Speaker 1: It's very difficult for international journalists to get into Gaza,
Speaker 1: and actually the only way that you can really do
Speaker 1: it is to go on what's called an embed with
Speaker 1: the Israeli defense forces, the Israeli army.
Speaker 2: You tell the difference then and an attack.
Speaker 1: Riend should I feel I ought to get my eart.
Speaker 3: Zanni Minton Beadows is the editor in chief of the Economist.
Speaker 1: So I went in with three colleagues and we went
Speaker 1: in a convoy of three humv's in an armored vehicle.
Speaker 1: Why on that one, And we were joined somewhat unusually
Speaker 1: by Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, who is the head spokesman
Speaker 1: of the IDF.
Speaker 3: This journey she's taking into Gaza is one very few
Speaker 3: foreign journalists have been able to make since Israel's bombings began.
Speaker 1: And we crossed what's called the Netzareem Corridor, which is
Speaker 1: essentially a road that the Israelis have built that bisects Gaza.
Speaker 4: You can see offence. Now, this is the this is
Speaker 4: the border, and this is where we put on.
Speaker 1: And we crossed on this bumpy road for seven kilometers
Speaker 1: to the Mediterranean Sea, and every single building I saw
Speaker 1: was flattened or heavily destroyed. I literally did not see
Speaker 1: an intact building. My colleagues who had been in Gaza
Speaker 1: before said it was very, very difficult to recognize here.
Speaker 4: It's just it's it's sort of very organized and complete destruction,
Speaker 4: where on both sides of the roads what you see
Speaker 4: is just piles of rubble.
Speaker 1: We know that around sixty percent of all buildings in
Speaker 1: Gaza have either been damaged or destroyed, and where I was,
Speaker 1: it was essentially flattened. I'm not a war correspondent, I'm
Speaker 1: not someone who does this regularly, but I was very,
Speaker 1: very struck by It's a devastation.
Speaker 3: Now there's a real risk this devastation could spread. Iran's
Speaker 3: Supreme leader has vowed to retaliate against Israel after the
Speaker 3: head of Hamasa's political bureau was assassinated in Tehran last week.
Speaker 3: But while tensions escalate, the fight over who will control
Speaker 3: Gaza in the future is continuing too, from the streets
Speaker 3: of Jerusalem to the Knesset, Gaza and the West Bank.
Speaker 3: Zanni Minton Bedos has been speaking with dozens of people
Speaker 3: about what will happen to Gaza when or if the
Speaker 3: fighting stops from Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is
Speaker 3: seven am today. What is the future for Gaza? It's Wednesday,
Speaker 3: August seventh. Zanni, thank you for coming on seven am.
Speaker 3: It's excellent to have.
Speaker 2: You on, very nice to join you.
Speaker 3: So, Zanni, on this reporting trip, you had this very
Speaker 3: specific question in mind, which is what happens on the
Speaker 3: day after? So who would be in charge of Gaza
Speaker 3: in the days and weeks when and if there was
Speaker 3: a ceasefire? And what would a credible plan for security
Speaker 3: in Gaza actually look like? Why was that the driving
Speaker 3: question for you?
Speaker 1: I have been very struck in all of the reporting
Speaker 1: and discussion about what happens next in Gaza that when
Speaker 1: you talk to people, the day after is usually a
Speaker 1: shorthand for a very ambitious vision of the past to
Speaker 1: a future Palestinian state, a two stage solution, all of
Speaker 1: which are extremely important, but they are very much medium
Speaker 1: term goals. And what I was interested in was what
Speaker 1: actually happens on the literal day after, What happens if
Speaker 1: there is a ceasefire, or even if there isn't a
Speaker 1: cease fire, what happens when the fighting ebbs? What does
Speaker 1: the next months, the next six months the next year
Speaker 1: look like in Gaza, how does one even begin to
Speaker 1: provide relief and reconstruction and what do you need for
Speaker 1: that to happen.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk a bit more about what you were told,
Speaker 3: because you pose this question to both Palestinians and Israelis,
Speaker 3: so politicians, military people, for Pentagon official, you spoke to
Speaker 3: a whole range of people. So can you just run
Speaker 3: me through what the possible scenarios are for the future
Speaker 3: of Gaza.
Speaker 1: I mean, Actually, one of the earliest conversations I had,
Speaker 1: and one of the most clarifying, was with Dana Strule,
Speaker 1: who is a woman who until about six months ago
Speaker 1: was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East
Speaker 1: at the US Pentagon, and she very clearly laid out
Speaker 1: for me that there were essentially five options in Gaza.
