Lawfare Daily: The State of the Gaza Ceasefire and Related Issues, with Joel Braunold

[Intro]

Joel Braunold: Where we sit right now is that the Israelis have not really projected their own vision of a day after. They've just said, we'll take whatever President Trump gives us and are really playing behind whatever President Trump decides to do. And President Trump said, you know, the Israelis can do whatever they want to do.

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

Joel Braunold: Trump administration's like, look, let's keep the ceasefire going. That is issue A, B, C, D, E, and F. Let's keep it going, and once it's going, we can talk about everything else. If we can get to an end of the war, we can build off that and then do something rather than pack it all into one. And so I think that's also been a distinct shift in strategy.

Scott R. Anderson: For today's episode, we are discussing the latest developments relating to the Gaza ceasefire and the state of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

[Main podcast]

So Joel, the last time we sat down for one of these conversations, you noted that March 1 was going to be a very big day, or thereabouts, because we saw a lot of dates lining up for big deliverables or big developments on that day. That was more or less when the first phase of the ceasefire was supposed to end and transition to the second phase—at least under the original schedule; more or less when President Trump suggested that you would see a U.S. position on annexation of the West Bank, a number of other items lined up with that kind of March 1 day.

Now we're on the other side of that. We're recording this around midday, I guess in the afternoon on March 3, just to timestamp this for folks who might be listening to this later or in case things happen before this gets out on our podcast feed.

Let's talk about what developments we've seen come about, about the state, some of which are still happening, are still being drawn out—the schedule has shifted a little bit, I think, for a number of these.

Let's start with the ceasefire. We are now—I think it's fair to say—out of phase one or at the very end of phase one of the ceasefire as originally envisioned and into maybe phase two or maybe something a little different.

Talk to us about where we are on the ceasefire and where the trajectory is, insofar as it's not the same simple three phase plan that the Biden administration, Trump administration seemed to work towards during those last few weeks before the Trump administration came into office.

Joel Braunold: So let's start off by saying the first phase officially ended on the first of March. If you remember when you looked at the three phase plan, the first phase was incredibly detailed—the amount of hostages, the amount of prisoners, when it would be scheduled, there was a humanitarian annex, all these different pieces.

But Israel’s insisted since the three phase process had come down during the Biden administration, that there was no automatic transition from phase one to phase two, and from phase two to phase three, and they received a side letter confirming that from the Biden administration. In order for phase two to happen there had to be credible negotiations going on that were supposed to start on day 16 of the first phase about phase two.

So let's firstly before we talk about the switch of phases and where we're up to. Let's talk about phase one. So throughout phase one, there was a successful exchange of hostages for prisoners and detainees that went through. There was humanitarian, a huge surge of humanitarian trucks going into the strip. And throughout the beginning, the first part of the, the agreement, it seemed for the first two weeks, it was going pretty well without a hitch.

But what Hamas decided to do was that every time it released hostages it decided to do sort of a theater of a macabre where they'd have these displays of celebration and victory. They'd clear sort of a space in Gaza. So they, they had these trucks come into Gaza and bulldozers and rather than bulldozing to sort of create new space for like these housing, they just created space for these stages where at different, different parts, there were stages, and hostages would get up and then they'd be given to the Red Cross and they'd be taken back.

And each week that these hostage releases were happening, it got more and more perturbed. On the first one, there were crowds and they were given certificates. On the second one, the crowds got really involved and very near to the hostages, and it really freaked out the Israeli population. On the third one, you had the three men who were described, you know, were incredibly emaciated, and it kept going on.

And after the emaciated one, you know, why Hamas was doing this to show that they're still in charge and that they've got popular support—that if you zoom out on the camera, maybe there was maximum like 1000 people at each of these things. But the images that were portrayed in Israel is look, everyone in in Gaza supports this. Why wasn't anyone helping them? And especially when you had the release of the three individuals, men who looked very emaciated, it caused real reaction in Israel.

And Hamas, you know, it's often said that, you know, Israelis and Palestinians are the worst analysts of each other. If Hamas thought by doing these displays that they were putting pressure on the government of Israel to continue them, in many ways, what they were actually doing was creating an environment, at least in Israel, where Hamas became completely irredeemable.

There was no benefit  saying at least the hostages are alive and they didn't kill them. It was you know, how you know, they look like they've been fed but our hostages weren't fed, look, the, the civilians are all complicit in all of this and really drove up sort of the rage in Israel.

And it was peaking, and Hamas decided after I think the third or fourth release, they announced that they were suspending the hostage releases given Israeli violations, as they said of the ceasefire agreement, including Israeli forces shooting at people who came close to Israeli security positions as well as the not allowing of certain goods and items in through Rafah that they had originally agreed to.

When they made that announcement, the Trump administration and President Trump had said, okay, they've broken the deal. Israel should release, you know, should open the gates of hell on them. That put pressure on Netanyahu to say, okay, you know, cancel the rest of it and just go after Hamas. But there was equal pressure to still try and get the hostages out. So the mediators came in and they worked out an agreement and so the releases continued. But again, it was sort of building to an emotional peak about the Bibas family.

And if you remember on the last pod I spoke about, you know, what would be the condition of the Bibas family. And sadly, Yarden, the father, was alive, but Shiri and her two boys were, were, were tragically murdered. And Hamas decided along with Oded Lifshitz to sort of do this ceremony with caskets again, like doing this huge ceremonial thing and passing off much to—you know, there were images calling them a prisoner on the coffin and it just drove the Israelis completely bananas.

And then to add insult to injury, when they were opened up at the forensic lab, it turned out that Shiri's body was not Shiri's body; it was someone else's body. And instantaneously, the government as well demanded that, you know, the mediators, that that day that the body was returned to them. And amazingly, Hamas did it within a day without a ceremony, demonstrating that it is possible to do all this stuff without ceremonial releases.

