Transcript 0:00 [intro music] Welcome to Trendlines, a podcast on global affairs brought to you by World Politics Review. My name is Peter Duri. We will mix things up a bit this week. 0:16 Uh, Judah is joined for the briefing not by me, but by WPR editor Freddy Deknatel to talk about this week's developments in world politics. 0:26 Afterwards, Khalid Hope will talk about the Gaza blockade and Hamas options to end it. But first, let's hear from Judah and Freddy. 0:36 [intro music] So Freddy, since this is your, the first time you've done the podcast, why don't you introduce yourself? Sure. I'm, uh, happy to be here. My name is Freddy Deknatel. 0:48 I'm the senior editor of World Politics Review, coming to you today from our Dumbo office here in Brooklyn. 0:53 I handle the daily news and analysis pieces, which we call briefings, which cover news and events from all over the world, and we ran one briefing this week, uh, by a regular contributor, Christine Wade, on police reform in Honduras that I know you are eager to discuss, Judah. 1:11 Mainly because, uh, it's such a shocking story and, and, and so chilling. 1:18 Uh, basically recently documents emerged that implicated high-ranking officials in the national police, the Honduran National Police, in the 2009 murder of the head of the country's anti-drug effort. Um, and, and 1:34 i- it's in some ways chilling because it's not a surprise. 1:39 The, the fact that the national police in Honduras are corrupt and at times in league with drug traffickers and organized crime has been an open secret, and there, there have long been charges over the years of, of police death squads that target not only other members of the police, but also journalists, human rights activists, and political opponents. 2:01 And, um, th- this, this has been a story that has been covered over the years and 2:08 nonetheless, nevertheless, police reform has always lagged in the past, and Christine discusses some of the reasons why, uh, police reform has been so hard to achieve. 2:18 And she also describes how i- instead of reforming the police, Honduras, Honduras, like, like a few other countries in the region, has opted instead for giving more police functions to the military, especially with regard to the fight against drug traffickers. 2:34 And she explains why even though that has, 2:39 some have attributed a, a reduction in, in homicides to the transfer to the military of these policing functions, uh, Christine discusses why that kind of militarization of the police is problematic, both for reform efforts, but also for the rule of law and rights. 2:56 Uh, there have been obviously, uh, uh, cases of abuses by the, by the military as well as the fact that they're not necessarily trained in terms of investigations, investigating, uh, techniques and, and criminal, uh, criminal justice. 3:11 So, uh, again, a, a, a chilling briefing at, at a time when, uh, recently this week, the president of Honduras, along with, uh, other presidents from Central, Central America, were in Washington to meet with, uh, the US Vice President, Joe Biden. 3:27 Yes. She, uh, makes the point that there's, uh, a s- a sense of 3:33 Honduras returning to its militarized past by promoting military police over the civilian police and how the US, like you said, which has been a key security backer of Honduras, uh, is both alarmed, but is also in the last few years gone on, uh, gone, uh, with this transition to more militarized policing in the country. 3:54 We also ran another briefing this week that had to do with rule of law, this time in Côte d'Ivoire, which I know you were interested in talking about. Yes. 4:03 This was a very good piece by a journalist based in Côte d'Ivoire, Robbie Corey-Boulet. Um, it looks at an upcoming trial this month. 4:12 The former First Lady of Côte d'Ivoire, Simone Gbagbo, is set to go on trial in the country for crimes against humanity. 4:19 Uh, it's related to her role in 2011 post-election violence in which some three thousand people were killed. 4:27 Uh, in that violence, both her husband at the time, her husband, the, the president at the time, Laurent Gbagbo, uh, who had refused to step down even though he had lost the presidential election to Alassane Ouattara, 4:40 um, there was election violence on both sides. Supporters of both candidates, uh, perpetrated violence, and yet in the years since then, only Gbagbo's supporters and Gbagbo himself and his wife have faced any justice. 4:55 In 2011, Laurent Gbagbo was referred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and his trial, uh, just opened this past January. 