Deal Flow Donald dissects Trump’s Gaza ceasefire—three-phase "peace plan" with Hamas accepting partial terms while Israel retains 58% of Gaza, media hails it historic despite ongoing destruction. Dylan Saba exposes Jared Kushner’s Gulf ties driving the deal, Hamas’s weakened hostage leverage, and Israel’s push for a "purgatory" state to avoid ICC scrutiny. Trump’s PR gambit risks entrenching low-intensity conflict, with a proposed peace council and ISF facing Arab skepticism. Skepticism lingers over genuine resolution amid 85–92% Gaza infrastructure loss and past ceasefire failures, while Trump’s Nobel ambitions clash with his divisive base tactics. [Automatically generated summary]
Generations from now, this will be remembered as the moment that everything began to change and change very much for the better.
Like the USA right now, it will be the golden age of Israel and the golden age of the Middle East.
It's going to work together.
If you think we settled eight wars in eight months, I'm now including this one, by the way, if that's okay.
They may say, well, that was quick.
Because yesterday I was saying seven, but now I can say eight.
Hello, hello, hello, hello.
Hello, good after.
Noon, Liz.
How are you doing?
I'm good.
And even though you already said it, I'm going to say it again.
I'm Liz.
My name is Brace.
And my fake chipper upbeat attitude is draining out of my body as if it were leaking out of every single of my giant dime-sized pores like a little white ooze.
I'm Brace.
I'm producer Young Chomsky.
And this is true, Anon.
Hello, everyone.
Hello.
We have a banger of an episode for you today.
But before we get into that, we have some housekeeping real quick.
We're crunching the numbers, a little tippy-tappy, on the old calculator.
I don't know where I was going to go with that one.
Yes, the abacus.
Abacus Finch.
Fair numbers.
We have a live show coming up in November.
And there are still like 50 tickets available or something.
40?
I can't remember how many.
Presumably there's like 50 now, but the last we heard, there was 60.
Were you trying not to lie and make it sound like there was less?
No.
There was 60.
I mean, and let's be real.
That's 60 out of 800.
So relative terms, there's zero tickets left.
But there were 60 tickets left when we were told the last ticket count.
There we go.
Which we're not going to tell you when that was.
30 seconds ago.
No, I don't know.
Sometime in the past.
However many days.
In the past.
No, we just leave it at that.
In the past.
But we need you to buy the rest of them.
Well, we don't need to, but we'd love for you to come.
We actually don't fucking care if you buy the rest of them.
We just wanted to let you know because all the other shows sold out so quick and there's still an opportunity to get tickets.
It's November 19th at the Society for Ethical Culture in New York City.
In Manhattan, not the Brooklyn one.
There's one in Brooklyn?
Yeah, but they're way less ethical there.
There is.
Wow.
You'd think they'd be more ethical, but in a kind of polyamorous way.
Yeah, huh?
Anyway, I don't know what time it's at.
Eight?
Doors open at seven.
People always ask you what time things are.
First of all, look it up.
Second of all, it's at nighttime.
Yeah.
You know, it's you know what?
I guess it starts in the middle of the evening.
Yeah.
It's what do you think?
It's at five.
Well, there's a link in the description.
And there will be a Zoo crew.
There will be a link in the description.
And all of that information will be there, including how you buy the tickets.
Yes.
First of all, yes.
But there's a second little bit of announcement we need to make is that we are doing a live show.
What is it?
Nine days from one week.
It's sold out.
You can't go.
You can't go to that one.
And you know what?
If you're not going, sucks for you because it's fucking Halloween themed.
Although people always do, like the day before, they're like, oh, I'm selling two tickets.
What the fuck is your live?
Well, look, some of those people are robots.
Oh, yeah.
Well, that's all robots.
Yeah.
Like the people, there's a lot of robots doing that.
Also, I do want to say house style.
I don't like calling people bots.
Or not people, but I don't like saying bots.
That's a bot.
Yeah, definitionally.
They're not.
I know, but it's so much funnier to be like, that's a robot.
That's a robot.
Yeah.
It's a robot trying to chick your ass.
But the October 30th, by the way, is going to be our last show.
A spooky.
Amazing.
The show before that, incredible.
This show is going to be a fright fest.
This is our Halloween show.
It's not going to be like scary.
It's going to be genuinely scary.
No, it's going to be really freaked the fuck out by some of this shit that we do.
You don't know about it because I didn't want to scare you by even telling you about it, but we have a real ghost we're bringing up there.
But people won't be able to see, but we'll tell them.
We'll be like, look, there is a ghost on stage.
You can't see it, but trust it's here and it shall reveal itself to you at some point during the show.
And we legit do.
People think that I'm joking.
We legit do have one of the scariest monsters coming up.
And I know you're racking your brain to think of which of our guests I'm talking about right there.
It's the Jewish one.
But I shouldn't say that for this episode.
I can say that.
But we have scary frights, all those sort of things.
It is a Halloween show.
But I don't know why we're advertising it.
No one can do it.
Here's where we fucking advertise it, Liz.
Like we talked about yesterday.
And I feel so great right now because you forgot and I remember.
We need, are we still doing this?
Actually, I don't know if we're still doing this.
Oh, we are still doing this.
What?
No, but I actually forgot what we needed.
I just know that we need to make an announcement.
We do have a request for you guys out there, which is that we want.
Do you have any spooky tips?
Has anything weird happened to you?
Have you encountered anything supernatural or unexplained?
Now, I don't want you to be like, oh my God, one time I got really scared.
He ghosted me.
Yeah.
None of that.
Look, the vibe is coast to coast.
What was the worst moment of your life?
I want you to tell me.
When did you cry the hardest?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Who's left you?
Right?
Who died?
Who died?
Yeah, which of your family members have died?
And how much, you know, did that affect you?
How much were they worth?
How much were they worth and did it affect you?
And do you think if they had been worth more?
Well, that's for our Jewish guests.
You can't say that, dude.
What the fuck is this shit, dude?
She's always, but that's for another time.
That's for because we go to triples therapy.
Triples?
Yeah, because it's three of us.
But we do want your spooky tips.
I like the idea of calling ours us triplets.
Triplets.
What are we asking for at spooky tips?
We're asking for spooky tips.
You know what you got to do?
You got to hit the tip line.
Hit the tip line.
It's in the description.
And it doesn't have to be like, I saw Jennifer Aniston and she was a skeleton.
Well, she's certainly not.
She's certainly not.
Let's see.
Who's?
Well, no, that's mean.
But Shalame.
He will be.
He is.
He will be once I'm coming.
He's got to be one of the least delicious celebrities to eat.
You think about that?
No.
I don't think about that.
But I think that's the thing.
He would taste like shit, no?
He's very lean.
Gamey.
Yeah, gamey.
And you think that there's a lot of like, it's just stringy, I feel like.
It'd be like eating a young rabbit.
Right.
Jennifer Innocent conversion, I think it actually tastes delicious.
Rabbit pie, though, that changed the way that I feel about rabbit.
Okay, that's like pre-literacy for me.
No, no, you would, it was so good.
That's the kind of shit they were eating before they could read.
It was so good.
Where do you have it?
At Stissing House.
You got to go up there.
Yeah.
A long time ago.
I eat rabbits straight off the vine.
Okay.
So if you're spooky tips, please hit the tip line with those.
The scariest thing.
And you might become famous because we might read one at a live show that you will not be at.
And it is not going to be recorded.
And no.
And also, if you are going to the October 30th live show and you're listening to this, we encourage you to go in your crazy costume.
Really?
You're going to tell people that?
Why not?
I don't give a fuck.
I'm just making work.
It's fun for us.
It'd be fun for us so I can look out there, right?
Yeah.
Hey, dress weird.
And then it's just a Thursday night.
Mario, we're going to.
It's a Thursday night.
You're just out there in fucking, you know, Upper West Side.
But isn't the thing in New York?
