It Could Happen Here - Domination Is Peace: Trump’s 20 Point Peace Plan for Palestine feat. Dana El Kurd

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is an I-Heart podcast. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls, came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season, ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.

Starting point is 00:00:56 Had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rights. You don't know. Five, six white people. Pushed me in the car. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it.

Starting point is 00:01:12 Just accept it. She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. What's up, everybody?

Starting point is 00:01:27 It's snacks from the trap nerds. all October long. We're bringing you the horror. Bookety, boogity, boogity. We're kicking off this month with some of my best horror games to keep you terrified. Then we'll be talking about our favorite horror and Halloween movies and figuring out why black people always die further. And it's the return of Tony's horror show. Side quest written and narrated by yours truly. We'll also be doing a full episode reading with commentary. And we'll cap it off with a horror movie Battle Royale. Open your free iHeart radio app and search trap nurse podcast and listen now.

Starting point is 00:01:56 I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of heavyweight... And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke. A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old. And a centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago. How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? Listen to heavyweight on the I-heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. CallZone Media Hello everyone and welcome to It Could Happen here.

Starting point is 00:02:37 My name is Dana Al-Kurd, and I'm a writer, analyst, and researcher of Palestinian and Arab politics. I'm an associate professor of political science and a senior non-resident fellow at the Arab Center, Washington. I'm recording this on October 19, 2025. Negotiators from a number of countries and Israel were in Cairo recently discussing the next phase of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel. Hamas has since released all remaining Israeli hostages as well as the bodies of those who were killed. And Israel has withdrawn from certain parts of the Gaza Strip and started to release political prisoners, as well as the bodies of Palestinians who have been killed after they were detained since October 7th. some of the testimonies from these prisoners is just incredibly hard to stomach the degree of dehumanization that's been allowed to take place in these israeli prisons the torture and abuse that they faced is truly truly harrowing some of the Palestinian bodies that have been released are mutilated with extreme signs of torture some released blindfolded and cuffed returned with a noose around their neck Greta Toonberg, who was on the flotilla recently trying to break the siege of Gaza,

Starting point is 00:03:55 just also returned from Israeli prison, where she was also abused and stripped and mistreated. She said, in a recent interview, if they do this to a white person with a Swedish passport, we can only imagine what they do to Palestinians. And of course, we are seeing this play out before our eyes. In a fair and just world, where international law meant something, there would be consequences for this.

Starting point is 00:04:22 Instead, today I want to talk about this plan that's been proposed by the Trump administration, the 20-point peace plan for Gaza. Reportedly, ex-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has been consulting with Trump and his son-in-law slash advisor, Jared Kushner, for some time hashing this plan out. We'll get back to him in a bit,

Starting point is 00:04:42 as he's quite the character. This plan, as the name suggests, has 20 points, but it's a little light on details. It outlines the return of remaining Israeli hostages very quickly within 72 hours. It says the Gaza Strip needs to be, quote, demilitarized. It talks about the creation of an international stabilization force, an international security force, to operate on the ground in Gaza with the eventual withdrawal of Israeli troops, but within a buffer zone.

Starting point is 00:05:14 And this force would consist of soldiers from other countries. It also talks about the formation of a, quote, technocratic, apolitical Palestinian temporary government to run the Gaza Strip territory until the peace process is concluded. But this temporary Palestinian government would only be allowed to engage in service provision, nothing more. That government would also be overseen by a, quote, Board of Peace, run by Trump himself, his pal, Tony Blair, and other yet unspecified. members. There is some language on the economic development of a quote, new Gaza, and some discussion of initiatives to promote tolerance, essentially to de-radicalize Palestinians. Notably, the plan does not endorse ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza, which was wildly a serious thing on the table for a few months that Trump endorsed. But what it does say is still pretty insidious.

Starting point is 00:06:15 Essentially, the plan says that a possible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood is conditioned on advances in, quote, Gaza's redevelopment, and a, quote, Palestinian Authority Reform program that is faithfully carried out. Only then, the plan says, quote, conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood. Basically, if the Palestinians do good, if they comply with the international security force, if they take orders from the Board of Peace, and quote, reform the PA in some way, and what that means is a really big open question, then maybe their demands for self-determination in statehood will eventually be discussed.

Starting point is 00:07:03 As I've said before on previous episodes, that statehood part is a bit tricky because statehood means different things to different people. apparently. Jared Kushner talked about maybe giving Palestinians a state without the annoying little detail of actual sovereignty. The Israeli prime minister that signed the Oslo Accords, Yitzhak Rabin, which was the first time Palestinians and Israelis agreed to anything directly, said, after signing, that Israel would only ever give Palestinians something, quote, less than a state. The international community keeps recognizing a Palestinian state. When the Palestinians don't really have control of any territory.

