. Foreign.
- [11:07]
Sky Jethani
What is your understanding or perhaps what is the Israeli government saying is the reason for breaking the ceasefire? Why did they re. Engage militarily?
- [11:16]
Todd Dethridge
Because they said their, their explanation of this is that Hamas was in transit. It was not, was not moving on, was not agreeing to any of the, you know, next, the next things that needed to be done for the return of hostages. And the only way to get hostages back, in their view, is through this kind of pressure campaign and not through negotiations. That's, that's provably false because all the hostages that have come home, except for, I think there were three that were rescued by Israeli, the Israeli military, but the hostages have come home as a part of negotiation. You know, starting back in November of 2023. There have been, you know, the only time hostages have been released is through a negotiated agreement, not through, not through actual, you know, bombardment and war and violence, but that's what they were saying. The other thing that has to be understood, though, is that there are political dynamics in Israel that are also very much a part of this story. And it's probably too much to go into the weeds of that now. But then the current Israeli government had to pass a budget in March, and if they didn't pass the budget, then they had to call elections. And the current prime minister has done everything in his power to avoid going to elections. He's unpopular certainly since October 7th. He's very much been, I mean, there have been tens of thousands of people protesting in the streets going Back to before October 7th about the anti democratic things he was trying to do to build his, you know, his power and his immunity from prosecution and corruption trials and that sort of thing within Israel. So that's been going on a long time. And the hostage families have, you know, have been very critical of Netanyahu, of his unwillingness to even meet with them and his unwillingness to actually pursue the kinds of things that would allow hostages to be released through agreements and so forth. So this. There was a big political moment in Israel where he had to bring back into the government, you know, the far right that had left over the ceasefire so that they could get the budget passed. And so all that's going on. He also fired the chief of internal intelligence, the Shin Bet director, and is trying to replace the Attorney general. So there's a lot of that happening, and it's all against public opinion in Israel. Again, there's like thousands, tens of thousands of people that are protesting this in the streets. So it feels also very, again, very unresponsive to. To where people are in the democratic process, even inside Israel itself.
- [13:52]
Sky Jethani
Okay, so to summarize that, for those who are not in the weeds on the Israeli state. No, no, I find it fascinating. Interesting. But for those who are like, you know, their eyes are glazing over at some of these details.
- [14:04]
Todd Dethridge
Yeah.
- [14:05]
Sky Jethani
What I think you're saying is Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, has figured out who's a very unpopular figure. He was very unpopular before this war started, but he has figured out that his best way to stay in power is to keep this war going. Yeah. It appeases the far right side of the political spectrum that are his essential supporters. And as the. As many countries have learned as Russia seen with Putin even, there's been various times in American history where this has been the case when. When a country's at war, they're more likely to support the leader who's in charge. So he's trying to protect his own political tail by keeping this war going. Depending on who you ask, the death toll in Gaza is now over 50,000 people. If you've seen the footage, it looks. It's just rubble. The whole thing is just rubble. It's unbelievable. In the midst of this ceasefire, at the end of February, somebody created an AI based video that President Trump then reposted on social media, showing what his vision of Gaza could be. He's talked about making it the Riviera of the Mediterranean. People have joked that it's Gaza Largo, like Mar a Lago, his resort in Florida. And it shows a thriving metropolis of casinos and beaches with a giant gold statue of Donald Trump. And he thought this was great. And apparently the person who made the video made it as a satire. It was supposed to be a joke. What was the reception of that? Like when the President of the United States says, we need to just take all the Palestinians out of Gaza, put them elsewhere and remake this into some Monte Carlo of the Eastern med. What did that do to the situation on the ground? What have you heard from Palestinians or even Israelis who are interested in peace? How does that coming from the President of the United States not help the situation?
- [16:00]
Todd Dethridge
Yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, it's, we're in such a different universe right now, it feels like in so many ways. And so when the President shared that, you know, publicly on his social media account, it was like, what, what is, what world do we live in? I mean, I'd say that it was so obvious that the, you know, the people of Gaza were just not even considered to be human beings in a way that, that required their, you know, somebody to sort of figure out what they want because that the people who live there were written out of this story. The idea was that 2 million people would be displaced from their homes. And it, and at some point where it was even said they would not, you know, never, never be allowed to return. You know, they would be sent into Jordan and Egypt in new communities that would be built from them there and without in any way consulting anybody in Gaza. Is that, is that what you want? Do you want to, you know, to be permanently displaced from, from where you are from? And some of these, you know, communities have been there, like, for so many generations. There's a Christian community in Gaza that's been there since at least the third, fourth century, if not earlier. And, and they've been holed up in this ancient, these two ancient churches, the Orthodox church, which is the oldest, and a Catholic church there. A few hundreds of people who are still there as Christians have been living there, but they have long, long histories there. Nobody's asking them what to do. So it was seen as so ridiculous, but nobody could completely dismiss it as ridiculous because it was coming from the most powerful leader in the world. And so it had to be taken seriously. It obviously set off so many alarm bells, not just for what would happen to the people of Gaza and yet also what would happen to the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan that if they were forced to do something that was so politically unpopular and a poor country that's taken in refugees from Iraq after the Iraq war, from the Syrian civil war, and from Palestine from 1947-48. They've absorbed so many refugees, and it's obvious that this, this, this government could not survive such a project if they, you know, and, and what it would do to Egypt to have to sort of deal with this. So it was a, this crazy idea what it did do, I will acknowledge, is that it. It forced the Arab League to gather and come up with their own alternative. Before this got forced on them, they, you know, had. Had not fully come up with their own idea of what should be done. And again, how much of that's done in consultation with Palestinians, I don't know. But it was more consultive of some Palestinian factions and leaders, and they came up with their own kind of plan for what Gaza redevelopment would look like.
