Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Over the last few weeks, President Trump has revealed plans, if one could call them that, for the future of Gaza, which has been decimated by the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. It’s unclear whether the ideas floated by Trump are feasible. So what are the real prospects for rebuilding Gaza? And what would it take to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East?

To explore these questions, I’m joined by former ambassador and peace negotiator, Dennis Ross, who served in both the Bush and Clinton administrations; Karim Sadjadpour, an expert on Iran and the Arab world; and Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gazan-American writer and analyst who grew up in Gaza City and moved to the US as a teenager.

And now, by the way, you can watch this episode, too. Just head to cafe.com/youtube. All of that is coming up. Stay tuned.

Is peace still possible in the Middle East? Former US Ambassador Dennis Ross, Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour, and Gazan-American writer and analyst Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib join me to discuss the current situation.

Karim, Ahmed, Dennis, thanks for joining the show.

Dennis Ross:

Good to be with you.

Preet Bharara:

We have a very simple and easy to digest-and-solve problem that we’re going to be talking about today. I should note at the outset that we are taping this, recording this late morning on Monday, March 10th. Lots of things are in flux. Lots of things can happen between now and when people listen. So I just wanted to time-stamp it.

Can I start with you, Dennis? Some weeks ago, not even two months ago, on the eve of Donald Trump being sworn in as President of the United States again, there was this breakthrough ceasefire between the parties in the Middle East, Israel and the Palestinians. And there was an agreement for the exchange of hostages over a period of time.

What’s the status of that? How is that going? If you haven’t been following it, as many people maybe have not been following it hour to hour, day to day?

Dennis Ross:

So let me explain it. I want to explain it from two standpoints. One is Donald Trump is someone who believes in the use of leverage. One element of leverage is not only pressure. Sometimes it can be inducement, sometimes it can be in effect, creating an attractiveness of what he’s doing. That’s not what he does. He doesn’t base things on soft power. He bases on the threat of certain things. And in advance of his inauguration, he put out there would be hell to pay if hostages weren’t released prior to the time that he came into office.

The framework of an agreement that had three phases, which I’ll explain in a second, had been in place literally since last May. The essence of the approach was to have a three-phased approach.

The first phase would be six weeks. The actual numbers of hostages for Palestinian prisoners was worked out largely then. Hamas generally accepted that proposal in early July. Eventually, the very same framework was adopted with no real material difference.

So three phases. Phase One, I described. Phase Two, there was to be a negotiation to complete the ceasefire, make it a permanent ceasefire. Israel would withdraw from Gaza in its entirety, and all of the living hostages would be released. Again, each was 42 days.

Phase Three would have the release of the remaining bodies of hostages, meaning the dead hostages, and reconstruction of Gaza would begin. This was a three-phased approach. It had not been closed.

What happened was Donald Trump makes his declaration. And on the Israeli side, Steve Witkoff, the designated negotiator for Trump, goes and basically tells Netanyahu, “It won’t be understood by President Trump if you say ‘No.'”

And Egypt and Qatar go to Hamas and say, “Look, it’s in your interest to agree to this because once the fighting stops, it’ll be very difficult to resume it.” So both sides reacted to the anticipation of pressure coming from Trump.

What’s the status now? Phase One has been completed, but the ceasefire is continuing. Why is it that there is a problem here? Israel hasn’t been negotiating on Phase Two because Netanyahu understands that he will lose his government if he does. Not so much the negotiation, but it looks like he’s going to complete Phase Two, which involves complete withdrawal from Gaza, a permanent ceasefire, and the release of the hostages. So he hasn’t been negotiating on it because of fear that it might cost him his government. Hamas is insisting you stick to that framework.

There is now a new proposal that is coming from Steve Witkoff that is basically saying, “Let’s have a two-month ceasefire that takes us through Ramadan and through Passover. At the beginning of this ceasefire, 10 living hostages will be released. There are 24 who are believed to still be alive. And by the end of the 60 days, there should be an effort to negotiate a permanent ceasefire. And if that’s achieved, then the remaining hostages will be released.” So it is a modification of the three-phased approach.

There are some signs that there is some progress being made. And the irony is some of that progress being made seems to be the result of the Trump administration negotiating directly with Hamas, which I will say breaks the taboo. The idea that you would negotiate with Hamas and give them something that’s highly valuable to them, meaning normalization and even a kind of legitimization without imposing a price first, prevented every preceding administration from ever dealing with Hamas.

There were political concerns and the like. But fundamentally the idea was, “Why would you give Hamas a victory of recognition by dealing directly with them, without getting something from them in return?”

This administration basically isn’t constrained by any of the traditional norms we think normally about alliances like, but here this is a case of a real adversary, a terrorist group that committed October 7th and all the atrocities associated with it. And they did not feel that there was a reason not to be talking directly to them, and they have begun to do that.

Preet Bharara:

Let’s pivot on that point. Karim, Ahmed, is this a situation in which doing something different and new, as Dennis points out that this is, something that is worthwhile, something that could be worthwhile if done appropriately? Should we dismiss it out of hand? Is it always a terrible idea, the direct negotiation and discussion with Hamas?

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

Well, if I may just share, I grew up in Gaza. I have family, immediate and extended, that remained there. I’ve lost folks in there. I am in regular, constant, constant contact with a lot of folks on the ground who are both glad and relieved to get some reprieve from the end of the fighting.

But at the same time, are extraordinarily frustrated that in a sense we are somewhat crawling our way back to a modified version of the old status quo, particularly after seeing Hamas re-emerge out of their tunnels, put on their military uniforms, put on these displays during the hostage releases, and act as if they’re very much so in full control: despite the fact that they’re weakened, despite the fact that they’re in a terrible shape.

Yes, I’m a believer in disrupting the status quo. I’m a believer in thinking outside the box. I’m a believer that you cannot go around and eliminate every single living member of Hamas. I’m a believer that you have to have a combination of playing hardball, but also winning over some of the so-called moderate elements within Hamas. Learning lessons from the De-Ba’athification fiasco in Iraq. We don’t want a situation where Hamas is not in control or doesn’t govern, but very much so reigns per the Hezbollah model.

So there’s frustration on the ground that yes, I mean, people understand that the hostages are part of why they’re suffering. The people understand that there needs to be a permanent end to the war, and that that will not happen while Hamas holds hostages.

On the other hand, there’s very much a realization that releasing the hostages and getting rid of Hamas’s ability to control Gaza are in a sense, in opposition to one another as outcomes, as goals. And maybe there’s a way to eventually do one and do the other later.

