Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Gaza Ceasefire Challenges & Future Scenarios in Palestine
2.2k Plays27 days ago
In this episode, Yumna Patel, Yara Hawari, and Abdaljawad Omar discuss the precarious ceasefire and different future scenarios in Gaza and wider Palestine. This is the third and final episode in a collaboration series between Al-Shabaka and Mondoweiss.
Recommended
Transcript
Palestinian Struggle & Symbolic Deconstruction
00:00:00
Speaker
Palestine was never meant to be this way. It was never meant to be these tiny bandstands, these tiny outdoor prisons. um We are very much people that love each other and that love community and being separated from one another in this way is the ultimate punishment.
00:00:15
Speaker
We need to figure out how to symbolically deconstruct the settler that is bent on erasing us, for there is no ah recognition of our own humanity in their eyes. And that is only historically in anti-colonial struggles are done by resistance in all shape and form.
Series Finale: Trump, Gaza, and Future Perspectives
00:00:35
Speaker
This is the final episode in a three-part series between Ashabaka and Mondovice. In this episode, myself, Yara Hawari, scholar Abdujawad Hamer, and Mondovice editor-in-chief Yumna Patel discuss the latest developments on Trump, Gaza, and the future of Palestine.
00:00:56
Speaker
Yara and Abdujawad, thank you so much for joining me.
Fragility of Gaza Ceasefire
00:01:00
Speaker
We are entering four weeks into the ceasefire agreement in Gaza. And while I'd say that people have definitely been holding their breath since day one, um kind of unsure of whether or not the ceasefire is going to hold, it seems like it is at its most fragile right now. Hamas just recently said that it was not going to release the remaining Israeli captives because of Israeli violations of the ceasefire agreement, particularly the stipulations around the amount of trucks of fuel and the entry of tents and other reconstruction materials that are supposed to be ah let into Gaza on a daily basis. So the timing of this, Israel's violation of the protocols, of the ceasefire, just as negotiations around phase two were supposed to take place or are taking place, this all happened just a week out of Netanyahu's visit to
00:01:51
Speaker
dc So none of this feels like a coincidence. It's kind of all unfolding. The dominoes seem to be falling all on the heels of Netanyahu's visit to
Netanyahu's Broken Ceasefire Promises
00:02:02
Speaker
the US. So I wanted to pose this first question to both of you and kind of ask you what you make of these most recent developments and kind of, yeah, how are you thinking about this news? Yara, let's start with you.
00:02:18
Speaker
We know that when the the ceasefire deal was announced, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was promising his ministers in the Israeli government that the deal wouldn't reach phase two, either that the agreement would stay perpetually in phase one or that he would return to war.
00:02:35
Speaker
So it's it's not particularly surprising that he has stalled at this point, and I think it's deliberate that the Israelis have violated the the terms of the ceasefire. And in terms of violations, you know we're talking about less than half of the stipulated amount of aid trucks that have entered Gaza are the same with fuel trucks, which are basic for services like hospitals, bakeries, et cetera. And dozens of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire agreement. So the reality on the ground is that whilst the the carpet bombing has halted, the genocide is is still very much underway. And you know I have to reiterate this again. Netanyahu promised his ministers this at the start of the ceasefire. He said that he would stall towards the end of phase one.
00:03:21
Speaker
So there is absolutely zero good faith on the Israeli side to see the ceasefire
Trump's Influence on Israel & Media Bias
00:03:27
Speaker
through. And now President Trump has given the Israelis the the green light to resume its war by Saturday, if not all the hostages are returned. So not only is Trump derailing the the timeline of the ceasefire, he's also completely ignoring the fact that Israel has violated it, broken the ceasefire agreement. um And of course, this is a talking point that's being parroted in the Western mainstream media.
00:03:50
Speaker
In fact, I haven't seen anyone in the Western mainstream media do a breakdown of how the Israelis have violated the ceasefire in multiple ways. And you made an interesting point that I want to ask Abboud to maybe expand on. From the beginning, you know Netanyahu has been reassuring or telling his government that phase two of the ceasefire isn't going to happen. So in a sense, you know this was predictable. But would you also say that this meeting with Trump and the kind of the statements that Trump and Netanyahu were making at their the press conference in Washington, do you think that that had an influence?
00:04:29
Speaker
you know, in emboldening Netanyahu to kind of carry out this ah sabotage of the ceasefire? Well, yeah, of course. I mean, Netanyahu having somebody like Trump in presidency in the United States who would speak obscene ideas like I think a cleansing Gaza or would give the right wing base something to be energetic about is something that, of course, incentivizes Israel to even be more reticent, to try to empty the ceasefire from its content, to move towards re-engagement or war once again.
