U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.

Transcript

Laura Coates: Joining us now is Robert Barron, a senior program officer for Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Egypt and the Levant program at the United States Institute of Peace. In this role, he manages a portfolio of policy research and peace building projects. He joins us now. Robert, good morning. How are you?

Robert Barron: Good morning Laura, how are you doing?

Laura Coates: I’m good. We are all waiting to see what the first full day of the Trump administration will include, and one of the main areas, we can't help but ignore the visual yesterday at the Capital One Arena. There were many families with the yellow scarf around their head, around their necks, if you remember that, the visual image for people of those who were family members of hostages, and some who had themselves also had to endure the ordeal. You bristle a little bit at the at the term of January 6 hostages in their presence, compared to what was going on obviously there. But talk to me about the Israel-Gaza cease-fire, knowing that it was initiated under the Biden Administration just last week, but will have to be overseen diplomatically by this administration. What happens now?

Robert Barron: Sure. So we're about two days into the negotiated cease-fire that was negotiated over the course of months. I'll remind you that it's been 15 months of war in Gaza and more broadly that's been absolutely brutal for all the parties that are involved. And so since roughly May, President Biden and his team have been, well since before then even, President Biden and his team have been pushing for a phased cease-fire agreement to end the war. About two weeks ago, progress really seemed to be on the cusp, and that is partially to give credit to President Trump who sent his envoy out to join the talks so that there would be some continuity once this transition started, his new special envoy, now Ambassador Witkoff, who will continue to be a part of the implementation phase. So, we're two days into the cease-fire process. Starting in about 10 days, negotiations over phase two will begin. And so what we'll see in phase one, hopefully, is the release of about 30 hostages by Hamas to the Israelis in exchange of Palestinian prisoners, a movement of Gazans back towards the neighborhoods where they originally lived — many have been displaced, over nearly 2 million have been displaced for the past year plus. We'll see an increase in aid, we'll see the beginning of a process toward, hopefully, phases two and three, but this is really where things get sticky, as I'm sure you know.

Laura Coates: The word fragile comes to mind, and certainly, the last time we saw hostages released was over a year, I think, ago, before this last iteration and there is, you know, an exponentially higher number of Palestinian prisoners who were released in exchange. And we see this imbalance that was decided upon in terms of imbalance on numbers alone. But what are the sticking points that are concerning those who are overseeing it, the hurdles that are going to present the biggest obstacles in trying to get through those next several phases?

Robert Barron: Sure. So as I mentioned, this is a three phase process. Each phase has about six weeks baked into it. The… Starting in about 10 days, there will be negotiations over what happens in phase two. In phase two, the million-dollar question, billion-dollar question is, the exchange of the final hostages that Hamas is holding on to, to the Israelis, for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. So these are the positions of the two parties. So Israel would like all the hostages returned and a commitment that, or some solution in which, Hamas does not retake the Gaza Strip, they've committed themselves that that is the one of the goals of this war has been that Hamas could no longer govern the Gaza Strip. Hamas is insistent that Israel must withdraw from Gaza in order to receive the final hostages. But we don't have an answer to the question of, well, what would fill the vacuum in Gaza once Israel withdraws. So Hamas is very much hoping to fill that vacuum, whether they can or have the capacity to do so is a big question. Israel would like to make sure that they do not have, again, a Hamas government on their borders again. Hamas would like to see Israel withdraw from Gaza, but we don't have a good answer to the question of what would fill that governance void for Gaza going forward that will allow for all of the other final stages, or at least the next stages in Gaza's recovery, and move towards phase three, which is another six week period in which a reconstruction plan will be developed, a mechanism will be put in place, and we’ll begin to look towards a final wind down in the war and into a new phase that will be probably heavy on diplomacy, towards hopefully preventing a war like this from ever happening again.

Laura Coates: Can you describe and explain a little bit more about the regional Axis of Resistance and the political and military power waning from Hamas in the second half of 2024 that seemed to be a huge catalyst for why this finally got over the finish line so far?

Robert Barron: Absolutely. So, especially over the past six months, well, to take it back even further for those that are not as familiar, for years and decades, Iran has sponsored groups —  Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen's Houthis — that project influence. They have their domestic actors in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, but they also are sponsored by the Iranian regime in Tehran. For the past six months, specifically, they've been involved in the broader set of repercussions that have been, that have come out of Gaza., so that's the war in Lebanon, shifting political dynamics that ultimately led to the fall of the regime in Syria, and so on and so on. Yemen's Houthis have been a major part of this, as we've all seen in the news, in that they've been attacking shipping lanes and firing missiles at Israel. And so over the course of the past few months, particularly Hezbollah saw a major decline in its ability to project power and its own domestic influence, the Syrian regime falling was a huge step. And so what we're seeing is a shrinking in the Iranian influence through this proxy network, the Axis of Resistance. And I think that that was one of the drivers that had Hamas say that this is going a direction where they don't feel that they've got momentum, and so was one of the reasons that, I think that this agreement happened.

Laura Coates: Is there concern more broadly about a new president in the United States on this particular issue? Is that going to have a big impact on Israel and Hamas' need to follow through?

Robert Barron: Well, I think that particularly for these first few weeks, the signals from Ambassador Witkoff is that he is going to be very much on the ground and helping to put out any kind of small fire that could come along there. You mentioned, you said delicate, which I think is exactly right. The next few weeks are going to be extremely delicateand difficult. Keeping the parties at the negotiating table, keeping things from falling apart, is going to be very, very important. So, I think that the Trump administration has already put a significant amount of skin in the game, both before yesterday and today and into the next few weeks. So hopefully that continuity is there, that momentum continues in terms of the larger picture of moving into phases two and three, and the larger questions of what does a more long-term, durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians look like. The Trump Administration tried this during its first term, and there's a real sense that they may be engaged in trying to dust off the Trump plan, or be involved in a new version of the Abraham Accords that has a Gaza component that would bring Saudi Arabia into the mix that would broaden the coalition of actors that are working to fix this larger problem that's been an issue for many decades.

Laura Coates: Thank you so much for joining us. There's a lot to continue to follow, and I'm glad that you stopped by the show. Thank you. Robert Baron, senior program officer for Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Egypt and the Levant Program at USIP.