But this is what frustrates me, as someone who lost 33 of my immediate and extended family members, is that what has it all been for? What has all this destruction and suffering? We’re coming up on the 20th anniversary of the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

I left Gaza. I’m 34, I left as a 15-year-old in 2005, one month before the withdrawal. And it was set to be this new beginning for Gaza’s rejuvenation. Gaza was supposed to be the model for effective Palestinian self-governance to show to the world, to show to our people, to the Arabs, to the Israeli people, that this is what an occupation-free, settlement-free West Bank would look like. And when I say that, unfortunately, I’m regularly maligned.

I’m said that I am peddling in Hasbara, that I am repeating Israeli talking points. And it’s very easy to talk about. I mean, I recognize the imbalance of power dynamics between Palestinians and Israelis. But I am a believer that part of the disrupting the status quo isn’t just looking to the United States, isn’t just looking to the Arabs, but it’s looking inwards. Change begins from within. And I want to see the empowering of alternate frameworks that can actually be enabled by Palestinians on the ground.

I’m a believer, by the way, one of the ideas that the Palestinian Authority and the Arabs have talked about, is having this committee of technocrats. Hamas steps back, these technocrats of professors, businesspeople, administrators, bureaucrats, media personalities, locals, respected community leaders, et cetera, lead.

I mean, it’s a wonderful idea. I support it wholeheartedly as part of the transition. The problem is if you’re going to have this committee of independent Palestinians in Gaza rule, or attempt to administer the Strip without any executive authority, without anyone to protect them, without anyone to basically shield them from Hamas. If they identify Hamas is stealing aid here, if they identify that Hamas is redirecting cement over there and they want to take action, who’s going to stop Hamas from killing them? Who’s going to stop Hamas from bribing them?

So that’s the frustrating part. Again, as someone who’s been an ally in pursuit of healing and reconciliation with Israelis, an ally of hostage families, of survivors of October 7th, I was horrified by October 7th. It doesn’t represent Palestinian values. It is inappropriate. I want the hostages to be released. Taking women and children and the elderly is a horrendous act that Hamas did, and I feel the urge to speak out against it.

But there’s a bigger kind of long-term implication of what we do now to release those hostages, and how that potentially keeps the Palestinian people in Gaza, 2.3 million people, trapped under the iron grip of Hamas.

Preet Bharara:

We’re going to bring in Karim on this issue of engaging directly with Hamas. And I want to read to you a portion of Donald Trump’s post on X, on Twitter, that has got a lot of attention.

It begins, “‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye – You can choose. Release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you.” He goes on to say, in all caps, “RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER.” What’s wrong with that approach, If anything?

Karim Sadjadpour:

The President Trump reminds me of a concept that psychologists oftentimes use called the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is that the less you really know about something, the more confident your views about it.

And so I think his approach to foreign policy, and the Middle East in particular, is that over the last decades we’ve had a bunch of morons who have failed resolving these challenges in the Middle East. And in fact, they’ve made it worse.

Preet Bharara:

Who are the morons?

Karim Sadjadpour:

Well, previous administrations. And he’s been critical of both Republican administrations like George W. Bush, and obviously Democratic administrations. So he’s bipartisan in his criticism of previous US administrations, and wants to apply pretty simple solutions to complex challenges.

Now, in his first term, most experts told him that something like the Abraham Accords was not possible because Arab countries like the UAE and Bahrain and Morocco would not normalize relations with Israel, absent some significant Israeli concessions toward the Palestinians. Now he proved them wrong, and so I think that this time around, he likewise is his own most important advisor.

And whether it’s the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the nuclear standoff with Iran, the language he uses is very simple. And I think the end games he has in his head are also very simple. You probably saw the video he tweeted about Trump Gaza, essentially.

Preet Bharara:

I was going to ask about that in a moment.

Karim Sadjadpour:

Yeah. Taking probably the world’s most destructive war zone and turning it into Dubai on the Mediterranean. And so-

Preet Bharara:

So you’re skeptical of that?

Karim Sadjadpour:

Well, let me just talk about it briefly in the Iran context, because I think what he’s essentially trying to do is to force an outcome. And I agree that he is hastening a climactic situation. It’s not necessarily going to end in a deal. I think that is one possibility, a diplomatic deal.

Another possibility is it could actually lead to conflict, could lead to the Iranian government’s, certainly the implosion of this current supreme leader. So it’s traditionally past administrations, again, whether Democrat or Republican: if you have a vexing foreign policy challenge, it’s a 10 out of 10. You’re trying to make it an eight and to contain the challenge.

I think what Trump likes to do is to not contain things, but to try to resolve them and using pretty simple logic, oftentimes enormous coercion coupled with the offer of a deal. Again, that can potentially lead you to positive outcomes. But it can also lead you to potentially dangerous outcomes.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. But to go back to this question, can anyone here explain why it is a bad thing, at least on one level, for Trump to send a strong direct message to Hamas, a murderous group that nobody on this panel would defend? What’s wrong with it?

Dennis Ross:

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.

Preet Bharara:

Okay.

Dennis Ross:

But for me, look, having just done a new book on statecraft, the key to good statecraft is you marry objectives and means. What he is doing is he’s staking out a very clear objective. What are the means that he’s prepared to use?

Preet Bharara:

Yeah.

Dennis Ross:

This is not Zelenskyy, where he can cut off American military support and intelligence and put enormous pressure on him, by the way.

Preet Bharara:

But he can supply, he can do the opposite for Israel.

Dennis Ross:

He can supply Israel, yes, he can. But the fact is, what are the Israelis going to do to Hamas that they haven’t done already? When he says, “There’s going to be hell to pay,” they’ve inflicted hell already. Hamas has already demonstrated they don’t care about the price that the Palestinian public pays. They’re quite willing to sacrifice them.

So the leverage he thinks he’s applying, “I’m going to unleash the Israelis,” he’s not really going to do a lot. I don’t have a problem.

Preet Bharara:

Because they’ve already been unleashed.

Dennis Ross:

Yeah, and I don’t have a problem with putting pressure on Hamas. But I want there to be some relationship between what he says and what he’s prepared to do, and what are the resources that he can marshal?

The irony is there is a potential for a day-after in Gaza. That potential involves not just what Ahmed was talking about in terms of what could be a technical counsel. But who, as you raised, Ahmed, correctly, who provides the day-to-day security? Who guarantees that humanitarian assistance is distributed to those who are in need of it, and that Hamas doesn’t seize it and then sell it as a way of financing itself?

It’s an interesting paradox. The only time Hamas puts on its uniform is during ceasefires. If there’s war again, they take it off. So the point here is, can you bring a group of different Arab states in? The UAE, we know, is prepared to take part in a stabilization force. They want reform in the Palestinian Authority before they’ll do it. Not rhetorically, but practically, because they don’t want to go in there and be stuck there.

So the point is, there are some alternatives. I don’t see him working on those alternatives. I don’t see him marshaling the means. Again, if you’re going to stake out a very strong objective, I have no problem with that as long as you have a strategy for how you put together the means to achieve that objective. Right now I see a big gap. I see a gap on this issue. I see a gap also on the Iranian issue, as Karim was identifying.

