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Front Burner Transcript for July 22, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

JAYME POISSON: Hi everyone, I'm Jayme Poisson.

SOUNDCLIP

MAHMOOD: People are suffering, and they have been struggling for the sake of securing their basic needs.

JP: Last week, our producer, Allie, did an interview using WhatsApp voice notes with Mahmood, a former journalist in Gaza. That's a pseudonym. He asked us not to use his real name out of fears for his safety, for being targeted as a journalist and for the potential impacts on his career. Back in April, a research project from Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs put the number of journalists killed at 232 since October 7th of 2023, making it by far the deadliest conflict for media workers on record. Mahmood has been displaced several times since the start of Israel's military campaign, and he's now living in al-Mawasi, a narrow, sandy strip of coastal land in the south of Gaza that has become a massive camp for people displaced by the war. It was initially designed as a humanitarian zone by Israel, but it has since been targeted by Israeli strikes as well.

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MAHMOOD: I've been living in a tent since I moved from Rafah to Khan Yunis to al-Mawasi area. Living in a tent means that you have to struggle to secure the water for your daily needs, including showering and cleaning and drinking as well. This is the case for everyone who's living in this area. Medical care is a challenge. Securing the basic supplies such as food is also a challenge given districts, a blockade that has been imposed in Gaza since March 2nd.

JP: Mahmood said he's lost around 10 kilos in just the last month or two, and that he's still losing weight. Like others in al-Mawasi, he's trying to get by on local produce however he can.

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MAHMOOD: Locally produced, the eggplants, the squash sometimes. The cucumber, the tomatoes, [unclear] that are cultivated in the very limited slots of land that are remaining intact.

JP: It's very little food, sometimes just a few morsels a day. But he says that that's better than going to one of the food distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an organization backed by the U.S. and Israel. Last week, the UN said that close to 700 Palestinians have been killed in the vicinity of aid distribution sites run by GHF.

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REPORTER: The Palestinians went to get food from a notorious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation site, only to return with gunshot wounds.

TRANSLATOR: Suddenly we saw jeeps coming from one side and tanks from the other, and they started shooting at us. It wasn't shots that were to scare us or organize us, it was shots that were targeted to kill us.

REPORTER 2: A shocking admission in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, that interviewed a lot of different soldiers and commanders talking about how they were given orders to shoot and kill Palestinians who were seeking aid in order to disperse the crowds.

JP: On Sunday alone, at least 85 people seeking aid were killed across Gaza, according to the health ministry.

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MAHMOOD: Given the fact that this war has brought to a halt all the livelihoods that were ongoing. So you have tens of thousands who are willing to get something because they don't have any money, and those people end up being killed and injured. I saw a 17 years old child who was shot because he was going there. I saw his mother, I [unclear] his brother crying and weeping over the fact that they lost him. So, yes, it has been extremely disheartening, and the way things are evolving around those humanitarian centres, so-called humanitarian centres, is extremely, I would say, brutal.

JP: Allie asked Mahmood what he's hearing from people in al-Mawasi about plans announced earlier this month by Israel's Defence Minister to establish what the government is calling a humanitarian city in southern Gaza, but which many, including former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, have referred to as a concentration camp. The plan, according to Defence Minister Israel Katz, would be to establish a zone on the ruins of Rafah that would eventually house the entire population of Gaza, according to Haaretz newspaper. No one would be allowed out except, reportedly, to leave Gaza altogether. It would start by moving 600,000 people primarily from al-Mawasi, where Mahmood is now.

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MAHMOOD: People have been extremely concerned hearing the news about this humanitarian city as described by the Israeli officials. They have been watching the demolition of Rafah city and significant demolitions in Khan Yunis area. So people are worried, and people are aware that the Israeli government is doing anything that they can do for the sake of uprooting the Palestinians from their land, and they perceive that humanitarian city as one more stage towards the transfer from Gaza towards Sinai or toward any other area.

JP: The Israeli government has not been clear as to how the deportation of Palestinians from Gaza might factor into this new potential plan. Officials have previously described the relocation of Gazan civilians as voluntary, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did earlier this month at the White House.

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BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: You know, if people want to stay, they can stay. But if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. It shouldn't be a, you know, prison. It should be an open place.

JP: But rights groups have said that given the starvation, the incessant bombings and shootings by the IDF, and the potential internment in this planned zone in the South, anyone leaving can't be considered to be doing so, quote, "voluntarily." Allie asked Mahmood whether he thought that given that choice, most Gazans would choose to stay or go.

