this is "gps", the global public square. welcome to all of you in the united states and around the world. i'm fareed zakaria coming to you live from new york. today on the program, we'll bring you latest on the israel hamas war and the new york time's nick kristoff is just back from the region and will give us a sense of what he calls the myths and the reality. then, is egypt part of the problem or part of the solution? it shares a border with israel and gaza. could had help during or after this brutal war? and the leaders of the two most powerful countries in the world met face-to-face on wednesday. president xi jinping and joe biden shook hands and met for four hours. what was accomplished? i'll talk to australia's former prime minister kevin rudd and the spectator cindy yu. but first here is my take. of between the tragic ongoing war in gaza and the biden-xi summit, one global crisis is in danger of being forgotten. the war in ukraine. and this is a terrible time for it to le slipping from public conscious because ukraine paces trouble on two fronts. as the chief military commander has acknowledged, a stalemate has developed on the battle ground with russia. ukraine soldiers are fighting heroically in places like her done, but the lines are moving just a few kilometers. despite the drones this is looking like trench warfare during world war i. the second front is in the west. where support for ukraine is weakening. despite president biden's passionate advocacy and his package for aid for ukraine is not likely to pass any time soon. europeanans are losing their determination. during what was believed to be a private call, george maloney admitted i see there is a lot of fatigue. i have to say the truth from all of the sides. one side that is sticking to its guns is russia. the russian army has learned from its mistakes in the earl why i months of the war and has built powerful defensive lines in eastern and southern ukraine. had has laid huge mine fields and set up large armt units behind the trenches. they have to get past all three barriers to gain an inch of ground. russia is churning out weapons from shells to drones. it is much larger economy and population are enduring advantages that could only be encountered by high levels of western support. the russian strategy based on my conversations with russian officials and those close to them, is to hang tough, refuse any serious negotiations, and wait for november 2024. they believe there is at least an even chance that donald trump will be elected president and he will end the alliance and cut a deal with putin. whether that is an accurate analysis or not, it does suggest that moscow is unlikely to be willing to negotiate any time soon. is there anything that can be done to address these twin challenges? actually there is. a policy that could help on both fronts. set up an international and legal process by which russia's 300 billion plus of frozen reserves could be used to aid ukraine's reconstruction. which the war bank estimates would cost por than $400 billion over the next ten years. in one swoop, that would signal to putin that ukraine will not face a funding price is and even were trump to be elected these funds administered through an international body say in switzerland or belgium, could continue to flow to kyiv. there are challenges to this policy. russia's reserves lie in various countries but european allies hold most of it and they worry they don't have the legal authority to divert them. a distinguished scholar have written a case as to why it is legal and appropriate to go down the path of using russian reserves for ukraine's reconstruction. larry somers, robert zelek and philip zoellick has argued that it is good policy. russia has engaged if a massive and systemic violation of foyt law and norms. and that it is appropriate, indeed necessary for there to be some price to pay for this. to reject this logic in favor of one that protect's russia's property rights is perverse since russia has engaged in violations of ukraine's property rights and taken the lives of thousands of its civilians as well. russia's attack on ukraine is a core violation of any conception of a ruled based international border. and how that policy is pursued matters. in the past the u.s. has tried to enforce its own conception of international rules and norms unilaterally generating huge international opposition. the approach we should take this time is opposite. this policy should be rooted in international consensus and law and norms, legal opinions like tribes should be presented and international legal organization and process of adjudication of claims should be established and the funds handled through it. russia's assets and ukraine's reconstruction should serve as a building block for international law and norms that help shore up the rules based order. as somers and zoellick and zoellicko notes, if a country that engaged in flaked aggression might find that its dollar reserves are in jeopard, that is not a bad precedent for the world in disarray. so let's get started. earlier today, qatar's prime offered some hope that theize raely hostages might be freed soon. he's been mediating negotiates and good progress had been made in recent days and the only remaining obstacles were minor and logistical. let's go to jeremy diamond in tel aviv who has the latest. jeremy, you could give us a little sense of what are those minor longist cal obstacles that need to be overcome? >> reporter: well it seems athe it point a lot has to do with the mechanisms that are involved to get the hostages released for israel to abide on its side by the pause in fighting multiple days of pausing in fighting in order for the hostages to get out and for humanitarian aid to get in. but what is really important, that it appears that multiple parties involved into these talks all seem to be saying that we are closer than we ever have been to a deal that could see dozens of hostages freed from the gaza strip and returned to israel. we heard the qatar prime minister said that it is logistical and john finer just last hour telling jake tapper that we're closer than at any points in the negotiations since weeks ago and we also heard from the israeli ambassador who said that he was hopeful, the israeli ambassador to the united states, was hopeful there could be a deal in the coming days as well. it is important to underscore all of that optimism with what we have witnessed over last several weeks which is that we've seen at other points that we've come close to a potential deal and talks have fallen apart. and that is