Israel and Hamas have entered Phase 1 of a U.S.-backed ceasefire agreement. Within the next 72 hours, it is expected that all living Israeli hostages will be released in exchange for some Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Additionally, after months of forced starvation and famine, international aid is now permitted to enter Gaza.
Middle East expert Steven Cook joins Jen to discuss the hopeful end of hostilities in a region that hasn’t seen peace in decades. Who knew it would take a transactional, American bully like Trump to convince Netanyahu to finally accept a deal? Cook also raises a myriad of unknowns still left to discover within the 20-step peace deal. Who is going to govern Gaza? How far will the Israeli troops retreat? How will Gaza rebuild? Can we reach a two-state solution? Answers remain to be given.
Steven Cook is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations specializing in Middle East and Africa studies. He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. Dr. Cook is the author of multiple books.
The transcript below has been edited slightly for clarity.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. I’m thrilled to have back with us Steve Cook from the Council on Foreign Relations. Steve, welcome!
Steven Cook
Good morning.
Jen Rubin
Since last we spoke, in fact, they have reached an agreement. We are now in Phase 1 in Gaza. What does Phase 1 entail, and does that seem to be going forward?
Steven Cook
So phase one entails, one, the end of hostilities, the return of hostages, which seems to be on track, and an Israeli withdrawal to an agreed-upon line. All of that seems to be working. All of the technical issues seems to be working out. There is a question of dead hostages. They’re supposed to come out afterwards, but that may be a problem of Hamas trying to locate these bodies. It also may be a function of Hamas giving up its last bit of leverage here. But nevertheless, I think that this is a good day for Palestinians and a good day for Israelis. They’re supposed to be, as soon as this, hostage deal is consummated, I think over the weekend, we’ll see live hostages coming out.
400 aid trucks a day are supposed to go into Gaza Strip, with an increasing amount as the days continue. So 5 days of 400 trucks each, and then an increasing amount. So that’s all very, very good news. The question is, so that’s really points 1 and 2 of this 20-point plan, Ceasefire hostages aid. Then we have 18 more points to go.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. And we’re going to get to that in just a minute. There is also, of course, a release of Palestinians. Those people have to be agreed upon. There has to be a published list. The victims of those people, if there are victims, need an opportunity to come forward. It does not appear to be that that is going to be a hang-up, however.
Steven Cook
Yeah, and the Israeli cabinet has, you know, swiftly approved this deal. There was some contention with the far right, but this happened. Everybody wants it to happen. 75% of the Israeli public supports it. So, there was really no way it wasn’t gonna happen. But, you point out something that’s very important. It’s not so much the 1,700 who the Israelis have picked up on the battlefield, that is contentious. It’s the other 250 Palestinians that are going to be released from Israeli jail, some of whom have significant amounts of blood on their hands. Now, we should point out that Hamas
demanded the release of Marwan Barghouti, who is not Hamas, and a number of others who were directly responsible for October 7th, which the Israelis did not agree to. So, unless something changes in the next couple days, Barghouti will remain in Israeli prison, serving multiple life sentences, but other security prisoners will be coming out. This is very sensitive in Israel. You know, Yahya Sinwar. was among a thousand Palestinians released in exchange for one Israeli soldier. So, it’s contentious, but I think Israelis, understand this is the price to get their people back.
Jen Rubin
Right. And the one terrorist that you alluded to who is not Hamas may hold the key down the road in some role in Gaza, because although he is a terrorist, he has been looked to as someone who might eventually rise to a position of power, because Hamas is unacceptable, and the Palestinian Authority is corrupt and inept and lacks anybody’s confidence, so…
Steven Cook
Indeed, Marwan Barghouti is the most popular Palestinian figure, by far. And I think Hamas has been demanding his release in order to outmaneuver the Palestinian Authority, which is dominated by Fatah. Marwan Barghouti led what’s called the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which was Fatah’s response to Hamas during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. If they won the release of Marwan Barghouti, it would really mean the end of Fatah’s leadership of Palestinian political structures. And so this is a way, you know, pardon me for Hamas to screw Barghouti.
the Israelis are reluctant to release Barghouti for two reasons. One, he does have a tremendous amount of blood on his hand, but he has also signaled that he can be a unifier, and would strike a deal for a two-state solution with the Israelis, and then say… and then he has said, well, then we have no reason to take up arms if we have our own state. I think this scares the Israeli political establishment, especially those on the right, but I think also secretly some others.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Now, I think we have to acknowledge, that no president has been able to bully the Israeli Prime Minister to the degree that Donald Trump has. And frankly, that’s, largely responsible for why we have the deal now. The deal as set, was essentially pretty much, the deal that could have been done a year ago, but it really did take, frankly, the Israelis’ over-the-top strike on Qatar. Trump’s, anger at that, to trigger him to basically say, okay, this is gonna be the deal and I think we have to acknowledge that, that at least for this phase, it’s hard to see how it could have been done without him. We’re gonna talk in a moment about what comes after, but this portion, I think we have to be honest that it took one bully to take care of another bully.