Preet Bharara:

There’s been a lot of discussion, including among people on this panel about rebuilding Gaza. People might ask, given the ravages of war, given we don’t have a final undertaking here and we have a modification to an undertaking, and maybe it’ll be a modification to the modification, is this the right time for people to be talking about rebuilding Gaza? Is it premature? Is it not?

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

I actually think it’s the precise time to talk about it, for the sole purpose of inspiring the population. I mean, you have over 2,000,000 people who are incredibly desperate right now for any ray of hope.

I mean, the problem is if you want people to turn against Hamas, there has to be an alternative, not just from a governance point of view, but they have to want hope. They have to want something else. They have to see something on the horizon that can inspire and motivate them to dig themselves out, so that they’re not vulnerable to radicalization.

I mean, if we thought radicalization was bad in Gaza before October 7th, imagine the potential for it to be that much worse. Something like half of Gaza’s population are under the age of 18. This is a generation that was born after the elections of 2006, and Hamas’s infamous takeover in 2007. They only know eight hours of electricity at a time. They only know closures. Something like 75 to 80% of the people of Gaza have never left the coastal enclave. They see it through their mobile phones. They see it through TikTok, YouTube, social media.

So there has to be, for me, I want to pair policymaking with how does that actually connect to the local populace? Which is ultimately what’s going to move the needle on this issue and empowering them to see an alternative. I think about this every single day myself.

It’s like when people ask me, “Why aren’t the people of Gaza rebelling against Hamas? Why did they just acquiesce right after the war?”

And I myself thought that after the war, maybe we’ll see the emergence of more cohesive voices that’ll actually come up and say, “You know what? We’re really not feeling this, Hamas. We’re done. We’re sick of this.”

We look at some of the most recent polling, of only 8% of Gazans want Hamas to remain in power after the end of the war. And yet I also realize that, “Good luck standing up to a militant terrorist organization that the mighty IDF itself, after a year of deadly combat, couldn’t effectively fully dislodge.”

And we can talk about it couldn’t do it because of the hostages, because of Biden’s hindrances, et cetera. It’s like that’s where the talk of the reconstruction of Gaza. For example, I’m promoting both pragmatically and from a symbolism point of views, I want to take a lot of the rubble that’s all over the Gaza Strip. And I want to dump it off the coast of the center of Gaza’s coast, in Deir al-Balah.

I want to build an artificial peninsula and put an airfield and a small airfield and a small seaport and open Gaza up to the rest of the world with full security and PMCs and Egyptians and coordination with Israel to basically have a non-Israeli and a non-Egyptian entry and exit point to end Gaza’s permanent codependency on these two players. Gaza is the only territory that overlooks the Mediterranean that has no functional seaport.

And so that’s where you inspire the population through, not just talk of rebuilding. I met with Tony Blair a few months ago. He was talking about how Gaza doesn’t just need; and I agree with him, that’s why we met; doesn’t just need reconstruction. It needs to be reconstituted. And I said-

Preet Bharara:

Reimagined? Reimagined, in a way?

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

Precisely, precisely and rejuvenated.

Preet Bharara:

So who can most plausibly talk about that, propose that reimagining, reconstruction, rebuilding? Who is credible and whose vision can actually be implemented? Anyone else?

Dennis Ross:

If you ask me, I come back to the Emirates, because they’ve actually thought about this. They’ve actually done a lot on the ground. They have four bakeries on the ground. They have field hospitals as well. They provide their own security for those bakeries. The bakeries feed about half-a-million people a day. They’ve actually thought about this. They have plans about how to do it. They don’t want to be alone.

And the truth is in the Biden administration, I was helping at the end, with what was an approach that was going to draw on the Emiratis, the Egyptians, the Moroccans, the Italians. You can produce an international approach. It is an international approach that has to have a security dimension that we were talking about.

And it gets back to something Ahmed was saying. You need Palestinians in Gaza to know that someone’s there to protect them. They also need to see that Hamas is not the wave of the future. You’re not going to take great risks if you think Hamas is still going to be in control. Why should I expose myself?

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

Exactly.

Dennis Ross:

So I think there is a vision that’s out there. Now you have the competing vision that President Trump has laid out, which is the relocation. I have to say when he said it, I said, “Well, this is divorce from reality.” But I like the idea that he wants to shake things up, because I think things need to be shaken up. Again, I’d like to know that he actually has a strategy for doing it.

But I also understood it put the Arabs in a position where there were all sorts of reasons why they couldn’t embrace it, not the least of which is the fear that somehow this is the answer to the Palestinians. “Let’s just relocate Palestinians. Let’s create the second Nakba.”

Preet Bharara:

Permanent Nakba.

Dennis Ross:

Yes. Well that-

Preet Bharara:

Right.

Dennis Ross:

Go ahead.

Preet Bharara:

It just seems to me that when we talk about plausibility, which was what I asked about a minute ago, an enormous amount of trust is required for some of these approaches. Will there ever be enough trust in that region, on the part of those people, legitimately to allow a plan like relocation to happen? How are they supposed to trust? In what universe and with what additional trappings of assurance could they trust a relocation plan? I don’t understand how that would work.

Dennis Ross:

I don’t think a relocation plan as such can work. I think psychologically, culturally, it looks like it would be a second Nakba. But that doesn’t mean that people who would like to leave shouldn’t be able to leave. There should be on a volunteer basis, assuming there’s places for them to go, number one.

But number two, if you actually have an approach that creates different zones in Gaza; and Egypt, to its credit, has some practical elements in its plan, including different zones where people can move. They’re taken care of from a housing, medical, humanitarian standpoint while you begin the process of recovery and reconstruction.

The failure of the Egyptian plan is, it effectively is creating a Hezbollah model for Gaza, where you create what appears to be alternative governance. But you’ve put Hamas in a position where they continue to engage in coercion and control things.

This is where you have to basically take advantage of the mood in Gaza, which is no more than 8% who would like to see Hamas still in control. But then you also have to address all the things that would ensure that Hamas cannot reconstitute itself.

Number one, that also means making sure there’s no smuggling. For the people who lived in Gaza, it was an open-air prison. But for Hamas, it was not an open-air prison. They got whatever they wanted. We saw them build 350 miles of tunnels. We saw them build a huge military industrial base. They got whatever they wanted. They had a very significant Indigenous weapon production capability.

So you have to cut off all the smuggling. You have to make sure that they can’t control the distribution of humanitarian assistance. If you’re going to have rehabilitation reconstruction, you have to have mechanisms to ensure that none of that can be diverted. Now, all that requires a law-and-order presence. That’s where the issue comes in. You create the law-and-order presence.

