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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. I want to start today by playing a few clips from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's Israel-Palestine speech on the Senate floor yesterday that are not the simple soundbite you've probably been hearing in the newscasts about Benjamin Netanyahu.

Then we'll have a conversation with two guests about how to get to yes on some kind of ceasefire. Israel and Hamas are stuck in those negotiations, as you probably know. Reports are that scores of civilians or more are still being killed every day, as well as the fact that the Israeli hostages continue to be held. There's tremendous urgency from a humanitarian standpoint, but like with any ceasefire, it will take both warring parties to agree. First, to these speech excerpts from Schumer. We have the luxury of time on this show, unlike the news programs with a tighter clock, so we'll stretch out just a little bit beyond what they can do.

What you probably have heard that I won't bother to replay is that Schumer called Prime Minister Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and a two-state solution, along with Hamas Palestinian Authority leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and radical right Israelis. He mentioned all four of those. You've probably heard that Schumer called for new elections in Israel once the war in Gaza starts to wind down, and accused Netanyahu of being too willing to tolerate the civilian death toll in Gaza, and of pushing Israel toward the status of a pariah state. Schumer used that term "pariah."

That's the part you probably know, and that by itself is a very big deal. The Israeli newspaper, Haaret, for example, called the speech a watershed moment in Israel-US relations. Fred Kaplan, who writes about the Middle East for Slate had an article with the headline that the speech seems like a turning point.

Here are a few more Schumer excerpts. Number one, right at the beginning of the speech, Schumer identified himself as the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in United States history and claimed that he was not speaking just for himself.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: I speak for myself, but I also speak for so many mainstream Jewish Americans, a silent majority whose nuanced views on the matter have never been well represented in this country's discussions about the war in Gaza.

Brian Lehrer: Schumer believes his are the views of what he calls a silent majority of mainstream Jewish Americans. He may have started new conversations at many Jewish American family dinner tables, those who aren't already talking about Netanyahu's fitness to remain in charge or not. We'll see, I guess, over these coming nights.

Next clip. As much as he singled out Netanyahu by name on the Israeli side, and everybody knows who Netanyahu is, Schumer also singled out two of Netanyahu's cabinet ministers who Schumer identified as leading right-wing radicals who need to be denounced by name, obviously people who are not as much household names in the United States. Let's listen.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: The worst example of this radicalism are Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Ministry of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Minister Smotrich has in the past openly called for the subjugation and forced displacement of all Palestinians in the West Bank. In the current crisis, he has used inflammatory rhetoric and called for punitive restrictions on Palestinian farmers in the West Bank during the olive harvest. He has prevented the transfer of funds to the Palestinian authority, and he has opposed the provision of any humanitarian assistance to Gaza going so far as to stop agreed-upon shipments of flour.

Minister Ben-Gvir is no better. When he was a young man, he was barred from the Israeli military service for his extremist views. Last year, in a move only intended to antagonize the Muslim population, he visited the Temple Mount with his supporters as a brazen show of force towards Palestinians. During this current conflict, he has facilitated the mass distribution of guns to far-right settlers exacerbating instability, fueling violence.

There's a nastiness to what ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, believe and how they use their positions of authority and influence and eagerness to inflame and provoke that is profoundly irresponsible and self-destructive.

Brian Lehrer: Again, Chuck Schumer from his Senate floor speech on those two, especially radical right-wing government ministers in Israel as he sees it. In fact, one of the reasons Schumer called for new elections and declared Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and a two-state solution is his refusal to call out those ministers.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: He won't disavow ministers, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and their calls for Israelis to drive Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank. He won't commit to a military operation in Rafah that prioritizes protecting civilian life. He won't engage responsibly in discussions about a day-after plan for Gaza and a longer-term pathway to peace.

Brian Lehrer: Now, some of you may wonder this about Schumer's speech; even if it broke new ground rhetorically, is it just words? Biden is getting that criticism a lot recently. Why doesn't Schumer just sign on to the resolution from another Jewish senator, Bernie Sanders. That would invoke the US Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits security assistance to any government "which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights?" That quote is from the law, the US Foreign Assistance Act. Schumer did not go that far yesterday, but he did suggest that the time may be coming when he might.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: If Prime Minister Netanyahu's current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing US standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.

