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Front Burner Transcript for May 13, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

JAYME POISSON: Hi everyone, I'm Jayme Poisson.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Last week, Israel's security cabinet approved a plan that would majorly escalate their military campaign in Gaza. The government says that they would push the entire population to the southernmost edge, and carry out extremely heavy military operations in the rest of the Strip. While Israel has said that this expansion plan is needed to destroy Hamas and get the hostages back, the plan has been widely opposed by hostage families. And rights groups, including Amnesty International, have said that it would gravely violate international law, and it would amount to the annexation of Gaza. This is all happening at a moment where we are witnessing what appears to be some pretty extraordinary rifts between the U.S. and Israel. On Tuesday, Donald Trump began a trip to the Middle East that will include Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, but won't include a stop in Israel. Trump and his team have been having talks with governments and groups in the region without letting Israel know, which is very unusual. And they brokered a deal with Hamas to release an Israeli-American hostage on Monday -- without involving Israel. Does that mean any kind of meaningful shift in U.S.-Israel relations? And could that mean anything for stopping this expansion plan in Gaza or for getting to a lasting ceasefire? For all of this, I'm speaking with Meron Rapoport. He's a 35-year veteran of the Israeli news industry and was formerly the head of news at Israel's Haaretz newspaper. Today he works as an editor at Local Call, a Hebrew-language news organization operating in Israel.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Meron, thank you so much for coming onto the show. It's nice to talk to you again.

MERON RAPOPORT: Thank you.

JP: I should start by saying that uh, we are recording this at 1 p.m. Toronto time where I am, 8 p.m. Israel time, on Monday, and some of this could certainly change by the time that we go to air. In the meantime, though, Netanyahu's security cabinet has laid out a plan to expand their military campaign in Gaza, as I mentioned. What do we know so far about what this expanded operation would look like? What is the government saying they plan to do in Gaza?

MERON RAPOPORT: The decision was not published in a detailed way, so we don't know exactly. But what we basically know is that it is aimed at taking over the whole of the Gaza Strip, including Gaza City and Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah, and areas in which Israel is not present at the moment. And pushing the whole population, so it seems, to a very small area between Khan Younis and Rafah -- that's the southern, very southern part of the Gaza Strip, very close to the Egyptian border -- and there, in a very small area, concentrate, uh, the whole population of Gaza, basically, and distribute there, uh, humanitarian aid, and starting what the Israel prefers to call the Trump Plan, which is basically a plan of force, uh, immigration forced expulsions of Palestinians from Gaza. In the areas, uh, from which the Palestinians will leave, uh, these areas will be a free zone for healing, let's say. The Israeli army will have free hands to fight there, eliminate Hamas, and probably, this is of course not an official decision, but so if we've seen the example of Rafah in the last weeks, probably tearing down the whole of what is left of Gaza City, uh, Khan Younis. So everything in Gaza will be rubbles, except this very small area in the southern part where these [JP: Right.] two million people will be concentrated.

JP: I know that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that the purpose of the expanded campaign would be the full eradication of Hamas and the release of the hostages, as he has said before. And he said last week that the Palestinian population would be moved for its own protection.

SOUNDCLIP

[Benjamin Netanyahu speaking non-English language]

TRANSLATOR: It's clear, there won't be any in-and-out operations. We'll recruit reserve soldiers to enter and control the ground.

JP: How would they likely be moved realistically to this very southernmost point?

MERON RAPOPORT: Quite unclear. We have seen, for example, right before the ceasefire that was announced on January 17, there was a very heavy campaign of the Israeli army in the northern part of the Gaza Strip -- in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, Jabalia refugee camp. Uh, a siege of over 100 days. And no food and nothing and heavy bombing.

SOUNDCLIP

NEWS PRESENTER: Since early March, no food, water, shelter, or medication has been allowed into the embattled territory, and aid groups on the ground warn of a worsening humanitarian crisis.

MERON RAPOPORT: Still people stayed there despite all the hardships. So, [JP: Mm-hmm.] we just don't know. It depends very much on the will of the people. You know, their choice whether to risk death or go for these camps with unknown future and maybe forced to leave Gaza. So, we really don't how it will play out.

