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Lawfare Daily: The Gaza Ceasefire and Where It May Lead

Scott R. Anderson, Natan Sachs, Daniel Byman, Joel Braunold, Dana El Kurd, Jen Patja
Wednesday, January 22, 2025, 8:00 AM
What's the status of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas?

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

For today’s episode, Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with a panel of leading experts to discuss the recent ceasefire in Gaza, including: Natan Sachs, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; Dan Byman, Professor at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Joel Braunold, Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace; and Dr. Dana El-Kurd, Professor at the University of Richmond. 

They discussed the terms of the ceasefire, who deserves credit for bringing it into place, what factors may contribute to its ultimate success or failure, and where it is likely to lead in the weeks and months to come.

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Click the button below to view a transcript of this podcast. Please note that the transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.

 

Transcript

[Intro]

Dan Byman: In most of these kind of ceasefire arrangements, especially early on, there are often a lot of violations, sometimes on both sides, sometimes by one side. And so the real question becomes, at what point does a tactical violation become political failure? Where someone says, this violation is enough to sink the whole deal as opposed to we're going to protest?

Scott Anderson: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm senior editor Scott R. Anderson, here with Natan Sachs, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Dan Byman, Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Joel Braunold, managing director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, and Dr. Dana El Kurd of the University of Richmond.

Joel Braunold: With the Trump administration's foreign policy, it's a funhouse mirror. You see into it what you want. You can look at Tucker Carlson not giving a standing ovation when President Trump mentioned the hostages yesterday, and you can see the reactions in pro-Israel media freaking out. You can look at Steve Witkoff's relationship with Qatar, or his relationships with the republican Jewish community. It's a funhouse mirror. Look into it what you want. And I think President Trump likes that, that he is unpredictable.

Scott Anderson: Today, we're discussing the ceasefire in Gaza and where it may lead.

[Main podcast]

So we are here to discuss a moment, I think, a lot of people who watch the Middle East have been very eagerly awaiting for well over a year now. And that is the initiation of a genuine ceasefire in the conflict in Gaza.

The terms of this agreement have been on the table for a while. The broad model, the broad contours really follow the plan that the Biden administration set out last May and has been a returning kind of touchstone for ongoing negotiations. And with some light modifications, we finally saw the parties to the conflict agree to it and implement it in just the last few days.

Let me just lay out the terms of that as a starting point for the listener before I turn to you all for specific questions. It essentially is a plan that comes in three 42 day or six week-long phases.

The first phase that is implement, being implemented now sees Israeli troops withdraw from major population centers in Gaza, sees a return of a number of hostages–Israeli hostages in Gaza–to Israel. These are primarily women, children, older people and other people who are outside of the zone of potential combatants who are being reserved for a later phase. Over the six weeks, we're supposed to see a return of humanitarian aid–substantial amounts to Gaza– as well as the return of a number of Palestinian prisoners that have been held in Israeli jails being returned as well.

As the first phase is being rolled out of 42 days, we're supposed to see negotiations towards the second phase, which is going to see more complete Israeli withdrawal from much, but not necessarily entirely, all of Gaza. But much more complete withdrawal than we're seeing during this first phase, as well as the return of the remaining hostages.

And then of course, we're supposed to turn to phase three in the subsequent 42 days, which is going to be a return of the remains of the deceased hostages who died, other soldiers as well who died, if I recall correctly. And that is supposed to be where we're going to turn the conversation and negotiations to the big question that's long hung over this conflict, what comes afterwards, this idea of rebuilding, reconstruction in Gaza, as well as the governance questions that, that necessarily entails.

It's an ambitious framework and ambitious timeframe but one the parties at least for the moment seem to be on board with.

Joel, let me start with you. There's been a flurry of activities last few days that has coincidentally or not coincided with a major political transition in the United States from the Biden administration to the Trump administration. We saw in for the last two weeks or so, I believe, maybe a little less than that, both administrations, outgoing, in going, having their representatives—Brett McGurk on the Biden side, Steve Witkoff on the Trump side—working hand in hand really in Qatar over negotiations, over to reach this kind of final stage.

Talk to us about these dynamics and what finally pushed the parties to over the line to agree to this framework, which again, has been on the table for the better part of a year now.

Joel Braunold: So fundamentally the ceasefire deal is the Biden plan that was put down as you said in May and institutionalized at the UN Security Council. And it was pushed over the line with the incoming Trump administration and Steve Witkoff's push. It is very unusual. Some would say actually historic that two administrations would work so hand in glove to get this over the line.

There have been, of course, though, different regional circumstances between May and now. Israel has successfully basically decapitated Hezbollah in the north. It has taken, you know—Syria's regime collapsed and Iran's ability to rearm Hezbollah from that position, from the land has gone. And Hamas failed to bring the whole region into war outside of what the Houthis have done.

And so for the Israelis, they feel like, well, the Iranian noose that they felt was around their neck has lessened and Hamas sees less regional opportunities. And of course, there's been ongoing operations in Gaza which has led to the death of two hostages and over a hundred Israeli troops and countless additional Palestinian casualties.

So the parties have reached a point where there was a question that if there wasn't a, a ceasefire, hostage-prisoner exchange now, when would it be? And according to reports, the critical difference was Steve Witkoff's meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu on the Jewish Sabbath in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, where according to reports, more pressure was put on Netanyahu in that meeting than had been done before.

And it was explained that when President Trump said that all hell would break loose, that wasn't just a message for Hamas, but also for Israel. And so, you know, as you parse through the reports, it might've been that Netanyahu was told, President Trump's had your back. Now's the time to have his back.

There might've been promises of other things; there's lots of rumors in the about, but ultimately, Steve Witkoff spoke with the full force of President Trump. There's no way to get around Steve Witkoff. You can't advocate to someone else. And Prime Minister Netanyahu lost a member of his coalition and went to the first stage of the deal.

It is, as we said, the same deal that was on the table in May. There's a few slight adjustments, but nothing strong in particular. And the outstanding questions of what was happening in May still occur now. How do you move from stage one to stage two? Why would the parties be incentivized? Can you use the momentum domestically and internationally to do so?

But I do think that for many in Israel, on the Israeli right to assume that Trump would enable them to cut off all humanitarian aid and get a better deal, there was a huge shock that President Trump pressured them into this particular deal. And you saw that reflected on Channel 14–the sort of main right wing news station in Israel–who are now taking to personally attack Steve Witkoff as a tool of the Qataris.

