Lawfare Daily: What Trump’s Middle East Trip Means for Gaza and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, with Joel Braunold

[Intro]

Joel Braunold: It is not just give up the hostages, it's also exile yourself and give up all of your arms—basically fly the white flag of surrender. That's different from just if you gave up all the hostages, the war would end. And so I think that confusion also adds into sort of this feeling of what is going on? Like if Hamas agreed, if under the Witkoff proposal you had all of the hostages be released—10 upfront and 10 at the end—and then the war ended, would that be enough? For the Israelis, at least at this point, the answer is no.

Scott R. Anderson: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm senior editor Scott R. Anderson with contributing editor Joel Braunold, the managing director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.

Joel Braunold: The question is, is that the political space and ingenuity within the political bounds of the current Israeli coalition to do that? Currently, it would seem no. You could have had the beginning of a process with the Saudis. You could have had it if you had a government who was able to end the war in Gaza. It was definitely there, but that opportunity, if the door hasn't shut, it's starting to close.

Scott R. Anderson: For today's episode, we sat down to discuss the latest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from the ongoing war in Gaza to President Trump's recent trip to the Middle East.

[Main podcast]

So Joel, for the last year—really, I mean close to two years now—we've been doing these quarterly or so check-ins on a whole range of developments, centering around Israelis, the Palestinians, the peace process, and a whole array of regional issues that tend to center or intersect with those issues. And the last few months have been incredibly tumultuous on those fronts as they have been on so many others.

Let's start with the Gaza ceasefire, I think, which ate up most of our time the last time we sat down in February, I wanna say it was maybe late January. At the time we had a recent-ish ceasefire deal that was in place. Actually, I, I'm gonna correct myself. I think it was actually early March when we sat down, because we were at the end of the first phase, coming into the second phase, we're supposed to see more substantial steps towards Israeli withdrawal, some degree of moves towards Palestinian autonomy, more opportunities to return.

We know that hasn't taken place the way, at least it was originally anticipated in kind of the three stage plan as originally laid out by the Biden administration, as agreed to by the parties with the Trump administration's backing.

Talk to us about where we are on the Gaza ceasefire at this point and what it looks like on the ground and, and what the trajectory seems to be, to the extent there is one towards a more permanent resolution of the conflict.

Joel Braunold: Sure Scott, it's always fun to, to be back with you at Lawfare.

So the, the outlook is bad, right? I, I think that's the, the first word to say. After the collapse of the previous cease fire, if you remember, as you said, it was a three stage process. The parties, you know, the Israelis were very clear when they were designing this during the Biden administration, that there was no automatic transition from stage one to stage two.

And when Steve Witkoff really got into the meat of it, and he had seen the destruction in Gaza, he also thought that a five-year time horizon—which is what stage three called for—was unrealistic, and that if we were gonna get to a reconstruction moment, we needed to have far more realism in terms of how long that was actually going to take.

So phase one didn't last more than the end of phase one, sort of the ceasefire collapsed, and Israel, at that point, cut off all access to the Gaza Strip.

Now, during the previous period while there was a ceasefire, there was a huge surge of humanitarian aid, and so substantial amounts of goods and resources went into Gaza and sort of built up some capacity in the warehouses.

Now, the, the ceasefire has broken; Israel stopped any aid going back into Gaza and for the past two months, there hasn't been any aid going in and the reports coming out of the UN and other international humanitarian groups are very dire that once again, Gaza is on the edge of starvation. The Israelis some, somewhat deny it, though there was reporting yesterday in the New York Times that there are some military officials in Israel who do agree that Gaza again might be on the edge of starvation.

And the next sort of potential opportunity is happening this week with President Trump in the region. And sort of in the run up to that, the Israeli cabinet passed a decision to call up a substantial amount of reservists to go and once again, do a very significant military operation in Gaza. They've called it Gideon's Chariots, and once you name something that often means it's a big maneuver, and with the aim, unlike before where they just sort of knocked in or knocked on, you know, off Hamas assets and then left, the aim is to actually now, you know, fight, conquer, build, you know, the old counterinsurgency way.

What they're building and what comes in that place is still unclear, but that, that's the aim, and the aim was that we're threatening to basically hit you harder than you've ever been hit before—this is sort of the Israeli political class saying to Hamas—and that we're gonna stay there until the job is finished. And if you want to avoid that, basically agree to the Witkoff outline, which was this outline that it was very unclear if it was originally Witkoff's outline or if the Israelis had did it and then they gave it to Witkoff.

But functionally release I think it's 10 hostages straight up and we can extend sort of a two, three week ceasefire while we work out basically how Hamas can disarm and the leadership can go into exile. And so far since the collapse of the ceasefire, there's been efforts to try and see would Hamas agree to disarm and would it agree to exile. And sometimes it said yes to the disarmament, but who's disarming and how it's being disarmed, but towards exile, there's been no agreement, and for the Israelis, that's been a red line.

So it's been stuck, and the Israelis have been doing incursions. There's been casualties, and they've also tried to hit high value targets. Just yesterday they hit next to the European hospital where they claim they were targeting Muhammad Sinwar, who is Yahya’s brother, who's the on the ground commander in, in Gaza. It's unclear if, if they were successful. And so the humanitarian situation has become acute again in Gaza it, it seems, and the military operations have continued.

And the aim of using President Trump's trip, the aim was to see if this could be an opportunity to try and get back towards some sort of ceasefire agreement that in the words of the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee would end this horrible war. I think we've seen a very much rhetorical difference now between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government, where the Trump administration speaks about ending this war, and the the Netanyahu government, it's more of like a ceasefire or total victory again, and what does that look like and how can those two, two aims sort of align? And we're back again to the Israeli conversation of what does total victory look like if Hamas disarms to some extent and becomes part of a technical committee of Gaza, is that enough, is it not enough?

Again, into this gap where President Trump threw his Gaza Riviera plan, it's clear that the Arab states tried to create an alternative, it was the Egyptian proposal and there might be other proposals. The Israelis though, didn't really create their own proposal. They doubled down on trying to create this riviera and tried to push for voluntary migration from the Gaza Strip. So far no countries, it seems at least publicly have agreed to take Garzas. Even the 3000 sick children that Jordan was supposed to take sort of stopped because there was no guarantee that those children and their family could return after their medical care treatments.

So there's still massive sticking points on that piece of the puzzle, and so it seems like the Israeli sclerotic political system continues to produce a deadlock, which means that Israel has sort of painted itself in a corner and the rest of the region is very, very clearly ready to make sure that this thing finishes.

So that's sort of where things lie currently on the, on the Gaza front, and the acuteness of the humanitarian issue has led President Trump himself to comment multiple times that he wants to see food and aid get in. And there's been leaks about a new humanitarian mechanism called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that we can get into.

And again, once again, like with the Witkoff proposal, is this an American thing? Is this an Israeli thing? It seems like it's an American or private sector thing, but there's so much confusion and as we dig in, we can talk about whether it can work and does it appeal to the principles of neutrality.

But just as a topper, functionally, we're once again at a point of acute suffering in terms of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, the Israelis are threatening to do massive incursions and call up tens of thousands of troops, again, which are troops who have own only just gone home functionally and were already serving for over 300 days and the region hasn't managed to crack the nut about how to get this back. And that's sort of what's going on.