because the talks are freakily fraught and complex and not talking to each other. israel and hamas are talking via the qatari government and so that adds another layer of difficulty to all of this. >> and jeremy, briefly what is going on meanwhile in gaza? what is latest on the war, the violence? >> reporter: well, the israeli military still has yet to answer very important questions about a strike that took place at a united nationed school in the gaza strip. dozens people were kill and we have video showing dozens of bodies on the ground in both levels of the school. in one room you could see about a dozen bodies covered in dust and decks chat shattered and a massive hole in the wall. the united nations doesn't know who was responsible for the strike but already several arab governments are pointing to israel as the culprit. th the israeli military is looking into the incident. and there is one bright spot and more than 30 of the premature babies at the al shifa hospital have been evacuated from al shifa hospital to the southern part of the gaza strip and they are expected to then be evacuated to egypt. so some progress on that front. but overall, fareed, the humanitarian conditions are dire and the israeli military continuing to press ahead with its offensive. fareed. >> jeremy diamond in tel aviv, thank you so much. next on gps, i'll talk to nicholas kristoff who will dispel what he calls the smiths about this conflict. let's talk more about the israeli hist palestinian conflict with nicholas kristoff, columnist for "the new york times." he recently administratived israel and the west bank and has been writing on the war in my opinion. his latest column on the subject is called "what we get wrong about israel and gaza." hi, nick. you talk about three myths and i just want to quickly list them. the first is that this is a conflict in which it is absolutely morally clear all of the right is on one side and all of the wrong is on another and i point out it is a clash between two rights. you say that the israeli myth that the palestinians could be strong along indefinitely and the can kicked down the road indefinitely and the one i've heard so on in days and particularly from israeli friends, it is too bad that we have to use so much force but the only side only understands bruta brutal violence. we live in a rough neighborhood, we just have to show that we could be absolutely brutal and -- and perhaps even irrational in our use of violence. why do you think that is a myth, or in other words why do you think that is is wrong? >> i guess first of all, i would note there is a certain symmetry, just as israelis say that about palestinians, so palestinians say that about israelis. that there is -- we have no peace partner. only way to get attention to this cause is to blow things up and i don't think it works. having watched this crisis as you have over the years, what you do see is that violence and hardliners tend to lead to violence and hardliners on the other side. why is netanyahu in power? he took power after hamas was engagek in suicide bombings. originally back in 1990s. it was hamas as take over of gaza that kind of helped destroy the israeli left and the labor party there. and so many times in gaza, i've talked to children and you ask them what they want to be and they don't want to be a firefighter or a doctor. they want to be shahid, martyrs because they've lost family members close to them and i think that we're again in this cycle of violence that simply perpetuates it and i don't think that is going to advance israeli interests, or obviously palestinian interests when half of 1% of the gaza population has already been killed. >> do you think that -- you talk about how each side in a sense, you know, reinforces the other. do you think it is cynical as -- as the hardliners on each side almost want each other. there were many reports about how netanyahu said we needhamas because it ensures there will never be a palestinian state. we have to different parties and one of which is a terror group. >> so, fareed, i think for the most part, people, you know, the israeli right, the violent end of the palestinians, for the most part i think they're doing what they think will help their own interests. but is there an element of what you say? and netanyahu thinking that one way of undermining a palestinian authority and reducing the possibility of a palestinian state down the road is to support hamas, absolutely. and is one element of hamas's attack the idea that they could do what a scholar friend of mine calls jujitsu, have israel overreact and then create international sympathy for palestinians and project this issue on to the international agenda, yeah, i think that is an element. and one thing that i think both sides have in common, including hamas, is that they don't greatly care for the lives of palestinian civilians. >> you say in your column, based on your observations in the region, hamas may be winning. explain what you mean. >> so, as far as we understand, hamas motives -- they wanted to fundamentally change the dynamic with a brutal attack on israel. and that was one aim of just the extraordinary savagery of the attack. so, israel in the course of a not terribly precise set of attacks, a ferocious set of bombings, i think clearly has elevated the palestinian cause. it has dissipating the initial sympathy for israel. and i think it has also put israel on a compressed timeline. it will mark it harder to continue the fight against hamas indefinitely. i think there is enormous pressure on israel to curtail this. and you noknow, i look around a i don't see obvious signs that homeas's military power has been hugely degraded but i do see hamas has managed to elevate the palestinian cause, generate sympathy and the focus is also moved off the israeli hostages, who one would hope would be a greater attempt to get them back. >> very briefly, nick, you were in the west bank and anything to report from there that struck you? >> oh, boy, fareed, it is so sad. i don't think i've ever seen it just so on edge, so much -- people have lost hope. they're convinced that again that israelis only understand violence. there is no peace option down the road. that there is no trust. and in that context, i think there are some risk of explosion. i wonder whether that might extend to jordan as well given its large palestinian population. and i just really worry that the next chapter of this is going to be something -- some big crisis in the west bank. >> nick kristoff, always a pleasure. i waned to mentioned nick's efforts to identify the best