Bonus: What He Learned Negotiating With Hamas

Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove

Guest

Gershon Baskin

Gershon Baskin is a writer and activist from Israel who has carried back-channel messages to and from Hamas for seventeen years and was deeply involved with the prisoner exchange for former Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit ten years ago.

Episode Summary

Twenty-four hostages were released by Hamas following their capture during the October 7th invasion of Israel. But how do the two warring sides find common ground and arrive at an agreement in the midst of a war? Gershon Baskin, a writer and activist from Israel, has carried back-channel messages to and from Hamas for seventeen years and was deeply involved with the prisoner exchange for former Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit ten years ago. In this special episode of One Decision, Baskin tells us what it takes to secure such a complicated, multi-layered agreement, as well as how the latest hostage deal and temporary ceasefire has been received by the public in Israel.

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Transcript

INTRODUCTION

Mcfarlane: You're listening to an update from One Decision, the podcast that looks at the choices made that shape our world. I'm your host, Julia McFarlane. The long awaited deal between Israel and Hamas brokered by the United States and Qatar finally yielded results on Friday in the form of a shaky temporary ceasefire. 13 Israeli hostages, including several Thai nationals and one Filipino citizen, were released from captivity in Gaza. And nearly 40 Palestinian women and children were released from Israeli prisons in the West Bank. The International Committee of the Red Cross have been deeply involved in the operation, facilitating the release and transfer of hostages in Gaza and prisoners and detainees in the West Bank. The transfer was tense, and an angry crowd had gathered in Ramallah, waiting for prisoners to be released after the news broke of Israeli hostages being freed in Gaza. Less than a quarter of those on the Palestinian list have been convicted. The vast majority of Palestinians are being held while awaiting trial, nearly half of them under the age of 18. The Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, speaking on Al Jazeera, said that the group was fully on board with the ceasefire, although he warned that their commitment relied on Israel holding up their end of the bargain. Meanwhile, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel was committed to the return of all outstanding hostages. The four day truce got off to a shaky start, but appears to be holding up so far. The deal also allows for more fuel trucks to enter Gaza daily during the pause and hostilities. Dozens of trucks entered Gaza from the Egyptian border to the south on Friday. The deal includes a provision that for every further 10 hostages Hamas releases, another twenty four hours will be added to the truce. Today, I wanted to hear the thoughts of someone who has not only been a lifelong and eloquent advocate for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but someone who has also been deeply involved in the types of negotiations going on right now between the two sides. Gershon Baskin, an activist and writer, was one end of a secret line of communication between Israel and Hamas for seventeen years. On the other end of that line was Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official based in Gaza. The New York Times' Patrick Kingsley has written a fascinating study on the complicated relationship between these two men and how the attack on the October 7 led to its breakdown, and I very much recommend it to our listeners. But in the meantime, Gershon Baskin was kind enough to jump down the line and talk to me about the scenes unfolding right now in Israel. The first of hopefully numerous hostage exchanges to come, bringing both relief to family members of those being released and continued anguish for those who still wait for news of their loved ones. I asked Gershon, first of all, how this was going down among the Israeli public, given the mounting pressure on Netanyahu and his government to save all of the hostages who are still being held.

INTERVIEW

Baskin: I think there's been a shift, a sharp shift of public opinion since the beginning of the war. During the first week of the war, Israeli public opinion was mobilized entirely towards removing Hamas' ability to govern Gaza and to threaten Israel anymore. It was the war effort. It was the dismantlement of Hamas and the killing of the Hamas leaders. By the end of the first week, the voices of the families of the hostages were being held more. The pictures of hostages of children and women and elderly people were being seen all over the country. Now you can't walk anywhere in the country without seeing these pictures of the kidnapped hostages all around the country, everywhere, every place you go. Every night on television, we hear stories from the families. This is a very compelling issue for the Israeli public, but it does conflict with the ultimate war effort. We are essentially negotiating with people that Israel intends to kill. And there's no one in the country — I shouldn't say no one. Almost no one in the country who doesn't want Israel to complete the aims of the war. There is some concern amongst people in this country from the right wing in particular who think that the four day pause in fighting is working against Israeli interests, but I think that's a minority opinion as was seen in the vote of the Israeli government, the ministers, the overwhelming majority voted for this deal. And are even in favor, if possible, if Hamas agrees to extend the four days to five, six, seven, eight, as many as was required to get all the civilian hostages out of Gaza. That seems to me where the public is mobilized today is to get the civilian hostages home. Of course, there's great concern with the welfare for the young men and young women who are soldiers. I'm afraid that their fate is not going to be resolved in this round of negotiations, and the war effort will begin after, hopefully, we get all the civilians out at least.

