Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, January twenty one. The second Trump Era has
Speaker 1: officially begun, with the Donald officially sworn in at the
Speaker 1: Capitol in Washington, DC overnight. Donald Trump is the oldest
Speaker 1: person ever to be elected to the White House at
Speaker 1: seventy eight, and he's now both the forty fifth and
Speaker 1: forty seventh president of the United States. To watch video
Speaker 1: of the inauguration and to read all about what Trump
Speaker 1: two point zero means for Australia and the world, go
Speaker 1: to the Australian dot com dot au. Now, all hell
Speaker 1: will break loose if the hostages aren't freed by inauguration day.
Speaker 1: That was Donald Trump's rather opaque threat, and it seems
Speaker 1: to have worked. Hamas has begun returning civilian hostages. It
Speaker 1: took on October seven, twenty twenty three, in stage one
Speaker 1: of a ceasefire hammered out by international negotiators, including representatives
Speaker 1: of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Israel has opened its
Speaker 1: prison gates to release Palestinian inmates. That's Israel's end of
Speaker 1: the deal. So what's the price Israel will pay for
Speaker 1: this peace and can we say who was won this war?
Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is the Australian's chief international correspondent, and Cam,
Speaker 1: as we're speaking on Monday, Israel is releasing prisoners from
Speaker 1: its prisons.
Speaker 2: Ninety Palestinian prisoners are being transferred out of Israeli jails.
Speaker 2: It begins one of the largest prisoner and hostage deals
Speaker 2: in modern history. The three women were taken to Israeli
Speaker 2: soldiers just inside the border, waiting for each of them
Speaker 2: their mothers.
Speaker 1: Israel holds thousands of Palestinian people who it accuses or
Speaker 1: has convicted of crimes over the years, including some people
Speaker 1: who they have brought back from Gaza during this recent war.
Speaker 1: What do we know about the people who are being
Speaker 1: released from Israeli prisons right now?
Speaker 3: The people who have been released from Israeli prisons have
Speaker 3: been the subject of intense negotiation for months now, and
Speaker 3: the first ones to be released they'll be about nineteen
Speaker 3: hundred overall under the deal. If the three stages of
Speaker 3: this ceasefire agreement are completed, about nineteen hundred will come out,
Speaker 3: but at the moment ninety have come out. These are
Speaker 3: almost all women and children. And then progressively, they will
Speaker 3: go to more serious offenders who will be released up
Speaker 3: to an including several who have been accused of and
Speaker 3: convicted of killing Israeli's in terror attacks.
Speaker 1: It would seem kind of shocking for some of our
Speaker 1: listeners to think that Israeli is holding quite young people.
Speaker 1: Many of the prisoners are under the age of twenty, Say, Cam,
Speaker 1: what do we know about who the people are who
Speaker 1: Israel detains.
Speaker 3: I think the original ones who are going to be
Speaker 3: released clear are relatively lower level of offenders. As you say,
Speaker 3: I mean these often are teenagers who are hurling rocks
Speaker 3: at Israeli soldiers on the West Bank for example. They
Speaker 3: are often detained if they repeat. Defenders often get incarcerated
Speaker 3: women as well, and so they're the sort of group
Speaker 3: of people of prisoners who are of course very easy
Speaker 3: for Israel to release. As far as the political swap goes,
Speaker 3: it gets much harder for Israel obviously once you go
Speaker 3: down the track and you get to very hard bitten
Speaker 3: offenders have actually murdered Israelis.
Speaker 1: This goes to one of the big questions I think
Speaker 1: as we think about this war, Cam, what's the price
Speaker 1: of peace? How much has Israel had to compromise to
Speaker 1: end the fighting for Benjamin Ettnya who to get the
Speaker 1: hostages home for those families who've been demanding that he
Speaker 1: do so.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean nineteen hndred Palestinian prisoners for approximately one
Speaker 3: hundred hostages, of which only about sixty I believed to
Speaker 3: be alive, is of course seen by many as a
Speaker 3: very uneven swap. But look, I think this is the
Speaker 3: price that Israel had to pay to get these Israeli
Speaker 3: hostages released. Hamas would not accept a lower price than that.
