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One week into the start of a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, important elements of the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s plan remain unfinished. Hamas has not been able to return the remains of all of the deceased Israeli hostages; aid into Gaza has increased from before, but the United Nations says its teams were unable to get inside on Monday and Tuesday; and it is still unclear whether Hamas will disarm or forswear involvement in the future of Gaza, two elements crucial for the deal to proceed to its second phase.<\/p>\n
What happens next for Palestinians? How will they organize themselves in the coming months, and who will govern them? On the latest episode of FP Live, I spoke with Diana Buttu, a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and a lawyer who has lived in both Gaza and Israel. What follows here is a condensed and lightly edited transcript. Subscribers can watch the full discussion in the video box atop this page or follow the FP Live podcast.<\/p>\n
Ravi Agrawal:<\/strong> I know you have many friends in Gaza. How are they feeling this week?<\/p>\n Diana Buttu:<\/strong> I have many, many friends in Gaza. Every one of them has had their home destroyed. Every one has had family members killed. Every one of them has lost a significant amount of weight. They\u2019ve returned back to rubble. They\u2019re still starving. There\u2019s no fresh water. Nothing has changed for Gazans except that the bombs have stopped. And so I\u2019m still very, very, very worried about them, especially since the entire health system has been destroyed. All aspects of life have been destroyed and the world is applauding this agreement, when they\u2019ve ignored two years of genocide.<\/p>\n RA:<\/strong> You\u2019ve sat at the negotiating table yourself. One week on, what do you make of the agreement?<\/p>\n DB:<\/strong> It\u2019s important to step back. Over the past two years, every major human rights organization has said that this is genocide. The Association of Genocide Scholars labeled it genocide. The International Court of Justice, over a year and a half ago, said that there\u2019s a plausible case for genocide. Even two Israeli human rights organizations have said that it is genocide.<\/p>\n This means all countries around the world should have come together and stopped genocide. Genocide is not something to make a determination about after the fact. It\u2019s something to be stopping; otherwise there\u2019s no point to having a genocide convention. But instead of the world coming together and putting an arms embargo on Israel, or putting sanctions on Israel, or halting trade with Israel, they forced Palestinians to negotiate an end to their genocide. And that\u2019s so repugnant.<\/p>\n Palestinians were also forced to negotiate an end to famine with the very country that made it clear that it wanted to starve them. [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is wanted for war crimes for starvation.<\/p>\n People in Gaza are happy that the bombs have stopped (though they haven\u2019t completely stopped, by the way). But at the same time, they and I feel that this whole issue of genocide has just been papered over, that there\u2019s no accountability, and that the world community has failed. For example, the flotilla with more than 40 ships and 500-plus activists were trying to do work that the international community should have done. These activists were abducted in international waters. They were brought to Israel against their will. They were imprisoned. They were beaten up and then deported. Countries around the world, including the activists\u2019 own countries, did nothing and said nothing. So people in Gaza are feeling very abandoned right now.<\/p>\n RA:<\/strong> Israelis will often say that the hostages, and how long Hamas held them, make this different from other conflicts or even other genocides. When it comes to this deal, I don\u2019t quite understand why Hamas finally agreed. You\u2019ve often called this an Israeli deal that was presented and brokered by the Americans. So why did Hamas give up the hostages, who were their final piece of leverage? Why now?<\/p>\n DB:<\/strong> In terms of the hostages, Israel is holding 11,000 hostages in Israeli prisons. So if it was OK for Israel to decimate Gaza, kill 67,000 people, destroy 90 percent of the homes, destroy the entire health care system for 248 Israelis, what are Palestinians allowed to do? This is not my logic; this is their logic. I\u2019m trying to get you to see the idea that Palestinians are so dehumanized that Israelis are allowed to do all that for 248, but Palestinians are supposed to stay silent when 11,000 Palestinians are held hostage.<\/p>\n So, why did they agree now? From the very beginning, Hamas said that they were willing to hand over all of the Israelis if there was a halt to the bombing. But Netanyahu said no. Then Trump came out with his plan, which really is an Israeli plan with a Trump label on it. Hamas\u2019s response was: \u201cWe don\u2019t want anything to do with governance. If we deal beyond that small piece and sign on to all of this, then we\u2019ll be guilty of the exact thing that Fatah did back in the \u201990s. So we can hold onto this small little piece of just the Israelis.\u201d With all this other pressure, Israelis said, \u201cYes, you\u2019re going to have to release the Israelis and we will release Palestinians,\u201d but then all of the rest of this comes into play.