And so that's sort of the, the, the slight dynamics and we heard from President Trump yesterday in the Oval Office that he's not sure if the ceasefire will hold and that it's not his war but is very enamored with the work that Steve Witkoff did. I think regionally, it really reset who's the senior and who's the junior in the partnership between the U.S. and Israel and that when President Trump asks for something, he can actually deliver it in Jerusalem, which I think is different from when President Biden had the same dynamics.

Scott Anderson: As Joel has already laid out, you know, we've seen a kind of multi-month, multi-week process leading up to this. But the last move, the last kind of straw to break to finally bring this ceasefire deal into place was the Israeli government, Netanyahu and his cabinet. And it came with implications for his coalition.

Natan, talk to us a little bit about your sense of the Israeli dynamics around that final and fateful decision. You know, the, I think the narrative as Joel laid out, that a lot of folks are hearing, is that Witkoff's strong stance was a big deciding factor. But were there other factors in play in Netanyahu that made him more open to taking this step now?

And then what are the consequences going to be? Is this really a move that could have big domestic consequences for who is negotiating on behalf of the Israelis, particularly in the later phase of this deal or the many months and years to come in reconstruction in Gaza?

Natan Sachs: This is really a case where you have a clear majority of Israelis in favor of this deal—in favor, not without huge reservations. The prisoners released–about 200 of them, there are many more, of course, but–about 200 of them, from the Israeli perspective are extremely dangerous and convicted murderers.

Israelis across the board are now, you know, people are coming out each with their own story of a loved one lost, who’s murderer or someone, someone associated with their murder is now being released and that spares essentially no one in a, in a relatively small society, of course, takes nothing away from what the Palestinian side is feeling as well. So no one is, no one has an easy, this is not an easy deal for anyone. But there is a clear majority for it.

There's a clear majority in particular because it's really important, I think, to understand how emotive and how large the fate of the hostages looms in Israeli society and the Israeli psyche. These are not just military prisoners, these are civilians in some cases very young children and in every other age, of course, and especially because they were taken in what is seen in Israel as a failure by the state to secure their safety. The very fundamental, basic duty of the state was not fulfilled on that day, and they were snatched from their homes. And then also left there for now 15 months in, in something that the government could have perhaps done a deal earlier.

So all this to say that the dynamic is one where you have a clear majority in favor of it, and you have a small, but very forceful and very concentrated interest against it, in, especially in the, in two figures, Mitzar Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, who are the representatives of the far right–I would say in some cases, extremely far right in the Israeli cabinet–and Benjamin Netanyahu, of course, who goes along with them. This does not remove any responsibility of his. He's the one who appointed them, and he's also the one who decides to go with him. But that is sort of the, the lay of the land.

The Trump pressure via Witkoff is not only because the language was stern. So the difference is not just that the Biden team spoke more softly or something like that. It's that because he represents Trump and because the right wing, Netanyahu himself, but even the very far extreme right wing, have high hopes from Trump. They want to start on the right foot.

First of all, he's a new president and any new president–if it was Harris as well, they would want to start probably on the right foot–but also they have high hopes. And so Netanyahu is able to give quote unquote, something to Trump that he would not have been able to Biden.

So in practical terms, what this meant is that the very far right part of it decided–Itamar Ben Gvir and his faction decided to resign their posts as ministers. I'll say in my own editorial position, Itamar Ben Gvir out of the ministry in charge of the police in and of itself is a minor victory and something to be celebrated. But the thing is that he's not quit and for good. He said that he is leaving now, but he will not topple the coalition. He's staying in the sense of supporter of the coalition and that he will rejoin if stage two is not implemented.

Bezalel Smotrich sort of had a harder hand to play. He decided not to resign. He's still in government, although he voted against it in the cabinet. And he is waiting to see, but he has been declaring everywhere that will take him, that stage two will not happen and that he has assurances that the war will continue until final, complete victory, total victory, etc. And so there is a real dynamic here at play.

Where that leaves us is in a constellation of another crisis. Prior to this already, the Israeli cabinet depends on passing a, passing a budget by the end of March. And for the ultra Orthodox parties in government—which are not, neither Ben Gvir or Smotrich, other parties—for them, they demand a law that would allow the non-conscription of ultra Orthodox men into the military.

All this put together does spell the potential for a real political crisis, but we're not there. Netanyahu has not yet dissolved the cabinet and he's certainly hoping to keep the coalition. It will depend very much on whether stage two happens. If it does, you may see Netanyahu perhaps opting even to preempt and declare elections on his own, perhaps with big plans along with Trump.

It's a very different reality for him right now. But certainly there's a crisis looming, not yet actualized.

Scott Anderson: That is one side of the equation. The Israeli was an essential component, their decision to ride along with this again, was the last decision point. But the decision by Hamas and other parties involved to accept this framework itself was notable.

It took place a few days before the Israelis in this case, but earlier in negotiations back in May, the Israeli government opened, expressed a lot more openness to the broad framework of the sort of agreement than Hamas did at the time. And in those intervening months, a lot has changed. A lot has gone on.

Dana, let me come to you on this question. Talk to us a little bit about first, who is negotiating for Hamas at this point? I mean, a signature aspect of this conflict is that the big figures that have led Hamas in the past have been killed by Israeli actions in Iran, in Gaza. And now we see a much more kind of decentralized, kind of committee based system engaging in negotiations. How influential are they? How credible are their commitments? And how credible are they likely to stay through this three stage process and these sorts of negotiations?

And perhaps most importantly, where do they fit into the broader Palestinian political structure that is going to have a bearing on the outcome of these agreements, not just in Gaza, I suppose, but also in the Palestinian authority in the West Bank, who obviously is going to play a role, or seems likely to play a role, as we think about next day planning and the phases to come.

Dana El Kurd: So as you mentioned there are certain members of Hamas's political bureau and, and other aspects of the organization that have been killed in the last couple of months. The person in, in the Qatar-mediated and Egyptian-mediated negotiations is the acting head of the political bureau at this point. And so there is that aspect is that Hamas is, you know, dealing with some of these changes internally.

But I think that we do need to note that the power asymmetry is, is so extreme in this, in this situation that from the Palestinian perspective and from Hamas's perspective, they have given up certain, you know, red lines that they, they hadn't considered in the past, or at least you know, in the media had said that they would not consider in the past. They've given up a permanent ceasefire. So it is this kind of phased process that we can discuss in more detail. And they've given up this what used to be a red line for them, which is complete withdrawal.

