Hi, everyone, and thank you for being with me. This morning, Israel began an incursion into Gaza City, which is a huge military operation. And I'm afraid it's the opening of a new chapter of horror in that situation, certainly, on a humanitarian basis for the Palestinian people. So there's much to discuss. There's been a lot of stirring the soup when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, but we need to do more than stir the soup. We need to move the needle. And that's really the focus of our conversation today. How can we get out of this terrible, terrible drama that is now occurring and causing such unbelievable suffering? So my guest today, thank you, Raya for being here, is Raya Jarrar. He's an Arab-American political advocate based in DC, with democracy for the Arab world now, better known as dawn. Raya had worked as a lobbyist and political issues pertaining to the U.S. engagement in the Arab world. He's testified in numerous congressional hearings and briefings. He's often seen on international media outlets in Arabic and in English, including CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Sky News, Arabia. He is a graduate of the University of Baghdad and the University of Jordan. Rayad, thank you so much for talking me today. I think it's a great day for us to dig in with what's happening. First of all, I want to give people the lay of the land. Where are we right now? What is happening with some military incursion? Many people in the IDF, the chiefs in the IDF, were opposed to this, but this is Netanyahu's right-wing Messianic vision. And he's going to take over the whole thing, obviously, which he says is necessary to destroy Hamas. It's impossible to destroy Hamas, certainly that way. Would you say that what I just said is an accurate version of what is happening now? It's accurate. It's also concerning because we don't know what is the whole thing. Netanyahu definitely wants to take over the whole thing, but there are different definitions for the whole thing. Netanyahu and the few of his ministers have been speaking about some biblical version of Israel that includes all of Israel's Palestine and some sections of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, other countries, maybe Saudi Arabia, so-called greater Israel. So no one really knows exactly what he wants and no one knows how to stop him. Last week we saw Netanyahu bomb the seventh country in the region in the last few months by the attack on Qatar. There is very difficult for other countries to stop Netanyahu military. It's impossible to stop him. Politically, I think everyone has reached to the maximum limits of using all of the bad adjectives in their press releases, condemning Israel's actions. So now the question is, you know, what's next? There are certainly those who would disagree with some of what you just said about the other countries. It's bad enough how he sees the land, which is now called Palestine. And obviously, the Israelis would argue that the bombing in Qatar was in order to get to the Hamas leadership only. In terms of this military incursion, I think there are people of good will all over the world, millions of people, who are in deep opposition to this. And you just mentioned how to stop him. Am I correct in assuming that the most important linchpin here is Donald Trump? One hundred percent, because Natania who is not going to stop on his own. If we have learned one thing in the past two years, that one thing is that Netanyahu is unable and unwilling to stop on his own. The only people who can stop is his U.S. partners, whether it was Biden, whether it is Trump now. That is the only way to stop the military operations that Israel is doing. The only way to stop it is to have phone call coming from the United States to stay stopped. So let's dig into this a little bit. There were many people who voted for Trump, thinking he was the peace president. He was the one who was gonna fix this. It's been said by many that Biden was, not near his bitch, but Trump is his business partner. It seems to me that basically what's happening is that, but I want to hear your opinion, obviously. Basically, it seems to me, we know that that Trump does not necessarily like BB Nenyaahu. There's no personal affection there. But it seems that Netanyahu is basically made a deal with him. Lead me alone, let me do this, and after all, there will be great opportunities for the Trump organization once we have Gaza City, and this is all handled. Is it, is it, that's a very cynical view, but it seems to me that the most cynical view is the most realistic view. Am I on the right track there? That might be one of the factors, honestly. I feel it's a little bit too simplistic. I think Trump is more complex than just getting bought by money or business interest. It is definitely one of his main interests out there. We saw what he did with Saudi Arabia during his first term, you know, cashed out the whole relationship with a few billion dollars that were sent to him and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, by the Saudi dictator Muhammad bin Salman and BS. So he does like to have this kind of pay for play and business interests. interests. I don't think that that solely can explain the Trump administration's weak position currently on Israel-Police, and that is something that is really mind-boggling to me because Trump has really went against his campaign promises. He went against his close circle of like America first stars hyper nationalist who are not saying stop Israel because Israel is committing a genocide they're not saying stop Israel because we're feeling bad for the Palestinian babies they don't really care they're saying you should stop supporting Israel because it's not in our national interest as a country to continue the support. And he's gone against them. And that for me is very difficult to explain because he had said the same things for years and years and years. And now we're stuck in the cycle with him where he is unable to do that phone call to tell Netanyahu stop. Yes, it's interesting. Marco Rubio's words this morning were, it's their war. So let's dig deeper into that. Why do you think he is so reticent to make that phone call to Netanyahu and tell him to stop? I mean, first I have to say it's not their war at all. It's our war too. The United States is definitely a partner in whatever Israel has been doing in the past couple of years. And there is absolutely no way for Israel to have done any of its military operations inside of Gaza in the occupied West Bank in the rest of the region without US military and political support. No way. Like the United States is a 100% a partner in what's coming on there by sending weapons, by continuing to veto UN Security Council resolutions regarding Israel, by providing Israel with all of the political international political cover it needs to continue its operations. So for Grobio, anyone also say, we're not, we actually, we have nothing with this like it's not our circus, you know, it's theirs. It's not true, it's actually not true, it's factually untrue, it's legally not true. The United States is responsible under international law, under the Rome statute, for Aiding and Abettin, whatever Israel is doing. It's not a true statement. This isn't Israeli-American operation that's going on. And the fact that the U.S. is unable and unwilling to stop it. I mean, Marianne, I don't know. And he said, you know, me and you have talked about this for years now, you know, like over coffee, over dinner, over your show. I don't know, like,

