The first phase of the U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal began to move forward this week as Israeli and Palestinian hostages have been released and aid trickles in.
“The crossings were partially reopened, so some aid is coming in — food, water, and medicine — but only a small amount compared to the huge need,” says Intercept contributor Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi. “People are surviving, but every day it is still a struggle.”
“There is a pause in the bombing, and I say ‘a pause’ because there are still people being killed,” says James Zogby, the president and co-founder of the Arab American Institute.
This week on the Intercept Briefing, we hear from poet and writer Al-Wawi about what it’s been like in Gaza over the first few days of the ceasefire. Then reporter and host Jonah Valdez speaks to Zogby who, along with a delegation of Palestinian Americans, are meeting with members of Congress to ensure the current ceasefire holds and to push for an arms embargo on Israel.
“We were challenging members of Congress, not just on ending the weapons supplies to Israel because they’ve so abused them — in violation of U.S. and international law — but also to consider what are the needs of those who remain behind, the millions of Palestinians still in Gaza,” says Zogby.
Valdez and Zogby dig into the details — or lack thereof — in Trump’s plan, how Israel is already breaking the ceasefire agreement, takeaways from past efforts to broker peace through the decades, and how the American public can continue pushing lawmakers to achieve lasting peace, healing, and reconstruction that benefits Palestinians.
“Nothing’s going to happen on the Israeli side in terms of concessions, unless there’s a threat of punishment coming from the U.S. or the international community,” says Zogby. “That’s what happened during Oslo [Accords]: The U.S. let Israel get away with murder, and they just kept doing it. If Donald Trump lets them do the same thing — and I fully expect that he probably will — then I don’t expect this to move toward completion.”
Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Transcript
Jonah Valdez: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing, I’m Jonah Valdez.
The U.S.-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal began to move forward this week with Hamas releasing the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages, and Israel freeing nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of whom were themselves hostages, abducted from Gaza and held with no charges. While Israel has pulled back troops from Gaza, they still control more than 50 percent of the territory.
Donald Trump: As you know, the hostages have been returned and further work goes on having to do with the, sadly to say, bodies. Together, we’ve achieved what everybody said was impossible. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East.
JV: Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza never guaranteed peace. And sure enough, the ceasefire remains fragile. In the last few days, Israeli soldiers have killed Palestinians trying to return to their homes in northern Gaza and in the south, a direct violation of the ceasefire agreement. And Israel at this point is still only allowing 300 aid trucks per day into Gaza. That’s a fraction of what was agreed upon and needed, and a violation of not just the ceasefire, but also international humanitarian law.
To break down the ceasefire plan and where things stand, we’ll speak to Dr. James Zogby, the president and co-founder of the Arab American Institute.
But first, to understand how Palestinians are responding to the ceasefire so far, we turn to Intercept contributor Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi, a Palestinian writer and poet from Gaza.
Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi: My name is Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi. I’m 19 years old and I’m from Gaza, Palestine. I’m a writer, poet, and editor, and I’m studying English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza.
Writing and education have always been my tools, my weapons in a way, to resist and survive through learning and words. I try to make sense of what’s happening around me.
In Gaza, education is not just a school. It is a way to survive, to keep our minds alive and to resist in the face of destruction. Before the genocide, I wrote about my life privately, everything that happened to me, but I never shared or published it. When the genocide began, I realized that telling our stories is no longer optional, it is a duty.
The feelings I experience here are indescribable and the situations we endure are incomprehensible and unbelievable.
The crossings were partially reopened, so some aid is coming in — food, water, and medicine — but only a small amount compared to the huge need. People are surviving, but every day it is still a struggle. So yes, life is a little better after the ceasefire, but it is still hard and challenging and people continue to fight every day to survive.
The biggest fear we have is that Israel will not respect the ceasefire as it has always done before. We hear about agreements. But then Israel breaks them.
It happened just a few months ago. We started to believe, to feel some safety, and then everything collapsed again. This is what worries me the most, that this so-called ceasefire, it’s only temporary that at any moment the genocide can start again.
