The Munk Debates Podcast - Friday Focus: Trump's Gaza deal, the details that could derail it, and the Middle East's new power players

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Friday Focus provides listeners with a focused, half-hour masterclass on the big issues, events and trends driving the news and current events. The show features Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and bestselling author, in conversation with Rudyard Griffiths, Chair and moderator of the Munk Debates. Rudyard and Janice dedicate today's show to the monumental Gaza ceasefire deal which includes a commitment by both Hamas and Israel to end the war. Many of the details still need to be worked out which will inform how successful this deal really is. But make no mistake, Netanyahu has accomplished a stunning victory, guaranteeing the return of all the hostages while still occupying over 50% of the Gaza strip and the option to resume fighting if Hamas does not follow through on its commitments. Yet many important questions remain: what will the post-war government in Gaza look like? What is the UN's role in this transition period? How far does Israel pull back? And perhaps, most importantly, is there a political figure who can unite all the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and usher in a new, hopeful future for this beleaguered population? Rudyard and Janice agree that the entire region is being redrawn; Iran's influence is waning and Turkey and Qatar are emerging as power players with different objectives. Can they be trusted as western allies? And finally, Rudyard asks Janice: does Trump deserve his long coveted Nobel Peace Prize for bringing this war to a conclusion? To support the Friday Focus podcast consider becoming a donor to the Munk Debates for as little as $25 annually, or $.50 per episode. Canadian donors receive a charitable tax receipt. This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue. More information at www.munkdebates.com.Become a Munk Donor ($50 annually) to get 72-hour advanced access to the full length editions of Friday Focus and Munk Dialogues. Go to www.munkdebates.com to sign up. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Friday Focus podcast for the 10th of October 2025. I'm Roger Griffiths, joined in studio by Janice Gross Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs. Janice, we're going to spend the entire show focusing on the emerging ceasefire that has begun, it seems, in Gaza. Let's talk about what has been agreed. What are the parameters of an understanding now between the state of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyi. and Hamas and the various kind of regional powers that have come together to pressure Hamas to at least get us to this point, a ceasefire, a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops, and thankfully, finally, the release of the hostages. Roger, there's a phase one and a phase two, phase one, which encompasses exactly what you've said, ceasefire, which has gone into effect. There's a 24-hour time period to appeal before the Israeli courts, but I don't think that's going to be an issue.

So that's gone into effect. There will be a hostage. The release of the hostages likely Monday, a big prisoner exchange. The lists have already been agreed to, which happened just recently. and both the leadership of Hamas and the Prime Minister of Israel said there's a mutual agreement to end the war not to resume the fighting. That's what's agreed to publicly, and both have said that to their own communities.

Everything else has to be negotiated once this first phase is over. Benjamin Nania, who has said just in the last 12 hours, you know, after this first phase where, let's say, the Israeli military is withdrawn to still occupy over 50% of the Gaza Strip, where the hostages have hopefully been released. And let's hope there are still 20 or so remaining survivors of what's been now over two years of, you know, entrapment. And I'm sure just, enduring some of the harshest conditions that one can imagine. Benjamin Nyatnew said about phase two, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. In other words, Hamas disarmament is the big TBD. What's the prime minister saying? What's he conveying? And what, if anything, at this point,

does Hamas have to fall back upon in terms of phase two? And what are the risks of phase two? So there's nobody who wouldn't agree that the risks face who are very large. But let's talk about disarmament, which you've just put on the table. What does that mean? There are, Hamas has fundamentally two kinds of arms, right? They have rocket projectors, a few pieces of essentially low-range howitzers, and all the rest are personal arms. They have agreed already to give up the first of these, the long-range missile protectors, which you can build in the gaseous strip. They've all built. They're built in local

factories and any equipment which can fire over the border. The personal arms, people are going to take off their uniforms, Roger, and they're going to melt into the community. She's not going to register people's handguns. And so I think that just armor me, piece is probably not the obstacle that is going to prove the toughest. It's much more around the next series of steps, which everyone agrees, have yet to be negotiated. What does the government look like? Who's in that government? How do you stand up that government? It's very, very early days. How far does Israel pull back in this after phase one? That's the sticking point. from Hamas's side. You're absolutely right. The line that they are currently redeploying on is

