Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - The Emerging Day After in Gaza - with Joseph Braude

Starting point is 00:00:00 You are listening to an art media podcast. One of the lessons of this war up until now is that the people who dominate the aid dominate the politics of the strip. The GHF is not putting aid into the hands of anti-Hamas Gazans. It is putting it into the hands of American contractors to do the distribution, at least for the time being. If, over time, Gazans opposed to Hamas were to join that supply line, and perhaps eventually supplant the American role in the distribution, then you have the beginnings of a new anti-Hamas or post-Hamas civil administration in Gaza.

Starting point is 00:00:59 It's 9.15 p.m. on Thursday, June 5th here in New York City. It is 4 15 a.m. On Friday, June 6th in Israel as Israelis get ready for a new day Political news has been erupting out of Israel over the past two days as tensions simmer within Prime Minister Netanyahu's government the coalition's ultra-orthodox parties, the Charedim, those parties are United Torah Judaism and Shas, both announced that they will join the opposition to vote in favor of dissolving in the Knesset, due to its failure to pass a law exempting the ultra-orthodox Israelis from serving in the IDF. If a simple majority votes in favor of dissolving the

Starting point is 00:01:44 Knesset, it would force parliamentary elections, in which Prime Minister Netanyahu's political survival would be uncertain. During yesterday's commotion in the Knesset, an audio recording was leaked to Israel's Channel 13, which revealed Netanyahu telling a senior rabbi that he dismissed former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and former IDF Chief of Staff Herzia Levy in order to facilitate the passage of the exemption bill for the Haredim, calling Halevi and Gallant obstacles to accomplishing that.

Starting point is 00:02:16 Today the IDF announced that over 50,000 draft orders will be sent to Yeshiva students. This July, Large protesters ensued both by supporters of the opposition to Israel's government and also supporters of the coalition. These protests were in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem, respectively. As if the news pouring out of Israel wasn't enough, major developments are also taking place in Gaza. The food aid program run by the Gaza humanitarian foundation is showing signs of success in circumventing Hamas, weakening its political power over Gaza's population.

Starting point is 00:02:53 The food aid program is not just a humanitarian endeavor. This food aid program is not just a humanitarian endeavor. It is part of a larger strategy that was developed over the past year in which humanitarian bubbles are created or enclaves in which Hamas free zones are intended to be administered by vetted local Palestinians unaffiliated with Hamas. Prime Minister Netanyahu confirmed today that Israel is providing weapons to an anti Hamas militia in Gaza led by Yasser Abu Shabab. The rise of Israel backed Abu Shabab,

Starting point is 00:03:28 along with the weakening of Hamas' political and military power, has prompted a conversation about whether we are witnessing the early stages of the day after Hamas in Gaza. Which leads me to today's conversation. Our guest today is Joseph Browdy, who's been on this podcast before. Joseph leads the Center for Peace Communications,

Starting point is 00:03:49 which is a nonprofit group that amplifies the voices of Gazans who oppose Hamas. And he's been active inside the Gaza Strip throughout the war. If you've seen a video of Gazans speaking out against Hamas, chances are they came to you through the Center for Peace Communications, CPC. Today's the first time we will be speaking with someone

Starting point is 00:04:10 who has been in as close contact with direct sources inside Gaza's population as has Joseph. In fact, Joseph helped us transmit questions via audio to Palestinians living in Gaza and then transmitted back the answers to our questions from those local Gazans. Joseph and I will cover a lot of ground in this conversation. Israel's new aid program and its threat to Hamas reshaping the power structure of Gaza's

Starting point is 00:04:34 society, the anti-Hamas protest movement, Trump's migration plan in Gaza, the new political figures rising up against Hamas, the enclave program in Gaza, the day after, and the deradicalization of Gaza's society. Keep in mind that this episode was recorded before it was confirmed by the Israeli government that Abu Shabaab and his fighters have weapons that were provided to them by Israel. But the relevance of the entire conversation has actually even become more profound over these past couple of days Joseph browdy on the emerging day after in gaza. This is call me back

Starting point is 00:05:14 Joseph welcome back to the podcast. Thank you, den. So to get started here. I just want to set the table Can you outline the idf's strategy? as it relates to moving the population in Gaza and providing this humanitarian aid? What's going on? Well, up until recently, the IDF strategy has been to focus on the destruction of Hamas's physical infrastructure,