What they've been able to maintain is the fact that Palestinians would not be expelled wholesale from the, from, from the Gaza Strip, that Palestinians are allowed to return to some of the northern areas, you know homes are gone but they are allowed to return. And that, that is seen as a, a big kind of symbolic victory, I think in, on the Palestinian side, especially when you compare what's happened in Gaza over the last 470 something days. In its scale and magnitude, people compare it to the original Nakba in 1948. And it's worse, you know, in, in terms of its magnitude.

And so a lot of the discussions, you know, on the Palestinian side, Palestinian media and things like this is that, well, last time we were expelled, nobody negotiated with us. This time Palestinians were allowed to return, even if to bombed out homes.

Now, scholars of ceasefire—I'm not as, I'm not, you know, a particular expert on ceasefires, but I've, I've been reading some of what scholars have been saying on what this kind of agreement signifies. Marika Sosnowski talked about how this looks like a strangle contract in the sense that because of the power asymmetry between Israel and Hamas and the, and the Palestinian side more broadly this might be seen or may act as an agreement to sort of cement changes on the ground, change facts on the ground, maintain particular buffer zones.

And the fact that there is no clear articulation of the political pathway forward within the ceasefire agreement, including the role of Hamas, kind of means that we may not get to the next phase easily. And perhaps it is designed in this way to, to make it difficult to get to the next phase easily.

Now Fatah and Hamas back in December they agreed in, in negotiations in Egypt to create a sort of committee of technocrats. Most of them from Gaza to, to administer education, health, aid and reconstruction in the, in the medium to long term in Gaza. But again, that, that's not clear that we ever get to that point, we ever get to phase two in this negotiation. So there's a lot of kinds of question marks.

I, I would say Gazans are very relieved and, and very angry also at, at the rest of the Palestinian body politic. We can talk more about that as well. Most Palestinians, both in Gaza and the West Bank, based on the latest polling from September, don't want PA control of Gaza. Over 70 percent don't want PA control of Gaza.

What we're seeing in the last couple of days is these Palestinian prisoners being released with most having, you know, very clear signs of torture. And, and we're now seeing developments in the West Bank as well with the crackdown on the West Bank, settler rampages, and, and, and dozens arrested just in the last 24 hours, as well as Jenin under attack.

So there is a lot of relief from the Gazan side, but also a lot of fear and trepidation amongst, you know, everybody and on the Palestinian side that the view that the ceasefire might be a way to kind of engage in violence in other ways. And people are very concerned about the next coming couple of weeks and months.

Scott Anderson: I want to turn to think about phase two, because of course those negotiations—which have already started in theory, are going to be ongoing as phase one is implemented—really strike me as raising a lot of sticking points.

And Dana, let me ask a follow up to you on that before I turn to other parts of it, because I think this question you raise about anger and frustration about the role of the PA and the role of other actors, really implicates negotiation we're going to get ongoing.

What sort of credibility do the people leading the negotiations have to be able to speak for the relevant parties on the ground in Gaza, I guess for in the broader Palestinian community as well, including the West Bank? And to the extent that they can't speak for them individually, kind of, automatically by virtue of their role, who are they looking to? What sort of coordination should we expect? You know, where are the potential veto points going to be on the Palestinian side in regards to concessions that are going to come with part two?

Because while part one in a lot of ways comes with a lot of very badly needed deliverables to both sides, hostage releases, humanitarian assistance, a lot of things with both sides needs, part two is really, phase two is really where we're going to get the more difficult concessions. And I'm curious on the Palestinian side, where we're going to see the decision on where the red lines are going to come from. Do we have a sense of that even really from the outside?

Dana El Kurd: I would say to answer the question, the original question, just very simply, is that there's not a lot of legitimacy for most Palestinian actors at this point, most Palestinian leadership at this point.

I think that, especially given the changes within Hamas and the fact that the Palestinian Authority has been implicated in, in, in a lot of its own kind of crackdown and, and repression in the last couple of months, their—the polling shows and a lot, and a lot of kind of the discourse around this shows that the Palestinians really don't view any of this kind of leadership as, you know, legitimate as, as, as, you know, a negotiating actor that can negotiate away anything or make any kind of concessions that, that could be meaningful moving forward.

There's a lot of discussions of, you know, having a political pathway forward so that new leadership can emerge. But there's not, you know, clear, you know, expectations around that. There's no clear pathway forward for that.

When we talk—when I talked to Gazans, for example, I was on a panel recently with, with a number of Palestinians in, within Gaza. And they're saying we want people, you know, locally to be involved in, in whatever happens and, and, and to be involved in the ceasefire negotiations and things like that. But there is a divergence. There is a divergence between even those who are affiliated with Hamas in Gaza–on the ground in Gaza, with Hamas and Qatar.

And so there are, there are all these kinds of layers of, of a lack of accountability in Palestinian politics that I think complicates what the ceasefire might look like, what phase two might look like, what concessions can be made

Scott Anderson: So let's turn to that realm of concessions and Dan, I want to come to you on this. You know, I think you have a better sense than probably anyone else on the call about what the sort of security dynamics are going to be driving the conditions, particularly from the perspective of the Israelis. You know, they are going to be the ones adjusting their kind of security posture most dramatically in phase two, if it goes as planned, substantially withdrawing from the country.

The agreement clearly seems to anticipate the reservation of some, you know, buffer corridor in the north part of Gaza. There's also a couple of other ambiguities about the Netzarim corridor, a couple other areas where there's open questions there.

Where are you looking for the real friction points as we see these negotiations get underway? Which we’ll all be looking at to see you know, where the pain points are going to be that will determine whether phase two succeeds or doesn't ultimately come through the way the ceasefire plan seems to anticipate.

Dan Byman: Thanks, Scott. So let me highlight a few issues that I think will be on the minds of the Israeli military and others focused on security from the Israeli side. One is what they see as a need to control the flow of, of smuggling into Gaza, to make sure that Hamas is not able to rearm in any way that is remotely comparable to what happened before October 7th.

Related—and this will be extremely difficult—is to try to limit Hamas's ability to be the dominant force in Gaza. There are, in my view, political reasons that make that likely and where I would highlight Israeli failures. But there's also a military question, as Hamas's remaining military forces and new military forces kind of come online. And Israel will, will see that as a loss. And especially politically, there'll be criticism of the government and so on, the more visible this is.

