Lawfare Daily: Joel Braunold on What Donald Trump's Return Might Mean for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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[Intro]

Joel Braunold: I'd say that President Trump succeeded in destroying Palestinian expectations in his first term. I think that the concept that they would go back and boycott cause they don't like the starting point, it would not only be disastrous for their long term relations with America, but disastrous for their relationships with the rest of the region.

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

Joel Braunold: What are you gonna do? Like 70 percent of the country doesn't want you to settle Gaza, okay? So even if the Trump administration's like, go forward and settle, 70 percent of the country doesn't want you to do that. It's cold, it's winter now, lots of people need food and aid, are you really going to take on the entire costs of that yourself because the Trump administration isn't going to be paying for it? And the Arab world has told you they'll only pay for it if there's a political pathway forward.

Scott R. Anderson: Today, we're discussing what Donald Trump's return to the White House may mean for the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

[Main Podcast]

So Joel, the last time we got together for what has now become, I think a really useful series of podcasts. I hope we'll be able to keep going in the years to come. We have to talk about this stuff. You know, we were living in a really different world. We were living in the Biden administration pre-election at that point, a challenging one, a situation where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had skyrocketed probably contrary to the wishes of people in the administration, to the front of newspapers for the prior year, has consumed a huge amount of political attention and oxygen, domestically and internationally, on a lot of fronts.

And now the whole trajectory is potentially changing. We have a new White House coming in, new boss, same as the old boss, return to the Trump administration, whose policies themselves were a major, major departure from a lot of longstanding elements of U.S. bipartisan policy towards Israeli-Palestinian conflict that had persisted up through 2016, some of which Biden reverted back to on, many of which he kind of left in place.

So let's start with this. What do we know just from what they've said during the election, since the election, in the, you know, few weeks we've had a full time transition, what do we know about how this Trump team, the new Trump administration, Trump 47, thinks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is approaching it? Or is there a lot more black box there that we're dealing with as opposed to, kind of, known policy platform?

Joel Braunold: Firstly, Scott, it's great to join you on the fourth of our hopefully long-going series of conversations.

And I think it's important to say at the top: everything I'm about to say is conjecture, because no one knows. And I think people who deterministically tell you they know exactly what the second Trump administration term will be vis-a-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is wrong, because I don't think we know. If we listen to President Trump on the campaign trail, he very much, like many things in his policy, personalized it. If I had been in charge, October 7th wouldn't have happened. You know, Hamas wouldn't have disrespected me as such and this and that.

And for much of his policy in his first term and his second, President Trump puts himself as the dealmaker-in-chief for America. And he does personalize many of America's foreign policy to his personality and his personal relationships with foreign leaders. And despite that being ridiculed by much of the D.C. foreign policy establishment, President Trump and his team just don't care.

And more importantly, the world doesn't care about the ridicule. They'll deal with who the president is. If President Trump wishes to deal through personal relationships, they will adapt in order to make that work. And the Constitution really gives the president significant, if not absolute, say over foreign policy anyway. So if he wants to run it through his personal relationships, that's his prerogative, and that's his duty to carry out. So I think that's the first thing.

I think the other, the second thing to point out that's very interesting, is that if you look at the announcements, firstly, who did he announce when? In his first week, before he even announced his secretary of state officially, President Trump announced Steve Witkoff, his best friend, as his Mideast envoy, before anyone else. So, a, as someone who has been calling for the past year, for the Biden administration to create a presidential-level envoy, I am delighted that President Trump has done so.

I think you can't have everyone doing everything because in fact, that means no one's doing anything. And I think that centralizing this with one person is extremely smart. And for the president to have someone who is, you know, Nikki Haley said it's his best friend, President Trump clearly has a lot of personal relationships with Steve Witkoff and he's going to be the Mideast envoy and this is clearly a job he wanted. And when you're appointed to be an envoy, your job is to deliver. And so this concept that, you know, how's he going to deliver? He's going to need to be able to deliver.

I think it's also interesting when you look at the announcement of him. And then just this past weekend, President Trump appointed his in-law Massad Boulos as his special advisor on the Middle East, and for Arab affairs. In both of their announcements, he spoke about their desire to create peace. I find that very interesting, because if you look at the Biden administration, they banned peace, almost as a dirty word that it was, you know, this holy grail quest that so many others had fallen into. They were just trying to stabilize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There was no envoy appointed. There was no desire to get to final status issues. The foreign policy establishment pleaded with the Biden administration at the beginning of the term to deprioritize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And they did.

And even after October 7th, there was no big vision of how to get out of this. There was this sort of chasing after the Saudi normalization deal that according to Reuters is officially no longer happening, at least as a treaty. But President Trump has put the word peace fundamentally back into both appointments. I think that is also notable.

The other thing that I'll say is that just after the election, Brian Hook, who is the head of the transition for the State Department and was a senior Mideast aide for the Trump administration, often on Iran issues, gave a speech, gave an interview. I think it was to CNN. It might've been Fox. I can't remember to who. And he spoke about the Trump Peace to Prosperity plan. It was also known as the ‘Deal of the Century.’

As you know, that the Trump administration had produced a 650 page plan, which was the first real substantive U.S. approach since the Clinton parameters. The prime minister, Netanyahu, had said, yes. But, when it had been published, the Palestinians were boycotting the administration at that point after the move of the embassy to Jerusalem and had not commented. And Brian Hook was like, look, we can start here and we can look at this as a place to begin. And he criticized the Biden administration for not producing their own plan. And the Trump administration has some paper on which to start with. It's not like a tabula rasa.

So, looking at the early indications of the utilization of the term peace and other things, I think there is, at least on one side of the conjecture, an understanding that President Trump has appointed his best friend and his in-laws as key advisors and interlocutors to the Middle East, running it from the White House, with a context of peace. And the first Trump transition administration official also spoke about a peace plan. So for me, on one side of this. He still has a desire to leave the Middle East a more peaceful place than where he found it.

The other side of the conjecture is if you look at his other national security appointments, whether that's Senator Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, his national security advisor, Governor Huckabee as his ambassador to Israel. Again, these are early appointments, having an ambassador to Israel appointed so early again indicates a significant value of which he attracts to this, you know, they are long term skeptics of the concept of a Palestinian state and other parts.

And so you could read into the other side of the conjecture and say, well, President Trump could continue ripping up traditional U.S. foreign policy perspectives when it comes to the Palestinians. And, you know, it could lead to annexation. Governor Huckabee has been personally an advocate of annexation, though I find it very interesting in all of his interviews since his announcement of his nomination, Governor Huckabee has been extremely clear that he is not setting policy, unlike his predecessor, Ambassador Freeman. But he will be implementing policy: whatever the president tells him to do.