So the last part of the hostage, and prisoner release sort of concluded on the first and the Israelis said look we're not transitioning to phase two, we're not withdrawing from the Philadephi crossing. Hamas said well, you're breaking the agreement.

And then Prime Minister Netanyahu said on Saturday night, you know, i'm agreeing to the Witkoff Proposal, which is Steve Witkoff, the president's special envoy on this. And he said, look, the Witkoff proposal is very simple. We take a break, we extend the ceasefire for six weeks. So it goes all the way through Ramadan, which started on the first and all the way through Passover. So all the holy festivals, it'll cover.

And it's very simple. You give us 50 percent of the hostages, alive and dead right now, and then we'll negotiate for a permanent ceasefire, which is a big deal for Prime Minister Netanyahu, a permanent ceasefire. Okay. And at the end of the six weeks, if we've agreed to a permanent ceasefire, you give us the other 50 percent or we go back to war. Very clear.

And in many ways, the simplicity prevents, you know, any, you know, debate about this. It's a very clear, in many ways, very Trumpian, you know, thing—50 percent up front, 50 percent at the end. Very clear, and we can take those six weeks to try and work out if there's anything to talk about.

Now, there's been some confusion about whether this was Steve Witkoff's proposal or whether this was Netanyahu's. It seems like in the press, the Trump administration has not sworn it off, they're willing to adopt it, so, whether it is or not, it has now been seen as the Witkoff proposal. And it's unclear if Hamas has formally rejected it or is waiting for it to be presented.

So, seeing that the ceasefire officially ended on the first of March, you would ask, well why hasn't the war restarted, right? And it's not just you who would ask that. There are many in Israel who would say, okay, why are we not opening the gates of hell? You know, the whole point was that if the ceasefire is over, why aren't we doing this? Why aren't we moving forward? Why isn't something happening?

And Steve Witkoff is due back in the region towards the end of this week, apparently. Where apparently he will, you know, see if there's space to have things move forward.

But what we've seen, Scott, is the, the Trump administration has taken a very different approach to this than what the Biden administration did. The Biden administration in their mediation would often try and create bridging proposals and then sort of push it on the parties to accept it. They would push it on the Israelis and they'd have the Qataris and the Egyptians trying to push on Hamas. And that's how they arranged sort of like the first phase and this phased approach.

Already at the beginning of the first phase, you heard comments from Steve Witkoff and from President Trump saying that this wasn't actually a very good deal, especially phase three, given the destruction in Gaza that led to Trump's Gaza comments—you know, that I'm sure we'll talk about—you know, that that's unrealistic. And you know, even phase two, while the Israelis really withdraw from the Philadelphi crossing, all these things, and they didn't want to really have ownership of this, but they took the first phase and ran with it.

So the, what the Witkoff strategy has been is to triangulate the parties to try and at least get them into conversation about what an end, a permanent ceasefire would do. Sort of detach it from this phased approach and say, look, you know, President Trump wants bigger hostage releases. So, you know, the Witkoff proposal seems to make sense of that—like it's two large releases, one at the beginning, one at the end—while we negotiate to see if there is a conclusion that we can all come to.

And reading between the public lines and everything else, it seems like the only line that the Trump administration has, where they, is that they fully agree that Hamas can no longer play any governing role in any sense in Gaza. That's the conclusion. So, and of course Hamas is not there, was they've said, well, we're willing to take back a governance role. We still want to be an armed militia there. That's unacceptable for the Israelis.

So where we sit right now is that the Israelis have not really projected their own vision of a day after. They've just said, we'll take whatever President Trump gives us and are really playing behind whatever President Trump decides to do.

And President Trump said, you know, the Israelis can do whatever they want to do.

And in the meantime, the Arab quintet are trying to come up with their own proposal about Gaza. Because as you mentioned before, you know, President Trump came in with this big vision of Gaza, which is, you know, Gaza without Gazans that they can voluntarily leave. And the U.S. would take ownership and the Israelis are like great, we'll do that. That's like a statement, not a plan. And as a reaction to that, you know, the region's tried to come up with its own plan.

And tomorrow on the fourth at the Arab summit in Cairo, the plan, the Arab plan should be presented. It's an Egyptian plan that's supposed to be presented that demonstrates that they can rebuild Gaza; the region can put money in; that there can be a governance; that it can be done without Gazans moving; and that that's the plan and that's what's going to move forward.

So where, you know, as you try and unpack all of these different pieces of the Rubik's cube, where does that leave us today? The Israelis have basically said, we're waiting for Witkoff, we're not going to start the war again, but we're going to start tightening the screws on Hamas because the ceasefire is over.

So, yesterday it was announced that they've cut off all aid to Gaza again. Nothing's going in. They say, you know, during the previous ceasefire, there's enough calories to sustain everyone in the territory for four months, you know, it's within the rules of law or laws of war, they claim, that we can cut off all aid because, you know, it's Hamas is diverting it anyway, no one's going to starve during this period. And if Hamas wants the aid back on, they can accept the Witkoff proposal.

And when Mr. Witkoff comes, I'm sure they're going to try and see if there is, if they do accept a bridging proposal between the parties that can sustain the ceasefire. And if not, Israel's been intimating quite publicly through leaks and others, they will go back to the war and the war will be fought with a far greater ferociousness than it was before and with no limits from the Trump administration.

And so we're currently in this waiting period right now to see if the ceasefire will maintain because at the moment Hamas has a ceasefire without giving hostages. They might have lost access to aid and Israel might cut off water and electricity eventually, but they, the war hasn't restarted yet and they're not giving up hostages. So we're in this sort of liminal phase where everyone's trying to work out what to do. I think everyone's waiting for Steve Witkoff.

Scott R. Anderson: And remind us for folks who may not have tuned in for our last conversation, what the original phase two vision was and where we are status quo wise. Israel is still camped out in substantial parts of Gaza, including the Philadelphia corridor you mentioned before. And Hamas still has about 60 hostages, if I recall correctly, is that righ, that we're still waiting on the return of.