Speaker 3: I think Benjamin Ettnia, who is in a position now
Speaker 3: having really dismantled Hamas as a viable, large militant force,
Speaker 3: he really was under enormous pressure to try and get
Speaker 3: a hostage deal together because there's no way that Israel
Speaker 3: and then this war without those hostages coming out. So
Speaker 3: this was something which I think that Benjamin Natier, who,
Speaker 3: especially with the incoming president Donald Trump, the pressure that
Speaker 3: he applied, I think Netnio who thought that the time
Speaker 3: was right now to make this deal.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Trump factor. Cam He famously said
Speaker 1: that if the hostages weren't released by January twenty, the
Speaker 1: day that he was inaugurated that all hell would break
Speaker 1: loose in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: If those hostages aren't back. I don't want to hurt
Speaker 4: your negotiation. If they're not back by the time I
Speaker 4: get into office, all hell will break out in the
Speaker 4: Middle East scale and it will not be good for Hamas,
Speaker 4: and it will not be good frankly for anyone.
Speaker 3: All hell will break out.
Speaker 1: We never really learned what all hell was going to
Speaker 1: look like. What do you think the Trump factor was?
Speaker 3: I think the Trump factor was from har Massa's point
Speaker 3: of view, they certainly didn't want America to become more
Speaker 3: involved in their eradication. Now exactly what format would have
Speaker 3: taken is very hard to know because clearly the Americans
Speaker 3: we're never going to put troops into Gaza, but it
Speaker 3: certainly would have added to HARMSSUS calculations. I think from Netania,
Speaker 3: Who's point of view, though clear he knew that the
Speaker 3: timing of this cease fire, if he agreed to it,
Speaker 3: would be a credit to Trump. Trump would get a
Speaker 3: fair bit of credit for it, which he has. In fact,
Speaker 3: one of the mothers of one of the hostages who's
Speaker 3: released has thanked Donald Trump precisely, and so I think Netanya,
Speaker 3: who he wants to have a good relationship with the
Speaker 3: incoming president. It's very important to him and for Israel
Speaker 3: on the track, and I think that would have been
Speaker 3: a fact that in his own political calculation as to
Speaker 3: the timing of this.
Speaker 1: Coming up. How does Israel win back a generation of
Speaker 1: young people who believe it has committed war crimes. When
Speaker 1: you look at the history of Israel since its creation
Speaker 1: after the Second World War came, it's a series of
Speaker 1: wars Israel invaded by its Arab neighbors or Israel taking
Speaker 1: aggressive action against them.
Speaker 5: The first and to father was sparked by the deaths
Speaker 5: of four Palestinians in December nineteen eighty seven. By the
Speaker 5: time it ended in nineteen ninety three, more than one
Speaker 5: thy one hundred people had died.
Speaker 4: In the course of six frantic days, Israel decimated the
Speaker 4: armies and air forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria and
Speaker 4: redrew the map of the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Jaza today's firing of a rocket from Gaza towards Israel
Speaker 3: is a serious and unacceptable violation.
Speaker 1: Another news, Israel has come under intense international criticism over
Speaker 1: what Palestinians have called the biggest land grab by the
Speaker 1: state in three decades, when we look back at the
Speaker 1: war that began after October seven, what do you think
Speaker 1: we'll think did Israel win?
Speaker 3: Now? It depends how we characterize the win. I think
Speaker 3: this is a very different skirmish and conflict. I think
Speaker 3: to a lot of previous ones, this is a seismic event,
Speaker 3: the conflict that has happened in the last fifteen months
Speaker 3: after the massacre of October seven. I think that what
Speaker 3: we have seen here is Israel emerging from this conflict
Speaker 3: as the dominant strategic player in the Middle East in
Speaker 3: a way that we've never seen before. What's happened from
Speaker 3: Hamasa's miscalculation of massacring Israeli's has been the crushing of
Speaker 3: Hamasa's a viable militant force. But I think strategically, more
Speaker 3: significantly for Israel, it led Hezbollah to support Hamas in
Speaker 3: a fatal miscalculation that, as we have seen, has led
Speaker 3: Israel to literally crush Hesbella as a viable military force
Speaker 3: in Lebanon, one of Iran's key terror proxies. Iran itself
Speaker 3: has been humbled. It attacked Israel twice as a result
Speaker 3: of this conflict and got beaten up twice as a result,
Speaker 3: and so really Iran emerges from this as a strategically
Speaker 3: weakened player in the Middle East. That is Israel's greatest enemy,
Speaker 3: only the Yemen who the rebels are firing missiles at
Speaker 3: Israel at the moment, and that's only spasmodic. In other words,
Speaker 3: Israel has really tamed its borders, and we've had the
Speaker 3: fall of the Syrian regime as well, where Israel has
Speaker 3: gone and destroyed military equipment just to prevent any future
Speaker 3: threat arising from Syria. So I think Israel has emerged
Speaker 3: from this as the strategic leader in the Middle East
Speaker 3: in the way that no one would have imagined just
Speaker 3: fifteen months ago.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Hamas's leader Aa Sinoa and
Speaker 1: the organization wanted to achieve on October seven was the
Speaker 1: mobilization of international opinion to make Israel react and to
Speaker 1: incite revulsion in the West with the inevitable pictures of
Speaker 1: death and destruction in Gaza. They've definitely succeeded in that,
Speaker 1: haven't they came?
