A lot is happening in the Middle East... and nothing at all - with Nadav Eyal
As we try to make sense of the past two weeks, consider this:
1. IDF withdraws from most of the Gaza Strip while it now also appears increasingly likely that the IDF will conduct an operation in Rafah.
2. An historic Iranian attack of 300 ballistic missiles, UAVs and cruise missiles, and an historic coalition force that includes Israel, the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia and Jordan that shot down almost all of the projectiles.
3. A week later, Israel attacks Iran.
4. A widely backed U.N. security council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, which the US vetoed.
So a lot is happening, but is Israel closer to achieving the war's objectives?
To help us understand what’s going on, our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for Yediot. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
NE: If the Iranians are not deterred, the regional power that they are, with their development of nuclear weapons, then we won't be able to achieve that vision of Saudi-Israeli normalization, because they're going to interrupt this vision. They're going to do anything in their power in order to make sure it's not going to happen. In order to have this kind of normalization agreements and a new vision for Gaza and a pathway to Palestinian statehood, you need to keep the Iranians in check. And you need to deter to Iran. And if you're not willing to do both, a positive vision and a strong deterrence, you're in the wrong region.
DS: It is four o'clock on Sunday, April 21st here in New York city. It is 11PM on Sunday, April 21st in Israel, as we all get ready for the Pesach. Passover holiday. We've reached an ambiguous stage in this war where we are seeing major developments occur both in Israel, in Gaza, and in the region, and yet there seems to be a sense of uncertainty in terms of what these developments actually mean and where things are going. As we'll discuss today with our guest, Nadav Eyal - just look at the last couple of weeks where Israel's withdrawn most of its forces from Gaza, and now it appears there's going to be a possible return to Gaza, and even a, an operation in Rafah. I know a number of people I've just heard from anecdotally in the past few hours who've been called back up into service. They had been in Gaza, then they were out of Gaza and back home, and now they're being called up again. There was an Iranian attack against Israel just one week ago, and then an Israeli response one week later. And there were developments at the UN Security Council with regard to a Palestinian state. So a lot is happening. But then, at times, it feels that nothing is happening. The question is, is Israel any closer to achieving its war objectives? And how have Israel, and Saudi Arabia, and other players in the region, perhaps changed the environment that Iran is operating in? Nadav Eyal on ‘A Lot Is Happening, and Nothing At All’. This is Call me Back.
And I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast from Tel Aviv, Nadav Eyal. Nadav, it's been one week since we last spoke. It was one week ago today that we were having a conversation about Iran's military operation against Israel. And we thought that was the big news. And here we are one week later with what seems like even much bigger news. So we have a lot to talk about. Thanks for being here.
NE: Thanks for having me, Dan.
DS: So, Nadav, we've reached a peculiar point in the war where on the one hand we are seeing major events, if not historic events, unfold in a matter of weeks. So I just want to just look at the last couple weeks we’ve had. IDF withdraws most of its ground forces from Gaza, an historic Iranian attack, of 300 ballistic missiles, UAVs and cruise missiles, and a historic coalition force that included not only Israel in the United States and the UK and France, but also most notably Saudi Arabia and Jordan, that shot down almost all of those projectiles. Then we had a week later, Israel attacking Iran. And lastly, we had in recent days, a widely backed UN Security Council resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, which the US vetoed. So a lot is happening, and at the same time, it does feel like we're in a little bit of a holding pattern, like nothing's happening. And, and it's not clear to me, depending on who I speak to, how much closer Israel is to achieving its overall war objectives. Defeating Hamas, getting the hostages back, and pushing Hezbollah back to the Litani Line past the Litani River up north. I'm not saying that last one has always been part of the overall set of military objectives, and yet it is obviously increasingly important and on everyone's mind. So what is going on with Iran, and then I want to get a sense for you is how you explain the Gulf between these dramatic events and then just, just this overall sense of stagnation.