Joel Braunold: I think the latest figure, and I apologize if I get this wrong, I think there's probably supposed to be 23 hostages that are still assumed to be alive, and around 50 bodies. The ones they're holding are males of a certain, you know, of military age; it doesn't mean they were all soldiers when they were kidnapped, they just, that's how they define them. Some were soldiers, some aren't.

And so, the second phase was supposed to be about their negotiation, about their releases alongside prisoner exchanges. As well as Israel withdrawing from the Philadelphi corridor, which is the border between Israel and Egypt, as well as conversations about how the war can end. So it's supposed to be substantive conversations about how that can happen and moving into governance and reconstruction.

The entire phase two was described in four sentences. It wasn't a particularly long annex. The whole point is you were supposed to negotiate to get into that. The Israelis have said under no circumstances that we're leaving the Philadelphi corridor. So in many ways, that forbids a transition to phase two, but the Israelis are saying, look, the whole point of a phased approach was that they do not automatically shift.

And they'll say, the Israelis will say, look, we haven't restarted the war. So don't claim that we've got bad faith. We've put out a bridging proposal for something that would be acceptable. 50 percent upfront, we'll extend all the way through Ramadan for those who say that we're cruel, we'll extend all the way through Passover. We can talk about what the, the percentages of hostages for prisoner releases are, what humanitarian stuff, and we can take six weeks to see if we can find an agreeable outcome to have a permanent ceasefire.

And the fact that the prime minister, you know, went on television said I can agree to a permanent ceasefire in six weeks—I mean you either believe him or you don't. And I think that for Hamas, what they need to believe in order to be able to even entertain going into this is that the Trump administration does not want to see an active war in Gaza kick off again, right? That, you know, they do not want to see the return to the images. And if that's the case, and that, that's the restraint that at least then maybe they'll be able to negotiate something.

The problem is that Hamas, you know—I don't know how they're going to get there and how will the region react. Like the region has already seemingly from the leaks of the Egyptian document have said, you know, Hamas can't be in charge. Regardless of what happens, Hamas cannot enjoy, you know, governance capacity and Hamas seems to be able to agree with that. But Hamas wants a Hezbollah model where they're sort of, they're not in charge, but they're the real power broker, at least militarily. And for Israel, that's just completely unacceptable.

And so, you know, there had been reports that the Egyptians had suggested sort of a DDR modality where Hamas moves all of its weapons to a warehouse that can be monitored, and if there isn't a political process, then, you know, they can get those weapons back. But if there is that, that's how you do it.

So far, Hamas has said, absolutely not. And the question will be if they do manage to enter this Witkoff phase, what will be the pressures on Hamas to, you know, give up, you know, will they go into exile—all of these sort of questions —or won't they? And if they won't, what will the Arab states do to try and encourage them to do so? Because without that, the alternative to a negotiated solution or the back, what's the best alternative to a negotiated outcome?

Well, in this case, the Israelis have said we will prosecute the war again, even more hard than we did before. There will be no restraint from the United States. Oh, and by the way, the president's vision of a Gaza without Gazans—he might say voluntarily transfer, fine—we will push to open up the gates of Gaza to allow any Gazans to leave. And anyone who remains, well, if they've chosen to remain, we're going to prosecute this war mercilessly and, you know, put four divisions of soldiers and just go from top to bottom and clear it out.

And for many in Israel, that's what they want. But it goes back to the fundamental question. Will that sacrifice the hostages? And what does that mean? And B, is there a military solution to Hamas? If you believe there is, then this enables the Israeli right and the far right to sort of live out their fantasy to see what that actually looks like. But if you think there isn't, then this will just lead to more deaths and a war that really Gazans and Israelis don't want to return to, but will be pushed into because there's no alternative in terms of what might happen.

So that's the sort of precipice of the moment we're on. And in the back of all of this is, there are still 23 alive hostages and around 50 bodies and what will happen there.

I'll just say on that, Scott, today was a very difficult day in the Knesset, the Israeli legislative body. The prime minister was giving a response to the opposition and hostage families wanted to attend his speech and the speaker of the Knesset cleared the gallery. And there was a, there was a fight between the Knesset guards and, and hostage families and the hostage families were beaten.

And this was shown on Israeli television in terms of this, very distressing pictures. And the whole—I've spoken before about how the hostage issue has become partisan and political—but one person who really wants to see the hostages return is President Trump.

And there was one hostage, one of the emaciated members, a guy called Eli Sharabi, who went on Israeli television on their main program Uvda and spoke about his experiences, and one of the things he said was that, you know, every time it was put on the media that Itamar Ben-Gvir— the national security minister who's since resigned—said that he was going to punish Palestinian prisoners more and hurt them, we were then beaten and we were then stopped. So everything you did to them was us. And it was a shocking thing that Israelis heard. And Itamar Ben-Gvir accused this hostage of repeating Hamas propaganda to weaken them, you know, and so it's all sort of bubbling up and boiling.

But what's interesting is that Eli Sharabi has been invited to Washington. I'm pretty sure he'll be at the joint session of Congress tomorrow. Apparently Miriam Adelson's flown him over. President Trump wants to meet him.

And ironically, as it's been said that he's flying over for the first time, the prime minister, prime minister Netanyahu called Eli Sharabi and said, you know, I know it's taken us a long time to speak, but it's important to tell President Trump what you're feeling.

So there's this feeling like the person who really cares about the hostages is President Trump. Much like how President Biden was also seen as someone who really cared about the hostages more than the politics of that. And sitting behind all of this, and I know this has been a lot to sort of sort through.

And sitting behind all of this is the IDF's initial investigation into the failures of Oct. 7 came out this week, and it was a disaster. You can see like what happened in the kibbutzim, what happened here, what happened there. Interestingly, despite the fact that it was claimed that it was Gazan workers who had spied on Israeli kibbutzim, the report demonstrated that wasn't the case. It was soldiers who were just loose on social media, gave mapping of the bases that Hamas was able to see. So, you know, lots of things that were said and had huge emotive impacts and closed off policy options turned out not to be true.

