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Our coverage of the U.S. Navy's 250th anniversary continues Monday. | |
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| Welcome back. | ||
| We're going to continue our discussion of the Gaza ceasefire as well as Trump's Middle East peace plan. | ||
| Here to join me with for that is Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. | ||
| Welcome to Washington Journal. | ||
| Thanks for having me, Kimberly. | ||
| Can you talk a little bit about the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, your group, what you do, and how you're funded? | ||
| Yeah, so FDD is a Washington think tank, about 100 people. | ||
| Our mission is to defend democracies, the United States, and other beleaguered democracies like Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea. | ||
| Those democracies are under a threat from what we call the axis of aggressors, which is really China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. | ||
| We don't take any foreign government funding. | ||
| We're funded by American citizens. | ||
| And we've been in business for 23 years. | ||
| We actually were conceived of two weeks before 9-11 by the late, great Jean Kirkpatrick, who was Ronald Reagan's ambassador, a Democrat across the floor to work for President Reagan. | ||
| And she was very concerned at the time that the terrorism being directed against America abroad, but also against Israel and other democracies would one day come to America's shores. | ||
| And sure enough, two weeks later, 9-11 occurred. | ||
| And we opened our doors shortly after that. | ||
| Just to recap sort of some of the details from President Trump's 20-point plan, it includes several issues that have been sort of non-starters for Hamas and Israel, but it requires Gaza to be initially governed by a temporary committee of technocrats, including qualified Palestinians and international experts that would be responsible for running public services in Gaza, that Palestinians would be allowed to remain in Gaza, and that those who wish to leave would be free to do so in return. | ||
| A big sticking point, and this one is controversial in the past, Hamas and allied factions giving up any role governing Gaza and agree to disarm, handing over weapons and a decommissioning process overseen by independent monitors, a temporary international stabilization force organized by the U.S. with Arab nations and other countries to deploy in Gaza. | ||
| And then Israel would not occupy or annex Gaza. | ||
| And it also includes a provision for creating a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize, and this is in the quote, as the aspiration of the Palestinian people, which is something that particularly Prime Minister Netanyahu has expressed quite a bit of opposition to. | ||
| What is your reaction to the likelihood of all of these things moving forward? | ||
| Well, I think it's going to be very, very complicated and very difficult. | ||
| I mean, I think this first phase is really important, is to get these American and Israeli hostages finally back, 48 hostages, 20 we believe are alive, 28 who have been murdered, and their bodies will be returned. | ||
| And that seems to, hopefully if all goes well in the coming hours, that that'll take place. | ||
| There's a ceasefire. | ||
| Israel is committed to that. | ||
| And now the real hard work is going to begin. | ||
| And I hope for President Trump, he will remain very focused on this because there's going to be a lot of tough negotiations ahead. | ||
| Hamas certainly does not want to give up its weapons, even though that is absolute and essential part of this peace plan. | ||
| And that's going to be a critical element of any kind of reconstruction, any kind of path forward for peace and stability in that area and in the region is that Hamas is fully disarmed. | ||
| What about this idea of Palestinian statehood? | ||
| Because this has been something that does not enjoy much support in Israel. | ||
| Well, it used to enjoy a lot of support in Israel. | ||
| The majority of Israelis supported a Palestinian state, but after waves of terrorism, especially after October 7th, I think the vast majority of Israelis from left to right are opposed to Palestinian statehood, certainly now, because their experience has been anytime they've withdrawn from territory, they've withdrew from Gaza, they withdrew from major chunks of the West Bank, they withdrew certainly from southern Lebanon. | ||
| It's all been replaced by waves of terror. | ||
| So they don't want to repeat that same mistake again and withdraw again from territory and find that Palestinians now have tens of thousands of missiles and rockets aimed at their cities and open borders to commit more terrorist atrocities like October 7th. | ||
| I want to play a clip from Thursday with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu giving thanks to the Trump administration for the work to bring this war to an end. | ||
| Let's listen. | ||
| Tremendous development in the last two years. | ||
| We fought during these two years to achieve our war aims. | ||
| And the central one of these war aims is to return the hostages, all of the hostages, the living and the dead. | ||
| And we're about to achieve that goal. | ||