Brian Lehrer: There are some excerpts, folks, from the Schumer floor speech, excerpts that you may not have heard for a closer look as we can do here on our long-form show. In a minute, we'll play one more clip from the speech about what kind of ceasefire Schumer supports or doesn't support, because as it happens, even before Schumer's speech, we were planning to have a conversation today in this segment with two guests about how to get to yes on some kind of ceasefire.

As I mentioned earlier, Israel and Hamas are stuck in those negotiations, even as reports are that scores of civilians or more are still being killed every day, as well as the fact that Israeli hostages continue to be held. There's tremendous urgency from a humanitarian standpoint, but like with any ceasefire, it will take both war and parties to agree.

We're hoping now to not have a debate, but a solutions workshop, if you will, on how to get the situation unstuck. As we try to do often on the show, we hope to get beyond the usual debate over which side is worse, to other substantive questions and maybe even answers. Let me introduce our guests.

Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, where he also directs their program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs. He is author of the book Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump, published by the Brookings Institution Press. He previously served as a fellow in the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings for eight years and was an advisor to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on permanent status negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009, and was a key participant in the Annapolis negotiations of 2007 and 2008. Elgindy is also an adjunct instructor in Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

Also with us, Jon Alterman, who directs the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He also teaches at Johns Hopkins and George Washington Universities, and was previously a special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and from 2009 to 2019, a member of the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel. Thank you very much for joining us today. Welcome both of you to WNYC.

Khaled Elgindy: Thank you, Brian.

Jon Alterman: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Before we discuss these fire scenarios specifically, I'm curious to hear each of your basic reactions to Senate Majority Leader Schumer's speech and how much you each think it is some watershed moment as Haaretz put it, and whether it can have any actual impact on anything in the short or long term. Khaled Elgindy, will you go first?

Khaled Elgindy: Yes, sure. I think Senator Schumer's speech probably came as a shock to many Israelis. I don't think anyone expected that rhetoric and tone coming from someone like Schumer who's pro-Israel bona fides are really, I think, unquestioned. It really does send this signal of enormous frustration in Washington with the Israeli leadership and with the Israeli actions, including its conduct in the war.

It also represents a seismic shift in American domestic politics where, in particular, the Democratic Party has shifted very, very far on this issue. It's also an acknowledgment as a Democratic majority leader in the Senate, that his own party has changed, and that American policy will eventually have to change as well.

The problem is that there's a little bit of dissonance there because Senator Schumer talks about the dangerous and inflammatory policies pursued by the Netanyahu government but these are the very same policies that have been sustained by the Biden administration for almost six months now. There are some kinks that need to be worked out, but it is an important shift.

Brian Lehrer: Jon Alterman, your reaction to the Schumer speech?

Jon Alterman: As Khaled said, Senator Chuck Schumer's bona fides on Israel are impressive, but he took the time at the beginning of his speech to lay them out. He talked about his affection, his connection to Israel. He talked about how his name. Schumer comes from the Hebrew word, Shomer, to guard. He feels himself to be a guardian of Israel. The whole first part of the speech was establishing his legitimacy, as what I think a lot of people in Jewish community call lover of Zion, to say where Israel is going is incredibly damaging to Israel's interests, the interests of the community that supports Israel.

The other piece that I just wanted to respond to that Khaled Elgindy was talking about where the Democratic Party has shifted on Israel, there used to be, in the 1950s and '60s, that Israel is a Democratic issue, not a Republican issue. In 1970s, it became more of a bipartisan issue. Since the 1990s, Israel has become increasingly a Republican issue. Sometimes when I've been to AIPAC events, I sit at tables where overwhelmingly the participants of the table are not northeast American Jews, but evangelical Christians from the Midwest.

This is something that Benjamin Netanyahu pioneered as a strategy for US-Israeli relations starting in the '90s. He felt it was a way to ensure that Israel remained a bipartisan issue by really bringing some hardline Republicans along to support Israel. What we've seen over the last 25 years is, as more and more of those evangelical Christians have become more supportive of more conservative or more right-wing Israeli governments, we're seeing significant attrition in parts of the Democratic Party is saying this isn't what we ever signed up for.

