ההסכם עם החמאס ומדינות ערב - פרשנות

And joining us now to discuss the Gaza peace deal is Steve Yates. He's a senior fellow for national security policy at the Heritage Foundation. Steve, as always, thank you so much for joining us now. One of the deal is to release all remaining hostages. President Trump saying as soon as Monday or Tuesday now, Israel will release roughly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and withdraw its troops to an agreed upon line. What will this peace deal look like in practice? Well, that is the first acid test. There should never have been hostages taken. It should be stunning to people no matter what their view is of how the war has been conducted over time. You were talking about a very few people left alive after two years being returned, some remains being returned, and thousands of people who have engaged in likely combatant behavior going back the other way. It's an uneven deal, but it is the price for peace. Israel sounds ready, willing, and able to go in that direction with the backing of the United States. But I think deeply behind this, success or failure on this rests with the Abraham Accords Coalition doing its magic to help be the peacekeepers, help enforce the terms, and be the investors for reconstruction and development to try to hold the peace. It's really ultimately that revival of the Abraham Accords Coalition and maybe growing it that will be more significant than the US and Israel and the leaders in the Palestinian areas at this point. Indirect talks, of course, were held in Egypt, but part 15 of the plan says the Temporary International Stabilization Force, or ISF, will work with Israel and Egypt to help secure border areas along with newly trained Palestinian police forces. What do you make of the mention of Egypt here? Well, Egypt obviously matters, a very, very important neighbor to this very territory, and conspicuously did not open its border through this two-year period for migrants to flow out of the Palestinian areas into Egypt's sovereign territory. It is, I think, kind of an indication of why this is step 15 and not step five. That is the mix of the countries that will be involved in this and what kind of role actual military or military-like personnel will play in this territory to help enforce the peace is going to be a sticky issue to go through. Watching out for other foreign influences that are either the surrogates for Iran that were Hamas or others reviving in different names, it's going to be a constant gardening exercise to make sure weeds don't grow. Hopefully, there's enough momentum with these Arab allies, including Egypt, to be a positive force for reconstruction and reconciliation. That would give Israel room to breathe. It would give the United States a lot of latitude to work for that broader positive regional agenda that the Abraham Accords envisioned in the first place. Of course, before the October 7th attacks, the Saudis were in talks to join the Abraham Accords. Now, with this deal now signed, how likely are we to see the Abraham Accords expand, and which countries would likely sign on? Well, in theory, I think that it was an historic framework, really just, I think, a once-in-a-century kind of strategic event that could change the way people think and organize in a meaningful way, affecting global energy markets, affecting global security. It was really just that profound. I see the Abraham Accords platform as immensely important and valuable and worthy of expansion. There was good reason to believe Saudi Arabia would be a natural partner in that at some point. I think we'd have to just candidly assess, how does this process unfold with the Gaza ceasefire? And as things look to move in the right direction, and cooperation is positive among the right partners, that will just make the environment more natural for Saudi Arabia and others to say, yes, this is a framework that is good for our interests, good for the region, and we want to be a part of it. Zooming out a bit here, Steve, during your time as Deputy National Security Advisor at the White House, the war on terror pivoted the U.S. focus and resources to the Middle East and away from China. Now, you're actually just in Taiwan, so how is Beijing likely watching this peace deal and what that means for its calculus in terms of a possible invasion on Taiwan? Well, we can forever analyze how Beijing is going to look, and we will, of course, because it's important and it's hard to understand in no small part because Beijing is not transparent about what it's going to do. But obviously, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines have been on the receiving end of some bullying and aggressive territorial claims and aggressive military modernization seeks to overwhelm them across that first island chain and beyond. And China, in some ways, has to be conflicted in this regard because the more the United States is credited with making peace and trying to tell people to not change the status quo by force, but by economic and political negotiations only, that's an implicit message to Beijing, too, that it should not be looking to change the status quo in the Indo-Pacific by force, instead by economic and political negotiations only. That's the way they should look at it. Now, of course, they also love to see the United States tied down in Europe, the Middle East, and then maybe have a freer hand in the Indo-Pacific. But with a new, more conservative government coming in in Japan, with the Philippines awakened, and with the United States maybe getting the first taste of success in the Middle East, Beijing should look more seriously about this non-military approach to achieving some objectives.