| We couldn't have achieved it without the extraordinary help of President Trump and his team, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushman. | ||
| They worked tirelessly with Ron and his team, our team. | ||
| And that and the courage of our soldiers who entered Gaza and the combined military and diplomatic pressure that isolated Hamas, I think, has brought us to this point. | ||
| I want to personally thank both of you, Steve, Jared. | ||
| It's been long hours around the clock, but not only worked, I think you put it in your brains and your hearts. | ||
| And we know that it's for the benefit of Israel and the United States, for the benefit of decent people everywhere, and for the benefit of these families who will finally get to be with our mother. | ||
| And I want to thank you on their behalf as well, and on behalf of the people of Israel. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| With Allah. | ||
| Mark, Prime Minister Netanyahu was crediting the military and diplomatic pressure for Hamas to agree to the initial plan. | ||
| What pressures do you think might have encouraged Israel to agree to this plan? | ||
| Well, I think the Prime Minister clearly stated his objectives after October 7th. | ||
| And I think that having realized most of those objectives, I think the Prime Minister was keen to move forward and find a ceasefire and a return of hostages. | ||
| And the President realized that, I think, from the beginning when he came into office, that there was going to be no daylight between Israel and the United States. | ||
| Is going to provide full military support to Israel to do what they needed to do to destroy Hamas and their control over Gaza and their control over the Palestinian people, and then really flip the script on Hamas and get the regional actors, the Saudis, Emiratis, Turks, the Qataris, the Egyptians, to come together and support this deal. | ||
| And that, I think, made the biggest difference. | ||
| It was military pressure from Israel and then the political pressure from the United States in coordination with its closest regional allies. | ||
| Do you think the political and diplomatic pressure globally about the humanitarian situation in Gaza played a role here? | ||
| I think it actually played a counterproductive role. | ||
| I think the attempt to isolate Israel, the attempt to deny that October 7th was a terrorist atrocity, the waves of protests, the pro-Hamas protests that we see in the United States and the UK and around the world, I think hardened Israeli resolve. | ||
| And for the Israelis, made it clear that these countries had no understanding of what Israeli society had gone through. | ||
| It was really President Trump who was decisive in coming in in January and again flipping that script and saying, listen, we appreciate that October 7th was the most tragic day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. | ||
| We, the United States, are going to back you against this terrorist organization, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that's also killed and maimed hundreds of Americans. | ||
| And we're going to provide you that support. | ||
| And then we're going to try to find a way, while we're destroying Hamas militarily, to find a political solution to end the war. | ||
| I'm going to play another clip from that press conference on Thursday, President Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, speaking about that pressure that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put on Hamas. | ||
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Our job was the Prime Minister's. | |
| He had the job of protecting this country. | ||
| He had the job of making tough choices with regard to how tough to be with Hamas, when to be flexible, when not to be flexible. | ||
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unidentified
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I think to myself all the time, I lost sleep over it. | |
| What would I have done in some of those circumstances? | ||
| There were times that I thought we should be more flexible, or your country should be more flexible. | ||
| The truth is, as I look back, I don't think we get to this place without Prime Minister Netanyahu playing it. | ||
| And I'm not just saying that. | ||
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unidentified
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They're not just words. | |
| The president believes that. | ||
| My president believes it. | ||
| He believes that Prime Minister Netanyahu made some very, very difficult calls, and lesser people would not have made those calls. | ||
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And here we are today because Hamas had to, they had to do this deal. | |
| The pressure was on them. | ||
| They were backed up. | ||
| And you've got the bigger army. | ||
| You were making inroads. | ||
| And that's what led to this deal. | ||
| There's reporting in the Wall Street Journal today that Hamas has told Israel it has 20 living Israeli hostages in hand and is ready to begin releasing them as early as Sunday. | ||
| Then the Prime Minister of Israel's office said on X that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this was earlier today, has just spoken with Coordinator for the Hostages and Missing Brigadier General Gal Hirsch. | ||
| Prime Minister Netanyahu says Israel is prepared and ready to immediately receive all of our hostages. | ||