Starting point is 00:05:41 wherever it could be found. And this involved moving the civilian population outside of the areas where infrastructure would be, was to be destroyed, to keep them out of harm's way, and then eventually moving them back. When Israel did this, it avoided remaining in populated civilian areas and simply maintained control primarily over the large transit and transportation routes. The disadvantage of doing this was that in ceding the civilian areas to whoever remained there, it enabled Hamas fighters in many cases to survive and to maintain control over the

Starting point is 00:06:24 distribution of humanitarian aid. And what Hamas did with this advantage was to steal aid intended for the civilian population, hoard it, resell it at exorbitant prices, and use that money to fuel their war machine. So a change was called for and a new strategy is now in place that involves a larger IDF footprint, holding more territory including parts of cities and preventing Hamas from seizing aid by creating a new aid distribution mechanism. What can you tell us about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation? This is a term that has been bouncing around

Starting point is 00:07:08 the Israeli press and the international press over the last couple of weeks. And I have a feeling we're gonna be hearing more and more about it. So you hear either referred to as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation or the GHF, its acronym. What is it? How does it operate?

Starting point is 00:07:22 Who's backing it? The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is legally an American nonprofit organization that is designed to provide an answer to the problem I mentioned, that Hamas steals aid and uses it to fund its war machine. And the way the GAF addresses this is to distribute aid directly into the hands of Gazan civilians, to cut out the middleman in a way that precludes Hamas from stealing it. Now it was established by a combination of Americans and Israelis, as reporting indicates, there was a prominent Israeli role in the process.

Starting point is 00:08:02 It enjoys the support of the Trump administration as well as the Israeli government and it's now in its second week of operation. So among the controversies about the GHF is the fact that its funding sources are not publicly disclosed. Now in Israel there's a heated public discussion about this, speculation about where the funding comes from. There are a number of statements by former officials asserting that the Israeli government may be a source or at least a conduit, and among the potential funders may be Qatar. But it's important to say that there's no evidence of any of that quite yet, and it's

Starting point is 00:08:43 simply that the sources of funding are unknown. Why would Israel funding it be controversial? Well, Israel funding it is controversial because of the unpopularity within Israel of feeding Gazans when hostages are being returned gaunt and looking like they haven't been fed. So that's part of the issue. And the question of who funds it and when the specter of Qatari funding is raised, it leads people to argue that this is in some way

Starting point is 00:09:13 a return to the pre-October 7th reality in which Qatar was a major financial player and therefore enjoyed major political influence within the Gaza Strip. So those are the concerns that arise from those allegations. Okay, so I wanna talk about Osama Hamdan, one of Hamas' senior political leaders. He said on camera, and I'm quoting here,

Starting point is 00:09:36 we trust that our people will endure hunger and not extend their hands to the occupier asking for aid. That's a quote. What does that tell you about how Hamas is responding to this new GHF program and the overall Israeli strategy? It reflects the fact that Hamas feels threatened by the GHF and overall by this new strategy, because if it no longer has the ability to steal aid and resell it

Starting point is 00:10:09 at exorbitant prices, it loses much if not most of its funding. It loses the ability to pay its fighters and stalwarts. It thereby becomes much weaker, both politically and militarily. And they're afraid of that. And the statement by Osama Hamdan, the Hamas leader, which you read, in which he calls on Gazans to starve rather than accept the American aid distribution, makes Gazans even angrier. It lays bare the moral bankruptcy of Hamas and the extent to which they care absolutely nothing about Gaza lives. Okay, building on that, how could this change the power structure in Gaza?

Starting point is 00:10:51 The way Amit Segal put it on our last episode is he said something along the lines of, Israel up until this point had been waging a war against Hamas's military capability. And for the first time now, this GHF program is waging war against Hamas's military capability. And for the first time now, this GHF program is waging war against Hamas's governing capability. And that ultimately is the biggest threat to Hamas if Hamas doesn't have the tools

Starting point is 00:11:15 to kind of control governance in Gaza, even indirectly. So if he's right and you're right, then what does the power structure look like in Gaza going forward? So the GHF indeed weakens Hamas's governing capacities as well as its fighting capacity. And in doing so, it creates the possibility of a new post-Hamas administration to emerge.

