US, Arab States strategic planning hinges on pathway to Palestinian state and strengthening PA, PLO

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00:00 Well, for more, let's go to Washington.

00:01 Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, thank you

00:05 for speaking with us here on France 24.

00:07 Always.

00:08 Thank you.

00:09 The Palestinian authorities shake up a cabinet reshuffle.

00:16 What's your reaction?

00:17 Well, I mean, I think it could be a step in the right direction insofar as the world,

00:24 the Israelis, the Americans in particular, and the Gulf Arab countries, Saudi Arabia

00:28 and the U.S. above all, are looking to the PA to start reforming itself in order to help

00:35 them begin a process that's designed to strengthen the Palestinian Authority and then ultimately

00:41 strengthen the PLO, which is the diplomatic wing of the Palestinians, get back into negotiations

00:47 with Israel for a two-state solution.

00:49 I think they're all thinking, both the Americans and the Gulf Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia

00:55 and the other Arabs in general, are thinking their strategic planning hinges on a pathway

01:02 to a Palestinian state.

01:04 And for that, they need to have a more credible Palestinian representative.

01:09 And so the PA is all you've got to work with on the ground and the PLO at the diplomatic

01:14 register.

01:15 So they want to strengthen those things.

01:17 And you know, changing personalities is maybe a first step in that direction.

01:24 Newswire is suggesting an economic aid to Mahmoud Abbas could be the next prime minister.

01:29 Is that just changing the chairs, rearranging the chairs on the Titanic?

01:33 Yes.

01:34 I'm going to be honest with you.

01:36 It is.

01:37 Just replacing Mohamed Chetia, who's an economist who's been in charge of investments and corporations,

01:44 with Mohamed Moustafa, who's the head of the Palestine Investment Fund, which is, again,

01:50 in charge of investments and corporations and holds certain companies on behalf of the

01:55 Palestinians and the PA.

01:58 And both of them are kind of in the inner circle of Mahmoud Abbas.

02:03 And both of them, especially Mohamed Moustafa, who's been in charge of this national investment

02:09 fund, has really been a very loyal functionary of Abbas and has worked very closely with

02:18 him and his family in ways that have benefited Abbas's sons and other people who are in the

02:26 inner circle.

02:29 Maybe not necessarily at the expense of the national investments, but along with it in

02:34 ways that I think most countries would regard as improper.

02:39 So yeah, it's just a change of one personality type for a very similar personality type.

02:47 And it doesn't really signal a major transformation.

02:51 However, once you start changing people, you can really start- if you had a big shakeup

02:57 in the cabinet underneath Mohamed Moustafa, so that a lot of the familiar characters were

03:05 replaced by real technocrats, with people who had technical ability and technical knowledge,

03:11 then you're talking.

03:13 I think ultimately serious actors would love to see the return of Salam Fayyad, who was

03:19 a great Palestinian prime minister, clean as a whistle and created a lot of progress

03:25 on building up the institutions of a Palestinian state.

03:31 Or someone like him.

03:32 In other words, I think as long as we're sticking with the Mohamed Moustafa, Mohamed

03:37 Chetayyeh type of people, you get one kind of outcome.

03:40 And if you were to bring in people like Salam Fayyad, who are more independent, more purposive,

03:47 more dynamic, you would get another outcome.

03:50 And does this increase at all the pressure on Israel?

03:53 Yeah, I think a little bit.

03:56 You know, it does.

03:59 The more reform you have in the PA, the more they seem to be responding positively to demands

04:06 for change, especially the more the change appears to be substantive rather than cosmetic.

04:13 Right now this will be regarded as relatively cosmetic.

04:16 But it could lead to more substantive changes, especially if the cabinet really transforms

04:21 and other people come in.

04:22 Then I think it would really increase pressure on Israel, because countries like the United

04:29 States, Saudi Arabia, and others would say, well, the PA is reforming.

04:34 It's doing what it has to do, and it's doing what it can, in spite of all your pressure

04:38 and all this violence and all these wars.

04:40 Now it's up to you to respond.

04:42 The PA can't become a strong institution under repressive Israeli occupation.

04:48 It gives them no space to breathe.

04:50 And so I think it's obvious that while they need to bring in the right people, Israel

04:54 has to loosen the stranglehold and let them do stuff.

04:59 Because as long as they can't move, then they can't really achieve anything.

05:03 Now the pressure from the United States on Israel becoming a little more vocal Sunday

05:09 with Joe Biden's national security adviser doing the round of the morning Sunday talk

05:16 shows.