Speaker 1: One that Israel continues to provide security in effect as
Speaker 1: an occupying power, and that is something that is utterly
Speaker 1: unacceptable to Palestinians for obvious reasons, and frankly, it's unacceptable
Speaker 1: to most countries around the world. The second option, which
Speaker 1: is something that you hear a lot about from Israeli politicians,
Speaker 1: is that some kind of international probably Pan Arab coalition
Speaker 1: would come in and provide security in Gaza. That's what
Speaker 1: Israeli politicians hope. It doesn't seem at tooll clear to
Speaker 1: me that that's very realistic. Then there are two options
Speaker 1: which people talk about, but neither of which are terribly attractive.
Speaker 2: The first is that security is provided by.
Speaker 1: Some kind of private contractors, outsourced. The second, which is
Speaker 1: the one that is really really unattractive, is the return
Speaker 1: of Hamas as the de facto governing power. Nobody wants that,
Speaker 1: but that is in effect what happens absent anything else.
Speaker 1: And then the fifth, which is the option that Palestinians
Speaker 1: in the West Bank, the Americans and actually most of
Speaker 1: the international community other than the Israelis are keen on,
Speaker 1: is that security is provided by Palestinian forces essentially created
Speaker 1: from the West Bank, from the fatal led West Bank government,
Speaker 1: and drawing on the people within Gaza who used to
Speaker 1: be part of the security establishment, the policeman, the traffic
Speaker 1: wardens who were there in the past.
Speaker 2: Providing that.
Speaker 1: Those are effectively the five options. The alternative, if you
Speaker 1: don't have any of that, is that the place becomes
Speaker 1: a lawless zone run by criminal gangs, a kind of
Speaker 1: mogadissue on the med As someone put it very graphically
Speaker 1: to me, that's what happens if you don't have one
Speaker 1: of these other solutions.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, let's explore a bit further than this idea
Speaker 3: that the Palestinian authority could take charge of Gaza. You
Speaker 3: spoke to several representatives, including the new Justice minister. Can
Speaker 3: you tell me a bit about him and his vision
Speaker 3: for Gaza.
Speaker 1: So Chakrabille Alazaim he was one of the most prominent
Speaker 1: lawyers in Gaza. He's a very much part of the
Speaker 1: Gaza elite.
Speaker 5: Guests like Tony Blair, John Kerry, like Katherine Ashton.
Speaker 2: I went to visit Chakabille in Ramala.
Speaker 1: He was just an extraordinarily eloquent, mild manner, thoughtful and
Speaker 1: indeed optimistic person.
Speaker 2: This is my home, so that's quite a house.
Speaker 5: This is this woman in pool.
Speaker 1: His home which he showed me, this extraordinary sort of
Speaker 1: grand villa was completely destroyed by the Israelis.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's it now, Oh my god, that is it.
Speaker 1: And that is a completely destroyed pile of rubble. He
Speaker 1: stayed in Gaza after October seventh until he, like everybody else,
Speaker 1: was forced to flee his home and having been asked
Speaker 1: several times to join the Palestinian authority and had always refused,
Speaker 1: But now after October seventh, he decided it was time
Speaker 1: to serve and he joined the new Palestinian government in March.
Speaker 1: He is Justice Minister and he is very passionate about
Speaker 1: playing a role in.
Speaker 2: The future of Gaza.
Speaker 1: He was very clear to me that the only legitimate
Speaker 1: option was for Palestinians and the Palestinian government to provide
Speaker 1: security for Gaza.
Speaker 5: I think let's put aside the leadership which might be Hamas.
Speaker 5: I'm talking about the normal policeman, traffic policeman or a
Speaker 5: security or whatever. Those are civil servants and those deserve
Speaker 5: to be given their chance to continue serving. And those
Speaker 5: people can provide the security, and they are well known
Speaker 5: to the people, They have their own respect.
Speaker 1: And what will be the relationship between the civil police
Speaker 1: and Commas.
Speaker 5: I don't think that Hamas will or should be in
Speaker 5: the picture on the day to day running of the
Speaker 5: life of the civilians in Gaza.
Speaker 1: Do you think you can make any progress on the
Speaker 1: path you've laid out without actively talking to Hamas.
Speaker 5: I don't think so. I don't think so. But I'm
Speaker 5: willing to do whatever I'm asked by the Prime Minister
Speaker 5: and the President in order to achieve what we are
Speaker 5: supposed to achieve.
Speaker 1: But there's questions about their legitimacy and there's questions about
Speaker 1: their capability. The PA hasn't itself had any elections since
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. This is not a kind of
Speaker 1: legitimate democratic government in any meaningful sense. The PA itself
Speaker 1: is being sort of systematically undermined by the Israelis. Israel,
Speaker 1: for example, hasn't distributed the Palestinian's share of tax revenue
Speaker 1: to which they're entitled. As a result, the PA hasn't
Speaker 1: been able to pay for civil servants. They are on
Speaker 1: partial pay. So this combination of a very very weak government,
Speaker 1: one beset by weakness, by corruption and by lack of legitimacy,
Speaker 1: there's a real question about, you know, whether it can
Speaker 1: even sustain governance in the West Bank, never mind in Gaza.
