Trump’s Gaza plan a 'negotiating ploy' for annexation in West Bank, expert says

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00:00We can now bring in Hossein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in

00:06Washington DC. Thank you so much for joining us here on the program today. It seemed like

00:10the ceasefire deal in place between Israel and Hamas was on very shaky ground last week,

00:16but then over the weekend, we saw Hamas release the hostages on its end and then Palestinian

00:21prisoners were freed by Israel. Are things more solid now?

00:27I think a little bit, yes. Look, Hamas really wants the second phase to go forward because

00:32they are reemerging as the power in Gaza. They're rebuilding their civil authority

00:38every day in different parts of Gaza. And this is a strategic choice by Israel to prefer the

00:46reemergence of Hamas in Gaza to anything that might be connected to the PLO and the PA in Ramallah,

00:52because that's the Palestinian entity that could form a state. Hamas is not going to be able to

00:58form a state. It's too radioactive, too extreme, and that's not even its project. So ultimately,

01:05Israel has a choice. Either it can go along with President Trump and enter into phase two, which,

01:14as Noga just pointed out really well, will mean the end of the war. And that will mean, essentially,

01:20the return of Hamas rule in Gaza, the one thing Israel said it would never accept. Or they can go

01:27ahead and start scrambling to do the thing they've never done since the beginning of the war, which is

01:32start arranging for an alternative, which would be a PLO-PA connected alternative regime in Gaza.

01:41And they just don't know what to do. Or they could go back to the war, which would really infuriate

01:46Donald Trump. Now, Marco Rubio was in Israel over the weekend, where he discussed Donald Trump's

01:52plan to transfer the Palestinian population out of Gaza. This is ethnic cleansing. It's a non-starter

02:00for Arab states. So why are we still talking about it if the only one on board is Benjamin Netanyahu?

02:06Well, we're talking about it because the person who's blathering this gibberish is in the White

02:12House, right? So that means that diplomats and government officials and journalists all over the

02:17world have no choice but to take it seriously. I mean, he could say, and then we're going to

02:22colonize Jupiter. And people would all run around talking about the feasibility of colonizing

02:29Jupiter. It's about as remote as that. I think those of us who are not diplomats and government

02:35officials ought to just do the public a favor and say, there's no Trump-Gaza plan, there's no

02:41alternative Gaza plan. This is all just complete, you know, lysergic LSD nonsense, right?

02:49What it is, is some sort of either negotiating ploy or bloviating, or maybe Trump is setting

03:00up something for the West Bank, for annexation in the West Bank as compensation to Israel

03:06when he tries to do a nuclear deal with Iran, which is a relatively light lift. It could be

03:11something like that. But the Palestinians in Gaza are not going anywhere. There's nowhere for them

03:17to go. Because it seems that Donald Trump would not want to put his ultimate goal, which is

03:22normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia in jeopardy, given that Saudi Arabia has said

03:27there won't be any normalization with Israel without a Palestinian state. So my view, honestly,

03:34is that Saudi normalization has now taken a back seat to a deal with Iran. I think Saudi

03:40normalization is a very heavy lift because it requires Israel to at least recognize the Palestinian

03:47right to a state between the river and the sea, in what they call Eretz Israel, in Israel

03:54and the occupied territories. The Israelis are not prepared to do that. And that's the minimum

03:59the Saudis could take. And they're not going to do it. Whereas a deal with Iran is just sitting

04:05there ready to be done. It's a very light lift at this point, because Trump needs it. The Iranians

04:12need it. Both sides need it. And the only problem is it's going to infuriate the Israelis and their

04:19evangelical and Jewish friends in the United States. So Trump has to compensate them with

04:24something. And I think he's teeing up annexation in the West Bank. And all this talk about Gaza

04:31just sets an atmosphere about Palestinians and their rights and their obligations and where

04:38they should be and go and their land that can be then transferred into the West Bank from a fake

04:45thing in Gaza that can't be done to a very real thing that can easily be done in the West Bank.

04:51Hussein, talks to enter phase two of the current ceasefire that's in place were due to begin

04:57two weeks ago. They haven't started. Netanyahu has been dragging his feet more so after he visited

05:02his friend Donald Trump in the White House. But at the same time, it's been 500 days since those

05:07hostages were taken into Gaza. Where's the sense of urgency on the part of the Israelis?

05:14Well, there is one, in fact. It's there in the public, which wants all the hostages released.

05:21And that means doing phase two, because all the hostages are released at the end of phase two,

05:27which, as Noga pointed out in your package there, means the end of the war. And Netanyahu doesn't

05:35want that. But you know who does? The Israeli public wants it. And the Israeli military wants

05:40it, because right now they're fighting a war and they're bleeding soldiers. Every week they

05:46lose several to an insurgency with no goal. There's no purpose here. There's no articulated

05:52end. So they're pressuring him. Donald Trump is pressuring him because he wants all the hostages

05:58out, which means phase two. Everybody's pressuring him except the ultra right in Israel, which he

06:06relies on to stay in power. So he's in a complete bind. Everyone wants phase two except the people

06:12he relies on to stay in power within the cabinet. He doesn't know what to do. So it's really a big

06:19problem. And by the way, the ultimate question is, that means Israel would be making a strategic

06:25choice to leave Hamas in power in Gaza. And that would mean a total failure of this devastating,

06:32brutal, near-genocidal war that they fought for the past year and a half. And that's a terrible

06:37thing. Because at the end of 15 months, what we have seen every time Hamas releases a batch of

06:43hostages, it's demonstrating to the world with those Hollywood-style productions, which we've

06:48seen, that they are very much in control. Of course. But there's no one else, because

06:54Israel, they're in control because Israel decided to leave them in control. There has been an

06:59alternative on the table since November of 2023. Since a few weeks after the war began,

07:07everybody from the Americans to the Europeans to the Arabs and Asians and others were talking about

07:13the need for an alternative civil administration in Gaza. But the problem for Israel is it would

07:20be tied directly or indirectly back to Ramallah, back to the PLO and the PA. And they fear the PLO

07:27and the PA more than they fear Hamas, because they are the ones who could create a Palestinian

07:32state. And Hamas will not, because it's radioactive and it's not even Hamas' project to create a

07:38Palestinian state. So they have preferred to leave Hamas in power. It's a strategic decision.

07:44But I just want to jump in there, because the problem with the Palestinian Authority is,

07:48does it have any legitimacy given Mahmoud Abbas's tenure, which has gone on forever?

07:56Yeah. Okay. So the Palestinian Authority has a lot of legitimacy problems, but it has

08:04legitimacy in the international community. He's not only the head of the PA, he's the head of the

08:10PLO. And everyone, even Hamas, agrees that the PLO represents the Palestinians diplomatically.

08:17And he is still the leading Palestinian. There's never been a leader of Hamas who could challenge

08:24him as a national leader. And so despite all the crisis of legitimacy, you rightly point out,

08:31yes, he could. And it wouldn't be him. It would be someone else like Salam Fayyad or

08:37Mahmoud Al-Anon or some businessman or somebody who would be the titular head of a civic

08:42administration. And it might even, to please the Israelis, be nominally independent. But in fact,

08:49it would draw its legitimacy from the PLO, ultimately, leading back not just to Abbas,

08:54but the whole wretched crew in Ramallah. But are they legitimate? Well, sure they are. Yes.

09:01Hussein Ibish, thank you so much for joining us on the program today with your insights.

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