we have speculations, you know, we can talk about some dynamics that have existed for decades with the US military industrial complex. This is not new. You know, US companies want to sell what war. That makes sense. Things about special interest groups, pressuring, lobbyists, pressuring, Republicans and Trump, I think that's true too. But it still doesn't explain it because he is actually going against his base and that is different. Like the splinters inside the Republican Party about how far the United States should go to accommodate Netanyahu are very big and you would think that someone like Trump would actually take a line that is closer to the Taker Carlson's closer to the Charlie Kirk's of the United States than what he's doing now. Well, Charlie Kirk was a supporter of Israel and his eyes were opening about some of what's been going on. And he was speaking it, with some independent thought there. Everyone, I want to be clear about a little bit in terms of US history related to Israel. We originally had this in terms of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. We, for a very long time, had the official position of a desire to be an honest broker. Jimmy Carter certainly tried and Bill Clinton deserves, I a lot of credit because he tried. After that, once George Bush became president, George Bush brought in what we're called the Neocons and their view was that any friend of Israel was a friend of ours and any enemy of Israel was an enemy of ours and completely abandoned the historic position of even trying to be an honest broker. So I think that that's an important thing for people to realize right out in terms of how we got here. And I appreciate you saying there's so much mystery here about why is Trump being so reticent to take a stand of any level of righteousness. I agree. I agree with your narrative of events. I do want to say though, I have like a counterpoint to share with you again. And it is about Bush and his stand on Israel. I think actually we are contrary to conventional wisdom, because he indeed brought in awful new cons that changed the U.S. foreign policy in that regards. I personally paid a price for that. I was born in Baghdad, lived in Baghdad during the 2003 in Beijing, and the pretext of that in Beijing was created by New