And in the background, there's been this desire and this demand that there is a state inquiry and the prime minister has resisted a state inquiry saying, I'm not going to do that, I want a Knesset inquiry instead. And this is one of the debates that the hostage families were having in the Knesset when they were thrown out.

And so all of this, again, it's all boiling again on what's going to happen. And so this is sort of the pressure. Can we get into another phase that can lead to the hostage releases?

I'll finish off this long answer with this. Jon Polin, who is Hersh Goldberg-Polin's father, made a comment to the podcast Unholy where he said, look, you know, I don't understand why we can't prioritize getting the hostages out now and then dealing with Hamas later. You know, if President Trump's got us back, you know, if we get the hostages out now and in six weeks we can't do or whatever it is, if you have to withdraw from Philadelphi and then you have to go back in triple hard, why can't we prioritize their lives today? I don't understand.

He's like, you know, whether we want to debate, if there's a military solution or there's not fine, there can be debate. But there should be no debate that we could save these people's lives today and return to the war another time. And that's really the central debate that's happening in Israel right now. And is, is incredibly emotive in terms of what's happening.

Scott R. Anderson: So of course, Gaza remains and has been the focus of a lot of the conversations around the region around Israeli-Palestinian relations really for the last two years, almost now. But we also have significant developments happening in the West Bank in relation to the Palestinian Authority.

Let me start actually with something that was a little bit of a lower profile, but might have been a big deal certainly before Oct. 7. And that is the fact that we appear to have reached some sort of agreement regarding prisoner payments, something that has been a major burr in the U.S.-Palestinian relationship, including potential legal obstacle in relation to certain claims against the Palestinian Authority and the PLO that are currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Talk to us about this compromise on prisoner payments that appears to be sticking, at least at the time being, and how it may fit into this broader narrative about U.S.-Palestinian relations and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Joel Braunold: Sure, so the major demand of the PA since around 2018 when the Taylor Force Act was passed was that they reform their, their prisoner payment system. Now, the Palestinians have a prisoner payment system that uses the length of service, the length of time someone's been convicted to work out how much money their family can get, or if in terms of martyr payments. And so Americans and Israelis as well as lots of other people have said that that's incentivize, that's incentivizing terror, and until the PA stops that practice they should be sanctioned.

And so the U.S. created the Taylor Force Act that prevented any economic support funds to going to the PA that would directly benefit the PA as long as this, as you mentioned. There were also jurisdictional elements that was put into the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act as amended and other parts. And the Israelis also started deducting money that they were using for this following the U.S. passage of the law, and have subsequently passed additional laws that allow victims of terror to sort of take deductions off from what they've deducted from that amount so that they can be, they can be compensated.

So throughout the Biden administration, there had been a huge amount of diplomacy done to try and get this over the line. And there's been some good reporting of this. Jacob Magid of Times of Israel did a, did a long piece about the history of this, as did a few others, Axios, of course. But it, it appears that during the, the Biden administration, they go all the way up to sort of the line President Abbas didn't sign the decree.

And this new model is, is transitioning the Palestinians to a welfare based system. where everyone who is needy gets to apply for welfare. There are 42 different checks on what that welfare would look like. There is no consideration to sort of prison lengths of service or what you've done.

You know, if you are a rich family and your breadwinner goes to jail, you're not going to get anything. If you're a poor person and your breadwinner goes to jail, there's a whole series of checks. Do you have a card, do you have a washing machine, like in a standard World Bank system.

And so it's run through a new sort of semi-government entity called PNEEI, that a PLO executive member, Ahmed Majdalani runs, and it's separate. And the, the reports are that the PA had really negotiated this closely with the State Department so that the whole point of this exercise was not hoodwinking people, it's very easy to figure out, but that the new system would comply with U.S. standing law.

And they didn't get it all the way to the finish line by the end of Biden, you know, but two weeks ago, I think, or three weeks ago, President Abbas basically on a Monday published a declaration that he's enacted this law and the new system's in place.

So what happened? The Israelis quickly said, it's a lie. It's, it's a con, don't believe them. Ignore it. But what was interesting was that it took around 36 hours, but the Trump State Department welcomed it with cautious optimism, as did some skeptics like Sander Gerber, who was the author, you know, one of the big advocates of the law.

And others saying, look, I'm very skeptical, and if it's real, we'll see protests in the streets of Ramallah because lots of people will lose their money, but we should be cautiously optimistic. And let's, let's not trust, but verify. And so now the State Department is going, as this new system is implemented, is going to have to go in and actually verify that it complies with Taylor Force.

Now, Taylor Force is a three part test. It's not just changing the system. They have to also continue security cooperation with the Israelis and condemn acts of terror. So all three of those need to be met in order to satisfy Taylor Force. And if the certification is made, it needs to be made every, every 180 days.

It wasn't just the Americans asking for this. Europeans conditioned—as one of their KPIs of their assistance to the PA—said one of the critical elements of a reformed revitalized PA is prisoner payment reform. And so that was also important for the Europeans. And for the region, if they're going to invest in a post-Gaza that involves at all the PA or if they're going to help out the PA in the West Bank, they want to see reform and part of that reform is prisoner payments and was sort of very important.

Since the announcement, President Abbas seemingly made a statement in Fatah that claimed that, you know, people would continue to get their money. It was unclear if he was talking about they have got their money or they will get their money, but that caused a lot of skepticism.

But basically, we're all waiting to see if the State Department will certify, you know, once this new system is officially in place, I think it's supposed to start being in place starting this month.  

And then the Israeli system basically has an annual check. So every year they'll go through and they'll check by looking at the bank accounts. So the Israelis will know in a year about whether this is real or not. In the previous year, they did see payments to prisoners dropped by 20 percent. So they only deducted 80 percent of what they did before. Part of that is because of the cross cutting nature of just the cuts that were going through the PA. So everyone was getting less, but other parts I think is that, you know, cutting out Hamas people from the system and others that, you know, sort of how it works.

