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You can also watch on the free C-SPAN Now video app or online at c-span.org. | |
| Democracy. | ||
| It isn't just an idea. | ||
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| And past president nomination. | ||
| Why are you doing this? | ||
|
unidentified
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This is outrageous. | |
| This is a kangaroo. | ||
| This fall, C-SPAN presents a rare moment of unity. | ||
| Ceasefire, where the shouting stops and the conversation begins. | ||
| Join political playbook chief correspondent and White House Bureau Chief Dasha Burns as host of Ceasefire, bringing two leaders from opposite sides of the aisle into a dialogue to find common ground. | ||
| Ceasefire this fall on the network that doesn't take sides, only on C-SPAN. | ||
| Joining us this morning is Aaron David Miller. | ||
| He is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace here to talk about the Israel-Hamas war and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. | ||
| Aaron David Miller, let's begin with food security experts who are recognized by the United Nations saying that this is the worst case scenario of famine. | ||
| According to this organization, it says the entire population in Gaza is facing high levels of acute food insecurity with half a million people, one in five, facing starvation. | ||
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unidentified
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I mean, Gaza is a nightmare. | |
| Certainly for the 2 million Palestinians over the last 18 months who have been exposed to a humanitarian catastrophe. | ||
| And I think the prospects of delivering aid reliably and predictably by the UN and other NGOs in wartime Gaza is virtually impossible. | ||
| Even in the wake of the two ceasefires in November 2023 and January of this year, even then, while the number of trucks between January and March neared almost the total that Gaza was receiving before October 7, the issue is distribution within Gaza, not getting the assistance to the Israeli-Gaza border. | ||
| So I don't dispute these figures. | ||
| I know the Israelis do. | ||
| Whether it's malnutrition, food insecurity, starvation, famine, Palestinians are dying. | ||
| And the reality is, without a ceasefire and ultimately an end of the war, which would free the hostages and create a measure of stability and predictability in terms of the delivery of humanitarian assistance, the situation is going to go on. | ||
| And I might add, the headlines here are very bad. | ||
| And the trend lines, to me, right now, maybe they could change for the better, are frankly even worse. | ||
| I mean, let's just remember a couple basic realities here. | ||
| We're now almost two years since October 7. | ||
| October 7, Hamas, in a blunder strategic, galactic character, decided to roll the dice and to mount what was tantamount to a military operation, | ||
| the deaths of 1,200 Israelis, at least 800, 900 civilians, the indiscriminate and willful killing of men, women, and children, the sexual predation, the mutilation, the taking of hostages, the execution of hostages, was followed three weeks later. | ||
| Israelis imposed a virtual blockade on everything getting into Gaza, into Gaza during their first three weeks, and then opened up with a prosecution of a war in which they clearly expanded the numbers of Palestinians, innocent civilians that were prepared to die with regard to their prosecution of this war. | ||
| And you have, whether the Gaza Ministry of Health stats are reliable or not, 50,000, 60,000, at least 15 to 20,000 by American and Israeli estimates are Hamas fighters. | ||
| You've seen a level of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, a degree of brutality and trauma that is virtually unprecedented in the entire history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. | ||
| During the Nuqba, the great disaster, the catastrophe, 15,000 Palestinians were killed, 750,000 displaced or forced out of what was then Palestine, mandatory Palestine. | ||
| But what's happened now even exceeds that. | ||
| And it's left very little room, it seems to me, having negotiated these issues for the better part of 20 years between Israelis and Palestinians, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, leaves very little room and or hope for creating a better pathway out of this. | ||
| I mean, I'll save you the bottom line here. | ||
| Without leadership, leaders who are masters of their political constituencies, not prisoners of their ideologies, leaders who are willing to go beyond the basic fact of keeping their seats and political survival to think about the security and prosperity of their respective populations, we're going nowhere. | ||
| And we don't have that leadership. | ||
| We don't have it in Israel. | ||
| We don't have it in the Palestinian national movement. | ||
| We don't have it in Washington. | ||
| And frankly, having watched key Arab states with respect to this conflict, including Israel's treaty partners, Israel and Jordan, and the Abraham Accord countries, who have done absolutely nothing. | ||