Starting point is 00:07:46 It's like, is the state in the room with us now? It's also important to note here that the plan that Trump is proposing doesn't really include any Palestinian input, at least meaningfully. The goal from Israel and the U.S.'s perspective is for Hamas to be removed from the equation altogether. There's some discussion, actually still, of whether they will actually disarm or not, because Hamas has said to the media that it's not considering this. And as I mentioned, there is this throwaway line about reforming the Palestinian authority.

Starting point is 00:08:19 But what that means and how the Palestinian people actually factor in isn't addressed. Here's my educated guess. When Trump and Israel and the international community say they want to reform the PA, we have to look at what they've been doing and pushing for in the past couple of months to understand what that actually means. So for them, if we look at their track record, reforming the PA means figuring out an acceptable alternative from their perspective

Starting point is 00:08:51 to replace the octogenarian Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas so that the PA can seem on paper more legitimate and better positioned to sign away Palestinian rights during future negotiations. They've already been pushing behind the scenes to set that up. They pressured Abbas to convene the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council, change the bylaws, create a vice president position, and appoint a guy that's acceptable to the U.S. and Israel to that role.

Starting point is 00:09:21 That man was Hussein al-Sheikh, Palestinian businessman and former security guy, who polls at 2% with Palestinians. What reforming the PA does not mean, it looks like, is actual democratic reform where Palestinians can choose not only their president, but also on their legislative representatives and on the PLO legislative body, the National Council, it looks like reforming the PA doesn't mean all Palestinians will be allowed to participate if limited elections are held.

Starting point is 00:09:53 And it seems it doesn't mean responding to what Palestinian civil society has been asking for, which is reforming the PA by reforming the PLO altogether so that all Palestinians can participate. in the discussion of national liberation. We can guess that the U.S., Israel, and the international community, quote-unquote, are unlikely to offer any of this because they've propped up the PA in the past and seem intent on propping up some puppet government of the PA in the future. But they need the PA as some acceptable Palestinian entity

Starting point is 00:10:29 to be even tangentially involved in future negotiations so that they can say, look, the Palestinians agreed too. This is legitimate. even if that PA doesn't represent people, even if most Palestinians, 85% in the latest poll, are dissatisfied with the PA's conduct, and 42% support the dissolution of the PA altogether. This is a dangerous game to play. All I know is what I've been told, and that to have truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know.

Starting point is 00:11:27 A story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, This Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said.

Starting point is 00:11:58 They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her. From Lava for Good, is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed

Starting point is 00:12:28 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad-free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus, on Apple Podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents race to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. We had 30 agents ready to go

Starting point is 00:13:00 with shotguns and rifles and you name it. But what they find is not what they expected. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. They go, is this your daughter? I said yes. They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years. Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light.

Starting point is 00:13:36 Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. When I smoke weed, I get lost in the music. I like to isolate each instrument, the rhythmic bass, the harmonies on the piano, the sticky melody. Hey, hey, hey, hey, careful, babe, there's someone crossing the street. Sorry, I didn't see him there. If you feel different, you drive different. Don't drive high. It's dangerous and illegal everywhere.

Starting point is 00:14:14 A message from NHTSA and the Ad Council. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart. How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at first. 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down.

Starting point is 00:14:42 And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time. Being more able to look people in the eye. Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to heavyweight on the I-heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or we're wherever you get your podcasts. Any sort of peace process in the future,

Starting point is 00:15:18 as impossible as it seems at this current moment that isn't predicated on the complete annihilation of one side of the conflict will need some degree of public support. It will need societies involved in this conflict to buy into the process. Otherwise, you get spoilers. You get political actors engaging in violence to disrupt the peace process.

Starting point is 00:15:42 Or you don't really resolve the underlying issues in an even compromised satisfactory way. And people get upset and the conflict continues. So if you don't include people's buy-in, what you're banking on is being able to suppress people. And what you want isn't really peace. It's authoritarian conflict management. It's illiberal. It maintains structural violence in the name of preserving peace. It means Palestinians wouldn't get the rights they have under international law,

Starting point is 00:16:15 the right to self-determination. And it means the occupation in some form doesn't end. Thing is, this is well understood. And it's well understood by the people involved in this 20-point peace plan for Gaza. Tony Blair, for example, was Prime Minister of the UK when the Northern Ireland conflict was being negotiated. and settled. He understood then that public buy-in was important. The Good Friday Agreement, which ended the conflict in Northern Ireland for the past 27 years, had not one but two

Starting point is 00:16:44 referendums, one for the people of Northern Ireland, and one for the people of the Republic of Ireland. The process of getting to the Good Friday Agreement also included all groups, militant groups, from both sides of the conflict. This is what it takes for a conflict to be contained, in some shape or form. But for some reason, when international leaders or ex-leaders in the case of Tony Blair think about conflicts in the Middle East involving Arabs, then public buy-in, democratic processes, sustainable peace, no longer factor into decision-making. The buy-in and opinion of the public matters, but apparently only certain publics. In other conflicts also, like the breakdown of Yugoslavia, the perpetrators of genocidal violence,

Starting point is 00:17:31 were held accountable by international law. They were taken to the Hague. They faced repercussions. Of course, not perfectly. Not entirely. Not everyone. Some parties of the conflict that emerged in Bosnia after were rewarded for their violence.