Isn't like everyone dressing in costume like kind of all week?
It's like a long weekend.
Halloween being on a Friday means that it's Halloween, Wednesday, Thursday.
Yeah.
Wednesday day, school, maybe even?
I can't go.
I don't know if it'll be necessarily All Halloween weekend because I feel like November 1st it's like No it's over It's over.
But that's why I'm saying Thursday is going to have a spooky feel to it.
That is true.
That is true.
Because Friday, you got to deal with the trick-or-treating and the parades and all the things.
And the sexy cats.
But that comes at night.
Yeah.
But I'm just saying, I think people, you know, there's going to be spooky stuff for people to enjoy on Thursday.
As much as on Friday.
Dressed me as a sexy black cat from when I was like 10 to 15 every Halloween.
Halloween Spookiness00:03:33
I don't think that's true.
Okay.
Well, that's gaslighting.
We have an episode for you guys right now.
It's like a serious episode.
I don't.
Whoops.
We get to put it in a different mindset, turn off the show for like two seconds.
Actually, never do that.
Different mindset.
We're joined by Dylan Saba.
And we are talking about the Trump.
I guess what would you call it?
He's the ceasefire deal, the Charlotte Peace Plan.
Let's say the ceasefire deal and what might come next.
I got to tell you, and before we start, even though I know you were doing a segue right there, but before we start, it really actually kind of has been.
It is so weird when Trump does something like this.
And the media who otherwise are like 50 op-eds and New York Times or whatever being like, King Trump, you know.
No kings.
Exactly.
But they're like, it's like, I was looking at like Blinken's statements.
Blinken actually, I think, had the most like, the least effusive, and then I don't praised him, but like the most sort of cautious statement.
But, like, Kamala's and Biden all made statements.
First of all, Kamala Harris, we don't give a fuck with your statement on the fucking...
Who's reading that?
Exactly.
I'm like, are you running for another fucking Joe Biden?
It's not Joe Biden.
I know, but I wanted to say.
Do you think Dr. Jill is there being like, this is what I think about.
Do you think Joe knows?
About what?
About the ceasefire deal.
I don't, you know, I don't like to speculate on what Joe knows.
Yeah, I guess that's true.
But yeah, it's just been sort of, I don't know, man, the world's so crazy now.
But here to talk with us about how crazy that world is, is Dylan Saba.
I'm sorry.
It's like this woman's name is Yacubian.
Dr. Yacubian?
Who's name to Yakubian?
Mona Yacubian.
Mona Yacubian?
I'm in the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
I mean, I'll be honest.
Yakubian with a C.
It doesn't matter.
That's the only way you can say that, right?
If I'm the Fuhrer in charge of CSIS and anybody with the last name Yacubian applies, instant, instant, you're going to the top.
Well, you've got to be a spokesperson.
She's in charge of white people's studies.
No.
She said that Lebanon, quote, quote, could well serve as the model for Gaza.
Well, I don't think that's a good idea.
I think she's being realistic.
She's not promoting that as an.
The Lebanese political system?
Yeah.
Well, with that being said, welcome to the fucking show, Dylan.
We have Dylan Saba, a Jewish writer and Palestinian lawyer.
That's right.
Co-host of the Turbulence Podcast and here to, once again, in another October, to talk to us about Wagwan, the Middle East, because there's a lot going on.
And it is interesting times.
We are at the third October 7th.
Well, we're past the third October 7th since October 7th.
No, the 2nd October 7th.
The second October 7th.
But if you are including the October 7th, it's a very good thing.
It is the third October 7th.
That's a little confusing.
Would you say it's the second anniversary?
No, it's the third anniversary.
It's the second anniversary.
The second anniversary?
Negotiations and Phases00:15:39
Yeah, because it was the first.
Okay.
It was the first one you excluded from the anniversary.
But you would say it's the third anniversary.
It's like how British people do like the ground floor.
No, it's the opposite of that.
I feel like we need to put this in a pyramid.
No, we don't have to do that.
And we haven't gotten to the Egypt part yet.
A lot is happening in the region right now.
A lot of deal, a flurry of dealmaking has led to what Trump and many in the media are calling a ceasefire deal.
Sometimes they're calling it a peace deal.
It seems that firing has slowed, if not ceased.
What is happening?
So I think we should start with what happened a couple of weeks ago, which is that Trump announced something that he called his 20-point peace plan,
which had a lot of old stuff in terms of older proposals from the U.S. and some new stuff, but basically encompassed a three-phase program, the first of which involved an exchange of the remaining captives held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners and the Israeli withdrawal from certain areas in the Gaza Strip.
That's like the first part of it.
It also included a bunch of other stuff, including Hamas disarmament, the creation of an international security force, a kind of establishment of like a colonial viceroy position for Trump and naming Tony Blair and Donald Trump in the proposal.
That's right.
So, I mean, a lot of kind of absurd elements in this proposal.
But Hamas, in responding to it a couple of weeks ago, did what they had done in previous proposed plans, where they basically very politely said, We agree to all of the stuff we've already agreed to, and we reserve comment on the parts that we don't agree to.
And had some guys go out there and make statements about what the conditions for a disarmament could be.
But they basically just didn't fully close the door on some of this stuff.
So one of the aspects was the, you know, Hamas leaving political power and ceding authority to the creation of a technocratic committee of Palestinians with representatives from different factions and groups.
They basically said that they're not interested in a foreign authority coming in and governing Gaza, but they could talk about the creation of a technocratic body.
And so the expectation was that this might be treated as a denial or a rejection of the plan, which is how the Israelis had characterized it before, and also the Americans as well.
But for whatever reason, and we can talk about why and why this happened when it did, the Trump administration basically decided to read this as Hamas accepting the proposal.
So they went out.
This has been the headline.
Yes.
They basically were like, okay, we have a deal.
And so then Israel was put in a position, and Yahweh was put in a position where it was going to be pretty difficult for him to wiggle out of it.
If the Americans are saying we have a deal, Hamas is saying we have a deal.
And so what ended up happening then is they, you know, that was the quote-unquote framework.
And then they entered into these negotiations over phase one of the deal.
And that is the cessation of military activities in a given territory.
And we can talk about the difference between the different territories, the withdrawal of IDF forces, the entry of aid, and this exchange, the exchange of the remaining 20 living captives back to Israel in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and the exchange of the remains of the dead hostages for deceased Palestinians.
And it's kind of funny, like that there are all of these really intense negotiation sessions.
The final one, they allegedly had representatives from Hamas and Qatar and like the different mediators and presumably the Israelis in like a giant room.
And they were like, okay, well, we're still not entering into any direct negotiations.
But there was this like moment where everyone was in this big conference room.
And what they ended up producing is like one page thing that like looks like it was like written by Chat GPT or something.
It's just like so funny that this is like, there's all of these negotiations that it's like they end up just basically with a, you know, less than a page about the kind of mechanics of the transfers.
So that was agreed to.
I want to, just real quick, because I do think that the way that this, this agreement was portrayed in the media.
I mean, I think everyone saw the big, the, the big like Time magazine cover.
Trump himself clearly not happy with it, but the, with the, you know, it was pretty unfair.
It was a kind of an odd, you know, an interesting choice, a little shade, a little shade from the photo editor there.
But, you know, not just Time Magazine, New York Times, you know, big media everywhere kind of presenting this as like historic peace deal, historic end to, you know, what they're calling the Israel-Hamas war, interestingly.
Do you feel like that's like an appropriate way to characterize this?
I don't know yet.
Yeah.
I don't know yet.
I mean, I think it is, I think it's too early to say really what this is the end of and what it's the start of.
Yeah.
And I think like time will tell.
I have my kind of guesses on where things go here and the different possibilities, which I think we should definitely get into.
I think though that it is ultimately a case of, you know, if the U.S. says it's the end, then it can be the end.
Right.
Right.
This is like what advocates have been saying for two years is that the U.S. ultimately holds the keys.