NE: So let's begin with Iran, because I think it's an interesting story about two miscalculations and the first miscalculation was made by Israel. Israel decided to assassinate that general in Damascus, that Iranian general who was the leader of the Al Quds force in the region. And the reason it was a miscalculation is because the Israeli intelligence did not foresee the Iranian reaction to that assassination. So when Israeli decision makers, when the war cabinet, authorized this hit, they didn't think it's going to lead to anything different than the sort of responses that we've seen from Iran before, which was basically threatening to do something that, not doing it or sending their proxies, i.e. Hezbollah or the Houthis or the militias in Iraq to shoot some drones at Israel, but nothing that would lead you to believe that Iran will go to a full frontal assault against Israel, again, shooting these 300 flying objects of sorts against Israel in one of the widest, you know, aerial assaults in modern history, actually. And the Israeli intelligence was wrong. And as I wrote, it was wrong again, both on October 7th, they didn't understand the intentions of the other side. And now they didn't understand the intentions of the other side. Now, understanding intentions is really hard. It's very difficult to foresee the future and nobody says, you know, it's not an applied science, but the fact that they didn't bring this to the decision makers as, you know, an intermediate possibility, that the Iranians will respond themselves, that is really a big mistake of the Israeli intelligence and if you take this into account together with the fact that Israel is trying to prevent a regional war, and Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, wants Iran to be involved in this war, and this was his plan to begin with, if you're assuming this, computing this, this is even a bigger mistake because no way and this I am not saying as an assessment I'm saying this after speaking with Israeli decision makers - and by the way, also with Israeli officers, if Israel would have known that this hit in Damascus will lead the area to the brink of a regional war, this hit would have never happened. Now, I'm not saying that some good things didn't come out of it, and I'm going to talk about these good things. But basically, it was a miscalculation by Israel, and it's the Israeli press that dealt with it extensively, and then I saw, you know, a story in the New York Times a few days ago. And it's a big issue.
DS: But in fairness, Nadav, and I'm hearing versions of the same thing, that it was a miscalculation, including people who are very involved with decision making in the government. But it's an understandable miscalculation, in that - October 7th is not an understandable miscalculation, you know, based on some of the folks I'm talking to who are very involved in decision making. Whereas this one they feel like is an understandable miscalculation because there's nothing in Iranian behavior to have pointed to the possibility that they would respond the way they did. There has been a clear pattern to how they've responded, including to how they responded when the U. S., with Israeli help it sounds like, took out Qasem Soleimani a number of years ago. There's been a pattern to how they've responded. This was outside that pattern.
NE: Well, actually, with Qasem Soleimani, they attacked, publicly, American bases in Iraq. It was done by Iran itself. Iran took responsibility at the beginning, the Pentagon tried to play down the number of American soldiers hit by that. Some of them sustained, if I remember correctly, brain injuries because of the ballistic missiles. And, by the way, it was one of the largest ballistic missile attacks against the American army ever, and that was Qasem Soleimani. And secondly, Dan, you're right, it's very difficult to judge from previous patterns as to the future. It's always the challenge of intelligence, right? But it's the same with Hamas. You know, Hamas has never attacked Israel before, in a sort of a frontal, massive attack and invasion of Israel. That's your challenge. And to have this on midday in Damascus, and one of the things that started happening, and I wrote about that, it's part of my story, is when I talked with my sources, they said that the Mossad authorized the hit. So this hit was organized, initiated by the IDF and by the intelligence branch of the IDF. But the Mossad knew about killing this general, and they said, you know, fine. They didn't foresee that Iran will respond any way different than the intelligence, but they didn't know, or at least they claim not to know, that it would be done in a building just adjacent to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, A, and B, it would be done midday in terms of humiliation and saving face that doesn't allow a lot of, you know, maneuvering for Tehran. So the fact that sources would even tell me that the Mossad is saying, “oh, we knew that there's going to be an assassination and we signed it off, we were fine with it, but we didn't know the location. And we didn't know the time in the day” - that actually hints to, you know, people