00:04:59
Speaker
But I think here we should just remind ourselves that this is not really new.
Historical Patterns of Israeli Compliance
00:05:03
Speaker
Israel historically speaking have um you know not really obeyed any agreement signed with the Palestinians, whether it's also agreement or Camp David, or it has always found ways to make these agreements only symbolic.
00:05:16
Speaker
And in the daily, day-to-day, everyday implementation of these agreements to like empty them from any real content or not being faithful to them. So this is a long tendency within Israeli settler colonialism that you only agree temporary. You get what you want, which is generally, for instance, in this case, that you want the Israeli prisoners back. And then you start to work on your own objective, political or otherwise that you want to achieve in Gaza, which includes, for instance, in this instance, the possibility of ethnic cleansing or ah removing as as much of the population of Gaza. So this is where Israel operates. It's not new.
Western Media Misrepresentations of Gaza
00:05:50
Speaker
It's so interesting and and striking that you talk about, like, you know, this is part of the classic Israeli playbook when it comes to the agreements and the deals that it's made with the Palestinians over the years. And yet, as Yara mentioned, I mean, now we're seeing the total failure of the mainstream media, particularly Western media, to frame this story properly. All the headlines that we're seeing, the entire kind of narrative that's being painted is out of nowhere. Hamas is breaking the steel and now Israel has no choice but to go back to to its war, to its genocide.
00:06:23
Speaker
And that also isn't new, right? I mean, this has been the narrative throughout history is that the Palestinians just can't accept a deal and the Palestinians just can't see a deal through and Israel has to do what it has to do. It's extremely frustrating to see this play out yet again in such extreme circumstances when we're talking about the population of Gaza who just survived 16 months of genocide and is now under threat of going back to that reality. I just can't believe that this is kind of the same scenario plays out over and over again.
US Control Proposal for Gaza
00:07:00
Speaker
On your point on mainstream media, what we've seen is that they've adopted even the language of sanitizing crimes like ethnic cleansing or genocide. So it goes further and deeper than that. and And one thing that we should also keep in mind is that Biden
00:07:13
Speaker
also pro proposed a humanitarian corridor where Palestinians would be driven out of Gaza. I mean, there was just a different framing of the same policy or objective. With the Democrats, you have this kind of humanitarian discourse. Although Trump also speaks of that, Gaza is destroyed, people in Gaza have suffered a lot, so maybe they should leave Gaza.
00:07:34
Speaker
And at the same time, you know in in the case of Trump, he's looking at Gaza as a commodity to be sold and to be turned into you know a revere of the Middle East as he wants to. And I don't know if you guys agree, but there was a slight of hand against Netanyahu by proposing that America would take over Gaza and not Israel itself. So he wasn't backing Israel to take Gaza as much as like the Americans doing it. So there is that tension between Netanyahu and Trump that still operates on some level.
00:08:00
Speaker
It's that we'll take over the ethnic cleansing, we'll turn Gaza and Gaza will be an American territory in the Middle East. You notice that in the press conference when Trump comes out with plan for US ownership over Gaza, Netanyahu looks and tries to hide it. But if you look very closely, you can see that Netanyahu looks surprised. And then when he's asked about it, his response is that it's an interesting proposal. So I think.
00:08:25
Speaker
In reality, it's not going to happen. It's not something that the
Gaza's Resilience & Public Demonstrations
00:08:28
Speaker
Israelis want to happen. The Israelis want it for themselves. But interestingly, since that press conference, it has evolved from a US takeover to Trump's personal own takeover. He said that he personally will own Gaza and his administration or at least some members in his administration are trying to backtrack on that because they certainly don't want boots on the ground and in Gaza. That's something that Trump promised throughout his campaign trail was that the US would no longer be involved in these kinds of conflicts. So it will be interesting to see how this plays out. But I think in all of this, what has been absent is Palestinian agency, Gaza is being talked about as if that this is inevitable, that this will happen, as if the people there have not survived 15 months of carpet bombing and have not been absolutely determined and resolute to stay on their land. So I think that's something that that Trump underestimates.