Scott R. Anderson: So I wanna dig deeper into the foundation plans and frankly, some of these hints we've gotten from the Trump administration at broader humanitarian relief and potentially even reconstruction plans down the road.

But before we do that, let's get to something a little more concrete that's happened, that's the Edan Alexander deal that we saw take place where President Trump's administration, Steve Witkoff in particular, got very directly involved in negotiations for the last living, I believe, American-Israeli hostage and secured his release this past week, and has been hinting at potential more direct involvement in future hostage releases, obviously a super, super sensitive political issue in Israel on a lot of fronts.

Talk to us about what's happened here, there, and the political ramifications, particularly within Israel but also for the region about this shift to more active posture that the Trump administration seems to be moving towards or at least did in this one case.

Joel Braunold:  So as we've spoken about quite a few times, one of, you know, the, one of the big questions in Israel is what are the main aim of this war? Is it more important to return the hostages of which with Edan being released, it could be up to 23 live hostages though reports could be that it could be as few as 20 who are still living, it's unclear. And even how that message was portrayed out, President Trump said something, Sara Netanyahu at a torch lighting ceremony for Israel Independence Day, you know, said up to and corrected her husband. So there's been a very big lack of communication.

So I'm sort of, the basically opposition to the government really has been prioritizing hostage releases, and it's a, it's definitely a majoritarian view if you look at polling in Israel, that that should be the priority. The government, and if you listen to Bezalel Smotrich, who's the finance minister, it, it's very clear that the hostages could be a priority, but the priority is destroying Hamas. And for Bezalel, it goes further. It's occupation of the strip and ensuring that this is the beginning of the end of any construct of a Palestinian national entity anywhere between the river and the sea, and he's pushing that ideological position.

So what's the priority here? Around 10 days ago there was the, when they were doing the Gideon Chariots announcement it was seen on the IDF’s sort of list of priorities, the number one priority was the defeat and destruction of Hamas and hostages was all the way at the bottom, which really upset significant amounts of people.

Now, the Trump administration is very motivated by the hostages, much like the Biden administration was for various reasons. One, Steve Witkoff has become very personally involved with the hostage families. He visits them constantly at Hostage Square, something that the prime minister has never done. He is with hostage families, families constantly, and Edan himself was a living U.S. citizen. He's a dual citizen in terms of Israeli American, but President Trump puts a huge premium on ensuring that Americans, wherever they are, if they're under captivity, come home.

So if you remember a few weeks ago, Adam Boehler, the U.S. hostage negotiator caused a few ripples because he actually directly engaged with Hamas in, in Doha. This was just before the State of the Union and the Israelis, it seems, leaked it because they were very upset that the Trump administration would be directly speaking to Hamas 'cause that legitimizes Hamas in their eyes. During those talks, it seemed that Hamas was willing to disarm it seems, and they were sort of working out what it could look like, but given the leaks that that sort of talks collapsed.

Over last weekend there was another sort of informal interlocutor, it was revealed by Barak Rabid that that was a Palestinian-American Bishara Bahbah, I can't ever pronounce his name. He was the head of Arab Americans for Trump, and that he actually apparently was the go between, between Hamas and the administration where he convinced Hamas that there was an opportunity that if they released Edan Alexander, as basically a gift to the Trump administration, it would buy them goodwill with the Trump administration, and that given sort of the pressure that the Israelis are putting on them and sort of the statements that of Smodrich and everyone else, that this could be an opportunity to sort of steal a march on the Israelis and show that Hamas could actually be more rational and humane comparatively to the Israelis on this.

This time it worked and the Israelis did not find out about this directly from the Americans. Apparently, according to reporting, they had to find out from intel. Even though Ron Derma flew to America, had White House meetings, apparently he wasn't told and he had to actually bring it up. And there was no prisoners exchange for Edan Alexander. It was just a straight out release, which again, is a huge gesture, at least in Hamas's mind, by Hamas in terms of to release them to release Edan. And so Edan was released and Steve Witkoff actually gave Edan his, his son’s, who had passed away previously, his necklace as a reminder, really shows the emotive aspects.

And in leaked recordings that Steve Witkoff said to hostage families, he said, basically your government, as in the Israeli government, aren't really interested in ending the war, and that, you know, we need to, both sides need to behave more rationally if we're gonna get there.

So the Trump administration has placed a much higher premium on hostage releases, it seems, in the Israeli government, and this has created huge consternation in Israel. You know, it apparently the Americans have now rescued an American hostage with Israeli citizenship who was an IDF soldier without talking to the government of Israel. So, A) apparently you are more safe if you have an American passport than just an Israeli passport, that's A, and B) they got it for, for nothing. So they were like, well, if the Qataris—the Israelis blame Qatar for everything—if the Qataris could just demand of Hamas to do this, they could demand to get the other 20 hostages released.

And so there's a common refrain in parts of the pro-Israel community, that if Hamas just gave up the hostages, the war would end. I, I don't actually think that's particularly true, because if you listen to the Israeli decision makers, they also want Hamas to leave and to give up the territory. So it's not just give up the hostages, it's also exile yourself and give up all of your arms—basically fly the white flag of surrender. That's different from just if you gave up all the hostages, the war with end. And so I think that confusion also adds into sort of this feeling of what does it go on? Like if Hamas agreed, if under the Witkoff proposal you had all of the hostages be released 10 upfront and 10 at the end, and then the war ended, would that be enough? For the Israelis, at least at this point, the answer is no.

And so we're again, back to the same very—at this point—tired conversation of what does a day after governance structure look like in Gaza. Is it PA-dominated? Well, the Israelis have said, Netanyahu this past week were saying we don't want a PA dominated, no Hamas, no PA. So who's gonna run it? Is it, you know? And so the Israelis are functionally putting on the table that it will occupy, but then who's gonna pay for it?

You know, again, you've still got the Trump offer, which is that we'll run it again, that's still very unclear about how, who, where, what, why, and all of the plans that have been laid out, a technical committee, you know, maybe the technical committee disarms Hamas, put in a warehouse. There are creative solutions, but it requires local leadership, and at this point in time, the Israelis, at least publicly, are not willing to count against that.

Scott R. Anderson: So let's touch briefly on these next stage plans, right? Because we're drifting towards the trajectory the Israelis say, if we don't get some sort of deal or plan towards a ceasefire, we're gonna move towards occupying Gaza and aggressively kind of demolishing parts of that and trying to civilian population moving to a kind of civilian protection zone, kind of reinvigorating the whole military operation and taking responsibility for it.

You still got these American plans, you have this foundation idea about getting relief in, at least temporarily—what does that all lead towards in terms of 30 to 60 to 90 days, what the possibilities might be, and, and then beyond that for reconstruction, are we seeing any sort of trajectory in any direction, either towards humanitarian relief or longer term reconstruction emerging, or is it still entirely uncertain at this stage?

Joel Braunold: So let, let's break down, at least from the Israeli perspective, what is a core problem that they face.

And one of the pressures they face is that they recognize that they can't starve the population. There are some bombastic politicians who make genocidal—there's no other word for it—statements, but in general that they're trying not to starve the people of Gaza.

And yet they see that the mechanisms that the international humanitarian community are using in the UN enable Hamas to confiscate the aid and then sell it, right, and that the way that they've managed to maintain their grip of control over the territory is by basically seizing control of aid, and then using it to sell in a black market that they then refill their coffers in order to pay soldiers.