And he also gave a very interesting interview with Joel Rosenberg, a prominent evangelical who's based in Jerusalem, where while he was critical to the Palestinian Authority, he was very positive when it comes to Palestinians and the roles of Christians, Muslims, and Jews living together in the Holy Land. And really demonstrating that he didn't personally have an animosity to individual Palestinians.

So how do you take all of this together? I think that this could be an administration that truly prioritizes getting to some sort of Israeli-Palestinian pact and moving that on as a anchoring force to grow the Abraham Accords. Or it could just be we'll do whatever the Israelis want and we'll find some way to get the Arab world to swallow it. I don't know which way it's going to go. I don't think anyone does, but I do think that both of those possibilities are definitely very much up there.

And the last thing I'll say, Scott, and again in the world of conjecture. It's interesting who's not there, as much as who is there. So one prominent name that I think many people thought might come back was ambassador David Freeman, who not only was a very prominent policymaker, I think we should all say when reading the wrap-ups in the books of during the first Trump term. But he himself has now become a skeptic of the ‘Deal of the Century,’ saying that October 7th changed everything and we can no longer offer the Palestinians a state, but it has to be more of a Puerto Rico- type citizenship and sort of move towards annexation.

I find it interesting because Ambassador Freeman as of yet has not received an appointment. He was not the UN ambassador that went to Elise Stefanik. He was not the envoy that went to Steve Witkoff. And he didn't get back his old job as ambassador to Israel. And why he's not there, there could be a million reasons that none of us know about that have nothing to do with what indication the policy is, or it could be a policy indication that the most prominent advocate of annexation in Trump world didn't receive an appointment.

And given the, you know, Jared Kushner still is working behind the scenes and other things, and there's a desire, it seems with peace on the front end of all of the appointments and announcements, it could be that that vision within Trump world has been pushed down, and some sort of deal making has been pushed up. But we don't know, but that's the initial sort of read on it as we, we look forward.

Scott R. Anderson: Let me dig deeper on one part of that cause, you know, as you noted, Freedman's absence is notable and Kushner's, you know, official absence is kind of notable, but I was curious to see how you frame as potentially working in the background? Obviously, this issue set was a major Kushner priority and his kind of floating portfolio in the first Trump White House. We know he was very directly engaged and particularly in the Trump peace plan, Trump administration peace plan. Probably its key architect, its key author, or at least one of them.

Do we have a sense that he's staying engaged generally, or in particular on this issue set, despite being outside of the White House in any official capacity? Or is his absence going to create another bit of a lack of continuity with the first administration's term?

Joel Braunold: Look, I think President Trump values his family, both because I think he values their talents and also from a loyalty perspective. I think he feels, you know, so I can't imagine, even if should he not have an official role that he would be completely out of giving, Massoud or Steve Witkoff or anyone, his advice and guidance.

Also his day-to-day job is he runs an investment house that has Saudi and UAE significant investments that plays in the Middle East. So my assumption should be that he will, in some way, even should it not be in a formal U.S. policy way, be involved with some of the key interlocutors, seeing as he manages significant wealth from those places when it comes vis-a-vis to the Middle East.

So I would assume he's going to be involved in some method, but maybe not again, we're in, sort of, conjecture world. But I will say two important things. Number one, if you've appointed a Mideast envoy as your personal envoy. And you've appointed also a Mideast advisor as your personal advisor, it strikes me that the Mideast, at least this particular part of it, is being run out of the White House.

So I don't see this being run out of State, I don't see this being run out arguably even of the NSC. I think it's being run out of these two individuals who are directly advising and are envoying for the president. And that's how the structure is going to be.

And that's what it takes me, I was listening to the Unholy Podcast, which is a cool podcast that Yonit Levi and Jonathan Freedland from the Guardian do. And they had Tom Friedman on, I think, two weeks ago, and he made some bizarre points saying, you know, this policy is not going to be run by the president's best friend or his in-laws. The most important person is whoever the head of the Mideast desk at the NSC is. I'm like, I couldn't disagree more. I think everything about President Trump has indicated to you that if he's appointed his best friend to be the Mideast envoy, that is the address. If he's appointed his in-law to be his Mideast advisor, that is the address. It is very clear that's the address because the president has told you that is the address.

Personally, I think that many countries in the Middle East like that. I think that they will find that familiar, in terms of how many countries inside the Middle East make decisions and they're very comfortable with that. And so I don't think there's anything, but great, now we know and let's start working.

Scott R. Anderson: We had a couple of key policies that came out of the first Trump administration in regard to the conflict. I think it's worth revisiting these and thinking about, you know, what their legacy is and their continuing relevance.

One, which I think we can do away relatively quickly, is the Jerusalem move, right? Recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Although the Trump administration's statement and actual recognition regarding this is a little cagier than that. There's a little more points of continuity. I wrote a piece about this back way back in 2017, early 2018 that pointed this out and I think it's borne true.

You know, it's not as sharp a 180° as it kind of seemed at one point, as they tried to make it seem, nonetheless there was this big shift. The Biden administration notably hasn't changed that or really reversed it.

We saw positions on the Golan Heights change, maybe the West Bank change, and other than a kind of fairly low key repudiation of a West Bank position where the Trump administration had kind of reversed a long standing legal opinion saying these are settlements of the West Bank are presumptively illegal. But again, that hadn't released a new legal opinion.

We don't know where they think the line actually is. The Biden administration said, well, no, we assume they are illegal, but we're not sure exactly where the line is, how much continuity there is or isn't there. Most of these policies seem to survive the Biden administration, right? And they're kind of the new American norm.

Then we have the peace plan. Peace plan is kind of a weird document: a lot of fanfare, months leading up to it, years leading up to it. Talk about it forever. We're working on it. We're developing it, Kushner and his team. And then it drops in, I think, February, 2020, January, February, 2020, and quickly, falls into, like, kind of a dead silence as I recall it because relationship with the Palestinians were at such a low point. There didn't seem to be much receptivity. And then got kind of washed away by the pandemic because the oxygen got sucked out of the room by another global crisis.

Does that plan have legs? Does it have fans? Has it aged well in people's eyes or to the point that it can be a starting point for something as a possibility as you kind of teed up, or is it really just an investment of history?

I will admit I have not gone to revisit it since it dropped, and I don't know many other people have either, but maybe it's got more in there that will can be built upon than I'm giving a credit for.

Joel Braunold: It's a really interesting question. So let's try and remember what happened when the plan dropped. So you had the investment conference in Manama, Bahrain, which was the economic part of the peace to prosperity plan, which was the first revealing this predated the Abraham Accords.