00:09:21
Speaker
That's something that has been underestimated this entire past like year and a half, right? Is that there was just this expectation that after all these months of of bombardment and genocide that the Palestinians in Gaza in particular would just give up or throw their hands up and and submit. And clearly we've seen that that is not the case. And I think what we're seeing in the aftermath of those very first days of the ceasefire and the images that we saw, whether it was of fighters from the Al-Qassan Brigades showing out in huge numbers in force in the middle of Gaza City or those images of
00:10:03
Speaker
tens and tens of thousands of Palestinians marching and returning back to the north. It was very clear that you know Israel's objective of just yeah obviously ah erasing, but just causing Palestinians to just submit to Israel's will, once again, didn't work. And I want to talk about that more. We're going to get more into that later. But I think a question that is on everyone's mind just assessing the situation that we're in now, right? It seems like the ceasefire is on thin ice. Israel wants to use what it can, ah whatever pretext it can to go back to ah to its war and to to bombarding Gaza.
Future Scenarios for Gaza: Ceasefire Collapse or Stability?
00:10:44
Speaker
So it feels like there are these two scenarios, one in which the ceasefire crumbles, Israel does that, right? It goes back to to the ongoing genocide. Or the ceasefire holds, and it doesn't just hold temporarily, but let's say for argument's sake, right phase one, two, three, all of these initial plans come to fruition. But in both of these scenarios, right?
00:11:09
Speaker
ah The question on everyone's mind, I think, is like what then does that yield for Palestinians in Gaza? What does the future look like in Gaza? And so before we kind of dig deeper into the details, I wanted to pose that question to both of you. ah Given the present conditions, what can a future in Gaza look like or or what does a near future look like?
Palestinians Leverage Prisoners in Negotiations
00:11:34
Speaker
Look, I think that one of the fundamental issues at stake, for for instance, Hamas now, and this is why it it announced already on Sunday that it will not release prisoners on Saturday. It's allowing for room for negotiations. It's allowing for some sort of entry of vital elements that would sustain people's ability to live like caravans and fuel and other items that Israel has been reticent in terms of allowing them into Gaza, despite the fact that they're part of the agreement.
00:12:03
Speaker
But at the same time, from the from the perspective of the policy and resistance, I have one card, which is the Israeli prisoners that I hold captive. And I'm not going to easily ah give in and release these prisoners, therefore freeing the Israeli policy maker from the pressure that comes with maintaining or sustaining this kind of captive situation.
00:12:24
Speaker
So in many instances, what we're seeing now, just to to make it a nutshell, is this kind of negotiations on expanding the negotiations. So this is the strategy that the Palestinian resistance is trying to force at the agenda of those who are brokering the agreement, those who are guaranteeing the agreement, the Americans, the Israelis, the Qataris, the Egyptians.
00:12:43
Speaker
They're trying to force their hand they're trying to and or attempting to make sure that negotiations will not stop at 42 days. and And you should think about it. If Israel is going back to war, why should I release more prisoners? If it already is going back to war, no? So I should keep maybe these cards close to me. So this is the strategy. The strategy is to push Israel and negotiators in the mid-years into a second phase and a third phase, ensuring that you have a prisoners exchange agreement.
00:13:09
Speaker
it could you know, risk this fragility. Israel has also ways to respond due towards this reticence on the part of the Palestinian resistance. But it also kind of reveals to what extent Israel is willing to risk a return to the war. So that's also what is on stake here or what is being tested.
Reconstruction Efforts & Israeli Public Sentiment
00:13:28
Speaker
but So if we consider this scenario that the ceasefire crumbles, presumably we'll see a return to Israeli bombardments and this will be catastrophic for Palestinians in Gaza who've already been through so much. um They will literally be bombing the already destroyed. and They'll be bombing rubble.
00:13:48
Speaker
and I don't think we can take for granted what kind of effect that will have on Palestinians in Gaza. I also think it's important to look at the Israeli public and how they will respond in this scenario. Netanyahu's popularity is plummeting. It's gone through ebbs and flows throughout the genocide, but the the ceasefire deal really has had a large impact on how he is viewed in Israeli society. So for the far right, and I don't particularly like that term to describe Israeli society and because um it mostly flashes, but for the far right he's seen as someone who has capitulated and not come through on what was promised, which is the destruction of the military capabilities of Hamas. For others, and I think in particular the the families of the hostages, they're really angry because they think the ceasefire could have been achieved at the very beginning and um they're not wrong. But I think another important element is the fatigue of the Israeli army and Israeli soldiers.