| Those hostages were a key piece of leverage for Hamas, although it's painful to describe them that way. | ||
| Once they're released, what approach do you think Israel and other countries will take with Hamas? | ||
| Well, it's all laid out in President Trump's peace plan. | ||
| I mean, it's there. | ||
| It's 20 points. | ||
| Hamas must be disarmed. | ||
| They must play no role in the governance of Gaza. | ||
| Hamas terrorists can decide to leave if they want and can go to other countries. | ||
| And then we can move forward on this peace plan. | ||
| And I think it's, Kimberl, it's really important to understand this is not just the U.S. demand or the Israeli demand, but this is the demand from these Arab countries and Muslim countries, all of whom understand what a threat Hamas represents to the Palestinians, to the people of Gaza, and to their own countries. | ||
| And so these are demands that are coming from the regional players who know Hamas best. | ||
| And they understand that Hamas, which is the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, is an Islamist terrorist organization that threatens their rule as well as the safety and security of Israelis and Gazans. | ||
| So this is a pretty clear demand that Hamas needs to comply. | ||
| They've given back the hostages finally after two years of this brutal war. | ||
| And now they need to step aside and let other Palestinians and Arabs and Muslims rule this territory. | ||
| If you have questions for Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, our phone lines for Republicans, 202748-8001. | ||
| For Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| And for Independents, 202748-8002. | ||
| Before we get to our callers, I'd like to know what you make of President Trump's proposed board of peace and the role that he'll play in particular if this peace agreement continues. | ||
| Well, I think it's really important. | ||
| I mean, it's quite remarkable that the president wants to chair this board because he really is putting his reputation and his legacy on the line. | ||
| It's going to be this board that oversees the implementation of this 20-point plan. | ||
| And so instead of just kicking it off to someone else and not taking the responsibility, President Trump is assuming a huge amount of responsibility here. | ||
| And clearly, this could go badly wrong. | ||
| I mean, Hamas has shown over the past, not only two years, but the past 40 years, that it is not willing to comply with international demands. | ||
| It has often defied those international demands, and I would expect that it would do so again. | ||
| I don't expect Hamas is going to disarm. | ||
| I don't expect they're going to voluntarily step away. | ||
| They are a dedicated, hardcore, ideological, jihadist terrorist organization. | ||
| You don't just give that up overnight and decide to slink into the night. | ||
| So President Trump has taken on a huge amount of responsibility and accountability for this plan. | ||
| President Trump is headed to the Middle East later today. | ||
| And what are you looking for from that trip? | ||
| Or what are you expecting to hear from him? | ||
| Well, he's going to address the Israeli Knesset, the Israeli parliament, which would be an extraordinary moment, I think. | ||
| I think he's going to express this long-standing desire that he's had to get these hostages back. | ||
| I mean, he's really made an emotional and personal commitment to this. | ||
| So I think you'll hear words to that effect. | ||
| But also, he will be calling out the region and the international community to stand by this peace plan. | ||
| He's only coming in for a few hours, which is an extraordinary long trip to go halfway around the world just for a few hours. | ||
| But I think it just shows his personal commitment to this and his belief that he can bring peace to the Middle East after, well, decades, if not hundreds of years, of failures. | ||
| So I think everybody's wishing him well, but there's going to be some tough obstacles ahead. | ||
| Do you think the president deserved the Nobel Peace Prize? | ||
| Well, I actually, I mean, I was delighted to see that the Venezuelan opposition leader got it. | ||
| I think she's a remarkable woman who has stood in opposition to dictators in Venezuela. | ||
| So I think she deserves it. | ||
| But I think the next peace prize should go to President Trump. | ||
| And obviously he's done extraordinary work here winding down this conflict in a way that unfortunately President Biden couldn't, and previous U.S. presidents have been unable to. | ||
| So I think next year's peace prize should be his. | ||
| If you have questions for Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation of Defense of Democracies, you can call us at again 202-748-8001 for Republicans, 202-748-8000 for Democrats, and 202-748-8002 for Independents. | ||
| We'll start with Evie in Albany, Georgia on our line for Republicans. | ||
| Good morning, Evie. | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, good morning, and good morning to C-SPAN. | |
| And you're looking beautiful today, dear, with your outfit. | ||
| I love that on you. | ||
| One of the things that I think that we're forgetting, if you could put up the picture of the Gaza destruction behind us so that we can see what we're talking about here. | ||
