Two former secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, joined CBS News for a panel with CBS News senior correspondent Norah O’Donnell on Friday to discuss the Israel-Hamas peace plan brokered by President Trump as the first stage of the deal takes shape.
Both of the former top U.S. diplomats praised the Trump administration’s success in reaching a deal. They’re still cautiously watching to see how the early phases play out but expressed some optimism about its prospects.
The conversation took place two days after the signing of a landmark deal in which Hamas agreed to release all remaining hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel pledged to withdraw its military from parts of the Gaza Strip. Mr. Trump has called the deal the “first phase” of a comprehensive 20-point plan to end the two-year-long Israel-Hamas war. The president plans to travel to the Middle East as soon as this weekend, and said he hopes to be present for the return of the hostages.
“I really commend President Trump and his administration, as well as Arab leaders in the region for making the commitment to the 20-point plan and seeing a path forward for what’s often called the day after,” Clinton told O’Donnell.
O’Donnell asked Rice if she is confident this is the end of the war.
“No one can be completely confident, given the history of the Middle East,” Rice replied, but she added that there are good reasons to be optimistic.
Rice and Clinton both said the Israelis and Palestinians must first get through this first phase of the deal — and that still isn’t certain.
“That’s not self-evident,” Clinton said. It’s going to take a lot of work. It’s going to take a lot of coordination.”
One of the difficulties in achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East is getting various parties on board, but the “broader coalition” of Middle Eastern states involved in this agreement is a good sign, Rice said.
“The one piece that I’m most concerned about is, how do you get from a kind of transitional authority of some kind, a truly representative Palestinian authority?” Rice asked. “The Palestinian authority, which controls the West Bank, lost control of Gaza after 2006, has not really been reformed in a long time. And it needs reform. It needs younger blood.”
Clinton called Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar’s capital of Doha in September “ill advised” and a “strategic error” that gave Mr. Trump’s negotiators an opening.
“That provided an opening for both President Trump and his representatives to marshal all of the regional powers, including, of course, Qatar, but also to make it clear to Israel, ‘No, this is now enough. We cannot continue this. This conflict needs to end, and we’ve got to move on.'”
Clinton said of U.S. negotiators, “They took advantage of an opening that was available and were able to be successful.”
Rice suggested a two-state solution isn’t likely to be feasible right now, but she said there are things the Palestinians can do to prepare for a future state. Palestinians are going to need to insist on reforms themselves, she said.
“They’ve got to start to recognize that Israel is going to exist, and it’s going to be a part of this Middle East,” Rice said. “And that means, change the lessons that you teach your kids about the state of Israel. Stop putting up maps that (say) the state of Israel doesn’t exist. Don’t create another generation of Palestinians who believe that somehow the resistance is the way to peace and security.”
Clinton said the Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank that has been encouraged by the Israeli government “has to cease.”
Clinton said the work of rebuilding Gaza will be arduous, laborious and intensive, and she called on the U.S. and international community to commit together to bring peace to the Middle East.
“Let’s now support this process and bring it together, not just in a nonpartisan way in our own country, but literally internationally as a great global commitment to try to bring peace, security, stability and a better future to the Middle East,” Clinton said.
The deal is expected to allow dozens of hostages to return to their families on Monday or Tuesday, ending a two-year ordeal that began with Hamas’ attack on southern Israel. It would also offer a reprieve to millions of residents of the Gaza Strip who have faced an intense and nearly uninterrupted two-year bombardment and ground invasion by Israel’s military.
Some questions remain, however. Mr. Trump’s 20-point peace plan calls for Israel to withdraw from much of the Gaza Strip in phases, but the exact cadence of those withdrawals isn’t clear. It also calls for control of Gaza to be handed over to a still-unformed “technocratic” committee that does not include Hamas and — at least for now — also leaves out the Palestinian Authority. The deal recognizes an independent Palestinian state as “the aspiration of the Palestinian people,” but it’s unclear if or when discussions on statehood could take place.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has vexed every U.S. administration in recent history — including the two that Friday’s guests worked in. Clinton pressed for a two-state solution — but Obama struggled with a chilly relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a period that also saw two smaller wars in Gaza. Rice also championed a two-state solution and made extensive efforts in the last years of the Bush administration to help negotiate peace. But in part because Ohlmert and Abbas were each short on the political support necessary to make a lasting deal, the conflict continued. One common critique of past administrations is that they have not made sufficient use of U.S. leverage over Israel, to pressure it to make concessions. Pressure on the Netanyahu government from President Trump appears to have been a critical factor in bringing about this peace deal now.