| The Emiratis have done quite an extraordinary thing alone among the Arab states in terms of assisting Palestinians, but key Arab states have done nothing to impose a single cost or consequence on either Israel or the United States. | ||
| Aaron David Miller, going back to the food situation, the starvation situation in Gaza, you talked about food aid groups, but who is in control of getting the food to the Gaza population? | ||
| Is it these intraditional aid groups or is it the Israeli government? | ||
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unidentified
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Well, first of all, this is a collective failure. | |
| It's been a collective failure since October 7, partly as a consequence of the fact that Hamas had every incentive or stake to basically expose the Palestinian population to what they were exposed to. | ||
| The more civilians died, the greater the urgency and the asymmetry of power, which the Israelis clearly have, the more Israel's image was blackened, and the more the durability of Hamas's message. | ||
| On the Israeli side, the Israelis never had from the beginning any sort of strategic commitment to assisting Palestinian civilians in Gaza. | ||
| Whether that was driven by coalition politics, anger or hatred at Palestinians for the seizing of hostages, the Israelis clearly, Hamas set it up, the Israelis played their part. | ||
| And now you have a situation where it's exceedingly difficult, exceedingly difficult, because of the role played by both Hamas and the Israelis in getting into Gaza the kind of assistance that is required. | ||
| It's not a question that the UN doesn't have the assistance, but it's the delivery. | ||
| And with a breakdown of law and order, with desperate hungry people storming food trucks, the UN cannot provide, and the NGOs cannot provide security. | ||
| And let's distinguish between the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which is a concoction that the Israelis and the Americans put together. | ||
| President said the other day that the U.S. had funded this organization with $60 million. | ||
| It's roughly half that. | ||
| But there are four distribution sites in central and southern Gaza. | ||
| They're open for a very short period of time. | ||
| The boxes delivered require cooking oil and water. | ||
| It's mostly dry foodstuffs. | ||
| It's not enough. | ||
| You need hundreds of distribution sites. | ||
| Only the UN, World Food Program, and other credible NGOs, facilitated by the UN and facilitated by the Israelis, with help in securing at least the corridors that would allow the UN to deliver this assistance. | ||
| And even then, how do you basically get around the fact that you have essentially self-distribution in so many cases? | ||
| We've watched the pictures of desperate, hungry, starving Palestinians trying to collect and gain food for themselves and their families. | ||
| How do you fundamentally unwind that problem? | ||
| The answer is you need a period, an extended period, certainly at the beginning. | ||
| Two months, that's the issue on the table now in the negotiations. | ||
| But you need an end to the war in Gaza, and we are no closer, in my judgment, to producing that. | ||
| The latest numbers out of Gaza and the situation that Aaron David Miller is talking about from the World News section of the Wall Street Journal, at least 48 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded Wednesday while waiting for food at a Gaza crossing. | ||
| According to a hospital that received the casualties, the latest violence came as the U.S. Mideast envoy, Steve Witcoff, was heading to Israel for talks today. | ||
| Aaron David Miller, with the U.S. envoy on his way to Israel for talks, there are these headlines that are sure to come up. | ||
| You have Palestinian recognition. | ||
| Canada is the latest to say it will recognize a Palestinian state. | ||
| That headline followed yesterday after the UK prime minister said that they would be willing to recognize a Palestinian state if the situation in Gaza is not addressed. | ||
| Your thoughts on that? | ||
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Look, I understand the impulse. | |
| The Europeans, particularly the Brits, Kirstarmer was a human rights lawyer. | ||
| He feels these issues emotionally. | ||
| I'm sure the Canadian Prime Minister and Macron are the same way. | ||
| But let me be very clear about something. | ||
| And I do believe, frankly, the least bad alternative, the least bad solution to this conflict, if there is one, is separation through negotiations into two states. | ||
| But let's be very clear, I was at the last serious effort 25 years ago, this month, to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. | ||
| Then President Bill Clinton, Bad Yasser, fought Palestinian leader who, unlike Mahmoud Abbas, had actual control of the Palestinian national movement, Ehud Barak, who put proposals on the table that couldn't end the conflict, but went farther than any other Israeli prime minister had gone. | ||