And the last, and this goes to some of Dana’s points, is really to think about how stable this deal is. And from a planning point of view, you have to assume it might fail tomorrow, right? You have to plan for success, but also plan for failure. And all that is going to shape how Israel treats this.

And there'll be a lot of incentives for caution from the Israeli point of view. That whether it's the pace of troop withdrawals, how big the border areas are, the level of security getting in and out of Gaza you know, the size of the corridor how quickly Israel can access different parts of Gaza, all of this will be Israeli incentives to be very cautious.

And this will hinder fulfillment of the deal from a Palestinian point of view and perhaps from an international point of view as well. People will look and see violations. I'll point out in most of these kind of ceasefire arrangements, especially early on, there are often a lot of violations, sometimes on both sides, sometimes by one side. And so the real question becomes, at what point does a technical violation become political failure, where someone says this violation is enough to sink the whole deal as opposed to we're going to protest, but really live with that. And I think we'll see, if not outright violations, a lot of things that are going to lead to complaints and accusations of cheating in the coming weeks, probably on both sides.

Scott Anderson: And that actually raises a big technical question about this which is the role of outside verifiers. Dan, do we have any sense about whether there is going to be a discussion about bringing in outside verifiers? You know, lots of other ceasefires, ones I've worked on—including in the region— you use the United Nations or sometimes you find a third party nation with the credibility to do that, you know.

I suspect the United States will de facto be playing some sort of role like this, maybe has the technical capacity to do it to some extent. Although often with ceasefire monitoring, particularly in a dense urban area like this, you actually want a level of more granular control and response and real time information than is always easy to get from satellite surveillance and other sort of intelligence sources.

So do we know, are there actors ready to play that role or are we, is it really this point kind of the involvement of the States in, in playing these negotiations, their ability to, to you know, respond and try and persuade the two parties that something is or isn't a violation. Who's enforcing the rules of the ceasefire at this point?

Dan Byman: Let me respond briefly, but I'll ask the other panelists to chime in because I think from different perspectives, they will know more than I do.

So my understanding is there's no outside power player who's ready to play a formal open role. Clearly the U.S. will, as it has for many years, be sharing intelligence and providing capacity in some way. Certainly, the Egyptians will be playing a role from their, you know, where they sit.

But there's a lot of Israeli mistrust of different UN bodies from an Israeli point of view. This failed pretty dramatically in Lebanon and general skepticism of the UN. There's certainly Palestinian mistrust when it comes to countries that Israel would trust, right. So that could be an issue.

And having said all this, I don't think anyone's really eager for this job. It's a rather thankless job. It's something that their forces will face security issues. Inevitably, they'll be criticized by one side or the other. So, it's a political loser as well. So, I think it's going to be tough to kind of find that outside verifier who can play a significant role. But again, let me, you know, ask my co-panelists if they have more information than I do.

Natan Sachs: This is not on the implementation of the near term ceasefire terms. But in the longer term, we have heard in particular from the Emiratis a willingness—public and private willingness—to, to step in, even with people. We should take it with a grain of salt. This doesn't mean that Emirati forces are not taking over the Gaza Strip or anything like that. I think in terms of actual security on the ground, it's, it's going to be either Israel or Hamas or like the combination of both.

But the Emiratis have made it clear that they're willing to, to lead an international group that would enter and that would facilitate Palestinian reconstruction led by secular Palestinian actors. But there is a, there's a, there's a tall order for that.

One is reform of the Palestinian Authority. So these actors would not be Abbas's people, and they certainly would not be Hamas's people. Of course, the Emirati plan were very, the Emiratis are very hostile to, to Hamas and any Muslim Brotherhood organization. And that they demanded invitation from the state of Palestine—in other words, from the body that Abbas leads himself.

And so it's a very tall order and it's hard to see it implemented in the short term, but that could be part of the grand bargain later, or the mini grand bargain before we get to the really big stuff, if and when that ever came to fruition. Again, we're very far from that but in a different scenario where actors had more statecraft involved and more imagination, that would have been a play that is very different.

And I'll add, of course, that given the need in the Gaza Strip, we're talking about huge finances that are needed. And there are very few actors in the region with the capacity to do so, even fewer with the will. The capacity, it’s really the Qataris, the Emiratis, and the Saudis, and the Qataris were backing a lot of what Hamas was building prior, and certainly the Israelis, the Americans, would prefer that it would be the Emiratis or the Saudis or a combination of the two.

Scott Anderson: So it's a long road before we get to the end of, or even the current moment in the middle of phase one to that, which is in part of phase three or even beyond this reconstruction question. And this question about ceasefire enforcement really reflects a broader question, which is the guarantors. Are there other outside actors that can provide incentives to the parties to stay on track to keep making progress along the negotiations that will eventually, hopefully, that are intended to lead to phase three and beyond?

Joel, let me come back to you on that, because this gets back to this negotiation dynamics question and really the broader regional picture—Natan’s already raised the UAE. Obviously the Saudis have been involved at various phases by both the Biden administration and to some extent the Trump administration as being part of some grand bargain that now would play a big role in Gaza, although the idea of the grand bargain predates the Gaza conflict. The Egyptians, the Qataris obviously play a role. And of course, there, there is the Americans now under the Trump administration's leadership.

What capacity do they have to play a guarantor role and kind of the mediator slash bad cop role that's necessary sometimes the ability to present incentives to both sides to say, hey, we've got to stay on the track here, let's try and hammer everybody to stay within the parameters that we can continue to work together. Or is that something that it's not clear those parties are willing and able to do?

Joel Braunold: So the official guarantors of the ceasefire deal are Egypt, Qatar and the United States, okay? It's literally on the document that was leaked. Those are the guarantors. Realistically, there are three major Gulf Arab players who each have a slightly different iteration of what they want to see. There's one outside regional actor who's not Arab and then you've got the U.S. So I'll go through all three.

So the first is the Qataris. So the Qataris have been the home of this deal. As Dana said and others, you know, the Hamas office is there, the political office, and the Qataris want to see some level of unity between Fatah and Hamas. Doesn't mean it needs to be a unity government, but an agreement on the technical committee. But not a replacement of Hamas—Hamas doesn't have a say and Hamas is destroyed—but they accede, they agree in some level of joint polity with Fatah. And then you move forward on some consensus technocratic committee, and then they'll help fund that. That's the Qatari model, right.