5:04 Um, and because of the arrangement of the ICC with individual countries, it's set up to be a court of so-called last resort, so it's only opening trials when the legal system in the country in question isn't equipped to do so. 5:19 And in the years since Laurent Gbagbo was referred to the ICC, Ouattara has claimed that the justice system in Côte d'Ivoire is in fact equipped to try his supporters in the country. 5:31 His wife, Simone Gbagbo, was put on trial last year along with several other supporters, uh, in a trial that was widely criticized, uh, for its proceedings. 5:41 She was charged with crimes against the state and given a twenty-year sentence, which was twice the amount of what the pro- of, of what the prosecution sought. 5:50 Uh, so this has contributed to the sense that there's uneven justice, uh, unfolding in Côte d'Ivoire and that this is largely, uh, coming from Ouattara's camp, punishing the, his opponents and leaving his supporters, who were also implicated in the 20 election, 2011 election violence, uh, essentially off the hook. 6:08 Um, her trial for crimes against humanity is set to go forward later this month, uh, as I said, and, and Robbie makes the point at the end of his piece that there's a widespread sense within Cote d'Ivoire, not only that there's a sort of victor's justice being perpetrated by the domestic courts, but that the ICC has essentially provided cover for, for Ouattara because it's given the impression that justice is being served in The Hague against Laurent Gbagbo, um, which in, i-in a sense has distracted from the uneven rule of law 6:43 taking place within the country itself. Yes, and, and, and Robbie points out that there hasn't been a single Ouattara loyalist or supporter that's been brought to trial over this violence. 6:53 There have been some token arrests, but no actual trials. 6:57 And, uh, and while Ouattara has done a good job in terms of, uh, stabilizing Cote d'Ivoire's economy, uh, and even if there has been stability, uh, this, the i- the, there's been this real lack of political reconciliation. 7:15 And I can, I can sort of attest to that in the sense that here in Paris, there's a, there's a, a big Ivoirian, uh, community, and they regularly have protests and marches, the supporters of Gbagbo, to protest against what they, what they perceive as this, this uneven victor's justice, uh, taking place in Cote d'Ivoire. 7:38 So, uh, it, something that, uh, that bears watching as, as this trial plays out. 7:44 And then finally, we had a, a th- uh, briefing that we ran at the end of this week, uh, that looked not at a specific country, but at three different countries, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, and the role of the Kurds in all three places. 7:58 Uh, the briefing is by Mujge Cuçukeles, and it talks about this, this paradoxical situation facing the Kurds in these three countries, uh, in the sense that in Iraq and Syria, the Kurds have become primary security partners of the U.S. 8:15 in the fight against the so-called Islamic State. And in Turkey, the, the Kurdish-based, uh, political party, the People's Democratic Party or HDP, made unprecedented gains in elections in 2015, 8:31 i-i-in part due to, at, at the time, what seemed like a promising peace, peace process between Ankara and the Kurdistan Workers Party or the PKK. 8:43 But as Mujge explains, in all three countries, the K- the Kurds now actually face s- obstacles and constraints on their political ambitions. 8:52 In Iraq, there's an economic crisis because of the, the, the battle between the Kurds and Baghdad over control of oil revenues, uh, that has severely impacted the quality of life and essentially called into question the, the pursuit of independence, which has been a long-term, uh, ambition for the Kurds. 9:11 And meanwhile, in Turkey, after that, those electoral advances by the HDP, there was a return to fighting between Ankara and, and the PKK. 9:20 Uh, a lot of people attributed that to President Erdogan's electoral calculus about how to do better in the follow-up election, uh, in which he did regain a majority. 9:32 Uh, and that fighting has taken a huge toll in terms of human suffering in, in Turkey's southeast, where the Kurdish population is concentrated, but it's also damaged the HDB, HDP's political progress, uh, particularly among, uh, non-Kurdish Turks to whom it was, had been appealing. 9:50 And finally, in Syria, the, the Kurdish political and military formations there have proved their combat effectiveness against the Islamic State. 10:00 But at the same time, they, they've sort of played all sides of the conflict off of each other in pursuit of their own goal, which is auto-autonomy, if, if not independence for the Syrian Kurdish region. 10:11 Uh, and at the same time, their, their, their ties to the PKK, uh, which is, uh, considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, as, as well as Turkey, makes the, the Syrian Kurds a, a problematic partner for the U.S. 10:26 in particular. 