SOUNDCLIP

MAHMOOD: I think the landslide majority of Gazans would decide to stay. I'm concluding this because of the fact that some of the people are still staying in this northern Gaza area where the bombardment is at a peak, and where the, the Israeli quadcopters, the Israeli artillery and the F-16 are just shooting everywhere and destroying the houses and killing entire families, but that did not stop people from wanting to stay in the Gaza North. People choose to stay because this is their homeland. This is my homeland, this is my home, this my city and neighbourhood and country that has been living under occupation for few decades now. People collectively passed the murmurs of the Nakba, the disaster that befell the Palestinians in 1948 and 1967, and they are well aware of the fact that if they are leaving their homeland, whatever is coming is worse than what they have already experienced and witnessed. They understand the occupation want to throw them somewhere to get rid of them, but that there is no real solution for the problem. And they're fed up from staying refugees for all of this time, and they know that this is another displacement, another deprivation, another lack of recognition of their national aspirations, and another very difficult experience trying to get food and water and livelihood and everything else that has to do with leading a sane human life.

JP: Today, we're going to talk more about this planned camp -- whatever term you may use for it -- and the political fallout from it within Israel with Dahlia Scheindlin. She's a pollster and political analyst based in Tel Aviv and a columnist for Haaretz, The Guardian, and others. She's also the author of the recent book, The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel: Promise Unfulfilled.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Dahlia, hi, thank you so much for coming onto Front Burner.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: Thank you for having me on the show again.

JP: It's great to have you. So I wonder if you could tell me more about what the Israeli government has said so far about what this so-called humanitarian city, this camp, would look like in practical terms. Where would it be? How do they say this would work?

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: Yeah. I mean, first of all, let's just point out that the government has not actually stated this is official government policy. The defence minister held a briefing with military reporters and conveyed that this plan is, that it-- the plan exists, that it's an idea, and there wasn't much of a plan for putting the plan into action at that point. This was a couple of weeks ago. But the idea is that Israel would set up a zone basically adjacent to the southern border of Gaza, the boundary with Egypt that leads to the Sinai, that's close to the Rafah border. And that zone would stretch, you know, as far as we understand, from the eastern to the western boundaries of Gaza, which on one side, on the eastern side is Israel, and on the western side is the Mediterranean Sea. And it would take up a little strip from the Rafah border up to what the Israelis have been calling the Morag Corridor. And this is just a small stretch towards the bottom part of Gaza. Now, it's a very small area. And the defence minister said the aim would be to have about 600,000 Palestinians from Gaza who would be moved there -- essentially forcibly transferred, whether he used those words or not. And this is part of the problem, is that, you know, the Israeli government is trying to have some sort of deniability about forcing people. But if that's the only place they can go to get humanitarian aid -- right now people are starving in Gaza, aid is not getting through sufficiently or people are getting killed at the aid distribution centres -- the idea is that they would be basically forced there, um, and vetted for security purposes to try to separate them from Hamas. This is what the, um, defence minister has tried to convey. And so they would be vetted, checked for security, put into this camp -- or allowed into the camp, whichever way you want to, you know, describe it -- and not allowed out or at least not allowed out into Gaza. And the implication [JP: Right.] that most people took away from it or understood, which is not made completely explicit; but various figures within the government, including the prime minister, have been advocating for facilitating the exit of Gazans so that Gazans would be able to leave Gaza for some other place. And they have been talking about that very openly, including on the very same days that the Defence Minister, Israel Katz, was presenting that plan. The prime minister was... was at that time visiting Washington and making statements like we plan to support what he calls freedom of choice for Gazans to leave.

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BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I think President Trump had a brilliant vision. It's called free choice. We're working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always say, that they wanted to give the Palestinians a better future.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: There has been-- The defence minister has talked, you know, at length about advancing what he calls "voluntary emigration," which I think should be put in quotation marks for the same reason we said before. And so it's [JP: Right.] extremely controversial. And we don't know how much of a plan really exists, but we do know that the prime minister instructed the IDF chief of staff to present an actual operational plan for putting that into action. The chief of staff did present a plan to the inner cabinet last week. And the prime minister reportedly said, this plan isn't good enough, it takes too long and it would be too expensive. The plan was set to take about a year, and the chief of staff came back with another plan that would be, uh, have a shorter implementation timeline. And so there's, you know, some debate over whether this is actually something the government is planning on doing or whether it's just an idea that's out there. But my assessment is that you should always take this government and Israel seriously at their word, especially when they start developing plans.