Brian Lehrer: Largely because of Netanyahu, and continued settlement in the West Bank, and things like that, yes?

Jon Alterman: Netanyahu is often misunderstood as a right-wing leader. I think Netanyahu is a centrist Israeli leader. He has a superb sense of where the center of Israeli politics is and it's largely where he's been. What happened after the last election, he had to bring on extreme right-wing figures who would have been unthinkable to be included in a party before but he couldn't form a coalition either way. That's driven him so he's now with the left of his party, whereas traditionally, Netanyahu for most of his 16 years of Prime Minister has been really in the middle.

Brian Lehrer: Khaled, I think Jon is saying there that Netanyahu, as much as he's seen as radical in this country, represents a fairly mainstream Israeli public opinion. I have seen some early reaction coming from Israel to Senator Chuck Schumer's speech that even among people who oppose Netanyahu in Israel and even oppose him from his left, they're a little bit like, stay out of our domestic affairs. Some of them are. Some of them aren't. I wonder, given that, and given what Jon was just saying, how much impact do you think the Schumer speech has on anything except American politics?

Khaled Elgindy: I think it will influence Israeli politics, at least to debate for a couple of days, perhaps longer. The question of where Netanyahu sits on the political spectrum is a relative one because Israeli politics, overall, have shifted very dramatically to the right over the past couple of decades. That was especially true in the last election in which these far, far-right extremists were brought into the coalition, and people who were beyond the pale, maybe 20 years ago, are now front and center policymakers and powerbrokers.

That's a reflection of the Israeli electorate. The Israeli public has moved to the right, the Israeli Labor Party is a shell of its former self. It barely exists. There isn't much left of the Israeli left. Netanyahu, of course, being the quintessential political opportunist, he has lurched to the right to-- He's tracking the trends in Israeli politics and, of course, he needed a far-right coalition just to be in power.

There's something deeper going on than just the person of Netanyahu. That's where there's a little bit of, I think, where some of the dissonance comes from is the problem isn't with the person of Netanyahu. Yes, he's highly problematic but there's broad public and political support for just about everything Benjamin Netanyahu is doing, certainly in Gaza. Even to an extent in the West Bank, there is not a lot of opposition to the occupation, to the settlements, and so forth.

To the extent there is an Israeli opposition, it is about domestic issues like the role of the Orthodox in the military, or the judicial reforms, or the overhaul that Netanyahu was seeking that would reorganize and threaten, even, Israeli transparency and democracy. The occupation doesn't animate Israeli politics the way it might have in the past.

Brian Lehrer: Some early reaction coming in. Oh, Jon, go ahead. Do you want to keep it going? Go ahead.

Jon Alterman: One of the interesting things I would encourage listeners to do, so with modern web browsers, you can automatically translate foreign newspapers. If you look at the domestic Israeli press, that is not the Haaretz, English edition, the Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel, which are directed toward international audiences. If you look at what Israelis are reading, Yedioth Ahronoth, Maariv, you see a systematic lack of interest in conditions in Gaza, humanitarian suffering, the Israeli strategy in the war. It's about Israeli victimhood. It's about soldiers who fell on the battlefield. It's about displaced communities in Israel.

In many ways, we are reacting to a set of realities in Gaza that Israelis aren't because that's not what the Israeli press has. To me, it's not so surprising that Israeli politics are where they are because the Israeli information space in Hebrew, which as I say, everybody can look at, is really not focused on Palestinians at all. As people say, every day is October 8th. It's still immersed in Israeli suffering, Israeli vulnerability, the Israeli need to protect Israelis.

Brian Lehrer: Some early reaction to this conversation, or really to the Schumer speech, coming in on text messages. One listener writes, "As an American Jew, I'm proud of Schumer. He is correct to get to peace and ultimately a necessary two-state solution, the Israeli government has to want peace." Another listener writes, "Where was Michael Schumer when the IDF hadn't yet destroyed every Palestinian University and museum?" Yet another listener writes, "Election interference? What would we say if Putin said America should vote for Trump?"

