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- The work that the UN is performing in Gaza is quite literally life saving. And no
one else can do it. No one else is doing it. And it only underscores the importance of making
sure that its facilities, including facilities that it's erected or is maintaining, that are housing
the many many displaced Palestinians until they can go back to their homes and
neighborhoods is essential and it has to be protected.
- Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press conference today in Angola. He's
talking about the UN shelter that was blasted with tank fire in southern Gaza yesterday,
killing twelve people and injuring dozens more. Israeli officials say they're looking into
who's responsible. So far, the Gaza health ministry says overall more than 25,000
Palestinians have been killed in this three-month war. Most of the 2 million people in Gaza
have been displaced. Entire cities are now rubble. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu is facing increasing pressure at home from the families of the 130
hostages still being held by Hamas. CIA director Bill Burns is headed to Europe to help
broker a hostage release deal. Joining me to discuss all this is Steven A. Cook, senior fellow
for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Welcome to Press Play.
- Pleasure to be with you
- Well, let's talk about this UN shelter building that was bombed. What happened?
Do we have any more information on that?
- We don't have any information about it. And I think there's, as was the case
early in the conflict with a strike on a Palestinian hospital, there's a lot of speculation about
what's happened there. What we do know is that innocent people have been killed as a result,
which is a terrible thing, and too many innocent people have been killed from the beginning
of this conflict starting on October 7.
- Yeah, so let's talk about efforts to at least have a pause in the fighting to perhaps
secure the release of the hostages. Bill Burns, as I said, will be there. What can we expect
from his presence? Why is the CIA director now getting involved in peace talks or in
ceasefire talks, I should say, or opposing fighting talks, more accurately.
- Director Burns is someone who has long experience actually in the Middle East.
He was the US ambassador to Jordan. He's well known to all of the players, and he was
intimately involved in the previous release of hostages, which happened in late November
and December. So there has been, as you indicated, pressure building on Prime Minister
Netanyahu from the families of the hostages. In fact, the Israelis had offered a significant
pause in the fighting in recent days that Hamas has rejected. And Burns is now going to
Europe to meet with the Qataris, the Israelis and the Egyptians to see if the requisite pressure
can be brought to bear on Hamas, who had rejected the Israeli offer to a significant pause in
the fighting to release hostages…
- What does he really offer?
 - A two-month pause in the fighting in order to release the hostages that Hamas
had rejected. So if anybody can do this, it is Burns, given his stature and given how well he
works with all of the players. But of course, neither the Israelis nor Hamas are willing to
actually have a real ceasefire and thus this war will continue.
- Right. And let's talk about this dust up between Netanyahu and Qatar. In a
meeting with the families of the hostages, Netanyahu was recorded as saying that the
mediation, Qatar's role in that mediation was, quote unquote, problematic. Why did he say
that it was problematic that Qatar is involved in these talks when it has been a key player all
along?
- Well, the Qataris have played both ends of the fence here. They have Hamas in
Doha. They have supported Hamas over the years. And that's why they have this role in the
mediation, because they have relationships with Hamas. It's not because the Israelis want the
Qataris to be involved in. It's because they really, besides, the Egyptians, are the only ones in
the arab world who have that kind of role. But we should be clear that the Qataris themselves
have turned the other way and looked the other way when it came to Hamas building out its
military infrastructure in Gaza. The Qatari has had a very senior diplomat posted in Gaza
who was there to distribute reconstruction funds and aid funds to Gazans, who are most in
need. Hamas has absconded with that funding, and there are serious allegations that the
Qataris either knew what was happening or were even complicit in it. So, whereas the Qataris
have played a constructive role, at least in November, in securing the release of a good
number of hostages, this doesn't mean that they are a non-problematic partner of either the
United States or the Israelis. From the Qatari perspective of a course, they have maintained a
principled position on the need for Palestinian justice and rights.
- If you look at Emir Tamim's statements going back to last September's UN
General Assembly meetings, he was very, very forceful on those issues. And the countries
have been very, very forceful on these issues since the conflict began on October 7 with
Hamas's massacre of Israelis.
- Okay, so is there any optimism that there can actually be a pause in the fighting,
as brokered by the CIA director this time around? Do both sides perhaps seem a bit more
willing or not to pause and have some kind of hostage prisoner swap?
- Well, the Israelis, as I said, had made an offer a number of days ago that Hamas
had rejected. I think that Hamas wanted too much from the Israelis, and it was thus a non
workable proposal...
- Because they wanted to release all the Palestinian prisoners, is that right?
- And the conditions that they wanted on. They do not want to have a temporary
ceasefire. They want the end, and they want all Palestinian prisoners released. Their asking
price is too much. Look, I think that Hamas is at the point where, one, they may not know
how many hostages remain alive, because we know that Hamas is not the only ones who are
keeping hostages. Two, this is their point of leverage. So it was always going to get harder
and harder as you got down to fewer and fewer hostages. So, you know, as I said before,
neither party is keenly interested in a permanent, endurable ceasefire. They are quite far apart
in terms of a temporary ceasefire for the hostage exchanges, which is why President Biden
has dispatched the CIA director, who does have good relations with all of these leaders, to try
to work out some sort of deal. I think it's healthy to remain skeptical that this is going to
happen, because Hamas's demands are quite high; the Israelis do not want to bring the
conflict to an end, they have vowed to destroy Hamas. That is a political imperative for any
Israeli government. So at this point, it doesn't seem like whether there's a real end in sight.
- Yeah, because without the hostages, Hamas has no leverage, right? So why
would it be in Hamas's interest to give back the hostages if Israel doesn't promise an end to
the war?
- Well, that's exactly right. And I think that that's the argument that prior to this
offer on the part of the Israelis, that Prime Minister Netanyahu and others within the Israeli
government have been making, which is that the only thing that's going to release the
hostages is military pressure. But that Israelis have brought enormous amount of force to bear
on the Gaza, as you outlined, excess of 25,000 dead, entire cities reduced to rubble, people in
desperate situations. Yet Hamas continues to hold on to 139 Israelis. So, something is going
to have to give. But it strikes me that neither Hamas nor the Israelis have actually, and this is
going to sound shocking, have been bloodied enough that this phase of the conflict has not
been, as diplomats would say, ripened enough that make it a propitious moment for
negotiations for either hostages or actually negotiations to end this conflict.
- And very quickly, there are just a few seconds. What about all of the, I guess it's
a million plus Gazans now crowded into the southern part, just near the Rafah border.
Egypt.
- Unimaginable misery. Tens of thousands of people have lost their lives, children
who are orphans, parents without their children, food hard to come by, medical care scarce.
This is a catastrophe of extraordinary proportions. There's no other way to put it.
- Steven A. Cook, senior fellow from Middle East studies at the Council on
Foreign Relations. Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Coming up, highlights from the Sundance Film Festival, including a film about
Will Ferrell and his close friend who recently came out as a trans woman on a road trip
together. That's next on Press Play.