Inside the Hostage Negotiations - with Brett McGurk

Dan Senor (0:00)

Quick note before we start, big things are coming to ARC Media. Somewhere in the small gaps of time between putting out three episodes each week, we've been secretly working on something we think all our listeners are going to be really excited about. We're announcing everything live on October 5th. If you want to be the first to hear about it, RSVP to our virtual announcement event. You can find the sign up link in the show notes. See you there.

SPEAKER_2 (0:28)

You are listening to an art media podcast.

Brett McGurk (0:32)

I came back to Washington and days go by, another day goes by, and once again, you're waiting on Hamas. And on August 31st, I think it was a Sunday, and I was out to lunch with my family, and we're waiting on Hamas, and I'm checking in with the Qataris and the Egyptians, and they're like, yeah, we think we're going to get an answer soon, okay? And it was Bill, and I stepped out on a sidewalk, and I literally thought I was getting good news that we finally got it. And Bill says, Brett, I just talked to Ronan Barr, the head of Shin Bet, and he said, the Israelis just found six hostages dead in a tunnel under Ra'afah. And kind of right there, you know, you just feel your heart drop and your kind of guts rip out of your chest.

And I had been carrying around a list of names to this deal, which included Hersh, which included Carmel, which included Eden, who you mentioned. And here's the thing, as horrible as that is, the question is, can we keep this process on track or not? And Bill's point is that other than a hostage deal, there's no way to end this war.

But what did Hamas do after this? You know, did they send message? Do they, they can communicate with us. Did they say this was a tragic mistake or a guard panicked or something? No, they release videos of the dead and the videos came out like when the funerals were going on.

Dan Senor (2:03)

It's 2 p.m. on Friday, October 2nd here in New York City. It's 9 p.m. on Friday, October 2nd in Israel, as Israelis are already deep into Shabbat and Shemini Atzeret. Before we get started, a few quick notes. You'll notice this episode is out on Sunday instead of our usual Monday. That's because on Monday, October 5th, we're hosting a live event to share some big changes coming to Arc Media. You can RSVP at arcmedia.org/rsvp.

The link is in the show notes.

Okay, on to today's episode. For the first 15 months after October 7th, 2023, one question hovered over almost every major decision in the war in Gaza.

How do you bring the hostages home? The intense negotiations that followed involved Israel and Hamas, obviously, but also Qatar, Egypt, the CIA, the White House, Israeli intelligence, and eventually two American administrations working together. At the center of those negotiations was Brett McGurk, President Biden's senior Middle East advisor and one of the most experienced American officials in the region. Brett has served in senior national security roles across four presidencies. The Bush administration, where I first met him, we overlapped in Iraq, the Obama administration, the first Trump administration, and then the Biden administration. He spent years dealing with Iraq, ISIS, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. And his new book, Brink, Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages, is his account of what happened inside the negotiation rooms. Brett is explicit that this is not intended as the final history. It is his reconstruction of events he personally participated in, conversations and decisions made, as he put it, under extraordinary pressure, ambiguity, and uncertainty. The story begins on October 7th, when 251 people were dragged into Gaza from Israel, and it follows a path that repeatedly appeared to be hours away from success, only to collapse again. Running through the book is a fundamental argument about how the hostages would ultimately be freed, whether the key was putting greater pressure on Israel to stop the war, or maintaining military pressure on Hamas, while negotiating at the same time. This debate divided Washington, it divided Israel, and it certainly strained the relationship between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu. And Brett's conclusions about it are likely to generate plenty of debate themselves. So today, rather than simply retell the chronology, I want to understand the choices behind it. What Hamas wanted, what Netanyahu believed, what Biden believed, where the United States got it wrong, and what eventually made a deal possible. My conversation with Brett McGurk right after this short message.

Debra Pardes (5:00)