Starting point is 00:11:39 And I stress that it creates the possibility because what the GHF is not is a pilot effort at Gazan aid distribution, right? So now there's one of the lessons of this war up until now is that the people who dominate the aid dominate the politics of the strip. The GHF is not putting aid into the hands of anti-Hamas Gazans, it is putting it into the hands

Starting point is 00:12:04 of American contractors to do the distribution, at least for the time being. If, over time, Gazans opposed to Hamas were to join that supply line and perhaps eventually to supplant the American role in the distribution, then you have the beginnings of a new anti-Hamas or post-Hamas civil administration in Gaza. And that, of course, would be a very positive development for all concerned. And now that Hamas is cut out of the food chain, literally, meaning Hamas is not the hand that is feeding Gazans, is there a growing sense from your perspective that these many Gazans now feel empowered or free at least to rise up or at least speak up against Hamas? Has it really changed their sense of who

Starting point is 00:12:52 they have to be responsive to in terms of the existing or what has been the existing power structure in Gaza? First of all there's been a growing sense of empowerment and growing boldness on the part of Gazans that predates the launch of the DHF and it's largely a function of the weakening of Hamas, a recognition on the part of Gazan civilians that Hamas is not in a position to threaten them in the way that it was in the past. We are seeing, and we have been seeing for months now more and more voices emerging to speak out against Hamas, to demand that Hamas leave, to demand that Hamas release the hostages which they recognize as the

Starting point is 00:13:35 source of their suffering ultimately and indeed thousands of Gazans have taken the streets to protest Hamas. So if we look at this new aid distribution strategy, what are the political implications inside Gaza? So as I mentioned earlier, the first point about its political implications is that by weakening Hamas' financial base, that is, its massive theft of humanitarian aid and use of that aid to fuel its war machine and governing

Starting point is 00:14:06 structure, you weaken both Hamas as a military force and a governing entity in the Strip. So the real question though is, can this new initiative be a gateway to a new post-Hamas civil administration? And on that, the jury is out. And one of the issues is the fact that the distributors of the aid are on the whole, at least for now, American contractors, as opposed to non-Hamas Gazans. That makes a difference politically within Gaza. Because when you see Americans distributing aid, what that signals to people is that

Starting point is 00:14:43 this presence is temporary. These people are there under a constellation of political and financial interests and eventually they're going to depart the scene and Hamas will be what's left and it's just a waiting game for Hamas. So it's not until Gazans, independent of Hamas, opposed to Hamas, are actually joining this process as aid distributors, as aid administrators, et cetera, and begin to accrue political capital of their own

Starting point is 00:15:15 as an alternative structure within the strip that this has the potential to lead to a post-Hamas government of some kind. And that's what we'll be watching for in the coming months. Joseph, you helped us through your network in Gaza. You helped us get a question in audio to different people in Gaza. I wanna play the audio,

Starting point is 00:15:37 and we're gonna play the audio of the answer to our question, which is in Arabic from a Gazan Palestinian civilian. And then we have a translator who translated it in English for us. You'll hear the translation as well. our question, which is in Arabic from a Gazan Palestinian civilian. And then we have a translator who translated it in English for us. You'll hear the translation as well. So Alon, let's play that. From the beginning of the war, Hamas was stealing the aid and we were forced to buy it on the

Starting point is 00:15:58 black market. Prices were extremely high and we never received any help from Hamas. Today we are seeing a new system for distributing aid and this is a positive step. We were happy to see that Hamas might finally stop stealing from us. I hope the aid distribution becomes even more organized, like sending messages for picking up and setting specific times so we can collect aid from a location close to us. Thank God Hamas has stopped distributing aid and hopefully soon it will fall from power and be gone from all of Gaza. Thank you Dan for the questions. It was an

Starting point is 00:16:34 honor to be on your podcast. Call me back. So Joseph, how is the logistics of the aid distribution going and is there, you know, as we listen to these kinds of messages, is there any ambiguity on listen to these kinds of messages, is there any ambiguity on the side of Gazan civilians receiving aid from Israel? If by ambiguity you mean ambivalence, I would say the simple answer is there's absolutely no ambivalence.

Starting point is 00:16:55 And we were interviewing Gazans before GHF launched to ask them how they felt about different kinds of parties distributing aid, and they were emphatic that if it was Americans, if it was Israelis, if it was the IDF itself distributing aid, they would be happy to take aid from whoever is offering it. But I also mean, I take your point about ambivalence, but I'm also talking about ambiguity, meaning is it opaque about where the aid is coming from? Do these Gazans basically know it's Israel slash America? They know what is emerging in the public discussion about this effort.