accusing each other for responsibility. So this is the first miscommunication. It was made by Israel. I should stress, responsibility lies with the decision makers - with Netanyahu, with Gallant, with the ministers in the Israeli government. The intelligence branch can make a lot of offers and suggestions, and that's the job of the army. And then the government should be, you know, the responsible people saying, we need to look at the entire region, we need to look at diplomacy, we need to look at our relations with the United States, that wasn't updated much before the hit, and got furious. The White House got furious with this because they understood immediately that this could change things, although they also did not estimate, including after the attack, that the Iranians are going to respond the way that they did. That's also interesting because the intelligence branch in the IDF and the U.S. intelligence, both after the assassination in Damascus, thought that the Iranians are just again making empty threats. So I'm saying this is a major miscalculation and this is a detour from the aims of the Israeli in this war, which are, getting the hostages back, having a regime change in Gaza, hitting Hamas, getting our civilians back to the North, making sure that Hezbollah is not on our borders, and so forth and so forth. And the second miscalculation was actually done by Iran. The Iranians thought that by responding, they'll create a deterrence. They thought that they have some sort of an international understanding to the right of a national set of defense. And I think they estimated that they can hit Israel in a way that will make clear that it cannot hit any Iranian IRGC officials anymore. I think that what was exposed was that Israel can defend itself in ways that we have never imagined before, A. B, and that's much, much more severe for the Iranian regime, it's the international community that sort of woke up, and said, “my God”, you know, “this regime in Tehran, they're really crazy”. They just ordered an act of war against Israel for an assassination in Damascus that Israel never took credit for, never acknowledged. It's an assassination. You know, Israel didn't decide to bomb buildings in Tehran. It bombed a building in Damascus. In which an Iranian general was sitting and planning how to attack Israel from Lebanon. That was what he was doing when he was there. That's the reason that Iran is so involved across the region. It's because of military actions against Israel. It's not the reason they're involved, but this is the reason. So, for them to break into a full frontal attack, the way that they did, that risks the entire region and might lead us to a regional war, that really tells you something about the Iranian government. Now, you Dan, don't need to be told this, right? And I think most Israelis don't need to, because Hamas is funded by Iran, partly by Iran. Hezbollah is very much funded by Iran. The Houthis are directed by Iran, so everybody in the region, including my friends in Arab nations in the region, whether it's Egypt, Jordan, the Emirates, everybody knows, Palestinians, everybody knows what Iran has been doing. But somehow for Paris and London and Berlin and Washington DC, this was a wake up call. And you could actually sense how the tide was shifting and changing because of this attack by Iran. And I think that the U.S. administration might not have managed to pull through the aid to Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel, and by the way, the Palestinian Authority, without this attack by Iran. And to an extent, it even managed to consolidate the regional alliance against the Iranians and to show that even Jordan, that is the weakest link here in that alliance, even them, are very much resolute to stop the Iranians.
DS: That's an extraordinary development. I mentioned to you when we spoke last, I had just been with a friend who had just returned from Jordan, who's very close to the leadership in Jordan, and he was describing to me how toxic relations were between King Abdullah and the Israeli government, and that while they weren't contemplating exiting the peace agreement between Jordan and Israel that was negotiated in the 1990s, the fact that they even talked in those terms showed you how bad things were, and yet here Jordan played an important, if not the most important role in this defense of Israel, and then obviously the Saudis played a very important role. And there may have been others who played a role that just aren't talking about it. But yes, the Europeans got mobilized. And then these Arab allies, where we had thought that these countries, they were mounting pressure on Israel because of what's happening in Gaza. And in fact, the moment it came to defending Israel against Iran, they were shoulder to shoulder with Israel.
NE: Yeah, and I think that this, to an extent, is so important for the future and for the vision the Biden administration still has, and I as an Israeli hope that will actually come into reality of normalization with Saudi Arabia and an alliance of moderate countries around the region together with Israel standing against the Iranian threat.