It has the cards that it can use to pressure Israel into ending this war.
And the war, you know, the war aspect of it, it's both a war and a genocide.
And the war aspect of it has really been over for a long, long time.
What do you mean when you say that?
Yeah, when would you mark the end of that?
I think that basically by the end of 2023, around the start of 2024, Israel didn't really have much in the way of military objectives left.
Okay, okay.
They had like moved through the entire strip.
I mean, the whole, you know, you hear the Israelis talk about finishing the job.
You hear the Americans talk about finishing the job.
That's all bullshit.
Like they are not, like, they are not.
Well, they're just not being specific about what the job is.
Yeah, I mean, the job, like what they are doing is just immiserating Gaza and killing people.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, interesting because, yeah, you see, I mean, it is both, yeah, again, a war and a genocide.
But the war aspect of it has always been a little tricky because pretty much immediately Hamas went into kind of guerrilla fighting mode, right?
I mean, they're obviously just not going to, there's not, they don't have the capabilities and it's just not the kind of army they are to like do, you know, pitched battles or anything like that.
And obviously there have been some rather dramatic skirmishes and stuff like that.
And some very, I don't care who you are, some pretty fucking brave shit, especially with the tanks that Hamas has done.
But, you know, it was obviously like a guerrilla war.
The thing is, though, they would do this thing where they would like, you know, pick this area and be like, this is where Hamas is.
Oh, they're all right here.
And we're going to go in and we're going to, and if you're a civilian there, you're going to get killed.
Of course, you're going to kill anywhere else too, but we're going to, it's your fault if you get killed here.
It's not just a tragedy.
And then they go and do and destroy every single building there, blow up every whatever, hospital, house, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And then they pick another area and do the same thing there.
And that's important, right?
The destruction of building, of infrastructure, that's key to what we're talking about here, because like the key element in this guerrilla war is the tunnels.
Yeah.
Right.
So that is like the major kind of strategic innovation of Hamas is that they have built over years these massive tunnel networks that exist hundreds of feet below the ground.
And Israel doesn't have a ton of intelligence on them and they can't destroy them with overwhelming air power, which is their main advantage.
And so what Israel can do and has been doing is going in and annihilating civilians and destroying all of the infrastructure.
And the strategy there is to put pressure on the guerrillas to give up by cutting into their base of popular support, which is just a classic counterinsurgency tactic.
I mean, yeah, really displayed like in the Vietnam War, for instance, right?
Vietnam War, yeah, and well before it too.
Like the so what, you know, what they're doing is they're going, you know, region by region and area by area, and then going street by street and destroying everyone's homes and destroying all of the buildings.
So that the, you know, and so that is A, to pressure, to try and pressure surrender, but also to set themselves up in a future negotiation, right?
Because it's what they can achieve militarily, which is basically the genocide.
And then it's at a certain point the guns do go quiet, right?
And then the main levers of negotiation they have are the territory that they have control over and the flow of aid and reconstruction and who they can empower in order to facilitate that.
The areas that they have control over, you're saying that this is like an important aspect of the ceasefire deal, right?
Yeah.
Can you be specific here and explain like what areas we're talking about?
Yeah.
So the ceasefire deal exists in potential phases.
Right now we're in phase one.
And as a part of phase one, the IDF has withdrawn to what they're calling the yellow line.
Right.
And that is a line that it kind of carves off 42% of Gaza along the coast, which has, you know, some of the major cities, including Gaza City in the north.
And then there is a 58% of Gaza that remains that the IDF around it, like fully surrounding it, that the IDF has occupied.
And that's all the arable land, et cetera, too.
Yeah.
Not that that really is in play right now, but in the future, obviously.
Yeah.
And so that's a major, you know, this is like a major concern that I have right now is we're in phase one.
Phase one was the easiest one to negotiate in terms of like it follows a kind of strict formula around the exchanges.
And, you know, there is a lot of worry that the ceasefire will fall apart, that Netanyahu will, you know, will re-invade Gaza.
I have some reasons like to be skeptical that that would happen.
And I can explain why.
But I think there's another set of risks involved in us never getting to phase two.
Because really what's going on at this moment is Netanyahu establishing and the Israelis establishing facts on the ground in that 58% of Gaza that it has occupied.
So they're basically calling it a no-go zone and they are shooting.
We're seeing hundreds of violations of the ceasefire.
What that is, in large part is the Israeli military firing on anyone who's approaching this line, which by the way, is not like, it's not very clearly marked.
It's just like, you know, they have their, they're like putting some concrete or something down.
But so.
Is there a concern that they actually might put up a wall?
Maybe, maybe.
I mean, I think that that, like, again, like, we don't know exactly where we go from here.
We don't know if we're going to return to the genocide, if we're going to be stuck in a perpetual phase one, or if we're going to go to something like a phase two or phase three.
But that is a concern that I have, that we get stuck here.
I mean, that's, I mean, not to sorry to interrupt, but like that, that to me, once I sort of saw that there were phases with this plan, it just became getting to the next one is just like less and less likely.
Maybe we'll get to phase two, but phase, you know what I mean?
Like, it just doesn't, I don't really necessarily see how Israel benefits from going past phase one.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, they in some ways, it feels like phase two is extremely hard because it involves difficult demands for both sides.
So phase two requires some version of Hamas disarmament.
That's obviously a huge deal for Hamas.
Yeah.
Well, that's the end.
That's the end.
Yes.
Yes and no, which is interesting.
It also involves on the Israeli side some kind of nominal concessions about Hamas governance and the future of it that are maybe meaningless, but still could potentially be a poison pill for Netanyahu's, the more conservative wing of his block.
And just to return, like the reason why I say like yes and no about disarmament is because there's just a lot of questions about what that means, right?
Because we also have to be like frank about our assessment of what Hamas's arms look like at the moment.
They've been fighting a war for two years.
Like I don't know.
I mean, nobody knows like how many RPGs they have left or what that looks like.
Yeah.
But I can't imagine it's all that many.
And if we take a look at what the various ambushes, like most of their, of their tactical strategy has been, we've been seeing like ambushes and very impressive ones and like complex and well organized.
But a lot of those are the munitions are actually just unexploded Israeli ordinances.
Yeah, or just homemade bombs of whatever stripe.
Yeah, I mean sticky bombs to kind of go back to saving private Ryan.
And like those, you know, even if Hamas were to hand over every single one of its RPGs to, again, who, we're not, we don't really know who they're, you know, who that, who that is, like there's still, you know, 20, 30,000 unexploded Israeli bombs.
Yeah, I mean, and the reality is, well, I think, I think with the disarmament thing, I was thinking about two aspects, right?
Israel's Complex Relationship00:10:38
Like, is Hamas over as necessarily over as a military force if they do do some sort of nominal disarmament?
Probably not actually, because like, again, what does that mean?
20,000 Kalishnikovs, you know?
Right.
Well, however many hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Those things, I don't think that Hamas is even capable of getting rid of all of the arms of that caliber or of that, not caliber, literally, but like of that type, small arms in Gaza.
But wouldn't any kind of disarmament require future guarantees?
Like, I mean, the point wouldn't be, give me this like handful of weapons.
Would be in the future, you also cannot maintain any kind of weapons lines.
And if you do, then you're in violation.
And then that's, you know what I mean?
And those are, that's the stuff that Israel is concerned with, no?
Yeah, but in the rockets, I mean, I think, I think the thing that to me that Israel I think would be kind of the most concerned by is like, yeah, there's, listen, it's the Middle East.
There's a lot of, there's a lot of Klash and Covs there.
Yeah.
But the rockets are really like, that's Hamas's sort of offensive capabilities at Israel, right?
I mean, you know, you can get a gun.
Yeah.
You can get a gun.
But like, although they have like, I mean, yes, and also the rockets were a very essential component of the October 7th attack.
Yeah.