So the Israelis like, we have to break this, so how do we do it, if we're not gonna starve them.  So the cabinet, at least parts of them, I think the majority want the IDF to distribute aid, which the chief of staff desperately does not want to happen because he knows that you could either have something like the flour massacre, where people, you know, basically charge the trucks and then what do you do?

And, and then you've got Israeli soldiers really coming cheek to jowl with Gazan civilians, and the possibility for just terrible things to happen is very high. As well as sort of, you know, that basically formally puts the Israelis back in the position of full occupation, which is a policy choice that once established is very difficult to pull back.

You know, Netanyahu in in his leaked conversations to whether it was victims groups or to the Knesset Foreign Affairs Committee, you know, said, look, we're not talking about settlements, you know, as much as people would want, as if that's the, you know, that's where Smorich and Ben-Gvir and others are pushing, so therefore everything else is more moderate. The most likely outcome of nothing happening is that the Israelis reoccupy Gaza fully, right? And then you would have, it would be like area C, and then how'd you get out of that, and you are sort of stuck in a position.

So the solution that at least some have tried to come up with is this new GHF, this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and their grand thesis is, look, why don't, instead of doing warehouses, and sort of, you know what a spoken wheel warehouses, community kitchens, bakeries that have basically been functioning, we will get heads of families to come and pick up a box of food at secured locations. These locations would be secured not by the IDF, but by private US military contractors, and the IDF would, you know, build the secure spaces—so they've built, and they'd have like the overall security wrapper, but that people could come and get boxes of food.

The UN Humanitarian Response Team, which is like a coalition of a lot of NGOs, but also some human rights groups, you know, collectively rejected this saying it breaks the principles of humanitarian assistance in terms of neutrality and everything else, and that it will lead to disaster, and so, so far haven't really engaged with it. The Trump administration last week when details of this were leaking out, were basically like, you need to engage, right? You know, people, you know, we need to think out of the box and we need to find a way to deal with this. And it can't just be that you are comfortable with Hamas police, but you're not comfortable with something else.

I think humanitarians I've spoken to and others are very concerned of like practically, how are you gonna have someone handle family separation? You take ahead of a household who has to walk 20 kilometers to go pick up a box of food and then walk 20 kilometers back with that box of food and then do that, what, every two weeks or so, or three weeks? It, it, it's incredibly cumbersome.

Some would say cynically, that the Israelis are like, look, if Hamas then tries to steal the food of individual families, right, that will create more of resistance to Hamas, and we've already seen a growing resistance to Hamas in demonstrations and others over the past few weeks and months, and that would create even more resistance to Hamas and therefore a bigger obstacle for them to do that.

So the Israeli solution functionally is to make it possible for humanitarian aid to enter. But the mechanism in which it does so puts the onus on Hamas if it wants to steal it, to really harm its population harder. And again, the net losers in this are ordinary Gazans.

And so currently no one is willing to participate. The Americans aren't willing to front the money, so someone has to pay for it, right, and if it's not the Israeli taxpayer, which is pretty clear, it's not the Israeli taxpayer, at least now they were assuming that maybe the UAE would pay for it. The UAE has already said no at, at least as it stands. And the people running this GHF seemed to be someone from Rubicon something—-it's like a military contracting humanitarian firm—but there's no, and there were rumors that the former head of the World Food Program, who was the former governor of South Carolina, was gonna do it, but it's not confirmed.

And there's lots of like backwards and forwards, but it's very clear that the Israelis have agreed to this as a mechanism., but details to be worked out. The Americans have committed to this mechanism, but details to be worked out. And currently the details haven't been worked out to a point when anyone can participate, but that at least seems to be the way.

So whether this becomes like a face saving maneuver, that there are some sites like this and other things are allowed in, it's very unclear. This at the moment is the only game in town. And we'll see if the details can be worked out enough that it becomes a place where actual humanitarian assistance can flow in without it being confiscated by Hamas.

But this just indicates one of the, the very large challenges, and the Netanyahu government has a challenge that multiple senior members of the security cabinet are like, still don't want aid to go in, even under this mechanism. And their public declarations about what the objectives of Gideon's Chariot are, are functionally, like, push all the Palestinians into the smallest area possible, make life completely unlivable, and then say you can go on a plane somewhere else. Right? That, that's it. And that's the public messaging.

And so you've seen over the past three weeks a renewed anguish and rejection from across Western allies and others at this next stage. You know, in many ways during the ceasefire, some of the criticism of the Gaza campaign was tampering down. This has definitely rocketed it back up, and right now, Macron and Bibi are in a shouting match. The new conservative government of of Germany have also criticized. The new government in Canada just came out and saying, using food as a weapon is inappropriate. So you've got a whole ‘nother round of criticisms going into to this potential format, so that, that's where things are currently stuck.

And again, everyone's asking the same question, okay, so you do this, then what? Right? Like even if, let's assume, a million people leave Gaza. You can have the whole argument. Is it voluntary? If there's nothing left, and what was the purpose, but let's park that, let's assume. So you've still got a million people there. Now what? Who's running it again? There's been no clarification from the Israeli side about what they'll allow. There's been dozens of different plans and ideas. Iran has come up with their one. The Egyptians got, everyone's got a plan, right. But the Israelis so far, given their, their own red lines, haven't enabled anything.

You know, we're so far away from even the conversation of reconstruction. 'cause until you've got a governance factor, there's nothing there. And Scott, as we, we reach out to a broader sense of the region, you know, the thing that links Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon—and this, I, I got from a very smart thing, can tanker in as well, Gil Murciano from the Mitvim Institute—you know, the thing that links all three is reconstruction, right?

In all three aspects you need to reconstruct, and the question will be when these countries and these territories are reconstructed, are they built as they were before, with the same challenges—at least from an Israeli prism—of a security problem of Hamas, Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon hiding in civilian infrastructure, sort of Isis or now the Israelis are worried about Turkey or whatever security threats emanating from the south of Syria and Hamas in Gaza. And if reconstruction's gonna be different in all of these three things, how can they ensure it?

Currently that only, that only mechanism that they've demanded is basically that we're gonna bomb, we, we'll just carry on bombing these places until we get what we want, because you know, the lesson of October 7 is not to repeat that again. You know, we can get into it as we talk about President Trump's trip, but the Israelis are definitely now behind the eight ball when it comes to Syria and it comes to Lebanon, and to the extent that they can hold their grip on Gaza, its sort of is making them lose their grip elsewhere.

Scott R. Anderson: Well, that's the perfect pivot. So let's turn to Trump's trip to the Middle East this week, which has been more eventful than most of these trips. I think it's safe to say this has been a trip that's been a while in the building and the offing, and people came prepared both with presentations and receptions that very much flattered and played to some of the preferences of President Trump and folks around him in terms of the presentation, but also with a lot of substantive demands and substantive to some extent, deliverables, kind of on both sides.

So from my count, we have significant or meaningful U.S. policy changes or nods on at least five different sort of regional fronts. You have a ceasefire with the Houthis in Yemen at least in exchange for them pledging to stop attacks on U.S. shipping. That came out a little bit before the trip, but I think is kind of tied in. You have a deal with the Saudis, a huge, massive Saudi investment deal on a lot of different fronts, just deepening economic ties, and the Saudi leg of the trip I think was the most high profile, at least in the American media.