Now, we can take a few more listener reactions to this on the phones, but I want to alert everybody that we're not going to spend the rest of the segment on reactions to Schumer. We're definitely going to do more of that on Monday, but we had something in mind for this segment that I want to still fulfill because ultimately, it's probably more urgent than whatever Chuck Schumer says and whatever we think of it. That is to the topic of a ceasefire and how to get to yes.

Yes, maybe a few reactions to Schumer on the phones in addition to that smattering of texts that I read, but also listeners on the question, what ceasefire do you support and do you have any ideas for getting the warring parties to yes on that? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. As soon as we come back from a break, we'll set that up with one more clip from Schumer's speech where he explicitly states what kind of ceasefire he would like to see.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with Jon Alterman, who directs the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, where he also directs their program on Palestine and Israeli Palestinian affairs. Now to the topic of ceasefire, and to set this up I'll play one more excerpt from Schumer's speech, in which he says explicitly that he supports a temporary, not a permanent ceasefire.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer: A permanent ceasefire effective immediately would only allow Hamas to regroup and launch further attacks on Israeli civilians. There can never be a two-state solution if Hamas has any significant power. However, a temporary ceasefire such as President Biden has proposed, which would allow for the return of hostages and humanitarian relief for suffering Palestinians is quite different and is something I support. Any proposal that leaves Hamas with meaningful power is unacceptable to me and most Israelis. It goes without saying that Hamas cannot have any role in a future Gaza if we are to achieve peace.

Brian Lehrer: All right. One more time, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer from yesterday's floor speech. Jon Alterman, is that a big reason that the negotiations are currently stuck between Israel and Hamas over the question of temporary versus permanent, and that Schumer is reflecting Israel's position there to a large degree as to why?

Jon Alterman: I think that the negotiations are stuck because Hamas wants to extract as much as it can. It thinks it's in a position of maximum leverage. It's likely to get weaker. I think they're looking for the long game, which certainly means having some ability to retain power, which I think, as Senator Schumer correctly said, that that's not going to be acceptable, I don't think, either to Israel or to frankly surrounding Arab states or the United States or really anybody else.

The harder question is what does it mean to destroy Hamas? Does it mean anybody who is ever a member of Hamas? What does it mean to be a member of Hamas? There have been some discussions on the Arab side about there being some sort of coalition which would include people from Hamas but not under a Hamas framework. Those are all the details that I think the serious people are thinking through.

For right now, what Hamas is looking for is what can they get because they are embattled. They want to show that they can outlast the Israelis and they're thinking about the long term, which is not just a year from now. The long term for Hamas is 20 years from now, and they want to be marching in Jerusalem.

Brian Lehrer: I've read that what Hamas calls a permanent ceasefire is actually only four months, but that's too long for Israel. Do I see that right, Jon?

Jon Alterman: Hamas has previously talked about they don't want a cease fire in previous conflicts. They want to put in a truce, a [unintelligible 00:24:09], a sort of quieting down. Hamas plays all kinds of games with the language. Certainly, Hamas, I think is willing to release some of the Israeli hostages. It wants to get as much as they can for those, including some prominent Palestinians out of jail. Again, I think Hamas is doing this not in a legalistic way. I think they're trying to improvise and maximize what they could get at a time when Israelis are saying many of these hostages are dying and there's urgency and there's pressure on the Netanyahu government to make some deal.

Brian Lehrer: I guess we're not at that point of Hamas buying yet, obviously. Khaled Elgindy, I gather that Hamas has rejected a plan for a six-week ceasefire that Israel, the US, and Qatar all support, if I have it right, that would involve freeing 40 out of the 100-plus hostages, and Israel would release 400 Palestinian prisoners. Is it your understanding that that's what's on the table from the US with Israeli buy-in?

Khaled Elgindy: Yes, I think that's right. I think that is what is currently on the table. As you said, Hamas wants a longer temporary ceasefire. I think the real sticking point here is Hamas is looking for some assurance that whatever duration a temporary ceasefire is, that it will in effect become a sustainable indefinite ceasefire. That's what they're looking for. They've abandoned the goal in writing explicitly stated permanency fire. That's not going to happen. That's why they want four months.

That's generally where people outside of Israel are. People, even the Biden administration, would like to see a six week ceasefire prolonged. The administration talks about building, on those six weeks, something more enduring, whatever that may mean. I think people have lost their stomach, frankly, for this really horrific war.

