00:00Welcome back. Hundreds of thousands of people gathering to Tel Aviv to celebrate President
00:04Trump's efforts to secure a peace deal in Israel. For more, we are joined by National Security
00:09Analyst Barry Donatio and Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East,
00:14Asa Romorowski. Welcome, gentlemen. Good morning. So we do know that during his first term,
00:19President Trump brokered the Abraham Accords. Those were a set of agreements that ensured
00:23diplomatic cooperation between Israel and several of those Arab nations. Biden made absolutely no
00:28progress in securing a deal after the October 7 attacks, while Trump has set really into motion
00:34a multi-phase peace plan in just 10 months. Barry, what's your reaction to these developments?
00:40Well, thanks for having me on. And I'll tell you, the world is celebrating right now. We're hours away
00:46from an end to this conflict, and we really have to thank President Trump. That's the bottom line.
00:51And the validation of that is even the Israelis agree. They're out dancing in the streets,
00:56like the president said, thanking him for brokering this deal. And we have a lot to go forward with.
01:04We're going to have an international stabilization force that's going to go right in. As soon as this
01:09hostage exchange is done today, as planned, they're going to bring in probably an all-Arab
01:16police force to protect the Palestinians. And then the food aid and all the aid that is at
01:22Rafagate in the south on the border of Egypt is going to come rolling in. They're waiting to come
01:28in right now, right after this hostage exchange. So it is a good day. It's a good day for Gaza,
01:33Palestine, Israel, all the countries in the region. Yeah, absolutely. It is a great day. All round
01:40could not agree more. Asaf, why couldn't Biden have done this? Why did we see so much movement,
01:47so much peace in the region under Trump's first term, and now only 10 months into his second?
01:55Well, the Biden administration was trying to basically force the Israelis to fight with one
02:00hand behind their back, because what they did the whole time, and we saw that with the conditioning
02:05of military aid at the beginning of the war, we saw that with trying to push and pull, try to create
02:10an even keel or kind of trying to level the playing field, not understanding the fact that Israel is
02:17fighting a genocidal war with the Hamas jihadi organization. So that was not going anywhere
02:23forward. I mean, and if you talk much of the intelligence that we have today from the captives
02:28of Hamas that Israel was able to gain, the perception was that Joe Biden was appeasing them.
02:34And every time he didn't make a move, then that was a gain for Hamas. And Donald Trump was the
02:41unknown for them. And that was where the fear factor came in and was allowed and was able to
02:46push things along. And so I think that was a major factor in all of this. And then you saw once Trump
02:53came into office, aid came in, the Israelis took the gloves off, they were able to move along with
02:58the attack on Hezbollah, the attack on Iran. Things changed when Hamas was able to see that
03:04the U.S. and Israel were actually on the same page, which was not the case. They were getting mixed
03:09messages with the Biden administration. Such a good point. Now, Asa, we know this is just phase one of
03:14Trump's peace deal, right? And the ceasefire is in effect and hostages are expected to be released
03:19on Monday, maybe even today. What will future phases look like, though? What is phase two? How do we get
03:24to phase two? And what does it look like? Well, these are still part of the unknowns. I mean,
03:28the fact of the matter is one of the major conditions of Trump's plan is Hamas' disarmament.
03:33And of course, many of their leaders are receiving amnesty to leave to the same countries that helped
03:38broker the peace deal, this lull period. And that is to say, the Turks and the Qataris. And to Barry's
03:48point, I mean, again, creating some kind of force in the region. He talks about Tony Blair coming in.
03:54I would like to see the Egyptians come into all of this and see how that plays out.
03:59But again, until we see the hostages come back in the next few hours, you know, in Monday morning
04:04Israel time, none of this is going to happen. And the bigger concern, which is really a concern of
04:09mine, is that the Israelis are also releasing 1,700 active terrorists that are going to go back
04:15to fortify the Hamas bench. How do you manage all of that? And how do you deal with the next phase
04:21of all this? And those are part of the unknowns. Absolutely. Yeah, I just, Barry, I want to bring
04:26you in just to give you the final word here. To ourself's point as well, Israel is going to have
04:32to keep an eye on those almost 2,000 prisoners that are going to be let out.
04:38Yeah, I agree with everything he said. He's pointing on. It's not an easy test to do this
04:43prisoner exchange, hostage exchange. They have agreed to do it quietly. If you read the fine
04:49print of the negotiation peace deal there, it is not supposed to be a public event. How
04:54they're going to pull it off, I'm sure that is a big logistical issue. But I'm hopeful,
05:00I'm confident. And with Trump backing this, I certainly think it's going to happen. I think
05:05this is the closest it's been in two years. So the next few hours is going to unfold and
05:11give us the answer to all of this. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to the next few hours,
05:15if not the next few days as well. Barry, Donadio and Asaf Romorowski,
05:20thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks, guys.