53% of the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu has said, and so as the Army said, they want a one-kilometer buffer zone all along the line. That is not acceptable to Hamas. That's the secondary of disagreement. I think it's the government and it's the size of that buffer zone that are going to be so tough. I've read that there are possibly thousands upon thousands of pounds of unexploded ordinance that provides powerful high explosives, which could be turned into IEDs and other devices that all of this is spread across the entire Gaza Strip, obviously because the bombs fell everywhere, and that potentially for future terrorist groups, these represent an unparalleled stockpile to do what terrorist groups did in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is attack any future force that came in and, let's say,

tried to threaten some kind of political future for Hamas. So I don't know how easy disarmament will be. This is a war-torn country with the potential here of splintering, right? Let's say the leadership of Hamas, even in the Gaza Strip, forget the hotel boys in Qatar, but even the leadership in in Gaza does not have complete control over all the different factions, Islamic jihad. Who knows what other groups emerge in the weeks and months to come? I worry here, Janice, that Nenjahu has accomplished another pretty stunning victory. He has the release of all the hostages, the return of unfortunately those who have died in Gaza. He occupies over 50% of of the Gaza Strip, and he seems to have the blessing and the backing of the White House to

resume offensive operations at any step and stage in this process where Hamas doesn't commit to what may be things that are difficult for Hamas to actually arrange, regardless if it wishes them, can it achieve, for instance, disarmament, can it achieve peace in Gaza amongst all the different factions and clans who may well have very different ideas about occupation, may have very different ideas about Israeli troops remaining in Gaza in large numbers, again, occupying over 50% of the territory. So I think Trump has given his word that Israel will not resume that fighting. He's made that commitment to Qatar.

He's made that commitment to LCC. That was necessary to get this deal thus far, Roger. I don't think Netanya was a blank check to resume the fighting. I think that comment, we'll do it the easy way, we'll do it the hard way, was before they reached this agreement. I think that door is closed. It was actually it was in the last 12 hours. He said it again.

Yeah. I didn't see that. But I think the door is closed. I think the door is closed with the Israeli public that does not want to do this. Already reserves are being demobilized in Israel. The whole leadership of the Israeli, Army did not want to extend the war in Gaza City. It was done over the objections of the army. I think these are really significant constraints in Israel. It was very difficult for them

to oppose Netanyahu while there were hostages there. I think it's a very different political landscape. So I'm more optimistic that the fighting will not pursue. I think the real problem is the one you mentioned. It's inside Gaza. There are multiple, Hamas does not now control the ground in much of Gaza, right? There are clans in different parts, families, longstanding Gaza and families, Palestinian families that control different neighborhoods. They're armed. They're all armed with personal arms. They're the ones that have been looting aid trucks across the border. So this depends on some kind of security force. Now, we're going to know right away, by the way.

We're going to know very quickly because the UN has committed to surge aid, humanitarian aid across the border. One of the early tests, are those trucks going to be able to roll? Are they going to be able to reach distribution points? So are the Hamas people going to step back and are the clans going to step back? There has to be a security force that goes in. The Egyptians have been training. very small security force that will go in. Is that enough? And it frankly depends on the motivation

of people on the ground to let those humanitarian supplies come in to an absolutely desperate population in Gaza that wants that food. Once that starts to happen, you begin to build zones on the ground that become relatively secure. And what happens when the first first IED goes off and kills a squad of so-called peacekeepers, Egyptian, or otherwise on the ground. Do you think those countries will remain in Gaza, you know, suffering, you know, casualties at the hands of whatever new Islamist's faction emerges? I think it's inevitable that there will be some disaffected Hamas fighters who have endured now two years of brutal warfare. who will not lay down their arms.

Listen, it doesn't have to be a Hamas fighter. You just said the amount of unexploded ordinance that is, you know, 75% of Gaza is rubble mixed with ordinance. That's what Gaza is right now. People will lose their lives because that ordinance will explode on its own without being, some of these are explosive. is that if you go, if you step, if you touch, if you remove, they can explode. So there were, so that's a built-in risk now in Gaza because you have to, the process of reconstruction raises that risk. Will security forces, will the countries that contribute these forces, be willing to stay?

Look, we had this in Lebanon where it was deliberately ID. The UN state, UNIFIL stayed over all these years. The Americans didn't, though, after the attack on the Marine Barriers. They did not. But that's different from the interest that Egypt has, which is next door to Gaza. I don't think Egypt will be deterred. Again, it depends on the scope, right? But if it's one, two, ten, Egypt's not going to withdraw its force.