| And yet at the end of that 13-day summit, the gaps on the core issues, and there are five, borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem, and end of all conflict and claims. | ||
| The gaps on those issues were as wide as the Grand Canyon. | ||
| And nothing over the course of the last 25 years has done anything to narrow the gaps on that issue. | ||
| In fact, October 7 has produced the kind of trauma for both Israelis and particularly for Palestinians in Gaza that allows very little space. | ||
| And in the absence of leadership, the notion that somehow you could sit down with the current government of Israel on one hand, and even Mahmoud Abbas, an epitistic, corrupt, authoritarian leader who is in single digits with respect to his population, the notion that you could negotiate these issues is tethered, | ||
| it's a concept tethered to a galaxy far, far away, not back here on planet Earth. | ||
| So while I understand the impulse, this recognition seems to me to be virtue signaling and will do nothing to change the situation for the better for either Palestinians or Israelis on the ground. | ||
| All right, let's get to calls. | ||
| John in Michigan, Democratic caller, good morning to you. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, this is John in Michigan. | |
| It's raining here. | ||
| I am a combat veteran of the Vietnam War. | ||
| I'm exactly 11 months older than our President of the United States, which I appreciate very well. | ||
| I also remember the Mili massacre that took place with Lieutenant Kelly and Captain Medina when I was overseas during the Vietnam War. | ||
| Spent a lot of time on the DMZs. | ||
| First of all, in my area of Michigan, we have a strong Jewish and Arabic community, and I blame both sides of the misdirection and the handling of the whole situation and not recognizing the mess that both sides have done. | ||
| I blame both the Israel government and Hamas organization for the slaughter that's taking place in Gaza. | ||
| I am a stamp collector. | ||
| Gaza is an official place that's been operated by the Palestinian Authority or the government or whatever you want to call it under the offices of Israel for at least going back into the 1940s and 1950s. | ||
| My main call is the fact is I am absolutely thoroughly disgusted as a combat veteran of a situation. | ||
| I know what refugees are like. | ||
| I know what it's like for the medical corps and the medical people that are over there feeding the poor, the indigent and the starvation and doing all the surgeries and things of this nature. | ||
| I don't know if they're Jewish people or Arabic people or American or whatever they are, but these people belong in the area of sainthood for the operation they are taking care of the horrible, disgusting situation that's been going on. | ||
| Understood, John. | ||
| Aaron David Miller. | ||
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unidentified
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John, first of all, I spent seven wonderful years in Ann Arbor. | |
| I love Michigan. | ||
| Look, I have to say one thing, John. | ||
| I applaud the fact that you recognize that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not a morality play that pits the forces of goodness on one hand against the forces of darkness on the other. | ||
| It is a terribly complicated conflict in which both sides bear an extraordinary amount of responsibility. | ||
| We can talk all day about the power of the strong, which the Israelis have, settlements, land closures, targeted killings. | ||
| Palestinians, however, also have a power. | ||
| It's the power of the weak. | ||
| And Hamas demonstrated, Hamas does not speak for all Palestinians, but Hamas demonstrated on October 7 the absolute terror and trauma that the weak can visit on the strong. | ||
| So the notion that you are actually attributing a measure of responsibility to both sides, in my judgment, even though Israelis and Palestinians would never acknowledge this, is, I believe, the point of departure for any human who wants to seriously take a look at this conflict and try to figure out what to do about it rather than root for your favorite side. | ||
| So John, I take your point, and thank you so much for your service. | ||
| Aaron David Miller, your response to the president who just posted on Truth Social this morning, the fastest way to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages. | ||
| Will that, if that were to happen, would that resolve the situation? | ||
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unidentified
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I mean, I think what it would resolve would be the hostage crisis. | |
| Would it end the war? | ||
| Would Hamas somehow be transformed as an organization? | ||
| Would it deal with the profound suffering of the Palestinians? | ||
| By some estimates, it'll take, what, 10 years and $100 billion to begin the reconstruction of Gaza? | ||
| No. | ||