10:27 So M-Mujge wrotes, writes, uh, or explains how, on the one hand, there, there are a lot of reasons for, or there have been reasons for optimism for the Kurds in all three countries, but at the same time, there are serious obstacles and, and constraints to, to what they might achieve. 10:44 Yeah, I thought it was a very effective overview piece that, uh, connects the threads in those three countries, um, and also lays out, uh, both the opportunities that have been raised by the upheaval over the last few years and clearly the challenges as well. 10:59 Uh, and she concludes by making, I think, what is, y-you know, one point that, that can't be missed, that no matter what the status of Kurds are now, uh, who knows how Kurdish autonomy, for example, in Syria will end up playing out. 11:14 But in any political settlement, whether in Syria's civil war or in Iraq to deal with its ongoing political dysfunction, the Kurds have to be accounted for now, and for many, many years, obviously, they, they were not. 11:26 All right. Well, it was, it was great talking with you, Freddy. You too, Judah. Thanks. All right. Talk to you later. 11:31 [upbeat music] Almost a decade ago, Israel began blockading the Gaza Strip in an attempt to politically and militarily isolate Hamas, a radical Islamist movement that has vowed to destroy the state Israel. 11:49 Khaled Hroub, professor at Northwestern University, looks at the political context of the blockade and why Hamas is now looking for options to end it. My name is, uh, Khaled Hroub. 12:04 Uh, I am a university professor at Northwestern University. Uh, I teach Middle East politics Uh, political Islam and international relations. Uh, at the same time, I, I am affiliated to the Islamic Center of, um, 12:20 the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies of Cambridge University. In 2015, the UN issued a report about Gaza conditions. 12:30 Uh, in it, it stated clearly that the conditions are s- were so miserable to the point where the whole area, the whole Gaza Strip, will become uninhabitable by the year 2020. 12:42 [dramatic music] Locked in and left out. The people of Gaza seemed little more than a footnote. Israel controls everything and everyone that goes out or comes in, and precious little comes in these days. 13:02 We have to bear in mind the context. The context where, uh, that kind of surrounds Gaza Strip, Palestine in general. Uh, Palestine, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip have been living under Israeli occupation since 1967. 13:18 So after all these decades of occupation, of course, uh, you have, uh, life is running, of course, in extraordinary conditions. 13:27 Not only this, which is again the abnormality of having military occupation, foreign military occupation, you have since 2006, you have another context imposed on Gaza Strip, that is the blockade context. 13:43 Uh, and by this what I mean is after, uh, a Palestinian election whereby Hamas, the Islamist movement, they won these elections freely and democratically. 13:55 Uh, so many political players, including Israel, uh, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, they just rejected these, uh, elections. This is in a nutshell, of course. You have so many details. 14:07 But after that, leading to tw- 2007, we have the Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas. And of course, uh, Hamas is considered as a, a terrorist organization. 14:18 And, and since then, uh, Western governments, they have imposed so many conditions on Gaza and on Hamas to accept in order for them to lift the blockade. 14:29 The blockade meaning there is nobody, uh, there is no ordinary movement in and out of the Gaza Strip. Every single, again, aspect of life is somehow reduced to the less even than minimum. 14:43 Uh, Hamas is an Islamist movement to start with, a Palestinian Islamist movement as other Islamist movements in the Middle East. 14:51 They, they have been founded in 1987, uh, with the main mantra, the main objective is to resist the military occupation, the Israeli military occupation. And back then, it's not, it wasn't only Hamas. 15:04 You have so many other Palestinian factions, some of them leftists, some of them nationalists, some are with other different ideologies. Hamas is somehow distinguished with the Islamist ideology. 15:16 So you have this, the so-called resister, Palestinian resistance against Israel, uh, comprising so many different ideologies. 15:24 Now, leading to 19, uh, 93, the Palestinians led by a secular organization, the PLO, the, the Palestine Liberation Organization, they concluded some sort of peace deal with Israel, 1993. 15:40 This is the so-called Oslo Agreements. 