But they have over the past several years have been scaling back their long-range missile or you know, rocket program because it's like they don't really do that much and preparing for the possibility of an Israeli ground invasion.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I think the rockets still, I mean, in the Israeli mind, right?
The rockets loom large.
But I also just don't really think that Hamas has that many of those laps.
So that's kind of like probably not really a not really a major factor.
I mean, to me, like it seems there's also the factor because, I mean, remember, there were clashes between Hamas and Fatah or PLO in like 2006, 2005 in Gaza.
And like it also, to me, it seems like it's a way, even though Israel hates the fucking Palestinian Authority too.
But like it, I mean, they have a strange relationship with them.
But it also seems like it would seek to neuter Hamas in their ability to sort of deal with other Palestinian factions as well in case of any sort of future.
But also like that, that to me is like, I mean, who knows what the fuck will happen.
So like, I'm not even really sure what I'm thinking about there, but I'm just sort of trying to think of all the possibilities here.
Yeah.
I mean, I think, and also, Liz, like you're, I think your point is a good one.
And the future of Hamas as an organization remains open.
Right.
I mean, that's, yeah, that's my question because I feel like that's one of Israel, but also the U.S.'s big demands, which is like how to neuter this organization, not just militarily, that's important, but also politically.
Yeah.
Right.
And that part of that is like, you know, what is this technocratic government going to be or governing council?
But also like, even if they have a seat at the table, making sure that it is, you know, a smaller one.
Right.
And I think it gets out like one of the major issues with these kinds of imperial wars is that you can defeat the organization ultimately.
I mean, and it, and, but what it takes to do that will guarantee the existence of more radical forms of resistance for years to come.
And, and so, you know, like there is, there is a scenario in which Hamas agrees to formally, you know, hand over its authority on the use of force.
I mean, they've already said basically that they are willing to cede their political authority.
Yeah.
And what they don't, what they aren't willing to cede is their, their, effectively their monopoly on violence in Gaza until there is some national Palestinian formation that can bear that responsibility.
But they are willing to, they're willing to do two things.
One is to basically retreat from politics and just be an armed force, which is essentially what the PIJ is.
Yeah.
And they're also willing to engage in a medium-term length truce with Israel.
So they are willing to say like, okay, well, you know, we can do medium to long-term truce.
I have a question.
My understanding is that like, and maybe this is kind of what you meant at the beginning of the show, but all of this stuff was basically on the table for a really long time.
Yeah.
Yes.
That like based that what Hamas, like, you know, and you said it at the beginning, so yes, where you said Hamas basically agreed to what they've always agreed to.
Yeah.
But it is now being presented as like this, we finally got them to bend the knee.
You know what I'm saying?
But this is what Hamas has been saying was like, you know, this is kosher for us to do, you know, for years, I feel like.
Yeah.
So what do you think the difference is in this moment?
Yeah.
Like, why did this happen now and why with Trump?
And I think the other important part of this is why not with Biden?
Yeah.
So, I mean, that's a really essential question.
And I think we have to go through party by party because it takes three to tango when it comes to Israel-Palestinian.
There's like way more than three in this.
But it takes at least three.
The High Council, you know, you need, you need, yeah, I mean, the Americans are just deeply involved, right?
So I think that there was, it seems like there was some amount of real pressure from the Trump administration to get to get this done.
And I think that that has nothing to do with any sympathy that the Trump world has with the Palestinians for the Palestinians.
I think they are just as racist and genocidal as the previous administration, but they do like genuinely seem to have like deals mindset.
Yeah, and it's all about deal flow.
Yeah, they're in deal flow.
They're in deal flow.
And that has to do with what individuals in the administration stand to gain from certain deals, certain long-standing relationships.
And it's important to emphasize this is not.
We're not talking about an antagonism to the Israelis.
We are talking about a fondness with the Gulf.
Yes.
That makes like establishes a relationship such that they are relatively more pro-Gulf vis-a-vis the Israelis in comparison to the Biden administration, which had a more classical imperialist view.
A friendly relationship with the Gulf of the World.
Well, and a tough relationship with Saudi Arabia in particular.
Yeah.
Right.
You know, it's interesting because I was, you know, I was thinking about Jared Kushner in particular, right?
Who has sort of been, they kept him in reserve.
They had him out there in 2016 when, you know, he was out there kind of learning his shit, you know, doing like he was, it was Rocky one for him.
I've never seen any Rocky movies, so that analogy kind of ends right now.
But presumably there's one where he wins.
And this one, they're like, he's in the private sector.
He's, he's, you know, he's gone off.
He's just, he's just fucking fucking my beautiful Jewish daughter.
And then they had him come back.
And it's, you know, Kushner really cannot be stressed enough, is like deep in with everybody.
Well, not everybody in the Gulf, but with the major players in the Gulf, like Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia.
Like he has like billions.
He manages their fucking money.
Israel, too.
He's in big with various investment firms there.
Money talks, right?
Like he needs the Abraham Accords are like basically a way for Jared Kushner's real estate business and money management business.
That's probably one of the main aims of that is that he can make billions of dollars, right?
And like, and I think that actually, it sounds so reductive and stupid to say, but I think that actually is a major factor here because he was deployed.
I mean, and he has, he has great relationships with basically everybody, especially the Israelis.
I mean, like, you know, he is, he is a big funder of things in the West Bank, for instance.
You know, he's kind of in with like conservative right-wing factions there.
He is in with conservative right-wing factions there.
And so he is almost, and I hate to say it, perfectly positioned to kind of be this like mediator between these different sides there.
And, you know, don't get me wrong.
Obviously, like the Gulf do not give a fuck about Palestinians.
In fact, like they.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's been obvious over the past few years.
Yeah, they have been like, kill him, do it.
Please, But obviously, there is also, that's not necessarily a popular position with the man on the street.
Not that there's that many men on the street in some of these countries.
Well, sometimes it's only men on the street.
Well, it's definitely only men on the street.
But it is, I don't know.
This is what I call also, by the way, this like Kushner deal making, the like Israel Emirates, India, cultural triangle of like the Dubai chocolate empire of like that, that's like that kind of cultural development dominance of the like faceless Vegas gold corporate you know what it is?
It's people who love fancy malls, but it there's this like soullessness to it versus mind you, what we're seeing come out of the East, China, Japan, Korea, Lububu.
These are very different cultural moments, I'm saying.
Interesting.
You're East versus East.
Yeah.
Well, this is the new, you know.
But I come to, we see it in the U.S. too.
But I mean, like, that is that he's a deal flow guy.
Israel's Strategic Fronts00:15:22
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's important to recognize that the Biden administration also genuinely wanted the Abraham Accords.
Yeah.
They were like trying to get it.
Like, this was also the McGurk Sullivan fantasy, and it is a difference of mindset and attitude, right?
The McGurks of the Biden administration wanted the Abraham Accords because it was part of their imperial grand strategy.
They didn't have deals mindset, right?
So that when the Israelis came to them and they're like, well, you know, we would love to, but we've got some major security concerns and this and that, then they go, oh, well, they've got major security concerns.
Like, what can we do?
Right.
Like, we got to solve the security concerns, right?
And the Trump administration is just more willing to be like, come on.
The Israelis come to them like, we have a major security concern.
It's like, yeah, but would you like to invest in a really nice luxury mall in Qatar?
Now, that doesn't mean that we're going to be able to square the circle, right?
It doesn't mean that we're going to be able to get the kind of face-saving concessions that the Saudis and the other Gulf monarchies need to sell normalization to their population because there is very little daylight between that bullshit and what Netanyahu and co can stomach in Israel.
But it is like a really important distinction.
But so that's, okay, if that's like the Americans and what brought them here, I think we need to talk about Hamas, right?
Because we have said, yes, I said at the beginning that this is, you know, they've accepted the things that they've accepted in the past.
There is a really key concession here, which is that Hamas up until this point has insisted on a full withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza Strip, which is part of this plan, but they gave up all the hostages.