JP: It's maybe worth contextualizing this a bit for our audience. Since October 2023, at least 52,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, according to Gazan health authorities, and upwards of 2,000 just since Israel broke the two-month ceasefire in mid-March. Um. They said essentially that hostages were not being released fast enough. 70% of all buildings have been destroyed or damaged; 90% of residents have been displaced at least once, some 10 times or more; and for the past two months, Israel has imposed a total blockade on food, medicine and fuel entering Gaza, which they have said is because of concerns about Hamas taking the aid, but... which is leaving the whole territory at risk of starvation.

SOUNDCLIP

[Speaker from Gaza speaking non-English language]

TRANSLATOR: Today we can't find flour, so we grind lentils with pasta, we bake it, and eat it. The high prices do not allow us to buy anything.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER: This is Rahaf Ayyad from Gaza. Once full of life, she has now lost nearly half her body weight. Her bones chop through her fragile skin. Her parents have nothing left to feed her. Only thyme leaves and water keep her alive.

[Speaker from Gaza speaking non-English language]

TRANSLATOR: There is no life without food. How will we live? We are going to die of hunger eventually. The world has to move to stand up for human conscience and to look at us with mercy.

JP: Given all of that, Meron, um, how much of an escalation would this expansion be compared to what is already happening there?

MERON RAPOPORT: It's certainly an escalation. Um. If this goal will be fulfilled, and we will have more than two million Palestinians concentrated in a very limited area, being given food once a week for every family according to lists by the Israelis, while the cities will be destroyed to the ground -- as Rafah, for example, a city of more than 200,000 people, does not exist anymore -- this will be a dramatic change in the fate of Gaza. And I would say in the modern history after World War II, I don't think we have seen such a human devastation on that scale. Practically expulsing a whole population, two million people, and destroying the urban area and leaving there nothing and forcing them to immigrate and forced immigration. This was something that [JP: Yeah.] we have not seen, I think, since World War II.

[music]

JP: I want to talk a bit more with you about what the ultimate goal could be here. I know that you said that this plan didn't come with a tremendous amount of detail, but Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said last week that, quote, "We are finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip."

SOUNDCLIP

[Bezalel Smotrich speaking non-English language]

TRANSLATOR: From the moment the military operation begins, the areas we will occupy, we will not leave them.

JP: He talked about conquering and staying. "That there would be no withdrawal from the territories we've captured, not even in exchange for the hostages." That's also a quote. Obviously, he is on the more extreme far-right side of the government, but he is a government minister with huge sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu, and he sits on the security cabinet. Is there a sense that this is just Smotrich talking this way, or is there a sense that this is the government's plan -- a full annexation of Gaza?

MERON RAPOPORT: It does seem, of course, that Smotrich is on the very extreme right, but in the last months, or I would say even in the last year, he proved himself maybe to be the most influential minister in the government. And as we've seen with the order given by the chief of staff to the southern command, this was adopted by the army. So, it's not something fringe. And the Minister of Defence, Israel Katz, is saying the same thing: that areas that will be taken will not be returned. So I would say this is the official plan of Israel.

JP: In March, the Security Cabinet approved the establishment of a voluntary emigration bureau for Gaza residents interested in relocating to third countries. And how connected is that bureau to this current military expansion plan in Gaza?

MERON RAPOPORT: It is quite clear that this is part and parcel of the plan. After 2.2 million people will be concentrated in a very small area with, with very little food, no work, no universities, no school, nothing, the option of immigrating will be, I think, welcomed by many of them. Does Israel have already options, uh, with the third countries that will accept so many Palestinians? This is a different question. We don't know.

JP: Okay. If Israel were to succeed in carrying out this plan, what do you think would happen to the Palestinian National Project? Especially at a moment when, in the West Bank, we are seeing a huge expansion of new settlements and an explosion of violence by both Israeli settlers and security forces towards Palestinians in the West Bank. A recent UN report wrote that the line between settler and state violence has blurred to a vanishing point, and it is driving many West Bank Palestinians from their homes. Again, Smotrich also recently said that new construction plans are set to be approved by the government that would effectively divide the West Bank into two. And that they would, quote, "kill the Palestinian state de facto." Given all of that, what would this new Israeli plan mean for any hope of a future Palestinian state or even for the Palestinian nationalist movement more broadly?

