MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now, let's bring in Diana Buttu. She is a human rights lawyer, and she's been part of peace negotiations in the past. She's in Ramallah, which is in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Diana Buttu, welcome back to the program. Thanks for joining us.
DIANA BUTTU: Thank you, Michel.
MARTIN: The world's attention has been focused on the war in Gaza, but the West Bank is also in play, I would say. For example, after the U.K., France and other countries recognized the Palestinian state last week, some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right supporters called for Israel to annex the West Bank, but President Trump said he would not let Israel do it. Do Trump's words mean something on the ground where you are?
BUTTU: No, not at all. Look, you know, it's important to understand what annexation is. And that is the forcible takeover of land, and it's illegal under international law. Israel took over this land back in 1967 and has been building settlements ever since, and these settlements have not stopped since 1967. So even throughout the past two years, all that we have seen is settlements going up and more and more settlers moving in. It's gotten to the point where there are three-quarters of a million Israeli settlers living in the West Bank, and there isn't a different set of laws that's applicable to them than there are, for example, Israelis living in Tel Aviv. So effectively, it's already been annexed, and it's just a question of whether the world is going to recognize this annexation. We already heard that President Trump won't recognize it. He's said he - that they won't, and other states are saying the same. But on the ground, it hasn't actually changed anything.
MARTIN: Can I stop you there and just say, what actions could the - President Trump take to intervene in this? Are there things that he could do?
BUTTU: Oh, certainly. So back in July of 2024, there was a decision that came out by the International Court of Justice that says that all of these settlements are illegal. And we know that they're illegal. They're illegal under international law, and they're actually war crimes. And as a part of that decision, Israel was supposed to pull out all of these settlements as of last week, and it did not. So what the world should be doing now is imposing sanctions on Israel and making sure that, rather than these settlers moving in, that they move them out. So there are things that the United States can and should be doing as part of - in order to make sure that Israel doesn't get away with acquiring territory by force.
MARTIN: So President Trump has - as we said, is meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House today - is scheduled to - said a deal on Gaza is, quote, "very close." Do you share the president's optimism?
BUTTU: You know, the president has been saying that he ended seven wars. And I don't really want to go into his track record there, but there is one that he can actually end, Michel, and that is this. And he can end it by simply stopping the weapons flow to Israel. And he can stop it by ending the vetoes that he's been giving in the U.N. Security Council and ending that diplomatic support. So this war can end instantly. It just requires President Trump to stop giving Netanyahu the weapons and the diplomatic support.
MARTIN: So we just have a couple seconds left here. But the 21-point plan, as far as we understand it, has conditions like amnesty for Hamas fighters who give up arms, no future strikes on Qatar and that no one will be forced to leave Gaza. If those items that I've discussed are, in fact, accurate, would you assess the chances that this latest deal would, in fact, end the war?
BUTTU: Hamas has said that they are willing to accept those conditions. And so - but I think the bigger issue is, why is it that Palestinians have had to negotiate an end to genocide?
MARTIN: And as we've said, leading human rights groups do say it's a genocide. An independent U.N. commission recently called it a genocide, although it does not speak for the U.N. as a whole. And I will say that Israel rejects these findings and says its goal is to destroy Hamas for its own self-defense, for the sake of - for context here.
Diana Buttu. She's a human rights lawyer and a former Palestinian peace negotiator joining us from Ramallah. Diana Buttu, thanks so much for these insights.
BUTTU: Thank you.
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