So we'll see in terms of as it moves forward, but the prisoner payment reform, you know, it depends what school of thought you're in. If you believe that the incentivizing for terror was one of the main reasons people committed acts of terror, this is a historic transformation and should be seen as that.

If you think it was like one of many different things, then it's an important step along the way. But either way, it shouldn't be diminished. But again, the proof is in the pudding, and should the certification happen, it should look over a, turn over a new leaf, that the PA is doing different things.

And to the point about protests, there were protests and President Abbas fired the head of the Prisoners Club, Qadura Fares. And if it was just a fake reform, he wouldn't be firing the head of the Prisoners Club. So there have been protests and anger in the, you know, and we'll see if that protest and anger continues.

Scott R. Anderson: And this is kind of an interesting development because, of course, it's happening at both an incredibly tense moment in the West Bank where the PA is still the governing authority, but also a moment where we're getting other reports of the PA pivoting strategy a little bit.

This past weekend in the Times, they ran a lengthy report describing how the PA's own security forces—which at this point actually have quite a long history of close cooperation with Israeli security forces. One that has suffered a bit in recent years due to lapses in U.S. cooperation of foreign assistance, which facilitated at various points, certainly has suffered challenges the last few years, but nonetheless has a longer history of when many people credit as fairly successful joint security cooperation.

They’re now actually taking a much more assertive stance against local extremist groups, in particular, Palestine Islamic Jihad, a couple of other groups. They’re essentially cracking down on them after initially being a little avoidant of direct conflict content to allow the Israelis to aggressively target them. Now the PA forces are doing the same thing, even as Israelis are also launching their own offensive that are often quite controversial in terms of their consequences for Palestinians in the West Bank.

Talk about the dynamics in the West Bank right now. Is the PA trying to posture itself in a certain political position because of the potential for a settlement in Gaza, because of global scrutiny of what Israel is doing in West Bank? What explains these different shifts and what is the trajectory of events in West Bank right now?

Joel Braunold: I think there's a few different motivating factors. So, as you mentioned, it started off in Jenin. There was the Jenin camp sort of group that was, you know, shot at the PA forces and everything else. I think there was an attempt to see if the PA could go in there and actually deal with this.

And there were a few things. One, I think what happened in Syria, you know, with, Jolani's forces of reconstituting Syria and that coming up was a question about, you know, would the same thing happen in the West Bank, right? Would, would you start seeing people trying to overthrow the PA and going, so the PA had to show dominance and assertiveness. You also had at the beginning of the ceasefire, Hamas thanking the militants in the camps, and one of Hamas's strategies was to try and create a collapse of the PA. And so the PA was also being challenged by that.

In addition, if the PA wants to eventually come back into Gaza, it needs to demonstrate it controls the territory in area A, right—I'm not even talking about B, but in area A, that it can control those territories. And so there was a real sort of, you know, get off the pot moment, like you need to actually demonstrate that you have security control or you don't.

I think that they were hopeful—there was a there was a tribal agreement that then broke down and then the Israelis sort of went in pretty hard and have stayed there. But as the Times report said, and others, the PA demonstrated, if not capacity, but intent. The intent that they were willing to actually do the hard thing and, you know, what the pre-state of Israel or just after Israel was founded when the Altalena ship where, you know, the IDF basically had to shoot at their own militant groups to demonstrate one person, one gun, that this was a moment for the PA and the PASF, the security forces, to demonstrate there's one authority and there's one gun.

And so I think there was, and there has been a shift in terms of demonstrating that there is an authority and that authority actually has that, you know—the intent was there. Whether they have the capacity, I think is still a question, but the intent demonstrates there is a desire because if you are going to build models of the PA returning to Gaza or the PA extending its reach in the West Bank—whatever it might be, it requires them to have security control. If there is no security control, then what is anyone talking about?

So I think that's why you've seen that. But when taken together with the prisoner payment reform, I think you can demonstrate that the PA recognizes this is an existential moment for them. And that they either are, you know, the state in waiting and that requires them to act as such and, you know, work with that or they're not.

And the region, if they're going to invest, again, heavily in a future Palestinian state through the PA, with the PA, they need to have confidence that this will be reformed and revitalized PA. The region split—you know, the UAE is very antagonistic towards Mahmoud Abbas personally. The Qataris want to sort of see more of a Hamas Fatah sort of technocratical political unity. I think the Saudis don't want to see what happened in Iraq and it's just like, don't replace what's there. And, you know, we need to make sure that during transition, it's not chaos, but let's at least try and see what happens.

I think the Jordanians are terrified for their own skin, probably same with the Egyptians. And so the region’s constantly triangulating, what to do sort of. Abbas is very much the odd man out. Everyone wants him to do something that will put him in their corner and I think he wants to maintain some semblance of independence.

But what I found remarkable was it was reported that when early on, Steve Witkoff went to Riyadh, that the Saudis, you know, put him with Hussein al-Sheikh, the general secretary of the PLO. And apparently coming out of that meeting. The PA said that they were willing to work off the deal of the century as like an opening starter, which is a huge transition from sort of 2020. And so we've seen the PA actually now try and, you know, open up with the Trump administration in a positive dynamic.

I'll also say something, you know, because you said about the deadlines. We haven't heard anything about annexation, but again, a difference between the Trump administration and the Biden administration. The Biden administration decided to try and use the ceasefire as the opening for everything, right? If we can just get into phase one, the momentum will carry, we'll end the war; we'll set regional normalization on; we'll try and get a pathway to two states—it's the, it's the unlocking key to everything.

I think with the Trump administration, they just want to see the ceasefire hold and the war not to return to Gaza. If that happens, we can talk about everything else, but they don't want to see, for example, the Arab states condition everything on everything else.