Mcfarlane: I was really, really struck by scenes of the family and relatives of Israeli hostages meeting with the government. Angry, furious scenes where a man grabbed hold of a mic and shouted at the Israeli government saying, stop talking about killing Arabs and start talking about saving Jews. What did that moment tell us of where a lot of Israeli society led by the families of the hostages tells us about the mood in Israel now?

Baskin: I think all you have to do is imagine yourself being one of those families. These are people who were not taken off the battlefield. They were sleeping in their homes. They were attacked in a brutal terrorist attack across the border, where the state of Israel failed to do its most basic function, and that's protecting its civilians. The ease at which Hamas breached the Israeli border was demoralizing for every Israeli. Every Israeli felt that they are no longer safe. If before October 7, we had the sense that we had security, on October 7 that collapsed. It explains to a great extent the disproportionate amount of bombing in Gaza because it wasn't really directed at the people of Gaza, but it was more directed at Israel's other enemies in Iran and Lebanon, Hezbollah, to tell them, don't mess with us. We failed. We screwed up. We failed to protect our civilians, and our border was breached. But don't test us. We're not weak. The state is not collapsing. And I think that's also the message that the government has been trying to give to the people. Yes. We messed up. We failed to protect you, but we're gonna do everything to get you back. It's our responsibility. You hear more and more military people in Israel talking about the moral responsibility of the state of Israel to return the hostages. That's not the language usually used by military people. I was very surprised in the first days of the war. Some very right wing former military people in Israel were the first people who came out in public and said, Israel needs to get all the hostages back. And if we have to release all the Palestinian prisoners to do it, we should do it. That was really surprising to hear from some right wing former military people. That's not the sense of the country today. I don't think that Israel is ready for the all for all deal. There are 7,200 Palestinian prisoners. Amongst them, there are 559 serving life sentences for murdering Israelis and another 130 terrorists who were caught in Israel on October 7. And since the war has begun, Israel has captured at least 300 Hamas people inside of Gaza. So it's unthinkable that Israel would make that deal. But even if these negotiations are successful now and we do manage to get all the civilian hostages out of Gaza, there will remain 50 or 60 or 70 young Israeli men and women who are considered by Hamas to be soldiers even if they're not all soldiers. And Hamas will continue to demand the release of all Palestinian prisoners, all 7,200. And I don't think that the public, no matter how many stories we hear, will accept that because the public is really angry now about the deal that was made in 2011 that I was part of negotiating to release 1,000 prisoners for Gilad Shalit, for one Israeli soldier.

Mcfarlane: That's interesting. Talk to me about that, because obviously I would love to hear your thoughts about how you think these negotiations have gone down, drawing on your past experience. But I'm just very interested in what you say about how the mood has changed, how that historic prisoner swap, the thousand Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier. What do you think has changed within the Israeli public about that in retrospect, and why do you think that that is?