JP: Related to that, the same day that Defence Minister Israel Katz gave this press briefing, the media outlet Reuters reported on a document that was presented to the Trump administration that talked about the construction of camps called humanitarian transit areas to house Palestinians potentially inside and outside Gaza. And those bore the name of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which of course is the U.S.-backed organization in charge of these aid distribution sites, where hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, although GHF has denied that this was a GHF document. Do we know if this document is describing plans for the same so-called humanitarian city that the Israeli government is talking about? Is this just another piece of evidence that people are taking this plan seriously, really talking about putting it into practice?

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: You know, we really don't know. There is so much that is cast into doubt, that is sort of shadowy about all these plans that are out there. Even Reuters reported that it could not independently determine the status of the plan and who actually created it. And as you correctly pointed out, GHF, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, denied it. So there's a lot of kind of shadowy rumors about what things are going-- what, what, what possibilities this government is trying to develop. I think that it fits into what I see in the Israeli government's strategy, or lack of strategy. For at least the last year, if not more, when, you know, already at that point, over a year ago, I would say in early 2024, by spring of 2024, there were senior military figures who were saying that Israel had basically done all that it had to do in terms of military and operational goals in Gaza. And that, you know, each phase of the war since then seems to have cropped up in Netanyahu, in the prime minister's formulations, as suddenly the most important thing. And so there's a sense of a moving target or rolling targets or, you know, whenever one target is achieved or implemented, then there's suddenly brand new ones that are absolutely essential for Israel's security and that the war must continue until that next target is achieved. I'm going all the way back to April 2024, and the plan to-- Israel's plan to invade Rafah at that time. But the city of Rafah...

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER 3: Netanyahu has long been threatening a major military operation in Rafah, what they call the last Hamas stronghold.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I say to the leaders of the world: no amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself. If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: And then later talking about how important it was for Israel to secure the Philadelphi Corridor, which is precisely that border or boundary between Gaza and Egypt. And so all of these things have a quality of Israel really not deciding exactly what the next true military aim is that will achieve the goal it has stated as the aim of the war, which is destroying Hamas's military and governing capacity in addition to achieving-- uh, to getting the hostages, the Israeli hostages released that Hamas, uh, kidnapped on October 7th. There's great skepticism right now among the Israeli public and, again, among many senior military -- and I should say, much more openly, former military figures as well -- that the war is going on for political aims. And those political aims are understood by those critics as advancing the aims of religious fundamentalists within the government. Some of them are in Netanyahu's party. Some of them are his coalition partners from other parties who have been very open about wanting the war to go on. And so all of these fragments of plans and shadowy bits of information, this seems to feed in to the idea that the government is looking for all possibilities not to end the war and essentially strengthen its position as, you know, leading towards the establishment of military government in ways that will help it push Palestinians into a concentrated area, and facilitate the conditions for them to both go to those concentrated areas and then eventually leave.

[music]

JP: I want to talk a bit more about some of the international players reportedly connected to this story. The Boston Consulting Group, which is one of the big three consulting firms right up there with McKinsey, reportedly helped establish this aid group we were just talking about, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. And according to a Financial Times investigation, again, investigative reporting, they also built a financial model that estimated the costs for what they called voluntary relocation of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, which they estimated would cost $23,000 less per person than the cost of providing support to them in Gaza while rebuilding housing there. Boston Consulting Group has now disavowed this work and fired the two partners who were the head of it. But broadly, the UN has been very critical of private initiatives like this. And can you tell me more about potentially others and then what the criticisms are broadly of this?

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: Yeah, I mean, I think all the humanitarian agencies, whether it's the UN or sub-UN agencies, particularly organizations like UNRWA and the other international organizations working in Gaza, have been very critical of this because these plans are essentially, you know, brazen violations of international law and potentially war crimes. Because of the reasons I said before. Because any plan that is designed to create circumstances in which Gaza is unlivable anywhere else, and people cannot survive for lack of food, water, infrastructure, or, you know, normal conditions of life, and they have to move into these camps, um, anybody who's contributing to that is ultimately looked at as either contributing to a potential war crime, and contributing to Israel's overall political aim of, you know, committing that crime.