00:14:53
Speaker
And of course, we've all seen these really nasty videos of of soldiers boasting and and bragging about committing war crimes, but we don't see the other side of things. you know We don't see that within the army ranks, ah this information that they've had to heavily censor that within the army's ranks, there is low morale and there are a lot of injuries and there is general fatigue. And so I think how all of this plays into the scenario of returning to the war, returning to the genocide is a really important factor that we can't overlook. Now the other scenario is that the ceasefire holds and goes through all of its phases and will eventually lead to a reconstruction process and over the last year we've seen a lot of nefarious plans and projects for reconstruction
00:15:41
Speaker
nearly all of them without Palestinian input, and the ones with Palestinian input have been a few Palestinian capitalists, not from Gaza, might I add. So these two scenarios are not looking good um for Palestinians in Gaza, but I think there are other scenarios also worth considering.
00:16:03
Speaker
I think there's still a struggle over allowing this temporary ceasefire to become more permanent. This is what the strategy of the Palestinian resistance is at this moment. Not because, I mean, Israel could return to war, but not invade, for instance, not losing much of the army, so it could just bomb or use air power. So it has, like, more leverage when it comes to what form of reconstruction happens in Gaza.
00:16:25
Speaker
what it will allow in and not end. So there's a lot of elements that from the perspective of Palestinians and the current Palestinian leadership or resistance, looking at the cards that they have, looking at the futures, what they want to achieve is first, make sure that they have a longer term ceasefire, that there is reconstruction and that the destruction of Gaza does not lead to the emptying of Gaza which is I think also a political objective in itself not because the Palestinians will not survive or will not insist on being in the land but you also have to provision Israel had destroyed Gaza and this is the basis on which it would claim that possibly it could actually ethnically cleanse Gaza is by not allowing Gaza to be rebuilt so this kind of like if you want
00:17:08
Speaker
Duality at play is that Gaza is destroyed, but the the political objective is to reconstruct it or at least make it as the best possible outcome in the near term is for ensuring as much items, infrastructure, whatever is needed for people to remain steadfast and to start rebuilding life after seeing their homes destroyed and seeing entire infrastructure, allowing universities to come back into operation, hospitals. So there's a lot of work on that front. And that's that's why it's this critical phase is that the Palestinian resistance is choosing this critical phase after it has already succeeded in removing the Italian corridor, allowing people from the south into the north to enter to start pushing the Israeli mediators into an implementation of the second phase and third phase into a wider prisoner exchange agreement and ensuring that Israel also is back in the corner
00:17:58
Speaker
that if it wants its prisoners, it will have to abide by the agreement as it was stipulated in January.
Rebuilding Gaza's Infrastructure
00:18:06
Speaker
if you're enjoying this podcast please visit our website a o shabaka dot all where you will find more palestinian policy analysis and where you can join our mailing list and donate to support our work
00:18:19
Speaker
What we're talking about in this other scenario, right the hopeful scenario is that this ceasefire continues to hold and that reconstruction can can begin. Acknowledging that reconstruction in this situation in Gaza is such a monumental Task years long some estimates have said it would take more than a decade just to you know Just to clear the rubble and as you mentioned, you know, we're talking about rebuilding hospitals and universities and the entire infrastructure of of a society So that's just one element of it, right? And so let's say for argument's sake again Hopefully that that is what happens right the ceasefire holds
00:19:03
Speaker
this phase of the Israeli genocide ends, Gaza is allowed to to rebuild. As that happens, though, it's inevitable that there will be or even preceding that there's going to be a power struggle there, right? And I mean, in reality, that's already happening. we have As you guys have said, Trump saying he wants to own Gaza.
Hamas's Governance & Resistance Role
00:19:26
Speaker
turn it into a Riviera, um whatever that means. Netanyahu and the Israelis have made their position clear, right? they They say they want Hamas gone. The reality is they want all Palestinians gone from Gaza. and They want to expand their settler colony and and take over more land. What's, I think, less apparent or what people kind of don't have as much information on in the general public is where the different Palestinian political powers stand.
00:19:52
Speaker
to start this conversation, and there's many different sides to this conversation around yeah Palestinian politics and how it is playing out in Gaza. But right now, I want to start by asking about Hamas and their vision and addressing kind of the elephant in the room in the global conversation and narrative about Gaza, which is, as you guys have said, there's all these conversations about what Israel is going to do, what the US is going to do. No conversations around what Palestinians are going to do. As we've seen, Hamas is very much not eliminated. It very much has not been wiped out, as was Israel's stated aim for all of this. So kind of given that reality that Hamas
00:20:38
Speaker
still exists. I'm curious how you guys would describe you know the level of control or power it holds now after 16 months of genocide. kind of Given that reality, how do you see Hamas's, quote unquote, post-war vision for Gaza, just kind of based on the statements that have been made, based on you know news that has come out and and the information that you all have? What's Hamas's best case scenario, let's say, in this situation?