You saw a Syria deal where you saw the Trump administration basically say—or President Trump himself, I should say—back removing sanctions mostly from Syria and the new Syrian government there or de facto government as it's kinda establishing authority or at least substantially reducing them.

Something he will get a little pushback from domestically now, including from his own party in Congress, but has some support in, for a variety of corners domestically and internationally.

You've seen some discussion about Lebanon. I'm backing up for you know, mention of a new Lebanon ambassador, move towards kind of backing Lebanese government to some extent potentially, and a kind of broader olive branch towards Iran, which of course is the sort of regional problem that unites in a lot of ways the Gulf States and Israel, or at least has for a lot of the last 10 or 15 years. But I think it's safe to say in least recent years, you've seen an interest in de-escalation on the Gulf side among Arab State, Gulf States, and now the Trump administration may be taking a step in that direction.

Still, lots of harsh rhetoric towards Iran heightened the sanctions, other steps in that direction, but we haven't seen the level of escalation the Trump administration pursued in its first term, and instead now we're seeing at least an opening there or suggestions of a possibility of an opening.

Tell us about what all these regional shifts, you know, have I captured this accurately? Is there more here that I'm missing? You know, what jumps out at you as particularly meaningful, and what does it all mean for the Israeli Palestinian relationship and the conflict in Gaza?

Joel Braunold: I mean, if you are the Israelis and you go through all five—which I'll do very quickly, Scott—you are 0 for 5, which is an unbelievable loss.

Okay, so let's start with the Houthis, okay. So, well actually let's start with the actual speech. Okay. I, I very much urge all the listeners to go listen to President's Trump's speech in Riyadh. Fascinating speech. In many ways, it's a corollary to President Obama's speech that he made in Cairo, okay. It, it is an American presence speaking about the American history in the region, criticizing what came before and stating what they wanna see.

President Trump's main point was like, it's not the neocons, it's not the liberal NGOs, it's not the interventionists. It's you guys here being able to do your customs and what you need to do and just basically agreeing not to kill each other that build these beautiful skyscrapers in Riyadh, in Abu Dhabi, in Oman, and everywhere else, and that you guys really know what you are doing, and he goes, it's not my job to judge the soul of your character, but to say peace through strength, everyone get on with each other and then we can all get along with each other, right. That is the topper.

Compare that to Benjamin Netanyahu, whose infamous speech in the eve of the Iraq War in Congress. And you see literally the, the mirror image of this, right? And so you've got a president who really is basically taking a position, being like, if you guys can all just get along with each other and not give me problems, the world's everyone's oyster, right? Let's stop killing each other. Let's get rid of the extremists and then everything's fine. And from my perspective, I'm not gonna judge anything you did domestically. It's really irrelevant to me. Let's all just trade with each other and it's really healthy.

Okay, so that's the topper, which for Israel, who worries about people's ideology and people's religiosity and sort of the clash of civilizations, is an absolute nightmare. Just from a pure perspective of like, what is it that we're dealing with? It's not just about the people have more money, right? It, it's really about who's trying to achieve an ideological victory. The American administration is not interested in that question at all, right? And so already it's different.

Alright, so let's start with the Houthis, which in many ways is the most obvious, at least from an Israeli sense, sense of abandonment. So President Trump, and it came at, there was a big piece of the Times that basically said that after 30 days of fighting the Houthis, it cost over a billion in Trump's, like, look, what's an exit ramp? The exit ramp was, they agree not to fire on U.S. commercial ships. I can declare victory, which is what he did the day he declared victory, the Houthis shot a missile at Ben Gurion airport, right, that actually landed and has again, destroyed Israel's sense of security and has led to mass cancellations of international airlines slang into Israel, completely destroying the tourism sector and everything else, okay.

The second that Trump finished his speech in Riyad, the Houthis shot another missile, okay. And so this feeling like, just like with Edan Alexander, because he is American, he's seen differently from the other hostages. You know, the Houthis are free to attack the Israelis however much they want to, and it's not my, it's not the American problem, right. That is very clear. So that's one, right? So Houthis, 0 for 1.

Next, the Saudis, the Biden administration basically mortgaged their entire rebuilding of their relationship with Saudi Arabia on the potential of normalization. It was heavily messaged in the press, in the run up to the Saudi trip that normalization would not be on the agenda. And the Trump administration is very comfortable moving forward with some level of civil nuclear agreement with the Saudis absent of anything to do with the Israelis.

You know, President Trump said, I'd love you to join the Abraham Accords on your own time, and I understand that it's not right time now. And then Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince, is very clear that he wants something now in line with the Arab Peace Initiative, which is from the Israeli perspective, a step back from just a solution to the Palestinian problem to two states, 67 lines and all the things that they think are anachronistic. So again, on Saudi, that's 0 for 2.

Syria: you know, the Israelis have been bombing southern Syria, right, and have been very aggressive at trying to prevent people from normalizing the Jolani regime, and it's a hundred percent a loss. I think they knew they were gonna lose because earlier in the week, Gideon Sa'ar, the foreign minister who, unlike he, he, he's a far more serious foreign minister than when the Likuds were in there, are just doing whatever the Prime Minister wants. You know, he was the leading edge about saying, we need to fight these people. He started singing a different tune at the beginning of, of this week saying, we might need to find some way to live with them.

So the Trump administration functionally normalized and took off all of, all of the sanctions, and President Erdogan, who the Israelis really don't like, was on video conference in the three-way meeting with MBS, Jolani, and Trump. So not only are they having sanctions relief, but President Trump is positively thanking President Erdogan for convincing him alongside the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia that this was necessary. Absolute disaster for Jerusalem. So that's 0 for 3.

With Lebanon. I mean, the Israelis and the Lebanese have a, that the Trump administration has been holding, and the Israelis have, have resisted their desire to sort of pull back from Lebanon until they feel like the Lebanese armed forces are doing their work. They don't have a Hezbollah problem and everything else.

And so from the Israeli perspective, you know, they want to maintain that. And yet, if you listen to President Trump's speech, outside of MBS and President Erdogan, the only other person President Trump called out was his new appointed ambassador to Lebanon, Michel Issa. He says he is a brave man, and we stand behind him and he wants to do this. It's very clear that President Trump wants to see Beirut become the Paris of the Middle East and everything else again, and you know, when you get name checked in a foreign, in a foreign country, that isn't the one that you're on the ambassador to, that's a very big deal. So from the Israeli perspective, again, I think they can feel like the Americans, again, are gonna side with sort of making sure that Lebanon gets rebuilt and if they have to fluff on some of the other things, so be it.

And then lastly, Iran, which for the Prime Minister Netanyahu, has been his raison d’etre since 1996. You know, to the extent that President Trump's pushing for an Iran deal, you know, will it be the comprehensive, you know, deal that the Israelis want? I, I'd probably say no.

So on all five files, they're really not in a very good place, and for the Israelis—and, and Scott, if you roll the tape back right jokingly to our conversations back in November, you'll hear an analyst with a very funny British accent say, you know what President Trump will do is give the prayers of the Israeli community, all of these lovely baubles, like deporting KU students and doing stuff domestically on antisemitism, trolling the UN and the ICC when it comes to Israel's strategic aspects, you know, it's gonna be a very difficult game. And, and we are a hundred and X days in, and here we are, right.