MERON RAPOPORT: The Israeli government states very clearly that the aim of all this, or the operation in Gaza and in the West Bank, is to not just prevent the establishment of Palestinian state, but to get it off the table, uh, definitively. But I would say even more than just prevent the Palestinian state. Gaza is, in a way, the bedrock of Palestinian nationalism. From the 19-- Right after the Nakba of '48. From the early '50s. To the '60s, where, uh uh, Fatah was established in Rafah before the '67 war. And the first Intifada in '87 started in Gaza. So Gaza is the embodiment of Palestinian Nationalism. 80%, 75% of its population are refugees from '48. The refugees themselves [unclear] not so many left, but the children and grandchildren and grand-grandchildren. So it represents also the issue of Palestinian, uh, refugeehood. So breaking down the Palestinian presence in Gaza, turning Gaza into rubbles and pushing away most of its population will be, of course, dramatic to the whole idea of Palestinian nationalism. And I think this is the Israeli intention. Whether that will be the end of Palestinian nationalism or will give peace to Israel or security, I, I would strongly suggest that it will not. Israel won over the Palestinians in 1948, in a dramatic way in the Nakba. More than half of the Palestinian people were displaced, [JP: Mm-hmm.] were not allowed to return. The villages and cities were destroyed or moved to Jewish hands. But 75 years later, the conflict's still going on. So Palestinian, even if they will be driven out of Gaza -- and I still doubt if that will be implemented -- that they will not stop to be Palestinian. They will continue this from Egypt, from Jordan, from Lebanon, or even from Europe. They will not stop.

[music]

JP: I'm curious to hear your observations and thoughts on um, how, how this is all being seen within Israel.

MERON RAPOPORT: I think in Israel, uh, it is seen in two different... Of course, there is the current, uh, mostly the right-wing, uh uh, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir's followers, who of course applaud it and think that this is the start of Jewish redemption, and that this is maybe even God's hand in history, changing so dramatically the relationship between Jews and Palestinians in this land. But I would say, other than that, there are two ways in which the Israeli public is looking at it. I would say the majority of Israelis are concerned and tired because they want the hostages to be back. And it's quite clear that this plan does not take into consideration the hostages. Smotrich and other ministers have said it, and even Netanyahu said it very openly, that the first aim is to finish Hamas and that the hostages is a second goal, secondary goal. So I think most Israelis are very unhappy with that. They want the hostages back. They are tired of the war, they want the war to be over. A security, a military source told one of the Israeli website that the war in Gaza will continue for two more years, two more years, meaning two more of reservists going, economic hardship. The-- Most Israelis are against it and they want it to be over. But although they support the end of the war and a deal to return the hostages, they don't do it because they care for Palestinian lives. There is... uh, it is small, but uh, but growing, a current that feels that what Israel is doing, what its army is doing, what its soldiers are doing, is a moral, uh, a moral stain that will not be wiped out of our generation. This is something that there are some Israelis. Unfortunately, there are not too many. But again, I think they are grow-- the number is uh, increasing, who feel very bad about it.

JP: You know, you're there and experiencing a different reality than I am. You know, I take your point that that current is growing. Um. But I feel like I've heard the argument that Israelis are tired of the war and want it to be over. There have been big protests against the war, hostage families feeling betrayed, um, for some time now, right? And yet, it it... it doesn't seem to have moved the government, right, and the government's actions. And just, why would this time be different? Is it different?

MERON RAPOPORT: I'm not sure it is different. I would be happy to say that it is different. I'm not sure. I think that if and when reservists will be, uh, drafted in large numbers and large numbers will not show up, if this will materialize, this will be put a lot of pressure on the government. What could be is what we have seen now. You said that this is recorded, uh, in advance, but just as I speak, an Israeli-American hostage was released thanks to pressure by Trump -- an agreement between the U.S. and Hamas, bypassing Israel.

SOUNDCLIP

[Joyous words/sounds as hostage and loved ones reunite]

DONALD TRUMP: They thought he was dead just a short while ago. His parents are so happy. They're so happy. And he's coming home to his parents, which is really great news. I mean, to me, it's big news.

MERON RAPOPORT: Will Trump pressure Israel to go into a deal? Will Trump will pressure Israel now, even before a deal, to get in humanitarian aid into Gaza?

SOUNDCLIP

AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL MIKE HUCKABEE: President Trump has made very clear that one of the most urgent things that needs to happen is humanitarian aid into Gaza.

AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL MIKE HUCKABEE: The Israelis are going to be involved in providing necessary military security because it is a war zone. But they will not be involved in the distribution of the food or even in the bringing of the food into Gaza. We call upon...