SOUNDCLIP

UNRWA OFFICIAL: There is nothing humanitarian or humane about seeking to confine, first, 600,000, but then the entirety of the population in Gaza, into a space that is highly vetted by the Israeli forces.

REPORTER 4: UN officials have also condemned the proposal, saying it would amount to a concentration camp.

UN SPOKESPERSON: We continue to stand against any plan that leads to the forced displacement of people or that gives false choices to people of either moving them into a, a pen or staying behind and being labelled as terrorists. It's, it's not a, it's not a choice.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: And so all of the regular humanitarian organizations who are involved don't want to be co-opted for that purpose. And of course, they're going to be against any private companies that they view as serving that purpose or who may actually be serving that purpose. And, and from what we can see in the reporting, the Boston Consulting Group itself has, you know, as you pointed out, disavowed and suspended the people involved, because they of course don't want to be seen to be involved in something like that, if the reporting turns out to be true. And that's exactly what happened. And again, I have no inside information on what happened in Boston Consulting Group or what the plans actually were that were being developed. But, um, you know, these are very grave violations. You know, private organizations that are involved in that are surely, you know, going to be very wary about themselves. But also, international organizations don't want to be tainted by that kind of activity, even as their number one commitment, of course, is to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza. And that's why their primary demand has been to be allowed to continue functioning, and to demand that Israel allow the aid to get in and be distributed properly, um, as opposed to trying to set up these organiza-- these plans that seem to have a political aim.

JP: Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has described this plan for a, you know, so-called humanitarian city as a, quote, "concentration camp."

SOUNDCLIP

NEWS PRESENTER: Olmert added that if Palestinians are deported into the new humanitarian city, it would be part of ethnic cleansing.

JP: As has Yair Lapid, the leader of um, Israel's biggest opposition party.

SOUNDCLIP

NEWS PRESENTER: Lapid went on to say, I don't prefer to describe a humanitarian city as a concentration camp, but if [exiting it] is prohibited, then it is a concentration camp.

JP: Others have used that term as well. And why have they said that that term is warranted here? Obviously, the term evokes comparisons to Nazi-era Germany.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: You know, I think that the comparisons are hard to avoid, frankly. You know, nobody is saying this because they're happy to be Israel bashers. I mean, Ehud Olmert was a former prime minister of Israel. He comes from the Likud Party. He originally came from the Likud Party, which is Netanyahu's party. He moved into a centrist party, but still. Uh, these are not people who are, you know, anything like, I don't know, campus anti-Zionists or something in North America. They, they find this, you know, frankly, something that they can't support in their own conscience, and they want Israeli society to see it like that. They are fully aware of the ramifications of that. But you can't even convey the plan to the public if you want to describe it without talking-- without using words. Like concentrating the population, or thinning out the population in the areas where they are currently living. Most prominently, the Mawasi area, where, you know, many of the internally displaced, or you can call them refugees, even though they're not international, but many of them are living there now. And, you know, the defence minister also conveyed thinning out that population. So it's impossible to avoid the connotations, and I think that, you know, there are Israelis who are shocked by it. And on the other hand, that has fed into the Israeli controversy over the words themselves. [JP: Mm-hmm.] Which sometimes, you know, you think, well, maybe it's good that everybody's having a big argument about, you know, about the destructive nature of such a plan. On the other hand, it's also possible that the discussion about the words being used around it becomes a kind of meta-conversation that distracts people from the actual policy.

JP: Right.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: And so it's a little up in the air. But I certainly think that those people using the term -- including the newspaper I write for, Haaretz, which, you know, used that term in its lead editorial -- um, were trying to convey the actual gravity and severity of this plan.

[music]

JP: Just speaking as a pollster, do you have more of a sense of how the plan is being looked at inside Israel and by Israeli civilians at the moment? Is there polling on it?