To the extent that Prime Minister Netanyahu even said last week that we're gonna have to find some way to wean ourselves off U.S. security assistance, like he's already accepted it as a done deal, that it's not gonna continue. It, it sounds great, and like the Israelis say yeah, we're gonna end our dependency. I mean, as an economy, fine. Great. I, I think that's healthy for everyone. I mean, good luck on finding a way to finance the military operations that, you know, just in Gaza cost upwards of like $11 billion that were grant-based grants in extra supplemental grants from the U.S. when you needed it. That money doesn't grow on trees and that will require political decisions about what you're going to need to do when the resources come from your own taxpayer.

And so you know, from an Israeli perspective, you know, president Trump said it's good for the Israelis that I have all of these relationships, and, you know, that's great for them, and sure, of course it is. It's very important that your key ally has very good relationships with those that you have regional difficulties with. Yet at the same time, you, being Israel, are clearly not the only voice in his ear.

And I'll add to that, you know, the whole 7 4 7 Qatari Air Force one malarkey if it happens, if it's not, you know, again, goes to the Israeli sense that the c there's this huge war going on between the Qataris and the Israelis in sort of D.C. and in influence campaigns. We see it in Congress, we see it in D.C., and like the Israelis just feel outgunned. Like the Qatari are now like, you know, if they can buy a $400 million jet, what the hell are you gonna do, right?

And it, it's more than that. The Qatari are sort of yes men for like the administration, like there's nothing they'll say no to. They'll, they'll figure it out. Whereas it's like the Israelis are like, there's so many internal difficulties. Not only can they not give them a jet, but they're constantly like err, like driving 'em nuts. Like it, it's this feeling like what's gonna happen next.

And add into all of that the administration currently doesn't have, I'd argue, a policy towards the West Bank and what's gonna happen there with the PLO and that's gonna be the next big headache that's gonna come up from the Israelis is, and we can talk about this, the PLO have as of now, you know, definitely navigated this regional situation to give themselves more legitimacy, at least in the eyes of the region, even if not in the eyes of their own population.

Scott R. Anderson: So this is obviously the sort of scenario that if you saw a Biden administration shift towards these policies would trigger kind of like a nuclear meltdown. I think in kind of the Israeli commentary, and to some extent I would think the Israeli street. Israel is very sensitive to the posture of, particularly the Biden administration because the priors going in with the exception of like two months, three months after the Oct. 7 massacre was pretty negative. The assumption is that Biden had a, had may not himself personally, but the administration wasn't aligned with Israel security interests.

Trump’s the exact opposite, hugely positive numbers came in with more credibility with Israelis and particularly the Israeli right, to some extent than Netanyahu has, at least in certain regards. Is that proving something to be that, that can endure this pivot in a way that makes at least conventional kind of Israeli security hawks certainly uncomfortable? Or are we beginning to see an erosion of Trump's rosy relationship with the Israeli right?

Joel Braunold: You know, at the beginning I, I remember we, we spoke about like the Mark Dubowitz test, right? Which was like the FDD one, which is like, you'll either win your house or lose your half—with Trump, though, with Harris, you knew you'd just lose. So I, I mean, I think that oscillation in the variance within the relationship terrifies the Israelis, and it has from day one. I'm not saying the street.

Trump's a master about, you know, the worldview that Trump operates in and the screw the liberals, and the, the, the whole Trumpism piece of the puzzle ideologically has fit in with what was traditionally, where the Israeli right was, right? Screw Western Europe, immigration, Islamic, whatever it is, right? There was the simpatico, and so it's very easy to fall in love with this guy, right? Who apparently is like larger than life and is showing everyone this is what it is.

The problem at the heart of it, which close analysts of America tried to tell Israelis again and again, is that an America First policy will not have an Israel exception. You might believe it does, right? But if it constantly gets pushed, it will start dissipating and that's what's happening, right? You can see this, whether it's on the famous now, Douglas Murray-Dave Smith debate on Joe Rogan; you can see it on on Tucker Carlson; you can see this with the Mike Waltz report.

You know, Scott, just think about this for a second, okay? The Trump administration denies every press report at the drop of a hat. You know, whenever there's a critical article about Steve Witkoff or Marco Rubio or J.D. Vance, instant rejections from the White House. When the Washington Post reports that Mike Waltz was fired as National Security Advisor because he was basically planning with the Israelis behind the president's back, and he hated that, I didn't see a denial. So, you know, what, what are these things telling you, okay? It's screaming messages towards you about what it, what's actually happening.

And at the Israeli street, I mean, you know, you can have some on the left have sha, you know, can enjoy the schadenfreude of watching Channel 14 sort of tie itself into knots. Right now they're like, well, the Qataris can afford jets and we can't afford jets. You know, they're screaming at Edan Alexander's mother, right, for thanking President Trump and not thanking the Prime Minister. I mean, the prime minister wasn't involved. He allowed it to happen. What does that mean he allowed it to happen?

Like there's, there's a, there's a real frustration there, and I think there's this nervousness that, unlike the Democrats when Bibi humiliated Biden, there was no consequence. If Bibi humiliates Trump, there will be significant, serious, long lasting consequences. So there, there's just no space to do it. And so you could be upset, you could be frustrated, you could be worried, Lindsey Graham can say, I didn't know about this—it doesn't matter, right? President Trump has full control of his party and he's gonna do what he thinks is right, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

Again, I think the Israelis take solace that he's not ideologically motivated to try and create a Palestinian state in the same way that, you know, a Biden or a Blinken was. But I would argue, okay, and this is my argument, that if you are gonna say that Oct. 7 broke all the previous conceptions, and you need to think differently, I think prioritizing not supporting a diplomatic move to try and create a Palestinian state as the number one priority versus every other one of your strategic security situations might be a misnomer.That was what led you down the path to enable Qatar to give money to Hama, to prop them up at the expense of the PA, right? That that was literally the lesson, right? That you pushed away people who could potentially be moderate—I'm not saying they're perfect—and you empowered very hard liners in order to do that.

Okay. That was really clearly a mistake. So what are we now doing? The exact same thing, right. So I don't think that lesson has been learned. I think we are starting to see, you know, Yair Golan, who's the head of the Democrats, which is Labor and Meretz, he’s pulling it around 13, 14 seats, who's really the only very loud opposition voice towards the war within Israeli elected stuff.I mean, Yair Lapid and Golan, they, they're just, they're all trying to triangulate.

But Yair Golan said this week, you know, all the military objectives that you could have been achieved were done basically already, and now it's just to sustain Bebe's political future. And that's a common retort that you are now hearing in Israel that this is really just to try and avoid the potential—you know, he's doing this to keep his coalition together. And that, you know, we can get into the issues of conscription and the ultra-Orthodox and other things, but it's a mess, right? It's just a total mess.

But there's still this belief that, you know, Trump in the end will, you know, will come to see us and you know, it'll be great. But rather than attack Trump, sort of the move of the Israeli right, has been to attack Qatar. And so there has been a big attack on Steve Witkoff who has done business dealings with Qatar, but it's pointless. There is no dividing Steve Witkoff from President Trump. They're best friends. It's just not gonna work. And this is also the same guy you're attacking who has spent more time with hostage families than any of their own government, so it sticks in the craw.

And you've got Qatargate in Israel. It's all like mushed and messed in, but ultimately, I think when you pull yourself out of, of sort of the rapids and you look at the direction of the river, it's not good, right? There's just no way to spin this, that what's happening is positive on the relationship.