Starting point is 00:17:45 The vision of the Serbian leadership that committed war crimes in Bosnia came to fruition to some degree in the form of Republic of Serbska today, which is a semi-autonomous region that divides Bosnia-Herzegovina. But nevertheless, the international community,

Starting point is 00:18:00 at least understood the necessity of holding perpetrators accountable for violence and war crimes, even if the execution was incomplete. In this case, there is no such discussion. A number of human rights organizations and the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory have found Israeli leaders, President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and then defense minister Yuav Galant personally responsible for the decisions made in Gaza, the decision to engage in genocide in Gaza. But the ceasefire plan, which they are billing as a, quote, peace plan for a new Gaza,

Starting point is 00:18:39 and they're trying to make the basis of future negotiations, says nothing about accountability for crimes committed. Trump, in fact, went in front of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and insisted on his support for Prime Minister Netanyahu. He even got involved in Netanyahu's corruption case that he has domestically in Israel, addressing President Isaac Herzog as Knesset members clapped and jeered.

Starting point is 00:19:03 Hey, I have an idea. Mr. President, why don't you give him a pardon? Give him a pardon. Come on. That's what we're dealing with here. Just an audacious, outrageous display of corruption on so many levels.

Starting point is 00:19:27 The fact that these guys are the guys putting together the so-called peace plan votes poorly for the sustainability of this ceasefire agreement beyond the first phase. Beyond Israel getting what it wants, the hostages, a huge buffer zone that leaves Israel in control of Gaza's former urban areas, and possibly they might get the neutralization of Hamas, it's not clear that this ceasefire agreement can actually advance into a sustainable negotiation that maintains peace in the long run. It's why scholar Marika Sasnowski, at the University of Melbourne,

Starting point is 00:20:03 who studies ceasefire agreements in particular, calls this a strangle contract. She notes that Israeli withdrawal, release of hostages, and full aid being led into Gaza, is the, quote, bare minimum you would expect both sides to acquiesce to

Starting point is 00:20:18 as part of a ceasefire deal. She expresses concern that this agreement is highly coercive and that it, quote, enables the more powerful party to force the weaker party into agreeing to anything in order for them to survive. This is in direct contrast to a bargain between two equal parties that can sustain peace. She also very rightly notes that Israel could at any time claim the Palestinians are not abiding by the terms of the agreement and end the ceasefire, justifying restarting the war.

Starting point is 00:20:51 The Palestinians have no leverage at all in this agreement. And obviously, they can't rely on unbiased international mediation with the Trump and Kushner and Blairs of the world at the helm of this Sissnawski quotes a Palestinian leader from Yarmou camp in Syria

Starting point is 00:21:08 who said to her, quote, if there is a ceasefire, people know the devil is coming. I think that captures exactly everyone's fears in this moment. The Palestinian Civil Defense Agency says 40 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza today, October 19th.

Starting point is 00:21:23 Children have been shot and killed in the West Bank after the ceasefire agreement. Israel raided the family homes of Palestinian prisoners in five districts across the West Bank before releasing them. Netanyahu has said he won't open the Rafah crossing. These all seem like Israeli violations to the ceasefire to me, but that's not how it'll be reported. And because the Trump administration has twisted the meaning of words, where domination equals peace and injustice equals stability. Once this happens, I fear very few will question the premise of this agreement and the entire peace process to begin with, a peace process where Palestinians aren't

Starting point is 00:22:00 even allowed to participate. No one can be surprised when this doesn't last. And no one can be surprised that this cannot be the basis for sustainable peace. But hey, I hope I'm wrong. Thank you for listening to this episode of It Could Happen Here. Here's hoping for justice and peace. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media from More podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years.

Starting point is 00:22:49 Until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward. with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season, ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. In early 1988,

Starting point is 00:23:24 agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. Had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. Five, six white people pushed me in the car. I'm going, what about that go? Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it. She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:24:02 Welcome to Decoding Women's Health. I'm Dr. Elizabeth Pointer, chair of Women's Health and Gynecology at the Atria Health Institute in New York City. I'll be talking to top researchers and clinicians and bringing vital information about midlife women's health directly to you. A hundred percent of women go through menopause. even if it's natural, why should we suffer through it? Listen to Decoding Women's Help with Dr. Elizabeth Pointer on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of heavyweight...

Starting point is 00:24:35 And so I pointed the gun at him and said this isn't a joke. A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old. And a centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago. How can a hundred and one... one-year-old woman, fall in love again. Listen to Heavyweight on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.

It Could Happen Here - Domination Is Peace: Trump’s 20 Point Peace Plan for Palestine feat. Dana El Kurd

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