| What we are talking about is a place, a historical antiquity place that has been completely, I have been to Israel, and I just, my heart is broken over this. | ||
| Now, we're talking about words, a so-called Trump 20-point plan. | ||
| Now, they just had this morning the construct of this plan, which is basically some PowerPoint items that has been put into structures of paragraphs to claim plan. | ||
| We have Netanyahu is not there, but somehow, as the lady said, Jared Kushner and his wife, his daughter, are there. | ||
| They are not political representatives of the government, but the main representative who is not there is Net Yahoo. | ||
| And this man who just stated that Evie, that Netanyahu, where do you, Prime Minister Netanyahu is in Israel? | ||
| I don't understand what you're saying. | ||
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They are at the summit. | |
| You know, Egypt is the land of peace. | ||
| That is what the Egypt, and they've had many summits. | ||
| They had the Bahrain. | ||
| I tell you who I'd love to have you to bring on to talk about this is. | ||
| Before that, Evie, did you have a question for Mr. Dubowitz? | ||
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unidentified
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Yes, my question is, could you please not have, if this gentleman would talk to us about the context of the plan, of the destruction that we see on the television, our eyes, not words, where millions of people are going to have to live tomorrow after we have this show of flying across the country. | |
| You know, we're going to be able to do it. | ||
| I think we have the broad idea of your point. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| Yeah, so I think one must remember, Kimberly, that October 7th, there was a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. | ||
| And on that day, Hamas violated that ceasefire. | ||
| They invaded Israel. | ||
| They killed 1,200 Israelis, Americans, and others. | ||
| They raped, they tortured, they burnt people, and they took over 240 hostages back into the dungeons in Gaza. | ||
| So every death is Hamas's responsibility. | ||
| Every Palestinian death, every Israeli death, every American death is Hamas's responsibility. | ||
| And you're right, and the caller's right. | ||
| There's devastation. | ||
| There's devastation in Gaza. | ||
| There's devastation in those communities in Israel. | ||
| And this is now a moment for rebuilding. | ||
| And I think President Trump is committed to rebuilding, to reconstruction. | ||
| I would say one thing about the Egyptians, throughout the entire two years of war, the Egyptians have refused to allow Gazans to cross the Egyptian-Gaza border and seek shelter in the northern Sinai of Egypt, which is completely unpopulated and would have been a perfect place for Gazans to have waited out the war. | ||
| In fact, the Emiratis offered $40 billion to the Egyptian leader to help his economy and to build communities there for Gazans. | ||
| He absolutely refused because he didn't want any Palestinians on one inch of Egyptian soil, which was really tragic. | ||
| And as a result, led to a significant loss in life. | ||
| Denise is in Riverdale, Georgia, also on our line for Democrats. | ||
| Good morning, Denise. | ||
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unidentified
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Hey, how are you doing? | |
| Denise, make sure to turn down the volume on your TV first, and then you can go ahead with your question for Mark Dubowitz. | ||
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unidentified
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Right. | |
| I'm calling about all this cease, all this war that they have over there is about land. | ||
| It's all about land. | ||
| We want your land. | ||
| We want our land back. | ||
| So what are the Jews going to do that going to continue to take their land, make them live up under their rules? | ||
| We let food in. | ||
| We determine what you could get in, your water. | ||
| The Palestinians were there first. | ||
| That's just like if I invite you to my house and I say, okay, you under stress, come on in my house. | ||
| And the next thing you knew, I know you taking my house over. | ||
| That's exactly what they done to these people. | ||
| So I think that they should give them a state, give them some of their land back, and then everybody can live in peace. | ||
| That's what I think. | ||
| Your response? | ||
| Yeah, I mean, Denise, so, I mean, first of all, it's worth remembering that the Jews are the indigenous people of that area. | ||
| For over 2,000 years, they've been there. | ||
| They've been speaking the same language, Hebrew, praying to the same God. | ||
| And they have been there for millennia. | ||
| If you want to fast forward to modern history, Denise is right. | ||
| I mean, it would make the most sense to divide that territory and create two states. | ||
| And that's exactly why the Israelis have been offering repeatedly to do so. | ||
| In fact, the international community, when it created the State of Israel, the modern state of Israel, in 1947, I mean, it specifically mandated that there would be two states. | ||
| The Jews accepted that. | ||
| The Arabs rejected that. | ||