DS: Nadav, there aren’t a lot of details about what happened in this military operation. The details I have heard are, one, that Israel was very innovative in terms of how it conducted the operation with these gliders and other capabilities that eluded Iranian radar and defense capabilities. A. B, that Israel managed the diplomacy of this quite well, internationally. The U.S. was not, from what I understand, upset, about the way, while it was cautioning Israel against responding, “take the wind” to quote Biden, the way Israel conducted this operation, it was done in such a way that Israel didn't take credit. Iran didn't acknowledge it. The U. S. claimed it knew nothing about it. So it sent a message, but stayed below the threshold of triggering an escalation, potentially, from Iran and an escalation response. And lastly, it used something like 10% of the capabilities that Iran used in its operation against Israel over a week ago. In other words, Israel basically said, we're not even using that much of our stuff. And the stuff we have is pretty damn effective and innovative. And we're not taking out your nuclear facilities or trying to, but we're telling you we can get darn close, including taking out the defense capabilities and eluding the defense capabilities around your nuclear capabilities. So it sent a very strong message. I've now told you the sum total of what I've heard. Tell me what we got, right. What I got right, what I got wrong.
NE: Well, it's about right. It's about right. It was about penetration. It's about showing the Iranians that there is a cost for their attack on Israel. It's showing operational ability to hit the Iranians, nuclear sites, and it's sending a message both to Iran, the international community, and mainly the Middle East. Now, will this deter Iran from acting again against Israel if Israel assassinates an Iranian general involved with terror activities in Damascus? We don't know. But I think that Israel wants to leverage the Iranian attack, and also its response, in order to say to the international community, look, you either wake up now or you're going to get another North Korea. But Iran is no North Korea. Iran is much more powerful. It has allies in the region. It has an ideology that is spreading. And because of that, you will not be able to contain it the way that you have to an extent contained North Korea. Of course, the international community in the West just don't want to tackle this. And that's true for the Biden administration, as it was to an extent true to the Trump administration, as it's true to London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, you name it. Nobody wants to really tackle the Iranians. And Israel, at this moment, cannot do it alone. It might have wanted to do it alone, you know, a few years back, but today, immersed in this war, with the casualties that it has had, with the aims of the war still not fulfilled completely, it's not going to tackle Iran alone. And because of that, the Iranians are becoming more abordant. They have showed that in this attack and we should keep our eyes on the ball here. Iran would have never initiated this attack a year ago, even in a response to an assassination in Damascus, they have done so because they think that Israel is weaker than it was because the Israeli deterrent is weaker. And because they think that the international community, and first and foremost, the U.S. will not stand by Israel as they did before. That's the reason they did that. And if we don't acknowledge that, we cannot start fixing this incredibly dangerous situation in the Middle East. If the Iranians are not deterred, the regional power that they are, with their development of nuclear facilities and maybe nuclear weapons, then we won't be able to achieve that vision that we want of Saudi Israeli normalization, because they're going to interrupt this vision. They're going to do anything in their power in order to make sure it's not going to happen. In order to have this kind of normalization agreements and a new vision for Gaza, and a pathway to Palestinian statehood, you need to keep the Iranians in check, and you need to deter to Iran. And if you're not willing to do both a positive vision and a strong deterrence, you're in the wrong region. The Israelis, the way that they responded to the Iranian attack was very much not the kind of pompous rhetoric, you know, demagogue kind of far right that we to an extent have been accustomed to from the Ben-Gvirs and Smotrich in this government. So, you know, the grown ups took control of the situation and they decided, A, to hit back, although they were pressured not to do anything. And I should say that, you know, many countries in the world didn't want Israel to do anything. They, they wanted to have all this pouring of solidarity with Israelis. And saying, “it's terrible that Iran attacked you, but you began with the assassination in Damascus”. Although, again, it's not the same thing. Israel did not attack Iran, and an assassination is not an attack against the country. You know, and if this guy, this general was there, Madavi, planning attacks against Israel, and Israel still maintains, by the way, that it wasn't a diplomatic building. I didn't see any story even analyzing that kind of response or that kind of argument. So these countries were pressuring Israel not to respond, and Israel decided to respond with a very targeted and limited strike, taking out a radar station not far from Natanz, from the nuclear facilities of Iran - showing the Iranians, and this is me having commentary about that, showing the Iranians, A, that we can, we will hit you if you hit us, and B, we can penetrate. Israel has the ability to penetrate, it has the ability to penetrate the best radar systems in the world that were supplied to the Iranians by the Russians. And it can do that. Israel has one of the most powerful air forces in the world. And it's been training for years to hit Iranian nuclear installations, according to foreign sources, I should say. So the Iranians then did what Iran usually does. They denied this. They mocked it. They quoted Itamar Ben-Gvir - who will forever be the most irresponsible, ignorant minister that Israel has ever had. In Hebrew you say, “Dardaleh”, it's nothing.