00:21:09
Speaker
Well, the best case scenario is that Hamas was able to enforce what Israel hasn't been able to achieve through war, which is that you weren't able to defeat us in war and end us in war. So in politics and in setting up a scenario post-war, Hamas will remain a resistance movement within the Gaza Strip.
00:21:28
Speaker
Now there's two options here. It would still retain governance or it will allow for another form of governance to actually implant itself in Gaza, but still hold some lever of power over peace and war within the Gaza Strip. So these are the two options that Hamas would probably be be thinking about at this particular moment, is that they're willing to give up this synchronization between governance and resistance and decoupling them from each other by having resistance still ah remain relevant, accumulating power in the Gaza Strip, et cetera, et cetera, but at the same time allowing for another technocratic or political formation to come and ah handle issues of governance in the Gaza Strip. That's one favorable scenario from from Hamas's perspective. The second favorable scenario from Hamas's perspective is ah remaining both the governance and the other and the resistance movement and forcing it through its negotiation tactics, forcing it to reality on the ground and sustaining that for the long term and making sure that Israel and the US s cannot do anything about that as well.
00:22:33
Speaker
You kind of described what would the favorable outcomes be for Hamas in this situation. Based on the reality, are those outcomes possible, do you think? Well, I think so because I think you have two things, is that e Israel couldn't really achieve the destruction of Hamas through war. So why would it be able to do that through peace? So here there's one element that weakens the resistance movement is that if reconstruction is held as the inroads or the way through which Israel will actually embezzle Hamas politically to give up or surrender or you know do something like that. So that in general, there will be this contradiction between the social base on which the resistance movements in the Gaza Strip base themselves and people's needs and desires and you know economic well-being and building their homes. And so if that contradiction, Israel can
00:23:28
Speaker
play with and stretch in time, that will be problematic. But the one thing is that the discourse coming from the US, the discourse coming from as Israel is talking about ethnic cleansing. And that type of strategy is not really the strategy that is being placed front and center. It's not a smart strategy to speak to people about this desire to see them outside of Gaza. A lot of people who even wanted to leave Gaza before now don't want to leave Gaza. You know, like, because you're politicizing the question of sometimes of people even leaving for a study or for getting some job outside. You're politicizing these everyday decisions and you're placing Palestinians in front of this decision that, oh, so America and Israel wants me to leave. I don't want to leave.
00:24:08
Speaker
There's an element to that. And that's why thus far the discourse coming from the Israeli government and the American government is not helping actually achieve this contradiction between reconstruction, which is a popular demand among Palestinians in Gaza and one that they want as fast as possible, and the resistance movement and their ability to sustain themselves and their relationship with the social base.
00:24:29
Speaker
In that vein, let's talk about the the other side of this, right? Abu, you mentioned that Hamas was floating around the idea of some sort of like shared governance model, right?
Challenges to Palestinian Authority's Influence in Gaza
00:24:41
Speaker
ah So on the other other side of that, we have the the Palestinian Authority. And in the first episode of this series that I did with Yara, we spoke about the Palestinian Authority. It's cracked down on Jenin, on resistance in Jenin in the West Bank and how that was kind of part of its effort to assert its power in the context of of Gaza and and the genocide. There were these initial reports leading up to the ceasefire that Hamas and Fatah, the ruling party of the PA, might seek some sort of national reconciliation, national unity model, or some sort of power-sharing agreement, though that also seems to have fallen through, at least based on some of the reports that we've seen kind of come out of the PA side. So Yara,
00:25:26
Speaker
Where do things stand now with the PA? What does the PA kind of want in relation to to Gaza? Is it open to some sort of unified government with Hamas?
00:25:40
Speaker
I think it's really important to remember that the PA a is not um a unified body. There's lots of different factions and political streams of thought and infighting. But I think the the overall sentiment is that it will take over Gaza. And we've seen leaked report of of officials sort of making that assumption. And I think, crucially, because it thinks that proved itself in Janine and just to remind folks what it did in Janine, it laid the ground for the Israeli invasion in the camp by laying siege to the camp for over a month, by clearing out a lot of the arms. So they think that because of this, that they prove themselves and that they will eventually be rewarded with the the governance of of Gaza.
00:26:26
Speaker
um But if you notice, the PA hasn't been mentioned by Trump or by Netanyahu recently. So it's not really on the minds of any of the big players, except perhaps the the Arab regimes, which have nearly all said that they would need the PA to go through political reform before taking over Gaza. That's code for a change in in leadership. and And Netanyahu and the Israeli government have explicitly said that they would not um allow for the PA to take over Gaza. So I really think the PA is in La La Land. you know that It holds no political weight in in any of this and its relevance and legitimacy is dwindling.