People here are deeply afraid to trust because the trust has cost us everything before — our homes, our families, our lives.
If this agreement fails, Gaza will face something worse than what we have already endured.
I hope this time things will be different. I hope this time the world will not turn away. If this ceasefire is to last, Israel can’t continue the way of the past.
Everyone here is tired of a promise that are not kept. People need to feel that the ceasefire is real and that their safety is protected. That means no more attacks, no more shelling. Aid must continue to enter Gaza without interruption.
My hope for the next chapter of Gaza is a chapter of safety, life, and freedom. I hope that people can feel safe in their homes, that children can live freely without fear, and the families can rebuild what was destroyed during the genocide.
I hope the streets and neighborhood will be full of life again. I hope there’s real justice and protection, that our rights are respected.
I also hope the world stops staying silent and really supports Gaza with aid, reconstruction, and helping it get back to what it once was. Gaza needs action, not just words.
JV: That’s Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi, a Palestinian writer and poet from Gaza and Intercept contributor.
Next, we dig into the details of the ceasefire and Trump’s 20-Point Plan, and what it means for the future of Gaza, with Dr. James Zogby.
But first, a short break.
Break
JV: To unpack the terms of the Gaza ceasefire deal and what remains for the future of Palestinians in Gaza, we turn to Dr. James Zogby. He is the president and co-founder of the Arab American Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based organization which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American community.
His advocacy for Palestinian rights, namely Palestinian statehood, stretches back decades and he has remained an active voice throughout Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
On Wednesday, October 15, he joined a delegation of Palestinian Americans who survived the genocide to Capitol Hill. They met with members of Congress to ensure the current ceasefire holds and to push for an arms embargo on Israel.
We’re speaking to him on Wednesday as they begin those conversations on the Hill.
Welcome to the Intercept Briefing, Dr. Zogby.
Dr. James Zogby: Thank you so much, Jonah.
JV: Yeah. To start, I’m wondering if you could tell us about your meeting with members of Congress.
JZ: Let me first tell you about why we did it.
It’s because throughout this entire conflict and now especially at the end of the Trump plan and the ceasefire and the returns of hostages and prisoners, Palestinians have been invisible or objectified in a way that the personal was lost. We saw the Israeli families hugging their returned ones. There were interviews with them. They even got to speak at the Democratic convention. Palestinians didn’t get to tell their story.
Today, one of the newspapers had a half page with profiles of the Israeli hostages who had died. And yet there’s no personal profile of the Palestinians who were returned. And let me tell you, the Palestinians who were returned weren’t prisoners — they were hostages. They were people picked up in the early part of this war, held with no charges, no trial — no sense even, in many cases, to why they were being picked up.
JV: Right.
JZ: They were young men, and they were just held in administrative detention, which Israel does, for two years, treated abominably — lost so much weight. People died. There were 70 of these prisoners who died. Their bodies have not been returned by Israel, and yet there’s no fuss in the American press about it. No discussion in Congress. Members of Congress are saying, “Well, it’s over. Now there’s a peace settlement.” There is no peace settlement because as I’ve said, for years now, there is no day after in Gaza.
There’s a generation of kids who have lost everything. And I wanted to get together Palestinians in America who had family in Gaza to be able to tell their story, just as the Israeli family of hostages got to tell their story. And we brought together a group that had very compelling stories to tell to members of Congress. And they’re making visits to members now and into the next week or so to be able to tell who they are, who their loved ones are. Pictures of the cousins and kids who’ve died. The father who died, the house that they’d built that was now rubble. To put a human face on it.
We were challenging members of Congress, not just on ending the weapons supplies to Israel because they’ve so abused them — in violation of U.S. and international law — but also to consider what are the needs of those who remain behind the millions of Palestinians still in Gaza. Not just the food and the medical supplies, but the understanding of the trauma and the need to help this entire society move forward. Compassion cannot just be toward Israel, it has to be toward Palestinians. They’ve suffered enormously from this and they need help.