Speaker 3: After the break. What the Israelis have planned for Gaza Zanni.
Speaker 3: On your reporting trip, you went to Gaza and the
Speaker 3: West Bank, and you also went to Israel. So tell
Speaker 3: me a bit about what it felt like to walk
Speaker 3: the streets there.
Speaker 1: For israelis it feels as though it's really October seventh
Speaker 1: has just happened. Everyone knows someone who was directly affected
Speaker 1: on October seventh, So you're lot.
Speaker 2: You know, you walk through.
Speaker 1: The streets of Jerusalem and you come across people protesting
Speaker 1: for a ceasefire against Natanya who's saying, we need a ceasefire,
Speaker 1: bring the hostages home. Then a little further on you
Speaker 1: see another protest by the families of fallen soldiers against
Speaker 1: the ceasefire, saying that that would mean that their relatives
Speaker 1: died in vain.
Speaker 4: My brother got into ASA to protect us, to bring
Speaker 4: back the hostages, and if we're we stop the fire now,
Speaker 4: then it died for nothing.
Speaker 1: I was very struck in conversation off the conversation I
Speaker 1: had in Israel, with all manner of people, people in
Speaker 1: favor of the government, all serried ranks of the opposition,
Speaker 1: ordinary people. Virtually no one brings up or mentions gars
Speaker 1: and civilians. And when you think about how that is
Speaker 1: understandably the focus in the rest of the world with
Speaker 1: the death told now you know it his figures provided
Speaker 1: by the Hamas led Health Ministry, But forty thousand people
Speaker 1: approximately have died. That is not really focused on in
Speaker 1: Israel at all. The perspective is completely different, and that's
Speaker 1: the thing that struck me the most. Israel is a
Speaker 1: traumatized society, understandably so, a society focused on its own
Speaker 1: security and the fact that it is surrounded by countries
Speaker 1: and organizations that want to attack it. But it is
Speaker 1: one where the plight of and the aspirations of Gaza
Speaker 1: and civilians are just not part of the conversation.
Speaker 3: So tell me then, what are Prime Minister Benjamin netna
Speaker 3: Who's plans for Gaza.
Speaker 1: Well, there are no official day after plans. That's part
Speaker 1: of the problem.
Speaker 5: Is all will fight until we destroyed Hamasa's military capabilities
Speaker 5: and a rule in Gaza and bring all our hostages home.
Speaker 2: Prime Minister Natanya, who talks about total that's what total
Speaker 2: victory means, and we will settle for nothing.
Speaker 1: Less total victory becomes an empty phrase after a while.
Speaker 1: Prime Minister nat and Yahoo is widely unpopular and it's
Speaker 1: causing huge frustration within Israel.
Speaker 3: A large majority of Israelis want and Yahoo to resign.
Speaker 3: So if you were to look around at the rest
Speaker 3: of the Israeli leadership, as you did, you spoke to
Speaker 3: politicians from the left to the far right. What are
Speaker 3: some of the ideas that you heard there for the
Speaker 3: future of Gaza.
Speaker 1: So you're right, I did talk to I felt like
Speaker 1: I'd been on a sort of tour of Israeli politics,
Speaker 1: which is which is complicated. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: different parties on the kind of left, center left, even
Speaker 1: center right. You have a recognition that you need to
Speaker 1: focus on security, but then you need to have some
Speaker 1: prospect for a better life for gas and civilians. But
Speaker 1: there are very different means to getting there.
Speaker 4: I'm Tally Bennett, a former Prime Minister of Israel.
Speaker 1: We went to see enough Tally Bennett, the former Prime Minister,
Speaker 1: at his house just north of Tel Aviv.
Speaker 4: We'd identify competent officials at various levels.
Speaker 1: So now Tally Bennett was one of the very senior
Speaker 1: politicians who was very willing to go on the record
Speaker 1: and lay out clearly what he thought should happen.
Speaker 4: We should take a piece of Gaza, let's say, from
Speaker 4: Gazawadi northward, and then set the stage and say the following.
Speaker 4: It's going to take a while. Bear with us, our friends,
Speaker 4: but at the end of it, we're going to form
Speaker 4: a Gaza two point zero here.
Speaker 1: So his was a sort of a piece by piece approach,
Speaker 1: getting rid of competence properly, as he put it, and
Speaker 1: then starting again with a part of Gaza and then
Speaker 1: moving on to another part. But he also had the
Speaker 1: hope and expectation that there would be Arab forces coming
Speaker 1: in to provide governance.