By the way, I can tell you the Israelis were engaged in a direct negotiation with the UAE on this plan. And the truth is they were quite close to reaching an agreement, because you’re raising the issue of trust. The fact is, notwithstanding all of the inhibitions of this particular Israeli coalition, the fact is there was a negotiation going on. It was about how to create a day-after. It was going to create a transition.

And that transition ultimately would’ve produced, even if the Israelis weren’t prepared to acknowledge it, a reformed Palestinian Authority back in Gaza. Having a non-reformed Palestinian Authority back in Gaza, it only perpetuates the problem. It doesn’t end the problem, it only perpetuates it.

You’re talking about, “How do we really change Gaza?” Well, you don’t change Gaza if Hamas is in control in the background, or if the PA un-reformed comes back in. That guarantees a perpetuation of what we’ve seen.

Preet Bharara:

Karim, I want to bring you in. But just with the added note, that if it is the case, as many people believe that Hamas is impossible to eradicate in total, how plausible is the scenario that Dennis sets forth if you presume that some amount of effectiveness or personnel of Hamas will always remain?

Karim Sadjadpour:

I’d be curious to know what Ahmed and Dennis think about this. In my view, the diplomatic deal that could potentially transform the Palestinians’ tragic situation is not likely going to be with Hamas. In my view, it’s more likely to be a potential Saudi-Israel normalization deal, and that is essentially a three-part deal.

Saudi Arabia wants security guarantees. They want a defense treaty from the United States. The United States tells them, “If you want a defense treaty with the United States, you need to normalize relations with Israel.”

Mohammed bin Salman, the leader of Saudi Arabia, in order to do that says, “Listen, I need some significant territorial concessions or path to Palestinian statehood, or else I’ll get lynched by my people in Saudi Arabia who are very much opposed to this.”

So this would be a three-way diplomatic deal. It is a major priority for President Trump. I would say it’s among his top two, three diplomatic priorities. People close to him say that one of his ambitions is to win a Nobel Peace Prize. And he may see this as one of the routes to getting there.

And I think there’s complexities in each capital, in Washington, Jerusalem, Riyadh to reaching this deal. And it’s probably not going to unlock this challenge with the current Palestinian leadership.

Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, 89 years old. Obviously, the leadership of Hamas would not be relevant here. There’s also a question of whether you can do it with the current Israeli leadership, with Prime Minister Netanyahu.

But my sense is that the Trump administration’s grand slam, their big dream is to do this Saudi-Israel normalization deal. And that could potentially unlock what we’re talking about to bring in outside investment from Gulf countries and elsewhere. But none of this stuff is going to happen as long as obviously Hamas is there and actually, frankly, when Mahmoud Abbas is also there.

The question is, and this is to Ahmed, when Abbas leaves the scene, is it possible we could see a Palestinian leader who could potentially help unify the policies of Gaza and the West Bank? There’s a lot of speculation about Marwan Barghouti. Is he someone who’s capable of that?

I apologize for the sirens.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

I am of the belief, and I catch a lot of heat for sharing this in a Palestinian context, that the days of a centralized Palestinian state are long gone. That Gaza and the West Bank are inherently geographically, politically, even culturally, yes, culturally different.

And that it is time to actually embrace that, not in the way that I think Prime Minister Netanyahu tried to nefariously leverage Hamas and the Palestinian Authority against one another to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state. But to actually think of a federalist model within the Palestinian context, in which Gaza is an autonomous area that can be a part of a future umbrella state of Palestine. But I don’t see a scenario anytime soon.

And with all due respect to Mr. Marwan Barghouti, I have heard it from plenty of Palestinians, mainly behind closed doors because they want to be respectful, that we are worried about the Sinwar Syndrome. And what is the Sinwar Syndrome?

Someone is in jail for 20, 30 years. They are touted as a hero or as this big figure. They have a lot of personal psychological problems associated with being in isolation that long. And then they come out, and they assume this massive responsibility in a completely shifted society and dynamics. And then they either crack under the pressure, or in Sinwar’s case, they just gain this sense of, “I am a god and I will do whatever I want.” And he literally destroyed the Palestinian people.

I’m sorry, and I believe we have many Nelson Mandelas who could be in the making. I’m just not willing to bet the future of Gaza on Mr. Barghouti. I’m sorry.

So with that said, however, I am a believer. And this is why I go back to this idea of the technocratic committee. There are tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, and certainly in the West Bank. But I’m talking about Gaza. I don’t know their names, none of us here know their names.

But if they’re given a chance to speak their mind, to exercise dominion and authority over their lives, to actually trial and error, to actually be a part of nation building, not resistance, not the Zionist enemy. We are done with resistance. Gaza is not a resistance platform. Gaza is a place and a space for nation building.

If they’re given that space without the public shaming, without the risk for their lives, without Hamas, we will very quickly in a five-year period have a small pool of highly qualified candidates who could actually run for elections, who could actually exercise leadership beyond.

Because right now when we talk leadership, we have the binary of Hamas or Fatah, or it’s very factionalized. I almost believe in abolishing that. I almost believe that that needs to be, not to disrespect those people who want to form political parties based on the historic Palestinian National Project, but to rejuvenate and renew.

That’s where I see Gaza not bringing in the failed Soviet-style Palestinian leadership from the West Bank in there. I see it would be a grave mistake, and merely kicking the can down the road in a desire to expediently create a pathway towards a Palestinian state, so that we end up with a Saudi normalization deal to very quickly just recycle elements of what exists, instead of using this as an opportunity to create something new.

Dennis Ross:

Just one quick suggestion. Apropos what you’re saying, Karim, where the Saudi normalization Israeli triangle comes into play is, as you suggested, the US takes the leadership.

But what the US should be saying to the Saudis is, “You want us to create a credible pathway for a Palestinian state. Here’s what we require of you. If you’re serious about a Palestinian state, you need to assume the responsibility. Maybe as part of the Arab Quint, you need to assume the responsibility of producing real reform in the PA.”

We’ve seen real reform before. Salam Fayyad came in 2007, and he carried out real reform. We know it can be done. It was done then, because the Bush administration organized all the donors and said to Abu Mazen, “You will appoint Salam Fayyad. And he will be empowered and he’ll be independent, or we will cut you off.” The Saudis have that kind of leverage on Abu Mazen if they’re prepared to apply it.

And the key to a Palestinian state ultimately has to be a different Palestinian leadership. They can’t really have it both ways. They can’t say, “You, the US, have the responsibility to create that credible pathway,” without them assuming the responsibility to do their part to ensure we have real reform on the Palestinian side.

And as I said, when people ask me, “Have we ever seen it before?” I said, “Yes, we’ve seen it. We saw Fayyad come in and he actually did it.” Now he was removed in 2012, and this was a mistake on our part. We should have prevented Abu Mazen from removing him.