JV: So the last time I spoke with you was in August 2024. I’m not sure if you remember since it was a very brief phone call because you were in the middle of the DNC in Chicago, and you mentioned this, but pushing for a Palestinian speaker on the convention’s main stage — as we know, that effort fell short.
And at that time, the very idea of even getting a lot of your fellow Democrats to call for a ceasefire in Gaza was an uphill battle. Now here we are more than a year later and two ceasefire agreements later. Of course, there was the deal in January led by the Biden administration that Trump closed and took credit for. That ceasefire fell apart.
Israel is already violating terms of this current deal. It feels like over the past year, a lot has changed and a lot hasn’t. I’m really curious to know how you’re making sense of this moment with a new ceasefire plan in place, and thinking back to what it took to get to this point.
JZ: Well, what it took to get to this point were two things.
One, it took a president who wanted a Nobel Peace Prize and was willing to say or do anything to get there. So yeah, he put pressure on the Israelis, but he has also — very characteristic for this president — so exaggerated what has happened. And the media has so far bought it. You know, “the greatest day in human history,” that Trump, the president, said.
JV: Mm-hmm.
JZ: That’s a bit of an overstatement, but it’s almost like “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” you know, Hans Christian Andersen’s story for children. No one wants to call his bluff. Because actually, very little has happened. Yes, there is a pause in the bombing, and I say “a pause” because there are still people being killed.
Part one or two of the 20 points are beginning to be implemented. Some aid is getting through, and people are moving back in Gaza to the north, again, hoping to be able to enjoy this moment. But actually if you look at the rest of the 20 points, they are so ill-defined. There is no enforcement mechanism.
And there’s no sense really of how each point will have to be negotiated to be fulfilled. For example, just on the Israeli withdrawals, there are lines, but those lines mean nothing unless there’s a mechanism to get Israel to those lines. And even with the lines that are there, if you look, it’s two miles in to Gaza on all sides, except in the south where it goes almost to four or five miles, that Israel will retain control, and retain control over the seas so that Gaza basically becomes as strangled as it was before October 7, 2023. And even to some degree, it’s worse, because then the hold on Gaza was external. Now it’s internal. So they lose more land to Israeli occupation forces than they had before. How’s that going to be negotiated? How’s that going to be accomplished? What is an independent Palestinian technocratic, non-whatever? I mean, who defines that? Will the Palestinians have a role to play in shaping their form of governance?
Will there be a connection between Gaza and the West Bank, or is this the final Bantustan-ization of Gaza? If Israel controls all entry and exit points, then who’s to say there won’t be another stranglehold over Gaza? How will the Israelis be held accountable for their violations?
Look at the ceasefire in Lebanon. Israel is the enforcer of the ceasefire in Lebanon, so there’s no ceasefire. They bomb at will, as they have been doing in the last couple of days. And so I, frankly, am not optimistic about this because the president has been very ecstatic, and he’s being fed and reinforced in his ecstasy by foreign leaders, by media, by people in elective office here in the states. But it’s not that nothing happened, but far less happened than he is pretending and they are all reinforcing that, “Oh, yes sir, you’ve done a great job.” But actually, so little has happened, and we don’t know the way forward to get the rest of it. Will he be able to sustain this? Will Netanyahu be interested in sustaining it? I frankly have my doubts.
JV: Right, right. And so we’re clear, we’re referring to Trump’s 20-point plan that he put out with his administration that was heavily edited by the Israelis. And you mentioned a lot of the doubts surrounding it. Experts I’ve talked with have described it and criticized it for being incredibly vague.
And you mentioned this kind of security perimeter that would be allowed for Israel around Gaza. They say that basically returns things to pre-October 7 status quo of an open-air prison, if not worse.
You know, you’re referring to what’s happening in Lebanon, resuming attacks, yeah—
JZ: I worked with Vice President [Al] Gore on a project he wanted to start that he asked me and a former congressman, Mel Levine, from California to co-chair to promote economic development in the West Bank and Gaza. This was in the “good years,” and right after Oslo.