And then the second part of the plan was the political section that dropped a few months later. And as you said, Israel kept going through elections. And that was a real debilitator because how could you move this forward? Like the prime minister was supposed to arrive in Manama and that was going to be like his first trip to Bahrain.

But there were so many different internal elements that kept slowing this up and slowing this up. There were pieces around the plan saying, you know, it's valid for four years. And if the Palestinians don't come back, then it's off the table. So there were pieces of this that will, that were very time-orientated for a drop.

But fundamentally, the job that Jared Kushner and the team around him, Jason Greenblatt, others, Avi Berkowitz, they were all trying to deal with the fact that the Clinton parameters they felt were just not fit-for-purpose anymore. And one of the, you know, the sad realities is that if you speak to most people who work on the conflict, the concept of hermetic separation based on Clinton parameters, hasn't been relevant for a long time. Like there's been, you could, there's been so much inks felt on every part of the final status issues. But I think most people on the ground were like, the populations aren't there anymore, so what do you do? And there had been no updating.

And so the first thing is that the Trump plan was the first, what they felt, reasonable attempt to update them. And it breached basically every one of the Palestinian red lines. But it preserved the concept that at the end of the day, they would have a state. What kind of state? Where was the land? All the other things, it was below their de minimis at the time.

And the process leading up to it, the embassy move, the other things, had humiliated the Palestinians to the extent that they couldn't turn around and just re-engage with the Trump administration. And so what happened was that the Prime Minister Netanyahu, said, yes, but, and the Palestinians didn't say anything at the time. But what was interesting is that the religious right in Israel rejected the Trump plan. They said under no circumstances. It broke their eschatological objections to giving up permanency of the land. And they said, no.

And when you look today, there was actually an article in Israel, Hayom with some Likud MKs saying we have until inauguration to make sure that the Trump plan is not the starting point. Because if that is the starting point, it can only get worse for us. And they weren't happy with that, where that was. And if October, if everything changes after October 7th, and we need to delete the possibility of a Palestinian state, we need to start now and start taking actions to be able to delete it to start now. So that's one piece of it.

On the Palestinian side, we've also seen an inversion. The Palestinians are no longer boycotting President Trump. We saw two things that I think are pretty remarkable. The first was after the assassination attempt, President Abbas delivered a personal letter to President Trump that President Trump signed saying, don't worry, Mahmoud, all will be well. And pushed that up on Truth Social, the day he was meeting Prime Minister Netanyahu, by the way, to indicate that he saw like peace being part of his mandate.

And the second is there's been a phone call post the election between President Abbas and President Trump that, according to reports, Massad Boulos, who's now a Mideast advisor, who's his in law, facilitated. So again, we're seeing an engagement from Ramallah to President Trump. So that's a change as well.

So could it be a starting point potentially? I'd say that President Trump succeeded in destroying Palestinian expectations in his first term. I think that the concept that they would go back and boycott because they didn't like the starting point would not only be disastrous for their long-term relations with America, but disastrous for their relationships with the rest of the region who, since October 7th, the PA has been sort of revitalized in their eyes as, we've got to figure out something to do in Gaza. And we need some international legitimacy and the PA can deliver that.

And I think that the iron triangle of what this is up to in Gaza which doesn't include just taking over the whole of Gaza, which 70 percent of Israel doesn't want to do anyway requires some level of involvement, at some level, be it symbolic or practical, of the PA, and figuring that out is something that's still going to need to do.

So the Trump plan can very much start as a starting point. And when you dust it off, you know, the, you know, where should the line be drawn? No settlements move. Capital's sort of in Abu Dis, a lot of vetoes by the Israelis throughout the process. But I think there's going to be like a dead cat, you know, the who gets to own the dead cat in the beginning. I'm more reasonable. No, I'm more reasonable. No, I'm more reasonable.

And outside of the trilateral, like Israel-Palestine-U.S., there's a huge amount of U.S.-Israel stuff that needs to be sorted out that the Trump administration just acts as a wild factor in that. You know, listening to Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister and others, it's interesting. They speak about this as historic window, not just with the Trump presidency, but with the Republican Gouse and Senate, and that they say that as a real opening for them.

I think that if that's on one side of the equation, you've got Riyadh, Ankara, Abu Dhabi, Rabat, all on the other side of that equation, who are all very close with President Trump and his team for various different reasons, pushing back on the other side, saying the region can't take an annexation or the destruction of the Palestinian national aspirations at this point in time. So how that balances out is going to be interesting. And what's, where are the leverage points for President Trump and the Trump administration with all the parties?

Again, and I can't stress this enough. President Trump sees himself as the dealmaker-in-chief. Every thing of leverage that he has been given, he will use to get to where he wants to go. And I think the assumption that, oh, he won't do that just because X, Y and Z, I don't see. He's not motivated by the traditional two state paradigm. I don't think he's motivated at all by international law. I think he's going to allow future Ambassador Stefanik to do whatever she really wants at the United Nations.

You know, these aren't the things that appeal to him. But if he thinks he needs to apply a bit of pressure to one party or the other to get them to get where he wants to, and he's got, whether it's the executive order and its removal, whether it's an upcoming MOU that he might switch to loans instead of grants, which is something the Republicans have indicated quite substantially, whether it's about a desire, to try and get the Arab world to help pay for the rehabilitation of Gaza, and he needs to use leverage there.

Whether it's putting pressure on the Palestinians on pay-to-slay, and getting the Arab world to push them on that; whether it's on anti corruption stuff, education reform, I think he's got no problem using any piece of leverage he wants. And if people think that Congress will sway him one way or the other, I mean, I have a bridge to sell you. I just don't think that he will be constrained in places where the Constitution empowers him.

I don't think his leverage is going to be based off, like, aid. You know, this concept, you know, Congress is so powerful with the power of the purse. Great. If he says there are no more free meals. He's like, everyone goes to forgivable loans. I didn't see the Republican conference pushing back against him when it comes to an MOU to Israel, they'll be like, okay, you too can have forgivable loans.

His leverage on the Palestinians isn't going to be about the amount of aid he gives to the West Bank and Gaza, if anything at all. It's just not, I can't, given everything else we know about what he wants to do, I just don't see that either. And nor do I think that there is an opportunity for a Netanyahu government to try and push for more U.S. engagement militarily in the Middle East.

