Transcript: Could Israel's Gaza gamble be paying off?
Ian Bremmer:
Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. I'm Ian Bremmer. And as Israel's war with Hamas enters its third year, so much has changed since October 7th, 2023. Gaza has been demolished. Hamas decimated, as has Hezbollah. Iran is on the back foot. Militarily Israel has enjoyed remarkable success. You remember those exploding beepers. Diplomatically, Israel becomes more isolated with every day that its Gaza campaign drags on.
Earlier this week and just days ahead of the second anniversary of Israel's war with Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made his fourth visit to the White House since President Trump returned to office. The two leaders unveiled a proposal to end the war in Gaza, and they demanded that Hamas accept it. Hamas's response? "Don't hold your breath."
On the podcast today, I'll ask how far is too far? How far is Israel willing to pursue its military goals in Gaza and its territorial ambitions in the West Bank? How far is Hamas willing to push the suffering of the Palestinian people to continue its fight against Israel? And how far is the international community willing to go to isolate Israel for what some of its closest allies have condemned as a genocide?
I'll be joined by a man with decades of experience negotiating for peace in the Middle East. Talk about a thankless job, former top US diplomat and Carnegie Peace Fellow and Aaron David Miller. Let's get to it.
Aaron David Miller, welcome to GZERO World.
Aaron David Miller:
Ian, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm a big fan.
Ian Bremmer:
Oh, it's kind of you to say. Look, it's a big week for you and I to have this conversation. This week, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu met for the fourth time this year in the White House, and that of course led to a significant announcement of an achievement forward in negotiations on Gaza. You thought it was very, very low likelihood that Hamas would accept the terms. It was going to be more of a yes. But explain what you mean by that.
Aaron David Miller:
There hasn't been a peace initiative successful or otherwise in the years I spent doing this, Carter to Bush 43 where anybody has come back with a clean yes on anything, and given the fact that this was pre-worked with the Israelis six, seven hours on Saturday and then previewed on Monday, there are parts of this that the Arab states, Qataris, the Emiratis never saw, and they briefed Hamas on a sort of a different sort of plan. A couple of points are markedly different.
So Hamas is going to come back now with a clean, yes, they're going to come back with the equivalent of what Benjamin Netanyahu offered up, which on reflection is a yes, but, it's just that working these things through is a galactic lift. There are no timetables. There are no maps. Every one of these points, Ian, is a universe of headache, complexity and potential argument. So Trump will have to decide if Hamas comes back with a yes, but. He's going to have to make a decision, is this a no and then we'll lose the forces of Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF on Gaza City and much else in Gaza, or is Trump open to additional negotiations? That's where we stand.
Ian Bremmer:
What's the actual gap between what the Gulf Arabs had accepted and what Bibi and Trump presented on Monday?
Aaron David Miller:
I think the key point is the issue of Israeli withdrawal, which is now conditional on timetables for decommissioning, deradicalizing, demilitarizing Hamas as a military force. And it seems to me that was, I think built in to the Israeli calculation and it was probably a demand that Netanyahu made. The Israelis in the wake of October 7th have a fundamentally different conception now of border security. It's not just preemption and prevention, it's actually physically being in places where their adversaries operate.
You see it in Gaza, you see it in the West Bank where they are now more militarized than any point since the second Intifada in 2002. You see it in Lebanon where they had still occupy five or six high points. You see it in Syria where they want to turn most of the area southwest of Damascus into a no-go zone. You saw it in Doha and when they tried to eliminate weeks ago, much of the-
Ian Bremmer:
Political leadership of Hamas. So, okay, so given that, Aaron, I mean the Gulf States had agreed to a different formulation when they met with Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, and yet now that Trump has announced this deal that he's worked out with the Israeli prime minister, it appears that the Gulf states as well as America's allies across the West are all saying, "We are on board." Was this masterful diplomacy by the Israeli prime minister?
Aaron David Miller:
I mean, I think Netanyahu didn't look happy, but he clearly played this very smartly. He has reframed, redefined Trump's 20 points on core issues in terms that make it possible for him to make the argument that in fact, he got just about everything that he wanted. In fact, he said in his statement that Trump's plan aligned. I don't think he said perfectly with the four or five objectives that the full Israeli cabinet has now approved.
So look, it's front-loaded. Hamas has just come home first. The notion that there will be any PA association or Palestinian state is our ideas that are tethered to a galaxy far, far away rather than the realities back here on planet Earth. They got the issue of Israeli presence in Gaza until this decommissioning, demilitarizing takes place. They will withdraw at some point to a perimeter. So he got most of everything that he wanted.
And I think that contrasts, it seems to me, with the situation that Kyiv states find themselves in, they urged Trump apparently, according to reporting, not to put out a written rendition of the plan. He went ahead and did it anyway. So again, I think we're in for a prolonged negotiation, if, if Trump is prepared to accept the Hamas, yes, but as a not a no.