Scott R. Anderson: Let's shift our focus to the Israeli governmental side because we are seeing the Bibi-led coalition that's been in charge of Israel since before Oct. 7 has been hanging on for the completion of the military campaign. At least that is what they say, and suspicion is maybe the military campaign is contributing to the stability or being continued, continued in part to contribute to that stability. As you noted, it's under a lot of pressure from a variety of fronts. In, in addition to this one you mentioned Qatargate.

I guess let's start there just to get that cleared up for folks. We have another corruption scandal involving Bibi and people around Bibi centered on Qatar this time. Talk to us a little bit about what that is and how that fits into this picture.

Joel Braunold: It's like, well, like on round nine of Qatar Gate. So functionally what it is, is that people very close to the prime minister, including his main spin doctor, a guy called Jonatan Urich, had undisclosed financial commercial dealings with the state of Qatar. And that it, they weren't disclosed.

It’s somewhat unclear—we’re still getting to the bottom of this, like when the contracts were, clearly some of them were about the World Cup, but then was there additional contracts about improving Qatar's image during the war. So there were news reports that were leaked out at the prime minister's office, that it was the Egyptians who were being difficult, not the Qataris, and was that a Qatar influence campaign, but. Anyway, like when you, again, when you step back, it seems that Qatar, a state that the Israeli government and the population seemed to blame for Oct. 7 for propping Hamas, were paying close advisors to the prime minister during the war. That's the long and short of it, and the Shin Bet launched an investigation.

And the background of this, the Prime Minister's been trying to fire the head of the Shin Bet 'cause he feels he is not loyal enough and because Qatar Gate could potentially reach him, and he is saying, look, the head of the Shin Bet should resign because of his failures on Oct. 7. You know, there was an injunction, the Supreme Court saying, you know, they can't fire him because there hasn't been a committee gathered and the cabinet voted to fire him anyway, it looks like he's going to be leaving the head of the Shin Bet in June anyway. So that should at least take away that potential problem.

But you know, next up they'll try and fire or change the job of the attorney general, sort of returning back to the judicial protests that originally divided Israel before Oct. 7, and if they do that, that could potentially lead to a different prosecutor who could change their view on the evidence against the prime minister in his criminal suits, and in doing so, just get rid of his potential legal issues. So there is no way to extricate the Prime Minister's personal liability from any of this, and again, it's basically like a repeat the same stuff.

So that's one. Two, the real looming problem and the problem that has been sort of stalking the background that goes through multiple governments is the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription. So in Israel when you hit of age at 18, you serve in the Army for three years, okay. You can defer your service to go to rabbinical school, or yeshiva, for a few years in [inaudible]. But the ultra-Orthodox have a blanket exemption. And the Supreme Court ruled a few years ago that that's not actually legal. And by the way, it's not just they have an exemption—they also get resources and financial resources for schools and kindergartens and just Israel's pie gets split up, and so there was a feeling that this was no longer equal.

So the ultra-Orthodox parties who make up a, you know, a serious part of the coalition have said if you legislate conscription, we leave right? And at a time where conscripts and reservists have spent over 300 days and are now being called up again for Gideon's Chariots, there is huge consternation. Like, how is it that we have to again, leave our families and go back into dangerous zones and they won't even do it.

So there were, as just part of the natural way that the Israeli Defense Forces work, there were orders sent out to call people up. There were draft dodgers, and the military police went and arrested some people. And the ultra-Orthodox said that if you arrest one ultra-Orthodox person, we're out, we're gone. And again, it is touching an emotional trigger in Israel where everyone is suffering and serving, and they feel that the, the segment of the population who is not serving. And it's also a divisive issue between Israel's national, religious right who do serve at very high numbers and the ultra-Orthodox who don't, and so you've got fights going on between them.

So the ultra-Orthodox have started to boycott votes in the Knesset. However, in a very narrative unfortunate for the government, the government with the ultra-Orthodox boycott didn't have the votes to confirm the call up—you know, if you call up a lot of people has to be confirmed by Knesset committee, they didn't have the votes and they had to get the ultra-Orthodox in to vote to call up other people's children, very controversial in Israel.

So this is the stilling course. The ultra-Orthodox wanted judicial reform to avoid this problem. They haven't got it. And this could be the thing that brings down the government. Now the government at this point, 'cause they passed their budget, won't be due for an election until 2026, though if the ultra-Orthodox decide to resign, then they could trigger an election. However, it's not like any other coalition would be better for them, and so their population doesn't really want them to trigger an election.

So what's gone on is that the, the segments of Israeli society are really fighting each other on this, and yet it's a fulcrum that everyone has an incentive to stay in government. Likud doesn't wanna leave 'cause they know that if they leave with the current polit, they won't come back, and then Bibi loses a large standing by not being Prime Minister. Smotrich is polling below threshold, so if he leaves, how does he cut back in?

So he needs to spend every day pumping up his credentials as the guy who's preventing Palestinian statehood. And he's, you know, from land registry in the West Bank and everything else is doing his best to create de facto annexation, even if it's not de jure. The ultra-Orthodox are just trying to get as much money for their community and prevent this as going.

So each have a reason to stay in. But the negatives across all of this—these are all, these are all minority positions within Israeli society—the negatives are just growing and growing and growing. And so you see that reflected in the polling, where the coalition, again is polling at below, you know, it's between 48 and 52 seats of when you need 60 as a majority. So again, the opposition looks more likely and who will be a potential prime minister? Will it be Bennett? Will it be someone else? Again, its a real big question. Technically with Gideon Sa'ar entering the coalition, it's slightly more stable that you can lose one of four parties now. But that's an inherent instability and a real schism in Israel that again, links back to the war.

And again, I can't begin to tell you the reservists are tired. 300 days is a significant burden on the economy, on people's lives and their families, and to ask them to gear up for Gideon's chariots again, where, what is the end state? What's the end goal? Are we doing this for what? Just to keep this neo government together? Are we doing this to build settlements? What, what are we doing this for? And so at the moment, you know, people, there's still enough solidarity within the units that they'll go and they'll serve, but the longer this drags on, the more that that frays.

Scott R. Anderson: So there is another major part of the picture we haven't touched on much yet, although you alluded to it. That's the West Bank and of course the Palestinian Authority that is still governs parts of the West Bank, substantial portions of it, responsible for it. A organization that has been kind of on the ropes on a couple of different fronts from you know, a elderly leadership, lack of kind of democratic legitimacy being criticized for that in a variety of fronts, external, internal, and of course pressure from the Israeli government itself pushing to control and exercise more control over the West Bank, as you mentioned, moving towards a defacto annexation, even if de jure annexation isn't on the horizon currently. Although I don't think anybody thinks it's necessarily so far beyond the horizon to be unimaginable either again.

Talk about where the Palestinians are in all this, particularly the Palestinian Authority. We've seen some interesting developments there on a few different fronts in their leadership, in their regional posture and in relation to the West Bank, showing signs of perhaps some international emergence and engagement. Talk to us a little bit about that and how they are wrestling with these dynamics as much as all the other regional actors we've touched on.

Joel Braunold: I mean the, the PA itself is, you know, has an 89-year-old leader, you know, lack of democratic legitimacy, lack of capability, all these different things. When they appointed Mohammad Mustafa first as the new prime minister, they had a reform agenda that had multiple different pieces of reform, but it was clear that the region wanted to make sure that should Mahmoud Abbas pass away, that there wasn't chaos, and that there was clearly something in place that there could be a successor.