Baskin: Well, it was already for a long time. I've been negotiating with Hamas for seventeen years. And in the last eight years, I've been negotiating, trying to bring back the bodies of two Israeli soldiers who were killed in 2014 and two Israeli civilians who have been in Gaza since 2014. And the instructions I have received from the people in the Ministry of Defense who are in charge of this file have told me over and over again to relay to Hamas that there will never be another Shalit deal. Those exact words are the words that I transmitted to Hamas people. That even before October 7, there was a resolve in Israel that never again would so many dangerous Hamas people be released from prison in exchange for Israeli hostages. My sense was always that you can make statements theoretically like that, but when you deal with reality, things might change. I think that today, there is a possibility that Israel would agree to release prisoners who have, as they call it, blood on their hands, prisoners who killed Israelis, if they could get more hostages out, if they could get some of the soldiers out. I think that Israel would. I think though as opposed to the past, they would not make deals that those prisoners would be released to places where they can't get them. Even the prisoners being released now, the women and the youth prisoners, the teenagers who are going to be released, they'll be released to East Jerusalem and to the West Bank, and the Israelis will have their eyes on them. And if these people pose any risk to Israel's security, they will be rearrested or worse by Israel. And I think that would be the case in a future prisoner release of people who have murdered Israelis as well. Most people don't know this, but every person who was responsible for abducting Gilad Shalit and holding him in captivity for five years and four months is not alive today. Every single person, including the guards who watched him for the five years that he was in captivity, they're not alive. So I think that the mood in Israel, and particularly within the government and the military, is that anyone who tries to mess with Israel, who's released in this deal, is going to pay the ultimate price. They're not going to be around for very long. There's no trust between Hamas and Israel. There shouldn't be any trust. These two parties are negotiating through third parties with the basic intent of annihilating each other. And as I made that statement earlier today on Israeli television, the person on the Israeli television said, let's hope that only one of those sides are right.

Mcfarlane: That's interesting. Does that basically mean that these negotiations and the conversations that have been going on, obviously not directly, but through intermediaries, the fact that both sides are committing to the end of the other, has this all just been a big elaborate dance directed and aimed at each of the party's respective backers? Perhaps, obviously the Americans have been putting a huge amount of pressure on the Israeli government. The Qataris, Egyptians have been involved on Hamas' side, and Hamas is running out of cards to play, obviously, because they've lost all their numbers. They've lost a huge amount of infrastructure through the airstrikes. What are your thoughts on how this has been playing out? Is this more about balancing all the different sort of viewpoints rather than actually getting both sides to be in a space where they can actually be constructive with each other?

Baskin: No. I think that Hamas made a huge miscalculation. I think, first of all, they didn't think that they would breach the Israeli border as easily as they did. I'm not sure that they planned to do the horrific atrocities that they committed inside of Israel either. It happened, they were out of control. I think they did want to kill as many Israelis as possible. I don't think they actually planned to do some of the really horrific things that they did. But they can't be excused in any way. The killing of three hundred and seventy innocent Israelis at a music festival is inexcusable. And that was a bloody massacre. The burning of families in their homes, the killing of children in front of their parents or parents in front of their children, and then taking them hostage is something which they crossed the line that separates humanity from the rest. And I think that the Israeli commitment now to ensuring that Hamas ceases to exist as a movement, as a body controlling the territory next to Israel, is sincere. Hamas did not calculate that. I think that the leaders of Hamas, I just heard one of them speak on Al Jazeera, believe that they will come out of this war as they have from the other battles with Israel since 2007, still running Gaza. They will look around and see the enormous damage. They have the kind of attitude that the more damage and the more killing Israel does, the stronger they will grow as a political force. I think they have no sense of reality in examining their own situation. There is no scenario that I can imagine where Hamas is in power of Gaza at the end of this war, and that where their leaders are still alive. They will try to hurt Israel as much as they can. They will kill as many soldiers as they can. But Israel is a giant compared to Hamas in terms of power and its ability to do damage. I hope and pray that the killing of civilians in Gaza will be very limited. It's been much too extensive so far. Far too many civilians have died as a result of this war than should have died. And I think Israel needs to take great care because at the end of this war, there's still gonna be 7,000,000 Palestinians and 7,000,000 Israeli Jews living on the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and we're gonna have to wake up from this disaster, this catastrophe, and figure out how we're gonna look forward and not just backwards. We've been spending a hundred years looking backwards and blaming each other and victimizing each other, and we need to get out of this horrific cycle where we've been killing each other and destroying each other.

Mcfarlane: I just wanted to ask you finally. There have been reports in the media that this deal, this hostage deal, could have happened sooner. There have been reports that Hamas have offered to release hostages in exchange for certain respite in the fighting. There have been claims that Netanyahu has vetoed that. That's been going on for several weeks. Why do you think it has taken so long to get this deal across the line? What do you think has been the delay given your experience in dealing in this kind of space in managing both Israeli expectations and how on earth you sit down and talk to people like Hamas with everything that they've done and the history there. How do you think this has been playing, and what has been the difficulty this particular round? And I'm sure, of course, the scale of what happened on October 7 had a lot to do with it.