Steven Cook
I think that’s right. I mean, this is a moment where Donald Trump’s transactionalism and being a bully really helped. I mean, I think there were a number of things that happened that allowed him to make something out of nothing, and there was really nothing. One was Israeli overreach, this ill-conceived strike on Hamas in Doha, that failed. I wonder, though, had it been successful, what the president would have said about it.
Nevertheless, it failed. He was, by his own admission, unhappy about it. Israel’s Arab partners were very, very unhappy about it, including the Qataris, and so it put Netanyahu on the defensive. At the same time, the Qataris were really scared. I mean, the first time this brought the war home to anyone in the Gulf. They’re not used to this kind of thing, and so they sought a security guarantee from the United States. So Trump, being the transactional guy he is, said, All right, I’ll give you an executive order, which doesn’t really mean much. I’ll give an executive order. It’s basically my word that the Israelis will never do it, but you’ve got to do a number of things for me. One, put the screws to Hamas to agree to a ceasefire hostage deal. I’ll get Bibi on board. And then all the Arabs were able to coalesce around this, in particular because this conflict is taking a toll on them. They are, you know, the Emiratis, the Saudis, others. They… they support the Israelis. They believe the Middle East would be better without Hamas. They’re dumbfound that it’s taken the Israelis so long in this inconclusive conflict to get rid of Hamas, but they have problems with their own populations. Now, a whole generation of people have watched this conflict unfold on their telephones, and it puts political pressure on the leaders.
So this all coalesced around Israeli overreach, Trump bullying Bibi, Trump extracting something from, the countries, and rumor has it that it’s not just putting the screws to Hamas to agree. They have to change the tone of Al Jazeera, and rumor has it that they’re gonna kick Hamas out of Doha, which I actually don’t support. I’d rather see Hamas in Doha than in Istanbul, for example, but nevertheless, the point, your point that you needed a bully to bully a bully, and you needed a transactional guy to tell the countries.
You want something from me? I need something from you. And that’s how this all happened.
Jen Rubin
Right. Now, beyond that, Every other issue you can think of. Who’s gonna rule Gaza? How far and where are the Israeli troops gonna retreat to? Who’s going to… and how much are people going to pay to rebuild Gaza? Will there ever be a two-state solution? Every single one of those issues remains unresolved and will be part of the next discussion.
Call me cynical, Steven, but I imagine that those talks We’ll go, frankly, either nowhere, or on forever, because there is much less incentive for both sides now to do anything. Now that the war has stopped, the hostages are home, and people, including Donald Trump, are going to lose interest in these intractable, detailed, difficult negotiations, and oh, by the way, Israel’s having an election next year, so Bibi’s not going to want to do anything, and the Palestinians are going to think, well, maybe we can get someone more reasonable to deal with next year.
Steven Cook
I mean, all of these things you’re saying are spot on. I mean, when you were asking those questions, who’s gonna do what? I was thinking of the, you know, the shrug emoji. That’s my analysis for all of this. It’s like…you know, the Pentagon said it’s sending 200 soldiers to support the International Security Force. I was like, did I miss something? What international security force? So far, no one’s raised their hand and said, I’m gonna be part of the International Security Force. Who’s gonna command this? What are its rules of engagement? What are… how is it going to coordinate with the IDF? What happens when Hamas shoots the first, let’s say the Egyptians agree, the first Egyptian soldier?
Jen Rubin
The first American!
Steven Cook
Although they’re not supposed to be Americans in Gaza, according to the Pentagon, but then the question is, is the security force going to be the ones responsible for disarming Hamas? And what does disarmament actually mean? Is it, can they keep their light arms? None of this is in any of the deals. Jen, you mentioned Palestinian governance. What are the structures? This is going to take a long time to negotiate. What is a technocratic government at this point? Hamas has been in control of the Gaza Strip since 2007. I can’t do the math, but that’s a long time ago, 18 years ago, right? So we certainly wouldn’t want to do a kind of De-Ba’athification, because anybody who knows how to pull levers and make things happen in Gaza by definition, had to be affiliated with Hamas at this point. So, what does that mean for the demand that Hamas played no role in governance? Can they be technocrats but not in the leadership position? None of these questions have been answered, or answered, or do you get any sense that anybody’s really given them any kind of serious thought, as you point out, on the two most crucial issues.