Starting point is 00:17:32 And they don't care, Dan. They are stressing that if the aid is available and it's being distributed in a relatively orderly fashion, albeit there were some logistical problems that they faced initially that they appear to be addressing. These people want that aid and they will take it and we've shown video of Gazans expressing gratitude to President Trump, whom they perceive rightly to be a supporter of this initiative and they are very enthusiastic about partaking of this aid.

Starting point is 00:18:03 And who's actually handing out the aid? Is it Americans? Yes, it is American contractors at this time. Okay. All right, I want to play audio from another question that we sent to your network in Gaza. So let's play that audio. We will never forgive Israel for all the destruction it caused in Gaza. But we will never forgive Hamas either, because it caused in Gaza, but we will never forgive

Starting point is 00:18:25 Hamas either because it was the one who started the war and brought all this devastation. We supported the first and the second intifadas in the past, but I'm against all the wars that Hamas waged and never won. And we the civilians paid the price. We are the ones who die, starve, get wounded, lose our loved ones and families and pay the bill for Hamas, whose leaders live in luxury in Qatar, Turkey, Lebanon and Syria. We want to get rid of Hamas. We don't want the war to end without getting rid of Hamas.

Starting point is 00:19:00 Okay. So Joseph, this to me is very important because I'm always torn when I hear these kinds of statements by quote unquote average Gazan Palestinians, because I say to myself, are we cherry picking the voices that we most want to hear like that, but it's not really representative of the broad sentiment of people in Gaza, or is it actually representative? And I know we don't have very good polling survey research that would tell us it's at least not reliable survey research. So you've been on the ground in Gaza, you've done a lot of work there, you're talking to a lot of Palestinians, you seem to have your finger on the pulse of things. What's your sense? How representative

Starting point is 00:19:38 is this comment, this observation you just heard? Dan, what you just heard is not cherry-picking. What you just heard is the majority view in Gaza, unsurprisingly I would say, both anti-Israel and anti-Hamas. On the one hand, they have obvious grievances against Israel that have only grown with the destruction of homes and property and many lives, but at the same time they understand as well as anyone else what triggered this war. They understand that it was Hamas perpetrating the October 7th attacks. And this view is not new in Gaza. As the person spoke, this is plainly not a person who is in any sense supportive of Israel or sympathetic to Israel. She said that she was in support of both the first and the second

Starting point is 00:20:31 Intifadas, but she understands the wars Hamas has waged since then as self-destructive. And again, this is not a peacenik talking, This is not someone who is opposed in principle to fighting Israel and defeating Israel, but opposed to starting a war you can't win and hiding underground and leaving civilians to suffer the casualties. So this is the predominant view in Gaza today. The minority view is which we would put at about 10 to 15% of the population is Gazans

Starting point is 00:21:06 who believe as a matter of principle that the future of the strip is interlocked with some kind of partnership with Israel and who are not in favor of attacking Israel, even under advantageous circumstances because they recognize coexistence as a value. So those people are there, they are a minority. People who are both anti-Hamas and anti-Israel are now the majority. For the avoidance of doubt, let me sort of map Gaza based on our experience engaging thousands of Gazans over the past three years directly. We believe that about 10 to 15 percent of the Gazan population genuinely believe in coexistence with Israel as a principle, a value, and a pragmatic virtue because in their view the future of the strip is wrapped up in partnership with Israel. That's only 10 to 15 percent of the population. It's a minority that has always been

Starting point is 00:22:07 there. Some people argue that the very foundation of the state of Israel required that there be some number of Palestinians who were willing to engage with Israelis, but it's a much larger number. We estimate about 50 to 55 percent of the population, who while not members of Hamas, are passive recipients of the generation of incitement against Israel that Hamas has instilled, and who generally harbor maximalist anti-Israel views and are broadly supportive of terrorist acts against Israel, provided they don't redound negatively on Gazans. So this is a very substantial number of people who have never personally taken part in terror

Starting point is 00:22:54 attacks but are sympathetic to them. What remains is about 30% of the population that are Hamas's true base. The fighters, the civil servants of Hamas's system, its teachers, its preachers, its media workers, and their families. That is a crew that is probably shrinking as Hamas's patronage system is weakened by its loss of funding and aid, by its loss of funding and aid, but that has been its governing base up until October 7th. Hopes for a sea change in Gazan public opinion over an extended period of time rest on a situation which the 30% who are the true base of Hamas and its allies are sidelined, marginalized, defeated on the one hand, that 10 to 15 percent of genuine believers in coexistence are empowered, are given control over the religious institutions, the educational institutions, and the media to begin to message a new vision of the future.

