The Electronic Intifada Podcast 2 June 2025
Scahill is a co-founder of Drop Site News where he has been closely covering the negotiations between Hamas, on the one hand, and Israel and the United States, on the other, to bring about an end to the genocide in Gaza.
In an exclusive on 29 May, he reported on the Trump administration’s latest “term sheet” for an agreement and provided additional insights on the Livestream.The program also featured a discussion with regular contributor Donya Abu Sitta live from Gaza, the news from associate editor Nora Barrows-Friedmanm as well as contributing editor Jon Elmer’s resistance report.
We also talked about how Ireland is now the first Western country to declare that Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza.
You can watch the entire show in the video at the top of this article.
“Good feelings” turn to dust
As of Thursday’s show, Hamas’ response to Witkoff’s “term sheet” had not yet come.
But the resistance group did respond over the weekend, putting forward – as Drop Site News reported on Saturday – a proposal that “aims to achieve a permanent ceasefire, a comprehensive withdrawal [of Israeli forces] from the Gaza Strip, and ensure the flow of aid to our people and our families in the Gaza Strip.”
This has been the bottom line for resistance factions all along, who have consistently said they are willing to release all Israelis still in Gaza immediately, in one go, on condition of a permanent end to the war and an end to the deliberate starvation and siege on their people.Even though US officials have at times signaled acceptance of those terms, Israel has consistently refused, wanting only temporary truces so it can retrieve its prisoners, only to resume the genocide at will.
Hamas has shown flexibility by agreeing formulas that preserve these basic principles while allowing the US and Israel to say that the deal does not include – at least initially – a permanent end to the Israeli assault.
According to its latest counterproposal, as Drop Site News reported, Hamas wants “a guarantee that as long as Palestinian resistance forces hold their fire, negotiations for a complete end to the genocide will continue beyond a 60-day initial truce and that this would be guaranteed by the US, Egypt and Qatar.”
This would be accompanied by an immediate resumption of aid deliveries, according to the terms of the US-brokered January ceasefire that Israel shattered in March.
But indicating a complete unwillingness to actually find a solution, Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, immediately denounced Hamas’ counterproposal.
“It is totally unacceptable and only takes us backward,” Witkoff asserted.
Once again, that seems to have soured a moment of optimism – stoked by Trump and Witkoff themselves at a White House press conference last week – that an agreement to end the war was close.It is yet another example of a pattern – seen also throughout the Biden administration – of Hamas accepting terms agreeable to the United States only to have the rug pulled from under it, once Israel objects.
Scahill’s interview is essential to understand the background to this ongoing American and Israeli game of bait-and-switch, as they continue to bomb and starve Palestinians in Gaza, scenes that have galvanized even some of Israel’s staunchest European allies into unprecedented criticism.
Speaking at the White House on 28 May, Witkoff said he had ”very good feelings” that the “term sheet” would lead to a “ temporary ceasefire and a long-term resolution, a peaceful resolution of that conflict.”That proposal was very similar to the ceasefire that Trump pushed through in January but that the “ devil in the detail emerges” when looking at the vagueness of the proposal, according to Scahill.
He noted that there was no commitment to how many aid trucks would be allowed to enter Gaza and no clear end to the genocide.
The American president has reportedly expressed a desire for the war on Gaza to end, but Scahill estimates that some people in the administration and other powerful Republicans, “ are putting enormous pressure on Trump to make sure that this deal leaves a very clear, gaping loophole for Netanyahu to resume the genocide after day 60 of this temporary deal.”
“National liberation movement”
One thing that is non-negotiable for Hamas is disarmament – and that has not even been an explicit US or even Israeli demand.
” I think that they [Hamas] feel that they have a national responsibility not to surrender the cause of Palestinian liberation,” said Scahill, who has been communicating directly with Hamas officials.
”If the Palestinians were to agree to any terms of disarmament, it would be the end of the cause of Palestine. It’s a fact,” Scahill said.
For decades, many world leaders, including Arab leaders, have portrayed and designated armed Palestinian groups as terrorists.
“ Armed Palestinian resistance groups are national liberation movements,” Scahill asserted while acknowledging that people can debate the tactics and decisions that these groups employ.
One controversial decision that Hamas made was to release in early May Edan Alexander, the US-Israeli dual national prisoner of war, without any Palestinians being released from Israeli prisons in return.Hamas officials say Witkoff promised them that Trump would “compel Israel” to let aid trucks in the next day and announce his support for a ceasefire during his recent trip to the Gulf, according to Scahill. But that never happened.
Hamas officials said, in Scahill’s characterization, that “the Americans didn’t violate the agreement – they threw it in the trash.”
But he thinks Alexander’s release may have helped “ pump oxygen back into the process,” of getting a ceasefire.