To see what the checkpoint getting into Gaza was like then, with Palestinians in cattle chutes holding their ID above their head with Israeli soldiers straddling the cattle chutes above them, guns pointed down, saying, “Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me. Keep your head down.” There was a master-slave dialectic going on. And it was sickening to see, but these were the day laborers that Israel was bringing into Israel to work in construction jobs or service jobs. It was absolutely deplorable.
So we brought American companies over to invest in Gaza, and many were interested. They thought it might be an interesting way to bring a factory from North Carolina to Gaza to ship products to Europe. Furniture construction factory, a number of places. Guess what? The Israelis would not allow this during the good times.
JV: Hmm.
JZ: They would not allow Palestinians or American partners to import or export without Israeli controls. And in some cases, they insisted there be an Israeli middleman, which [would] chew up the profit margin so that the American companies dropped off. So this stranglehold over the West Bank and Gaza — because the West Bank had the same problem, they weren’t allowed to import or export freely either — has been Israel’s hold over the occupation. They have not been willing to let it go.
Even in the investment program that’s outlined — not outlined — but is mentioned in the 20-point Trump plan, says there’ll be investment in Gaza. Investment to whom? Investment for what? Is it going to be a real estate deal, as he talked about? And will Gazans actually benefit? Will they create the businesses? Get the jobs? None of that is defined. It sounds like they’re looking at Gaza as an empty lot where they’re going to be able to build and do things to benefit themselves, but not to benefit the people of that land.
JV: Right. Yeah. I have questions specifically on that economic part of the plan, but you mentioned Oslo. It appears that so much of the plan’s success hinges on U.S. involvement or how much Trump will be willing to keep pressure on Netanyahu, as you said, to keep within the plan and be a sort of good faith, equal negotiating partner to Palestinians.
And for this, I want to dig back. You mentioned the Oslo Accords, which for listeners, is a deal in 1993 that attempted to chart a path toward a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. Dr. Zogby, you were there on the White House lawn when then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with [then] Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat.
And of course, during the Clinton years, you pushed hard for the plan’s success. You wrote in 2023, during the 30th anniversary of Oslo, that a big reason it failed is the U.S. failed to embrace its role as the guarantor of the deal.
JZ: Mm-hmm.
JV: Fast forward to the ceasefire deal today. The Trump administration obviously is quite different from the Clinton White House of the ’90s, but what role would you like to see from the U.S., and how would you want to see the U.S. act during this current attempt at peace?
JZ: Well, the Clinton administration would not act as an enforcer. And they had advisers, i.e., Dennis Ross and others, who when the Israelis were violating something, which they often did, their argument was, “Don’t criticize them.” That just makes them angry and they stiffen up. That the way to get them to do things is to hug them close and do things for them. So increase this, increase that, show them love, and yes, then maybe they’ll do it. Well, the result was that Israel got a sense of impunity. They — like a spoiled child — knew that if they acted up and did bad things, they’d actually get good things. And so why end up doing good stuff? Because you don’t have to. No one’s going to punish you for whatever you do.
The same mindset exists today. Some think that Donald Trump had some quiet words of threat to Benjamin Netanyahu, like, “Don’t screw with me, buddy. I want this done,” and Netanyahu gave in. If that’s the case, and then what we have to see is that for the next three years Donald Trump gives more threats. Because Israel’s not going to move because we’re giving them extra goodies. They’re only going to move when they feel that there will be some repercussions. I don’t think that Donald Trump is interested in that. I think that he got the photo ops that he wanted. He got the Nobel Prize bragging rights that he wants.
I don’t think actually you get the Nobel Prize for just saying you’re going to do something. You actually gotta do it. Although previous recipients might argue against my case here. They’ve had some pretty poor judgment in Nobel Peace Prizes in the past.
But look, nothing’s going to happen on the Israeli side in terms of concessions, unless there’s a threat of punishment coming from the U.S. or the international community. If the Europeans decide to sanction Israel, that could get them to move. If the Arab states decided to punish Israel in concert with Europe, that would get them to move. I don’t expect that to happen, and I don’t expect the U.S. to take a strong stand either.