Hamas doesn't hold any of our, you know, I should say captives because those are all military people left.
Hamas released all of their captives.
And so the question becomes, why did they do that?
Yeah.
Right.
Why did they let go of a main source of leverage that they have?
And I think it's important to think about what that leverage was and what it was at the beginning of the war and the genocide and what it is now.
Because my assessment for why Hamas made this deal now is that holding on to the captives has become less and less valuable over time.
So it's not just that they used their last leverage, that leverage was losing power.
At the beginning of the war, the role that the captives played in the hostages was one of fomenting dissent within Israeli society, right?
You had these pre-existing divisions that Sinoir and other folks in Hamas were really attuned to of fractures within Israeli society over, remember, like in 2023, they were having like massive huge protests, right?
And it was over Netanyahu and corruption or whatever.
And those, you know, those kind of civic fault lines mapped on to the street movement about the hostages.
And so by holding on to those, to holding on to those people, they could exacerbate that internal tension in Israel.
And this was at a time when earlier in the campaign, Israel had a lot of support internationally, right?
There was obviously a big street movement and uprising, but they basically, after October 7th, the Israelis played October 7th as a PR event very well, especially around the Nova Festival.
And that's really critical here.
And so they did have a decent amount of support and a lot of support from the U.S.
But so Hamas was able to use them in order to increase internal dissent.
Now things look a little bit different, right?
Because what the Israelis have been able to do is use the existence of the hostages as this like perpetual green light for themselves and to like maintain a sense of international backing and support.
So it's the fact that there are still hostages.
This is what the Israelis are saying.
The fact that there are still hostages is why we have to keep doing this, why we have to keep going.
And that is a buttress against dissent.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has extended things for so long that he managed to turn things around for himself domestically pretty well.
This is super important because I think what we've talked about before is how much of the domestic pressure Netanyahu has been under and how just kind of like you can kind of map a lot of the decisions that he has made toward Gaza over the past three years based on how friendly or not so friendly the uber conservative part of his coalition has been in Israel.
And so like for that tide to change is like a major is you know, that's a pretty major shift.
I mean, I think it also can't be discounted and something we haven't mentioned even yet is that Israel has really sort of positioned itself.
They'd say they're in a seven or eight front war.
I can't keep track of how many fronts there are because there's more fronts to come.
They have sort of metaphysical fronts at times too.
We got the Greta front, Spain front.
Exactly, exactly.
But like I think a lot of people are maybe less so.
I see this less so now, but there was sort of a lot of, and I hate to use, I guess, younger millennial terminology like this, but there was a lot of coping about this.
Like Israel essentially neutralized Hamas, Iran, and definitely Syria in the space of a year, you know?
Well, they had some help, let's be real.
No, yeah, they did it.
It's not like they did it all on their own.
But they, you know, they did a lot of it, you know, and I mean, obviously the U.S. helped them, but like at the end of the day, like those, they, they, you know, they took a lot of players off the, off the board there.
And that, those, um, those incidents, I don't know, maybe the Syria one, maybe not as much.
It was a little more complicated there, but definitely with Iran and Hezbollah really boosted Netanyahu's popularity.
I think Netanyahu getting the U.S. to strike Iran.
I mean, whatever, take issue with that framing as you might want to, but the U.S. striking Iran in concert with Israel or joining, you know, whatever.
Concert with Iran.
But that was a huge boost to Netanyahu's popularity, right?
I mean, these things are only, you know, they only go so far.
But it's, I mean, the hostages were, I think, and nobody was buying that hostage shit anymore because it's like, first of all, if you pay attention to the news at all, you know that like Hamas had agreed to return hostages from the very beginning.
Obviously, Israel's not going to take that deal for a variety of reasons.
But that offer has consistently been on the table for the hostages and the captives or POWs, whatever you want to call them.
But, you know, I don't think anyone's buying that excuse by the third, October 7th, right?
Well, but it gave, I mean, importantly, that's what gave a lot of international organizations and, I don't know, heads of diplomacy and whatever arena cover to not criticize the ongoing campaigns because they could always point to the hostages.
Yeah.
Right.
So now with that gone, I think kind of like what you're saying, now with that gone, it's sort of like now Netanyahu has like different political considerations.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I think it affects both Israel and Hamas's political considerations vis-a-vis the hostages.
So for Netanyahu, yeah, I mean, he played Biden.
He strung him along.
He very like.
He was very old.
Yeah.
But I mean, I just, I think constantly of that picture from July 2021.
In the oval in the oval where Biden looks like he's like drooling and just kind of like staring at him.
He's looking at like balloons that aren't even like there.
And he's just like, look at the verb.
Biden hears Netanyahu.
He's like, oh my God.
Yeah, he just finished the raid in Antebe, right?
Netanyahu has that fucking.
Oh, yeah.
No, Netanyahu has that fucking smirk on his smirk.
Yeah, the devil's not going to be able to do it.
He just is like, oh, I'm so in fucking control here.
Yeah.
And, you know, he was.
He would never smirk like that in front of a true fucking killer like Blinken.
But yeah, Netanyahu, you know, dragged the war out long enough where he could play all the cards in his hand.
The walkie-talkie, the Pager attacks, right?
The Iran strikes.
That bolstered his position domestically.
He is now at way less of a threat of his coalition falling apart.
And it makes it such that the major threat to Israel right now, and it's kind of ambiguous how much they actually care about this, is their pariah status.
Yeah.
Right.
So the cases at the ICC, the ICJ, these are slow moving and international law is like barely real and not going to have material consequences, but it is a long-term threat to Zionism.
And there is rumblings in Europe, right?
You have Spain with the arms embargo.
You have other kind of like PR actions.
You have the flotilla, et cetera.
And so if the domestic front has been neutralized, then the international front remains the threat, which is, you know, if there are diminishing returns on the military campaign, then there may be an off-ramp for Netanyahu.
Now, you have to say that with a huge caveat because the Israelis are not known for taking off-ramps.
And I think that there's like all very, there's very much reason to think that, you know, even if things are cooling on the Gaza front, that they're going to escalate elsewhere.
Yemen, for instance.
Exactly.
But it informs Hamas's assessment, right?
Of why give up the hostages now.
Because if that is the case and the regional war that they had anticipated is less and less likely or less and less likely to be successful in the way that they had imagined in anticipation of October 7th, then the international pressure is really the best card.
And so if Hamas can create a situation where they get assurances from the Trump team, knowing that they are not assurances that can be necessarily counted on, but if they get the image of assurances from Trump that the war is over, which is why there were all of those declarations, right?
That Trump, it was Hamas who insisted that Trump get out and say, like, the war is over, the war is for sure over, right?
That's what they needed to release the hostages, such that if Israel were to then reinvade, the main place it would hurt them is on the international level, in the international standing and in their pariah status.
And so that's the calculation Hamas made is like, we're not actually gaining that much by holding on to these guys anymore.
I mean, yeah, it's, it's, you know, I kind of think about, again, about like the eight-front war or whatever.
It really is.
I mean, again, most players have been at least temporarily removed from the board on that.
The Houthis.
God bless them.
Yeah, God bless them.
I don't know.
It's interesting because no one really even talks about, even though the Houthis have like not ceased doing Houthi stuff, you know?
But like in their support of Palestine, I feel like at this, like the U.S., I mean, there's barely any statements or anything on them.
They're very focused on whatever fishermen they can kill in the Caribbean.
But I can see Israel sort of turning, like both militarily, maybe on the Houthis.
I mean, there was a really relatively major strike recently.
Yeah.
There's also Lebanon.
They can't stop striking Lebanon.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's always going on.
But with the international stuff, the international front, I don't see how the Israeli sort of Hasbro charm machine really gets turned back on in a way that will be effective to anybody who wasn't already completely susceptible to it.
And I think it is going to be a big, pretty big wedge issue in a way that like, and it's, you know, I mean, that's such what cold comfort, right?
