Jake Sullivan tried to get a Gaza peace deal. Here's what he thinks of Trump's

0:00Hey there, before we get to today's episode, we hope Consider this helps you make sense of the news and that it keeps you company. Whether you're cooking dinner or walking the dog or working out while you're listening, whatever way you listen, we would love to hear from you. So if you don't mind, take a second and leave the show a rating and review. It really does help out. Thank you so much. And here's today's show. There is finally a deal to end Israel's war with Hamas, but we have been here before. It's a very good afternoon. It was January 15th of this year, just days before President Trump was set to take office again.

0:35Outgoing President Joe Biden stepped to the podium and announced a breakthrough. At long last, I can announce a ceasefire and a hostage deal has been reached between Israel and Hamas. The plan was ambitious. The deal is structured in three phases. Phase one will last six weeks. It would start with a ceasefire in the release of dozens of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Phase two would bring a permanent end to the war and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. And in phase three, reconstruction of the Gaza Strip would begin. But by March, it abruptly ended when Israel launched a wave of new airstrikes.

1:16In Gaza overnight, a series of punishing and deadly Israeli airstrikes took Palestinians by surprise.

1:30The next six months would bring some of the bloodiest fighting yet, and bring famine to parts of Gaza. Consider this. A new ceasefire deal has reawakened hopes for an end to the war in Gaza. Will this deal prove more durable than the last?

1:50From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow.

1:59It's Consider This from NPR.

2:22a plan whose outline does closely resemble that of his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. Here to talk about this moment and what is ahead is Jake Sullivan. He served as national security advisor to President Biden and was deeply involved in negotiations and policymaking around the Gaza War. Welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me. Look, let's start. We've been here before. As you deeply know, you and others in the Biden administration helped broker a multi-phase ceasefire in the final days of the administration. Then it fell apart a couple of months later. So what to you may be different now?

2:56Well, first, I think we have to start with the good news, which is we have a ceasefire. The guns have gone silent. Unless something terrible happens, hostages will be coming out and aid will be going in. And these hostages have been living through hell and they're finally going to be reunited with their families. And Palestinian civilians have been living through hell, and they're finally going to get a measure of relief. So there are a lot of questions about what comes next for the long term. But in the immediate term, it does look as though all of the parties have determined that the next step will be ceasefire, hostages, aid relief.

3:33And that formula is a good formula on a very basic human level. I wanted to ask you about something that we heard on our show this morning on Morning Edition. We We talked to veteran hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin, who was involved in these talks. And he told my colleague, Leila Faddle, about what was different this time. And he said President Trump made a difference. Here's what he said. Let's face it. Benjamin Netanyahu and Ron Dermer, his main ally in the Israeli government, support the American Republican Party, not the Democratic Party. They were hostile to Barack Obama. They were hostile to Joe Biden.

4:07And they were very supportive of Donald Trump. So that was one thing. And Biden never had the leverage over Netanyahu that Trump has. I'm curious what your response is to that statement. Well, first, I would say that when President Biden left office, there was, as you said, a ceasefire in place. There were hostages coming out. There was aid going in then. And more importantly, there was a roadmap for a final and comprehensive end to the war. Israel actually walked away from that under President Trump. And we had six more months of fighting. So I'm very glad that President Trump finally came around to the view that this war had to end and applied pressure on Prime Minister Netanyahu.

4:45But I think something else happened as well, which is that Hamas's position got very badly weakened over the course of this time. One year ago today, Hamas's leader, Sinwar, was still alive. There were still Hamas military elements. Today, Hamas is a shadow of its former self, and that's part of why we ended up where we are. Yeah. So I believe that it's a combination of facts on the ground and the fact that it was time for the American president, past time for the American president, in this case, President Trump, to bring pressure to bear to end this war. I do want to ask about one more contrast between Presidents Trump and Biden, that a lot of people in Israel especially have been telling our reporters that they felt like President Trump was much more willing to make direct threats in public, in private, and they felt like that made a difference in getting both sides to try to end this war.

5:35Do you think there's any accuracy to that? Well, I didn't really see direct threats in public against Prime Minister Netanyahu. I've seen some reported threats that he made privately but not publicly. And of course, President Biden had very tough private conversations with Prime Minister Netanyahu. I did see some of the public threats with respect to Hamas, but he made those threats six months ago, and obviously Hamas kept fighting. He's made them recently. So to me, the key thing here is that Israel had no more military objectives to achieve in Gaza, and Hamas had lost a huge amount of its capacity to continue to resist militarily.

6:16And when you put those two things together, this situation was ripe to be resolved. I would argue that it was ripe to be resolved months ago after the first ceasefire came into place and that we've had months of needless fighting. But I am glad that they finally come around to the position where they've got the ceasefire in place. And now I hope that they can make it durable by actually working on the remaining points of this plan. What are your biggest questions about what the Israeli government and military does in the coming months based on all of your experiences dealing with them? Well, a huge question is what actually happens with the disposition of Israeli forces inside Gaza.

6:51They've pulled back to a certain extent, but they, of course, have not fully withdrawn. And then a second main question is what happens to Hamas? To what extent are there Hamas fighters who continue to operate inside Gaza in the future? And then the final question is, who will govern Gaza as we go forward? The right answer is a Palestinian government that does not include Hamas, does not include any terrorist organizations. Is that achievable? I think these are all very difficult and challenging, both logistical and political issues. And it's what the Americans and all of the Arab countries, as well as the Israelis and Palestinians, are going to have to turn to next.

7:31I've noticed that you've been pretty introspective in recent interviews. I read a quote where you said that sometimes you have a hard time sleeping at night just because of the nature of the job you held for four years. I'm wondering, do you in this moment, as you think about things and how this took two years, is there anything you're thinking perhaps if we had done this differently, exerted pressure differently, this war could have ended sooner? Of course I think about that. I think about that all the time because there's been such a massive human toll, a massive human toll for innocent Palestinians, a massive human toll for the hostages and their families.

8:01So I wrestle with that every day, and I don't think I'd be human if I didn't. But I think it's also important to recognize, again, that we left office with a ceasefire in place. And that ceasefire broke down in March. And we've had six months of fighting since President Trump has been president or more than six months of fighting. So I hope the Trump administration is also asking itself the same question. Is there anything they could have done to end the war sooner than now? And is there any lesson that they take from the last time the ceasefire broke down to make sure that it doesn't break down again?

8:35That is Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor under former President Joe Biden. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thanks for having me.

8:46Before we go, we want to tell you to be sure to check back here tomorrow for a new bonus episode, an extended interview with actress Jane Fonda about a new Hollywood effort to protect free speech. Our democracy isn't going to survive with an ethos of every person for themselves. Unity and large numbers is what's critical. Bonus episodes of Consider This are released every other Saturday. They're a perk, along with sponsor-free listening, for our NPR Plus supporters. If that is not you, it could be, and you could help power the journalism you hear on this show. You can learn more at plus.npr.org.

9:21Our regular weekday episodes will always remain free and available. This episode was produced by Catherine Fink and Lina Muhammad with audio engineering by Ted Meebane. It was edited by Christopher Intagliotta. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.