SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The ceasefire is now in effect between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli military has pulled back from certain positions in the Gaza strip. In the coming days, a hostage and prisoner exchange is set to begin, and hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks are expected to be allowed into Gaza. It's all part of President Trump's 20-point peace plan, a 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.
JAKE SULLIVAN: Thanks for having me.
DETROW: Look, let's start. We've been here before. As you deeply know, you and others in the Biden administration helped broker a multiphase 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?
SULLIVAN: Well, 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, and that formula is a good formula on a very basic human level.
DETROW: I wanted to ask you about something that we heard on our show this morning on Morning Edition. We talked to veteran hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin, who was involved in these talks, and he told my colleague, Leila Fadel, about what was different this time, and he said President Trump made a difference. Here's what he said.
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GERSHON BASKIN: 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, and they're very supportive of Donald Trump. So that was one thing. Biden never had the leverage over Netanyahu that Trump has.
DETROW: I'm curious what your response is to that statement.
SULLIVAN: 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. But I think something else happened, as well, which is that Hamas' position got very badly weakened over the course of this time. One year ago today, Hamas' 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.
DETROW: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: 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.
DETROW: 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. Do you think there's any accuracy to that?
SULLIVAN: 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. And 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.
DETROW: 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?
SULLIVAN: Well, a huge question is what actually happens with the disposition of Israeli forces inside Gaza? They'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.
DETROW: I'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?
SULLIVAN: 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. So 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?
DETROW: That is Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor under former president Joe Biden. Thank you so much for talking to us.
SULLIVAN: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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