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00:00Ceasefire talks are slated to begin tomorrow in Doha but today Hamas said it
00:06will not send negotiators. For some analysis now I'm joined by Natasha
00:11Lindstedt from the University of Essex who's recently written an article about
00:16ceasefire efforts and how the killing of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh might
00:21complicate efforts to secure that deal. Welcome to the program, thanks for
00:26joining us today. Thanks for having me. First of all why do you think Hamas has
00:32confirmed it won't be attending those talks in Qatar? I think this recently
00:38this recent development has to do with Israel bringing further conditions for
00:46the agreement that that they had not brought up in the past and this has to
00:51do with Israel wanting to control the corridor between Gaza and Egypt and also
00:57wanting further screenings for Gazans that want to return to their their homes.
01:03These were stipulations that had not been part of the initial agreement but
01:09they're being brought up now by Netanyahu who either just do his due to
01:14his own personal preference or due to the pressure coming from the extreme
01:19right in his cabinet don't want to agree to some sort of ceasefire and
01:25we're seeing that it's going to be even more difficult to come to an agreement
01:28with the recent assassination of Ismail Haniyeh who by Hamas standards would
01:35have been considered a pragmatist and was probably trying to find some sort of
01:40ceasefire ordeal to to address of course the horrendous humanitarian crisis that
01:47has unfolded there. Right and talking about the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, a
01:52number of Iranian officials have said the only way to prevent a direct Iranian
01:57response and attack effectively on Israel in retaliation for the killing of
02:03Haniyeh is to secure a ceasefire deal for Gaza and so surely it's in Israel's
02:10interest now to make sure a deal gets done. You would think but they have not
02:15been doing what it would need to happen for a ceasefire to take place. If they
02:21were in fact responsible for the killing of Haniyeh, one of the more pragmatic
02:27members of Hamas, then that was going to be a factor that would
02:33undermine any kind of deal from taking place and in fact would lead to Iran
02:38getting more directly involved. I mean that was one of the things that Iran had
02:42told Hamas that if we are not warned before an attack takes place and they
02:46were not warned about the October attack that they wouldn't get involved. Now it
02:51seems like they're being pressured to get involved and to create more of a
02:55regional conflict which of course is going to lead to a lot more instability.
02:59So there's questions about what direction Israel wants to move the
03:03conflict in and does this benefit Netanyahu because it distracts from the
03:09domestic problems that he was struggling with prior to the conflict unfolding.
03:13Based on what you're saying it really doesn't seem that there's much momentum
03:17going into these truce talks tomorrow in Doha and as a compounding that the
03:24American Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly has postponed a trip
03:28to the Middle East that was supposed to be this week. What do you think
03:32Washington's strategy now is? Why is Blinken apparently not attending the
03:38talks himself and not going to the region? The U.S. is in an incredibly
03:43difficult spot. They're pressuring for a ceasefire of course but they have also
03:47been warning that Iran could attack, that an attack could be imminent to avenge
03:52what happened on their own soil with the assassination of Henea and so I think
03:57there's caution about what Iran is going to do next. Now Iran also doesn't have a
04:02lot of different options because if they respond with too much force that of
04:08course will get Israel involved and Israel tends to respond with the
04:11preponderance of force. Much of the Iranian public would not want to be
04:14involved in any kind of conflict, larger conflict with Israel at a time when
04:19their economy is in you know tatters and when they need economic relief and to
04:25not be involved in a war. You're also dealing with Iran's uncertainty over
04:31what its cabinet is going to be and having a new president Massoud
04:36Pazashkian. So I think because there's all this uncertainty about what Iran is
04:43going to do, there'll have to be a pause from the U.S. standpoint until there's a
04:48little bit more clarity about how Iran is going to respond. Do you have any
04:53sense of the potential timing here when we might see, if we might see, a response
04:59from Iran? It's difficult to say because Iran actually benefits from this
05:05psychological warfare because they're not as strong as the Israelis are. So
05:10they almost benefit by keeping the enemy, so to speak, in suspense and not knowing
05:15what's going to happen. Iran has tended to not respond with a lot of force. If
05:21you look what happened when there was an attack on the Iranian embassy in Syria,
05:26they responded by sending 300 drone missiles that were of course shot down
05:30by the Israelis. When the U.S. killed General Soleimani, they responded by
05:37attacking U.S. troops in Iraq but no U.S. troops died. So I wonder if they're not
05:44going to respond at all or allow a proxy to respond and the most likely proxy
05:48would be Hezbollah. Natasha Lindstedt, great to talk to you. Thanks very much.
05:52Thanks for having me.