So that’s where I think the difficulty is. That’s what happened during Oslo. The U.S. let Israel get away with murder, and they just kept doing it. If Donald Trump lets them do the same thing, and I fully expect that he probably will, then I don’t expect this to move toward completion.
JV: Right. I mean, if we’re seeing any pressure, it’s really Trump putting, continuing to put public pressure on Hamas only. On Tuesday at the White House, Trump told reporters when talking about disarmament of Hamas, he said, “If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them and it will happen quickly and perhaps violently.”
I’m wondering if you wanted to respond to that comment of this idea that perhaps violence can resume — an occupation, military occupation of Gaza can resume, which is something that I feel like a lot of Israeli leadership is almost previewing at this point.
JZ: Let me start first with the Trump threat. It’s hollow at best. U.S. troops are not going to enter Gaza, and the U.S. public would not allow it. I mean, there’s been a sea change of public opinion here in the states. There would be an uprising across the U.S. if we actually send troops into Gaza to do Israel’s bidding.
Number two, there’s no way to disarm Hamas, and let’s be clear about this. This is a popular movement among Palestinians in the West Bank right now. Less popular in Gaza because people are fed up with Hamas. There’s no question about it, but there are still people in Gaza who say, “We’ve suffered, and we’re going to take vengeance.” Do I think it’s a clever or smart political strategy? I don’t. I simply think you kick the hornet’s nest once, and you get bit, you don’t kick it again. But there are people in Gaza who are not going to just surrender because they don’t have the confidence that if they surrender, it’s going to get any better either. They have no confidence in the Israelis and certainly no confidence in the U.S.
So there has to be a way to finesse this disarmament issue, and one of the ways to finesse it is to incorporate Hamas, as in our polling, we find people in Gaza, they do not want Hamas to govern, but they want a unified governance of all the Palestinians, including the [Palestinian Authority].
They want it actually under the supervision of the PA, but everybody else included. They have enough of factionalization, enough internal conflict, and they know enough to know you don’t simply ignore Hamas or any other faction. You have to somehow find a way to incorporate. That would be the sophisticated way of doing it.
I don’t think the U.S. is sophisticated enough to get that. So, we’re not going to disarm them. The Israelis aren’t going to disarm them. The only way you can do it is to incorporate them into a broader coalition effort that includes technocrats, includes the PA, and includes international support. That would work, but I just don’t have confidence that Trump will do it, and I certainly don’t believe that the Israelis will allow it. They’re looking for a reason not to accept moving forward in this agreement. And that’s what they’ll latch onto: is that Hamas wouldn’t disarm. And so we’re not going to continue any further with this program.
JV: And Hamas has said publicly that they would be willing to disarm if it was with a guaranteed Palestinian state and a Palestinian-led governance structure.
But I do want to talk more about the fragility of the plan. As I wrote in my new piece out now at The Intercept, Israel is already violating the ceasefire. It continues to kill Palestinians in Gaza, as we noted. It’s withholding some humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, accusing Hamas of delaying the transfer of bodies despite their previously agreed upon mechanisms.
This is kind of inevitable for the deal, right? I mean, the plan’s vagueness and its assurances to Israeli security primarily, it seems to allow a lot of latitude for Israel to resume its attacks. You wrote on your website last week, “You cease, while we continue to fire,” is basically how they’re interpreting it. Yeah, please say more.
JZ: And they’re looking for excuses. And the excuse right now is, “You didn’t return all the bodies,” but they’re holding onto a couple hundred bodies of Palestinians who’ve died in their captivity, and they have not released them. And the Palestinians made the point in the international community, the United Nations, Red Cross have made the point that because Palestinians have been forced to move — in some cases, 15 times over the last two years — it’s not as if they were all held in one place, and we just get their bodies and send them to you.
They’ve got to find them. In some cases, the Palestinians cannot find the bodies because they’re under rubble, because Israel exploded the buildings on top of where they were being kept. And their bodies are buried with Palestinians in that rubble. In other cases, the Palestinians have left areas that Israel is now in control of. They still retain control of 53 percent of Gaza, and they can’t get to those areas to dig up the bodies.