Again, reading between all of the lines of what you're hearing from President Trump, anything that would include more U.S. presence, arms and things, though on the other hand, like, I don't foresee any issue of the Israelis getting any weapon they want at any time because they spend the money in the U.S. and stimulate the U.S. stuff. So, you know, the supposed handbrakes that the Biden administration has put onto weapons procurement that the Israelis talk about all the time, that won't exist. But the free money MOU for the next 10 years, I also don't think exists. So I think it completely recalibrates a lot of the equations and how that all fits into the Palestinian dynamic, how that all fits in. So, you know, it's a Rubik's Cube with new moves now and new individuals and new shibboleths that have nothing to do with the traditional way that Washington sees the conflict.

And in some ways that's optimistic, because basically it's a very high ceiling or a very low floor. Who else, I think Jonathan Schanzer has said this from FDD at one point. They were like, with Harris, it's like going into a casino and knowing you'll lose. With Trump, you can either win a house or lose a house. So like, the outcomes are far more broad, but like, the downsides can be very low, and the upsides can be very high. And I think that's true when it comes to this as well.

I think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been incredibly stagnant. I think the Biden administration I mean, there's books that could be written. I think they cared a lot, especially after October 7th. But you know, I go back to the famous Foreign Affairs piece that was published two days before where there was three sentences on Israel Palestine and then suddenly afterwards, there's like a, you know, a couple of pages and yeah. So I think that the parties are in for a different experience with the Trump 2 administration than a Harris administration.

Scott R. Anderson: So, the other big legacy, enduring legacy, and I think this is probably the strongest enduring legacy, in a lot of ways from the first Trump administration, is the Abraham Accords. We saw the Biden administration more or less embrace the Abraham Accords, kind of buy into a lot of the Trump administration's rhetoric about them being kind of historical, seminal agreements, and then position itself to attempt to top them or build on them with a broad agreement with Saudi Arabia, that, as you noted, is dead at this point, as far as we know, at least for the time being. It isn't going to go anywhere bogged down with Gaza, regional politics, and the sort of other things now.

That Abraham Accords at the time, Trump administration got through, which are notable, although I'm not sure I buy into them being quite as historical, as some folks might, or such a breakthrough, I guess, perhaps, so much as reflecting trends that we'd seen happening in the region for a while up to that point. Nonetheless, it was a big accomplishment and something that came out of, you know, a lot of cost and a lot of invested effort for the Trump administration.

And came after a real cultivation of particularly the Gulf countries and particularly Saudi Arabia over several years, despite the Khashoggi killing, putting a big hiccup in that. We saw, you know, the GCC, the Gulf states basically go to a, you know, proxy soft war with each other for a year, year and a half with the kind of tacit acquiescence of the Trump administration causing a fair amount of regional problems get reined in. Nonetheless, we saw this direct personal ties between the Saudi royal family, Emirati royal family, the Trump family.

Are those dynamics still the same? Because it strikes me that October 7th and the Gaza conflict have changed some of the regional dynamics, like they have put the Palestinian issue much higher on the list of regional priorities than I think it was in 2017, 18, and 19 or at least more salient because it is such a more present issue, I think, on the minds of a lot of people in their world. And it's become such a visceral, brutal conflict in the eyes of so many people really around the world, particularly in the region.

Are those still dynamics still there that, that the Abraham Accords is something that the Trump administration can hope to replicate or continue to build on? Is that even their goal? I mean, what is the Trump administration standing with these other Arab allies that played such a central role in all of its plans, frankly, in the region during the first administration?

Joel Braunold: So let's break this into two. Let's look at the Abraham Accords independently, and then let's look at Saudi. And then we can try and touch on some of the Iran stuff at the end, which I think is the other real critical part of this.

When it comes to the Abraham Accords, I think that the countries themselves feel like the Biden administration paid lip service, but didn't deliver the U.S. part of the bargain. The UAE still didn't get the weapons it was promised. There was still no consulate built in the Western Sahara and Morocco, for example. That's their normalization. They don't see themselves as part of that. So I think first and foremost, they would like to be paid, the U.S. end, you know, okay, the Trump administration signed them. The Trump administration's back. We would like the things that we would like.

I also think it is notable in both Morocco, in Morocco, Bahrain, and the UAE sense, the Accord, the normalization has survived the Gaza war, which is not for nothing. And, you know, they might not have been, you know, depending on how people saw the Abraham Accords and what they were and what they weren't, that it is a historic achievement. Whether that's the way you'll get to peace or not is again, conjecture to see what happens over the next four years. But they have survived formal relations of one of the most significant, if not the most significant, Israeli-Palestinian war we've seen in history.

And given that, I think the durability of them is something to remark upon. It is a remarkable event that they have continued. The ambassadors have not been recalled, right? Look at the Egyptian and Jordanian ambassadors or the Turkish ambassadors being recalled every four minutes. These have not.  And I think that is important. And I don't think that should be poo-pooed or left. Like something worked there that hasn't worked elsewhere. And why? And maybe it is because it was not dependent on peace between Israelis and Palestinians. But maybe annexation pushes it too far, or maybe it's not.

These are sort of things that if we're going to be honest and we need to examine new things versus old things, the durability of the UAE and the Moroccan and the Bahraini relations with Israel seems to be stronger from purely just, did you recall your ambassadors or not, than others. Now, also they haven't fought wars with Israel. The Turkish example is a little bit different, but compared to Egypt and Jordan.

Also, the Egyptians and Jordanians have direct, existential interests in the creation of a two-state solution in a way that these countries don't. And so the durability is different just given their own existential angsts on it. But I think first and foremost, those countries will be looking for the U.S. to fulfill their end of the commitments of what the Abraham Accords were. And I do think that there is an opportunity to build upon them. And it will be a test of the thesis of outside-in rather than inside-out when it comes to Israel Palestine.

You know, do the outside-in work?  So, you know, can you now, once the Abraham Accords have been stabilized, now utilize them to help move some of the building blocks of an Israeli-Palestinian deal whereas before they were blocked? And it's here that over the past four years, again, Ramallah's engagement with Morocco, you know, there was a call between President Abbas and the King of Morocco, you know, their willingness to even engage with Saudi, sending Hussein, you know, Hussein Sheikh and others to Riyadh to participate in these conversations about Israel-Saudi normalization. They're engaging rather than boycotting.

And again, I think one of the biggest differences in the second Trump administration is Ramallah right-sizing their expectations and therefore reacting rather than trying to be… Now, that doesn't mean you can just crush them completely and they'll just do anything that you want. They realize they have some demands, but if those demands are within the realms of possibility, I think that there's an opportunity there and things that potentially can move forward.

When it comes to Saudi, you know, I find it interesting that Riyadh basically told Reuters that a deal's off the table and we'll settle for something smaller. And I'll remind everyone listening that the reason that Riyadh was, wanted a treaty had nothing to do with Joe Biden, and everything to do with Donald Trump. The schism in the Saudi national security doctrine was when they were attacked by Houthis. And they, you know, the drones took out a significant portion of the oil production in 2018.