DS: “Lame” is the word that, the way the Israeli press translated it.
NE: Yeah, if there's a strategy there for Israel, if Israel does something smart, you can always count on the Smotrichs and Ben-Gvirs to come and try to destroy it completely. And he did try, but he didn't really manage to. I had an interview this week in Sky News, and I said, “Israel wants to close this story. Israel doesn't want a regional war and the government isn't assuming responsibility for this event. They're not talking about this event.” And then the host did her job and she said, “yeah, but you have a minister that just said, you know, it's a minor event. And by that, he actually assumed responsibility.” And she also said that it wasn't important. And I said, you know, that's the far right.
DS: It's like the worst of our world.
NE: Yes, exactly. That's the far right for you, right? I'm not going to defend you know, the Ben-Gvirs in this world, or Kahana disciples for that matter, anywhere, not only Ben-Gvir.
DS: Also, not to mention, there's nothing the foreign media loves to do more than find quotes by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich and make every Israeli own those quotes. And when I try to remind people that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are not in the war cabinet, they're not at the decision making table for these decisions. They are a fringe, an influential fringe. But they are a fringe, but they are not in the decision making where the decision making matters. It's like holding Biden, you know, accountable for statements by like AOC or, you know, members of the progressive squad in the US.
NE: I made that explanation on Sky News, including saying it's like the larger cabinet in the UK. You know, you have ministers that are, it's not exactly the case, I have to say, because Netanyahu did give him the position, of you know, interior defense or interstitial.
DS: I get it. I'm just saying when it comes to these decisions though, it's just, you know, when it comes to major -
NE: It's true that he knew nothing and he didn't know that there's going to be a response. He wasn't involved in discussions. So to sum up this issue, I think that Iran had an opportunity here to use the Israeli miscalculation. And I'm not sure they used it well, but the jury's still out on this, and the reason is as follows. If Israel next time has an Iranian general from the IRGC, Quds Force, that it really wants to hit, and he's in Damascus, and it's not going to hit him, then Iran achieved deterrence. And if it's going to hit him again, Iran didn't reach deterrence, so we'll know next time. But this entire detour of sorts, maybe at the end, was very positive, not only for Israel, but for the world's security and for the West. Because it convinced politicians in D.C. to do the right thing, and to help not only Israel, but also Ukraine and Taiwan, to stand against those dictatorships, and in our case, a genocidal organization also supported by Russia and by Iran, in a mission to defend nothing less than Western civilization. So, if this is what the Iranians have done, good job, as far as we are concerned. Even though it began with a massive miscalculation and mistake, an embarrassing mistake by the Israeli intelligence.