Preet Bharara:

I will be right back with my guests after this.

Can I ask a question about Saudi Arabia? Karim, you wrote not long ago that there was a poll as far back as November and December of 2023, not long after October 7th, showing that 95% of Saudis believed that Hamas did not kill Israeli civilians on October 7th.

How does that affect all of what we’ve been talking about for the last 10 minutes?

Karim Sadjadpour:

In fact, that poll was from Dennis’s late great colleague David Pollock at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Dennis Ross:

Yeah.

Karim Sadjadpour:

Those figures were quite shocking to me. That was in an essay I wrote for Foreign Affairs about Saudi Vision 2030 versus Iran Vision 1979. And what was striking to me was we have limited polling about Saudi public opinion.

But what we have, if you’re Mohammed bin Salman and your citizens for the last year-and-a-half have been watching on a daily basis on TikTok and cable news, destruction of Gaza and enormous human suffering. So at this point, probably 2%, 3%, if that, of Saudi citizens probably think it’s a good idea to normalize relations with Israel.

And so for him, Mohammed bin Salman, it’s, “Okay, you can do it if you are not just normalizing with Israel, but you’re seen as the guy who helped spawn Palestine, spawn a Palestinian state.” And as Dennis said, that gives him enormous leverage.

I’m skeptical that they’re capable, though Saudi Arabia is capable of playing that role of reforming the Palestinian Authority. Perhaps you need to bring in other Gulf countries with more experience in that, like the UAE.

But yes, that is a real challenge. And it’s at a time when I’m also skeptical that the Trump administration is interested in playing this role of bringing about political reform beyond America’s borders. That doesn’t seem to really be a priority for them.

Dennis Ross:

It’s true, but they can’t produce what they want unless they’re prepared to play that role. The Saudis can’t produce what they want. I referred to the Arab Quint, which is Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, and the Saudis. As a collective, if they go to Abu Mazen, they have enormous weight. And it’d be very difficult for him to say “No” to them.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

But that can’t happen until we’re in a place where the, for example, 106-page-long Egyptian plan to sideline Hamas doesn’t use the word “Hamas” once.

Dennis Ross:

Right.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

Not even literally once. They use “armed factions” and wishy-washy language. I’m a new entrant to this space, if you will. But I’ve spent enough time now to see the massive difference between what is said in public versus what is said behind closed doors. And in the Arab world, if you are not saying this publicly, it’s useless. It’s meaningless.

You can say behind closed doors, “We’re hoping Israel gets rid of Hamas. We’re hoping the US does this. We’re hoping the US does that.” But if you’re not actually willing to even mention the word “Hamas” in a plan designed to sideline Hamas, then I don’t know what to expect of Arab diplomacy at this point.

But just to your point, Ambassador Ross, real briefly, going back to just an earlier point, I’m a big believer as much as I was opposed to the forced displacement and forced relocation, if you will, Nakba 2.0, as some called it of Trump’s plan.

I got out, my mom’s out, I got my brother’s wife and four kids out. I helped many Gazans get out. Who am I to sit here and say, “No, you have no right to leave”? And in fact, Gaza is the only modern-conflict urban warfare in contemporary history. Challenge me if you want on this.

In Fallujah, in Mosul, in Syria, in Ukraine, in Libya, in Sudan, in Myanmar, in Yemen, in Somalia. Everywhere there’s conflict, people flee, except in Gaza. Because we had the sea, we had Israel, and we had three Berlin Walls on the Egyptian side.

And of course it didn’t help that at the beginning of October 7th, there were all these statements by the Israeli officials who were talking about the transfer scenario and the transfer situation. The Egyptians were terrified of this.

Still, I believe that it is an absolute travesty to hold people against their will, and have them be in a situation where they’re facing ferocious Israeli fire, horrendous behavior by Hamas that is hiding in hospitals, and is hiding in schools, and is using Gazans indirectly as human shields. So that’s where I am not willing to be comfortable with that anymore.

And if there’s a scenario where some place is willing to arrange for Gazans wishing and wanting to leave, then who am I to sit here in Washington and be like, “No, you need to hold the land and resist and face off against the Zionists”? That’s been disgusting to observe of those who proclaim to be pro-Palestine, but are determined to basically see dead Palestinians instead of actually save the most Palestinian lives.

Preet Bharara:

I want to ask, we talked about Saudi sentiment. And maybe that doesn’t matter so much, even if it’s 97% in one direction. What is the role and significance and relevance of US public sentiment? And who has a finger on the pulse of what US American people’s sentiment is at the moment? Or is it mixed?

Dennis Ross:

I think it’s mixed. Look, we’ve seen polls that suggest there’s a huge gap between where Republicans and Democrats are. I think most Americans would like to see the conflict end without knowing much about it, without really making a case for what should happen next. They just want to see it end. I think that’s an instinct that’s understandable. Trump wants to see it end. I think we collectively want to see it end.

I think there’s a pathway to ending it, but a lot of it depends upon how you make sure that Hamas cannot reconstitute itself. The right approach in my mind, should be an approach under the umbrella of reconstruction for demilitarization.

If there’s reconstruction for demilitarization, that by definition is going to profoundly limit Hamas. But then it has to be real. If you don’t have demilitarization, there’ll be no reconstruction. No one is going to invest in rebuilding Gaza, knowing that Hamas can do this all over again.

So I think if you explain it to the American public like that, I think they would get it. And I don’t, except for a small percentage of activists who, as Ahmed says, they’re quite willing to sacrifice the Palestinians to save the Palestinian cause.

If I’m a Palestinian, I say, “Thank you very much, but I think I prefer a different approach.” I think most people would say, “End the war in a way where Hamas can’t do this again.” I think that’s the overriding sentiment here.

Preet Bharara:

And is that possible? Karim?

Karim Sadjadpour:

Listen, I mean, Ahmed is the Palestinian here. I would defer to him.

I have two conflicting thoughts in my head, which is over the last decades, what has usually been wrought from violent conflict and war doesn’t usually spawn more moderate politicians. We’ve seen that in other contexts.

At the same time, this has been a level of destruction to such degree that we could argue it’s unprecedented. We haven’t seen this in other contexts. So I think what Ahmed said earlier is a very important point, which is people have to see a potential alternative for themselves.

I know we don’t have great polling, but I can’t imagine a high percentage of residents of Gaza think that the way that Hamas’s decision-making, its governance, that’s not how people want to live. So I have these conflicting thoughts that on one hand, there is among a vast majority of Palestinians a desire to live differently.

The challenge we’ve oftentimes seen in the Middle East, and I say this in Iran and many other contexts, is that it’s not the will of the majority that often prevails. It’s the will of a small group of armed, organized, highly violent people. And Hamas obviously checks those boxes.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

And if I may just very briefly add to that, I mean, none of what I’ve been saying throughout our time together here is to undermine the rage and anger that exists towards the Israeli government and the Israeli military that many in Gaza have, that many rightfully feel as the consequence of having endured the horrendous bombardment.