nonprofits to support in the holiday season. go to kristoffimpact.org to see his list, it is on "the new york times" website as well. and next, the most important neighborhood in thisis conflict- egypt.t. when we e come back. c'mon, we're right there. c'mon baby. it's the only we need. go, go, go, go! ah! touchdown baby! -touchdown! are your neighbors watching the same game? yeah, my 5g home internet delays the game a bit. but you get used to it. try these. they're noise cancelling earmuffs. i stole them from an airport. it's always something with you, man. great! solid! -greek salad? exactly! don't delay the game with verizon or t-mobile 5g home internet. catch it on the xfinity 10g network. there is currently only one viable way out of gaza. the rafah border crossing controlled by egypt. it opens under the sinai peninsula. egypt's government kept the crossing closed and now it is opened to let a trickle of aid into gaza and a few foreigners out into egypt. that despite fact that the egyptian rally has supported the palestinians in gaza so what is motivating the decisions and what whole might the nation play once the hot war is over. joining me now is tariq massud from harvard. help us understand, because generally speaking have tended to view egypt as a country that has been part of the containment of hamas. it was enforcing the blockade in various ways over the last 16 years. it doesn't let palestinians in. how has it reacted to this attack, the hamas attack. >> thanks. great question. thanks for having me, it is good to be with you, despite the catastrophic circumstances. so look, the egyptian reaction to what happened on october 7th is very plain. they've been calling since day one for a cease-fire. one of the problems and i think nick kristoff mentioned this in your earlier segment, we've blown past the horrors of october 7th. the egyptians moved past it almost immediately because they felt they could see what was coming down the pike which was a massive retaliation operation by the netanyahu government in gaza that would yield a humanitarian crisis of incredible proer portions and that would put egypt under a great deal of pressure. so egypt from the very beginning has been calling for a cease-fire. they've been calling for restraint. they convened, a peace conference, in october, that didn't declare anything. they are trying to negotiate with hamas to get a cease-fire in exchange for the release of some hostages. >> but there are a lot of people who think the egyptian government tends to play this game of public support but privately they kind of want israel to destroy hamas? >> i think if the israeli as could invent a weapon that would only target hamas members and leave the people of the -- and the infrastructure in tact, but the egyptians know there isn't such a thing. and if you look their conduct and public statements, they've been telling the israelis, be careful, stop. if you look at statements of the foreign ministry and the statements of president sisi, i think they're calling for it publicly and behind closed doors. >> but sisi has been known to be tough on versions of hamas in egypt, the muslim brotherhood for example, tens of thousands of members are jailed. is he doing this because public opinion in egypt is very strongly pro-palestinian. >> opinion in egypt is pro-palestinian. but the egypt government emerges from the egyptian people and almost without exception, egypt an officials feel a great deal of sympathy with gaza and according to some accounts there have been more civilians killed in gaza in the last six weeks than civilian ukraines killed since february of 2022. so this is a humanitarian crisis of -- >> so why wouldn't they let palestinians in egypt. >> if you read the president's statements, he said in part that allowing them into egypt will destabilize egypt because suddenly you have millions of people, millions in the sinai peninsula and would might be hamas fighters who would use egypt as a staging ground for their operations against israel. and then suddenly egypt, which since the peace treaty with israels about han part of the solution in the region, would once again be drawn into the theater of war and be part of the problem. so sisi is very concern about that. and the other thing that he's concerned about publicly and every egypt an will say publicly, they do not want to be part of the displacement of palestinians from gaza because they believe once they are pushed out the netanyahu government will never let them back in. so there are fears, i don't know if their credible, but deeply felt that egypt does not want to be determined to be a second place from their lands. >> and post conflict. there are all of these discussions about an arab force or an arab government or palestinian authority. what do you think happens post conflict? >> i think that is a very difficult question. i think there is a couple of things. some of the proposals that have been offered seem more like pipe dreams. the idea that egypt and saudi arabia would come in and somehow governor gaza, it -- instead of hamas or israel, seems unrealistic, the egyptians have a difficult time governing themselves. i think there is also not attention paid to the cost to egypt of being involved in such a thing. what is that line said about france, if france catches a cold and if they sneeze and the middle east gets a cancer. and to put the middle east in this position very destabilizing to the country is one that should give us real pause. the issue in gaza is once hamas has been tamed, the issue is establishing governance. i know how we don't do that and that is be getting beleaguered countries in crisis like egypt to try to shoulder that burden. >> thank you. always a pleasure. >> thanksgiving you. and xi and biden, kevin rudd tells us what happened. the most important bilateral relationship in the world, that is how president xi described the u.s.-china relationship as he sat with president biden this week in california. four-hour meeting was first in a year amid very strained relations between the two nations. joining me to discuss the outcome of the summit and what lies ahead is one of the world's lea leading china experts, kevin rudd, and he is now the ambassador to the united states. he's also the author of the avoidable war, on the dangers of a u.s.-china conflict. kevin, welcome. tell us, it seemed to me that this was very different mood music from what we have been hearing from u.s.-china meetings ever since really the start of the biden administration, that anchorage summit with the neutral accusations. did it strike you tha