LEILA FADEL, HOST:
There are questions about whether a ceasefire announced by the U.S. between Israel and Hamas will actually go into effect on Sunday. Here's Biden announcing it.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: This deal was developed and negotiated under my administration, but its terms will be implemented, for the most part, by the next administration. In these past few days, we've been speaking as one team.
FADEL: But as we speak, there are questions on whether it will happen at all. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has delayed a cabinet meeting that was scheduled to vote on the deal today. He says Hamas has gone back on key demands. Hamas denies this. Meanwhile, two far-right ministers in Netanyahu's government are threatening to collapse the government over the deal.
Aaron David Miller is - joins me now. He's senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former peace negotiator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Good morning.
AARON DAVID MILLER: Good morning, Leila. Thanks for having me.
FADEL: Thank you for being here. With this news, Aaron, does this make you think this deal might be dead?
MILLER: Dead? No, not dead, but it does reflect, I think, the reason it took so long to actually negotiate this deal. You know, Henry Kissinger once quipped that Israel has no - had no foreign policy, only domestic politics. And the reality is, even though there are no rewind buttons on history, this deal could have been concluded four months ago. The basic framework is the same. The reason it wasn't, primarily, I think, is because the organizing principle of Benjamin Netanyahu's world is to stay in power. And he prioritized quote-unquote "total victory over Hamas," which he has not succeeded in attaining, rather than returning the hostages.
And he's got these two ministers threatening to collapse the government. There's no question about it. One of them, Itamar Ben-Gvir, basically bragged that he was the reason that the deal hadn't been concluded until now. So the same basic logic, Leila, is at work here. I suspect the cabinet will approve it, but too many uncertainties abound, and we haven't even started implementation.
FADEL: Well, let's talk about the actual deal itself. It's a phased approach. As I understand it, this is just a pause at this point - the first phase - and the other phases will still be negotiated. Can this lead - this deal lead to an actual end to the war?
MILLER: It could if, in fact, you had leaders on both sides and an American administration willing to spend the time and effort to help the parties implement it. But the second phase is going to be very tough because it requires Hamas to basically free all the remaining hostages, roughly - what? - 40 to 50 living and dead Israeli soldiers in exchange for a permanent end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
No Israeli government is going to withdraw from Gaza without guarantees of some follow-on security force. So the first phase - 42 days - I think we need to focus, frankly, on whether or not that can be implemented. And I think it's certainly possible, but it's going to take a lot of will and skill, and again, from the incoming administration. Donald Trump now owns this, and he's going to have to spend the time on it. Otherwise, it's going to crater.
FADEL: Now, this is if it happens at all. And we heard - we've heard from lots of people that they felt the deal might happen Sunday because President-elect Trump is coming into office and has threatened that hell would be paid if a deal wasn't done. Is that the reason?
MILLER: I think that's a factor. Hamas is weakened because of what the Israelis have done to Hezbollah. Even the Iranians can't put much stock or faith in their so-called axis of resistance. So that's clearly a factor. But there's no doubt that the incoming administration, which has the power, and the outgoing administration, which doesn't - again, in Benjamin Netanyahu's calculations, it's much harder for him to say no to Donald Trump, given his interests, than it was to Joe Biden. So yeah, I think the Trump factor played a role here.
FADEL: What is the U.S. role going forward? I mean, at this point, it's unclear if this is going to happen by Sunday. But if it does go into effect, what will the U.S. role - as you said, President-elect Trump will own this.
MILLER: Well, you've got a set of detailed requirements on each side that need to be implemented. The U.S. doesn't have relations with Hamas, clearly. That's going to fall to the Egyptians and the Qataris. So working with the Israelis, using incentives and perhaps disincentives - but if the Israelis aren't committed to the first phase, no amount of pressure from the Trump administration is going to see this through. We have to just hope that Israeli politics here will play in favor of supporting the deal because the vast majority of the Israelis want the hostages home, even though this is a - isn't a partial deal. So again, nobody ever lost money betting against Israeli-Palestinian peace, but I'm thinking this has a reasonable chance to move forward, and then we'll see about whether or not you can actually end the war in Gaza.
FADEL: But if, as you described, the prime minister is in a situation where it's not in his political interest to have this deal, then does it happen? I mean, if it goes through, there could be elections. There is an arrest warrant out for Benjamin Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court for the war in Gaza. Israel also faces a case of genocide at the International Court of Justice. I mean, is there a true interest in getting to this deal?
MILLER: I think there is an interest in moving through Phase 1. I don't think even Benjamin Netanyahu, who focuses on his own political survival, could not have entered into this particular agreement. And then, of course, you have Hamas' equities in this. I mean...
FADEL: Yeah.
MILLER: ...Does Hamas know where all the hostages are? Are they being truthful with respect to those that are living or dead? So you've got two combatants here who fundamentally don't trust one another and who are actually dedicated in one another's destruction, trying to implement a very complicated deal, which requires an enormous amount of discretion and trust. I worry about the fact that there's no monitoring. There doesn't appear to be an implementation mechanism here, and that could prove very difficult. But again, if the Israeli cabinet approves this, I think there's a reasonable chance you'll get through Phase 1. The problem is going to be after the first six weeks and whether Hamas and Israel will agree, basically, to end the war and free all the hostages. That's the real challenge.
FADEL: Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Mideast peace negotiator. Aaron, thank you for your time.
MILLER: Thanks for having me, Leila. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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