I mean, my childhood home that I grew up in was destroyed. And my brother and his four kids, four little babies and his wife, they pushed their way out of the rubble. I am furious myself. There was one airstrike on December 14th that killed 29 of my family members. There were 14 children who were under the age of nine.

The New York Times did an investigation, and there were multiple attempts to ask the IDF, “Why did this airstrike happen?” And all we got was boilerplate language and responses.

So I am furious. I’m angry. I’m choosing not to be hateful. I want to break the vicious cycle. But that is all to say that of course, Israel bears tremendous responsibility in how it chose to carry out this war. Though I maintain that, of course there was going to be a war. What did Hamas think? You’re going to attack the Jewish people and commit the worst atrocity since the Holocaust, and Israel’s just going to be like, “Okay, all right, no problem”?

My thing is I want to look at … Remember what I started with? That imbalance of power dynamics where, yes, Israel has overwhelming power, economic, political, military, et cetera over the Palestinians.

But where we have space for agency and accountability and responsibility, I want us to ace that. I want to invest. We need Saudi, UAE support, we need US support, we need all of that. But I want us to look at, “How do we change the narrative from within?”

Because I am seeing a shift due to the destruction, due to the damage, due to the horror where Palestinians in Gaza aren’t Zionists all of a sudden. But they’re also like, “We are done with this armed resistance narrative. We are done.”

And Al Jazeera isn’t showing that. All these influencers online aren’t showing that. The pro-Palestine industrial complex isn’t showing that. But I see it. I feel it. I talk to people. It exists, and I want to empower that.

I want to empower the alternate Palestinian voices beyond just Hamas, Fatah, PA, Arab, international peacekeeping forces, all of which I completely support and I’m behind. But it’s like I actually want to empower the alternate from within the Palestinian society.

And that’s not going to lead to the rapid release of hostages or whatever. But that is the enduring solution to actually invest in the Palestinian people in Gaza to form a better future.

Preet Bharara:

I’m fixated on one point that seems to be difficult, although there are many, many difficult points. And that is, if I’m hearing all of you correctly, the one condition precedent to all these things: to rebuilding, to having that peninsula, to having an independent airport, to having peace, to having prosperity, all of that is contingent on multiple things.

But one of the things that it’s contingent upon is the complete and total effective neutering of Hamas, such that it cannot cause the same amount of pain and it cannot reconstitute itself in the future.

But what I haven’t heard, and maybe I’ve missed it, is the outlook for that happening, that one condition, the complete and total neutering of Hamas. And are we on a path to doing that? Is it something we just hope and pray for? Does it require additional armaments? If I’m correct about the condition precedent, what is it going to take to get that to be in place?

Dennis Ross:

I want to address it, because I also want to draw a distinction. Whenever I’ve heard certain Israelis talk about the eradication of Hamas-

Preet Bharara:

I said “neutering.” I didn’t say “eradication.”

Dennis Ross:

No. No, I’m not saying you. But I’m raising it for a reason because there’s a distinction between the defeat of Hamas, the inability of Hamas to reconstitute itself, and the eradication of Hamas.

The Israelis can no more eradicate Hamas than we could eradicate ISIS. You can’t eradicate an ideology. You’ll hope that basically it is discredited. And this gets at the issue of empowering Palestinians to the point where their narrative will be defined by coexistence as opposed to resistance. So long as the Palestinian narrative is based on resistance, you can’t do away with Hamas.

Now, what you can do is you weaken Hamas to the point where it becomes very difficult for it to rebuild itself. One of the reasons I said before, we have this interesting paradox. The only time Hamas is in uniform now is when there’s a ceasefire and they can put on a show. The truth is they have been dramatically weakened by the Israelis.

The right strategy is take advantage of the fact that they have been so weakened, to come up with a transitional administration where there will be a security presence. And you will prevent smuggling, so they can’t reconstitute. You will prevent diversion material, so they can’t rebuild themselves.

There should also be a kind of collective approach to cut off the monies that go to them. That is also something that is possible. So you’re asking, “Is it possible to get there?” My answer is “Yes, but it takes-”

Preet Bharara:

Yes. How far along are we?

Dennis Ross:

Well, we’re not that far along, because this kind of day-after strategy has been discussed. But nobody’s assumed now responsibility since the Trump administration came in, to mobilize that.

To its credit, the Biden administration was working on that, although its biggest problem was it was too little, too late. And it didn’t get really serious about it until too late in the day.

Now, the Trump administration came in and didn’t pick up any of that. It should pick up that, because it has an interest in being able to end the war. You’re not going to end the war until it’s pretty clear you know what comes next. That’s kind of the problem with where the Trump administration is right now.

When you lay out relocation and you’re saying to the [inaudible 00:54:20] “I come with a credible plan,” what now needs to happen? With the Egyptian plan, the White House has said, “We’ll continue talking. We don’t accept this, but we’ll continue talking. Come back with the specifics of what would make this plan credible.”

The Egyptians have put something on the table. I can tell you from my conversations with both the Saudis and the Emiratis, in principle, they’ll support this plan.

But they would not be unhappy at all if the Trump administration were to say, “Now let’s get down to cases as to how to translate this into reality. Right now, it falls short. Here are the areas where it falls short because it does not address the issue of Hamas, and it has to.”

You talk to others; again, Ahmed’s point earlier is exactly right. I never trusted anything I heard only in private. In all the negotiations I said, “The minute you say this in public, I’ll know it’s real. So long as you’re telling me this only in private, I know it’s not real.”

That has to be part of what the Trump administration’s approach is. If President Trump wants to achieve what he wants; he doesn’t just want to end the war, he wants a Nobel Prize. To get the Nobel Prize, he’s going to have to end the war. And he is going to have to take this and translate it into a new reality.

Preet Bharara:

And the French Riviera in Gaza.

Dennis Ross:

The Riviera on the Mediterranean.

Preet Bharara:

I’ve got two more questions for you folks, and you’ve been very kind with your time.

One, given everything that’s going on, given all of your views and reflections from this hour and the past number of months, what’s your level of optimism over the next six to 10 months? Karim?

Karim Sadjadpour:

I like to look at things on a one to 10 scale. If 10 is I’m very optimistic and one is I’m very pessimistic; you said six to 10 months; I’m pessimistic in the near term. I’m not optimistic that we’re going to see a near-term resolution.

Now, probably some of you saw the special envoy for hostages has commenced a direct dialogue with Hamas, which has upset the Israelis, so there’s some momentum there. Hopefully we get some hostages released. But I don’t in the near term see any ideas, whether it’s from Trump’s tweets or from Arab partners, that there’s a roadmap to something better.