DS: I have said repeatedly on this podcast since October 7th, that if there was a shot at the continued expansion of the Abraham Accords and normalization with Saudi Arabia, which is ultimately where everyone needs to be focused on. It is important that Israel needs to win. Now, when I was focusing on winning, I was focusing on winning, making it clear that it had decisively defeated Hamas. In retrospect, I should have amended it to say that it also needs to in some way demonstrate its superiority over Iran. I didn't obviously anticipate these string of events that you just laid out, but my sense back pre October 7th, based on numerous conversations I've had with Saudi leaders over the years, including some of the most, uh, senior Saudi leaders. The reason they were betting on Israel, the reason they wanted to normalize with Israel, was not because they saw Israel as a charity case. It's not because they thought they wanted to take care of Israel. As you said in the last week, which I thought was the best line, which I then used after I was giving a speech at an event in Detroit at the Farber School, charity event in the school, I, I used your line, I quoted you though, that the Saudis were supporting Israel not out of love of Mordechai, but out of fear of Haman. Which is fantastic. It was very good also because I was speaking at an Orthodox Jewish day school so it was particularly relevant to them. But it was a very important point that they feared Saudis and Israel had shared threats. Uh, Sunni Muslim extremism, in the form of Muslim Brotherhood in Saudi, in the form of Hamas for Israel, and then Iran. And one of the reasons that Saudi was betting on Israel was because Israel is a source of strength, military strength, intelligence - it was an intelligence juggernaut, so it thought. And then obviously it was a regional, Israel was a regional economic superpower and was a global technology and cyber, uh, superpower. And Saudi wanted a part of that strength. Israel had momentum. Israel was viewed as a winning nation, not just startup nation, winning nation. And Saudi wanted to piggyback onto that. I feared one of the great setbacks of October 7th, among others, was suddenly: that whole image was shattered. Now, Israeli society wasn't just hit hard, but that image of Israel as this juggernaut was shattered, and that Israel needed to reestablish that perception, and you can only reestablish that perception based on facts. And what we saw in Israel's response a few days ago was that. It was like, we, Israel, have capabilities that people don't even know about us. Watch us. And I think for the Israeli-Saudi relationship, that was extremely important.
NE: Yeah, I totally agree. But now, after we said that, the question is quite clearly, is Israel going to win this war? And by winning the war, we know what we're talking about, right? We need to get the hostages back. We need to have a different regime in the Gaza Strip. And Hamas out of power in the Gaza Strip to an extent. We need to get our Israeli civilians back in the north. We need Hezbollah deterred. And if we can have normalization with Saudi Arabia, it's not only that we won the war, as I said on this show in a conversation with you, Dan, we might have won the conflict. Now, right now, we're stuck. As you began our conversation today. Israel is stuck and the war is stuck. Most of the Israeli IDF forces have left the Gaza Strip. We have basically allowed Yigal Sinwar some of the bargaining chips, for instance, humanitarian assistance. You know, one of the elements that was discussed in the negotiations for the hostage release was that Sinwar and Hamas were demanding 500 trucks per day entering the Gaza Strip, of humanitarian assistance and food. Now they're getting this for free, so to speak, because Israel had to budge with international pressure, and because frankly, there was a risk of famine in the center of Northern Gaza Strip. So the Israelis needed to do that. So something that was a bargaining chip disappeared. Another something of that sort was, of course, the Israeli presence in Hanunis. Israel was in Khan Yunis. Khan Yunis is where Yigal Sinwar came from. It's a major city in the Gaza Strip, a major stronghold of Hamas. Israel left Khan Yunis, the idea of left Khan Yunis. This was one of the things that stressed out Yigal Sinwar, because he was probably hiding somewhere between Khan Yunis and Rafah. We know that. And again, this is something that Israel has basically seceded without getting anything in return because of operational reasons. Now we don't have a different regime building up in the Gaza Strip in areas that were already taken care of by the IDF. So, the IDF and Israel sacrificed the lives of hundreds of soldiers in order to take places like Gaza City or Beit Hanoun or Jabalia and I can name these places, some of these places I’ve been in. And it has not imposed any different rule there, either an Israeli rule or getting Fatah because their prime minister will not consider either of these options. And the result, because the overpowering force of regime in the Gaza Strip is Hamas, and because it's very popular with Palestinians, unfortunately, that means that if the IDF leaves, Hamas just comes back in.