00:27:10
Speaker
I want to kind of ask you though about, like you said, the PA kind of thinks that it proved itself in Janine and it's going to be rewarded. But I don't know. That just strikes me as kind of a pipe dream on part of the PA and sort of out of touch with reality, even in the considerations of what it quote unquote achieved in Janine. What really did happen on the ground was cause, and this is you know we discussed this when we we spoke about this in the first episode, but it caused more
00:27:47
Speaker
internal public frustrations and animosity towards the PA by stoking these kind of tensions and ah positioning itself against against the resistance in the West Bank, which is more popular than the PA itself. so i don't I don't know, it's hard it does feel hard to imagine a scenario in which the PA could actually come out of this situation with some sort of ah governing authority in Gaza. I don't know if that's an ignorant take to kind of assume that that couldn't happen.
00:28:23
Speaker
But I don't know, I kind of wanted to ask you guys, like really, like how realistic is that? And just kind of given the history in Gaza, um how realistic is that that it actually happens? And that the PA, for example, there were these leaked reports right that the PA, some PA officials said that they'd be willing to take power in Gaza by force. like How feasible and And I hate to even ask that question like to jump into the logistics rather than actually talking about the fact that Palestinians haven't had elections, haven't had the opportunity or or the the ability to even choose their leadership or the future that they want. But yeah, I don't know. How how realistic are the kind of PA's plans or what it's trying to achieve?
00:29:06
Speaker
I'll just jump in quickly to say that I think with Netanyahu's coalition government, I think it's very unlikely. I think it's a very unrealistic scenario. um But things change very quickly. We know that Trump is also someone that follows whims and is unreliable. And you know the word on the street is that actually Trump likes Abbas, PA president, and actually isn't a huge fan of Netanyahu, although that's difficult to believe with the recent preference. But I can see a world in which that is true. And I think the Netanyahu government has been very
00:29:46
Speaker
very clear that they will not allow a PA takeover of Gaza. But I can imagine a world in which, if Netanyahu was no longer prime minister, that that maybe that could happen. and But I think also just to reiterate Palestinian agency in this, you Palestinians in Gaza also have a say in this, you know, whether there are elections or not, whether they will actually accept the PA coming in as a sort of comprador leadership to take over. um I don't think that they will. So I think we have to, it's very difficult to think about all of these things because things can change in a moment. But I do believe that there's a lot of delusion going on and a lot of things would have to change for that to be a reality. The PA has three fundamental things that it's trying its best to maintain.
00:30:39
Speaker
First, no unity. Because the PA, if achieves unity with you know other parties and political formations in Palestine, it will have to change it its entire political paradigm from one that adopts cooperation with Israel to one that at least goes down the road of defiance, some sort of political confrontation with Israeli settler colonialism, which is the current elites of the PA do not want. So that's one element that they are seeking all the time to not actually have or move forward.
00:31:07
Speaker
Even when they speak to Hamas or Islamic Jihad or PFLP, they're always, they find an excuse for why unity cannot be retained or achieved. Elections cannot be implemented. For instance, they would speak about Jerusalem and the elections being held to Jerusalem as an excuse. So the the PA lives and survives on the disunity that we're seeing in the Palestinian society. That's one element. The second element is they see the danger arising from Israeli settler, fascist messianic groups led by people like Smoterec and Bingveer. who see the PA even through its cooperation, security and otherwise, as an obstacle obstacle towards cleansing the land and complacency on the part of Israeli state that you know you have this PA that serves our security needs and economic and political needs when it comes to leading the Palestinian population in the West Bank. And they they want to shake these grounds. Remember that the revisionist powers that want to actually really change the paradigm are not necessarily always Palestinians who want to seek liberation and freedom, but are also powers like, you know, the Israeli white wing settler movement that is you know the spearhead of of the Zionist movement more broadly today. So the element is that they have a danger emanating from there. And they're also unwilling or they also have a new challenge in the release of a lot of prisoners who are from the era of the Second Intifada
Political Shifts & Prisoner Repatriation Challenges
00:32:22
Speaker
today.
00:32:22
Speaker
And some of them are prisoners who have a different set different set of political beliefs, who are today are you turning to their homes. Some have leadership roles. We can see figures like Marwan Barruti also being released. So there's another challenge to this elite emanating from the return of voices from the past, even the past that is closely knitted to Fateh, that they also need to manage pretty well.