The next you've got is the Saudi model. The Saudis are very comfortable with Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa and his reforms. They don't share the same objections as the UAE. And of course they have the real prize for the Israelis in the U.S. of the potential of normalization with Israel and the U.S. in a grand bargain. For them, they've laid out two conditions. One is an end to the war in Gaza, and two is some credible pathway to a Palestinian state in some way.

 

But they're not conditioning their assistance on anything, on replacing President Abbas's chosen prime minister. You know, they want a succession plan. President Abbas has said who a temporary president would be, should he be incapacitated, but they're not demanding that. And they reject the UAE condition, which is the third actor, who as Natan has said, have been very vocal publicly about their desire to help on reconstruction, but condition the entire thing on a new Palestinian prime minister who is completely independently powerful outside of President Abbas and they don't want to see Hamas as part of that dynamic. So you can see there are three different.

The fourth actor who's not part of the Arab clique is, of course, Turkey. Turkey has historically been very popular on the Palestinian street. After what's happened in Syria, President Erdogan has wanted to be the international guarantor. He said that early on, but given his relationships with this, specifically the government of Israel. He hasn't removed trade relations or others with the State of Israel—he's limited in others, but he hasn't formally broken off diplomatic relations. And he personalizes his attacks on Prime Minister Netanyahu, particularly.

And it's a descending–quite rapidly–relationship, but they are a NATO ally. They do have lots of relations in the region. They are an essential actor in Syria. They will increasingly become an essential actor with the Jordanians, given the border there. And the Israelis will have to deal with the fact that the Turks also have positions in Washington.

And much like as President Trump said in the White House yesterday, this isn't our war. He doesn't want to get involved in Lebanon. He doesn't want to get involved in Syria. I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to get involved in Gaza. And if the Turks or the Saudis or the UAE or the Qataris—whoever wants to find a way forward, I'm sure the Americans will play the role that they need to do, which is putting the pressure on the Israelis to not get in the way if they think there's a credible pathway forward.

So where does that lead? Number one, if the Israelis don't suggest something, it will be dictated to them by the region because they are no longer the sole ally for the U.S. who gets to dictate everything. Secondly, regardless of whether it's a Saudi plan, a UAE plan, a Turkish plan, a Qatari plan, the Egyptians must be involved, just given their proximal power of what's going on, and they've made sure that whoever's working on this, that they will benefit. And if you look at the kind of investments in Egypt that have happened, you can see that all the parties are, are trying to work with that.

None of this has to, you know—once again, the Palestinians native voice and their voice of controlling their own affairs is separate to where the region wants it to go. The region sees that it cannot move forward with the, a regional normalization package with the Israelis without moving forward significantly in some way on the Palestinian file. And so they're all trying to figure that particular equation out, but the particular demands of the UAE versus Saudi versus Qatar are distinct.

And the Qataris have a headstart by they were the original guarantor of this particular agreement. And so right now I'm sure everyone's scrambling to find five minutes with Mr. Witkoff to present their designs and enter that space. Whoever manages to put the most credible one will probably win out as he starts moving forward on that.

Scott Anderson: And Joel, you know, what do we have a sense of the Trump administration's priors in this, right? The Trump administration has a long history with Israel, and part of that is the reason why it has credibility and leverage here, at least as you're framing it. But at the same time, that comes with a very difficult relationship with the Palestinians, almost complete alienation during the first term, although we haven't seen that restarted yet at this point, or signs that's going to restart.

And there's a question here of credibility in terms of if you are going to play, be perceived as a balancing actor or somebody who can play both sides to keep them on track, there needs to be some sort of expectation or credibility of acting even handedly. Do we have a sense about how the Trump administration is approaching it to project that or is that just not necessary in this case?

Joel Braunold: I'd push back on the concept of even mediation. I don't think any Palestinian would ever tell you that the Trump administration could ever be even-handed and nor that the U.S. has ever been even handed.

I think what Palestinians on the ground that I speak to are looking for is effective mediation. So even if you're going to side with Israel, if you can force them to do something, we'll take that. And in many ways I think that the Witkoff meeting with Netanyahu two weeks ago for them was, was hopeful.

With the Trump administration's foreign policy, it's a funhouse mirror. You see into it what you want. You can look at Tucker Carlson not giving a standing ovation when President Trump mentioned the, the hostages yesterday and you can see the, the reactions in pro Israel media freaking out. Or you can look at the fact that Marco Rubio is the secretary of state and Mr. Waltz is the national security advisor. You can look at Steve Witkoff's relationship with Qatar or his relationships with the Republican Jewish Committee. It's a fun house mirror. Look into it what you want.

And I think President Trump likes that, that he is unpredictable. Unlike the Biden administration who was incredibly predictable, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his coalition need to manage this unpredictability because the highs and lows could be that it could be hit the jackpot or you could lose your house. It's that–that's the variance factor on this.

So how that, how that works out I don't think anyone can credibly tell you, but what I will say is, just listening to President Trump yesterday, this is not our war, okay? This is not something, and much like the rumors were said, that they don't want to see the Israelis restart things up with Lebanon. And they don't want them to see them destabilize the new government in Syria. If there is a ceasefire deal that is working and Hamas does not violate the ceasefire deal, I don't think that Israel will just have the ability to violate it as it wants.

And I'll just finish by saying Hamas has indicated multiple times publicly that they don't want to continue governance in Gaza. They'd rather be more like a Hezbollah model where they can manage the, the armed resistance, but someone else takes over that.

So there is a pathway where Hamas gives up control and Hamas is no longer the governing authority of Gaza and someone else is, but they still exist in some way. And will that satisfy enough for the Trump administration to take the win and move on, or will it not? And if Israel decides to go back to war, I'm sure the U.S. would like to sell them as many weapons as they would like. But will that be on the U.S. credit card, or will that be with loans this time?

These are all different questions that change the dynamics. How will that affect the dynamics when it comes to Iran, with Saudi normalization? These are all the balancing factors in terms of the Trump administration needs to juggle at the same time. And, you know, in many ways getting everyone on board with the first phase of the Biden ceasefire deal was the easy part. I'm looking how long and how complex that was, that gives you an indication of how difficult the next stage could be.