Starting point is 00:24:05 And the 50 to 55% who are passive recipients of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel hate are given a stake in a system of reconstruction while they gradually absorb a new set of ideas and values. Okay, Joseph, it's been almost four months since President Trump delivered his Gaza Riviera proposal for the first time. Is the Trump plan to offer migration to Gazans who seek it

Starting point is 00:24:36 being implemented in any significant way, in any measurable way? On the one hand, the Trump plan has now become official Israeli government policy. The Israeli prime minister has stated as much, taken some systemic actions to attempt to lay the groundwork for implementation, and in the most recent press conference he gave, declared it as one of the goals of the war. So there is an Israeli government commitment to it.

Starting point is 00:25:04 On the administration side, it's apparent that some administration officials are trying to advance this plan, but it isn't clear whether President Trump himself is committed to wielding the substantial political pressure that would be required to induce any Arab or Muslim country to accept a substantial number of Gazan refugees. Now, the context of this is that the majority of Gazans, certainly more than half, according to a Gallup poll in March, do want the opportunity to emigrate. There are qualifications to that. They're more likely to accept an opportunity to emigrate if it's a better place to live, less likely as many put it,

Starting point is 00:25:46 if it's a land of starvation like Somalia, that's a quote from a Gazan we interviewed. On the other hand, they would be less likely to wanna leave if they weren't allowed to come back or if they were told as much. But the desire to emigrate is widespread and it even predates October 7th. There was a poll on the eve of October 7th

Starting point is 00:26:07 that put one third of the Gazan population in favor of emigrating, including 40% of youth, and they cited Hamas corruption and brutality as the primary reasons why they wanna leave. As one Gazan we spoke with put it, it's as much immoral to force Gazans out as it is to force them and box them in and not allow them to leave. Both are wrong. But from the standpoint of Israel and its long-term planning with respect to Gaza, this is also something of a distraction

Starting point is 00:26:42 because even if a substantial number of Gazans voluntarily emigrate, and it would be very hard to imagine even half of the population, that would be a vast migration, you would still be left with a million Gazans, and all of the issues of post-war governance of Gazan will remain urgent and necessary to address.

Starting point is 00:27:06 So this is in some ways something of a distraction from questions that the Israeli government needs to answer about how it plans to administer Gaza after this war and how you transition from the present reality to that post-Hamas future. In the unlikely event that half of Gazan's population migrated voluntarily, that would be about a million people. It would leave you with a little over a million people, which is the population of Gaza around the period of the disengagement that Ariel Sharon led in 2005. That's a substantial number of people in a very small geographical area and all of the issues

Starting point is 00:27:53 regarding post-Hamas civil administration of the strip, who governs it, how it's administered, who pays for it and so on, will be just as relevant in that eventuality as they are now. Okay, in recent weeks a new figure has emerged who could play a political role or a governing role. A new figure has emerged in Gaza. His name is Abu Shabab. Tell us about Abu Shabab, what's his story and what does Hamas make of him? Yasser Abu Shabab is an armed individual who is a member of a Bedouin clan that straddles both sides of the Gaza and Egyptian border. In the Sinai, that clan has been partnering with the Egyptian army in fighting ISIS. In other words, that clan on the Egyptian side

Starting point is 00:28:41 of the border has become a sort of a paramilitary force That is an auxiliary force to the Egyptian armed forces So according to Hamas Yasser Abu Shabab is leading the beginnings of an anti Hamas militia with Israeli assistance Hamas propaganda is likening that militia to the South Lebanese army that assisted Israel in fighting Hezbollah