Baskin: I published the word for word transcripts of my dialogue with Ghazi Hamad from the first day of the war, from October 7. And anyone who wants to look at it can find my blog and see it. But I wrote there, I think, from day two or day three of the war that I proposed the deal of all the women, children, elderly, sick, and wounded in exchange for all the women and teenage prisoners in Israel. So the deal's been on the table. I communicated that deal with members of the Israeli war cabinet, with other people in Hamas in addition to Ghazi Hamad, with the Qataris, and with the Egyptians. So the deal has been out there. It has taken a long time to materialize, and it is true that it was on the Israeli table officially for at least ten days, and it was vetoed by Netanyahu. There is an assumption on the Israeli side, which I don't agree with, that the military pressure on Hamas will create a better possibility for a better deal with Israel, for more hostages, for less time of a ceasefire. And it is believed that the military pressure is what brought Hamas to make the deal in the end. I disagree entirely. I know that two weeks ago, the Egyptian intelligence was expecting to receive a list of hostages that Hamas was ready to free. And when the Israeli army surrounded the city of Gaza and began penetrating inside the city of Gaza, Hamas froze that process. I think it could have been done at least two weeks ago. It could have been done before then. But we live in a world of associations and assumptions that are based on the incorrect analysis of what the other side wants. There are endless discussions in Israel about Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, and what he wants to achieve, what his goals are, how his mind works, is he rational or is he not rational. There are hundreds, probably thousands of hours of so called experts sitting around tables in Israel trying to figure out who these people are and what they want. And I think that Hamas has a misunderstanding of Israel as well, which pretty much sums up their miscalculation of Israeli behavior. And you're a 100% correct saying that a lot of the Israeli response is part of this need for revenge because the pain of October 7 is so tremendous. October 7 was the most traumatic event to Israel and the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Think about that. Since the Holocaust, we have not experienced this kind of trauma. And without making comparisons, the Palestinians have not experienced this kind of trauma since 1948 and their Nakba. So we are dealing with experiences of emotional height that we have never seen in this conflict before. And that's what additionally makes it so difficult for us to deal with each other and why there's no readiness on the part of Israel or Hamas to talk to each other directly. I, on the other hand, am not an official. I've spent forty five years of my life building bridges between Israelis and Palestinians. I have always accepted as a guideline for me in life that I'm willing to talk to anyone who's willing to talk to me, and I'm willing to do almost anything to save human lives. So even tomorrow, if I thought that my talking to Ghazi Hamad could help to save human lives, could help to save the lives of the hostages, and even to save Palestinian prisoners from perhaps going and making a productive life and not wanting to kill Israelis, I would talk to him again, and I would talk to anyone in Hamas or any other movement that wanted to destroy me in order to prevent that from happening.

Mcfarlane: I think it's important what you say about the reminder of the scale of the trauma of October 7, because I think it's something that perhaps a lot of the Israeli public feel the international community has moved on from because of the horrific devastation in Gaza. And I thank you so much for your time. It's really, really interesting hearing your insights. And I wish you all the best, and I will keep watching and waiting and hopefully hearing that as many hostages are safe back to their families. I can't imagine what their relatives have been going through these last few weeks. Terrible nightmare.

Baskin: But I do wanna say, and leave perhaps on one positive note, that I and other people are already working — serious Israelis and serious Palestinians who are trying to work seriously on the day after tomorrow plan on how we're gonna move from this trauma to a better future for all of us.

Mcfarlane: Thank you for the reminder. You have written on your website. You have written a sort of a blueprint. I think it's five or six points that you have suggested things that need to happen now. Thank you so much for your time, Gershon. Please do stay in touch. It was an absolute pleasure to have you on. That's it for this week's episode of One Decision. We drop new episodes every Thursday. Like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Drop us a line. Tell us your thoughts. What decisions have impacted you and where you live? You can write to us. Our email is 1decision@1decisionpodcast.com. From me and the team, thank you for listening, and see you next time.