PIEN HUANG, HOST:
President Donald Trump is set to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tomorrow. The big agenda item is a ceasefire agreement between Israel and the militant group Hamas. Both parties have agreed to indirect peace talks this week in Qatar, and President Trump has said both are close to a deal. But the fighting continues. The Israeli military intensified strikes throughout Gaza on Friday, and people across the region are living with the effects of more than a year and a half of war. So what can we expect from this high-stakes meeting? Richard Haass is a veteran diplomat and the president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. He's advised four presidents on the Middle East. Welcome.
RICHARD HAASS: Good to be with you.
HUANG: So President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu are set to meet tomorrow, and it'll be the third time that they've met since January. Is there anything that sticks out to you about this meeting?
HAASS: Timing and context always count a lot in diplomacy, and this comes after the attacks first by Israel then by the United States on Iran, which have, in many ways, bolstered the political standing of both the prime minister and the president and by hurting Iran in certain ways have weakened the degree to which Hamas can expect new help from Iran, which has historically been its principal booster. So I think all of this slightly increases the chances that we could see, you know, not peace, but we could see progress towards, say, a two-month cessation of hostilities.
HUANG: And what would you say - observing the previous meetings between the two of them - what would you say their relationship is like with each other?
HAASS: (Laughter) It's a great question. They know each other well, extremely well. On one hand, there's some similarities. Both have faced legal challenges. Both are, shall we say, far-right or considerably right of center. Both are dominant personalities in their political systems. Historically, the two have mostly gotten along, in part because Bibi Netanyahu tended not to get along terribly well, say, with Joe Biden or Democratic presidents who often pushed him harder to make compromises for peace. But all that said, some friction has entered into this relationship. And I think what the Israelis are learning is that America First doesn't necessarily always translate into Israel first.
HUANG: So these indirect talks between Israel and Hamas are set to take place this week in Qatar, and President Trump has said they're close to a deal. But these talks have been going on for months, so I'm wondering if you're hopeful that this time the outcome will be different.
HAASS: I would think the odds are pretty good that you'll get a deal, but we shouldn't exaggerate what a deal would be. The one that's on the table right now is a two-month ceasefire. It would bring about an exchange of some of the remaining Israeli hostages for a larger number of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel. It would probably mean the Israelis would withdraw their military from certain parts of Gaza. But none of this is, shall we say, a permanent or comprehensive solution to what is going on in Gaza, much less to the larger Palestinian issue. So I don't mean to diminish it. Progress is always good when you can get it, particularly in the Middle East. But we shouldn't confuse what's on the table with any final status-type, permanent resolution of anything.
HUANG: You've advised presidents before on the Middle East. And so if you were advising President Trump, what's the one thing you would tell him ahead of tomorrow's meeting?
HAASS: I would advise the president to use his leverage, and he's gained an awful lot. He's probably the most popular man in Israel - let's be blunt about it - because of Iran, because of what he's done over the years. And I would think that now is the time for this president to use that influence, to use that standing to push the Israelis on Gaza, to bring about not just a temporary ceasefire of 60 days but to build on that afterwards and more broadly to push the Israeli on the Palestinian issue across the board. There's been - some 22 new settlements have been opened up in the West Bank, what the Israelis called Judea and Samaria. That's increasingly making any solution of the Palestinian issue far more remote. So I think there's a lot that could be accomplished here by President Trump, and I hope he makes this a priority.
HUANG: That was Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, and author of the Substack newsletter, Home & Away. Thank you so much for joining us.
HAASS: Thank you. Transcript provided by 91福利, Copyright 91福利.
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