| I understand, and let me be very clear about domestic politics here. | ||
| I know you have a Republican line, a Democratic line, an Independent line. | ||
| I spent almost 30 years of my life working on behalf of the interests of this republic. | ||
| I worked for Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| I voted for Democrats and Republicans. | ||
| And I've always believed that the line for an effective U.S. foreign policy is not between left and right, not between conservative and liberal, and not between Democrat and Republican. | ||
| It's between dumb on one hand and smart on the other. | ||
| And the only question that Americans need to decide is which side of the line do they want America to be on? | ||
| The smart side or the dumb side? | ||
| If you want it to be on the smart side, then you believe in something called the national interest, which transcends party politics, which transcends partisan rancor, and which essentially allows an American president and every American president is shaped by domestic politics in a democratic polity that is perhaps its lifeblood. | ||
| But the reality, presidents also need to keep that national interest in mind. | ||
| And they need to be able to turn the M in me, turn the M in me upside down so it becomes a W in we. | ||
| And I find it extremely difficult, having served in six administrations, Republics and Democrats, to accept. | ||
| This is off the line of our conversation, but it's critically important. | ||
| Accept the kind of damage and destruction that is being done to the norms and institutions of this republic in the interests of the me, not we. | ||
| You said domestic politics is obviously important for a president here on this issue. | ||
| I want to share a few headlines for you and get your reaction. | ||
| The Hill newspaper noting this morning the action in the Senate on the Senate floor yesterday, Senator Sanders offering a number of amendments. | ||
| And the Hill headline is, record number of Senate Democrats vote to block weapon sales for Israel. | ||
| The number of Democrats increased the highest number they've seen on this issue. | ||
| And it matches, they note in the Hill newspaper, the unfavorable rating for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is at 52%, its highest since 1997 for the prime minister. | ||
| On top of that, you have headlines about the MAGA movement. | ||
| This is President Trump, the Politico with this headline. | ||
| It says, MAGA is turning on Israel over Gaza, but Trump is unmoved. | ||
| And then you also have the Hill newspaper, Marjorie Taylor Green calls Gaza humanitarian crisis a genocide. | ||
| What is the domestic politics right now, Aaron David Miller? | ||
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unidentified
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You know, I think it's fascinating. | |
| I've watched this for decades now. | ||
| And the U.S.-Israeli relationship was once a bipartisan issue. | ||
| It transcended party politics. | ||
| You had strong support on the part of the Democrats and the Republicans and independents, and that was reflected in public opinion polling. | ||
| Over the last 20 years, I think it's quite clear, as Israel has moved to the right, that Israel's image in America has undergone a transformation. | ||
| In some constituencies, absolutely that is the case. | ||
| But it's always my contention that the adhesive that binds these two countries together basically depends on one element, and that is value affinity. | ||
| The perception that America and Israel share common values. | ||
| A pluralistic, humanistic tradition, a democratic tradition, despite the complexities of the Israeli political system and the differences from ours. | ||
| I think that's changing. | ||
| The image of Israel in the mind of America, as I would describe it, is changing. | ||
| It's clearly generational in character. | ||
| There's no doubt about it. | ||
| Look at 2023 and the eruption of protests on college campuses. | ||
| Still a minority, but extraordinary. | ||
| I was at the University of Michigan in the late 60s, early 70s, and you had protests over Vietnam, but not since Vietnam. | ||
| Has any foreign policy issue gripped campuses as Israeli and Palestinian issues have. | ||
| So I think the image of Israel, yes, is changing. | ||
| The Pew Polls suggest that. | ||
| And I think it's in large part driven by the fact that Israel has moved to the right, particularly under the tenure of Benjamin Netanyahu, who in my judgment has worked in many respects in tandem with Republicans over the course of the last decade. | ||
| He's now the longest governing prime minister in the history of the state of Israel, working with Republicans and helping and doing his part. to turn what had been a bipartisan relationship into one that is now very partisan. | ||
| Yes, there are MAGA voices, Marjorie Taylor Greene that talks about Israeli committing genocide. | ||
| You have Republicans, they're still outliers, wanting to end all U.S. military and other assistance to Israel. |