Ian Bremmer:
Because I mean if he does not accept that, if he takes the yes, but as a no, and I think it's very fair that Hamas is likely to respond as you suggest, given the way it's played out. Then he has the same problem with the Gulf Arabs, does he not? Which is they sat him down and said, we're prepared to leave the Abraham Accords, the UAE specifically unless you get to this outcome. That's not the outcome that Trump presently has gotten to.
Aaron David Miller:
Right. No, it's true, but it may strain credulity to the breaking point, Ian, but I have to say, when you look at what the Arab states, both Israel's treaty partners and the Abraham Accord countries, the two that have formal relations with Israel, the Bahrainis, the Emiratis and the others, the Saudis, the Omanis, the Qataris that deal with the Israelis under the table. When you look at the exponential rise of Palestinian deaths, mostly civilians in Gaza, the humanitarian catastrophe that now exists there, call it malnutrition, famine, food insecurity, whatever you want, it's horrible. Not a single cost or consequence.
Now next week we're beginning the third year of this war, has been imposed by any Arab state on Israel or on the United States, which has enabled an acquiesce in Benjamin and Netanyahu's tactics and strategy in Gaza, not a single one. The Israelis struck Doha, Qatar, the hosting America's largest military in [inaudible 00:09:23] the region.
Ian Bremmer:
But he apologized there and he said he wouldn't do it again.
Aaron David Miller:
It may cost him something in Israeli politics. I guess my point is the Arab states are running scared of Trump being, they're either afraid of him or they want something from him, and/or they're persuaded that he is the last best hope to try to contain, constrain, curtail the Netanyahu government. They've done nothing. It seems to me, given what the Israelis have done and what this administration has acquiesced in to impose any costs or consequences, and you could add to that the three European powers that the Israelis care most about, the French, the Brits, and the Germans. The Germans imposed a partial arms embargo in Israel and they're buying $4 billion in aero defense systems from the Israelis performative virtue signaling, and of course, Donald Trump, and-
Ian Bremmer:
And I take it you would include in that ineffective, performative virtue signaling all of the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state by many of those allies over the past week.
Aaron David Miller:
I would.
Ian Bremmer:
Because clearly the Israeli government and the Israeli prime minister were both appear deeply unhappy about this and were responding with alarm all week.
Aaron David Miller:
They were, until Donald Trump created a sort of, I don't know how ... Not a sanctuary. I don't think he likes Benjamin Netanyahu. I think frankly, that people who engage in the sort of politics that Netanyahu and Donald Trump engage in, understand one another only too well. I think he has an instrumental sort of transactional relationship with Netanyahu, and he lacks much of the Joe Biden ideological emotional commitment.
Trump has the persona, Ian, and the temperament as a transactionalist to actually do something that no American president since Dwight Eisenhower has threatened to do, which is to actually threaten economic and political sanctions. In that case, if Ben-Gvir didn't withdraw Israeli forces from Sinai as the Israelis French and the Brits tried to take back the canal and depose Nasser, most American presidents don't like fighting with the Israeli prime ministers, Republicans or Democrats.
Donald Trump has a certain capacity. You think given the last nine months that he would somehow have gotten the message that Benjamin Netanyahu is making him look weak. Benjamin Netanyahu is playing him. He's used that term with respect to Vladimir Putin or that Benjamin Netanyahu stands in between something that the president really wants. But I was reminded of this extraordinary relationship listening to this extraordinary rambling discourse about we stand on the cusp of a possible win in the last 2000 years. This is going to be the greatest act in Western civilization.
For some reason, Donald Trump has made a judgment that he's not yet ready to actually impose on Netanyahu serious costs and consequences, and Netanyahu, I think got out of Washington in better shape perhaps than he had imagined.
Ian Bremmer:
So Trump did publicly not threaten, but said as explicitly as I've seen him make a statement towards the Israeli prime minister that Israel will not annex the West Bank?
Aaron David Miller:
Yes.
Ian Bremmer:
Period. End of story. I mean, implied that he was running Israel, so that clearly seems to be a red line for the US president. Why there and why the flexibility on Gaza?
Aaron David Miller:
I think ... Well, couple things. I think number one, Donald Trump shares Netanyahu's eliminationist strategy toward Hamas. In an early question about it, when he was asked during his visit to Britain in the press or with Keir Starmer, don't you think you need to pressure Netanyahu? He defaulted to October 7th. Hamas has to go. That's been a consistent theme of his from the beginning. Look, I think Donald Trump has done things in and around Israel that no American president, Republican or Democrat that I had ever worked or would ever have done.