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: You know, I have to say, I haven't seen any polling on it yet. I haven't been commissioned to do any polling on that particular point. And I think part of the reason is that, you know, there are so many, again, there are so many of these murky plans that come and go that I think it's... you know, in a way, pollsters can't keep up with every single rumor that goes around. I imagine that if it becomes a more serious plan, there will be polling on it. But I think that right now, the Israeli public is, for the most part, in both a, you know, a kind of simultaneous deep obsession and, you know, real anguish over the fate of the Israeli hostages. That is the number one issue in Israeli society right now. It is overwhelming everything else. And so, you know, this is one of so many horrible stories coming out of Gaza. And Israelis have done an awful lot to try to kind of suppress or repress that in their day-to-day life. They sort of generally know about it. You know, as much as there's been criticism of these kinds of images not being shown on Israeli television, I do think Israelis are highly aware that the situation in Gaza is extremely dire, that, you know, civilians are dying and suffering in, you know, really inconceivable ways. But for the most part, they are, you know, beyond everything else, first of all, concerned with getting a hostage-- with getting the hostages released. And that means that they also support an end to the war, a full ceasefire, in every poll that we, that we-- you know, that has been taken on this issue, for at least a year, if not a year and a half. We always see a majority. But in recent months it's been as much as 75% who would prefer an end to the war for the complete-- for a complete hostage release deal. So that's one side of the equation. But the other side of the equation is that the Israeli public is very belligerent. Particularly the Jewish Israeli public, I should say, because the Palestinian citizens of Israel who are included in polls have, of course, the completely opposite view from the Jewish public. But the Israeli Jewish public makes up about 73% of the population, and they are, they're very belligerent towards Palestinians right now. We had, you know, an infamous survey conducted by researchers at Penn State University showing that over 80% of Israeli Jews would support Palestinians being expelled from Gaza. So, you know, both of those things are true. I think that we're in a very, very bitter war. Israelis not only are still living October 7th because of the hostage crisis, they're still living it in general because it was so, uh, it was such a horrible attack. And it was such a, you know, traumatic attack, and so many people know somebody who was killed or injured or taken hostage that day, not to mention people who've died in the war since. So they have very, very... you know, some of the attitudes they hold are very severe right now. But if the war-- if their first priority is to get the hostages back and end the war, you know, those negative attitudes, as bad as they are, will simply be less relevant if there is a permanent ceasefire. And then we have to think about how to move ahead, you know, towards at least, you know, de-escalation.

JP: Right. The plans for this humanitarian city, they have, again, reportedly been a further sticking point in ceasefire negotiations, right. I saw in a New York Times piece that a senior member of Hamas told the paper that the establishment of this encampment was a, quote, "deliberately obstructive demand." He told the Times that this would be an isolated city that resembles a ghetto, and that no Palestinian would agree to this. This, of course, is not the only thing holding up truce negotiations. So, and just, what are currently, if you could just tell me a bit more about the big sticking points.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: Sure. The longest term sticking point, the real gap that has undermined the success of all of the negotiations so far, is the fundamental conflict between Hamas, which is asking for a complete end to the war and guarantees for a complete end to the war from all of parties who are involved in the negotiations -- primarily from the U.S. and Qatar and Egypt. And Israel, which, you know, the Israeli government has not wanted to commit to an end to the war. And the reasons for that are, um, we can look at the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who... you know, we don't really know if he cares, himself, about owning and annexing Gaza and rebuilding settlements. But he certainly has not done anything to distinguish his views, if they are any different, from that of his coalition partners and the hardliners within his own party.

SOUNDCLIP

[Benjamin Netanyahu speaking non-English language]

TRANSLATOR: At the beginning of this ceasefire, we will enter negotiations for a permanent end of the war, meaning a permanent ceasefire.

[Benjamin Netanyahu speaking non-English language]

TRANSLATOR: If it can't be achieved in 60 days of talks, we'll achieve it by other means -- by using the power of our heroic army.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: It's almost a mistake to talk about hardliners within his own party because most of his party represents attitudes that are frankly indistinguishable from those religious fundamentalist coalition partners.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER 5: The idea is widely endorsed by the ruling Likud Party, including the chair of parliament's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee.

YULI EDELSTEIN (Parliament's Committee Chair): Because it's not about camps, it's about protecting civilians. I don't want any casualties. I'm at war against terrorists. I'm not at war against civilians.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: But of course, it's the coalition partners -- particularly the parties named Religious Zionism and Jewish Power Party, which are basically Jewish supremacist, religious fundamentalist parties. And they have threatened to topple the government and, you know, force elections, early elections, if Netanyahu were to commit to anything that involves ending the war.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER 5: The far right, gleeful at the prospect, say these people will be getting heaven.

FAR RIGHT PARTY MEMBER: They'll get heaven. They'll get everything that they need. They'll get all the supplies, all the treatment that they need. Everything will be given to them there.

REPORTER 5: And to be clear, they can come and go?

FAR RIGHT PARTY MEMBER: Just a second. Not at the beginning.