Starting point is 00:29:12 up until Israel departed Lebanon in 2000. The details are hazy, but it's apparent that one of the noisiest sources of information about Abu Shabab is Hamas' propaganda, so they certainly have a bee in their bonnet about him. It appears that his forces are operating in the Rafah area, which is a natural place for the beginnings of an anti-Hamas paramilitary force because Israel is very strong in the area. Hamas claims to have killed some of his fighters, publishing photo images of those attacks. And the future is unknown. As far as his background,

Starting point is 00:29:53 we know that he spent time in Hamas prisons, not a political objector to Hamas, but as someone who was charged with non-political crimes, and though he doesn't have credentials among anti-Hamas dissidents in Gaza, that is political dissidents, he certainly appears to have acquired an animosity toward Hamas during his time in their prisons. At a very practical level, Joseph, what kind of power has he actually amassed? Does he have fighters? Does he have weapons? Does he have real political support, activists?

Starting point is 00:30:33 What sits beneath Abu Shabaab? Well, he has acquired weapons and the means to pay fighters. He has some kind of a presence in the vicinity of Rafah. How much political support he enjoys among Gazans is unclear. There certainly is, among the many Gazans who have become quite reflexively anti-Hamas, a certain amount of instant sympathy for anyone who stands up and fights Hamas. But this is not a person with any history of political action in the strip, who with any experience building a political coalition, nor has he emerged as a public voice explaining to the public what he

Starting point is 00:31:16 stands for or aside from making the assertion that he is protecting aid distribution, which may be true, he is not articulating any sort of a vision for the future of Gaza yet. So it's very much a work in progress and we're yet to see him emerge as a political voice on the future of Gaza. All right. I want to ask you, Joseph, about the enclaves program, which you and I have talked about offline in the past, and there's been scant press coverage about it, but it really is never much more than that. You've been involved with this enclaves program for almost a year.

Starting point is 00:31:57 Can you describe the program and then tell us why this has been such elongated work in progress to get it implemented. Well, first of all, just to clarify, our organization is involved with a large network of anti-Hamas Gazans. And in that context of working with them, engaging them and trying to help them find their way into a post-Hamas future, we talk to the relevant stakeholders in the US, in Israel, in Europe, and among some Arab states. Now, these Gazans are very much in support and have been for over a year now of a vision of piloting self-rule in discrete geographical areas within the Strip.

Starting point is 00:32:41 The idea that it may be premature to think about Gazans or anyone governing the entire strip, but you can free certain areas of Hamas influence and control. You can equip a nascent anti-Hamas force to patrol the area internally while Israelis protect it externally. You can give those Gazans responsibility over the distribution of aid and the opportunity to pilot the beginnings of a civil administration. And it need not be limited to one such experiment. There could be several in different parts of the strip.

Starting point is 00:33:21 Now a whole lot of Gazans who have been activists in the We Want to Live anti-Hamas protest movement going back to 2019 are in favor of this vision, and so are elements within Israel's security establishment, as reported in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago. The problem with implementation, there's really several problems that have come up. The first is within the security establishment and understandable resistance to a situation in which IDF forces are protecting a Gazan political experiment. Something that is speculative with the future uncertain. And imagine IDF officers having to notify parents that their children died protecting Gazans in the post October 7 climate in Israel. That is a very difficult message. The second

Starting point is 00:34:15 problem of course relates to elements within this Israeli government who are uncomfortable with any investing in any sort of post HamHamas-Gazan administration. And the third point is that as Israel has sought over the past year and a half to negotiate various ceasefires for the release of hostages, the prospect of creating a ceasefire environment is an obstacle to the military operation that would be involved in creating such an enclave

Starting point is 00:34:47 and protecting it. If you had an enclave of non-Hamas self-rule in Gaza, it would immediately become a target of Hamas because that is a true political threat to Hamas's governance of the Strip and it would be difficult to sustain and protect that in the context of any ceasefire that Hamas would agree to. So the issue of the hostages and ceasefire negotiations has been an issue in and of itself. And it's important to note in that context, Dan, that the most dangerous time for Gazans who oppose Hamas

Starting point is 00:35:27 is the periods of ceasefire, because that's when the fighters who are hiding underground are free to emerge from their hiding and get back into the business of killing and torturing anyone they perceive to be an opponent in the Gaza Strip. So to what extent is the current humanitarian aid strategy similar or different from the enclave program? Indeed, the GHF approach to distributing humanitarian aid free of Hamas has much in common with the enclave plan I've just described. It's about clearing an area of any Hamas presence by admitting only people who are vetted and identified as not being members of Hamas. It's about alternative aid distribution,