And so, both the Red Cross and the United Nations have said to the Israelis, “You have to have patience here. They’re looking. It’s not like you, where you kept them all in one place. They have been forced to move 15 or so times during this two-year period, and they’re not sure where things are.” But the Israelis have looked for excuses to not honor this agreement. Netanyahu has promised his coalition partners, “We will not get to Phase Two.”
He promised them they would not get to phase two. To keep his government together, he’s looking for every reason he can to not get to phase two. This is the latest one.
JV: This phrase “self-determination” is thrown around a lot by politicians. I’m wondering what you think that actually looks like for Palestinians, and the viability of that within this plan.
It very briefly mentions it, and like point 17 of 20, on sort of the maintaining the right of self-determination for Palestinians. But I’m wondering if we could dive back into the political leadership structure that does exist already. You mentioned some polling that you’ve done, feel free to mention some of that. And of course, you have the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank mentioned in the plan, but they aren’t the most politically popular in Gaza, as I understand it. So what does the pathway to statehood look like?
JZ: Let me make an observation about self-determination first.
During the earlier part of the 20th century, there was a push toward an independent Black nation in the south [U.S.], the Black Belt from Georgia across to Alabama. Ninety-five percent of the population in that Black Belt was African American. There was a push among some: “We deserve our own homeland. We deserve a separate state.”
World War II and the mass migration of Blacks from the south to the north to work in factories and live in cities in the north changed the dynamic. So by the time you got to the ’50 and ’60s, the push was for civil rights. The argument was made: Self-determination can either mean you separate from and govern yourself, or you get full, guaranteed democratic rights in the state in which you are currently living.
Palestinians have that option. They either want a separate Palestinian state, or they have wanted, and they argued from the beginning, their earliest demand, was equal democratic rights within a single state. It’s the Israelis who reject that because they do not want to see Palestinians equal in number or maybe even greater in number in that state.
They want a Jewish state. So that’s the argument, the Palestinian self-determination issue. It can be one or the other, but the Israelis have chosen instead for apartheid and for subjugation, which is the antithesis of either of those two self-determination cases. In the situation in which we currently find ourselves, there’s a problem.
I mean, Israel has erased the possibility of an independent state because in the West Bank, they have so discredited the concept by checkpoints, 500+, and they move from place to place, settlement construction, infrastructure construction, which has severed the West Bank into little pieces so that Palestinians can’t go from the north to the south. They can’t go from one village, in some cases, to the next. They’ve lost access to their ancestral lands and homes.
The PA, which was, according to the Oslo Accords, as we move forward, the Wye [River Memorandum] agreement, they were to be in governance of the areas that were Palestinian, dedicated Palestinian. Areas A, and they were to cooperate with the Israelis in Area B, and Area C remained under military control.
The Israelis, clearly in Area C, they want that land now. Area B, the PA has been pretty much pushed out. And in Areas A, which are these main city concentrations, the little Bantustan dots in the West Bank, because the PA has been told by the Israelis, “You’d better enforce what we ask you to enforce. Arrest these people, stop these demonstrations, stop this civil disobedience, this protest against the occupation, et cetera, or else, we’ll take away your right to govern in these areas.”
As a result of that, the PA’s been discredited in the West Bank. In the polling that we do, we find Hamas at about 4 percent popularity in Gaza, with the PA having about a 30 percent popularity. In the West Bank, the numbers get reversed, with Hamas having higher numbers, the PA, not as low as Hamas in Gaza, but the PA having lower numbers than Hamas because they look at the PA as an agent of the occupation, and they see Hamas, on the other hand, as fighting for Palestinian rights. So that the issue of how you move forward has to be a newly constituted Palestinian national body like the old [Palestine Liberation Organization].
Many Palestinians are calling for it. The PA doesn’t want to give up what it’s got. And yet, that’s the only way forward. And I think that if you don’t get there, then you’re going to have a continued divided Palestinian polity, which is not a good thing for the Palestinian community or for the prospects of any peace. There has to be a unified Palestinian voice. That doesn’t exist right now.