15:43 Uh, according to these agreements, Israel and the PLO, the later on known as the Palestinian Authority, they will negotiate a deal by which a Palestinian indepe- uh, an independent Palestinian state, uh, will be in place by 1991. 16:03 Hamas did not accept these agreements. So within the Palestinian politics, you have two groups. One group believing in negotiation with Israel, and this is led by the PLO, later on the Palestinian Authority. 16:16 And there is another, uh, idea, another set of groups, not only Hamas, there are some other smaller groups within the Palestinian politics, rejected Oslo Agreements as well, because they thought they're giving so many, uh, territories of Palestine, of the historic land of Palestine to Israel. 16:36 W- within the Palestinian polity, we ended up with, uh, like two-headed leadership. One in the Gaza Strip, uh, led by Hamas, the stronghold of Hamas, and the other in the West Bank, led by the PLO/ 16:50 the Palestinian Authority. The so-called international community, and in this case, uh, represented by some body called the, the Quartet. Uh, the Quartet, which is, um, the UN, the US, uh, Russia, and the EU. 17:05 Uh, this Quartet imposed on Hamas, uh, certain conditions to meet so that not only the international community, but also even Israel would accept or acknowledge, uh, Hamas being in power, in the seat of power in Gaza. 17:22 And these conditions included that Hamas should, uh, denounce violence and stop using any kind of military, uh, activities. Hamas should, uh, recognize Israel. Th- th- this is the, the second hard condition for Hamas. 17:37 And the third condition was for Hamas to acknowledge all previous agreements between the PLO and, uh, Israel. Now, for Hamas, they thought of these conditions, uh, as a recipe for political suicide. 17:52 So if they accepted these conditions, they would cease becoming Hamas. Uh, they would become another organization. They would become another maybe PLO or Palestinian Authority. 18:03 So this is kind of the crux of the, the, the blockade in political terms. So you have three conditions imposed on Hamas. They have to meet them. Hamas says, "No, I wouldn't accept these conditions." 18:15 And then we had this stalemate since then. Since almost 2007. Now, because of this, this was kind of the legitimizer of the blockade. 18:26 In the eyes of the so-called international community, we are not blockading, we are not kind of imposing anything inhumane against Gaza. 18:35 What we are, are asking for is certain conditions to be fulfilled by the, the, the player, the, the party in power in, in Gaza, and in this case, uh, it's Hamas. 18:47 [instrumental music] In Gaza, Hamas-led gunmen had a message for locals. "Conspire with Israel, and you will pay with your life." 19:00 Mass fighters brought suspected collaborators to the main square, executing at least 18 of them before a crowd of onlookers. Posted on a nearby wall, the men's alleged crime. They provided the enemy with information. 19:19 Hamas, of course, uh, was very nervous and is still, in fact, very nervous, uh, in terms of maintaining its control within Gaza. 19:29 And at the same time, they had to manage all these external, uh, factors and impositions exerted on, on the Gaza Strip and on Hamas by external players, Israel, the US, Egypt, and others. 19:43 Uh, the idea of the blockade basically was to pressure Hamas, yes, on the one hand, and at the same time, to create some sort of unbearable conditions on the Gazan, uh, people themselves, to the point of pushing them and driving them to revolt and rebel against Hamas. 20:02 So in, like, this, the, in the fantasy world, if you like, of the blockade, the idea was to make the people of Gaza, the Palestinians in Gaza, make them revolt against Hamas, especially even in, in the year 2011 with the Arab Spring. 20:18 So you have mass movements now across the Middle East, across the Arab countries, revolting and going in the street against their rulers, so why, why doesn't this happen in, in, in Gaza? 20:30 Because you have all, all the ripe conditions, in fact. Uh, now this, this plan, if you like, the master plan didn't work. The pressure on Gaza, uh, on Hamas didn't work. 20:43 Hamas maintained its kind of, uh, strength and, uh, uh, it kept its roots deeply, uh, within the Palestinian society in Gaza. They i- immersed themselves within Gaza to the point that nobody can 21:01 m- disentangle Hamas from the Gazan society. So if you want to hit Hamas, you have to hit Gaza. If you want to relieve Gaza, you have to relieve Hamas. 21:13 So in a nutshell, though, uh, the idea of, of pushing the people in Gaza to reject Hamas and to revolt against Hamas, either by demonstrations or by force or by any other means, failed. 21:27 Uh, having said that Hamas succeeded in, doesn't mean that the thi- that things are rosy for Hamas in Gaza Strip. They are facing so many difficulties, of course. 