Cones who abused and used the tragedy of 9-11 to justify interventions and wars and invigions around the region. But what I don't say is that Bush did something that no one else really did from that era, not even Clinton, not even other presidents, where he did impose some sort of a price on Israel, if Israel did not follow US policies. And that was not sanctions, but he imposed some sort of penalties for any money that Israel would spend on building settlements in the West Bank. The US reduced that amount from the United States guarantees to Israel because he was guarantees billions of dollars worth of loans for Israel every year so they reduced the guarantees based on that. So there was some sort of a punishment for doing some spending contrary to US policy. And as a result of that, Israel actually did not like it at all. And they abandoned the use of US guaranteed loans just because of that, because they did not want to have some sort of an accountability measure that they're going to play with it. But I always tell people that that model that was introduced by someone who is not a good model for us He's you know George Bush. He's closer to a joke than a president But he did introduce that model where the United States said you know We are gonna use our financial levers. We are gonna use our financial leverage over Israel when Israel is using our money but doing actions contrary to our policy. And that is something that we need to see more of in these days. Well, certainly, that's fascinating. And thank you for telling me that, right? Because I did not know that. And I think that's very important. So given that, so given the fact that you're saying that when the settlements began to expand, that George Bush did use the lovers of power to try to at least, try to halt them, try to at least slow them down. I think it then is reasonable to continue. What happened with Obama? Tell me about Obama and Israel. I mean, there was like and forth negotiations, tense relationship between Obama and Netanyahu. Remember the whole famous speech where Netanyahu wanted to disform or present Obama by coming to the United States and giving a speech to Congress behind Obama's back to just to criticize him in his hometown. And that did create watershed moment politically here for DC, because I remember there were somewhere between 50 and 55 members of Congress who skipped the speech. And that was... Remember all that? Yeah, that was a big like partisan step. Because before that it was very difficult for Democrats or Republicans to say, I'm not going to attend a speech by Netanyahu. But that moment did create that. I would say the tension between Obama and Netanyahu did not really culminate in any solid U.S. actions other than the UN resolution that Obama allowed to pass towards end of his tenure. Yeah, that has been definitely my take on all that. When it came to Israel, Obama did with Israel what he did with a lot of things. And his idea of the expression of power was, come on, guys. You really shouldn't, guys, come on. Don't do that. I, just horrifying. That to me, that was the point, especially with the settlements when Obama should have said, stop. There were so many things, you know, I said early on in this interview, we're not going to go back. And I just went to go back to some of the historical dynamics since 1948, et cetera. But going back in modern history, I think, is important. There were so many decades leading up to this, in which the United States could have said, stop right there, stop right there long before it was able to festively come this terrible. And Marianne, we saw this is not a theoretical scenario of the United States saying stop. The United States did say stop. Earlier this year,

if you remember immediately after Trump was elected, he didn't want to have the headache of Israeli attacks and Gaza, etc. So he did send Whitkop and me and you talked about it, right? Right. So then what happened? So then it goes back to the earlier thing, which is what happen that he's the one who seemed to blink.

That's right, but but I'm saying like that there you know some people doubted until that moment You know what many of us including myself have been saying which is this is one phone call from the US president saying stop We saw that in real life that did happen It did happen in January of this year where the US president said stop and they had to stop immediately We had to stop. We saw that in real life that did happen. It did happen in January of this year, where the US President said stop and they had to stop immediately. They had to stop. We also saw it one more time, Maryam, when the 12th day war between Iran and Israel was going on, and then Trump pushed for a ceasefire agreement. And there were two Iranian missiles that were fire the few hours after the ceasefire agreement and Netanyahu loaded all of his airplanes and they were on their way to bomb the heck out of Iran. And Trump said turn around right now and they did not. Literally on the air, literally while they're in there. So I mean like anyone who doubts anyone who says no no no Israel, it's its own country, they don't listen to us, it's not true. The Israel understands that they want, I have 35, they want have bombs, they want have the political leverage, they want have the political cover at the United Security Council without you as supports or when you as a stop, they do stop. And that is an extremely important part in the theory of change here because when someone like Rubius says it's their war right so it's actually not it is actually not okay so let's turn our attention now to the other Arab countries well other Arab through the Arab countries take me back a little bit because I remember several years ago when the United Arab League had made a proposal that certainly seemed reasonable to me, right? They wanted Easter asalum in exchange and to state solution in exchange for full acknowledgement of Israel and that was turned down. Is that an accurate statement exactly about what they're proposing? I mean this has been going on for decades. Arab League's proposal that was introduced initially by Saudi King Abdullah, the father of the regime. And that proposal was based on international consensus at the time, even today, that there should be two states on the 1967 borders and in exchange all of the Arab countries will recognize Israel. And it's always been the right-wing elements, the coup government, etc., in Israel that has existed that, correct? Yeah, I mean, and the narrative that we have heard

in the United States is that Israel wants

to actually negotiate peace, but there's no one sitting

on the other side of the table,

which is actually not accurate because if you,

you know, it's not just about Palestinians,

it's also about all of that of nations.