“Gaza Humanitarian Foundation”
According to Donya Abu Sitta, the goal of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the deceptively named front group for Israel and the United States, is to give the false impression that aid is reaching people while distracting from Israel’s policy of deliberate starvation.
In recent days, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and injured by Israeli forces and US mercenaries at or near so-called aid distribution hubs set up by the front group.800 US cargo planes for genocide
As it uses food as a weapon against Palestinians, Israel’s aerial massacres of civilians are relentless, as Nora Barrows-Friedman reported in the news roundup.
Barrows-Friedman also read an excerpt from an article by Asmaa Abdu a project coordinator with mutual aid initiative The Sameer Project, writing from Gaza about the resiliency of the Palestinian people in a piece entitled “As long as Gaza walks, it refuses to fall”.
The recorded death toll in Gaza has now exceeded 54,000 people – a gross undercount according to many.This genocide would not be possible without the political and material support of the US government.
Israel bragged about receiving on 27 May the 800th US cargo plane delivering weapons since October 2023.
When also factoring in 140 cargo ships, the US has delivered more than 90,000 tons of arms and ammunition and military gear over the course of this genocide.
Ireland recognizes genocide in Gaza
Last week, Ireland became the first Western country and EU member state to affirm clearly, at the highest level of its government, that Israel is perpetrating genocide in Gaza.
This follows growing pressure from the Irish public on the government to move beyond mere criticism and take action.
As executive director Ali Abunimah explained, Ireland’s declaration carries legal weight: It invokes the country’s obligations under the Genocide Convention to act to prevent and punish Israel’s effort to exterminate the Palestinian people.He argued that far from placating the Irish public, Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin’s declaration that Israel is committing genocide will only encourage people in Ireland and around the world to step up their protests.
Turning US bombs against Israeli invaders
Consistently some of the US-supplied bombs that Israel drops on Gaza do not detonate.
Resistance fighters in Gaza repurpose those bombs against the invading Israeli forces, as contributing editor Jon Elmer reported this week.
Elmer also highlighted the effective use of a locally manufactured weapon, the Yassin 105 RPG (rocket propelled grenade).
In a video released by resistance fighters on 27 May, an Israeli Merkava tank is shot at in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza with RPGs landing a “devastating strike.”
The active protection feature of the tank – Israel’s high-tech Trophy system – does not appear to deploy.
”Both of those shots are not going to be in the Trophy commercial for when Israel tries to sell these weapons as battle tested in Gaza. They’re often being defeated,” said Elmer.
At over 600 days this is now the longest war in Israel’s history.Elmer noted that Israel’s primary stated goal is to eliminate Hamas but even after all this time Israel itself estimates Hamas’ numbers at 40,000 fighters – the same number it estimated at the start of the war.
Low morale among Israelis
Some Israeli publications including The Jerusalem Post and Ynet have run front-page stories saying the only way to get the prisoners back is to get Israeli troops out of Gaza. “ So they have the same position as the Qassam Brigades do at this point,” said Elmer, referring to Hamas’ military wing.
Towards the end of the show, editors discussed the state of the Israeli military and society.“This is not an Israeli army that has strong morale and it’s not backed by an Israeli society that believes in this war,” said executive director Ali Abunimah.
He said most Israelis support the genocide but do not support the war because “ they can see it’s a total failure.” He noted recent fights in the Israeli parliament over the issue as signs of fundamental societal division.“Because the [army] is running out, literally running out, of fighters, the army is employing hundreds of civilian contract workers as combat engineering fighters,” Yoav Zitun, the military correspondent of Israel’s Ynet news outlet wrote in a recent tweet that associate editor Asa Winstanley highlighted.
A win for Asa Winstanley and press freedom
The highest criminal court in London, the Old Bailey, ruled on 27 May that British police must hand back all of Asa Winstanley’s computers, phones and other items that they seized in the dawn raid on his home in October 2024 as reported by The Electronic Intifada’s Omar Karmi.
The National Union of Journalists, of which Winstanley is a member, welcomed the ruling.
“ We urge the government to make good on their words and prevent the targeting of journalists like Asa Winstanley through raids and detentions,” said NUJ general secretary Laura Davidson.
Winstanley was never arrested or charged with a crime. He said there is still a chance that could happen. He called on the police to stop the investigation which is based entirely on Winstanley’s tweets.Abunimah pledged that, “ no matter what, the whole Electronic Intifada [team] will stand behind you.”
You can watch the program on YouTube, Rumble or Twitter/X, or you can listen to it on your preferred podcast platform.Tamara Nassar produced and directed the program. Michael F. Brown contributed pre-production assistance and this writer contributed post-production assistance.
Past episodes of The Electronic Intifada livestream can be viewed on our YouTube channel.
Ali Abunimah contributed reporting to this article.
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