Scott Anderson: So Dana, let me turn to you on that. As we get to these broader dynamics, talk to us about where the intersection is going to be with the political limits of, you know, that kind of the Palestinian political scene at this point, right?

We have the Palestinian Authority—lacks popular legitimacy, certainly in Gaza, arguably in the West Bank as well, substantially—led by elderly man in poor health; potential political crisis, really, any given moment, potentially, depending on, you know, his natural lifespan among other factors. Fractured political scene in Gaza.

You know, realistically, who, where does the kind of shakeout come in? Where are the real limits about who can actually, is likely to step in, hit these agreements, and then sustain them and maintain them? And in the absence of an agreement, if this, if we get through phase two successfully where the Israelis do substantially withdraw from population centers, who's going to be actually doing the governing effectively on the ground in Gaza? Which is going to be necessary to among other reasons, prevent, prevent the sort of security spiral, I suspect, that would provide a basis for the Israelis reasserting themselves militarily.

Do we have a sense about how all these pieces are going to fall into place in this phase two and phase three?

Dana El Kurd: Well, I can tell you what Palestinians want. I'm not sure that that's what's going to happen. And, and I think that there is an overlap between what Palestinians want and something sustainable. But, but again, the political limitations of, of an incoming Trump administration and, and everything that's already been discussed, I'm not sure that that's what's actually going to happen.

So I, I do want to go back to some of the things that were already mentioned and, and kind of answering your question. So I'm hearing Joel talking about how Trump may push Israel and Gaza and like, he's, he's expressing these things in a particular way. But there is a sense that like they may want to maintain a ceasefire or they may, you know not want Israel to destabilize Syria after they've demilitarized it or anything like that.

But they're allowed, very much allowing them space in the West Bank. And these are not two separate things in people's minds. And some of the people within this administration and incoming administration are very concerning, you know, related to the West Bank and their understanding of the West Bank and the Palestinians there.

And I think strategically, again, what should happen is different from what's going to happen, but strategically, if we wanted something term in terms of, meeting immediate and medium term needs in Gaza–in terms of governance—as well as some sort of political pathway forward for the territories generally and the Palestinian national movement generally, we need societal buy in.

The last year or, you know, more than a year of, of attack on Gaza has really shaken Palestinian politics. I, I want to emphasize that for the listeners—like what is considered acceptable, what is considered legitimate, nothing is sacred anymore. Even the discussion of like prisoners and prisoner releases, like this, this is now all up for discussion and what is considered a, a good negotiation and a good demand to make. All of that is now up for discussion in a way that hasn't been in the past.

So when we talk about reforming the Palestinian Authority or an international force or, you know, without accountability implemented in that discussion. So elections—without Palestinian people actually having a say in what happens, there won't be a societal buy in. I think there is some degree of legitimacy for some sort of technical committee, because people do want people from on the ground to, to govern Gaza, at least in the immediate term.

But without that kind of, you know, political accountability baked into the process more medium and long term, you're going to see what's already happening, what's already happened in Nablus, what's happening in Jenin. It's going to be more recruitment for militias and armed groups because they're the only ones that have legitimacy on the Palestinian stage at this point.

I, I'm hoping that what Joel said and his characterization of like people's understanding of normalization in the region—I'm, I'm hoping that's actually true. I'm hoping that people, you know, leaders in the region and governments in the region have understood that without movement on the Palestinian question, like there shouldn't be normalization.

I'm not so sure the Trump administration has understood this. So again, that, that all of this has to do with either are we going to replicate dynamics that completely sidelined Palestinians and we're going to end up exactly where we are now or worse, or are we going to try to take a different pathway forward? I don't know that that's going to be the case under an incoming Trump administration, but that, that, that, those are the pathways available to us.

Scott Anderson: So there's obviously incredibly difficult political, and unstable in some ways, unpredictable political dynamics on the Palestinian side, even if there is a sense of certainly the needs and demands there as well.

And to some extent, that's also true on the Israeli side, or at least we have a combination of potential political upset coming from the fact that we see some weakening in Netanyahu's coalition. Although I think as you noted, Natan, we're not quite there yet about a collapse. Of course, at some point, Netanyahu is going to have some reckoning regarding October 7th itself. That has always been the assumption that the end of the conflict, that's when we will see some sort of public democratic reckoning with his failures, Israeli state's intelligence failures around October 7th, although maybe that's been indefinitely postponed, who knows.

And the Israeli public I think has really changed its views on this is my sense. You know, their red lines with their political tolerances in terms of outcomes has really changed dramatically from what it was prior to October 7th. Where do we expect the actual Israeli red lines to be as, as we look to phase two and phase three? What are they willing to tolerate in Gaza? What do they expect and what are they not going to compromise on?

Even if under maybe a different political formulation, you know, there's one set of things that Netanyahu may be able to compromise on under his current coalition, maybe another set under a broader coalition. But I'm kind of wondering what the broader Israeli red lines are where, where we're not likely to move past them, if we have a sense of that.

Natan Sachs: It's a great question. In terms of, you know, it's hard to speak in terms of red lines because we are still certainly psychologically not far from October 7th and certainly very close to the war. And so there's, there's a lot that is true today, I think, in everyone, both publics, but certainly the Israelis, that may not be true in a year or two, and in which leadership can also play an important role.

So, you know, leadership is exactly about how leaders take a given public mood and shape it, mold it, push it, nudge it in certain directions, even though there are, of course, limitations to what they can do. After October 7th, you know—for, for Israelis, October 7th was the, the breakdown of many different assumptions.

The most obvious one was that Hamas was deterred and was eager to build itself as a governing force in the Gaza Strip and eventually in the West Bank, and, and therefore there was sort of a modus vivendi to be had with, with Hamas. This is sort of the obvious failure, literally the intelligence failure of reading Sinwar's mind, I suppose.

But in common Israeli understanding, this has gone well beyond that, which is that Palestinian control, physical military control in any area adjacent to Israeli civilians is a mortal threat. And so today on the center left, speaking in favor of a Palestinian state, for example, is a non-starter. It does not happen.  On the very left, you might hear some people talk about it, but it's not what they want to say right now politically, and it is not one that any one of the potential leaders for leadership is voicing publicly right now. Yair Lapid is something of an exception to this, but he's certainly not waving that flag.

