joining me now is john brennen, the former director of the cia and now an msnbc national security and intelligence analyst. director brennen, thank you for being here. one thing that's struck me as an interesting sort of facet of all of this is that these negotiations are being led by a representative from mosad and one from the cia, of course, in addition to the qataris. how unusual is that set of talks, if you will, between mosad and the cia? >> well, cia has had very strong and long-standing ties to mosad, and so it's not surprising to me that cia is involved heavily in these discussions because the negotiations with hamas are taking place through intermediaries. in this case it's mostly the qataris but also egyptians. the cias has close contacts with the cia and qatari. therefore mosad also has dealings with the egyptians and qataris. unsurprising these sensitive negotiations are taking place in intelligence channels. i think there's great confidence in the players, the head of mosad as well as director burns are very close. and i do believe the progress that's been made over the