So, you know, again, it's all a matter of the scope of this, but it is overwhelmingly now in Egypt's interests and Jordan's interests to reassert some kind of control, which allows a Palestinian political process to go forward here. They do not want a Gaza, which becomes a competition for risk-taking among militias. That is just as big a threat to Egypt as it is to Israel. And they've had it in the sign, and they know what it's like.

I mean, an early sign might be that history would suggest that you need a large occupying force in this circumstance. And that if you try to do this on the cheap with, you know, small intervention, history would say that doesn't work. Yep. And that's all that's on the table right now is small, right? It's really small. It's not going to be enough. And how, and that's why to me the big ones, what kind of governance are you? you're going to stand up pretty quickly, actually.

It has to go pretty quickly so that there's no vacuum for others to fill and the security force. But aren't there some timing problems on governance because the international community has requested and in fact demanded the Palestinian Authority that it accomplished certain tasks, which will not be easy for it. It hasn't had elections in over 20 years. It needs to not just have a pathway to some form of legitimate. a rule, not only in the West Bank, but in a future reconstructed Gaza, those steps are 18 to 24 months off by the international community's own time schedule. Yeah, just as an aside here, the one Palestinian leader who would command support in the

West Bank in Gaza in Egypt and Jordan, Marwan Bargudi, who is in jail, five life sentences. Convicted terrorist. Convicted of planning five large attacks against Israelis. Maybe not the type of person you want to have leading a political entity. No, but there's also a long history of convicted terrorists coming out of jail. I mean, you know, I don't know if this is accurate boy, but he's described as the Mandela of the Palestinian movement. So I think... Mandela didn't plan large-scale terrorist attacks on Innsia.

No, no, he did not. But he's not being released in this prisoner exchange. He was top of the list, and it was interesting that he is top of the list. Why would Hamas put him at the top of the list? He's a fat guy, you know? He is an old Arafat organizer who ran the military wing that really grew out of the second and so, as you rightly say, plant attack after attack, and that's why the Israelis won't release him. But there has to be a palace. He's not the only one. There are two or three others with that kind of political muscle. There are going to be appointments. You know, there's a Salim Fayyad waiting in the wings, a former prime minister in the Palestinian Authority. He was largely regarded as a very effective technocrat. Didn't have very...

you know, deep political instincts, but, you know, could build a budget. A Mark Carney for Gaza. A Mark Carney for Gaza. And, you know, no offense here. I hope the Prime Minister doesn't take offense. But that's fundamentally it. There are people like that, and they're Palestinians living in the diaspora. I can assure there's a list of those people.

But there's got to be somebody. There's got to be a political figure who's Palestinian that has some credibility in Gaza and in the West Bank for Palestinians to get behind it. Hamas has long said we don't want any part in the governance of Gaza. That was never what they're interested in. You know, and one of the themes that gets lost here in all the noise, right? Hamas is not interested in independent Palestinian state. Never was. It's interested in independent Palestinian Islamic state, which... That encompasses the territory of Israel. Yes, right. And that's a That's correct. That's correct. You know, and we know because there's all the documents that some of the Hamas militias who crossed that border two years ago on October the 7th had with them. There were maps. And it was all about instituting Islamic rule. That doesn't have the support of the majority of Palestinians. So this is a moment for disenfranchised Palestinians. They know.

know that. They have had no running room all these years. This is a moment for disenfranchised Palestinian leaders to move, and to move as quickly as possible, because these windows never stay open long. What do you think is the likelihood that Israel actually withdraws? You know, they're, as you say, 53% occupation right now. I would expect that the condition that these surviving 20 or so hostages will be returned in will absolutely outrage public opinion in Israel. And as it should around the world, that will put, I think, further probably pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to take a very hard line in terms of the so-called second phase and the issues that are taken up in that phase. What is the, you know, what, are we really looking at probably something that may look

like the Balkanization of Gaza for an extended period of time. And maybe that's not the worst thing. Maybe in a sense, because of all of the fracturing and politics and risks of renewed terrorism within and between different elements of, you know, the larger Palestinian kind of nationalist movement, plus, you know, regional powers outside, trying to inveigle their way. And I want to talk to you about Turkey and Qatar into this reconstructive. construction effort, maybe it's in Israel and the world's interest that Israel remain in Gaza. It, you know, occupying a significant portion of the territory in order to try to ensure that

this, if this happens, it has time to happen, as opposed to, I think, a risk here of implosion. And the worst case scenario would be precisely that. Gaza turned into some even worse version of Lebanon. where you have a faux government. You might even have a parliament or a legislature, but you have either one or more armed groups who, like Hezbollah, who up until Israel's de-fenestration of the terrorist group,

effectively controlled Lebanon for all intents and purposes. The evidence is overwhelming that if you rush this, if you don't give time, I mean two years, three years, that if you rush to elections and there's no security force, the experiments fail. And I think everybody knows that. So there's probably not only a phase two. There's probably a phase one, a phase two, and a phase three to this. And maybe we never get to phase three.