And so you've got sort of disconnect. Again, the Trump administration, you know, whether it's Trump's plan for Gaza, was it just to sort of shake the cage of the region to have them come up with an idea? That was pretty effective if that was what it was, but it did change Israeli polity because they all sort of shifted in that direction. The Israelis haven't come up with their own plan. Yair Lapid was in D.C. last week and the FDD, he gave his own plan for Gaza, saying it should be under Egyptian guarantorship for eight years.

So the opposition is coming up with plans. The coalition is seemingly still not coming up with plans because they can't. And the region's trying to come up with plans, but the Trump administration's like, look, let's keep the ceasefire going. That is issue A, B, C, D, E, and F. Let's keep it going, and once it's going, we can talk about everything else. If we can get to an end of the war, we can build off that and then do something, rather than pack it all into one. And so I think that's also been a distinct shift in strategy.

Scott R. Anderson: Well, let's take a step outside the Palestinian territories to other countries in the region, because of course, we have major developments happening with two other countries where Israel is involved militarily on its borders: Lebanon, and then perhaps most of all, Syria.

In Syria, of course, we have a new regime headed by what was once known as HTS—still transitional at this point, figuring out its own governance picture—but came close to being at blows or potentially at least threats of being coming up blows with Israel over the past few days, in part because threats or at least perceived threats against Druze communities in Syria that led to Israel kind of projecting not, you know, deploying troops, particularly south of Damascus in particular, I think is the one line that I heard echoed most of the media.

Meanwhile, we're having a debate about Israeli withdrawal pursuant to, you know, broader negotiations from Lebanon; we’re past a deadline where that was the original intent and Israel has declined to withdraw from at least a couple of strategic locations in southern Lebanon as originally planned.

So talk to us about both of those. Let's start with Syria first. Where are we in Syria and how big a conflagration was this recent kind of spike in tensions?

Joel Braunold: I mean, so the Israelis have decided to take a tack that seemingly no one else in the world has taken. If you look at, you know, the Amer—no one knows what the Trump administration policy is towards Syria, but at least congressionally, it seems that there has been this desire to sort of relax sanctions in order to allow this new governing capacity to come in.

And it was publicly reported in Reuters that the Israelis are pushing hard against that, saying, no, this is still jihadists in suits, don't do it, don't do it. Whereas the rest of the world—you know, the Brits are negotiating between the Turks, and, you know, the Kurds, you know, the rest of the region is welcoming Jolani in and is trying to see if this can be something moving to a constitutional authority.

The same time you've got the Israeli foreign minister and defense minister sort of lobbing literal and literary bombs over the side, right? So, you know, what sort of democracy is this? You know, you know, if he's appointing everyone and everything else, don't believe them, don't believe them.

And the Israelis decided to cotton on to the Druze community, who make up the parts south of Damascus and southern Syria to say, we will be the defenders of the Druze. And if no one else is there, we will be there and we will, we will defend them. And they took an issue, you know, apparently someone from a Druze neighborhood shot at someone. And then there was a question of how would security forces go in? It seems like it solved itself over the weekend, but the Israelis really ramped up very quickly with the rhetoric, as you said, that we will, we will ensure no one will come in.

They're really desperate to try and prevent the new Syrian state from sort of solidifying that southern part of it. And they're using the Druze as this part of it, and are offering the Druze work visas into Israel, saying we are defenders of the Druze, the Druze are part of us. Sort of ironic for those of us who, you know, remember that the Druze community is furious with the Israelis for not being part of the nation state law.

Throughout the entire Syrian conflict, you know, there have been actually marked things where Israel did welcome Syrian refugees into the hospitals. Very importantly, there was no need for them to do so, but they did say lots of good things, but there was never this focus on the need to be defensive with the Druze. Is this just sort of taking old Assad-ist stuff with some Druze to try and create their own statelet?  

It seems what they're really scared about, even more so than Jolani. is that Erdogan will basically control something very close to their border. And for the Israelis, despite the fact that Erdogan is of course a member of NATO, they fear the Turks more than they fear the Russians. So the Israelis sent, you know, the Prime Minister sent his military secretary to Russia to basically say, keep your base there and told the Americans you should keep their base there because rather it was their base than a Turkish base. People were surprised.

And they don't want to see Erdogan gain any more power and authority near them and would rather the Russians there and like some, whatever, a statelet of Druze, and they're willing to allow people to come in and out, rather than have the Turks controlled Syria anywhere close to them and sort of dictating terms in any way, shape or form.

And this is at the exact same time that, of course, given the Ukraine dynamics, that the entire of Europe is coming far closer to Turkey. And that Turkey is being seen as a real guarantor Euro-Asian security, given the size of its army and its military capacity.

So the Israelis basically are going out very much on an independent edge by themselves, and in many ways, the only people they hope to catch them are the Americans. And so you're upping your dependency with this presidency while also becoming more independent to the whole region. It's a gamble. I understand the logic of the gamble.

If that's what you're really worried about, and you think there's an opportunity to build new allies and to create a territorial buffer, I understand it. But it is a gamble nonetheless, because if everyone else disagrees with you, and the only person who might semi agree with you is the Trump administration, how much more in debt do you want to be? Like, it might all work out fine, or it might not. And the Trump administration is not going to be there in four years. It will be a different administration. And then what do you do?

And so there's, it's a real risk, and apparently there was a report in Israel Hayom that the Azerbaijani national security advisor who was in Israel, offered to mediate between Erdogan and the Prime Minister; I don't think that's gone very well. So, you know, Israel-Turkish relations are far more important regionally than just the relationships between Ankara and Israel, which still exist. I mean, they're very much a nadir, right? It's very bad, right? Very low point. And if nadir’s a high point, but a very low point, but this affects that.

When it comes to Lebanon, of course, the previous administration negotiated a Lebanon deal. And I think the Israeli perspective is like, look, when the LAF, the Lebanese Armed Forces actually take over that space, we’ll withdraw. Until that point, we're not going to withdraw. We're not, we're not obeying fake timelines. We're not doing anything else. You know, I'll say that's pre-Oct. 6 thinking. Once they demonstrate capacity, we can have a conversation, but we're not just doing that and Hezbollah gets back to go there because it says so.