Everyone, especially the Israelis, and to a very large extent, the Biden administration, had climbed onto this very tall perch of total victory and zero-sum, and so they're having a hard time climbing down. Now they're using the word ceasefire, whereas they had avoided the term altogether for many months. I think that's where the holdup is. It's Hamas is looking for some reasonable assurance that it's going to go beyond six weeks, because otherwise, what's the incentive?

If we're just going to go back to the same scale of death and destruction that we've been seeing for the past five months, then frankly Hamas doesn't have a whole lot of incentive, especially when Israelis are talking about, "We're going into Rafah no matter what," and everyone expects to be--That would entail massive civilian casualties more than what we've already seen. The last remnants of Hamas is military capabilities. Again, there isn't a lot of incentive of signing on, if regardless of what happens, six weeks after a ceasefire, they're just going to pick up where they left off. I think that's where things are held up.

Jon Alterman: I can't imagine-

Brian Lehrer: Jon, go ahead.

Jon Alterman: I can't imagine that there wouldn't be a lot more to talk about after a six-week ceasefire. Nobody is talking about releasing the Israeli soldiers in this ceasefire. There would certainly be negotiations over that. I think the idea was as we had in the previous ceasefire in the fall, that you try to create patterns of compliance that creates some trust. You establish that the channels work and that you can build and build and build and build and build towards something.

I don't think that anybody expected certainly not the people negotiating this from the US side, thought that what it would be is it would just be six weeks of food, and then we go back into a living hell again. The idea is that you try to create successive rounds of compliance that lets you deal with harder questions further down the line, and you increase confidence that when you make a deal, you have a deal.

Khaled Elgindy: I think--

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, Khaled. Keep going.

Khaled Elgindy: I think that's correct, but I'm just trying to get in the heads of Hamas' leadership and say, well, that's what people are saying, but that's not what Netanyahu is saying. Netanyahu is still talking about total victory, and frankly, that is being echoed by large segments of this.

Jon Alterman: So is Hamas.

Khaled Elgindy: Sure, but who's in the position of power and leverage here? It's clearly we're talking about a hugely massively asymmetrical military situation with the looming threat of a massive invasion of Rafah where there's 1.5 million people seeking shelter, who are being starved. I'm just saying that their calculation is-- Part of it also is Netanyahu himself, personally, he needs the war to continue. He needs an operation in Rafah. He needs the war to be prolonged as long as possible for him to remain in power.

If that is a motivator and the Israeli public is all for the war and they are all for limiting humanitarian assistance, there isn't-- These are two big factors that are fueling this war; Israeli public opinion and Netanyahu's own personal political ambitions. Those can't be discounted. I'm not saying I would necessarily, if I were in their shoes, make the same calculation, but that's not an unreasonable calculation that we could very well pick up where things left off after a six-week pause.

Brian Lehrer: Let me pick up on exactly that point, Khaled, and follow up with you, because as you say, negotiations take place in the context of leverage. You were just arguing that Israel has more leverage here because it obviously has Hamas massively outgunned, as we've seen by the overwhelming force and amount of death and destruction in Gaza, and the US seems unwilling or unable to stop Netanyahu. With no ceasefire, will Israel simply do to the people in Rafah what they did to the rest of Gaza as they try to finish the job of destroying Hamas's military infrastructure? Is that the no-ceasefire outcome or does Hamas have any more leverage than that?

Khaled Elgindy: Those are all big questions. I think Hamas does have leverage. In material operational terms, they've clearly been degraded. The longer this goes on, the more they will be militarily and to an extent even politically degraded. Where their leverage is is, also the longer this goes on, the more harm is done to Israel's image around the world. Yes, Hamas may be losing on the battlefield, but Israel is losing the hearts and minds of public opinion around the world, including in the United States and much of the West.

Brian Lehrer: As the Chuck Schumer's speech exemplifies. Can you two come up with a scenario that would get Israel and Hamas to yes and stop the killing and release more of the hostages? Are there certain compromises from their current positions that either of you can envision, or are there only mutually unacceptable scenarios? Jon?