DS: And to be clear, Nadav, because I say this to people here in the U.S. all the time, and they're stunned by this. Hamas is still the most popular political force in Gaza, and the West Bank too. We're not focused on the West Bank right now, but Hamas is still, today, despite all the destruction that they have brought to Gaza and the way they have governed Gaza, Hamas is still the most popular political force in Gaza.
NE: Well, it's very difficult to measure a public opinion in Gaza, considering that there's a war there and considering the Hamas is a dictatorship. But if you look at the polls made by Dr. Shikaki, considered the most reliable pollster in Palestinian society, you see that Hamas lost a lot of its power in Gaza. It's now more popular in the West Bank. Where the Palestinian Authority of the Fatah is in control, but it's still popular enough in Gaza to have them maintain some sort of control there. Now, in terms of releasing the hostages, the deal is dead - and why shouldn't it be dead as far as Sinwar was concerned? When he started negotiating, he saw a very united Israeli society saying, we're going to defeat you. It's not united anymore. We're having demonstrations basically every night. He saw the U.S. standing by Israel, the U.S isn't really standing by Israel and by this war, many things are wrong in the relations between the U S and Israel. What he didn't see before the beginning, he saw that Iran is not joining this fight. And now he just saw Iran trying to join the war to an extent. So, he didn't see any aid and assistance going into the Gaza Strip. He's seeing aid and assistance going through the Gaza Strip. He saw the IDF in Hanounis. He's not seeing the IDF in Hanounis. I could go on. He's also launching rockets again. So there are areas that the IDF took by force, sacrificing the lives of the best and brightest in this country. But then it seceded these areas because Israel never wanted to maintain an occupation regime there. Because Netanyahu didn't want it, and also the Americans didn't want it. And now they're shooting rockets again from these areas to the southern parts of Israel. We had, this was the third night, last night, of sirens in the same places like Sderot and other places that were hit by the, you know, northern Gaza. So we're seeing these things happening again. You know, nobody is saying, look, it's obvious that Hamas doesn't want a deal. These people are agents of Iran to an extent, proxies of Iran to an extent. What they want is this area to sink in a bloodbath that will destroy everyone that is moderate or just wants any sort of normal life here. And their fundamentalist, nobody's saying these things as, for instance, John Kirby said, you know, this kind of talk at the beginning of the war. And Israel is basically very much stuck, and not doing anything in order to replace Hamas in Gaza, an aim of the war. And everything is related to Prime Minister Netanyahu not willing to make that leap that is so fundamental when you run a war, you know, for Clausewitz, you know, war is something that you do in order to achieve political aims, right? What are your political aims? And the prime minister would not say, would not utter the words: “pathway to Palestinian statehood”, “The Saudis want,” you know, “the U.S. needs”, he will not allow Fatah or the Palestinian Authority to return to the Gaza Strip. Although there are specific plans made by his own defense apparatus, his own defense minister, that he doesn't talk much with, Yoav Gallant, published these plans and he's not willing to move. And you know, you cannot run a war and you cannot win a war by not doing many, many things at once. So if you look at leaders at war, you read what Roosevelt has been doing and what Churchill was doing and what David Ben-Gurion was doing. They were doing loads of stuff. And, you know, Netanyahu is not like that. Netanyahu is a great speaker, but you need to do so much in terms of diplomacy. There are so much missed opportunities. And I think it's terribly unfortunate that we are at this point. And, uh, I think it's, it's really leading us, you know, that Lieberman in Israel, uh, Avigdor Lieberman, who's a leader of a rightist party that is very much against Netanyahu, has been very much against Netanyahu in the last six years or so. So Lieberman is saying that Netanyahu already decided to side with the American strategic plan in the region, and he's going to go for the Saudi option, and he's going to say Palestinian state. And he's just going to change what he thinks and he's going to shift. And