I mean, like, you know, in the face of a massive genocide and Israel also, like, and again, like, it's not fun to fucking say, like, but establishing really dominance over a lot of its enemies, in almost all of its enemies in the Middle East, military dominance and political too.
I mean, who might, are you kidding?
But it is, but it is going to be a big issue for them, I think, like their sort of public image and international relations.
And I wonder if they'll seek through the frameworks of the that are laid out in this fucking 20-point plan and Gaza to maybe obviate some of that.
You'd think, as if I'm Israel, I am like, you know, now you sort of do this trauma offensive, right?
You put in all this aid, you rebuild all this stuff.
The thing is, that is not at all domestically going to fly in Israel.
Not that Netanyahu would want to do that anyways, but I think he's sort of opportunistic enough to where if that did benefit him, he would probably do something like that, you know?
But that is the opinion of Arabs and Palestinians in Israel is so low and Gazans in Israel so low that like, I think that actually you would face major repercussions.
Netanyahu would face major repercussions politically if he does allow a lot of aid to go through.
So I think giving it to the U.S. and giving it to this like satrap Tony Blair kind of takes some of that off of Netanyahu's plate.
If they can get there.
If they can get there.
If they can get there, because that requires making some painful concessions, right?
To get to phase two, there has to be some political concessions that are going to be painful for Netanyahu to make.
And so the situation I'm worried about is one in which, so, okay, if we said that Hamas assessed the situation and said either the war actually ends, in which case we got what we're asking for, or Israel restarts the genocide and faces a new wave of international pressure, the Europe stuff snowballs, the cases move forward, et cetera.
If that's what Hamas is saying, what Netanyahu is thinking and what the Israelis are trying to do is to shoot the gap, right?
Rebuilding Gaza's Trucks00:14:41
Is to not fully restart the war, but not ever actually get to a point of peace.
And so what that looks like involves not, you know, some technocratic committee or the PA, you just kind of put them on a treadmill of reforms that will never actually satisfy anyone, right?
Just kind of like perpetual deferment and do reconstruction, but through their proxies on the ground.
One thing that we haven't talked about are the Israel-backed gangs that are basically quote-unquote governing this Israeli-controlled area.
The 58%.
The 58%.
And whether they are governing, probably not yet.
They're like sheltering from Hamas.
But in a position to basically run the show.
That's, I think, the Israeli plan, right?
And that's why I'm so concerned about the facts on the ground that are created in the 58%, is that if Israel can say, we are rebuilding Gaza, we are allowing aid in, but they only allow it into the place where there are no civilians.
And the only people there are these clans and these gangs that they are harboring and backing, they can potentially deflate pressure because Europe is looking for any reason to be like, okay, back to normal, everything's fine, right?
Like the Lebanon solution where it's a ceasefire, where there's strikes every now and again is like totally fine.
No one, you know, they're not going to, you know, they're not going to act unless they're forced to.
And so this is the kind of like situation I'm dreading.
Kind of like purgatory.
Purgatory, where Israel can say that they're doing reconstruction without or and allowing aid in without actually letting it get to where the people are, which is where Hamas remains in the 42% of Gaza, only rebuilding in the places that have been depopulated with their proxies.
I mean, this is like, and again, this is a classic counterinsurgency tactic.
This is like a classic tactic to use against guerrillas is you, you know, basically create concentration camps and you empower you empower your proxies and basically use leverage, use the flow of aid and construction materials in order to try and force the guerrillas out of existence.
So can we, I want to kind of like pause on some of the geopolitical talk and just talk specifically about the situation in Gaza itself.
Like my understanding is that I think the UN put it at like 85% fully destroyed.
And then in certain other areas, I think like Gaza City, it's like closer to 90, 92%.
And we're talking about like full infrastructure.
The Trump people, you know, part of the big, part of what's so glossy about this deal for them is are the kind of real estate and development deals that they really want to get in and do.
You're saying the Israelis have their own political contradictions to manage in terms of allowing that kind of development to happen in any part of Gaza, let alone in the, you know, on the shoreline, basically.
But like some it seems like there's an expectation from this deal that like some sort of international rebuilding effort is going to happen.
Yeah.
I mean this level of destruction, I mean, we're talking about like 70, 80, 90, 100 billion dollars.
And I'm not even building some, you know, Kushner casino or whatever, just like literally to get like sewage to raise like all of the fucking concrete that they need to drag out of there, you know, all this kind of shit.
Is that even like on the tape?
I mean, I just, I don't even know how to make sense.
Let alone, are they even going to let anyone in the media in there to even report on what the fuck is actually happening or has happened?
Yeah.
I mean, these are all like, yeah, these are questions I don't know the answer to.
I mean, I imagine it would take years and years and years.
Yeah.
Decades.
Decades to rebuild.
And even before that, there's like the urgency of feeding people.
People are starving and they remain starving.
And, you know, there have been part of this deal was getting aid flows back in towards something like we saw during the first ceasefire or the ceasefire at the start of the year, where, you know, you have 600 trucks a day of aid.
But there are massive, it's not just getting the aid in to feed people.
There are massive logistical problems here.
Right.
One thing that Israel did was bomb out all of the roads.
Right.
Right.
Just to get food to people that has to be on trucks.
You have to actually be able to deliver it to people.
And so like, you know, we see headlines about, you know, aid trucks getting in.
Okay.
They're like begrudgingly allowing certain amount of trucks to get in.
The Rafah crossing remains closed.
And, you know, Netanyahu has been playing like really horrific games around that, around keeping it closed because some Israeli settlers that are destroying homes in that 58%, like within the yellow line, ran over some unexploded ordinance and got killed.
So they blamed on publicly admit that they're hiring like private contractor settlers to go still be destroying people's homes.
Right.
Right.
So they, and, and also two people got killed.
So they, you know, blame Hamas and then, you know, they got called on it.
They did, yeah, because and the Trump administration has been, you know, they've been sending their babysitters over to to keep an eye on Bibi and like try and, you know, have this deal go through.
I bet there's Witkoff has been there for days.
Kushner is there.
And now Vance just arrived to, yeah, to keep an eye on him.
Yeah, exactly.
But all that's to say, aid still hasn't reached the north, right?
So there are still people who are starving and living in famine conditions that have not yet received the aid.
And part of that is the volume of aid that's coming in.
And part of it is these really basic challenges of logistics of how do you distribute aid to 2 million people when every single road has been bombed out.
It's interesting.
Point 12 of the program is no one will be forced to leave Gaza and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return.
We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza.
I mean, putting aside just the vagueness of just the language of everything in here, right?
And the malleability of all, I mean, this is just, it means not, this is nothing.
These are just words on a paper.
But taking them at face value, it's ridiculous to think that like, obviously we know that like the Israelis want to depopulate Gaza as much as possible.
And that a lot of the plans that we've seen, including the one between Tony Blair's group and Boston Consulting, also involved the encouragement of the depopulate of ethnic cleansing of Gaza, right?
And of course, the campaign of genocide.
I mean, does anyone seriously think?
I mean, Gaza is ruined.
The place is destroyed.
All but like tiny little parts of it are just destroyed.
And again, it's like an apocalyptic, like you're saying, the roads are gone.
Everything is gone.
They're still demolishing houses.
That was a concerted part of this campaign, which obviously we've covered on the show, but anybody who's been paying attention at all knows that like a huge part of this has just been destroying everything that they could.
You know, and it's clear, like if you live, if you're stuck in Gaza right now, you're living in a tent, obviously, like there is going to be incentive for like you to leave, right?
Because, okay, yeah, even if aid resumes, right, and you can get fed, what do you do every day?
Yeah.
You know, what is your job?
What is your, what is, you know, if you want to have a kid, what hospital are you going to?
Like, any, are you going to school?
Like, you're going to be living in ruins for a while.
And so I think that there is going to be, I think that there is going to be a delay in any kind of rebuilding, which again, even if it wasn't delayed, would take a very long time.
