LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Aaron David Miller is on the line for a closer look at President Trump's initiative that he calls the Board of Peace. Miller served more than 20 years at the State Department, where he advised Republican and Democratic secretaries of state on Arab-Israel peace negotiations. He's now a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Good morning, and welcome back to the show.
AARON DAVID MILLER: Morning. Always great to be with you.
FADEL: So there have been critics that call the entire conceit around the Board of Peace a Trump vanity project. What do you make of this organization and whether it can do anything on Gaza?
MILLER: I mean, I think that's certainly a fair criticism. If you look at who's signed up to this thing, they seem to fall into three categories - countries that are already close to Donald Trump, countries he trusts, countries - second group, countries who want to get into Trump's good graces, and then the overlap, the third countries who don't have political, constitutional or legal constraints to sign up to an organization, which actually has been endorsed by a U.N. Security Council resolution, where the chairman, Donald Trump, has veto power over all of the proposals.
That said, the one redemptive feature of the Board of Peace is that it tries to internationalize this problem. And the reality is, if left to the devices of the two major combatants, the current Israeli government and Hamas, Gaza is likely to remain dysfunctional, divided, desperate for the two million Palestinians who are there and sporadically, if not consistently, violent.
FADEL: But what do you mean by internationalizing the Gaza problem? I mean, the United Nations has passed many resolutions on this issue, consistently weighed in, although not all of the world has agreed to enact these resolutions, including the U.S. Has it not always been internationalized?
MILLER: Well, yes. But remember, there are three problems that have to be overcome. No. 1 - who or what's going to govern Gaza? Palestinian national movement is now a mess. No. 2 - who or what is going to provide security for Gaza? Clearly, Hamas and Israel have fundamentally different visions of the end state. There's very little hope there. And third, who's going to pay not just for the exigencies of keeping Palestinians' humanitarian assistance and providing adequate shelter, but who's going to pay for reconstruction? There's no way that the regional parties are going to be able to do this by themselves. They're going to need a lot of help.
If, in fact, the Board of Peace was serious about addressing the security issue and had willing and able partners on the Israeli and Palestinian side, I think contributors from countries might agree to participate in a stabilization force. Same with reconstruction, right? Fifty billion dollars the U.N. estimates that they're going to need to even begin to rebuild Gaza. Where's that money going to come from? It's certainly not going to come from the Palestinians or the Israelis - Gulf states, to be sure, and others.
So when I say internationalized, I don't mean internationalized by - in corner conversations in New York or in Paris. I mean a real effort to try to fix what ails Gaza by bringing in the resources that are required. But in the end - let's be clear - if Israel and Hamas fundamentally can't find a way to square their respective visions of what the end state is, no amount of external pressure or support is going to fix Gaza.
FADEL: What do you make of the fact that there isn't Palestinian representation really on the Board of Peace? I mean, can there be...
MILLER: I think...
FADEL: ...A lasting peace without it?
MILLER: I think it's a huge problem and, in effect, is Gaza first and Gaza only and doesn't find a way to create a transition or link to the West Bank. The Israelis now are pursuing in name - not just in practice, in name - annexationist policies. So you really do have this issue of who's going to represent the Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority, the Israelis won't agree. They won't agree to Hamas, neither (ph) will the Trump administration. And that leaves the technocrats, and that's going to be very difficult. Unelected, appointed, competent people, but they can't even get into Gaza because of the security situation.
FADEL: If Israel is pursuing an annexation policy and isn't making clear that it will actually withdraw, if Hamas isn't willing to fully disarm in the way that Israel wants it, I mean, you - is there any way for a lasting peace and a change at all, whether there's a Board of Peace or anything else?
MILLER: Hard to say. It took the Brits, the Irish unionists and the republicans in Northern Ireland, following the Good Friday Agreement of 1990, eight years to decommission. And this was done by an international body headed by a Canadian general, and it offered power sharing to the combatants at the end of the road. That's not what's envisioned here.
FADEL: Yeah.
MILLER: The answer is no. In the end, you need leaders who are masters of their politics in Israel and Palestine and leaders who are willing to overlook those politics to a degree to try to address not only their own constituencies' needs but the needs of others. And we do not have those kinds of leaders in the region. And frankly, we don't have them in Washington either.
FADEL: What about this idea of a stabilization force that's coming out of the Board of Peace? White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says members have pledged billions of dollars. Some are willing to contribute personnel, although we've already heard that there's problems around who will and who won't. Israel has objected to some proposed contributions like Turkey. I mean, how significant, in your estimation, is having this international force in Gaza?
MILLER: I mean, I think it's going to be critical. And the one element that needs to be mentioned is training for Palestinian police 'cause in the end, only Palestinians are going to be able to provide the governance and the security to make Gaza whole again. It's not the who, Leila. It's the what does the stabilization force do? And as long as Gaza is a free-fire zone with the Israelis occupying 53% and Hamas occupying 47 and controlling the streets with criminal gangs and clans, no party is going to deploy boots on the ground - Arab or Muslim party, frankly (ph), anyone else - if, in fact, Israelis are killing Palestinians. And they're expecting the stabilization force to basically decommission, demilitarize Hamas by force. So not ready for prime time yet. And again, a lot of pressure from the Trump administration and from key Arab states on Hamas. And Israel might get you part of the way, but it's going to be a hugely difficult lift.
FADEL: That's Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former State Department official. Thank you for your time.
MILLER: Thanks for having me.
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