And this proposal that has been on the table since,

I think 2000 and 2003, I remember that Saudis introduced it around the time of the invasion of the Jinnin, the first Israeli invasion on the Jinnin camp. And it's been there, it's actually reintroduced, every year, reintroduced, every year. And now we proposal, Mayan, grow into what the United Nations General Assembly just voted on this week, which was the New York Declaration. And that New York Declaration was based on a conference that was held in New York, by Saudi Arabia and France, invited all other countries to it, under the same exact principles in that, you know, in that original Arab League's proposal decades ago, which is Israel should withdraw to the 1967 border. We're going to recognize the Palestinian state and we're going to normalize with Israel. And I would say on top of everything we're talking about, now in 2025, this is also an ICJ, the National Court of Justice Opinion that was issued exactly a year ago, saying Israel has to withdraw from the occupied territories, and then it was adopted by you in General Assembly on September 17, I think, which is like tomorrow is the annual anniversary of this. Asking Israel to withdraw from all occupied territories to back to 1967 border. So this like 1967 border is not something that came out of ten areas. It came from your resolutions back in the 60s and 70s, it came from international consensus and the United States official position used to be for decades that we actually support the two-state solution based on the 20, in 1960s, the border. And of course, there were like different interpretations throughout the decades. Oh, maybe not exactly the border. Maybe there are going to be some landswabs. Maybe there are going to be this. Maybe there are going to be that. But that was the baseline over the decades. So talk to me about what the Arab nations are saying right now and what they are proposing. It has seemed to me for a long time that a consortium, an international consortium, which United States is part but certainly cannot lead led by other Arab nations is the only answer here. Can you tell me what they're proposing and tell me why a couple of weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, Arab nations got together and said that Hamas should put down its arms.

And nothing seemed to follow from that. Tell me about what's going on there. So I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to. When they said to lay down the arms? I'm not sure which conference you're referring to, but I'll tell you about that mean idea of Hamas' armed wing.

And we had a conference in Qatar yesterday that reiterated many of the Arab and Muslim leaders' visions for the region and for Israel. But before I say this, like imagine, Marianne, like we are in a spot where The biggest, biggest negotiator in the Arab world is Qatar.

That is, it's a wealthy country, it has excellent connections to everyone, including the United States. The United States has its largest base in the world in Qatar, and it's not just bombed Qatar. And now this is also. But let's be clear here, because I want to make sure everybody understands. Marco Rubio went to Qatar this morning, apparently for three hours to talk to them. Israel bombed, they didn't just bomb Qatar. They bombed, and they failed, at an effort to take out the Hamas leadership, which was there to discuss the next round of the business. But this is making it a different world. I understand. They still bombed the soil of Qatar. But I just want everybody to understand why were they bombed? That's true. They bombed Qatar and they killed a Qatar, one person was killed in the attack was an official from Qatar, security person from Qatar. And this, I don't know, like the way that you say it makes it seem as if there are two different kinds of, you know, violating of other people's issues. No, I will take that. I think, like, I just want to say like an example, like for US audiences, like imagine if another country, with bomb, the JDL office in New York, you know, to say this is a terrorist organization. Like, the US is not going to be like, ah, that's completely fine, actually. No, I certainly didn't mean to minimize it, and I take your point. I was just pointing out to people that their expressed reason was to take out the Hamas leadership who were there for the negotiations. Yeah, I mean, that's also what happened in Iran initially that led to a much bigger conflict and war, is that they bombed the head of Hamas who was in Iran. The international law just does not work that way. You can't say I'm going to kill someone in your country, so it doesn't matter with the bomb. I understand. But in this particular case, the bombing was not just a violation of Qatar's sovereignty. It was also a violation of the laws of war because people who were targeted, people who were killed were not combatants. No, I understand. So, good, and I'm sure. The point that I was saying, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the point I was saying is that, you know, Qatar, at this point, the saying, we don't want to negotiate. You just bombed us. Like how? I'm just saying, it is so mind-boggling that we have actually one very capable country in the region that has been playing a very good role for US foreign policy in Afghanistan, inside the Middle East. Like they can communicate with everyone. And now they're bombed. And now they're saying, we're not sure we want to be a part of this, if the United States, especially, especially Marianne, there are confirmed reports now that the United States not only knew about the attack on Qatar, they might have actually helped make it happen. Now, we have confirmed reports from his David channel 12, some other four Israel officials so far have confirmed that Netanyahu have told Trump at least 50 minutes before the attack that he's gonna attack Qatar. There are reports about US forces in Qatar, in the base, standing down air defenses for a small window to allow that to happen. So these things are so damaging to the United States standing in the region with other countries with the Muslim world. How can anyone trust the US? If the US is in a country where it has its own peace? So clearly that's why Marco Rubio was there this morning. Has Marco Rubio made any comments since the meeting that you know of? Not really. I mean I think there is a lot of anger going on in Qatar in the region. You know these are the closest allies of the United States in the region. They have you know economic bonds, military bonds, intelligence bonds, and they're shocked. They're literally shocked that the US would allow this to happen. Like, they host a US base and support everything possible to avoid something like this from happening. So for them, it's a watershed moment, because imagine the calculations going on in the heads

