LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Let's bring in Aaron David Miller to discuss. He worked at the State Department for more than 20 years as an adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations for both Republican and Democratic administrations. He's now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Good morning, Aaron, and welcome back to the program.
AARON DAVID MILLER: Good morning, Leila. Thanks for having me.
FADEL: So what is different today versus nine months ago when the Gaza deal was signed, including a requirement that Hamas would disarm?
MILLER: What's different is the president's announcement, which appears to be based on an additional 15-point memorandum, brokered presumably by the key coordinator Nicholas (ph) Mladenov, which, according to the president, suggests a fairly structured and detailed process by which Hamas would demilitarize, disarm in relationship to Israeli withdrawal. But as usual, Leila - and it clearly would be historic, incredible, if in fact the process of implementation works. But like most things in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and politics, there are really only two speeds, slow and slower.
FADEL: (Laughter).
MILLER: And at the moment, color me skeptical. We'll see in days and weeks ahead. Within 14 days, according to the mediators, work on this will begin, perhaps even the beginnings of some progress. But it's going to be a heavy, heavy lift.
FADEL: I mean, we're already hearing, though, disagreement about who goes first, which has been the case for months, right? How does that get resolved? Because Hamas is saying Israel has to withdraw, and then we disarm. And Israel is saying, no, we won't go first.
MILLER: I mean, it's going to require a degree of diplomatic skill and pressure on both the Israelis and on Hamas by the Turks, the Qataris, the Egyptians, but mainly, with respect to the Israelis, by the president. And we should, I think, be very sober about this. Following the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, it took seven years. Seven years for the IRA and the paramilitaries, protestants, to demilitarize.
And that was a process that was done under international supervision. It was done relatively discreetly, in an effort not to embarrass the parties. And it offered these armed groups a role in governance, in effect, in a new political system. None of this exists here. And you have profound mistrust and lack of confidence, in the wake of October 7 and Israel's response in Gaza, between the two. And you also have Israeli elections.
So it's going to take President Trump an enormous amount of work, and his mediators. Presumably, he would delegate, I guess, his son-in-law and his best friend, Steve Witkoff, to handle this. My concern is this has all the markings of the Iran-U.S. memorandum of understanding, which has turned more into a memorandum of misunderstanding. It would be terrific if this works. I just wonder if Hamas and the current government in Israel are invested in this and want to make it work.
FADEL: I want to talk more about that in a moment. But I first want to go back to the actual mechanism of how this would work. What is the mechanism?
MILLER: Well, according to what we understand, Hamas' civilian police - and there are thousands - would first transfer their weapons to a new Palestinian police force, which would come under the supervision of this technocratic government, the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which hasn't even entered Gaza. Hamas' heavy weapons would then be decommissioned and placed in secure storage, presumably under someone's supervision. Hamas has made clear it cannot be under Israel's. And its tunnels, which are still probably half the length - functional tunnels - half the length of the New York subway system, and its weapons factories for making IEDs and weapons would also have to be dismantled.
And then, of course, in something that I find to be completely detached from reality, as far as Hamas is concerned, its small arms and weapons would be collected. And all of this would somehow be under the authority of this technocratic civilian government, the so-called National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, that hasn't even entered Gaza.
FADEL: And really quick, I mean, how does this work when Israel is still bombing, still occupying areas - most of Gaza - despite the ceasefire, and Hamas is still technically the government in Gaza?
MILLER: It doesn't. And I think you just broke the code. Add to that the fact that you've got increasing Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and violence there. And it just seems to me that more often than not, more likely than not, Gaza is likely to remain divided, dysfunctional and, I'm afraid, tragically, sporadically violent.
FADEL: Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thank you, Aaron.
MILLER: Thank you, Leila. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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