Breakthrough in Gaza, but Palestine in Limbo

 

BFM 89.9 Guest: Dr. James M. Dorsey (Adjunct Senior Fellow), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies

Two years after the events on October 7th, the remaining Israeli captives have been released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and detainees under phase 1 of President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza. But is the hardest part still to come in securing lasting peace and independence for Palestine? We discuss this with Dr. James M. Dorsey of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

To listen to the podcast, go to https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/breakthrough-in-gaza-but-palestine

Transcript

[Anchor 1] 7:30 a.m. You are listening to The Morning Run. I'm Shazana Mokdar with Keith Kham and Elaine Boye. We're continuing with a look at what's happening in the Middle East because after two long years of the war in Gaza, finally a breakthrough in peace negotiations has emerged thanks to U.S. President Donald Trump. Under his 20-point plan, a ceasefire in Gaza took effect last Friday with the Israeli military withdrawing from parts of the enclave. Yesterday, 20 Israeli captives held by Hamas were released in exchange for over 3,000 Palestinians imprisoned or detained by the IDF. Phase one of the ceasefire is supposedly to see a surge of humanitarian aid channeled to Gaza, which is desperately needed amid famine conditions caused by the Israeli blockade.

[Anchor 2] President Trump flew to the Middle East where he addressed the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, and also met with international leaders at a summit hosted by Egypt. While the latest developments close a chapter on the brutal war, the road to lasting peace, the reconstruction of Gaza and true independence for Palestine remains fraught. So what will the coming weeks and months hold for the long-standing fight for Palestinian sovereignty?

[Anchor 1] For more analysis on these developments, we speak to Dr. James M. Dorsey, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. James, good morning.

Always good to have you on the show. Now, we have to give credit where credit is due. How did U.S. President Donald Trump manage to achieve the seemingly impossible, namely coming to an agreement between Israel and Hamas to cease fighting, release captives and prisoners, as well as resume humanitarian aid?

[James M. Dorsey] I think that, first of all, most parties, including Israel and Hamas, recognize that this is the only game they've found. In other words, the United States is the country that has the greatest leverage over Israel. And if anyone can persuade this to modify policies, it would be Donald Trump.

The second factor, I think, is Trump's personality. In fact, that he has a idiosyncratic, if you wish, approach to foreign policy and does not like people disagreeing or undermining what he's trying to do. And therefore, nobody wished to get on the wrong side of Donald Trump.

But I would also not minimize the role that the other mediators, Qatar and Egypt, played in terms of pressuring Hamas to come to the negotiating table or to make the kind of concessions needed to achieve a ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners and an opening of Gaza's borders so that humanitarian aid can flow in.

[Anchor 1] James, yesterday, President Trump addressed the Israeli Knesset and attended a summit in Egypt. What do his remarks and broader discussion reveal about the next stage of the Gaza peace plan?

[James M. Dorsey] Well, the problem with it is that it didn't reveal much. For all practical matters, what Trump has put forward is a set of principles. It's not a plan.

There is no definition of the terms under which the principles would be implemented. And there is no implementation mechanism. None of that was negotiated during the less than 24-hour trip that Trump made to Israel and Egypt.

Moreover, what we have is a situation in which Israel essentially really only bought into the first things of this agreement. In other words, ceasefire, not clear for how long, an exchange of prisoners and the flow of aid into Gaza. There's no cabinet approval of the rest of the plan.

Netanyahu has made clear that the next step has to be disarmament, and otherwise Israel could revive the hostilities. So I think we're a long way from knowing how this is all going to unpack. You have 200 U.S. troops going to Israel, not to Gaza, to monitor the ceasefire. This talk, or in case Trump has been touted, his board of peace that he would preside, that would sort of oversee a technocratic Palestinian government. There is no agreement on that as such. There's no agreement on who would populate that board.

There's at least no public understanding of who would populate an international stabilization force, how many troops would be included in that force, what its mandate would be. So all of these details and endeavors have yet to be negotiated.

[Anchor 2] So James, what did the leaders actually sign in Sharm el-Sheikh a few hours ago then? It was touted as a peace agreement of sorts, but it didn't include Israel or Hamas. Do we know how effective whatever agreement it is they signed would be?

[James M. Dorsey] Again, it's a set of principles signed by external powers with none of the parties, not only Israel or Hamas for that matter, but equally importantly, the Palestine Authority, which is an internationally recognized West Bank-based representative of the Palestinians. Now, to be fair, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was at the talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, and perhaps just as importantly, only weeks after Trump denied Mahmoud Abbas a visa as well as his entourage so that he could attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he was given a very public welcome by Donald Trump. It was one of the longest handshakes of leaders attending the summit that Trump had with Abbas.

So in that sense, the Palestinian issue was put back on main stage, and that is an important development.

[Anchor 1] Very quickly, James, I think, what do you think we'll need to look at in the days and weeks and months moving forward to, I think, be vigilant against attempts to whitewash any annexation of Palestinian territories? Because like you said, things are still very unclear on what happens after phase one.

[James M. Dorsey] Well, I don't think at this point that the issue is going to be annexation of the Gaza Strip. You have had an Israeli withdrawal. Now, you're going to need an international stabilization force, an international force in the Gaza Strip to maintain a degree of security and create an environment for a transition.

The real concern, I think, is about annexation, whether de facto or de jure, on the West Bank. The Trump proposal makes no mention of the West Bank.

[Anchor 1] James, thank you very much for speaking with us. That was Dr. James Dorsey, adjunct senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, giving us some initial takeaways of what we're seeing over in the Middle East with this US-led peace plan for Gaza and how it could affect the broader Palestine state.

Because I think there hasn't really been a clear indication from this peace plan that a Palestine state will emerge from it. And I think there's a lot of discussion on how the power vacuums are going to be filled in Gaza as well as broader Palestine.

[Anchor 2] So, I mean, if we look at the positives of this, as James was saying, for now, we don't see that there's going to be any annexation of Gaza. There also seems to be a ceasefire that's holding. But that's about all we have right now.

As James was saying as well, the devil's in the details of whatever peace agreement that's been signed, which hasn't been made known to the press at this present moment.

[Anchor 1] And there's that very controversial E2 project in West Bank that's cleaving the enclave there in two. So, I think lots to watch on the Middle East. It's nowhere near over for sure.