Former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice on Friday commended President Trump for successfully facilitating the first stages of a ceasefire deal with Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
“It’s a really significant first step, and 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 CBS News in an interview.
“Most importantly, the conflict hopefully will end with the ceasefire,” she added.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Israeli military will retreat to an agreed upon line in the Gaza Strip, cease its military strikes and liberate 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
In exchange, Hamas will release all hostages, both still living and dead. The Trump administration brokered a deal that would also eventually end in Gaza being turned over to an independent Palestinian body.
Rice shared some optimism over the peace plan as well but told CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell that “no one can be completely confident” in the agreement’s ability to permanently stabilize the region “given the history of the Middle East.”
“But I will say there are several elements that I hope will make this particular, very important period possible for success,” she added.
Rice, who served under former President George W. Bush, said there is increased uncertainty surrounding the steps needed to turn over the land to a Palestinian authority.
“The Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, lost control of Gaza after 2006, has not really been reformed in a long time. And it needs reform,” she said.
“It needs younger blood,” the former top diplomat added.
Rice then suggested engaging Palestinians from abroad to help usher in a “new generation of leadership,” because she added, “the Palestinian people have to own this solution.”
Clinton also shared some doubt about the new governing authority’s ability to weed out the presence of Hamas, an Iran-backed militant group, and physically rebuild the Gaza Strip.
“I have no confidence that Hamas is in any way reformed or, you know, ready to look for a better future for the people of Gaza or the Palestinians as a whole,” she told O’Donnell. “And so, we do have to be extremely careful in how they are decommissioned, how they are rounded up.”
“Under the agreement, as I understand it, they can choose to leave and be given safe passage, which, of course, I hope a number of them do,” the former first lady continued.
Earlier this year, Clinton shed hope on the Trump administration’s ability to also broker a peace deal with Russia and Ukraine and promised to personally nominate the president for a Nobel Peace Prize if his efforts succeed. The Nobel Committee on Friday opted to award the coveted prize to someone else: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado.
On Saturday, the former secretaries of state backed Trump’s ability to press ahead toward stabilizing conditions in the Middle East as a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and with the support of both the Egypt and Qatari governments.
“The stars are aligned in a way that has not been available. And I think the Israeli government, the Netanyahu government, needs to seize this moment and make some of its own reforms,” Clinton said.
“We have to build a new transitional authority for the Palestinians, but the Israeli government also has to make some hard decisions in order to take advantage of this change in circumstances,” she added.