Trump was like, all right, that's really bad, but you're on your own. And for them, they were like, well, this doesn't work for us. And so they wanted to create a treaty. And then if they could wind that into normalization with Israel, that being the cost to move on, that would be great. I don't think that's changed.

So if they can find a way to do that, and maybe it's about big power competition with Russia and China and others in order to make that case, I think they will. But the reason they wanted a treaty obligation was because they recognized a weakness that they could be facing of the capriciousness of whoever's in the White Gouse, whether they were secure and safe or not.

I think that you've seen several Saudi moves, you know, the detente with Iran, that's sort of somewhat guaranteed by China and others, all to try and sort of give themselves options. But now that Trump's back, it'll be interesting to see how the Saudis play it. But since the election, I've got to be honest, listening to the crown prince's statements about genocide in Gaza. Really heavily anchoring towards closer of an API where they weren't there before the war in Gaza.

I think a lot of this is also anchoring to demonstrate to the Trump administration that, if you want a deal, you need to stop the annexationists in Israel. We don't, we won't go along with it. So, you know, we might be able to move, but they're anchoring strong to start with. And I think that's also interesting.

And then lastly, I think for much, and this is why I think Israel takes a lot of comfort, is when it comes to Iran. I think when you look at the appointees around President Trump, whether it's Senator Rubio, Mike Waltz, Mr. Bassent, who's the new Treasury Secretary, who's like, we need to make Iran broke again. I think there's a very significant national security strategy to go back to a maximum pressure on Iran to try and limit their regional influence.

President Trump is not for regime change. He and others in his orbit have made that very clear, but they also have no problem sanctioning to death the Iranians, if they need to, in order to try and limit their activity, and I think that will be something that Jerusalem will find very comforting. But we're already seeing in this period, this lame duck period, so many shifts in the Middle East, what's going on in Syria this week. You know, will the ceasefire in Lebanon hold? You know, we're seeing it already starting to really get smacked around and we're only on day four or day three.

So there are all of these different things, but I think the other big question when it comes to the Abraham Accords and everything else is going to be like, as we move, please God, to an end of the war in Gaza, and we then look to the West Bank, like, what is it and I think those policy horizons will dictate so much of this.

Scott R. Anderson: So let's pivot to a couple of these key issue areas and key zones of conflict of which I think there are three really worth zooming in on. The first, which is really two, but I think we can bring them together for the sake of this conversation because we're talking about on a high level are Lebanon and Syria. You know, conflicts that are inherently related, even though they're really being engaged very differently by Israel at this point.

We know Trump came into the election saying, you know, having by all reports told Netanyahu, I want, you know, Lebanon conflict over by the end of the year, similar things about Gaza as well. And we've seen some sort of delivery about this, about the ceasefire, which is maybe holding, maybe not, but at least in place. President Biden took very public credit for it to some extent, along with his advisors. Incoming President Trump, I suspect did, I didn't hear anything about it, but I suspect he took some credit for it as well because he'd been calling for it.

And now we're seeing this action triggered in large part by the collapse of Hezbollah under Israeli assault, and the kind of revealing weakness of Iran, its inability to come to the defense of regional proxies and perhaps some distraction by Russia, by Ukraine as well, you know, a major, potentially ground-changing operation in Syria, although probably too early to say what it actually means.

So what does the shift to the Trump administration mean for these fronts? It seems like the Biden administration, Trump administration, are more or less on the same page at least on the Lebanon side, at least in the short term. In the medium to long term, Trump has a very complicated history with Syria, at least. So do we have a sense about how that's likely to fit into this conflict and these dynamics?

Joel Braunold: It's a great question. And again, like, it's all conjecture. When you look at President Trump's declarations, what he said on the campaign trail and other things. He doesn't want the U.S. involved in foreign wars. Why should our troops be in harm's way? So I think any suggestion from the Pentagon that we need to put more troops in places. I think we'll be met with abject rejection. So it's about our allies doing more.

You know, I also think that from what I understand, President Erdogan and President Trump had a very close relationship on a personal level. They got on very well. I can imagine the Turkish-U.S. relation being very critical to the Syria question. And in the end, if it hurts Chinese or Chinese interests will be interesting.

But when it comes to Syria, I wouldn't underestimate the role of the Ukraine conflict in this, you know, President Trump has been very vocal about trying to end that conflict and just finish it. I think that should it finish in a way that helps rebuild Russian-U.S. relations in some manner, then I think the opportunities in Syria is slightly different, given a more positive relationship between the Kremlin and the White House, versus if Russia is playing a spoiler role. Russia at the moment is incredibly weak and therefore you might be able to take turns in multiple places. But I think the linkage of these fronts is something that Mideast countries are going to think about quite heavily, about what does this look like.

And when it comes to Lebanon, again, like, President Trump wants peace. He does not want war. So the more that can be done before he gets there, the better it is. And he'll take credit saying, they settled because they knew I was coming. He also wants U.S. hostages out of Gaza. He wants them out and he will demand those. And I think there will be significant pressure put on allies of Hamas to be able to deliver that, should they want to have a positive relationship with the White House. So I'd start there on the northern front. I just think he's like, just, why are you still fighting?

Like, and look, the Israelis scored a major strategic victory in decoupling Hezbollah and Hamas. I mean, Hezbollah swore they weren't going to do that, and Israel basically killed the entire high command of Hezbollah and then those who are left were like, okay, we're not, we’re all decoupling. Look, that is a huge strategic victory, though publicly it was sold in Israel that, you know, it will be a total victory in the north and what does that look like and what Hezbollah won't exist anymore. That's not realistic, but the decoupling is pretty impressive and the massive degradement.

And now the question is, will the ceasefire hold if they feel like Hezbollah is breaking it and the Israelis need to demonstrate that they will not allow an international agreement to prevent them from enabling Hezbollah to rearm it. If that requires them to rip up the agreement to demonstrate they're serious, I think that's what they'll do. But I think that's on the northern part.

I mean, in Israel, the general feeling is like a death on both their houses when it comes to Syria. I think they say, like, if it's run by jihadists, that's a problem for tomorrow. But for today, it prevents Iran from using it to restock Hezbollah, so that's good. It screws the Russians over in terms of a sea access port, so that's probably good. Like, to what extent it's more thought out than that, I think, like, if it's a jihadist, we'll figure that out later, but like, you know, let them both destroy each other.

I think President Trump said something. I saw this reported last week, you know, he's like, if they hate America and they hate America, why the hell should we get involved in stopping them from killing each other? And honestly, Scott, I think that's probably the strategy of which, by the way, the majority of the American people agree with, they're like, okay, let them kill each other. Why is this a problem for us?