And it looks like that they won favor with the Trump administration there. The Americans and the French are the co-guarantors of that agreement. You know, again, they're not going to the south of Damascus there, you know, whether they're in violation or not, it seems like the guarantors said, okay, when the LAF could actually do it, then we can have a conversation.

So the Lebanese front seems less, at least at this point, like blowing up and shrinking down whereas the Syrian front every day, it seems to be like something else. Like they said they were going to go in and then they didn't. And they said, they're not going to allow Jolani to be there. And then it's like, will you, won't you? Do the new Druze community really want to side with Israel given its popularity status in Syria right now? Or do they not? What does that look like? These are all questions that are sort of being figured out as it goes and are extremely high stakes.

Scott R. Anderson: Well, speaking of the United States role in these conflicts, we've seen one other front where we've seen a couple of developments in the last few days in particular that represents a bit of a pivot or a potential pivot of the Trump administration in terms of a new tack towards Israel in particular.

And that is shifts in foreign assistance. On the one hand, we have seen foreign assistance get cut off that was playing a substantial role in, among other things facilitating certain types of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and a variety of kind of development work, particularly in the West Bank and other areas.

That's part of the broader kind of macro global program where we've seen foreign assistance suspended at least for 90 days. Although at this point, a vast majority of U.S. foreign assistance actually has been canceled, at least under existing contracts. And I believe many of these were actually in that latter bucket where it's more of a permanent disruption at this phase.

At the same time, we've seen the Trump administration really trumpet the fact that it is leaning into security assistance to Israel. We've seen them essentially say we are revoking the Biden administration national security presidential memorandum policy that imposed largely hypothetical limits in practice with a couple of small exceptions during the Biden administration on security assistance, and said restoring security assistance.

And not only that, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he was expediting some of it under emergency provision. I was talking about this with a colleague. I believe this is essentially an effort to bypass what would normally be a congressional notification process that would include an opportunity to put an informal hold, including by minority, on that particular type of security assistance.

Instead, by using this emergency provision, they're able to bypass that process and avoid even the potential of what is an informal kind of handshake agreement hold. We saw the Trump administration do that with security assistance to Saudi Arabia and UAE relating to Yemen during the first Trump administration. We think that's the same move happening today. Although I should say my colleague and I weren't 100 percent sure, we weren't able to pin that down exactly.

Talk to us about what it is, what these sorts of shifts tell us, both about what the Trump administration is doing in terms of its policy and the practical ramifications that will adhere to the conflict and parties on the ground.

Joel Braunold: Sure. Alright, let's start here. So like, in a previous job I was the head of the Alliance for Middle East Peace, and I, I lobbied very hard to help create what became the Middle East Partnership for Peace Act, or the Lowey Fund, which was one of the few actually authorized, as well as appropriated, pieces of aid that exist in our foreign aid system, seeing as that we don't do authorizations anymore.

But it was an authorized and appropriated fund for Israeli-Palestinian people to people in economic development run by USAID and DFC. As part of the bonfire of USAID, all of those contracts were terminated. The Trump administration can rebirth MEPPA in some way, if it would like, whether through the DFC or maybe through state, the author, the authorities and the money exists because it was done in the right way. But at the moment that's all been canceled.

So, I mean, tens of millions of dollars leaving the field at a time where dehumanization is peaking is not ideal, right? People who had, you know, four, five, six year contracts. Israeli, you know, Arab and Jewish schools environmental programs, lots of different things that were being funded, hospitals that were doing heart operations for Palestinians, like all this stuff like just cancelled instantaneously, multi-year grants, but it's one of the millions of different programs that you can read about that USAID sort of cancelled up. So that's on that.

In addition, the U.S. is one of the prime providers of training and security assistance for the Palestinian Security Forces, the PASF, through the United States, the USS, the United States Security Coordinator, which actually technically reports directly to the Secretary of State. It's a three star who sits in Jerusalem. So that money was frozen.

I don't know if it was terminated. It's a State Department grant rather than USAID. But I think like everything, it was frozen. I don't think it was targeted to be frozen and it might be switched back on. There are other countries that contribute, so last I checked, I think the money is flowing through other countries while the U.S. works out if it wants to turn it on or doesn't.

The U.S. traditionally, you know, Congress's main way of influencing administration decisions on Palestine has traditionally been through restricting the ability of an administration to deal with the Palestinians, whether that's diplomatically or through appropriations. So the fact that there are no appropriations going because everything's been suspended or on hold, you know, I didn't, you know, Congress doesn't really have a role to play in that.

I mean, even should the Taylor Force Act be satisfied, there are still legal impediments for the U.S. ever giving money, even if it shows due to the PA. And even if the U.S. wanted to provide funding for the reconstruction of Gaza, I don't see President Trump going for that. I mean, a commercial deal maybe, but nothing in terms of a grant based approach, maybe something, or small if it's leveraged.

You know, there are dozens of laws—and I think I made this point online—ow an administration can go back to funding ESF support in the West Bank and Gaza, giving the vetting requirements and there's no one left to do any of those vetting requirements. I don't see how, even if you switch it back on, without hiring people to do the congressional vetting, the partner vetting systems. I don't see how you can do it. You know, it's extremely vetted and audited money and everything else in there.

So those have been sort of the impacts of sort of the aid cutoff. In terms of the weapons work and the NSM—NSM-20 was a classic example, as you said, of hypothetical threats, right? It was a huge hullabaloo, should the secretary, you know, say, sign that they're in line with IHL, or are they not in line with IHL, and in the end he signed it, so you took all the political hits for no policy outcome whatsoever, right?