The the big push, it seems, was to create a vice president position, which the PLA managed to do two, three weeks ago, and appointed Hussein Al-Sheikh as this vice presidential position, who had been the general sector of the PLO and really the main contact through the civil administration to the Israelis.

He's not domestically popular at all; he sort of polls between 0 and 6%, but it demonstrated that this wasn't just all about President Abbas, this is someone else who could be there. And there was some maneuvering in Fatah with Jibril Rajoub and Aloul all trying to move, but it showed that the system could reform, could change itself.

And we saw some remarkable developments, literally over the past week, Hussein Al-Sheikh went to Riyadh and met with MBS. Firstly, that's a big deal for a Palestinian leaders to get to have FaceTime with Mohammad bin Salman. And then even more remarkable yesterday, the number one critic of the PA in the Arab world has been for at least the past two, three years, but really since the Abraham Accord has been the UAE, okay. AbZ, the foreign minister of the UAE, met with Hussein Al-Sheikh and had a positive meeting with him yesterday.

I mean, this is the PA demonstrating its relevancy and I think that they've deftly avoided any blowups with the Trump administration and I think are desperately trying to share their utility. We saw that on the president payment reform and they've now invited the State Department starting at the beginning of June to audit that reform. It came out last week that 1600 stipends to security prisoners have ended and there have been some protests about that, which for many people that would be the proof in the pudding.

And so, you know, if they pass this audit and they show that they're actually showing that the reforms are real and that they've managed to move some of their leadership around. It gives them an ability to share their utility by giving an international legitimate address that could be utilized both for reformation in the West Bank and potentially in Gaza.

And then what do the Israelis do? How can you play if the whole region decides to back this new reformed PA? What do the Israelis say? These are our conditions for reform, or do they just reject out of hand? Where's the political space exist? Because Salle definitely doesn't wanna see that, and yet you don't wanna be left out in the cold.

And so, so far the PA have played it pretty well, though the reforms have to be real and the the audits actually have to go through. I do think that, you know, just from maneuvering in the international arena, they deserve credit that they've managed to play their cards to an extent, that something, at least that they're seen as an investible property, which was not the case, I would argue before Oct. 7 in any way, shape or form. So that's been interesting.

The Israelis have been very active in the West Bank. They, they've really got into refugee camps next to Nablus and Tulkarm and, and elsewhere trying to basically not only sort of go after militants there, but they're really destroying the actual infrastructure of the refugee camps. So now the question is how they rebuild.

You know, I, I'll paint something interesting, Scott, to show where this could really come to a head. So President Trump wants Garzas to leave Gaza 'cause he thinks it's not safe and the Israelis wanna basically exile them to third countries so that they can't come back, right. That that's the long and the short of it. What if the Palestinian Authority offered for like 300,000 Palestinians to come to the West Bank and that they build them new cities in these old refugee camps, therefore dealing with like rebuilding the refugee camps as parts of cities rather than just as permanent refugee camps and rehousing Garzas?

I could imagine the Trump administration would be delighted and I could imagine the Israelis would lose their minds, right? These are sort of like, again, like when you look at out of the box solutions that are challenging for someone or others, these are things that, how is this gonna work? Like, that's not the only one. There, there are dozens of these different things that can pop up at different times. So that's what's going on there though.

The PLO of course faces challenges, as you know, in U.S. courts. We're still waiting on the Supreme Court decision on the Fuld one about whether the PLO is responsible and have created jurisdiction by, you know, doing pay for slay after Congress passed a piece of legislation a few years ago. And if they are, that will be a judgment for 600 billion. And how do you deal with that? So there's all that.

And I, I, I think it's important to stress the Trump administration, at least as of now, hasn't commented on what their position is vis-a-vis the West Bank on annexation or not annexation, on two states and not on two states—it's all up in the air. And so I think that that is pregnant both with caution and possibility, and I don't know which way it's gonna fall.

Scott R. Anderson: So you mentioned the Supreme Court as worth touching on, we've seen a few developments here on the home front that bear on the region as well. This is in addition I should note to a whole range of deportations—or I should say attempted removals—of students and other foreign nationals here in the United States on visas, in part because of their advocacy around Gaza and the Gaza conflict for the Palestinian cause, in opposition to Israeli policies and actions on a variety of fronts. That's one way we've seen the administration and the home front here in the United States impact the conflict.

We also have seen a couple other legal actions, including some with affirmative involvement by the U.S. government, not just the Fuld v. PLO litigation that before the Supreme Court where the government was a party and actively appealing that to try and facilitate the ability of U.S. national plaintiffs, usually dual nationals with Israelis to pursue the PLO for damages arising out of alleged involvement in the second intifada primarily, and a few other incidents and potential litigation there, and other litigation potentially to come.

We also have seen similar litigation under the Anti-Terrorism Act arising from Oct. 7 against Bashar Masri, a prominent Palestinian businessman who runs a number of businesses in Gaza and other corners of the world that plaintiffs now allege were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks to some extent with his knowledge, trying to hold him liable for the damages that arose from that attack.

And we’ve seen a similar claim against the UN Refugee Works administration, the UNRWA, an organization that has been sidelined to say the least being targeted by the United States in terms of funding withholdings, now also being faced ,facing civil litigation in the United States. And we saw the Trump administration reverse the Biden administration's position that UNRWA was immune under existing immunities laws, essentially saying that they're not immune, in fact they should be subject to this litigation for a variety of reasons some of which are—I will say as a former State Department lawyer—like quite a departure from at least how I understood the U.S position on this has traditionally have been, but one very much reflecting a major policy change from prior administrations.

Are these signs of more of these other fronts coming into play more? And we also have, of course the domestic political front where we have seen Israel become a more complicated issue moving forward in terms of both parties, Republicans leaning more, much more into the U.S.-Israeli relationship; it becoming much more complicated for Democrats, even though many Democrats, particularly in Congress still vocally very vocally value the U.S. Israeli relationship, considers themselves strong backers of Israel, but have proven more willing and have faced more pressure to criticize Israel over the Gaza conflict and other policies like those in the West Bank.

So I guess this is all a long way of saying what are these developments at the home front, the slow percolation of the political and the legal, mean for the trajectory of this conflict? Are we seeing them express, put pressure on the Trump administration? Are you seeing them put pressure on other regional actors? Or are all of these kind of vestiges from past strategies that may have had impacts in the past but aren't necessarily playing a major role in the current trajectory things seem to be headed on in the region?

Joel Braunold: So it's a very complicated question and I, I would argue there's a very complicated answer, so bear with me.

Look, traditionally, Congress has always mortgaged U.S. foreign policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a bizarre way. You know, all of the laws about defunding the United Nations all have to do with PLO ascent to United Nations, right? Like the fact that we would, we would tether our entire relationship to the UN system to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is bizarre, but it's something that Congress delighted in doing. You know, Congress chose to utilize its power of the purse to truly restrict the President when it comes to the Palestinian, to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a way that it doesn't do everything else.

You know, the Arab boycott of Israeli companies that were coercive on U.S. companies had a legislative function to try and prevent U.S. companies from complying with said boycotts with criminal and civil liabilities, but then advocates decided to make that also about non-coercive boycotts, so ones that aren't governmently enforced.