MERON RAPOPORT: This will be a big change, because I think the whole plan of the Israeli operation is based on that, that the starvation will continue, that [JP: Yeah.] there would be no humanitarian aid coming into Gaza, and this will pressure the population to go for these centres in the South. If aid will be delivered now, in the next days, into where the people are staying now, and they will get their food there under American auspices and other American guarantees, then I think the whole operation, the idea of the whole operation will be damaged. Certainly, if Israel will feel that it will lose the American support, this could, of course, push Netanyahu to accept the deal and risk the following that his government will fall. This is an option. [JP: Yeah.] Uh, you have to understand here that Netanyahu, during the the, uh... Most of his time as prime minister was when there were, uh, democratic president in the U.S. -- Clinton, Obama, Biden. And Netanyahu had the room for manoeuvre; to work against these presidents because he could activate his Republican friends in the Senate and House of Representatives in order to push the president. And he did succeed pushing America's president in the past. Now with Trump, that Republican party is completely under his full control. There is no real Republican party, it's Trump's party. Then if he gets into trouble with Trump, he doesn't have really a room for maneuver.

[music]

JP: I mean, it's been really fascinating to watch. I mentioned in the intro just these handful of events recently that signal that Trump may be sidelining Israel right now, right? So firstly, he's set to visit the Middle East starting today, starting Tuesday, and he's going to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and he's not going to Israel.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: We're not planning on stopping in Israel. But we will be doing it at some point, but not for this trip.

JP: He de-escalated the conflict with the Houthis in Yemen, again without Israel.

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: We dealt with other countries that were close to them and their surrogates. And we honour all of their words. We'll see what happens, but I think, you know, I believe that hopefully that's over with. And they'll leave the ships alone, you know. Just leave those ships alone.

JP: You mentioned the American Israeli hostage that was just released. Hamas said that it was done as a goodwill gesture towards the Trump administration. Um, his Middle East envoy spoke to hostage families in Israel without Netanyahu. I could go on, right? It's quite extraordinary to watch this.

MERON RAPOPORT: Absolutely. You can add the the dialogue with Iran, on on a new nuclear deal.

JP: Yeah, it's extraordinary to watch. But but I know there's also reporting from Israeli newspaper Haaretz that the IDF's top brass is actually hoping that Trump will stop the military expansion that we've been talking about. And, [MERON: Yes.] you know, um, as you mentioned, he is -- there's heavy pressure to agree to a ceasefire with Hamas. But do they have good reason to hang their hopes on Trump here? That he or his administration would actually intervene to stop this, uh, especially while Israel is saying the expansion will go ahead?

MERON RAPOPORT: [sighs] It's very hard to say, but, yes, we've seen in the past, you know, that when the Americans were determined, then Israel had to obey. We've seen it in the first war in Lebanon in '82, when Reagan, uh, who was also, of course, a Republican right-wing. There were many, uh, [unclear] Israelis in his cabinet. But uh, when he told Israel to withdraw from Beirut, they withdrew. When President Bush, after the first Gulf War, decided to go for a Middle East peace conference in Madrid, and the prime minister in Israel was Yitzhak Shamir, who was also very, very right-wing, and he told Shamir to go. Although, uh, for the first time in Madrid, we had a Palestinian delegation for the first time in history, and Shamir refused, that he was forced to go. So, uh, yes, I think if the Americans are determined, they can certainly pressure Israel. Israel is quite weak. It's not Russia. Israel does not have the gas that makes Europe warm in the winter. So if the U.S. will decide stop, uh, Israel will have to stop, uh, military aid, and more importantly, I would say, political aid. If the U.S. will decide not to veto in the UN Security Council, Israel will be in big, big problem. So, yes, the question is whether Trump will go that way. And of course, there is a possibility that Israel is also changed. We are seeing now a very, very right-wing government, something that we have never seen the like of it. It's also an option that U.S., like '82, will tell Israel to stop and Israel will not stop. But then, I think, uh, Israel will get into having a fight, an open fight with the U.S. I would not exaggerate by saying that this is an existential threat, and a threat to the very existence of the state of Israel.

JP: Okay. Um, I think that's a, a good place for us to end this conversation. Meron, thank you so much for your time.

MERON RAPOPORT: Thank you.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Alright, that is all for today. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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Trump sidelines Israel, Gaza expansion looms - Transcript

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