<\/p>\n RA:<\/strong> That doesn\u2019t quite answer the question of why now? On the Israeli side, there is a case to be made that they overstepped with the Sept. 9 attacks on Qatar, which, of course, led to a lot of pressure from President Trump and other Middle Eastern countries. That changed the calculus for them. But again, why would Hamas think differently today than it did six months ago, one year ago?<\/p>\n DB:<\/strong> I think it was the same six months ago and a year ago. Remember, it was Israel who unilaterally violated the January cease-fire agreement back in March. Why now? There was a lot of pressure on them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n RA:<\/strong> There are so many things that have yet to be accomplished in the so-called phase one of this deal. Israel said Hamas has to disarm, and it hasn\u2019t. Israel said Hamas has to forswear future involvement in Gaza, and it hasn\u2019t. Israel\u2019s also saying that phase two can\u2019t begin until phase one has been deemed complete. Do you think we\u2019re ever going to get to a phase two?<\/p>\n DB:<\/strong> It\u2019s interesting that you ask that, because Trump already declared that phase two has begun. He also said, we understand that Hamas needs to be in control of the streets, and we\u2019ve given them some time to be in control of the streets. So there are some mixed signals there.<\/p>\n But you have to also think logically. There isn\u2019t anybody else in Gaza right now, and somebody needs to be there. Why does Israel get to determine who\u2019s running the streets of Gaza when they\u2019re the ones who have carried out genocide over the course of the past two years? Israel should have zero say in Palestinian life and in Palestinian futures.<\/p>\n If you look back in history, Israel hasn\u2019t abided by agreements or U.N. resolutions. So this is the time when you need outside involvement and mediators. A lot of people are placing their faith in the mediators, but I\u2019m not so sure they\u2019ll be there on a day-to-day basis making sure that everything is going in the way that it should be. Israel announced that it\u2019s not going to allow mobile homes to go into Gaza, but this is the time where there needs to be a surge of aid, so the mediators need to be there right now.<\/p>\n RA:<\/strong> Trump\u2019s plan has called for an apolitical technocratic committee overseen by a \u201cBoard of Peace.\u201d What do you make of that?<\/p>\n DB:<\/strong> That board, which would be the future governance, is problematic. It feels like we\u2019re going back in time. I personally thought that the era of colonialism had ended. And it has around the world, except in Palestine, where it\u2019s gone backward. Isn\u2019t it time for Palestinians to choose their own leaders, rather than this Board of Peace choosing somebody for us? But here\u2019s somebody like Tony Blair, who doesn\u2019t exactly have a great track record in the Middle East\u2014<\/p>\n RA:<\/strong> This is the former British prime minister, former head of the so-called Quartet on the Middle East.<\/p>\n DB:<\/strong> When he was in the Quartet, he didn\u2019t do a great job. The Quartet represented the United States, the United Nations, Russia, and the European Union, and they\u2019re supposed to be pushing. But as the Quartet representative, Blair was unable to push. What gives us confidence that he\u2019s going to be able to push for the reconstruction of Gaza, where there\u2019s much more at stake?<\/p>\n RA:<\/strong> Let\u2019s talk more about your colonization. There was a wave of decolonization across what we now call the global south in the 1940s, and that is the exact moment when Israel came into being. That was the moment of the Nakba, of course. You said that history is going in reverse now. What would it take for it to re-reverse itself?<\/p>\n DB:<\/strong> It takes a political decision. And the political decisions have so far been the exact opposite. Let\u2019s talk about the Nakba. The Nakba is the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It\u2019s the prelude to what we saw over the course of the past two years. The world allowed that to happen in 1948. Palestinians were told that we just had to accept it and just move on and move on. It\u2019s still unclear to me why we\u2019re supposed to just move on and accept it.<\/p>\n And yet fast-forward 19 years to 1967. Israel occupies the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Instead of ending its military occupations, Israel has now entrenched it. In 1988, the PLO accepted a two-state solution, with Israeli presence on 78 percent of our historic homeland in exchange for getting to live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which is 22 percent of historic Palestine. And instead of the world pushing Israel to do that, they allow all these settlements to go up.<\/p>\n Rather than stopping colonialism, it becomes fresh and new and the world lets it thrive. Palestinians are always told, \u201cYou need to negotiate an end to colonialism. You need to negotiate with your occupier.\u201d This is the period that I was involved in, when everything was up for negotiation.<\/p>\n Here we are in the year 2025. Palestinians are still told: \u201cYour leadership has to look a certain way. They have to speak a certain way. You have to think a certain way.\u201d It just doesn\u2019t make any sense that Palestinians are always being told how we should think, how we shouldn\u2019t act, what we should do, and none of these conditions are ever put on Israelis.<\/p>\n