Jon Alterman: Hamas apparently just sent a proposal today that the Israeli cabinet is studying. I remain of the view that there's certainly a zone of potential agreement there. The Qataris and the Egyptians, I think very much want to get there. As Khaled rightly said, there are complications in the Israeli political side. I think there are problems communicating with the Hamas leadership and whether the guys in Gaza are completely aligned with the Hamas leadership outside of Gaza has been a persistent question.

My guess is that we are going to get there in the coming weeks. It will be a little bit herky-jerky, but I'm cautiously optimistic that we will get to a better place. I think Khaled and I would both agree also that it's not nearly the place that we'd like to be in, where we start thinking about some sort of long-term future. I'm afraid that that's [crosstalk]--

Brian Lehrer: Right. Finish that thought, Jon. Where is that temporary, if that's what it is, yes, that you envision them getting to? Even a few more weeks sounds excruciating-

Jon Alterman: Temporary, yes. Hundreds of people go home.

Brian Lehrer: -because of the number of people dying and being held. Go ahead.

Jon Alterman: Hundreds of people go home. We have a profound shift in the way food, fuel, electricity, all those things get into Gaza. We have some movement toward reimposing security in Gaza. One of the stories that has, I think, not gotten the attention that it's needed to is that Gaza's becoming increasingly lawless. Hamas is in a weaker position and is not safeguarding things, and gangs are coming up. That's not in Hamas's interest. It's also not in Israel's interest.

I would hope that one of the things that happens is there's some understanding that emerges that will help lead to more law and order in Gaza, which is going to be necessary if what you're really looking forward to in the 5 to 10-year timeframe is a Gaza that has security for Gazans and Israelis alike, and doesn't look more and more like what we're seeing emerge in Haiti this week.

Brian Lehrer: Khaled, anything on that?

Khaled Elgindy: Yes. I think Jon's right. I think there is a zone there for agreement. It probably is a matter of time, but this whole thing has gone on much longer than most people had anticipated. We're already now in mid-March. In the past, we thought maybe it'd be wrapped up by the end of last year. Yes, it could be another couple of weeks. It could be another couple of months. Yes, there will eventually be some deal.

Jon's right also about the deteriorating situation on the ground. There is a breakdown in law and order. Part of the problem there is there's this contradictory stance that Israel wants to totally destroy Hamas, and yet it is the absence of a Hamas police force that can guard aid convoys without being sniped at by Israeli soldiers. That's what's, in large part, leading to this breakdown in order, in addition to the mass starvation, of course, and desperation of the population.

Israel is pursuing these contradictory goals, total destruction of Hamas, but somehow there's going to be law and order. Something's going to have to give. This is where I would hope that in that six week, or however long the pause is, in that period, those are the issues that more sober thinking would start to emerge that yes, Hamas is not going to be completely eradicated, and it probably will have a role, at least in Palestinian politics. People are going to have to get used to that idea.

Hamas isn't going anywhere as far as its relevance politically. Certainly, its military capabilities will be diminished, but it will be a relevant political actor that can at least veto things that the Palestinian leadership is trying to achieve in Gaza or even in the West Bank. People are going to have to come around to the idea that Hamas is probably- it's not going to be defeated in the sense of being totally eradicated. That means coming to terms with the fact of a role for Hamas in Palestinian politics.

Jon Alterman: Just as a cautionary note, I have a podcast called Babel: Translating the Middle East. Last week, I spoke with Amos Yadlin who's the director of military intelligence in Israel. He is a retired major general, talks to all the leadership now. He said, "We expect this to go on for a year." We're six months away from the end in the estimate of people on the Israeli side.

What that year looks like, how intense it is, I don't know, but I totally agree with Khaled that ultimately Hamas as an organization will not play the same role. There are a lot of people who have either by reason of conviction or many by reason of just a happenstance, have a connection to Hamas. It's dangerous to make the mistake we made in Iraq where we dismissed anybody who had anything to do with the Ba'ath Party, and suddenly there was chaos for many years to come.

Brian Lehrer: For our last question, probably, on how to get to yes on a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, I'm going to let a couple of listeners who have been writing in set this up. I apologize to our callers. Our texters are just more on point for the conversation today, so I'm reading texts and we haven't been taking calls.