Hamas disarmament and its political role? Hamas is gonna play the long game. They are gonna litigate it, and litigate it, and litigate it, and nothing will ever be good enough for the Israelis. They want every bullet in Gaza to be confiscated. They don’t want anybody… they’ll have lists and lists and lists and say, no, that guy was running that thing in 18 years of Hamas rule, he’s disqualified. It’s gonna be terrible. In the midst of all of this, as you point out. At the most, the Israeli government has a year. But Knesset… the Knesset is coming back into session in 9 days. Netanyahu, at the moment, does not have a majority.
Jen Rubin
Correct.
Steven Cook
The Haredi, the ultra-Orthodox parties, bolted as the Knesset was going into its summer recess, they bolted over this draft law that hardy young men, instead of going into seminary, have to serve in the IDF. Without… what are they gonna do? There’s no majority. Now, the opposition has said, we’ll support the government as long as there is this ceasefire deal on the table and our hostages are home. But once all those hostages are home, what’s the incentive for the opposition? Okay, let’s say the government survives. Let’s say the harden come back in.
Then there’s March. There’s… the Israeli government falls unless there’s a budget. The whole issue of the harden serving and soaking up 10% of the budget, this is explosive stuff. So during these negotiations of all of these things about disarmament and Palestinian governance, and what to do about this, that, and the other thing, Israel’s gonna be engaged in crazy politics. So I think we should savor the moment when those hostages come out, and when those aid trucks go in and that people aren’t being bombed. And so on and so forth. But afterwards, we’re gonna go back to a terrible kind of status quo in Gaza. That may even be worse, with warlordism and lawlessness, and people still dependent on the international community, and no one really know what to do about this situation.
Jen Rubin
Right. I also have to remind folks that there is going to be a huge reckoning in Israel. They are going to finally have a full commission about October 7, and the responsibility for that. They’re going to have to have a full reckoning of the tactics that were used in Gaza, of the starvation of the Gazan people, and there’s going to be another reckoning, as you point out. The Israeli people, the soldiers, the family of the soldiers, the entire country has sacrificed greatly, and yet there is these cadres of the ultra-religious who have not, who have done nothing. And they are gonna have… the Israel society as a whole are gonna have to decide, are we gonna put up with this anymore? After what we have lost, our precious sons, daughters, our economic loss, our mental anguish. Are we gonna allow this? So that’s gonna be fascinating. I think this is a potential inflection point domestically for Israel that, of course, could then change its posture in the Middle East.
Steven Cook
Think about this. Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox, are 13.5% of the Israeli Jewish-Israeli population. Then you take out the 20% of the population that are Palestinian citizens of Israel. So the burden is really on two-thirds of the population. Where, you know, okay, I think a lot of Israelis would say, sure, there should be Torah scholars, but not every one of these guys should be a Torah scholar, and they shouldn’t all suck up 10% of the state budget.
One other thing, Jen, there’s gonna be another reckoning at some point, the Israelis are gonna have to allow international journalists into the Gaza Strip.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Steven Cook
And I think what people have been able to discern from the outside has already been shocking, and I think it’s gonna be shocking from the inside. And it’s been terrible that we’ve been reduced to debating numbers of killed, like that somehow, if only 25,000 were killed, that’s better than, you know, 66,000? I think it’s entirely possible, maybe even likely, that the numbers that we’ve been hearing about are going to go up. So, that’s another reckoning that Israelis are going to have to confront, and it’s going to be splashed on the global news channels, social media, everywhere people get information, this is going to have… this is going to affect, Israeli and Israelis
Jen Rubin
Steve, this is a historic moment. We can all be terribly relieved, joyous even, that no more people are going to be bombed, at least, consistently in Gaza for now, and that families will be reunited, with, unbelievable, torturous, you know, conditions that their people have been in. They will be returned to them. So that is all good, and everything else. It’s the Middle East. So, that’s why you have a job, Steve, because it never ends, it always goes on.
Steven Cook
Sometimes it’s hard to, you know, reckon that, that, you know, these bad things help keep me employed.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. Well, as always, Steve, we thank you for helping us make sense of all of it, and we will look forward, hopefully by next week, the hostages will be home. So, thanks for everything. Take care. We’ll see you soon.
Steven Cook
See ya.
