Trump's Hamas Disarmament 'Deal' and Europe's FIFA Boycott

**Rory Stewart** (0:01)
There are moments in international politics when military success and political success move together. And then there are moments when they begin to split and diverge. And I think the Middle East is at one of those moments. Israel today probably enjoys the strongest military position that it has had for decades. Hamas is badly damaged, Hezbollah fatally weakened, Iran under enormous pressure. And yet the fundamental questions look almost as intractable as they did before October 7th. Who governs Gaza? Who controls South Lebanon? How do you stop Iran rebuilding its influence? And what ultimately is Israel's long-term vision of security?
That's why the announcement of a roadmap for Hamas to disarm recently from President Trump is so fascinating. It isn't simply a story about Gaza. It's really asking whether military dominance can finally be converted into political order, or whether we're simply looking at another pause before the next round of fighting.
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**Alastair Campbell** (2:51)
Welcome to The Rest Is Politics, Question Time with me, Alastair Campbell.

**Rory Stewart** (2:54)
And with me, Rory Stewart.

**Alastair Campbell** (2:56)
Okay, Rory, we're going to start in the Middle East. Eamon, Triplus member from Dublin. If Hamas disarms, how likely is Israel to hold up its end and withdraw?
Who can actually force them to given they've ignored the earlier ceasefire commitments already? And if the IDF does leave, who goes in behind them? Who keeps order? And who does Israel actually hand Gaza over to? And I think Eamon there is reflecting quite a lot of the skepticism that was the immediate response when this text of this deal was published last week. So what do you think?

**Rory Stewart** (3:31)
Two things. One of them is that a lot of this is about sequencing. A lot of this is about the question of when a group disarms, could be Hamas, could be Hezbollah, and when Israel withdraws. So from the point of view of these armed groups, Hamas or Hezbollah, they're not going to disarm and then find that Israel is still there. Obviously, they believe that they're keeping their weapons so that they feel they're fighting for the independence of Lebanon, they feel they're fighting for the independence of Gaza, and they're not going to disarm until Israel withdraws. Israel on the other hand feels that they're not going to withdraw until these groups disarm. And in a sense, there isn't really an obvious answer to that question. I mean, people try and your friend Jonathan Powell did a lot of this, and a lot of the Middle East peace press has been about this. Can you have a partial disarmament, a partial withdraw, trust building measures?
But in the end, what needs to happen? We can see what the end game is. The end game is there needs to be legitimate governments that control these territories. So a Palestinian government, which actually has statehood and controls the West Bank and Gaza.
And in the way that Jordan does, has a stable ordered state which doesn't pose an existential threat to Israel and doesn't get bombed by Israel, but is able to run its own affairs. And the same would be true in Lebanon. The complicating factor, and I want to throw back to you on this, is that probably the biggest elephant in the room is that Israel are going into elections on October the 29th. And usually, elections are a very, very difficult time for Palestinians and neighbors because Israeli politics is increasingly right-wing, and the main candidates are going to be competing to show that they are very, very tough on national security. And they're going to be looking at Gaza, they're going to be looking at Lebanon, they might look at Syria, they're going to be looking at Iran, they're going to be looking at the West Bank, potentially as ways of demonstrating they're tough on national security. Over to you.