Scott R. Anderson: Fair enough. Well, let me dig a little deeper on the Syria front because this was such a point of contention during the first Trump administration. You know, we saw a major U.S. troop presence that had been in Syria left over from the end of the Obama administration engaged in counter-ISIS operations, get kind of partially withdrawn very chaotically, then reversed. Then the same thing happened about a year later again in the Trump administration.

You know, there was talk about leaving troops in to protect oil because you have the U.S. troops were there are in, you know, an area that's kind of oil rich backing the SDF. I don't think that's actually what was happening strategically, but that was somehow in Trump's mind as some sort of relationship to this.

And then, of course, we had people in his administration, particularly in the kind of hawkish Iran side, basically very publicly saying, oh, these troops are there to help monitor or at least several contingents are there to help monitor, you know, Iranian activities in Syria, and to some extent deter them, even though that's not kind of the legal basis, whatnot.

Do we think that sort of activity, which we saw the Trump administration, despite its kind of peacemaking rhetoric, pursue arms. I remember, I mean, they pursued airstrikes twice against Assad. We saw the Trump administration is the one initiating a lot of military action against Wagner Group, against the Assad regime forces where they threatened U.S. and U.S. allies. In a lot of ways they escalated the Syria conflict.

Was that a product of, you know, the effort to wind down the ISIS operations? Do we not see much of a revival here? But even if, for example, Israel takes the opportunity to do what it did in Lebanon and Syria and really begin to take out, you know, Iranian elements there, something it's been doing kind of at a medium to low pace for the last four or five years, if not longer, but could escalate now. That's the one part that to me is a big wild card because their history in Syria is messy.

Joel Braunold: I think it is a wild card. And if you look at his national security picks, you know, Pete Hegseth, like, I don't know what his policy is towards Syria. I don't think anyone does. I think Mike Waltz has a very strong view of the world. I think Marco Rubio does as well. But I think they're dealing with a president who really does not see the value in sending us troops or arms anywhere. Will they allow Israel to have a free hand and sell them the weapons to do that? Absolutely.

I think, and this goes back to, you know, bringing it back to the Israeli arena. The concept of hold me back, hold me back. I don't see the Trump administration. They'll be like, do whatever the hell you want. I don't care. Like knock yourself out. Just don't rely on us. Like, we'll sell you whatever you want. You want bunker busters? I'll sell you bunker busters. You want this? I'll sell you this.

I just don't foresee a world in which the Trump administration has a vision of, like, that part of the Middle East and they're like, yeah, there are no U.S. allies there. Do they care about Lebanon? Do they care about Syria? No! Like, so, like, what? But when it comes to, like, U.S. allies, like, UAE, Qatar, Saudi, Morocco, like places where there is a valued investiture that really makes a difference for them. That's why I think they care and like how they can shape it.

So again, like I don't think that Israel's freedom of action in the region will be limited by any way, shape or form of by the Trump administration. I just don't think they could also rely on the Trump administration to join them in airstrikes. It would need to be very, something very specific and particular, but I don't know what that would look like and I'm not sure what it is. And again, this is all conjecture again. It could be very different, but I just, there's nothing about the Trump administration that makes me think like they have a grand plan for Syria.

I think he's just like, why should I care about Syria? Like, what has this got to do with me? Are there nuclear weapons there? No. Well, again, like, why? Like, irrelevant to me. And so I think there's a feeling maybe there. So yeah, that's on that one. I, personally, I think that if there's going to be challenges and conflicts with the Israelis or the Palestinians, it's probably got to do with mainly, my view is it's probably going to be far more to do with the West Bank and Gaza than it is to do with like, Israel and its allies in some ways, like Israel and its regional neighbors, I mean.

And that's because the same problem set exists regardless of if it's Biden or Trump. So like you look at Gaza and you're like, okay, what are you going to do? Like 70 percent of the country doesn't want you to settle Gaza. Okay, so even if the Trump administration is like, go forward and settle, 70 percent of the country doesn't want you to do that. It's cold, it's winter now, lots of people need food and aid. Are you really going to take on the entire costs of that yourself? Because the Trump administration isn't going to be paying for it, and the Arab world has told you they'll only pay for it if there's a political pathway forward. So, I don't really know where the Israelis go there.

When it comes to the West Bank, again, it's the same question. There's a part of the coalition that sees this as a historic opportunity to collapse the Palestinian Authority. And in doing so collapse the Palestinian cause. But then they'll have to take over the territory. And then what does that look like for U.S. allies elsewhere? The concept of peace, which President Trump tweets a lot about.

These are the sort of things where I'm like, I could see a problem because in many ways the prime minister has always had, well, the Americans are holding us back. The Americans are holding us back. What happens when the Americans aren't holding you back?

You know, what does that look like? Does that mean that the Smotrich-Ben Gvir crowd really take primacy? In many ways with Trump winning, the Israelis can now do whatever they want. And what will that look like? And what can they maintain and what will their society enable them to do? There are questions that have boiled along the surface have now reached like heightened parts of October, after October 7th, and now they're going to have to deal with their polity and figure out what they want to do. The Americans won't hold them back.

You know, the American, this American administration, I don't think particularly cares about international law, whether that's UN or ICC or anything else. I can't imagine ever the Trump administration threatening something at the UN.

I also can't imagine the Trump administration giving them a 10 year free MOU either. So like the freedom of opportunity and ability to do whatever you want will be limited by the U.S. putting their interests first. Not limiting your freedom of action, but also not enabling it just because they want to enable it.

Like, in many ways, the Obama MOU was like, we'll limit you through diplomacy and stuff when it comes to the Palestinians, but we will give you 10 years of basically free money to build up your security aspects as much as you want. I have a feeling the Trump administration would rather give them forgivable loans on the MOU. But those loans still create leverage because they're forgivable when they want to tell them that it's forgivable and it still carries on a balance sheet versus, you know, threatening at the UN and other things.

And basically laying out a path for the Israelis saying here is a peace plan, we can get everyone on board, but you need to deliver your own population to get them on board and no more pretending it's us pushing you. But it's your problem that you need to solve and we've given you a way out of it and you can take it if you want it. And I think that's probably If you're looking for an optimistic reading of what the Trump administration could look like, that's what it could look like.

I think when it comes to Palestinian advocacy in the U.S., it's a far grimmer picture. Where I think that there's been huge indications from the Trump team, whether that's the nominee for the attorney general, Pam Bondi and others, that they will clamp down on, what they see, again, their words, as pro-Hamas support in the U.S., like a ton of bricks, between deporting international students, FARA registrations, material support issues, stuff against NGOs.

