The Excerpt podcast: What is the future of Gaza?

On Sunday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: Who will run the Gaza Strip after the Israel-Hamas war runs its course? That's what we're discussing today with Mustafa Barghouti, a onetime Palestinian presidential candidate and the current leader of the Palestinian National Initiative. The PNI is a political party formed in the West Bank more than two decades ago. It is often described as a "third force" in Palestinian politics that is opposed to both the Fatah political party, which runs the West Bank through its control of the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas, which has been in control of Gaza since 2007, when it ousted the PA from power there. Is a unity government with all parties represented the best path forward?

Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here

Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

Kim:

Hello and welcome to the Excerpt. I'm USA TODAY World Affairs correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard. Today is Sunday, December 10, 2023.

Who'll run the Gaza Strip after the Israel-Hamas War runs its course. That's what we're discussing today with Mustafa Barghouti, a one-time Palestinian presidential candidate, and the current leader of the Palestinian National Initiative. The PNI is a political party formed in the West Bank more than two decades ago. It is sometimes described as a third force in Palestinian politics that is opposed to both the Fatah political party, which runs the West Bank through its control of the Palestinian authority and Hamas, which has been in control of Gaza since 2007 when it ousted the PA from power there. Mustafa, thanks for joining today's show.

Mustafa:

Thank you. Good to be with you.

Kim:

Over the last two months, there's been a number of ideas put forward by different groups and governments about what they think should happen to Gaza when the war ends. A lot of this may be pie-in-the-sky type thinking, because we of course don't know how the war will end. It's also important to acknowledge that Gaza appears to be on the verge of collapse from a humanitarian perspective. As Israel continues to ramp up its military campaign in Southern Gaza what or indeed who will be left in Gaza to govern it by the time this war ends is not clear. Nevertheless, Mustafa, can you start us off by giving a brief overview of what you see as the various ideas circulating for Gaza the day after the war concludes?

Mustafa:

Sure. But before that, I must tell you that really it is very hard to talk about what will come after while we have this situation in Gaza because it is very, very dangerous situation. There is a huge number of casualties. There is a collapse of humanitarian situation, really terrible. You are talking about 64,000 Palestinians killed or injured, that is 3% of the population. So we have to first stop this war. It is very important that there is an immediate and complete ceasefire, and I hope that the United States will stop objecting to that because the ceasefire is a precondition. Now talking about the different options, we've had several scenarios. I mean something like bringing back the Palestinian authority to Gaza or talking about a renewed Palestinian authority or talking about creating some kind of new structure or bringing in international presence or some other presence. So many ideas are thrown and I think none of them is correct and none of them is viable and none of them can get legitimacy.

Kim:

Thank you for that. I want to focus in on just one of the options. So the Biden administration has said, for example, that it wants a revitalized Palestinian authority to run Gaza after the war. Would this, in your view, be acceptable to the majority of Palestinians?

Mustafa:

Look, first of all, what does revitalize mean? If it means, as Mr. Biden said, a Palestinian authority or a government must be acceptable to Israel, I ask the question, does the American president say that any government in Israel should be acceptable to Palestinians? If not, why should this standard be there? I think it is an unacceptable standard. The only government that the Israelis would agree with or accept is a group of collaborators who are ready to work under Israeli control and under Israeli security total control. And who would serve the Israeli interest of continuing and maintaining long-term occupation of Gaza while this structure that would work under their control would have to take care of the humanitarian needs of the occupied people? It's Israel's way to get rid of the responsibility of an occupier by shifting it to somebody else, but somebody else that is under their control, completely under their thumb.

Even the Palestinian authority, they are not accepting. The main thing that the world must understand, that we, the Palestinians, will never accept any arrangement that separates Gaza from the West Bank. It has to be one government for both places. It has to be a national unity government because the existing government cannot do that, and it has to be for a very short period of time, and there should be a date for new elections. We should have our right for free democratic choice. Palestinians will not accept the patronage of anybody else, and we would not accept that somebody else should rule us. Why should we accept that? We have the right to rule ourselves.

And the best way of creating our leadership is through democratic free elections, had we have the democratic elections in 2021 when we were just about to have them, and unfortunately Israel obstructed them. The USA did not support them, and the Palestinian authority canceled them. If we had these elections, we would not be in this situation and we would not have had this war. And by the way, at that time, all the polls were showing that neither Hamas nor Fatah would get an absolute majority. We would have ended with a true democratic pluralistic system and we would have ended the internal division. It would have been a new structure, a new government elected democratically by the people, and that would have a unified government for both West Bank and Gaza.