Starting point is 00:36:13 and it's about protecting such an area, ultimately with IDF firepower. It may even be about forging the beginnings of an anti-Hamas GhGazan paramilitary force, if some of the claims regarding Yasser Abu Shabab turn out to be true. What's different and absent so far from the GHF approach is involving anti-Hamas Gazans in the aid distribution and ultimately making that a stepping stone

Starting point is 00:36:45 towards some kind of civil administration. That is not something that we're seeing so far. It doesn't preclude the possibility that you launch it with American contractors and you gradually see Gazans joining the pipeline and perhaps eventually supplanting the American presence. But that is what would have to happen in order for the GHF approach to evolve into a pilot effort at anti-Hamas-Gaza and self-rule. Okay. So, if this plan, the current plan, the GHF plan ends up working and Hamas withers from

Starting point is 00:37:24 any position of real power in Gaza. What then? I assume Israeli taxpayers will, as you said earlier, will not be enthusiastic about funding the government functions and the welfare state in Gaza indefinitely. So what happens? How does this thing, this polity, sustain itself? Indeed, the stakeholders in defeating Hamas, Israel, the United States, and all of their allies have to develop a compelling vision for a viable post-Hamas civil administration that is sufficiently real, sufficiently popular with the Gazan population to attract international

Starting point is 00:38:07 investment, to attract the kinds of investors that Israel ultimately wants, the Saudis, the Emiratis, European donors and so on. Now, as you know, Dan, there are people who have been pushing for bringing the PA in some form into Gaza, if not as an actual force to hold the territory because very few people believe they're in a position to do that, then at least as some kind of international cover to, quote unquote, legitimize the effort. Now there are people who feel that's a bad idea and they have understandable reasons. And I'd say one of the major ones is that however much the PA and Hamas have been at lagerheads over the past generation, the way they inculcate their children regarding Israel

Starting point is 00:38:55 and the possibility of coexistence is not much different. They're teaching the same message to kids through schools and mosques and media that there is no legitimate Israeli presence between the river and the sea and they all ultimately have to be eradicated. But if you believe that there needs to be an alternative to the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, then the onus is on you to develop that alternative, to forge that alternative. If you are concerned that teaching, preaching, and messaging hate will breed a new generation of terrorists, then it behooves you to ask,

Starting point is 00:39:37 how do we begin to develop an alternative system of de-radicalization? That's where the enclaves plan has been introduced as one possibility for a sort of a gradual transition to a new administration. But the bottom line is that substantial effort and long-term persistence will be involved in forging any alternative to Hamas rule.

Starting point is 00:40:03 One way or the other, money's gonna have to flow back into Gaza at some point, whether it's from the Israeli system or some international organization or from the Arab world, say Qatar or Egypt or one of the other Sunni Gulf states other than Qatar, money is gonna have to come into Gaza. So how do you respond to those Israelis who say, wait a minute, we're just going back to October 6th

Starting point is 00:40:29 in that respect? One of the greatest problems with the reality pre-October 7th was that Israel essentially seeded any effort at influencing political outcomes in Gaza to Hamas. They did not make serious attempt to invest in alternatives to Hamas rule to develop and protect dissidents who might have challenged Hamas. Now, there's a danger that in the understandable Israeli desire to totally rid itself of any connection to the Gaza Strip, it ends up seeding

Starting point is 00:41:06 influence over the future administration of Gaza for a different set of reasons. It's an emotional reaction and political reaction to October 7th. If Israel and its friends want to de-radicalize the Gaza Strip, if they want to actually commit to a long-term process of messaging a different future to Gazan kids, they have to remain involved. They have to remain involved themselves and with the stakeholders who may invest in Gaza or deploy troops to Gaza. If you totally withdraw from the process of planning the future of Gaza, don't be disappointed if the outcome politically, culturally,

Starting point is 00:41:50 and ultimately militarily is something you don't want. All right, my final question for you is that Joseph, you and your organization have been embedded in Gaza throughout the war. What do you think it would take for Gaza's population to be de-radicalized? You've talked about de-radicalization throughout this conversation.