You know, each phase you, look, I'm, I was confident we were going to get to phase one. I think we're going to get to phase two, but how long phase two takes. and whether we move, as you just said, out of phase two, that's a much harder hill to climb, I think, from a security. And it's not, it's not in Israel. It's certainly not in Benjamin Neniaz. It's just to move to phase three, which is discussions of a Palestinian state or state-led in whatever configuration. He neither has the political license to enter into this right-wing politics in Israel is galvanized

resolutely against the emergence of a Palestinian state. So again, I just wonder, you know, phase two will be challenging enough. The disarmament of Hamas, the further withdrawal of Israel from Gaza, the beginnings of some type of new governing authority. These are major lifts. I don't know. I just wonder, Janice, are we any closer to a two-state solution in reality? If we want to look at this with eyes wide open, are we really that much closer today versus? two months ago?

I think what had to happen is the war had to stop. For me, that was the overwhelming objective over and over and over and over, because this war should have stopped a year ago. There's no question. I think the second important thing to recognize is that the army, which is a player here, the Israeli army, it is the one institution

which still can unify a really badly divided Israeli public right now. We talk about the divisions inside the Palestinian national movement. There are terrible divisions inside Israel that are coming out of this. And the one institution, even after its massive failure on October 7th, and it was a massive failure that still unifies Israelis as the army, they do not want to be in Gaza under any circumstances. If they want out registered, they want a kilometer border along the edge of their border. with Israel, a buffer zone, so that no force of the kind that 5,000 people on bicycles and motorcycles can approach without being seen, that's what they want, and they want out, they do not

want to be the targets of those IDs that you talked about, frankly. There are elections coming in Israel, so I don't think we will get, phase two has to go. at least until after the elections and whether the same prime minister is re-elected on the flush of getting all these hostages home alive or the different government, a completely new government that is stood up, which is a possibility. That has to proceed in any final permanent arrangement. So we're talking at least two years, if not longer, but there has to be progress. Palestinian leaders have to be involved, whether they're technocrats and there have to be, I think, political leaders who get involved in the governance. Because if this isn't Palestinian,

Tony Blair, a trusteeship in 2026 is not a solution in the Middle East anymore. It's just not. So there's some urgency in putting important Palestinian leaders, technocratic and political, on that board, which sits just below the famous board that Donald Trump is going to share. Two final questions. Qatar and maybe more importantly, Turkey, are now looking to have a role in the post-construction effort, the reconstitution of whatever. happens next, the Trump administration seems to be lending credence and license to both countries to become involved. Both countries, maybe especially Turkey, have expressed in the strongest language their fundamental opposition to Israel, to many, to Israel as a Jewish state. They've, the Turkish president has, you know, called Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's Jewish leaders

Nazis. I mean, to what extent are you concerned now that now that Iran has been effectively marginalized, at least for the time being, as a regional force, we're now seeing possibly the emergence of a new kind of struggle, a new cast of characters on one side, these two, in a sense, Muslim Brotherhood countries, and you can explain what the Muslim Brotherhood it is to our listeners and viewers in Qatar and Turkey versus the Gulf states versus Israel. Are we seeing a redrawing of the Middle East that might concern you in some ways in terms of very different interests, very different views about the future of the region, beginning to set off against each other now that we've had these series of earth-shaking events from the

elimination of Hezbollah to the attack on Iran and all the consequences that fell out of that, to what I think can be characterized as a pretty stunning victory for Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza this morning. So you asked about the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iqwan, which was founded in Egypt in 1948. and it was the first Islamist movement, political movement. And born in Egypt, but factions of it have split off over the last 75 years, reformed, and bring their own local character and political tradition. Fundamentally what it is, though, is a Sunni Islamist movement. And that's why Iran always stood aside because it's,

largest Shia power, and it's also not Arab, it's Persian. And so there was that divide. This is the re-emergence of the core of the Arab world at the heart of this conflict, Roger. And the big outsider now is no longer Iran is Turkey, which is has a long history in this part of the world. It was the occupying power, frankly. It was the Ottoman Empire that occupied much of what we characterize today as the Arab Middle East. But Turkey is a player all over. And you're right, there is enmity between Turkey and especially this prime minister,

Bibi Netanyahu, relationships are really terrible. between Erdogan and Netanyahu. I know I'm going to say something that is contentious right now, but I think there's a misreading of Qatar in large parts of the world outside of the Middle East. Qatar has certainly, I don't think the right word is supported Islamist movement. I think that it sees itself in opposition. But didn't it send an awful lot of funding to Hamas inside Gaza? Would that be an Islamist movement?