For the Israeli center, the idea of a Palestinian state—and that is because of the feeling that if this is what happened in Gaza and almost happened on the northern border with Hezbollah–if there was a Palestinian state in the West Bank, this would happen in all the major population centers in Israel eventually. One day or another, the Palestinian state would be controlled by Hamas or someone else, and, and Kefar Sava and many other places that are just adjacent to the West Bank would suffer the same fate.

So in a very emotive and fear-driven, which is, I think, the strongest emotion in this, in this regard Israelis are unwilling to talk about that. So this limits a lot in term, is a very strong limitation in terms of what can be done diplomatically.

You mentioned what Netanyahu can do, what others can do. This does not necessarily mean that Netanyahu could not utter the words Palestinian state, especially if it was accompanied by demilitarized, demilitarized Palestinian state, which is, of course, what was always negotiated. But that's not a magic wand. That would not solve it. Perhaps he could do it in the context of a huge grand bargain with Trump by his side and Saudi Arabia right there, and maybe he could do some things, but we should all be very, very circumspect about what is possible.

As Dana said, a lot has changed in the Palestinian in terms of what they're willing to accept. The change in the Israeli side is not a fleeting hardening of the heart. This is, again, for the umpteenth time, proof positive. If you convince Israelis that their children are in danger, they will fight. And there's this common belief, almost a dogma, that if you the only way to get Israelis to have to compromise is to attack them and to show them that not compromising will be dangerous for them.

And it's usually precisely the opposite. The more you convince them that this is an existential war and that they cannot afford, literally cannot afford to take risk, they will not take that risk. That's true of every human being by the way, Palestinians as well.

And so that's to say that the red lines are significantly to the right of what they were before. I do not think they are necessarily so in terms of land of Israel and the ideas of settlements in the Gaza Strip. That is certainly true among the very, very far right that I mentioned before, but that is still not commonplace in the center or center right of Israel. And Netanyahu in a different coalition would not be there at all.

It is very much true in anything that relates to security and that's not a new dynamic. It's just supercharged in the past year and a half. And that's kind of what any negotiator needs to face. It'll be a long and complicated process, and there needs to be a lot of constructive ambiguity.

But that does not—that should not deter us in two respects. One, constructive ambiguity is exactly the art of diplomacy, Scott. You know this best, best on this panel. And lawyers, like you, are masters of precisely that. One can invent all sorts of formulations that sound right to different audiences. The question is, what kind of actions on the ground do they lead in that direction at all, or do they lead in the opposite as they have for decades now?

The second point is that because our aims need to be more realistic and modest these days, they should not be any less bold. The current reality is so awful in so many different ways that one must be extremely bold in pushing it, even if right now one cannot promise the moon because promising the moon would backfire.

Scott Anderson: So Dan, you know, one of my big takeaways from this conversation is that for all the expectation, while we have this plan that sets out a very ambitious 84 day agenda moving forward–it's a hard road. There's a lot of veto points, challenging points. That doesn't mean the whole framework breaks down but that 84 days may not be the time to stay on it.

And when you get past that timeframe, then we're talking about months and months—at least weeks, if not months and months, potentially—where we're still in some extended process, but reality goes on, on the ground. The speed at which security concerns and political concerns come up, it's, it's a much faster pace and is it going to be resolved by that agenda.

So let me come to you, Dan, let me ask you, you know—we know what the goal of this plan–of the ceasefire plan–is, where it hopes to get. What are the other possibilities when it doesn't get there? What are we, might we be dealing with in the weeks and months and maybe a year or more where this process is actually unfolding?

What is the situation going to look like in Gaza with the security situation and the attendant humanitarian consequences, political consequences of that? Because it still seems likely, at least in my mind, to be security driven in terms of the Israeli posture for the reasons Natan just noted to us. So, so what is Gaza and this conflict going to look like while this plan is playing out, however long that takes?

Dan Byman: So let me begin by saying, certainly, I don't know. And I'd be skeptical of anyone who says they do know. There's a lot of different factors going on here, some of which are political, some of which are, are almost random in that small events can spiral into very significant political drivers. So let me, let me give you three very brief scenarios.

Scenario one is that we have something like what we have today, and it just slowly stumbles on. So there's no, you know, decision on who actually is going to run Gaza in an open sense. You have Hamas that is reestablishing its power but is relatively weak, and you have some Israeli presence in Gaza. And for ordinary Palestinians, their life is completely miserable. But there isn't an active war going on. And that can continue indefinitely. Right? I mean, there's no reason to say that that intolerable situation must end. There might be a moral case for that, but I would say in terms of, you know, practical politics, not necessarily.

A second is that there's a real return to conflict. And that conflict can range from, you know, something quite extensive, a large Israeli deployment, but I think much more realistically, various Israeli raids, bombings, perhaps the expansion of buffer zones. And there's people dying—not remotely at the levels that they were dying a year ago, but ongoing conflict with, you know, some Israeli casualties and lots of Palestinian casualties. And that further disrupts anything from a humanitarian point of view. It's harder to distribute aid. It's harder for any degree of normal life for Palestinians.

And the last, and probably the least likely, but worth noting is that things actually get better. That you have some degree of success with the initial steps. It inspires a degree of confidence that Hamas and other violent Palestinian factions have learned the extremely hard way that continued attacks are not worth it, that they will pay a price not only in their own people, but more broadly for their political goals. And from an Israeli point of view, that there is exhaustion by war and people start to heal and move on. There are a lot of reasons to be skeptical of the best case scenario, but I also wouldn't rule it out.

So, I think part of the job of the Trump administration, the international community, is to try to foster conditions that make success likely and that's going to require a lot of day to day diplomacy. There are going to be a lot of small problems that need to be headed off and prevented from becoming big political issues.

Scott Anderson: So we are about at time for today, but before we part, I want to ask you all one parting question. As we see this process unfold in the weeks and months to come, obviously there are a lot of moving parts in this picture that are hard to follow. What are you going to be looking at as one or two key indicators as to whether this process is on a productive trajectory or is at risk of going off the rails?

Dana, let me start with you.

Dana El Kurd: Yeah. So I'm going to be looking at Palestinian public opinion and how people are viewing the process unfolding and, and how they're processing this information, as well as what goes on in the West Bank in particular and, and how people understand the connections between politics towards Gaza and politics towards the West Bank.

I also do want to point out that Natan mentioned, you know, bold imaginative solutions, and then this is the time to talk about them. Palestinians, both from within the occupied territories and outside the occupied territories as kind of a broader national movement have been. discussing and attempting to move beyond the legitimacy crisis that plagues Palestinian politics, including with an initiative called the Palestinian National Conference.