05:17 Jake Sullivan, let's listen to what he had to say about Israel's plans for potentially

05:23 a ground operation in the only city they haven't been inside in the Gaza Strip, really, and

05:30 that is the southernmost city of Rafa.

05:34 We have been very clear about our view here.

05:36 We're talking about more than a million people who have been pushed into this small space

05:40 in Gaza because of military operations elsewhere.

05:42 It's also the area where all of the humanitarian assistance comes into Gaza to serve all of

05:48 Gaza.

05:49 And so we've been clear that we do not believe that an operation, a major military operation,

05:54 should proceed in Rafa unless there is a clear and executable plan to protect those civilians,

06:00 to get them to safety and to feed, clothe and house them.

06:03 And we have not seen a plan like that.

06:06 Hey, Hussein Ibish, Jake Sullivan also used the C word, ceasefire.

06:12 He did.

06:13 No, I mean, there's no doubt the United States is, as expected, intensifying pressure on

06:18 Israel to wrap up this war and get out of Gaza.

06:24 Because if they, the longer they stay, the more hard it's going to be to disentangle.

06:29 And the last thing the U.S. wants is a permanent or semi-permanent Israeli return to the urban

06:35 centers of Gaza over the long run, you know, on the streets.

06:39 And that's, of course, they know that's exactly what Hamas wants.

06:42 It probably is what Prime Minister Netanyahu wants.

06:45 But it's very bad for the United States and very bad for its plans.

06:49 So the pressure then is slowly being ratcheted up.

06:53 I think they know that Israel is going to do a Rafa operation, but they're putting very

06:59 strong conditions.

07:00 They have really said you have to get the people out.

07:04 You've pushed more than a million people down there.

07:06 He was very clear when he said military operations, he meant Israeli military operations.

07:11 And what he was saying is you've pushed these people into this little area, you did it deliberately,

07:17 you can't now attack them en masse.

07:19 You have to get those people out first.

07:22 And it's very clear they can't go to Egypt.

07:25 So Israel is going to have to do something to provide a place for these people to go

07:32 or forego the giant Rafa operation and do something much more targeted.

07:37 One thing about Rafa is it does not appear that there are major tunnel networks under

07:42 Rafa.

07:43 Between the Egyptians and the Israelis, they seem to have prevented that.

07:47 And therefore, it's I think entirely possible to do operations in Rafa with, in a much more

07:55 targeted way with special forces or even forego it possibly, or move the people out and get

08:01 them somewhere else.

08:02 There are many options for the Israelis.

08:05 But one thing that isn't an option is just to attack Rafa as it is now and massacre these

08:12 civilians.

08:13 And just because we're confused, on the one hand, they're talking about a ground operation

08:19 in Rafa, on the other they're sending a delegation to Doha to negotiate a truce, or as Jake Sullivan

08:27 now calls it, a ceasefire.

08:32 Can Benjamin Netanyahu keep the international community guessing, and if so, for how long?

08:38 Well, I don't think so.

08:39 I mean, I think they know what's going on.

08:42 One of the things that's happening is he's under tremendous domestic pressure to get

08:48 a deal with Hamas to free the hostages.

08:51 And he's under tremendous international pressure to do a deal with Hamas to create a pause

08:57 for at least six weeks or a few months, where you could get humanitarian aid in, you could

09:02 get all these people out of Rafa, you could get people back into Gaza City, could maybe

09:08 start some reconstruction and avoid kind of a calamity with infectious diseases and all

09:17 that.

09:18 So there's a tremendous lot of pressure on him from those ends, domestically and internationally.

09:22 But he wants to go into Rafa as soon as possible.

09:25 And there is a hard right in Israel that wants to do that and doesn't care how many Palestinians

09:29 get killed.

09:30 So he's, you know, he's trapped between those two imperatives.

09:35 And in the end, I think Rafa is going to have to wait.

09:38 Whether he will agree to, and Hamas will agree to, a reasonable agreement to free the hostages

09:45 in return for a pause and release of Palestinian prisoners, I don't know.

09:50 But I think it looks increasingly plausible.

09:53 And it will certainly please almost everybody else if those two parties agree to that.

09:59 The problem with the war is everybody wants to wind it down except for Benjamin Netanyahu

10:05 and the Hamas chief, Yahya Sinwar.

10:07 And they're the only two people who could really do that.

10:10 So it's a bit of a, you know, of a contradiction.

10:13 Husein Ibish, so many thanks for speaking with us from Washington.

10:16 Any time, Fraser.

10:17 Thank you.

10:18 Stay with us.

10:19 There's much more to come.

10:20 More news plus the day's business and sports.

10:22 [Music]

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