I think you're going to see a gigantic uptick, domestically on, on really any protest, any blocking of Jewish houses of worship or anything like that. I think you're going to see the full power of the federal government come down in ways that we haven't seen before. Criminalization, DOJ, other things I think is going to be very prominent, but it comes to the actual policy over there. I think it's going to be slightly different than what people think.

Scott R. Anderson: So let's, for, on the West Bank and Gaza, these are going to be the big heated points. So let's think about what this is likely to mean, on a couple of the key pressure points, right? Gaza, we know there's no clear publicly stated Israeli plan. It could, any sort of disposition from reoccupation to something else in theory is on the table.

The pressure point the Biden administration in the short term has been humanitarian access and assistance, which I think the Biden administration has pushed for with limited success, but not zero success. Meanwhile, weapons are like the main source of leverage, right? And the main source of controversy.

Are we likely to see a significant change on either of those fronts for the Trump administration? Are they going to care so much about the humanitarian component? Are they going to put restrictions on the weapons? It sounds like from your perspective, likely neither. And it sounds like you don't, there's not really much of a sense that they're going to push for much of a disposition plan either, except in so far as if it's an unstable situation, that itself is frustrating for the Trump administration. Is that a fair summary about where we come out on this. 

Joel Braunold: I think that I can't imagine pressure on weapons, a desire to do international humanitarian aid. I just don't see it. I think that like I, Trump said, I don't want to see pictures of you blowing up shit. I didn't think it's any, I, figure it out, whatever you like, but whatever you figure out.

Yu know, the Israelis are going to be asking the Trump administration for, like, sanctions against the ICC. They're going to be asking for the Trump administration to take away the executive order when it comes to settler sanctions. They're going to be asking for a lot. And I think that the Trump administration, in some regards, when it comes to, like, weapons, they're like, yeah, sure.

But when it comes to, like, active things, I think there's a question of, does the Trump administration utilize leverage in those moments, or do they not? Right? And also, to what extent does Ramallah prioritize Gaza? I don't know! I mean, like, they're asking the PA to, you know, does the PA want to come back? Do they not want to come back? To the extent that Gaza fits into the president's bigger Mideast plans is really about deepening of the Abraham Accords and extension to others, and the ability to do that when such bad news is going on, I don't think exists.

So if you want to create that opportunity, you need to fix this problem. And how do you fix this problem? You get the Arab nations to pay. Therefore, it needs to be something they can minimally accept, which probably includes some sort of inviting of the PA back into Gaza. Whether that's as a cursory, they agreed to it at the UN, or something more formal that it's basically their employees doing half the work. But, you know, you've got a board of governors of other people. You could even take the board of governors that was in the Peace to Prosperity Plan and apply it to Gaza. Like, there are times and places you could look at how you do that. But because that's the bleeding wound, that's part one.

Part two is preventing the collapse in the West Bank, which we've already seen very positive things this past weekend. The Israeli cabinet extended by a year the correspondent banking relations, which is big. People thought it would be for a month. It's a year. Stabilizes some of the situation. The Israelis are still transferring monthly, the customs revenue, sans Gaza, to the West Bank. Again, I don't think that the Israelis also want to create a crisis before Trump's won it.

I think they also don't want to be seen as holding the dead cat that they killed. You know, we ate the PA and now that, Trump's like, well, thanks very much for screwing us over to begin with. So I think there's lots of pieces of this puzzle that everyone's well, which way is he going to go? But when it comes to Gaza, I don't see weapons being something, and I don't think there's any desire for the Trump administration to contribute anything more than what would be absolutely necessary when it comes to humanitarian work in Gaza.

On the ICC stuff as well, I think you've already seen through Biden, you know, the French, the Greeks, like lots of Western countries have reversed themselves about the concept of sovereign immunity, at least while someone's a head of state. And I could imagine the Trump administration would delight in taking a hammer to the ICC because it's a multilateral enforcement institution, which goes completely against the construct of America First. And also doing that to help Putin in order to try and get a better end of the war in the Ukraine.

So, there are some things that I think directly apply to West Bank-Gaza and some things that are just global issues of import for them. But these are all pieces of this complex puzzle, but none of them shine by themselves.

I suppose the best way of saying this, cause I keep talking around this, is the Democrats cared about Gaza more, wanted a deal in Gaza and wanted something to happen because for them they needed it more than the Israelis did in many ways. I think the Trump administration, frankly, won't care. And that means that the Israelis are on the hook for it.

Cause if the Americans are constantly trying to say, we've got to solve this, we've got to solve this, we've got to solve this. You're like, okay, it's American pressure that's forcing us to do this, and that. If the Americans are like, do what the hell you want, just get off my TV screens and don't bother me with this. I'll sell you whatever you want. Just shush. Like I've got other things I've got to get on with. It puts the onus on the Israelis.

You know, it is controversial about what Israel should do inside of Israel when it comes to Gaza, there is not agreement and they're going to have to make decisions. And that's going to be tough. And that's going to test the coalition. In addition to all of the internal Israeli pressures, when it comes to conscription, you know, conscripts have been at war for like, 255 days plus at this point, right? Like there's a point of exhaustion. And like, what happens there? So all of those like aspects of the conflict will be far stronger leverage points in my view than anything that a Trump administration would create.

Scott R. Anderson: So the big part of the picture that the big kind of pain point, more than anything in the medium to long term is the West Bank. And this is what kind of people have been saying for years, right? Like we're on a slow boil crisis and Gaza, in some way is a big, you know, tragic distraction from the long term, more politically challenging situation of the West Bank.

You've laid out a lot of these kind of short-term plan changes were likely to change, you know, sanctions against settlers likely to go away, be substantially reduced. You know, a lot of Biden administration rhetoric around the West Bank likely to be ratcheted back. We know the Trump administration already had a more generous view of settlements than the Biden administration claims to, although maybe not substantively like wildly different.

What does it really mean in the medium to long term? I mean, that is where the annexation word comes in, right? That's where we're really talking about is West Bank and East Jerusalem. And that's kind of the ultimate question. I mean, is that what Smotrich and others are saying when we have this opportunity over the next two years of the Trump administration, Republican Congress, is it the idea that we can pursue dramatic changes on the ground that aren't going to immediately compromise our assistance relationship anymore that would be compromised maybe anyway, with this Congress or a relationship generally through the executive branch by the Trump administration.

