Steve Witkoff and Tucker Carlson: Key Middle East points from US envoy interview

Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Middle East envoy, stated in a candid and wide-ranging interview with Tucker Carlson on Saturday that negotiations to end Israel's attacks on Gaza are underway. He noted that if Hamas "disarms," then "maybe they can stay" in the Palestinian enclave and "participate in politics."

Witkoff stated, "What does Hamas want? I think they want to stay there forever and rule Gaza." He added, "That's unacceptable." He emphasized that what the U.S. can accept is that Hamas must disarm, so that they may continue to stay in Gaza and participate in political activities, but not in military operations.

In January, billionaire real estate developer Witkoff was appointed by then-President Trump to broker a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel. However, the ceasefire was broken by Israel on March 18, when Israel killed more than 400 people in Gaza in a series of airstrikes.

In the interview, Witkoff called Trump a "master" and said that when he entered the real estate industry, "I wanted to be him, everybody wanted to be him." He also emphasized, "We can't have a terrorist organization ruling Gaza, because that's unacceptable to Israel."

When talking about ways to communicate with the Palestinian movement, the U.S. diplomat spoke highly of Qatar and its Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani. Witkoff said that Al Thani "is a special person, he really is." He added, "I think in the case of Qatar, they get criticized because their motives aren't pure. That's ridiculous. They have good motives, they're good, decent people... They're a small country, they want to be recognized as peace brokers."

Witkoff stated that negotiations are currently underway "in an effort to stop some of the attacks by Israel and to end this conflict through dialogue." When asked what Hamas wants, he said he had told Trump that he didn't think the Palestinian movement was "ideologically intractable."

Witkoff also stated, "I don't think anybody thinks that you can just simply eradicate Hamas. It's an idea, right? That's what Hamas is. It's an ideology, but they can never be allowed to collude again with the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad." Carlson called the real estate mogul "the most effective negotiator I've ever met in my life." Carlson also said, "You speak for the president, you're honest, and people like you."

Speaking about the U.S. negotiation strategy, Witkoff said, "The boss is President Trump. President Trump set the tone." He added, "This peace through strength way -- it's not just a slogan, it actually works... So when he sends you to the Middle East, people are almost a little afraid before you even get there."

Witkoff stated that when Trump asked him how long it would take to rebuild Gaza, he replied 15 or 20 years. Trump had shared a bizarre AI-generated video on social media on February 26, depicting the devastated Palestinian enclave as a luxury beach resort with skyscrapers, a giant golden statue of the U.S. president, and a "Trump House."

Witkoff told Carlson that he had been to Gaza and witnessed the difficulty of rebuilding firsthand. He said, "It's been destroyed, and there's tunnels underneath, so think of Swiss cheese underneath. And then they've been hit with bunker busters, so there's no rock left there." Witkoff believes that criticizing Trump for "wanting to create a seaside community with gleaming high rises and casinos" is "ridiculous. He's just being realistic about what Gaza needs."

Further elaborating on the U.S. vision for Gaza supported by Trump, Witkoff stated that when people talk about a two-state solution, he thinks of "how do we provide a better living solution for the Palestinians that live in Gaza?" He continued, "It's not just housing. Maybe AI comes there. Maybe hyperscale data centers get implanted in the region, because we need them, and these people can now leverage that, and we can create jobs for them."

Witkoff added, "Maybe blockchain and robotics come there. Maybe pharmaceutical manufacturing comes there. We can't rebuild Gaza and have it be built on a welfare system." When asked what the Israeli government wants and how to strategize, Witkoff stated, "I think their motives are good. I think they're trying to accomplish something."

Speaking of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Witkoff stated, "As an example, if Netanyahu didn't take Nasrallah out of Lebanon, if what we did wasn't so effective -- because he's actually decapitated Hezbollah." He added that Netanyahu "has decapitated Hamas." "Hamas is far less of a terrorist organization than it was."

However, outgoing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in January that Hamas had been able to recruit almost as many new fighters as Israel had killed in its Gaza war. Witkoff told Carlson that Netanyahu's attitude towards Hamas and Hezbollah has influenced his relationship with Iran and its use of proxies in the region. "So the Iranian crescent or Islamic crescent that everybody thought was going to be effective, has largely been eliminated," Witkoff claimed.

The U.S. diplomat stated that he can understand why some people think Netanyahu is more concerned with "fighting than hostages." He said, "I think Netanyahu thinks he's doing the right thing. I think he's mainly fighting public opinion, because the public opinion there [in Israel] wants those hostages home."

Witkoff did not limit his remarks to the Gaza situation or the war in Ukraine. While praising Qatar, he elaborated on the U.S. vision for the Gulf region, that U.S. security guarantees and a Gaza peace agreement would lead to U.S. banks like JPMorgan being able to underwrite hundreds of billions of dollars in investment for projects like AI data centers.

He stated that the younger generation in the Arab world witnessing the destruction of Gaza on their phones is a "huge factor" as it relates to the potential for government collapse in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere. Witkoff stated, "I think Egypt is a flashpoint. The population in Egypt is very restless. The statistics in Egypt are pretty staggering -- 45% unemployment for people under 25 years old. A country can't exist like that. They're basically bankrupt. They need a lot of help. If we have a bad event in Egypt, it could set us back."

While praising Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as "an amazing leader," Witkoff stated that this is also a problem in Saudi Arabia, where the "young population" is witnessing the Gaza war. Witkoff said, "That's why we have to solve the Gaza issue. Because if we solve the Gaza issue, which is a prerequisite for Saudi normalization, then Saudi can normalize."