Let me just make also one observation, which is I’m always reminded of something that Henry Kissinger once said before he went into government, when he was an academic at Harvard. He thought that the individual didn’t really matter that much in history, and that whoever is in charge of countries, though, nations invariably follow their own kind of natural interests.

And it was after he served in government that he said he reached the exact opposite conclusion: which is that the individual actually matters profoundly in history. And he cited the example of people like Sadat, Rabin in Israel.

And part of the reason I’m not terribly optimistic, at least in the near term, is that I don’t see great leaders in statesmen, whether among the Palestinians or in Israel. People are driven by their short-term political prerogatives.

Perhaps my answer would change six months from now if we have a new set of leaders. But I don’t see those leaders at the moment.

Preet Bharara:

Briefly, Ahmed, Dennis?

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

In the very, very short term, I’m incredibly pessimistic. I am really, really struggling. I had Wargamed a variety of scenarios in which basically something less than like 5% of what I had predicted had happened, as far as Gazans being able to have a unified, internal cohesive voice within Gaza that can rise up not in a militant fashion, but that can rise up and begin to talk to the world that we are not interested in perpetual resistance.

But Hamas’s resurgence has very much so made that impossible. I did not predict that Hamas would so quickly resume control of Gaza in the way that they have.

My brother runs a major international NGO on the ground in Gaza, like a British medical NGO. And so I hear it from different angles, not just from chatter, but from people who are working on the ground, handling millions of dollars’ worth of humanitarian aid.

However, I’ve basically uprooted my life from California and came to DC six months ago because I am inherently optimistic that out of this horror-

Preet Bharara:

Just not in the immediate term, how about the middle to longer term?

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

I actually think absolutely there will be optimism. There will absolutely be an opportunity to reform, to rejuvenate and transform Gaza and to have a renaissance in there, really.

But that’s where, again, I go back to there will have to be outside influences and outside plans that are brought in. But there needs to be a parallel track that tries to actually foment a new school of thought from within that is there. That is just waiting for resources, waiting for the protection, waiting for the support. And I’m not talking about a CIA-style intervention. I’m just talking about an intellectual kind of political rejuvenation.

I also believe that I am done, honestly. I’ve seen the amount of meetings and plans and post-Gaza visions. I don’t want to hear about any more new plan for Gaza. What I want to see is I actually want to see fragmented, compartmentalized approaches to solving specific problems in the near future, to addressing the humanitarian suffering, to addressing security. I want small gains that can cumulatively break the impasse.

We keep developing these visions and these plans and the Egyptians and the Israel Policy Forum and Netanyahu’s thing and the Arabs and the Emiratis and the Palestinian Authority. We don’t need any more planning. What we need is action to take elements.

And that’s why I actually believe that even when Hamas is still in power in Gaza, there are things we can do right now, like this peninsula that I am proposing. Actually, my whole vision is that peninsula can operate even during times of war.

I actually think that part of the solution is going to be Hamas will eventually realize that they are out of options. They used to criminalize. Right now they’re running around on Al Jazeera saying, “We had to talk to the Americans. We had no option but to talk to the Americans.”

Because a lot of people were like, “Wait, why are you talking to the great Satan? And you were just in Tehran.”

And so I think we push Hamas while we do something on the ground. We attack it from multiple angles, and we stop the charade that we’re going to have these comprehensive breakthroughs anytime soon.

Preet Bharara:

Ambassador?

Dennis Ross:

I would be more optimistic; and this is another way of saying what you’re saying, Ahmed; if I saw a readiness at implementation. I don’t see anybody focused on that. And the absence of implementing things is what makes me pessimistic in the near term.

If we were doing this a year from now, I’m much more hopeful. I see the potential. I think there will for sure be some soul-searching on the Israeli side. It’s going to come. I would love to see it on the Palestinian side. There’s never been a political social context that permitted that on the Palestinian side. After this kind of a catastrophe for Palestinians, it would be good to begin to see it.

Preet Bharara:

You folks have been very generous with your time. Karim, Ahmed, Dennis, thanks so much. Really appreciate it.

Karim Sadjadpour:

Thank you.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib:

Thank you for having us.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation about Trump’s foreign policy continues for members of the CAFE Insider community. And the bonus for insiders, we discuss Trump’s approach to Russia. To try out the membership, head to cafe.com/insider. Again, that’s cafe.com/insider.

Stay tuned. After the break, I’ll discuss a recent executive order that isn’t making headlines, but has big implications.

Now let’s get to your questions. I want to end the show this week by talking about one executive order recently issued by Donald Trump that hasn’t gotten as much attention as some of the others. There are, in fact, two executive orders that Trump has signed and issued that directly target by name prominent law firms in the United States.

The first was directed against a pre-eminent law firm named Covington Burling. But it’s the second one, directed at another prominent law firm named Perkins Coie, that I wanted to talk about for a minute.

I will say, even though it is not getting top billing in terms of the news, given what’s happening in the stock market, given what’s happening in Ukraine, given what’s happening in the Middle East; in the legal industry, of which I’m a member, it’s an earthquake.

So what is this executive order all about, what’s happening with it, and why should you care? Well, the executive order is entitled Addressing Risks from Perkins Coie, LLP. And it frames the president’s actions as a matter of national security.

But I think the evidence will show, and the public record will ultimately show, and probably already sufficiently shows, that it’s a lot less about national security and more directly a strike against perceived political opponents.

You see, Perkins Coie has a lot of different kinds of clients, like many large law firms do. They have tech clients like Amazon and Google, but they have also in the past represented Democratic interests.

Perkins Coie represented Hillary Clinton. Among other things, Perkins Coie hired a company called Fusion GPS to commission the notorious Steele dossier, the controversial 2016 document that connected Trump to Russia.

The Steele dossier, you might remember, was largely discredited after a series of investigations revealed many of its central allegations were not true. One of its former lawyers and former Stay Tuned guest, Marc Elias, also represented Democratic interests in case after case after case relating to the 2020 election, when Donald Trump and his lawyers tried to steal it. And so Donald Trump has a lot of reasons not to like that firm for political reasons, not national security reasons.

So what does the executive order purport to do? Well, a few things that are fairly remarkable. One, it revokes security clearances from Perkins Coie attorneys: those who have them, at least. That means that if you’re a lawyer at Perkins Coie defending a client in a sensitive national security investigation, you’re suddenly out of luck.

Two, federal agencies through the executive order are instructed to terminate to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, any existing contracts with companies represented by Perkins Coie, especially on matters related to the contract. That could end up being a sizable amount of business and revenue to the firm.

Three, and this is very remarkable: the executive order purports to restrict Perkins Coie attorneys from entering federal buildings and secure facilities. Think of how hard that makes it to handle government-related legal cases, of which they have many.