00:32:44
Speaker
And one of the decisions they took recently is to actually, as a gift to Trump and his ambassador, Stephen Whitkoff, I think his name is, is to change the policy on the payment of prisoners and martyrs in Palestine, which will cause a big uproar also, at least locally in the West Bank and other places. So this is the situation. They're presenting themselves as the ones that can be an alternative. They're incapable really of being an alternative because they're too weak. The more they go down the road of serving Israel in the US, s the less legitimacy they have. And at the same time,
00:33:14
Speaker
I think they're trying their best to maintain this equation. The only thing going for the PA right now is the fear that people have when it comes to Israel's violence and its ability to systematically kill and massacre people like we've seen for the past 15 months.
00:33:29
Speaker
We've painted a picture of kind of all of these different powers that are at play, right? And these different quote-unquote visions for ah the immediate and maybe extended future of Gaza. We've talked about America's vision. We've talked about Israel, about Hamas, about the Palestinian
Recentering Palestinian Voices
00:33:46
Speaker
Authority. um But as you guys have mentioned throughout this conversation is that, you know, when we speak about Visions for Gaza, unfortunately, we're living in a reality where the last people to be asked about the vision for their homes, for their homeland, are Palestinians themselves. So I want to ask, and Yara, you just recently talked about
00:34:10
Speaker
you know Palestinian agency. So I want to ask you guys, as we're having these conversations, as people are thinking about what's happening in Gaza right now, how do we re-center Palestinian agency in this conversation? What are the questions that people need to be asking? ah What are the conversations that need to be had in order to yeah to promote Palestinian agency over their own lives and over the decisions of what happens to their future?
00:34:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's that's a really important question, Yumna. And there is this trap that we fall into where we talk about Palestinian futures within frameworks that have been set and prescribed by non-Palestinian And I think even even for Palestinians, we fall into this trap because it's designed to be that way that the future is this mythical, ethereal place ah that we can't talk about because the present reality is just so horrific. But in that absence,
00:35:16
Speaker
of talking about the future. you know We have so much noise from other people talking about the future.
Envisioning Gaza's Unified Future
00:35:23
Speaker
um And in most cases, you know it's actually not about Palestinian future at all. It's about making sure that there is no Palestinian future.
00:35:32
Speaker
for Palestinians it feels like this very privileged thing and luxurious thing to do this kind of imagination work of what a radically different future could look like and it's a really difficult one you know how can we even begin to imagine what our future looks like free of colonial domination and subjugation And we're now, as a people, we barely have any living conduits of that memory of what life was like before, the so-called Nakaba generation. There's very few of them left. And so I do think it is really important as Palestinians that we do that work of imagining. It's almost like exercising a muscle that hasn't been used for a while.
00:36:16
Speaker
And I think this is where we can turn to our history as well. Gaza today is not what Gaza was or what it can be. Gaza used to be this thriving region of Palestine. It wasn't separated from Palestine. It was a very vital and and crucial part of Palestine. And more than that, it was actually an important city in the whole region. It was connected to the whole region. whether through train lines or ah shipping lines. So I think imagining the future, it doesn't mean this sort of romanticizing and return to the past. But I think past can really help us imagine what a future could look like. And and Gaza in particular, Gaza in the last few decades has really become the beating heart of Palestine. It is Palestine and Palestine is it. And I don't
00:37:06
Speaker
mean that in a romantic way, although I think it sounds very romantic, but I think Gaza really does hold every aspect of the Palestinian struggle. It holds refugee hood, resistance, resilience, all of that can be found in Gaza. And you know while saying all of this, it reminds me of what Allah Abd al-Faddah, the Egyptian writer and political prisoner, wrote during the Egyptian Revolution, he wrote that he had visited Gaza twice, but he never said that he visited Gaza. He always said that he visited Palestine because he described Gaza as that beating heart of Palestine. And that really resonates with me. Gaza is a place that I have never been to despite growing up only a few hours away.
00:37:49
Speaker
And so for me, when I think of a Palestinian future, I think of one where we are no longer separated from one another, where partition is a thing of the past, because Palestine was never meant to be this way. It was never meant to be these tiny banstans, these tiny outdoor prisons.
00:38:06
Speaker
um We are very much people that love each other and that love community and being separated from one another in this way is the ultimate punishment. And so for me, imagining a future, even if it does contain a lot of romanticization, I think it's it's a really important endeavor.