Because I think that they want people to leave, right?
Like, I mean, that's a huge part of this.
Obviously, like, the Israelis want a land with no Palestinians on it.
And I think that they see an opportunity here to make that happen.
So, you know, I mean, there is a possibility.
Again, nobody knows what's going to happen, but like, there's a possibility that whatever pressure could make Israel allow aid back in.
But I think the rebuilding stuff, I mean, there's this Trump Gaza shit, you know, like the fucking TikTok AI video or whatever.
But there's also mention here of like an SEZ, a special economic zone.
And, you know, there is the Gaza Riviera.
And I see a version of that where Kushner really does try to build some weird fucking like to make a Dubai that he runs.
Like he wants to become a Gulf Arab himself, but in Gaza.
Not the first Jewish Gulf Arab, to be completely honest, but you know, but maybe the first one has got his own little, the first Jewish American Gulf Arab.
Actually, probably not even that either.
But I could see that happening.
But I mean, for the average person in Gaza, I mean, I think it's, you know, it's going to be really fucking tough.
Yeah.
I mean, I think the important thing to acknowledge here is, yes, you're absolutely right.
It's going to be horrendous to live there for the foreseeable future.
But also, and as a result of that, people who can leave, many of them will.
And we will see, you know, probably, you know, thousands.
But there's also the reality that it's not like an easy thing to displace 2 million people.
Right.
No.
I mean, the fucking plan was to build fucking like Khrushchev housing in Sinai.
Yeah.
There's a lot of ridiculous plans floating around and a lot of fantasies that are really cover for the exterminationist logic that led us to the genocide.
Right.
And you said, like, this is like, you know, it's like, it's like thinking about like the Madagascar plan in World War II.
You have all of these fantasies and some of them involve geoforming and some of them involve mass population, mass population displacement.
But the reality is like you, you can't just pick up 2 million people and move them, you know, even if you're the world hegemon and you can, you know, threaten all of these peripheral states with whatever.
Like there's a reason why none of those plans actually worked.
And there's a reason why it keeps returning to genocide.
Because ultimately, like they can't mass displace people.
They can slaughter people.
And that is like, you know, that is like a fundamental question because you could fairly ask, and we kind of have asked in this program, like, what has Israel achieved since the first ceasefire?
Why didn't they just do all of this in the beginning, right?
Or in the beginning?
Why didn't they do all of this in March?
Like, what is the point?
And it is because there are the geopolitical concerns.
There's the, you know, manipulating the base and the international sphere.
And there is the fundamental exterminationist logic that is core to Zionism and the Zionist project.
And they will never stop trying to eradicate Palestinians.
Yeah.
You know, it's it's there's also talk of a, I mean, again, and this is like phase whatever, right?
I mean, this could be, I could see a version of this happening sometime in phase one, but the the international force, I mean, there's two things.
They're talking about creating a political body, a technocratic political body overseen by a peace council, which is headed by Donald J. Trump.
And Tony Blair somehow is in there also.
Yeah.
Which we know he's probably the peace goad.
That's right.
Mr. Blair.
But the they're also talking about an international stabilization force, right?
And I guess this was before we were recording, but talking about, you know, Azerbaijan in there, you know, I guess as a stand-in for Turkey, Indonesia, I think, Egypt, whatever.
A different sort of coalition of the willing.
Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, it's just it, I could see some version of that happening because obviously they also want to like get around any kind of UN force there because I think most of the major parties making this decision just hate the UN.
Yeah.
And you know, it's not like the blue helmets are.
I mean, get on, you know.
But it, you know, it is, it's, how do I phrase this?
Like, it's, to me, it's like everybody just getting their hands dirty with this shit.
You know what I mean?
Like, there's a few countries that I mean, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, obviously, like, are, I think, are bowing out.
But aside from them, all of the, I think every Arab country, maybe not Iraq, although I think they were there in Egypt in the whatever, the signing ceremony.
Right.
There were a lot of caddy politics over who was there and who turned around and like there was all kinds of posturing around that.
I know.
But I mean, it just seems like we're entering this new weird phase that, again, like there's a huge possibility this does not get past phase one.
I think that cannot be stressed enough.
I don't know where the ISF is supposed to, what phase that's supposed to come in on.
I think in the second phase.
Yeah.
Right.
They're being trained out.
Yeah.
It's a it's a like Jordanian Egyptian training a Palestinian police force and the establishment of the oh the Egyptians are training the police force.
Solving Unresolved Conflicts00:08:55
That's good.
They love that.
Do you see that?
Do you guys see that story where they drag some fucking guy in the embassy here?
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was horrific.
Insane.
Do you see that?
They dragged this, I think, two kids into the embassy and beat the shit out of them.
Yeah.
And they were protesting because they were protesting.
I mean, the Egyptian police are like nothing else.
I mean, they're, well, probably not like nothing else, but they're really bad.
But it just, it's not good.
None of this is, I mean, you know, it's good that the official phase of the slaughter has ended.
Yeah.
You know, but I mean, if we're thinking politically, it's just, it's interesting, too, because we talked about Biden and blinking and stuff.
And we talked about how like Trump could make this deal.
And maybe that other presidents did not have what it took to make it.
But I could also just see Trump being like, all right, well, I solved it.
It's done.
I think that's kind of what he's doing.
That's why I also want to be so careful because not to lean on this word, but it's true.
Like reification of ceasefire and getting it and peace deal that's getting passed around is sort of like it's giving everyone a chance, voters, politicians, leaders, diplomats, whatever, any kind of any person who could be party to like doing something about the genocide to stand back, wash their hands, put their hands up and say, well,
finally something has been done and it's been solved and we can all collectively like move on and stop paying, you know, stop paying attention to this, get it out of here.
There's, you know, even if what this ends up looking like is a kind of like Lebanon situation, like you're saying, where there's this sort of like ongoing, you know, random air attacks and bombings that is just sort of like to keep a population, you know, docile, I guess, or however, you know, whatever they want to like manage.
But the thing that's been frustrating for me is just like seeing everyone repeating a lot of the shit coming out of the White House to the point where you're like, wait a second, but we don't actually even know what this is going to bring.
And, you know, like we're saying, this can go so many different ways.
It also could fall apart completely like other ceasefires have.
Or it could be this like prolonged state where then we run the risk of saying, well, something has been solved when actually on the ground, nothing has been solved.
Yeah.
And it's clear that the Trump strategy is to get everyone to wash their hands and move on.
Of course, it's PR first.
Yeah.
And it's, and, you know, he said it very plainly.
He said, Israel's lost a lot of support over the past two years.
I'm going to win it all back.
Yeah.
Right.
And that is like his deal's vision.
And that is a very dark scenario, right?
Of a kind of return to the pre-October 7th status quo, but everything's worse.
And I think that the two forces against that are Israel's belligerence and ideological commitment to a permanent state of war, which I think cannot be discounted.
And the other.
Or political necessity for domestically.
Yes.
Or and the domestic politics.
Although I do think that that lever is weakening, but remains to be seen how it shakes out.
But the other factor is the international solidarity movement, right?
The states are clearly willing to capitulate.
But the movement remains alive.
I mean, we've seen like massive strikes in Italy.
We've seen popular mobilizations elsewhere.
And so it is on the world and like the grassroots organizers of the world and the popular movements to not let go and to consolidate Israel's pariah status and to insist that their governments, you know, do like support the legal cases to embargoes, ties, you know, cut, impose embargoes, cut ties, et cetera.
So, you know, those to me seem like the forces, the forces that remain, but there is clearly an effort to wrap this up and consolidate Israel's gains on the ground.
You know, it's interesting.
I'm like, I really don't think it can be discounted that Trump just really wants a Nobel Priest Prize.
I mean, it was days before.
Yeah, I mean, I do think that that is like part of it.
He's been like talking about it a lot.
Yeah.
And he needs to get it over the big eyes.
So he's done all these sort of like half-assed peace deals.