JV: And could you say a bit about what the Trump plan actually spells out for what those next phases look like for a governance structure? It talks about a “board of peace,” I think is what it’s referred to, that would be overseen by Trump, and previously, I don’t know if this is still on the table, but former U..K Prime Minister Tony Blair. It seems like this idea of having Palestinians be in charge of their own self-determination seems very far off from what is actually spelled out in the plan.
JZ: They had no role to play in this 20-point plan at all. The Israelis got it, edited it, made it closer to what they wanted. The Palestinians never saw it at all. So as I say, there’s the spoiled child syndrome, and then there’s the abused child syndrome. The Palestinians are told, “You take it or else,” the Israelis are told, “Do you like this? And if you don’t, tell us what we need to do to make you like it.”
So there is no plan, in the plan, to move forward. They say an independent, non-political, technocratic Palestinian group. Who defines that? What the hell is a non-political Palestinian? Somebody incidentally Palestinian? What is technocratic and independent?
Independent of what, and of whom? If they’re independent, as I think the U.S. envisions it, they have no base, they have no support. You’re imposing people who are incidentally Palestinian, on the Palestinian people, and saying, well, “There’s your people.”
That’s not going to work. If they don’t have legitimacy, if people will not accept being governed by people they don’t know, don’t care about and didn’t put [in power], that’s not going to meet the needs of this moment. So that’s why I say there needs to be Palestinian unity, and there needs to be Arabs standing up and speaking out and saying, “This isn’t going to work unless Palestinians have a say in who governs them.”
JV: Right. Back on the topic of the economic portion of the plan and sort of self-interest, we’ve been reporting on Trump’s personal business interests in the region. His family’s business ventures, of course, in the Gulf States. His earlier vision for a Gaza Riviera, as he called it. Is this so-called peace plan nothing more than a plan to pave the way for Trump, his family, and his inner circle to benefit from the destruction of Gaza with future development projects? What’s your read on that?
JZ: I think they were smart enough to leave that out, and I can’t imagine that it’s not someplace in the back of their mind that when these vague plans about investment and this international peace board, that that’s not something that they’re thinking about.
But rest assured, it’ll never happen. That will never happen. You are not going to build this paradise on the ruins, the bones, the bodies of tens of thousands, probably a couple hundred thousand people who’ve perished in Gaza. And the Palestinians won’t allow it. So it’s a pipe dream. And a sick pipe dream, as well.
And there is no plan, incidentally. There is no economic [plan], there’s a line about investment, but investment in what? The things that need to happen in Gaza right now are, number one, people need to know that their property rights will be respected because people are going north, or people are moving south, but they’re going to uncharted territory.
Everyone in Gaza, because there was a Palestinian Land Authority, they had a deed. And they had property and they have property rights. When you live in an apartment building and it’s completely destroyed and you owned that apartment, what happens? You’re basically destroying one of the fundamental concepts of civil society, which is, you own, you live, this is yours, and you can pass it on.
That doesn’t exist right now, so there has to be a reconstruction of that.
Another basic is psychological support. We have a generation of young people who have been traumatized, repeatedly traumatized. I tell people, think about this: That a 12-year-old kid in Gaza forced to move, in our polling, we find 10, 15 times in two years. He goes back, it’s not just the house is gone, but it’s all rubble. The trauma that that’s going to effect in the kids’ lives has to be addressed. There’s going to be a massive need for PTSD and psychological counseling for these kids and as part of the education process. Otherwise, we’re going to have a generation of Palestinians that are, you know, Lord knows what becomes of them.
We talk about resilience, but that’s cruel. To just assume, “Oh, they’ll get over it.” They won’t. And we have to have sympathy and sensitivity to that. I’ve found with the visits that we’ve had of the Palestinian Americans telling the stories, members of Congress were moved. When they heard these stories, America has to be moved.
It’s not just Israelis who suffer. Palestinians are real people who suffer, who have pain, who lost family, who have faces, have stories to tell. They have to be respected. Otherwise, there will be no peace in the future.