One listener writes, "For a real sustainable solution, it seems to me--" Oh, that's the wrong text. Sorry. Let me try to find it. You know what? They're coming in at such a rate that the ones I was looking at are no longer on my screen. I'll summarize. One of them said, for a real solution, the UN has to act. Here it is, "If Israel won't do this, then we need a UN peacekeeping force and the international community to stand up against Israel. Another listener texts, "Less weapons and money from the US is how to get there."

My final question is what do you each see as the next role or maybe the irrelevance and there's no real role of the United States to a ceasefire agreement or other outside actors, as one of those listeners brings up the UN as an example. If the plan the US has on the table is not currently going anywhere, does the US have a constructive role to play that you can see? Jon, you want to go first? Then, Khaled, you'll get a last word, and then we're out of time.

Jon Alterman: Sure. I think the US has to play a role. I think you're already seeing the US as the focal center of all the negotiations that are going on. You can talk about how the US has lost a lot of its juice in the Middle East, that the US is not an honest broker. The fact is that the US is at the center partly because it has potential leverage over Israel. You can talk about how best to use that leverage. The US is intimately involved. The US has connections to all the Arab states that matter on this.

I think you are going to see a continued role through this for the United States. The opportunity is it could enhance the US reputation in the world. The danger is if the US fails at doing this, then I think it further tarnishes the US reputation as a consequential actor in the world.

I'm afraid that the UN does not really have much of a role. It's partly because the UN, in a time of great power competition, has very compromised tools. The UN also has a difficult history with Israel. On the one hand, it helped create Israel with a 1947 vote, but the "Zionism is Racism" resolution in the 1970s, I think, has been a problem. The record of anti-Israel resolutions in the General Assembly is a problem. I can't imagine the UN is going to have a central role. It may have a supplementary role. I think that central role is going to depend on US diplomacy.

Brian Lehrer: Khaled, the next role of the United States or irrelevance of the United States, given its failure so far, to get the parties to yes on their ceasefire agreement proposal.

Khaled Elgindy: I think there was a time when the United States was seen as the only party that could resolve this conflict. Clearly, they are central actors if only because of the relationship with Israel. They're the only party that has any real influence over Israeli decision-making, even though this administration, in particular, doesn't really have an interest in using that leverage in meaningful ways. It's only done so at the margins and in symbolic ways. That was the expectation. That's what was in it for Palestinians to have a US-led process.

I think what's happened in the past two administrations, both Trump and Biden, is there's been such a wholesale unconditional full-throated adoption of Israeli concerns, narratives, claims to the exclusion really of Palestinians. I don't think Palestinians feel seen by the Biden administration. I don't think the Biden administration really sees Palestinians except through a very, very kind of Israeli-tinted lens.

I think it's very hard to imagine the US playing a constructive role going forward other than at a tactical level of securing some sort of ceasefire. Part of what is fueling this war, a great part of it, is the United States itself. They are not intervening in ways that I think are constructive ,but rather destructive. They're adding to the asymmetry that already exists. There's so much concern, and obviously, after October 7th, it's warranted, but for all the concern for Israeli lives and security, 30,000 Palestinians are dead and there's no end in sight. Most of Gaza has been destroyed, all of Gaza's universities, most of its hospitals. Gaza as a society really doesn't exist anymore.

What's needed is a responsible third party that can acknowledge that massive asymmetry in power, and also talk about security for Palestinians. Who's going to safeguard their security? If this is the response over a single day, as horrible as that day was, who's going to protect Palestinians from Israel? I think those are questions that the United States doesn't have answers to because it's not the main concern, and it's frankly why it has not been an effective broker. As far as I can see, I think the days of the US-led peace process are far behind us.

Brian Lehrer: We will see. Maybe Schumer's speech on Friday indicates a change, but it's complicated. As I often say at the end of these segments, we won't solve the Middle East today, but maybe we'll call this one an Israeli-Palestinian solutions workshop and we'll do more like this.

We thank Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, where he also directs their program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs, and Jon Alterman, who directs the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Thank you both very much.

Jon Alterman: Thank you, Brian.

Khaled Elgindy: Thanks a lot.

 

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