Starting point is 00:42:11 I know it's a big focus of yours. If you just paint a picture of what the program of de-radicalization involves, so that people in the US, people in Israel, people elsewhere can begin to understand that, both the scale of it, it's an ambitious project, and what it actually looks like. When I lived in the UAE as a graduate student

Starting point is 00:42:31 in the late 90s, it was still dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood culturally. The Brotherhood were still embedded in the education system, the media, and the religious institutions of the country. And it took a concerted project of over a generation's time to reorient the public toward a different set of values and ideas. It involved purges of all of the institutions of inculcation against schools, media, and mosques. It involved a certain amount of hard-nosed security action.

Starting point is 00:43:09 It involved more subtle efforts to relieve Brotherhood stalwarts of jobs where they had influence and give them roles as garbage collection and sanitation and other things where they had no platform. It required consistency of effort and focus, and it involved developing a counter-narrative to the Brotherhood that had a chance at being persuasive. Now, when they set out to do this, they didn't have a majority of the population

Starting point is 00:43:38 willing to step up and champion such an effort with them. They only had a minority of 10 to 15 percent of the population that was ready to change the caliber and nature of messaging in all of these institutions of inculcation. But they empowered them. They gave them managerial roles. And what they found ultimately was that the majority of the workforce in any school or in any newspaper or even in the religious institutions, really just wanted to follow the directives that were handed to them. So over time, they did manage to change the fabric of the culture, but it took a generation and it happened in an authoritarian structure that is quite different from obviously realities in Gaza, but at least it reflects the possibility that these things can be accomplished.

Starting point is 00:44:30 Joseph, I got to say, I think the Emirati story is in the case studies is interesting and informative, but I feel like they're just two completely different worlds from the Gaza and Palestinian story, the narrative, the narrative they tell themselves, the permanent conflict they've been in with Israel, the idea that de-radicalization involves coexistence with their Jewish neighbors who they have been at war with for a long time and so much blood has been shed. So it just seems like a completely different world

Starting point is 00:45:02 from the Emirati example. Great question. Very valid point. And I'll make two points in response. The first is that that very destruction and all of the bloodshed and all of the misery that Gazans in particular have faced, by the way, it's a different trajectory than what has been happening in the West Bank, different in many ways, has in fact inspired a conversation about the need to rethink what it means to be Palestinian, all right? Not to sacrifice one's aspirations for self-determination, but to ask whether the approach that Hamas and other groups have taken has gotten them anywhere. And to recognize that an ideology of building and not destroying

Starting point is 00:45:48 would be needed if Gaza is going to develop and sustain itself. Dan, I know that on your show you've hosted Ahmed Fuad Al-Khatib, a Gazan-American who harbors such views. There are many Gazans we know inside the strip for whom those ideas resonate. There is a presence within Gaza that's ready to express and push for this re-imagination of Palestinian identity. Ultimately, yes, there is a conflict between maximalist aspirations that many Palestinians share and what the Israeli consensus would accept as legitimate goals that state building would lead to.

Starting point is 00:46:33 And so you can argue that there's an inherent problem with de-radicalization if the positive vision of state building comes into conflict with Israeli consensus. However, that's not much different than de-radicalization in any of the environments we've seen as successes in the Arab world. In Saudi Arabia, in the UAE, and elsewhere, de-radicalization programs have always involved a compromise between the egalitarian ideas that were being nurtured as an alternative to radicalism and the interests of an authoritarian structure. In other words, the interests of the state itself, which could only countenance a certain amount of liberalization. Deradicalization in the Middle East is inherently a work of compromise between government interests and

Starting point is 00:47:26 uncompromising values. And it's been done elsewhere and it can happen in Gaza as well. All right. You are giving me something to be hopeful for, Joseph. I appreciate this conversation and a really great appreciation for the work you're doing and your organization. And we hope to have you back on soon because I'm I'm hoping this is a story with lots of developments that are worthy of conversation Thank you, Dan That's our show for today if you found this episode valuable Please share it with others who might appreciate it.

Starting point is 00:48:06 Time and again, we've found that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the Call Me Back community, so thank you. And to offer comments, suggestions, sign up for updates, or explore past episodes, please visit our website, arcmedia.org. That's ARKmedia.org, where you can deepen your understanding of the topics we cover. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Alain Benatar. Sound and video editing by Martin Huérgo and Mary Angeles Burgos. Our director of operations is Maya Rakoff. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semmo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.

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Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - The Emerging Day After in Gaza - with Joseph Braude

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