And where are the Trump administration's limits on that, if anything? You know, because that used to be a point of bipartisan consensus. The idea was the two-state solution was the escape patch. It's the way that you can have a status quo where the Palestinians don't have full political rights by any stretch of the imagination, because it's a transitory phase to an eventual equal outcome. But you're giving up on that myth if you buy annexation. And is that a step the Trump administration's willing to take, able to take, and that the Israelis are going to take them up on to pursue?

Joel Braunold: So I think that the areas of disagreement are going to come down to two. For many Israelis, they'll tell you October 7th changed everything for us. And you know, even the concept of a Palestinian state is an anathema right now. I think, and you know, they point to massive reports, support in the Republican Party and the evangelical spaces will be fine.

I think that there's a misreading by the Israeli religious right, and right in general, but the religious right especially, when it comes to the evangelicals. I think that, of course, there is a support that there shouldn't be a Palestinian state in sovereign Yehuda VeShomron, Judea and Samaria, the West Bank. But there isn't an antagonistic relationship to Palestinians, there is to Palestinian national identity.

But the concept of transfer, voluntary immigration, which is the new terminology that Ben Gvir and Smotrich are pushing, that's not something that, you know, appeals to evangelicals. You know, when you look at the Bible conferences, or you look at people who have been doing a lot of work normalizing settlements, and there's been a lot, the U.S. Israel Education Alliance, others, there's been a few evangelical groups who have been on this for a while.

It's far more of a noblesse oblige when it comes to Palestinians, than it is like an expulsion, these people are bad, type thing. Like, and we need to, they need to leave. I think that's going to be a huge point of tension looking ahead. There isn't, you know, the Israelis are going to have to figure out, the Israeli right who are pushing the death of two states is going to need to figure out a way of what do you do with these Palestinians?

You know, that's why Ambassador Freeman talks about a Puerto Rico model. You know, applying it to U.S. interests, you know, the fact that Puerto Ricans can move to the mainland and vote, whereas Palestinians can't, lots of, they could apply for statehood, like, lots of differences in the model, but it isn't an expulsion modality. I think he's to the left of where the Israeli right is at this point, who are far more comfortable with an expulsion mentality. And I think that's going to be a place where there's going to be tension.

And that tension, I think, will also be reflected in the Israeli polity. Between those who are like, look, we like Palestinian business leaders, we like business, we like economy, we want them to be rich, but not in a way that threatens us. And they should be self-autonomous, you know, self governing, you know, semi-autonomous zones, whatever. Versus those who are like, we need to kick them out. And I think that's going to be a real moment of difference. And how the PA handles that, I think will be very indicative. So that's one place where I think there will be tension on these particular issues.

I think the other place, look, Trump had a peace plan that included a Palestinian state. Like it, it was a thing. So to move them off that spot, I think is going to be a big lift, especially if the PA indicate that they're willing to play ball and come delivering goods. Like if the PA in the first six months delivers a deal on prisoner payments that State Department, you know, says is real and they actually move off pay-to-slay and they say, it's because we respect you, President Trump. They become an investable entity again in many ways in U.S. law and other things not in terms of that the U.S. can give money to the PA because the UN and stuff.

But in many ways that the entire PA strategy has been indicating on international law and you now have a government being sworn in the United States who, that is the worst possible strategy you could apply. So do they pivot? And what does that pivot look like? And how can they explain that pivot to their own people?

Do they see them, you know, if the whole world is moving to a point where international institutions go into their weakest moment, and the way that the Palestinians have played this is by appealing to international institutions as their strongest bulwark against actions. That's going to require a real successful pivot and can an elderly Palestinian president successfully make that maneuver?

I think, for me, that will dictate so much of what the next two to four years looks like vis-a-vis West Bank, Israel, U.S. relations. If the Palestinians can find themselves becoming essential to the region, the PA in particular, and not antagonizing the Trump administration along the way, whereas pointing out the obstructionists within the Israeli situation that haven't got their ducks in a row about what they could live with, then in many ways they perform a jiu jitsu flip. But this could all again be conjecture and it's already, this is a done deal and they're going to annex and they'll just deal with the fallout.

So, like, again, like, are we building mountains on sandcastles and this isn't it? And the thing I was gonna say at the end of the last answer, I think the Israelis have looked at how Biden has treated domestic protests, you know, issues of weapons transfers, all this stuff is indications that, you know, from Biden's don't, Biden sanctioning us and everything else that he was, he's been the criminal mastermind him or Harris or the progressives holding us back our whole way while completely ignoring the aircraft carriers, the building of the missile alliance, you know, MOUs, all this stuff that structurally and strategically has empowered Israel to the point where it is today.

And the interesting thing will be if Trump does all the emotive things. Okay, so massive clampdown on pro-Palestinian protesters, just trolling the United Nations, attacks on the ICC, but doesn't do a 10-year MOU on grants, but moves it to loans, and changes his position about Israeli's weapon procurement because he's worried it's going to affect U.S. weapons manufacturing and exports and imports, limits the Israeli freedom of action to talk to China. All these sort of things that you could see in a Trump thing that could really affect its strategic positioning. How does that react?

Because Trump is truly a master at the emotive clan, or I'm on that team politics. He's like the world's best at this, and he could steal a march on Netanyahu quite easily being like, you know, I am, you know, I've done all this stuff while secretly simultaneously just demolishing some of the strategic underpinnings that Israel has benefited from their relations. And again, listen to Trump world, listen to Tucker Carlson, listen to the OMB, listen to Russ Vought. You just have to have an ear.

Are we really to believe that the only exception to all of Trump policy is going to be Israel when it comes to foreign aid, when it comes to America First? I just, I find that very difficult to believe. And you can satisfy that base by being very harsh on pro-Palestinian activity in the U.S., by being very harsh on the ICC, by being very harsh at the UN, whereas simultaneously, basically, doing things to truly change the leverage points on Israel.

It's a different game and it's a game that honestly Israeli and Palestinian decision makers need to completely recalibrate themselves for because we are not, it's not the same as 2016 Trump. It is definitely not the same as any U.S. administration basically going back to Kissinger, like about what the normal rules of the game are. And I think that's why everything in this podcast is conjecture, because it could go completely one way or it could go completely the other way.

And anyone who's telling you that the decision really lies at the Mideast director of the NSC is not anyone that anyone should be listening to when it comes to what the next four years will look like.

Scott R. Anderson: Well, we are over time, so we will have to leave the conversation there, but needless to say, I think there are going to be plenty to talk about in the weeks and months and years to come.

Until then, Joel, thank you for joining us here today on the Lawfare Podcast.

Joel Braunold: Thanks so much, Scott.

Scott R. Anderson:The Lawfare Podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. You can get ad-free versions of this and other Lawfare podcasts by becoming a Lawfare material supporter through our website, lawfaremedia.org/support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters.

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