- [19:00]
Sky Jethani
Okay, I want to talk about that because it's been on my mind since October 7th. And I talked to some Palestinians who have been very dismayed by the silence of other Arab states in the midst of all this and before October 7th, some people speculate what precipitated the attack, the Hamas attack on southern Israel. Was Israel getting closer and closer to solidifying diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and changing the layout of the Middle East. And so the Palestinians feel very abandoned by other Arab states. How has the incoming Trump administration, this ridiculous video, some of the posture of Trump, what has that done to the other Arab states? What are they proposing now? And are they actually stepping forward and engaging in this, or is there preference to abandon the Palestinians as well?
- [19:50]
Todd Dethridge
Yeah, well, I mean, I think the president's idea, I think, has probably always been in some ways that whatever the redevelopment of Gaza is, it's. The Arab governments have to pay for it. I mean, that's his go to move, is that Europeans should be paying for their own defense. You saw this in the, in the incredible, you know, leak of the information about the Houthi attack that it was all about, like the Europeans should be doing this. Yeah.
- [20:17]
Sky Jethani
It's kind of ironic because this is a guy who came out of the political scene talking about how we're going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.
- [20:23]
Todd Dethridge
Yeah, yeah. So.
- [20:24]
Sky Jethani
But he wants everyone else to pay their own way.
- [20:27]
Todd Dethridge
So it's a go to move. And so the, so the idea was the Arab government, and that's kind of, you know, the resources of the Gulf and so forth would have to be applied to a Gaza redevelopment plan. Those countries, many of them, will come forward at some point if there is something to fund and do that. But they don't want to do that in a way that is going to be all destroyed. Again, they want it in the context of something longer and lasting and politically for their own survival because of the nightmare of people in the world, including the Middle east, seeing the horror of Gaza night after night on their television. It's like they could not, you Know, just agree to something that did not, did not allow for Palestinian autonomy. Something on the other side of this that looks very different than the occupation and control and blockade of, of the past. So they're there, they have that. What was, that's what kind of, as you suggested, that helped to lead to where, to how we. To October 7th in that. In the first Trump administration, there was this, you know, kind of unusual attempt to do something with the Palestinian cause that was a kind of almost a non starter from a Palestinian perspective. And when that didn't get any traction, the energy shifted to just creating these regional agreements between Israel and normalizing with some Arab neighbors through the Abraham Accords. And there was some successful efforts to establish diplomatic relations and economic relations between Israel and three or four Arab countries. And so the Biden administration just continued that same policy of kind of giving some lip service to like, Palestinians, but really not doing anything to shift the dynamics and started negotiating a deal. And they were really in the middle of a kind of a negotiated deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, sort of back and forth. And that's when Hamas, you know, who'd likely been planning this for a long time, I mean, this was not something that happened quickly, but they in that moment said, no, this will not go forward. And October 7th happens in many ways, in my view, in response to that effort to sideline the Palestinians again. So Palestinians have a long history of being written out by the Arab countries around them, by the international community. They have long been shuffled to the side and they're accustomed to that, as one of the many challenges of their own kind of struggle is that they have very few allies, very few who've been willing to ever expend anything on their, to help them on their, you know, in their, in their own struggle.
- [23:07]
Sky Jethani
Okay. There was obviously a lot of criticism of the Biden administration from within his own party and certainly by its left flank, that he was too supportive of the state of Israel, not giving enough attention to the plight of the Palestinians. Some speculate that they may have suppressed support for Kamala Harris in 2024. I don't know if we can really know that for sure, but with Trump winning the election, I mean, some have said that maybe the reason for the ceasefire is Netanyahu has long been an admirer of Donald Trump or their strong allies. He did not like Joe Biden and was kind of throwing Trump a bone by saying, okay, fine, we'll do this ceasefire because it'll make you look powerful and effective in negotiating for these things. But in exchange for that. The Trump administration has also done some very pro Israeli things here, one of which was appointing Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, former Southern Baptist pastor, to be the ambassador from the United States to Israel. And Huckabee has brought in some interesting ideas and rhetoric and views. What effect is his appointment by the Trump administration, do you think? What what effect do you think that will have on the the dynamic in the conflict?
- [24:23]
C
Don't worry, this is not the end of the episode. There's actually plenty more. But to listen to the rest, you need to be a Holy Post plus subscriber. So head over to HolyPost.com SkyPod and sign up. For just $5 a month, not only will you get uninterrupted episodes of the Sky Pod, which means you'll never have to hear this dumb announcement again, but you'll also get access to everything else at Holey Post plus, including episodes of Getting Schooled by Caitlin, Chess, bonus interviews, live streams, the Holey Post Book Club, exclusive merchandise, and a whole bunch more. And you'll get the warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that you're supporting our work of creating smart, pro neighbor Christian content. So head over to holypost.com skypod and subscribe today.