Two former secretaries of state, Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice, are joining 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.
The conversation is taking 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.
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.