It’s not a real estate project. These are human lives. Two million of them have been devastated, whether they’re dead or whether they’ve been forced to move, like I said, 10, 15 times, and have lost dozens of family members. That has to be the priority. How do we put these people back, and able to live in dignity?
JV: Right. You bring back the work being done at the Hill again, and I know you have to go, but to close, I wanted to direct things back to your party.
You’re a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee. You ran for the DNC vice chair earlier this year. What are Democrats likely to do to protect Palestinian rights as the rebuilding efforts start, if the ceasefire holds? And where does the party go from here?
JZ: Well, number one, most of the meetings that I’ve seen, all with Democrats, and largely with progressive Democrats. Met today, this morning, which is Wednesday morning, with Rep. Delia Ramirez, who’s the sponsor of the bill to stop the bombs.
And the change within the Democratic Party is real. Members of Congress, many of them don’t get it. I mean, look, there’s not ignorance, there’s a kind of willed ignorance that this is, “I just don’t wanna know about it.” But they’re being forced to know about it because they’ve gone home to town meetings and they’ve been yelled at.
The public polling on this, on the Democratic side, is real. There’s a shift. It’s become a litmus test for honesty. And it crosses race, ethnicity, and religion. People, in particular, Democrats, are pushing for change.
Now, the party, I think there’s a confusion. The Democratic Party doesn’t make policy. The Democratic Party, the national committee, builds capacity to win elections. And so, it’s not a legislative body that passes — We do a platform, but it’s the platform done by candidates. So the role that Democrats have to play is what they are playing, which is impact elected officials. Go to town meetings, elect candidates who support justice, throw the old bums out, and bring in the new guys who actually want to fight for change, and support those who have, for example, Cori Bush is running for reelection. She has to get reelected. If we can defend people and not lose elections, because AIPAC gangs up on them, then we make real change here. And I think that’s where the dynamic is going. Now, Trump is doing everything he can to keep Republicans in power. We have to do everything we can to get more progressive Democrats elected to change the dynamic in Washington.
And guess what? Republicans are starting to hear from their constituents too. I know that there are some saying, “Oh, well, it’s over now, there’s peace.” There’s not, and the pressure has to stay on and we have to find a way to create a political power base, not just on the Democratic side, but on the Republican side, that fights for justice in the Middle East, in particular for Palestinians.
JV: Are you seeing unity within the DNC around that issue of pushing for those types of candidates?
JZ: I’m seeing it, that kind of unity in the public, of those who self-identify as Democrat. Yeah. Numbers are 2 to 1 or more, sometimes 70 points higher, those who want to cut aid to Israel, military assistance to Israel, versus those who don’t. Those who say this is a genocide versus those who don’t. Those who say we’re less likely to support a candidate if they get money from AIPAC than those who would be more likely.
There’s a real unity in the public, but among elected officials, it moves a little more slowly. They’re like the big ship in the ocean. You want to turn direction, takes a long time to get around. And within the DNC, most people in the DNC don’t have politics on these issues. They’re there because it’s the organization that they joined to help win local elections, state elections, and they’re not equipped to have this policy debate.
I think we’re going to do a task force in the party. We pushed for it at the last meeting. How do we talk about this issue as Democrats? How do we move the issue as Democrats? Chairman Ken Martin supports this, and we’re in the process of determining the composition of that right now, but they don’t have policy positions on most anything.
Like I said, the policies are shaped by the electeds. And right now, among the electeds in Congress, the dynamic is with the progressives. More than half of the elected Democratic senators supported Bernie [Sanders]. Delia Ramirez’s bill is now gaining real momentum in the House. So yeah, I think we’re winning the fight within that, but not in the institution of the DNC, but among Democrats and among Democratic elected officials. Because the grassroots base of this movement is so powerful that it can’t be ignored anymore.
JV: Right, right. We’re going to leave it there. Thank you so much, Dr. Zogby, for joining me on The Intercept Briefing.
JZ: Thank you.
JV: And that does it for this episode of The Intercept Briefing.
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