Edwardsson: Trumps ultimatum pressade fram fredsavtalet

Anders Edvardsson, state scientist, welcome. We have a new peace treaty between Israel and Hamas. What is it that indicates that this treaty can hold? It is, above all, that it is very comprehensive and forward-looking. Many times when it comes to such peace treaties, they only deal with the most acute and least common denominator to get people to stop shooting each other. This peace treaty is much more comprehensive, serious, if you want to call it that, and, above all, long-term. It contains a plan for many years to come in order to rebuild Gaza and start a functioning economy and make the situation better for all those who live there. So it's much more than just, please stop shooting now, and we'll solve the problem later, as it usually is. It's a big step forward. On the other hand, the more details and the more ambitious you are, the more things can go wrong, so to speak. This is just the beginning of a process. The first step in this is to exchange... Israel will release some prisoners, and Hamas will release the remaining hostages from the October 7th attacks. You have 72 hours on you. What do you think will happen? I think, first of all, that Hamas has become so overwhelmed, almost eradicated. Most of their leaders, Israel, have managed to take them out, and so on. I think that if there is any survival instinct at all that is taken from Hamas, both from its leaders as individuals and the organization as a collective, then I think they realize that... Because what was unspoken in this and in President Trump's statement was that now you're going along with this, otherwise I and the United States will go back and let the Israelis finish the job with you. That is to say, kill you all. And that seems to be the case. So now we'll have to see how long this lasts. These are people who work according to completely different worldviews, and moral injustices, and perceptions of right and wrong, and so on. We'll have to see if it's just a coincidence, or if they've actually been so deeply subdued in the struggle that they actually accept this. That's the key point, because another part of the agreement is that Hamas in the future should not have any form of political, military or other influence on the Palestinian side. So, have Hamas agreed to this? They have in practice agreed to not abdicate themselves, but turn themselves into a nothing organization. And if I have a few big thoughts and questions, it's just that. It's not a bad idea. Hamas is a terrible organization. But they still exist, and it will be interesting to see if they actually live up to this. What does this peace agreement mean for Trump, and what does the media coverage in the US look like? He didn't get the peace prize for it, and Trump said it himself. He didn't expect to get it. We'll see. Many of these nominations are clearly for next year. Maybe Ukraine will be included in the picture. But that's a minor detail. The media coverage here in the US has actually been... The channels I've seen have been, overall, very positive. Which is very unusual when it comes to something that Trump is involved in. There have been unanimous votes on social media from, let's say, the left wing, where they more or less say, we hope that this peace agreement goes in the right direction. But that's... Such wild brains are always there, and partly on both sides as well. But out of more serious judges, I have... I would say that many are against it. But it's... Just as Trump was told that the Europeans would start paying more for NATO, he said, yes, this time he has actually succeeded. This proves that he is a master negotiator, as he has always claimed to be. This is not the first peace agreement Trump has signed. How many peace agreements is this administration currently involved in? If I'm correct, this will be number 8 in January. Which Trump, in one way or another, has been involved in. Partly because he has... ...exaggerated his influence in some of these processes. And that's possible. I mean, he's a politician, after all. It's possible that he does that. But it's clear, and he already said that in his speech on January 20th, that he was aiming to become a peace president, as he said. Because he's a war veteran in general. And this falls into a pattern, even though his presidency is unique in the fact that he's been in office twice. There's only one president before him who's done it, and then came back. But it falls into a historical pattern that presidents during their second term of office are more committed to foreign policy. That has different... It depends on different things. Partly because they've often done what they wanted on a home front. Already. And then there's also... At least they have one eye on the history books. How will I go down in history as someone who fixed the US and the world, or something like that. So there's a bit of ego involved. Obama was the clearest example of that. He spent almost his entire second term of office on foreign policy in one way. Because he lost power in Congress quite early on. And then foreign policy is the area where the president can do most by himself, without having to bring along the opposition party, so to speak. At the same time, the US defense or war power, as it's now called, makes very big changes. And the recruitment has also increased significantly since Trump won the election. How is this connected? Trump is not a pacifist. Absolutely not. He hates war, but he's not a pacifist. And one of his biggest promises, both in 2016 and 2024, was to make the US and the US military the world's most powerful force in every way. With new technology, more soldiers, but also less bureaucracy and less political correctness. The Biden administration has spent its four years using the defense to fight climate change and introduce BIA and ideas in the Pentagon and so on. All of this is being rolled back now, and Trump has made a number of decisions and given orders to rebuild the military force in the US defense or war power, as it's now called, as you correctly pointed out. So he's fulfilling his promise here. And the idea is that even if Trump doesn't want such an active foreign policy and that he abandons war, the basic idea is the same as basically all of the so-called war presidents, Democratic and Republican alike. That the US should have a military that is so big, so strong and so overwhelming that no one should dare attack them or their allies. That's the basic idea here. With this peace treaty in the Middle East, what does that mean for the US and their geopolitical focus? If you could get the Middle East out of the problem map, it would be a huge success for the US, but also for Europe, which in a way is more in the netherlands and so on. Not that the US has any larger troops in the Middle East, there are American bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq, I think. But it's relatively... But what the Middle East has been doing for so long, it takes so much time and attention. And Trump has made it clear that he doesn't want the US to be a part of this problem down there, more than absolutely necessary. His focus is on East Asia and China. Both when it comes to trade and military strategy. So, can we finally get rid of the Israel-Palestine conflict from at least the daily agenda? Then that is of course a huge step forward. It will free up a lot of resources, both physical and intellectual, in the US administration, and others that Trump considers more important and a bigger threat, like China and the Poles and so on. The first step now is to switch hostages to prisoners. They have 72 hours on them. At the same time, the Palestinians will increasingly return to northern Gaza. What is the next step in this plan? Well, it's to get this process on track, so to speak. These initials now, the release of prisoners from Israel and the release of all Israelis, both dead and alive, from the Palestinian-EU, so to speak, LATMOS test now. Will this go through and will everyone be satisfied, so to speak, with this first practical step? Then we will take this much further forward-oriented plan, as I mentioned before, and get a new form of control free from Hamas influence in Palestine. And also that the Israelis begin to leave them in peace so that they can build up their economy with their infrastructure and try to build a future down there from all this. It's practically just gravel left out of Gaza. That's what you see on TV, anyway. Trump has said that he sees a great potential for the Gaza Strip in the long term, both economically and when it comes to tourism and other things. That remains to be seen, but tourism in any case. Who would dare to go there relatively soon, I don't know. But the future is an unwritten book in that way. But as I said, now it's step one, the release of prisoners and hostages, and then we'll take this further forward-oriented process. And it's the one that will be... And release the hostages and prisoners is easy, but to build up, and above all, not just to build up infrastructure and buildings, but also to start building some form of trust between these two sides, the Israelis and the Palestinians. Because this war, this uproar, call it what you want, has been going on in practice since 1948. And there's hardly a living person on any side, let alone the world, before this conflict, so to speak. And that's something we've experienced from other conflicts. Northern Ireland, the Basques in Spain, India, Pakistan, these hostages, it often takes many generations of new citizens on both sides to get this, to get the hatred to subside and start building a future together, in one way or another. So this is just the beginning. 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