And finally, the order calls for a detailed review of the firm’s diversity and inclusion policies, suggesting they might violate civil rights law. In fact, it goes further, directing that the EEOC and the Attorney General of the United States take a look at the DEI programs of all large law firms. To pick a different metaphor, this is like an atom bomb in the larger legal community, because any law firm could be next.

In fact, Trump said just a day or two ago in an interview on Fox News, quote, “We have a lot of law firms that we’re going to be going after, because they were very dishonest people. They were very, very dishonest.” End quote.

So the firm that’s the target of this EO, Perkins Coie, is of course fighting back. They hired another venerable law firm, Williams & Connolly, that on Tuesday evening of this week filed a very substantial complaint in federal court, seeking a temporary restraining order among other things against the enforcement of this executive order.

I’ll get to the claims in the complaint in a moment. But a couple of quick housekeeping matters that the complaint puts into perspective, things that have already been known from the public record. Among them, the two principal lawyers on the cases and matters that Donald Trump seems not to like, Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann, have been gone from Perkins Coie for years.

Second, Donald Trump has already sued Perkins Coie in a massive RICO complaint along with Hillary Clinton and other folks. And that lawsuit by Donald Trump against this very same firm against whom he’s issued this executive order, that lawsuit was dismissed.

So what are the actual particular claims that Williams & Connolly makes on behalf of Perkins Coie? Well, they allege a lot of violations of a lot of amendments to the Constitution, various provisions of the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and even the Sixth Amendment.

This is paragraph 10 of the complaint. I’ll read it in full.

Quote, “Because the Order in effect adjudicates and punishes alleged misconduct by Perkins Coie, it is an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers because it does so without notice and an opportunity to be heard. And because it punishes the entire firm for the purported misconduct of a handful of lawyers who are not employees of the firm, it is an unconstitutional violation of procedural due process and of the substantive due process right to practice one’s professional livelihood.

“Because the Order singles out Perkins Coie, it denies the firm the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Because the Order punishes the firm for the clients with which it has been associated and the legal positions it has taken on matters of election law, the Order constitutes retaliatory viewpoint discrimination and therefore violates the First Amendment rights of free expression and association, and the right to petition the government for redress.

“Because the Order compels disclosure of confidential information, revealing the firm’s relationships with its clients, it violates the First Amendment. Because the Order retaliates against Perkins Coie for its diversity-related speech, it violates the First Amendment. Because the Order is vague in proscribing what is prohibited ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’ it violates the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Because the Order works to brand Perkins Coie as persona non grata and bar it from federal buildings, deny it the ability to communicate with federal employees, and terminate the government contracts of its clients, the order violates the right to counsel afforded by the Fifth and Sixth Amendments.” End quote.

You’ll see the repeated use in that summary paragraph of a particular verb, “retaliates.” Retaliates, again and again. And the record, by the way, that these lawyers will be able to rely on of Donald Trump and his minions, including people who are high up at the Justice Department, lays the foundation for his intent even before he took office to retaliate against people, and the people who represented the people, who he disagrees with.

Now literally as I’m recording this on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 12th, the temporary restraining order, the TRO hearing is ongoing in a court, the courtroom of Chief Judge Beryl Howell in the D.C. District Court.

So since I’m recording this, I haven’t been able to watch the hearing. But I just got the news, which is not overly surprising, that Beryl Howell, the judge, has in fact granted the temporary restraining order. Presumably in part because Perkins Coie and its lawyers were able to demonstrate that without a TRO, they would suffer what we’ve talked about in the podcast many times: something called irreparable harm, irreparable injury.

The complaint actually details in paragraph after paragraph after paragraph, and this will have to be verified. But the allegations in the complaint, in all those paragraphs, is that particular clients who have particular matters with the lawyers at Perkins Coie have either walked away or have threatened to walk away. Substantial portions of their business are at risk.

The complaint alleges something like a quarter of their business comes from companies that have government contracts. All of that business is threatened. In fact, the lawyers for Perkins Coie have claimed that this executive order, if allowed to stay in place and if enforced, would be the death knell of the firm as a whole.

Now, aside from all the legal arguments that will be brought to bear, and of course the Trump administration will have its arguments too, it will argue national security such as they can.

But the final comment on the case is, it doesn’t appear that the executive order will get a warm hearing or a warm welcome from members of the bench. And that’s because every single federal judge comes from the ranks of professional lawyers, raised in the profession from law school to passage of the bar to admission to various bars in the country. A tradition of not only understanding the Constitution, but also respecting and wanting to uphold the principle that lawyers can represent any client they wish, and should be able to do so unfettered. And that clients have the right to counsel, and they have the right to their choice of counsel.

In this executive order, at first blush I think to most judges, probably of either stripe, probably across the ideological spectrum as professionals, as officers of the Court and members of the Court, they will find, I believe, that it does violence to that which professional members of the bar hold dear. Your right to counsel, your choice of counsel, the freedom to represent your clients vigorously, and the mandate that we not judge lawyers by their clients.

The decidedly non-left-wing editorial page of the Wall Street Journal has found itself opining on this issue even before the filing of this complaint. The editorial page wrote recently, quote, “Few wrote more often or critically than we did about Fusion GPS and the Steele dossier, and in real time when it was unpopular to do so.”

The Wall Street Journal goes on to say, in their view, “Perkins Coie has shown it’s a partisan firm. And its former partner, Michael Sussmann, was charged but acquitted of a crime related to the phony Russia collusion scandal.”

According to the Wall Street Journal again, “Its role in that episode was shameful.” But it goes on to say, “Mr. Trump’s order is now targeting a law firm for representing clients Mr. Trump dislikes. He’s trying to defenestrate Perkins Coie to intimidate elite law firms from representing his opponents, or plaintiffs who challenge his policies. This violates a bedrock principle of American law, which is that even the worst clients deserve representation.” End quote.

And while people can differ on the characterization of the individual lawyers and the law firm that’s targeted, I think there are very few lawyers in the land who would disagree with the principle that people deserve representation and their choice of representation.

So as we’ve discussed on the podcast before, a temporary restraining order is not the end of the story. The plaintiffs here, the law firm here, seeks first a preliminary, then a permanent injunction of the implementation of the order. Remains to be seen if they will prevail on that. Stay tuned.

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guests, Dennis Ross, Karim Sadjadpour, and Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib.

If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me @PreetBharara with the hashtag #AskPreet.

You can also now reach me on Bluesky, or you can call and leave me a message at 833-997-7338. That’s 833-997-PREET. Or you can send an email to letters@cafe.com.

Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The deputy editor is Celine Rohr. The editorial producers are Noa Azulai and Jake Kaplan. The associate producer is Claudia Hernández. And the CAFE team is Matthew Billy, Nat Weiner, and Liana Greenway. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host, Preet Bharara. As always, Stay Tuned.