Speaker 3: Look, that's true. The greatest loss to Israel from this
Speaker 3: conflict has been its international reputation in the way that
Speaker 3: it's fought. The war in Gaza widely seen as been
Speaker 3: too heavy handed, a terrible severne death told by any
Speaker 3: calculations upwards of forty thousand, and Israel will take a
Speaker 3: lot to get that international reputation restored. However, I think
Speaker 3: from Israel's point of view, that really hasn't been a
Speaker 3: priority at all. Of you read the media and look
Speaker 3: at the debate there in Israel, Claire, it's really been
Speaker 3: a matter of survival for the Israelis. They just wanted
Speaker 3: to ensure that they are in a position never to
Speaker 3: be attacked again like they were in October seven. I
Speaker 3: think the international reputation side of it has come a
Speaker 3: distant second in Israel to actually winning the conflict and
Speaker 3: protecting and their citizens from future attacks.
Speaker 1: And so what now, How does Israel handle a generation
Speaker 1: of people who are maybe now at university or now
Speaker 1: in their twenties. They are the diplomats and the prime
Speaker 1: ministers and the presidents of the future. They've been exposed
Speaker 1: to the Middle East conflict, often in a very partisan way,
Speaker 1: and many of them would be sympathetic to the Palestinian side.
Speaker 1: Now can how does Israel win those people back to
Speaker 1: understanding why Israel exists.
Speaker 3: It's going to be a long term generational battle for
Speaker 3: Israel who win back the hearts and minds of those people,
Speaker 3: I think. I think it's interesting Israel was criticized far
Speaker 3: too prematurely in this conflict. I think a lot of
Speaker 3: the people you're talking about, sort of liberal left academics especially,
Speaker 3: had a hostile view to Israel well before October seven,
Speaker 3: saw it very much as a colonizer, a hostile power,
Speaker 3: aggressive power in the region. You know, they didn't take
Speaker 3: into account any other fact as such, of the fact
Speaker 3: that Israel has been repeatedly attacked since it was created.
Speaker 3: It's the only democracy amidst of Islamic dictatorships in the
Speaker 3: Middle East. It has values that Western academics would like,
Speaker 3: such as equality for women, a whole lot of issues
Speaker 3: that they would identify with, and yet Israel has played
Speaker 3: to be the bad boy really from day one, even
Speaker 3: in Australia with the Opera House protests, even before Israel
Speaker 3: had retaliated for October seven.
Speaker 1: Anti Semitic slurs chanted and an Israeli flag set on
Speaker 1: fire during that illegal pro Palestinian rally last night.
Speaker 3: I think you saw this reflex of anti Israeli and
Speaker 3: unfortunately bleeding into anti Semitic behavior in universities around the world.
Speaker 3: And I think so Israel started in a position of disadvantage.
Speaker 3: And I think that obviously, as the war has gone
Speaker 3: on in Gaza and the criticism of its conduct of
Speaker 3: that war has increased, that has made that position even
Speaker 3: more difficult for Israel. So I think we're looking at
Speaker 3: a generational challenge for Israel to win back the hearts
Speaker 3: and minds of some of those people. I'm very doubtful
Speaker 3: that they even had it to begin with.
Speaker 1: Cameron Stewart is The Australian's chief international correspondent. You can
Speaker 1: read Cam's analysis of both the Israel situation and the
Speaker 1: Trump inauguration. He's a busy guy right now at the
Speaker 1: Australian dot com dot au