So I'm going to be also watching that and seeing how that unfolds. I don't necessarily have great hope that the, the most important international actors, including, you know, Trump's U.S. is going to be, you know, taking that as seriously as they should be.

But this is, you know, Palestinians exercising their agency and, and, and trying to move beyond some of the binaries, the Fatah-Hamas binary that has set Palestinian politics back quite a bit. So yeah, those are the aspects that I'll be looking for.

Scott Anderson: Joel, how about you?

Joel Braunold: I think an underappreciated part of the ceasefire deal is the Rafah crossing. One of the reasons it was delayed so much was there was, the Egyptians refused to open it with the Israelis on the other side and trying to figure out who would actually be on the other side of the crossing that they would move forward with. They wanted the PA, the Israelis of course didn't want the PA.

And it seems like reading the tea leaves and certain reports it's the EU BAM Mission from 2005 with some PA people in there, and if that's the case that can be the opening of some level of, of, again, sovereign Palestinian exit and entry, which was essential for the Egyptians. And it, you know, what you're looking for is small cracks that you can try and build, build upon. And that might be one in terms of that.

But as Dana said, what happens in the West Bank is also indicative. I think the collapse of the internal Palestinian PA to the militants in Jenin camp collapse that happened last week, here was a truce between them and the PA was entering the refugee camp, and then it seemingly reversed itself because the ceasefire empowered the militants because Hamas thanked them. And then it all sort of collapsed.

And now Israel has made a major operation into the, into Jenin. And then what does that happen? How does that spread? Do we see a complete collapse of the remnants of the remnants of the remnants of PA control on the West Bank? Again, push on the other side of that crack and close it down again.

So the seesaw of this, and I think to something that Natan spotted out, you know, the, the far right in Israel is taking its frustration of the ceasefire out on the West Bank. And we've seen increasing settler violence across the West Bank. The Israeli defense minister released from administrative detention, just as a gift to the settler community, everyone who was being held who was Israeli when the ceasefire was held.

And President Trump just revoked President Biden's sanction regime on those who threaten the peace and security of the West Bank, which is seen as a green light for those who are terrorizing Palestinians on the West Bank to go forward and continue to terrorize them, of which they are currently doing.

And so I think as always that is extremely not just correct, but poignant in pointing out that what happens in the West Bank is as important as what happens in Gaza. And that's a place where many Trump appointees have made it very clear, including today, Elise Stefanik, that Israel's biblical rights to the West Bank is something they agree with.

And that is you know, you can do that in a way that recognizes everyone's connection, and then tries to calm down the situation. Or you can do that in a way that exacerbates the situation to push people off the land. And the context of where it is being said and how it is heard is as important as this phrase itself. And I worry greatly about that.

Scott Anderson: Natan, how about you?

Natan Sachs: Two things, one on sort of the high global stage and another or two on the much more local stage.

The scene where the three women hostages were handed over to the Red Cross was an obvious display of force by Hamas. The point was to show Hamas able and in uniform, very clean uniform that was taken out of hiding. And a very clean show we are in charge here in Gaza City. And that has, of course, Palestinian domestic reasons for that, but the more that is shown, the harder it will be on the Israeli side to convince anyone that this, that this can go forward as is.

So that is a very important point is where does Hamas end up in terms of its actions and the way it tries to display things? Is there any sign that it's ready to share some kind of power? Of course, it's not ready to disarm or anything like that. That will be, that will that will be one input into the Israeli decision making.

I will look to Israeli politics as, as always in these cases, how much signs we see of a, of a breakdown. But on the grand, global stage, you know, it's, it's worth remembering, and this is not very appealing, and of course, it probably shouldn't be this way.

But in terms of grand politics, the Middle East today, it is a very elite small group of people that call most of the shots. And now when Donald Trump enters the scene, yesterday, he speaks quite well with these men. These are all men. And it's Netanyahu. It's MBS. It's MBZ from the Emirates. It's the Qatari Emir. Erdogan of course is very important now. Khamenei on the other side. But kind of that's it.

And so the question will be, can they cook up big dreams? They're far from it, and I don't mean to say this is likely, but can they try to move things in some grand scheme of theirs? This will not take into account local or legitimacy questions that much, but at the end of the day today, like it or not, I think that is where a lot will be decided.

So I'll be looking for signs from MBS and MBZ and where the Trump administration is with regard to them. It's worth remembering, MBZ and the Trump administration, Trump one cooked up the Abraham Accords, which none of us expected, and I would look to them again to see if there are any grand surprises.

Scott Anderson: Dan, we'll close that with you.

Dan Byman: So what I'm asking myself is really is there a possibility that what we're looking at today has echoes from the 2006 Israel war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, where when that war ended, it seemed like a disaster in some ways on the Israeli side. There was a lot of talk that the next war would happen, you know, within months, or certainly within years. Yet we had a very long period of peace along the border, and had it not been for October 7th, I think Hezbollah would have been happy to keep the peace for even longer.

And so as bad as the situation is in Gaza and as dangerous as I think the relations between Israel and Hamas are, what I'm trying to understand is, are there factors out there that I'm not thinking about properly that may actually be leading towards peace?

And let me highlight two things that I think are particularly important in all this. One is the question of who's going to govern Gaza and it might be no one. It might be some version of Hamas, maybe somehow there'll be some alternative, but to me that's a key factor.

And then the other is, are there international actors that are going to try to stir the pot and encourage renewal of conflict? I'd obviously put Iran very high on this list. Or the opposite, are they exhausted and do they want a period of calm for their own reasons which may lead to more stability between Israel and Hamas?

Scott Anderson: Well, we covered a lot of ground in this video, in this hour, and frankly, there is much, much more to talk about. We will have to leave the conversation there for now. Dan, Natan, Joel, and Dana, thank you so much for joining us here today on the Lawfare Podcast.

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Topics:
Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
Natan Sachs is a fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. His work focuses on Israeli foreign policy, domestic politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and U.S.-Israeli relations. He is currently writing a book on Israeli grand strategy and its domestic origins.
Daniel Byman is a professor at Georgetown University, Lawfare's Foreign Policy Essay editor, and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
Joel Braunold is the Managing Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.
Dr. Dana El-Kurd is a professor at the University of Richmond.
Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.