Hamas is definitely an Islamist movement. But that funding came from two countries. It came from, this is not Qatari money, most of it that went in. First of all, a chunk of it came from Netanyahu. It was authorized by Netanyahu for five years before October 7, two years ago, in a strategy to funnel money into... So try to buy off conflict. Yes, yes.

And people don't want to talk about that, right? The second source of funding has been Egypt for a very similar strategy, right? Egypt hates the brotherhood, hates the brotherhood. Because the brotherhood in Egypt does have been responsible put the assassination of an Egyptian president, frankly, and they have within Egypt from their perspective. a big problem with Islamist movements. So they both use the same strategy, buy off the Islamists,

and that's where the vast majority of that money came from, frankly. I know there's a, in North America, there's a lot of concern about Qatari money that has gone to North American universities. The evidence that has led to Islamist movements is really thin, frankly. Now, I will get a lot of mail about what I just said. But I think to equate Qatar and Turkey is to miss the role that Qatar is playing in the Middle East. It's the only country that is well connected to everybody in the least, including Israel. So if you saw the picture that came out of the Middle East, the first picture on Wednesday,

there was a picture in there of the head of Israeli intelligence shaking the hand of the Qatari minister. deep relationships there. Qatar plays a very important role. It passes message. It's a mailbox. If you don't have that mailbox, nothing gets done. Let's layer on one other piece here,

which we haven't talked about, which is the Qatari partnership with Donald Trump's son in a crypto. Huge crypto investment firm, which is why Donald Trump cares so much about Qatar. You could argue that is clony. chronic capitalism of the worst kind, but it was a big motivator in getting Donald Trump to finally put a thumb on the scale to get this deal done. That interest is not going away when all of this is

over. So what you have now is the core of the Middle East with Turkey now playing a role from the outside that will probably not be a constructive role, but the responsibility for standing up Palestinian national movement for providing the resources to it and for finally giving it some voice. It's 75 years are longer overdue because the first time this chance occurred was in 1949. Jordan walked in and invaded the West Bank and Egypt invaded Gaza. Those days are over. This is the first chance in 75 years for voices from the Palestinian movement. to step up and push against the militias and the radicals.

So today we saw that Machado, the female Venezuelan democracy campaigner and probably legitimate president of Venezuela, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Should Donald Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize for this phase one agreement? You know, this is a heavy lift to record. People were right to be dubious that this could get done. Joe Biden tried. Jake Sullivan tried. Tony Blinken tried.

Brett McGirk tried. Really good, committed. Nice guys. I hate to use to say this. Tried and failed. Donald Trump plays by different rules. He was able to get it done with his team in ways that nobody. else was able to do it.

And if next year at this time, when the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, we're deep into phase two, there's no fighting. There is a Palestinian, whatever the name that anybody's going to use, government, its board authority doesn't really matter if such a group is functioning. And there's a process of reconstruction going on in Gaza. So the absolute immiseration. That's the only word, the misery. I can't find words to describe how horrible it's been for Palestinians and Gaza.

For the hostages too. Yeah, and for the hostages. That's right. If that is better, yes, he does. Absolutely deserve the prize. Okay. You heard it here, ladies and gentlemen, the Nobel Peace Prize. I think Janice Stein might write one of the nomination.

letters. We'll see. It's already been done. It's already been done. Oh, it's already been done. Not me, but many have already been. Yeah. Thank you for tuning into this edition of Friday Focus. Please head over to our website to check out all kinds of other great debates and comments. You can pick up on my conversation with Andrew Coyne earlier this week on our podcast feed and YouTube channel. We're having those conversations weekly with Andrew. We're seeing some great numbers. Thank you for dipping into our feed to connect with all of our content. So until next Friday, I'm Rudyard Griffith. Bye-bye. Have a good week. Thank you for listening to this edition of the Friday Focus podcast. I'm Rudyard Griffiths, the chair of the monk debates. I was joined on this program as I am each week by

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