MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to continue the conversation with Daniel Shapiro. He served as U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration and is now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Good morning, ambassador. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us.
DANIEL SHAPIRO: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So Hamas says it's prepared to move forward on President Trump's 15-point plan for ending the war. But Prime Minister Netanyahu insists that Hamas fully disarm before Israel withdraws. Let's listen to another quote from Trump's envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner. This was on Fox News following his meeting with Netanyahu yesterday.
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JARED KUSHNER: If Hamas actually gives over the weapons and the tunnels, you know, willingly over the next 60 to 90 days, that obviously would be the elimination of a huge security threat for Israel. Almost an unthinkable achievement.
MARTIN: So listening to this, it seems that Kushner and the administration seem fairly optimistic that Hamas is willing to disarm, and Israel does not seem to be. Now I'm asking you - I recognize I'm asking you to read these tea leaves from the outside, but based on your experience, which perspective do you think is warranted at this point?
SHAPIRO: Look, there's a significant amount of misdirection, spinning, time-buying and politics playing out by all parties. And underlying it all is a huge amount of mistrust. Hamas did make these commitments to disarm in the meeting in Cairo. But there's really no reason to believe them, that this terrorist organization, which is ideologically committed to armed struggle and hopes to hold onto power, will actually follow through.
There's a long history of Hamas seeming to reach agreements and then loading them up with caveats. So they'll try to wriggle out of them or at least find a way to retain some ability to maintain weapons, even if there's new Palestinian political leadership in Gaza. But in the Israeli side, you have this very loud rejection of the roadmap that's been proposed and an insistence that they won't withdraw before full disarmament, despite what Jared Kushner and the Board of Peace have described as a step-by-step process.
And they've also said they won't allow any limitation on their actions, military actions, against Hamas in Gaza. But at the same time, they're taking some measures to advance various aspects of the plans, maybe a partial withdrawal to that yellow line that was the 53% mark of Gaza that they controlled when the ceasefire was announced in October. Maybe somewhat fewer strikes in Gaza, authorizing some of these humanitarian projects and a temporary housing facility, and at least setting the stage for the new Palestinian technocratic leadership and the international stabilization forces to come in.
So if you've worked in this area before, you can be familiar with this, what I call a Netanyahu two-step. He makes certain commitments to the international community and to try to ensure President Trump that he's on his side. And he says to the Israeli public, especially as he gets close to a very pivotal election, in Hebrew that he's rejecting everything that's been asked of him.
MARTIN: So I do think it's clear that the administration would like something - the Trump administration would like something to happen. So what leverage would you say that the administration has with Israel that they would actually be willing to use?
SHAPIRO: In the short term, the leverage is primarily political. Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing this very difficult reelection where there's a great deal of criticism by his political opponents, by much of the Israeli public that he allowed October 7 to happen, that he promised total victory, which, of course, has not emerged, that other things that have happened since then, like the Iran War, have not gone very well. But he's looking for an endorsement or some other kind of indication from President Trump, who remains somewhat popular in Israel, though less than he used to be, that he favors Netanyahu's reelection.
So dangling that possibility, as President Trump did on Fox News, that he might endorse Prime Minister Netanyahu actually gives the administration some leverage in the short term to try to move this process at least marginally forward. But I think they are realistic that there's not going to be a major breakthrough during this period leading to the election.
MARTIN: Who's they?
SHAPIRO: That's the best that can happen.
MARTIN: You say you think they're realistic. Who's the they in that sentence?
SHAPIRO: I think the Trump administration is realistic that they're trying to bridge perhaps unbridgeable gaps, and the best result that they can get is these sort of contradictory statements and understandings by all parties on the timing and sequence of disarmament and withdrawal, who will collect and destroy the weapons, whether Israel's obligated to refrain from further strikes. So in the best case, it's going to take months to make even modest progress. There's lots of mistrust, lots of room for spoilers.
MARTIN: OK. I think that's all the time we have for now. So thanks for giving us your insights once again. That's Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel. Thanks once again.
SHAPIRO: Thank you, Michel. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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