Speaker 4: You got to bring in a bunch of competent regional
Speaker 4: players and find competent local leadership, and that would be
Speaker 4: appoint that it could not, in the first instance, be
Speaker 4: democratic on that plot of land, let's call it Northern Gaza,
Speaker 4: and then all of Gaza gradually set it on its
Speaker 4: feet and learn the lessons from post World War two reconstruction.
Speaker 1: Would your partner for civil governance in Gaza be the
Speaker 1: Palestinian Authority? That's what the Americans are very keen to happen,
Speaker 1: that the PA is the partner. Do you think it
Speaker 1: can be the partner?
Speaker 4: I think certainly not in the foreseeable future, because they
Speaker 4: have proven to be deeply corrupt, deeply incompetent, and I'm
Speaker 4: fairly confident that we can, once we defeat Hamas, will
Speaker 4: be able to find reasonable.
Speaker 3: Players and The obvious question there is if you're quote
Speaker 3: unquote starting again, or what are you starting with When
Speaker 3: people in Gaza are being killed at the scale they are,
Speaker 3: who would actually be left?
Speaker 1: Well, that's right, and I think to be fair to
Speaker 1: Naughtarlie Bennett, he would have prosecuted this war in a
Speaker 1: very different way. He acknowledges that nine months on this
Speaker 1: is much harder than if his approach had been taken
Speaker 1: from the very beginning. But yes, you're right when you
Speaker 1: talked to Israeli politicians about what this Gaza two point zero,
Speaker 1: if you will, would look like, the Israeli military was
Speaker 1: still engaged in combat with Ramas, there were rockets falling,
Speaker 1: there were ghaz and civilians being killed, and there's a
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, an irony right that in sort
Speaker 1: of air conditioned offices and buildings in Israel, people are
Speaker 1: talking about Gaza two Oh. Meanwhile, you know two million
Speaker 1: people are living in the most horrific conditions still under
Speaker 1: attack within Gaza.
Speaker 3: So Zanni just finally he laid out five different possible
Speaker 3: scenarios for Gaza at the beginning of this conversation, after
Speaker 3: the reporting that you've done, do you have any kind
Speaker 3: of answer to the question of what happens on the
Speaker 3: day after.
Speaker 1: So I was in Israel at the end of June.
Speaker 1: That's several weeks ago. Now, clearly a lot has happened
Speaker 1: since then, both in terms of, you know, rising tensions
Speaker 1: with Chris Bulla, the assassination of Hania. The place right now,
Speaker 1: as we are speaking at the beginning of August is
Speaker 1: very very much on tender hooks. I think there's a
Speaker 1: real expectation, of course, of Iranian retaliation. The risks of
Speaker 1: a wider regional conflict are much greater, I think than
Speaker 1: they were just a few weeks ago. But the prospects
Speaker 1: of a ceasefire, which is I think a prerequisite for
Speaker 1: much of the day after conversation that I was having,
Speaker 1: have become much more distant when you know, the main
Speaker 1: interlocutor on the Hamas side was just been inssassinated.
Speaker 2: Someone said to me, Gaza.
Speaker 1: Will go from being the world's largest open air prison
Speaker 1: to the world's largest refugee camp, and that is a.
Speaker 2: Really, really grim prospect. But right now.
Speaker 1: I don't see many grounds for feeling much more optimistic.
Speaker 1: You can't help but be there and sort of be
Speaker 1: blown away by the potential, by the natural beauty of
Speaker 1: the place, by the it's tiny, right, the whole area
Speaker 1: is really really small. It could be so much more,
Speaker 1: but right now I left. Yeah, not hugely optimistic.
Speaker 3: Well, Zannie, thank you so much for your reporting and
Speaker 3: for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: You can hear Zanni Minton Beddow's full report on Guys
Speaker 3: on the Economist podcast The Intelligence. The episode is called
Speaker 3: Gaza After the Dust Settles. It's a fascinating listen special
Speaker 3: thanks to Hardipet. Also in the news today, the Reserve
Speaker 3: Bank of Australia has kept interest rates on hold at
Speaker 3: a rate of four point three five percent. The Australian
Speaker 3: Bureau of Statistics last week showed inflation at three point
Speaker 3: eight percent, which was in line with the RBA's expectations.
Speaker 3: On Monday, the share market dived in response to a
Speaker 3: weakened US economy, and Google has been labeled a monopolist
Speaker 3: in a landmark decision in the United States. The US
Speaker 3: Justice Department in States had sued Google, accusing it of
Speaker 3: illegally maintaining dominance in online search by paying companies Apple
Speaker 3: and Samsung billions of dollars to have Google be the
Speaker 3: default search engine on their devices. The ruling is the
Speaker 3: first antitrust decision of its kind against a technology giant
Speaker 3: in decades. The judge will now decide what penalties Google
Speaker 3: should face. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks
Speaker 3: for listening.