21:37 Uh, the dire conditions in Gaza, uh, poverty, unemployment, uh, the uninhabitable conditions, they are hitting Hamas as well, and people pointing at Hamas as, as the main, one, at least one of, one main cause behind the, these conditions. 21:55 So things are not kind of easy ride for Hamas, uh, in Gaza, especially, um, in the past three, four years. So Hamas is now somehow feeling the heat, and let me say, especially after gambling on the Arab Spring. 22:11 With the Arab Spring, uh, 2011 until this very moment, we have, all of us, we have witnessed the rise of Islamist, uh, parties and, and movements here and there. Uh, from Tunisia to Egypt to Syria, uh, and elsewhere. 22:28 Now, the most important kind of, uh, and a dramatic change took place in Egypt by the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, uh, movement, and this is, of course, the mother organization of Hamas. 22:40 So Hamas felt finally not only the blockade is, is, is, is down by the, by the Brotherhood rise in, in Egypt, but also we are now having Egypt, that used to be alm- not only against us, but almost on the side of Israel most of the time, Hosni Mubarak's regime. 22:59 So they were vehemently against Hamas. So now this is kind of a, a game changer. Instead of having a, a hostile regime in Egypt, you have not only a friendly regime but also a brotherly regime. 23:12 So Hamas felt not only relief, but this is now the, the way forward. 23:17 Now, for Hamas, that continued only maybe for one year or a year and a half, and it ended, of course, with the military coup in Egypt and a new government in Egypt even more hostile to Hamas than how Hosni Mubarak used to be. 23:32 Hamas cut their, their ties with Syria because the brutality of President Bashar Assad, Hamas felt embarrassed. Syria used to be typically very strong ally of Hamas, and now Hamas' back is exposed. 23:46 Are you siding by this brutal regime, or you side by the people? Now, Hamas thought winning the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt 23:55 could be more than enough and could let us gamble on losing Syria because now we are winning Egypt. So this is the gamble. 24:04 So they lost Syria in the hope of winning Egypt, yet unfortunately for them, they lost even Egypt, uh, one year after. So they ended up with, with almost no Arab ally in, in, within the Middle East. 24:19 They have some allies or some people who support them in the Gulf, like Qatar, like Turkey, but these countries, they couldn't compensate the huge loss, the huge political loss on the side of Hamas that came out as a result of the Arab Spring. 24:36 They are the most powerful faces of Palestinian nationalism, but they don't see eye to eye. Almost ten years of talks to try and breach the differences between Hamas and Fatah have failed. 24:48 They're meeting yet again for mediated talks here in Qatar to try and resolve their differences. The two have been at odds since two thousand and six. 24:57 Now, though, political expediency might just bring the two together to present a united front against Israeli occupation. 25:04 Ordinary Palestinians, both in Gaza and also in the West Bank, are increasingly frustrated with their leadership. 25:13 The conditions, the, the, the siege, the blockade is, is getting even stronger and tighter on Hamas nowadays. 25:20 This is why Hamas should look forward, and I think for me, Hamas is now, uh, somehow contemplating maybe negotiating, thinking of certain options. 25:32 Um, these options are limited, they are costly, uh, but at the end of the day, they are thinking now along, in my view, along maybe three lines. One line is to negotiate with Egypt. 25:47 Although the, uh, the government is hostile to Hama- to Hamas, they are ready to give the Egyptian regime whatever conditions that this regime would ask for, because this is the only opening, this is the only option for Hamas and for Gaza to, to be free, to have the border crossing between Gaza Strip and Egypt, uh, opened in a very normal, ordinary way. 26:12 In this case, Hamas should be, should pay very high price. 26:16 And the high price is to almost become under the, uh, instructions of, o-of the Egyptian army and the Egyptian government, that you need to safeguard the, the borders, the Egyptian Gazan borders. 26:31 You have to do this and that. 26:33 You have to have a very, uh, heavy, uh, hand on, on, on certain, uh, radical groups in Gaza and in Sinai to have a very strong intelligence, uh, cooperation with the Egyptian security and Egyptian army. 26:51 And this would kind of portray Hamas in a very negative light. At the end of the day, you are cooperating with the army that, uh, made this military coup in Egypt. So this is one option. A second option is to 27:06 make some good terms wi-within the Palestinian polity, within the Palestinian arena. 