Kim:

I'd like to touch on Hamas now if I can. So following the October 7th Hamas attack that killed at least 1200 Israelis, Israel has vowed to destroy the group as both a military and governing entity. But Hamas and its supporters, as you'll know, are deeply embedded in every sector of Gazan society. It's not just the government. Hamas runs charities, it runs mosques, sports teams, jails, schools, youth groups. And it's probably worth mentioning that there is some limited surveys and input from Palestinian analysts and anecdotal evidence that indicates that support from Hamas amongst Palestinians had actually gone up since October 7th. So the question is this, is it realistic to expect that Gaza can be run without Hamas? Does Hamas, in your view, have some role to play whatever Israel Palestinian authority, the U.S. and the broader Arab world might have to say about that?

Mustafa:

As I said, that's what I meant by National Unity Government. A national unity government should have representatives of all people that are elected by the public or could be elected by the public and all parties without exception. And I think that the real Israeli goal is not really to destroy Hamas. I think they are saying so because they know very well that it is impossible to destroy Hamas. Hamas is much bigger than just an organization. It's a combination of ideology, way of thinking, et cetera. So they know they cannot destroy Hamas. But the most important thing, in my opinion, to achieve a situation where we could initiate a process that could lead to a two-state solution, as everybody says, is to have a national unity leadership and a national unity government, and then definitely have three democratic elections.

Kim:

There have been reports suggesting that Israeli and U.S. officials are discussing the idea of expelling thousands of lower-level Hamas militants from Gaza as a way to shorten the war. This idea, as some people have suggested of course, recalls the U.S. broker deal that allowed then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and thousands of his fighters to flee to Beirut during Israel's 1982 siege of the Lebanese capital. What do you make of this? I appreciate, like I said, I appreciate what you've been saying about a broader concerted effort to push potentially many people into Egypt, but this is a more narrow way of-

Mustafa:

And it's a very dangerous one.

Kim:

Can you react to that?

Mustafa:

It's a very dangerous narrow description. Why? Because this can be used to justify the ethnic cleansing of anybody. They could start with a few thousand and then few more thousands and so on and so forth. That's one issue. You are dealing with a very dangerous establishment in Israel that is really capable of manipulating things in a very efficient way. So they start by saying, we just want to expel those who are supporting Hamas. How can they know who is supporting and who's not supporting Hamas? It's impossible, but it would be an easy way to make the world accept a gradual ethnic cleansing of the population of Gaza.

Now, in terms of comparing what happened in 1982 Yasser Arafat and this group in Lebanon, and what could happen in Gaza, it's a totally different situation. Yasser Arafat and Fatah group and the PLO group was in a different country. They were guests in another country called Lebanon. And at the moment when Arafat realized that him remaining in Beirut would mean the total destruction of Beirut, he decided to leave and he went to another country and then came to Palestine. But in this case, in Gaza, you are talking about people who are in their country in Palestine. Where would they go? They have to stay in their country and none of them would accept to be transported to another country. These guys, if you talk about Hamas fighters, they are ready to die and not leave. That's why I think this comparison is unacceptable and it's incorrect. And my worry is that the way it is put could be used as a justification for gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to Egypt, something that Egypt is refusing and something that Palestinians are refusing.

Kim:

Thank you, Mustafa. I want to ask one more. Are there only bad options here in terms of what happens to Gaza the day after the war ends, if we can put it that way?

Mustafa:

No. There are can be better options than what is proposed. And the best option is really to immediately form a national unity Palestinian government. And when I say unity government, it doesn't mean necessarily that every party exactly will be represented there, but it has to be a government accepted by all Palestinian parties. And such a government could become the government of both West Bank and Gaza for a transitional period of time and with a date for elections, let's say, in a year from now. And that way we can have a democratically elected structure, a democratically elected government that would take care of the needs of the Palestinian people.

When it comes to Gaza, of course, the Israelis have destroyed so much, and the devastation is beyond description. I think their goal has been to make Gaza unlivable and to make the north of Gaza impossible to live in. And now they're moving to the south and continuing with the destruction. I believe that there would be a big issue here about reconstruction, of course, of what was destroyed. That should not be only the international community responsibility. I think Israel should also be responsible and Israel should provide compensation for much of what they have destroyed since it is their responsibility.

Kim:

Mustafa Barghouti, thanks for joining the show.

Mustafa:

Thank you. You take good care.

Kim:

Thanks to our senior producer Shannon Rae Green for her production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts at USAToday.com. Thanks for listening. I'm Kim Hjelmgaard. Taylor Wilson will back tomorrow morning with another episode of The Excerpt.