| They invaded Israel in the 1948 war. | ||
| Lost. | ||
| They lost in 1948, 56, 67, 73. | ||
| They've repeatedly lost. | ||
| Hamas again invaded in 2023, lost again. | ||
| So at some point, the Palestinians have to take yes for an answer. | ||
| They have to say yes to peaceful coexistence instead of yes to more violence and more invasions. | ||
| You can't keep losing wars and then claiming that you are on the weaker side. | ||
| If you lose a war, then you need to acknowledge that you've lost the war and then you need to go to the negotiation table and you have to give up your weapons and you have to peacefully negotiate a settlement. | ||
| But if you keep invading Israel, Israel has the right to defend itself and it'll continue doing so. | ||
| Nicholas is in Peachtree City, Georgia on our line for independence. | ||
| Good morning, Nicholas. | ||
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unidentified
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Hey, you made a point in your show to the effect of saying every time Israel sees land, it motivates a terrorist attack. | |
| I was just looking to press you on this point because I don't think Palestinians or Arabs or the other people in the region are motivated by a primordial hatred of Israel or Jews. | ||
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unidentified
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There's very real history and conflict or excuse me. | |
| There's a very real history of suffering and oppression. | ||
| And at this point, what, since 48, since before 48, a very real track record of poor behavior. | ||
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unidentified
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So I would like to ask the question As to what do you think motivates the, you know, people, innocent, you know, you know, people that start off as innocent little children to grow up and become terrorists. | |
| Yeah, I mean, first of all, you know, I'm not sort of reading into people's intentions. | ||
| I just read the Hamas Charter, which explicitly calls for the elimination of Israel and the destruction of Jews. | ||
| So, I mean, they've been very explicit, and I think we should be serious. | ||
| We should take people at their word. | ||
| We should be serious about what they're committed to, and they're hard men committed to hard ideas. | ||
| What motivates people? | ||
| I mean, I think what motivates people is an ideological commitment to what they call jihadism. | ||
| And it's the same ideological commitment that al-Qaeda and ISIS and Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations around the world have committed to, and that is to kill not just Jews, not just Israelis, but to kill Americans. | ||
| And that's why we faced waves of terrorist attacks in the 1990s, culminating with 9-11. | ||
| And then we had to go into the Middle East and fight ISIS because ISIS was committed again to killing Americans. | ||
| And we've seen terrorist attacks in American soil. | ||
| So I think we've got to remember this is not about land. | ||
| If it was about land, this conflict would have been solved decades ago because the Israelis offered a formula called land for peace. | ||
| It was offered repeatedly, most notably in the 1990s under the auspices of President Bill Clinton. | ||
| And you've got these Palestinian rejectionist groups who continue to reject this formula of land for peace and are committed to an ideological struggle. | ||
| Let's be serious about acknowledging this ideological struggle and figuring out ways to combat it rather than living under the illusion that somehow they don't really believe in their ideas and that they're not committed to what they say and what they write. | ||
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Early on Monday, President Trump arrives in Israel to address the Israeli parliament on the peace deal between Israel and Hamas. | |
| We'll have live coverage of President Trump's arrival at 2.30 a.m. Eastern and his address at 4 a.m. on C-SPAN, C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, and online at C-SPAN.org. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington and across the country. | ||
| Coming up Monday morning, we'll look at the latest public opinion polls on the government shutdown and the performance of President Trump and congressional leaders with Cliff Young of Ipsos. | ||
| Then Politico's Diana Narosi goes over the latest on the shutdown and President Trump's Mideast peace efforts. | ||
| And Ryan Szymansky of the Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial discusses the 250th anniversary of the Navy. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join in the conversation live at 7 Eastern Monday morning on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Attorney General Pam Bondi testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was asked about the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey by the Justice Department. | ||
| She also talks about whether it's legal to deploy the National Guard to U.S. cities and the Epstein files and expresses her concerns about law enforcement not being paid due to the federal government shutdown. | ||
| Do you affirm the testimony you're about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? | ||
| So help you, God. |