27:12 And in this case, they have to go to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, they have to n-negotiate a deal, a, a national unity government, a national unity s- arrangement by which Hamas should accept at least maybe half of the conditions, uh, of the quartet conditions that were imposed on Hamas. 27:32 They wouldn't go all the way through, of course, in, in, in meeting these conditions. It's very hard for them, but at least maybe they can reach, uh, halfway through. 27:41 And by doing so, they have to accept the political leadership of the, of the Palestinian Authority with its president, Mahmoud Abbas, whom they not only maybe reject, but they even hate, and they wouldn't consider him as, as, as a legitimate Palestinian president because he was, uh, elected back in two thousand and five. 28:02 And since then, since then until now, there were no presidential elections. They have to come to terms with the Palestinian Authority that enjoys the backing of the international community. 28:13 They are not willing to deal and interact with Hamas directly, but if it was part of the Palestinian Authority, if it was kind of part w- part of a national unity arrangement, in this case, the international community, especially the EU, maybe even the United States, they are willing to, um, 28:33 to deal with Hamas. A third option for Hamas is to go maybe down a very risky road, that is to have a long-term truce with Israel. 28:45 So instead of accepting, uh, pressures and, and, and conditions and paying high price to Egypt or paying high price to the Palestinian Authority, the third alternative is to go direct to Israel and to have some sort of long-term truce. 29:01 And by this, long-term truce doesn't mean peace deal with Israel. This is not a peace treaty with Israel. Hamas would kind of maintain its ideological, political positions and statements. 29:14 Israel wouldn't talk about, you know, the political program or the ideology of Hamas. This is something practical to do with the security conditions and affairs along borders. 29:26 With this truce, let's say, uh, Hamas would refrain from launching any rockets, launching any military activities against Israel. 29:34 In return, Israel would accept refraining from doing any military invasions or wars or activities against, uh, Hamas and against Gaza. 29:43 This could go maybe for five years, ten years, some people would say maybe even fifteen years. Within this, within this long period of time, normal life will be, uh, returned to Gaza. 29:54 Border crossings would be open, either between Gaza and the West Bank, between Gaza and Israel, and between Gaza and the outside world. Maybe even Gaza would be allowed to have a seaport. 30:07 If they are having a seaport in this case, they can even forget about the crossing border with Egypt. So they can even kind of bypass the Egyptian borders and go just direct to the outside world. 30:19 It sounds very tempting, of course, for Hamas. In this case, you ca- you still have equal footing with the Palestinian Authority. You are not giving any compromises to your internal Palestinian rival. 30:33 You are not giving any compromises to your maybe regional hostile government, uh, neighboring your borders. However The cost is very high on the side of the legitimacy of Hamas. 30:46 In this case, Hamas would be seen by many Palestinians as not only another Palestinian Authority, another PLO that is doing business and peace treaties and talks with Israel, but also doing these talks for some partisan benefits, not national benefits. 31:06 So every single alternative, every single option of these three is in fact very costly. 31:12 And Hamas, I think, at this very moment is somehow weighing out the cost benefit, let's say, balance sheet between these three options. My thanks to Khaled for sharing these insights. 31:27 If you want to dive deeper into this topic, check out this week's feature article on worldpoliticsreview.com titled Can Hamas Afford the Cost of Ending Gaza's Isolation? 31:41 If you want to stay up to date with WPR's coverage of world affairs, there is no better way than subscribing to our newsletter. Just click on the newsletter button on the top of the homepage. 31:52 And if you want to receive every episode of Trendlines, just go into your podcast app of choice, search for Trendlines and subscribe. Trendlines is produced and edited by me, Peter Dory. 32:05 You can follow me and World Politics Review on Twitter, and you can find links to pieces covering the issues we talked about in the show notes on worldpoliticsreview.com. 32:16 Have a fantastic weekend and see you next week for a new episode of Trendlines.