He could have deal with the Houthis about which the Israelis learned after the fact. He opened up direct negotiations, his hostage negotiator, Adam Boehler in March three meetings by statute Hamas is a terror organization, willfully murdered an American citizen in August of 2024. He removed sanctions from the [inaudible 00:14:39] government over the objections of the Israelis, and he opened negotiations with Iran in the presence-
Ian Bremmer:
While Netanyahu was right there in the White House.
Aaron David Miller:
Right. In the White House. As far as annexation is concerned, I say I'm really not impressed because he has presided in the last nine months, he has reversed all of the, I would say that largely performative actions of the Biden administrations with respect to Israeli actions on the West Bank, Biden sanctioned Israeli settlers and entities. Biden had a very strong, tough position rhetorically, at least, on Israeli settlement construction. Trump reversed all of that, and he has acquiesced in what I could only describe to you as de facto annexation. It really doesn't matter whether or not the Israelis, well, it does matter, if they pronounced annexing part or all of the West Bank.
Ian Bremmer:
It matters to the Gulf States clearly.
Aaron David Miller:
It does, but the de facto process of annexation, the administrative changes the facts on the ground that the Minister of the West Ban, Bezalel Smotrich, has engineered, is probably binding most of area C, which is where the settlements are, the nature preserves, the military zones. That's 60% of the West Bank to Israel proper. So not impressed that Trump basically said, "You will not annex the West Bank." I think even Netanyahu knows that's a bridge too far.
Ian Bremmer:
So look, what we have is a level of impunity. We have no consequences thus far from the Americans. We have the Gulf States running scared of some combination of the US and Israel. Having said that, the Israeli people don't want to be isolated, and there have been some measures taken outside of this process. I look at what seems to be a coming removal of Israel from Eurovision. I see debates about taking the Israelis out of FIFA. I saw the world's largest sovereign fund from Norway pulling investments from Israel.
And there's certainly a lot of talk of greater consequences to make the Israeli people feel that these actions matter from Europe. Of course, I also see an incredible change in popular support away from Israel towards the Palestinians in our own country, Aaron, and so I'm wondering, first of all, do you think these things matter to the Israeli prime minister and secondly, even if they don't, do they matter to Israel?
Aaron David Miller:
Yeah. I don't think they really matter, and they haven't mattered for quite a while to Benjamin Netanyahu, we forget he's the only prime minister in the history of the state of Israel. Ehud Olmert was indicted after he left the prime minister. He served 14, 16 months in prison. Netanyahu is indicted and on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in a Jerusalem district court, four years of running.
It is almost axiomatic to me that most of the decisions he makes with respect to his own politics, are designed to stay in power in order to undermine the indictment and eventually somehow magically hope in which that it goes away. As a consequence, he has a constituency of one in the United States. It's Donald Trump, and if I'm correct, that elections government may not go to term October 2026. I think we're talking elections in the spring of 2026. You need three months to prepare.
If he announced elections next month, October, you'd already almost be into 2026. He is planning his election campaign. That means keeping Donald Trump, not just on his side, but as an active supporter as Netanyahu at some point runs his election campaign. He cares about the evangelicals, he cares about conservative Republicans. He cares about the what, 20%, 25% of the American Jewish community, caught between October 7th and rising anti-Semitism in America that have grown increasingly conservative.
I'm not so sure it matters to him. If I were an Israeli, it would matter to me. Israel's brand, I think. I mean to say never. I wrote a book a couple of years ago called The End of Greatness, Why Americans Can't Have and Don't Want Another Great President. Frank wrote a book called The End of History, Frank Fukuyama. The end of anything is very hard at 76 for me to predict. I mean, we can't see what's in front of us for good or ill, things change, right?
Ian Bremmer:
I wrote the End of the Free Market about 15 years ago. That one worked out pretty well, actually. But what do you do? You know, you get lucky sometimes.
Aaron David Miller:
If the two of us were to agree that what the Israelis have done in efforts to prosecute their war against Hamas, the exponential rise of Palestinian deaths, the numbers of children killed, all of it, the humanitarian catastrophe, that this was the end of the brand of the state of Israel, that Israel's existence is a values proposition ascribing to a moral, ethical, pluralistic view of governance. If we were to pronounce that it's over, I think I would be very wary of that. No one believed apartheid would end the way it did, that there would ever be a Mandela and a de Klerk.
But I'll tell you, looking out right now, the three elements of what constitutes an American ally. Let's just talk about America now. Value affinity, high coincidence of values, one high coincidence of interest to not strict, but high coincidence, strong base of domestic support. I think you can make a fairly compelling case that all three of these elements are increasingly fraught, under stress and pressure.