REPORTER 5: So they can't leave?

FAR RIGHT PARTY MEMBER: That's-- As I've said, at the beginning, no. As long as Hamas is there, and we want to differentiate Hamas from the population.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: Now, Netanyahu doesn't have many other options for coalition partners, partly because of his ongoing corruption trial. We should remember, he is on trial currently for three counts of corruption. He has been giving testimony in his own trial. And as a result, the other parties, the ones in the opposition that you named, are not willing to go into a coalition that he leads, where he is prime minister. And so, those are his only coalition partners. If they leave and Israel goes into elections, he may not win power again. And so, you know, I think... We can't truly know how he makes his decisions, but there's a lot of very incriminating evidence that he has done an awful lot to make sure that there is no ceasefire deal that involves a commitment to a complete end to the war. And that, I think, has been the first, you know, really the first and biggest obstacle, that fundamental divide. I mean, we should not take responsibility off of Hamas here, because holding hostages is a war crime. They should be released unconditionally, all of the hostages. Even military personnel holding them in the way they are as a bargaining chip is also a war crime. So I don't want to, you know, make it sound like it's only Israel as the reason why there's no deal, because Hamas shouldn't have had the hostages to begin with. The other major issue that we know in recent months has been the nature of the redeployment, which is of course tied to the bigger issue. Because Hamas is demanding that Israel withdraw all of its military forces from inside Gaza. Particularly, I think the latest version of that is along the Morag Corridor, which is exactly what we were talking about as the northern edge of that camp that would be established under the defence minister's plan. And the question of the Morag Corridor goes back to the question of whether the camp is even feasible. I mean, we understand that within the army there is some skepticism that the plan for implementing the camp is even feasible, because [JP: Right, right.] if Israel agrees to a redeployment along the kinds of terms that have been discussed in the negotiations up until now, and it has to leave the Morag Corridor, then there can be no camp. So that's why the whole thing becomes murky; circular. But ultimately, I really think it goes back to whether Israel has been willing to commit to a permanent end to the war or whether Hamas is willing to give up on its demand for a permanent end to the war as a condition for releasing the hostages. So those are really fundamental. And then, you know, the talk about a camp like this becomes, again, the latest signal to the, you know, from the Israeli delegation that they don't want to reach a permanent end to the war.

[music]

JP: On Monday, a couple dozen countries -- mostly European but also some others, including Canada -- put out this pretty strongly worded statement saying that the war in Gaza must end now, calling the Israeli government's aid delivery model dangerous, and strongly opposing any steps towards territorial or demographic change in the occupied Palestinian territories. It ended by saying, "We are prepared to take further action to support an immediate ceasefire and a political pathway to security and peace for Israelis, Palestinians, and the entire region." But it didn't clarify what the nature of that action might be. Of course, the United States was not part of this statement. From your perspective, and based on what we have seen from the international community since the start of this conflict, do you expect them to take strong action to try to secure those aims?

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: The only indication I have of that is not because of what I can predict in the future. The only indication I can have is based on what has been done up until now in the past. And there has been very little that the international community has done that would either pressure the sides into ending the war or give them sufficient incentive to do it. There have been small steps, right? There have been small steps that are big signals, like placing sanctions on individual settlers or specific organizations, and strongly worded statements that sanctions are to follow. But, you know, until there is action that actually constrains the activities in policy terms, not just warnings, I don't see that actually turning into anything. And I think the opposite; I think that the more these kinds of statements are issued, and the more Israel sees that there is no real action behind them that makes it impossible for them to continue the war, the more they learn to kind of get around them. Especially with the U.S., you know, with the U.S. apparently not using its leverage to move the sides, you know, finally and firmly to accept a deal. We have the American delegation today saying that Hamas is the reason why a deal isn't being signed. That's also part of the equation. But as long as the U.S., I think, is not able to really push the two sides far enough, it's hard for me to see the international community -- especially the countries you mentioned -- taking those steps. I mean, if I-- I would like to be wrong about this, but based on precedent up until now, it hasn't happened. And I think that, you know, Israel's not going to end this war on its own, is what it, is what it increasingly seems... you know, what increasingly seems to be the case.

JP: Dahlia, thank you very much for this. Appreciate it.

DAHLIA SCHEINDLIN: Thank you very much for having me.

[Music: Theme]

JP: All right, that is all for today. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you soon.

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Plan for Gaza decried as 'concentration camp' - Transcript

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