So you start off with a playing field where the traditional mechanism, since the seventies has been that Congress has, has yoked multiple foreign policy issues, especially our relationship with international institutions towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to try and basically block avenues outside of bilateral talks from moving forward by threatening other potential avenues of consequence if they go there.

As that didn't work, there was then new fronts opened up, which was, let's use the court system, right? And so lawfare isn't unique on this conflict, you know, but it's very active on this conflict. And so you've seen multiple attempts to use the U.S. courts to force judgments or force things into that arena that weren't able to do things before.

So what we're seeing with UNRWA is people want to get rid of UNRWA for political reasons, 'cause they wanna take refugees off the table for a final status issue. And they've decided that UNRWA is an ongoing embodiment of that problem. And if they can get rid of UNRWA in many ways, if they can't get rid of the right of return, they at least defang it. And so they tried defunding it, but other countries stepped in. But now if you can sue it out of existence, maybe that's a positive way.

And by the way, as part of this blunderbuss approach, you don't just hit UNRWA. No UN agencies now apparently have sovereign immunity, which means that every UN agency, even the UN itself, GA, assumably has immunity now in the U.S., which is absurd. Like it means that none of them can function without being the potential to be sued unless they follow specific U.S. based law, which is different from UN standards and multiple different conflict places. So you've got, again, this metastasization, that this desire to attack parts of the conflict that you can't deal with politically or through force, you now use legal aspects.

You know, the Bashar Masri thing, I'm, I'm not—he's a U.S. Palestinian, he's a dual national, he's being sued by all hostage families. It's an incredibly emotive case. I, I'm sure you know, the facts of the case, you know, will go before a judge and they'll have to figure it out. It follows other patterns like, I'd argue we've seen against those claiming material support against others, though. The, the facts will play itself out. It's, it's deeply emotional 'cause I know that, you know, we'll see what happens there. But again, that, that sort of, that I would say is somewhat separate from the rest of them. I mean, there are people who are aggrieved and hostage or victims of terror often go after different people that they think can have assets that can also do that, and I'd put that in that category. They will see what plays out there.

But you know, something you said in the question was like, you know, as Democrats move away and Republicans lean in, I, I don't actually read it like that, Scott. I think that what's happened is as you've created these categories, right, you are fighting a coercive boycott. Now you wanna ban all boycotts, right? You are fighting in terms of antisemitism on campus. Now you want to really, you know, legislate it. You are starting to, no, no longer just affect foreigners. You're starting to affect U.S. citizens and where it started to bleed into U.S. citizens, you're starting to see opposition, not just from the left, but from the right. You know, the Antisemitism Awareness Act got taken down in the Senate by Rand Paul, right, basically saying this is against free speech. You know, there was supposed to be an exception to the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act as a chairman's mark from Cassidy that would give a religious exemption, so you could say that the Jews killed Jesus, right?

The, there are worries about First Amendment pieces of this puzzle that are creating pushback from MAGA, basically MAGA influences. You saw that when Lawler’s IGO Bill tried to move forward, the IGO bill, where he would've added, you know, if you profit information to an to a UN boycott or an EU boycott, therefore you are actually in breach of the Anti Boycott Act, that could lead up to a million, you know, a million dollars in 20 years in jail. I mean, they can claim it doesn't do that, but that's what the statute on a criminal statute does, right?

And unlike the enforcement mechanism of a government sponsored boycott, there's no enforcement of a UN human rights list of companies doing business in the West Bank that they think are breaching human rights. And so again, you saw a MAGA response. Matt Gaetz. You saw Charlie Kirk from Turning Point. Charlie Kirk's not anti-Israel in any way, shape or form, but you are seeing this, this thing happen.

And so I think what you are seeing is that there are consequences about yoking so much of our legislation and the unintended, or in some cases intended consequences, and now people starting to push back.

And again, going back to sort of going down our list of the Israelis wins and losses, you know, on the region, there's a real feeling, again, if the Republican Party has become a party of America First, right, there will not be an Israel exception. I think people who believe that need to have their heads examined. I don't think there's gonna be an Israel exception on foreign aid; I don't think there's gonna be an Israel exception when it comes to First Amendment things; I don't think there's gonna be an Israel exception when it comes to our regional relationships. I think it will be an ally and an important ally, but not the most important ally. President Trump called MBS, the most important and greatest friend of, of America in the region, not the Israelis. Okay? Like it's there for everyone to see. So I think you've got that.

And on the Democratic side, you know, you just had 25 Democratic senators led by Coons and Shaheen basically say that this Gaza Humanitarian Foundation model of the Israelis is absolutely unacceptable. That's half the Democratic Senate. Okay? Right, so you've also got the Dems basically being like on a values-based position. Where this Israeli government has gone is, you know, what is it, the line is a dot to you. You've gone so far over the line, the line is a dot to you type thing.

So you've got a party that sees its engagement in the world, very much from a values alignment, completely drifting away from where the Israeli government is aligned. And you've got a Republican party who is like, your interests are not our interests. Sometimes they align, but often they don't. And when they don't, knock yourself out. You do whatever you want. We'll sell you weapons, we'll sell you all this stuff. But like, we're not risking anything for you. We'll cut a deal with the Houthis. They're not firing our ships, they fire at you. That's your problem. It's not my problem. Good luck with you.

And so I think that that trajectory for the Israelis from a long term perspective, it's very worrying. Now, you know, some people in the, from a pro-Palestinian camp will cheer this being like, great, this, this bad relationship or this potential bad relationship gives new opportunities. And to them, I also say, get your heads examined. It's not like Trump is now pushing for the sort of solutions that that camp is looking for, not in the slightest. He hates international law. He hates the ICC, he hates the ICJ. He hates the UN. He's just not gonna mortgage this whole foreign policy to what the Israelis want, but like, he's also not gonna prop up the Palestinians in a way that unless they're useful to him, he's just not gonna think it's important.

And when you look at the Democrats, the question will be, should the Israeli government finally shift and you've got a different prime minister, will that change the trajectory of the relationship? And the answer is maybe, I don't know. It depends on policies and other outcomes. But for the next little while, I think there's a, there's, there's significant choppy road ahead.

And I, I don't think it's gonna be, you know, people taking pot shots at each other that you saw under Democratic administrations, but I think that if you look objectively at the strategic underpinnings that Israel had relied upon and the trajectory of where things are going, there needs to be some departure shifts and reimaginings. It is doable. The question is, is there the political space and ingenuity within the political bounds of the current Israeli coalition to do that? Currently, it would seem no. You could have had the beginning of a process with the Saudis. You could have had it if you had a government who was able to end the war on Gaza. It was definitely there, but that opportunity, if the door hasn't shut, it's starting to close.

There's supposed to be this big conference in June with the French and the Saudis about, you know, reestablishing a, a political process between the Israelis and Palestinians, maybe that offers an opportunity, but you need to take advantage of these swings while they're there. 'cause if you keep missing, then slowly but surely you'll be stuck dealing in the mud of Gaza and the West Bank while the whole region just basically moves on without you.

Scott R. Anderson: Well, there is a ton more we could talk about, but we are unfortunately out of time. But I have a feeling we will have a reason to get back together again soon enough. Joel Braunold thank you for joining us here today on the lawfare Podcast.

Joel Braunold: Thanks for having me, Scott.

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