It's not time for what I call the cosmic obey, somehow the end of the US-Israeli relationship because has it affected policy? No, but look at Congress and you have the three Chris's, Coons, van Hollen and Murphy who have the last two years, all of whom who have advocated for conditioning or restricting US military assistance to Israel. You have Chuck Schumer, right? Basically giving a speech 2023 or '24, basically calling for regime change, the end of Benjamin Netanyahu. There are changes. They're generational. They have a lot to do with the eroding Israeli brand and Israeli policies.
The Pew polls, they all suggested turmoil on the campus, which frankly into this day, I am not sure I can fully explain. I mean, we were in a twenty-year war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We killed thousands of Iraqis and Afghans, civilians, and yet you saw none of what you saw on many, many campuses throughout the United States as a consequence of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza. So again, I'll speak personally here. I think Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, frankly, I'll speak as an American, as a member of the American Jewish community. I think that they're making Jews less, not more secure for any number of reasons.
So the end of the Israeli brand, the end of Israel as a morally or ethically tethered society perceived by most Americans, different political systems, but more or less like Americans, one of the handful of countries that have maintained their democratic character continuously since the end of the second World War. I can't pronounce the end, but I'll tell you, the headlines look bad and the trend lines right now look worse.
Ian Bremmer:
So I am, of course, as someone who grew up with a lot of the same texts and tracks that you did, think about indispensable America, think about sort of the beacon on the hill, leading by example, soft power, all of these things that we've talked about for so many decades, and yet it's not what the United States stands for today, right? I mean, the United States today stands for power, stands for you do it our way or else, market power, military power, oil power, technology power, you name it. And I mean, could you not make the argument that actually Israel in its own backyard in its region is kind of just following along what the new American playbook actually is?
Aaron David Miller:
I mean, I think there's a lot of mirror imaging going on here. I mean, Benjamin Netanyahu years ago committed himself, I think, almost wholeheartedly to the notion that Republicans were bound to be the Israel right or wrong party, evangelical Christians, at least older evangelicals, because of the way Israel figured not just in their eschatology with respect to the end of times, end of days, but as a values proposition, Israel was viewed and still is as the only democratic polity in a sea of authoritarian governments. I think Netanyahu rode that wave and yes, I think his own political inclinations and sensibilities, despite the fact that you've got a fair number of MAGA outliers who are very vocal on the question of criticizing Israel. I think he's-
Ian Bremmer:
Like Tucker Carlson, for example, who's been really out there and said, "Well, America first, why are we helping anybody?" Yeah, sure.
Aaron David Miller:
He's tethered his future, I think, to Donald Trump, which is why the single most important accomplishment on Monday was an Israeli prime minister saying, "I support your plan A," as a quote, "critical step in ending the war in Gaza and expanding the peace." I don't want to blame Joe Biden. He couldn't get that out of Netanyahu, and Donald Trump did it without conditioning or restricting US military assistance to Israel, without voting for a security council resolution, our own or somebody else's critical of Israel. Without reaching out to Palestinians, without unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood. He didn't have to exert that sort of pressure.
It is the fear of Benjamin Netanyahu that Donald Trump, he knows what Trump is capable of because he sees part of himself in Trump. He needs Trump and Trump, to a degree that I can't entirely explain, somehow transactionally or instrumentally still believes he needs Benjamin Netanyahu. After all, Ian, Netanyahu gave Trump an extraordinary gift. A twelve-day Israeli war against Iran led to a decision by an American president to strike Iranian nuclear sites without a major regional war, and it would appear without immediate cost or consequence. That was a gift. That was because of what the Israelis have done.
And by the way, former Biden administration officials, no point in mentioning names, I think also understood that Israel's newfound escalation, dominance, the fact that the Israelis for the first time in their history control the pace, the focus, the intensity of their military conflict with all of their adversaries can escalate when they want to without fear of counter escalation on the part of Hamas, on the part of Iran, on the part of Hezbollah, who these may fall into a different category because of distance.
I think, I mean, in a way, Biden rode that escalation dominance and Trump's riding it now. At what point will Trump conclude that for him, because he measures ... Trump's all about the me, not the we. At some point, he's going to conclude maybe he's only what, 10 months in? That you've got to translate that escalation dominance, that military power into political achievement, and if he can benefit from that somehow Nobel Peace Prize, regional peace, Israeli-Saudi normalization with or without Benjamin Netanyahu, I might add. I don't think he cares. He'll go for it. It's just right now he seems to be riding the Netanyahu train and not looking back.
Ian Bremmer:
Aaron David Miller, thanks so much for joining us today.
Aaron David Miller:
Ian, it was a pleasure. Enjoyed the conversation.
Ian Bremmer:
That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you do. Why not make it official? Why don't you rate and review GZERO World five Stars, only five stars, otherwise, don't do it. On Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Tell your friends.