00:38:25
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. And I want to to hear from Abboud as well, but I just wanted to kind of sit with your words for a moment and just kind of appreciate everything you said. And I know that you you really want to emphasize that this isn't or shouldn't have to be kind of romanticized vision, but your words are just really striking. And I want people to to really be able to to sit with that and and understand ah what you just
Breaking Binary Frameworks in Palestinian Discourse
00:38:54
Speaker
said. and it just Everything that you said really resonates, and it cuts so deep. And it is just
00:39:00
Speaker
Unfortunately, the unfortunate reality feels like it is this kind of romantic vision for the future, but it's just it's it's such a simple one at the same time. So I mean, thank you for sharing that. And I just wanted to also kind of hold up something that you said earlier when you first started to answer that question around Palestinian agency and a future envisioned for Palestine by Palestinians free of the whims of the the colonial powers and prison guards. But you mentioned this kind of trap, right, that we fall into when it comes to even just the frameworks of these conversations. And for the people listening, I want to i want to acknowledge that throughout this conversation, you know, I fell into that trap as many journalists easily do, right, by framing my questions and framing this this narrative within the confines of
00:39:52
Speaker
this this It's a limited framework to constantly, to to only be thinking right within the binary of of war and ceasefire and just only imagining Gaza kind of or Palestine existing in this reality. Because all that does is it cages in our conversations and and our imagination. So I want to recognize that and it's so important for Yeah, it's just really important for people for people to recognize that when we're thinking about Palestine, when we're thinking about Gaza and the future, obviously we we don't want to limit our thinking and our visions and our imaginations. But the way to not do that is to also not you know trap ourselves into this limited framework of thinking as well. So um thank you for really for sharing everything that you did. And I want to to to ask you, Abboud, that same question.
00:40:42
Speaker
How do we center Palestinian agency in this conversation? How can we envision a future free from these colonial shackles where Palestinians you know have the right to life and and freedom? What does that look like to you?
00:41:00
Speaker
Personally, I think Yara spoke to this kind of everyday reconfiguration of life, seeing each other and not being divided ah through checkpoints and walls and being able to see Gaza, for instance, as somebody who lives in Ramallah or somebody who lives in you know the north in the Galedi or you know whatever it is that other people do other places. You know, Palestinians have normalized a lot of, um I would say, ah things that shouldn't be normalized. And we take them as if they're part of life ah when they're not part of life. Any other place in the world, people don't have the same struggles of waking up in the morning to see one friend being arrested. Or for instance, this week only a friend of mine lost his father in Jerusalem and he couldn't you know bid farewell next to him.
00:41:43
Speaker
out of sheer Israeli sadistic policy, bureaucratic laziness that doesn't allow people to go with their parents to hospitals in Jerusalem. Another friend who's now in Israeli prisons ah lost her father and she doesn't even still know that she lost her father because the news of his passing ah has not arrived, you know? So these are things that are small compared to, you know,
00:42:03
Speaker
the massacres that we've seen in the past 15 months, the destruction, the wholesale destruction, the intensity of the violence. And of course, that vision for us is important on a human level, on an everyday level. you know But when you ask me how, I go back, I mean, resistance de defines Sabr and Sumud are the only ways for the Palestinians to achieve that because we need to figure out how to symbolically deconstruct the settler.
00:42:28
Speaker
that is bent on you know erasing us, ah to make this Sattler a human being once again, because they're not you know on the level of our relationship with with these people. There's no ah recognition of our own humanity in their eyes. And that is only historically in anti-colonial struggles are done by resistance in old shape and form ah through act of Samud. And this is why resistance is heavily tied to imagination. It opens up imagination.
00:42:54
Speaker
Now, some people will will look at this question and start asking, so what is the Palestinian vision? One state, two state, three states, or you know, they'll speak to political level. But I think whether me or Yada, we share this kind of like idea of liberation of at least not suffering, not normalizing these everyday things that shouldn't be happening and nowhere in the world and specifically here in Palestine as well.
00:43:16
Speaker
Yara and Abboud, really, really impactful and powerful words. Thank you both so much for joining me. It's been a privilege and an honor to speak with you both and to to hear what you have to say. Really look forward to people listening to this final episode in the series with Manda Weiss and El Shabaka. And I want to encourage everyone to also listen to the first two episodes of this series as well. Thank you both so much. Thank you, Yumna.
00:43:46
Speaker
Thank you, Emno.
00:43:51
Speaker
Rethinking Palestine is brought to you by Ashabaka, the Palestinian policy network. Ashabaka is the only global independent Palestinian think tank whose mission is to produce critical policy analysis and collectively imagine a new policymaking paradigm for Palestine and Palestinians worldwide. For more information or to donate to support our work, visit al-ashabaka.org. And importantly, don't forget to subscribe to Rethinking Palestine, wherever you listen to podcasts.