And so the Trump administration just said, well, we're getting rid of the NSM-20. NSM-20 was standing law anyway, so technically to participate in Export Control Act stuff anyway, they need to be following international humanitarian law and enabling U.S. assistance to go in. And it's at the say so of the Secretary of State. So the secretary could just say they're compliant, which is basically what he's doing with the emergency declarations.

I think that the last tranchard that was this week or at the end of last week was for 2026 and 2027 in terms of the smart bombs, the 2000 pound bombs and the D9s. So this is like ongoing armaments and other parts that are supposed to go there, but it's supposed to demonstrate to the Israelis that, you know, we are the most pro-Israel government ever.

And again, I think I mentioned on a previous pod, a lot of this is look how pro-Israel we are, look at all this stuff, stop the war in Gaza. Right. Again, I'm not going to force you to stop the war in Gaza. If you want to go, go. Right. But we want you to prioritize hostage release and get them out.

So it's sort of like always demonstrating we're not going to push the Netanyahu government anywhere they don't want to go. We're just, that's not the game. And we're also not going to suggest stuff from D.C. If you guys come up with ideas that you think are great, cool, we're for it. And tell us what you need from us and we'll, we'll decide if it's in our interest.

But we're not in the game of you know, finding bridging proposals and sort of running around after you and forcing you into things. We want there to be, I'm the president of peace. I want there to be peace. I want there to be good lives for everyone, all the other things. And that, that's the driving force. And by the way, we're not, you know, they're our ally. If they wanna spend their money to buy this stuff, I think that their money question is gonna be very interesting.

Scott, when it comes to the MOU, are we really going to be giving $38 billion as a grant to anyone ever again, or will it be a loan? I personally think it will be alone. And then what happens if a different administration calls it due? It goes back to the dependency question.

I think one of the most interesting things when you look at the U.S. is two sided. When it comes to the Trump administration, you know, you don't need to be Ukrainian to say this, being very dependent on the U.S. when you've got a president who can change his mind on things is difficult. Even if you think you're in the belly and the heart, what happens if one day you're not?

I mean, you need to consider these outcomes. So, upping your dependency during this period is complicated, because what will it cost? And on the flip side, according to the latest Gallup poll, support for Israel amongst Democrats is down to 33%. Right. It's just fallen like a stone.

So there will be one day when Democrats are in charge again, and if you are doing long term things, it requires over multiple administrations. What's it look like when the pendulum swings back the other way? And, you know, if you've been so associated with President Trump, like it or loathe it, then, you know, the other party in power is going to have to deal with it.

So again, is now the time to up your dependency, whether it's about the short term or the medium-long term. It's a real question on all of your questions of how you do this. And it seems to me when we look across the entire spectrum, from the ceasefire to the West Bank and everything else, it seems constantly the Israelis are waiting for Witkoff.

I mean, one of the points about Zionism is that you make decisions by yourself and for yourself. But the inability for this coalition to deal with the fundamental problem set, right, which is what do you do with Gaza in a post war reality? The pieces don't change just because the administration's changed in Washington, right? It is still a hard problem.

If you push all the Palestinians into Egypt, and then you get attacks from Egypt, what, you're suddenly in a shooting war with Egypt? If it destabilizes Jordan and Jordan collapses, that's better for your security? Or is that worse for your security? Like, you know, if you're gonna go full Kahanist and just, you know, disperse the population, there are consequences to that down the road outside of the moral horror show of what that is, as well as the international legal requirements of what that is.

I'm not talking voluntary, whether you can have voluntary in a war zone, notwithstanding, right? These are the real questions now. These aren't thought experiments. If you're going to talk about it, talk about it and own the consequences. If you destabilize Egypt and Jordan, then what? What does that do to your security, your security envelope and everything else?  These are the hard questions.

At the moment, the coalition is just hiding behind the administration saying, we'll do the Trump vision. What does that mean? Like, you know, there is no, there is a, we'll take over Gaza. Okay. What, what's the steps, if you assume that's real, what's the steps from here to here? The U.S. said we're not giving troops and we're not giving money to do it. So who is? Because the region's not going to pay for that. So the Israeli taxpayer’s paying for that, the Israeli army's doing it, and then the taxpayer's paying for that. You know, be, be serious about this.

I mean, you might disagree with Yair Lapid's plan for Egypt and the Egyptians have rejected it. But he tried to enter a serious proposition into that space. And even he at the end said, eventually the PA is going to have to come back once they've reformed. Mark Dubowitz was very dubious about this. He's apologized for his support for the two-state solution.

But the problem set doesn't just change because you think that the current solutions have all gone. Okay, they've all gone, so come up with something new. Okay, so you want voluntary transfer from Gaza. So let's assume 800,000 people leave. There's still a million people. What are you going to do?

Like, each of these require a serious conversation on this. And I think that at the moment, there's been an avoidance of that, with the hope that Trump will fix it, with sort of a big red button. I think what we've seen is that D.C. won't push Israel to do anything they don't want to do. But I don't see them coming to the rescue either, using their own resources.

And so that's sort of the amalgamation of what's going to happen next, where we're all sort of waiting and seeing.  And the Israelis can't even decide to open the gates of hell by themselves as the ceasefire ended without checking with Mr. Witkoff first, like that seems to be in contradiction with other parts.

So whether it's all behind the scenes, and this is the amazing work from the Trump administration restraining the parties, whatever it is, it seems at this point everyone, at least on Gaza, is waiting for Mr. Witkoff.

There hasn't been decisions made on the West Bank.  The Arab plan's coming out tomorrow. They're going to have to try and work out what this Rubik's cube plays. But if no one puts something into the middle, whoever puts the thing into the middle will own the pen, and then you'll edit that plan.

And at the moment, the only one that seemingly is putting something into the middle are the Arab states. And so that's going to be the pen of which things will be edited with.

Scott R. Anderson: That gives us a ton to look out for in the weeks and months to come a lot of fronts that are very fast moving. But for the moment, we are out of time. Joel Braunold, thank you for joining us once again here on the Lawfare Podcast.

Joel Braunold: Thanks for having me.

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