of everyone in the region, which is wait a second, if even having a US base on our soil and supporting the US financially, I'm going to tell you. Doesn't give you this, why do we even have them? Why do we even talk to them at this point if we're going to get bombed anyway. So what is your appraisal of what is happening among these Arab nations right now? So I was saying like what's happening is that there is a very big hit to the US capital, political capital in the region and the US ability to be that broker for peace. I don't think it's a joke now if you tell anyone in the region, the US ability to be that broker for peace. I don't think it's a joke now. If you tell anyone in the region, in the honestly in the world, the United States is a broker for peace. No, no, no. It became a joke. So now the Arab nation's language is shifting like the final announcement that came out that came out from the Arab Islamic conference in Qatar yesterday was very very different from what we have heard over the last decades where you know they had an Obama-esque kind of language you know like hey you know can we get along here you know like we'll give you this you can we get along here? You know, like we'll give you this, you give us that. This one was much more pointy. It discussed issues such as supporting ICC actions against Israel. It discussed issues about cutting all economic and diplomatic ties with Israel as a result of the attack on Qatar and other parts of the region unless Israel stops their operations in Gaza. So it's very, very different. It didn't sound like how things used to be, which was more level-headed, more of an extending like a proposal for peace. It sounded more of like a standoff. Now, one more thing that happened, again, is that for the first time, I mean that I know of, the Qatar actually requested the Gulf, counsel, the Gulf Corporation Council. This includes Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, a few other very wealthy countries that are very close to the United States, to hold its security and military meeting and activate Article 2 of their joint defense agreement. This is similar to NATO, similar to Ale defense agreement. So I don't think they're going to bomb Israel. I don't think that's going to happen. But the fact that there is a lot, a lot of escalation and people are going farther away from a solution and closer to a full regional war. In many accounts in the region, the fact that there is a lot of escalation with multiple countries, multiple fronts at the same time, people are calling it a regional war already. I think that might be a stretch, but I think we are definitely inching closer to that. The combination of a lack of political will or vision for a political solution added to military escalations among more bombardment is pushing the region towards an actual full-scale regional war. Everybody, I also want to make the point that some people – I know I hear people say to me, well, under the Trump's first administration, they passed

the Abraham Accords. But it's very important for you to remember. The Abraham Accords was an agreement between Israel and several Arab nations, but it did not address the fundamental problem of justice for the Palestinian people. And then Israel was about to sign a security deal with Saudi Arabia, and that's when Hamas really

made its decision to go ahead with the horror of October 7. Raya, there were half a million people in Israel the other day protesting Netanyahu, a majority of the Israeli people, which of course, by the way, in a country of what 9 million people is a very, very large protest.

There is a country of what, nine million people,

is a very, very large protest.

There is a majority of Israelis who want him out.

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