You know what I mean?
Like the Armenian, like there was some corridor that Azerbaijan was able to open up to whatever, one of their Zamzur or something.
And he was like, he, he was like, look, I made peace.
They're all good.
It was the Congo one, which, like, what the fuck does that mean?
You know what I mean?
Right, right.
I doubt that every armed party there really came to the table on that one.
Cambodia, Thailand, India, Pakistan.
Yeah.
Exactly.
So like, I mean.
He's just making deals all around the world.
Let's be real here.
I got to stop saying let's be real, but we have to be real here.
Let me be real.
Kind of did more peace deals than Obama.
Definitely.
Like, is this how it's going to be?
The Obama Nobel Peace Prize?
Oh, but that's the most famous.
Like, come on.
I know.
That's like the Bob Dylan literary prize.
But it's a Nobel.
I mean, it's a joke anyway.
Yeah, I know.
Well, at least they gave it to a deserving female.
Yeah, to a deserving female who we're going to install or try to install in Venezuela after we try to arrest Maduro.
I mean, the other thing is that Trump has been talking about this for a long time as just being kind of annoying to deal with.
He doesn't like the way it looks.
He doesn't like the way it plays on TV.
There is obvious considerations going on between, like, over the very real rift in his own base of like extreme anti-Semites plus people who are now who were maybe more sympathetic to Israel and now less so.
And, you know, ultra-Zionists that are part of the right-wing coalition.
Like, he has to manage all of that himself as well.
Plus, he doesn't like the way it plays on TV and social media.
Yeah.
I will say he's doing a fantastic job of managing it.
I just saying that, like, I love his, I just love his approach where he's like in the Knesset giving speeches and he's like, oh, Mary Madelson's here.
Like she's got billions of dollars.
Look at her.
She loves Israel.
She waves back.
Like, she won't stop calling me.
That's how he plays both sides.
Yeah, yeah.
He plays to the like anti-Semitic.
Right.
He's like, he's like, all yeah, all your conspiracy theories are real, but don't worry, I've got it under control.
He was brilliant.
And it was funny, too, because it was so shady the way he was like, look at this hideous woman.
Can you believe she's worth so much money?
Like, that's literally like how he's saying it.
She kind of looks like him if he was a chick, though.
No, I'm just picturing him in like a bigger wig.
You know what I mean?
Like, he would just like, that's like, they've got the same, or like, she could be his sister.
I feel like Trump as a woman is very like Peter Griffin in a wig coated.
Yeah, it's hard to picture him with a different body.
Yeah.
Where do you think we, I mean, I let me rephrase that.
He's been thinking about himself with a different body, too.
You see the talking about Biden's legs in the teacher.
What did he say?
Oh my God, it's so funny.
He just says, like, talking about Biden going on a beach vacation and how he like was jealous of his legs.
Yeah.
He's like, they make fun of me.
He's such a queen.
But who was telling me that he was 220?
It said he was 220 pounds on his Trump said that?
On his driver's?
No, no, on his, on like the, you know, the physical report that they do.
Yeah.
Now he's 220?
Yeah.
No, not happening.
There's not enough Ozempic in the world.
He was Ozzy, like...
He's eating through it.
He...
He, I feel like during the election, he was like in his, you know, he was in game shape.
Because he was getting ready for prison.
Shout out NBA starting today.
But now he's kind of like, you know, one, we don't know his health status.
He may be more bedbound than usual.
True.
Not that he was getting exercise before because he doesn't believe in that because of the battery.
But also he's back on his fileo fish, I think.
Yeah, I think so too.
He's probably because he's doing a lot of flights.
It's so fucking nasty that he loves the file of fish.
That is gross.
And yet, I see this as somebody at a whiting sandwich today.
Delicious, by the way.
I feel like I just can't.
White sauces really freak me out.
Good News Revolution00:04:24
What sauces?
No, I had a whiting fish sandwich.
No, no, I'm talking about the filet fish.
Oh, tartar sauce freaks you out.
I never had a filet fish.
I never had a chance.
I can do a tartar sauce in a tiny cup for a dip, but I do feel like on a fish and chip.
You don't like mayonnaise?
No, I don't.
It's a classic kind of texture issue.
Aioli.
That is mayonnaise.
It's the same thing.
But it's fancier.
Yeah.
It's just branding.
Good news?
Yeah, there is actually some good news.
What is it?
The good news is that I have a new project that I'm very excited about.
Yes.
I would have you were like, look at that.
The Houthi's got a new one.
Let him cook.
Well, speaking of Houthis, we'll get to that.
But I am starting a new podcast with two extremely brilliant people, Seamus Malikov Zeli.
That's how you say it?
It is.
We've had him on the show.
Yeah, but if you remember, I did not say that last name right.
Seamus Malikovzeli and M. Seneza, who's our producer, creative director, and a whole lot more.
This show, Turbulence, is what it's called, is about the crash landing of the American century.
So basically, this and other geopolitical crises that have happened since October 7th, but really in the long tail of the war on terror.
So we'll be releasing weekly episodes.
And I don't want to give too much away, but we do have an episode forthcoming on the Houthis and their extremely impressive naval blockade.
It's a great blockade.
It's great.
Yeah.
So follow us along at socials, turbulence pod, and you can subscribe at turbulencepod.substack.com.
And paid subscribers will get access to our short introductory episode in the next day or two.
Look at that.
We'll actually link to it in the show notes so people don't even have to write that down.
You don't have to write it down.
They can just click on through.
Just click on through.
I got to tell you, I love the NAVO blockades.
People got to think, I mean, I don't want to say it on the show, but people got to think a lot with a little these days.
You know what I'm saying?
True.
I mean, if you sit at the appropriate nexus of the flows of international commerce.
Yeah.
But I'm like, maybe we should take over Greenland.
You, me?
Like the left?
Yeah, but I mean, first of all, I'll pay for every member of DSA or whatever.
Get out of the country.
But, you know, send them all to Greenland or whatever.
I mean, okay, it's colonization, but it's Greenland.
You can just find a new town or whatever.
And just get a bunch of FPV drones.
You just need a vanguard for Greenland nationalists.
I think there's only like two or three of those.
There's like a lot of people.
Your first job might be to get a little bit more.
Yeah.
Well, I don't know if you guys saw that Trump, they had the agents.
I think I mentioned this on the show before.
Yeah, the super agents.
Denmark was like, you guys have secret agents trying to drum up support for America taking over.
There's like MAGA agents that they're doing a color revolution in Greenland.
But I don't think there's people to do a color revolution.
And I think that there's because the towns are kind of so far apart, you can't really have, I guess you could have a protest movement in all the various towns, but like where?
Like it's not like, like, where do you, there's not like the Denmark building in every town.
We should get some DSA cells in there.
Well, it would be DSG.
To, yeah, well, now it would be.
Yeah.
To kind of like, you know, start seeding some news.
Saying Greenland, or Greenland themselves.
If you're in Greenland, you're listening to this.
You guys need to just first of all declare yourselves free, sovereign nation and then just start taking over all shipping routes nearby FPV drums.
You need to start.
You need, you need a little bit of a you know um vanguard movement there to to stir up the nationalists.
I am sure that there is an indigenous anti-colonial movement of among the like 3 000 people who live there.
I would be willing to bet that something exists and they pop up a flag.
I think that they do.
3,000 People's Resistance00:00:57
I was looking at this, but it's very I looked at really a lot into it earlier this year.
There is, but there's just not that many people there.
Yeah, so like it's hard to kind of get, I think, anything going because it's just like there's like 9 000 people you know and like most you don't see most of them because they just live around.
Like it seems like they could do a lot if they, you know yeah, abduct one Danish guy or something.
That is true, because that is what the equivalent of that's like a Greenland.
That's like how many 911s?
Yeah um Dylan, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Always a pleasure to have you on.
Thank you very much.
And you still have to come on our show, even though you do your own show now.