that means that Smotrich and Ben-Gurion will leave his coalition, he'll become an enemy for parts of the right, but he'll be supported by the Israeli center. I don't know if it's true, you know, Lieberman is a political person and he says all kinds of things. Sometimes they materialize, sometimes they don't, and he has a vested interest in saying that. But I have to say that if Netanyahu indeed plans on doing that, it's a very logical, it's the rational thing to do, because he doesn't present to us any different plan. What's his plan? You know, we left Beit Hanoun, it's the northern side of the Gaza Strip, we left Gaza City, we left these places. What is your plan as the Prime Minister of Israel who has ordered the IDF to go and occupy and take effective control and disintegrate those Hamas regiments? What's your plan for these areas? What's your plan for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip? What are you after? And how is this war going to stop in a way that Hezbollah stops their own assault on Israel that began on October 8th? And is just destroying our northern border. People do not understand this. That 80,000 Israelis from the north, our entire north, is abandoned. You can see the Sukkot there from Simchat Torah, from the previous holiday in Israel. It's a terrible thing. It has never happened in the history of Zionism that we have left an entire area on our borders, and this has become a security zone. It's like, you know, Israel once had a security zone within Lebanon. Now, Hezbollah has a security zone within Israel, and it's shooting rockets and anti tank missiles. And, uh, Suicide drones. I have a friend that his son was there in Arab al-Aramshe, when the drone was shot there, you know, hitting a group of soldiers within Israel. And what's the Israeli government's plan for that? And the answer is you either need to defeat Hezbollah. That means going into war. That's a big thing, right? It's going to be a different war. It's going to be much worse because Hezbollah can hit every city basically in Israel, it has a GPS targeted missiles. That's it. You know, that's a different story or you get some sort of solution in the Gaza Strip or an end to the war. And one of the things that, you hear these arguments today in Israel, Dan, people are saying, “look, if you're not going to achieve the other goals of the war and you don't have anyone to replace Hamas with, so get the hostages back” because Hamas wants Israel to stop the war and leave Gaza, and then they're willing for their own prisoners, their own convicted murderers, to release our hostages. So many people in Israel are saying, “you're not winning this war anyway. You don't seem to have, you know, the direct intention to overcome them, to replace them. So you're actually just slowly pacing to stopping the war.” And at the end, what will happen, and that's a major fear - is that you'll stop the war. There's no front today in the Gaza ship and you're not gonna get the hostages back, 2, and that's gonna maim the Israeli society for dozens of years. The breakdown of solidarity. So you see the demonstrations of the families - the hostage families are, are basically saying, “get them back now. Do more.” _________ published last week recordings. These are not arguments, recordings of people within the negotiation team of Israel saying that the Prime Minister has slowed down the negotiations on purpose, including getting all kinds of, Hamas needs to prove how many Israelis are alive before we continue the negotiations. They said, “professionally speaking, these are not political people. These are officers that spoke with her, right?” They said, “we never had this condition before.” And he put that condition in, so he can stop the negotiations. Now, look, I place the responsibility with Sinwar. Okay, I'm not fooling myself, I don't think it's on Netanyahu completely. But I can tell you that the people leading this negotiation are simply not sure that Netanyahu wants a deal.
DS: But you've said before in this podcast there is a world in which some parties within the leadership are trying to convey that they're not desperate to do a deal because it serves the negotiations for Sinwar not to think that Israel is desperate to do a deal. It's, it could be a negotiating tactic. Uh, we just, we just don't know. But I do want to ask you, where do you think the hostage negotiations are right now?
NE: Well, first of all, the good news is that the American administration suddenly saw the light and they understand that they need to pressure Hamas. And the bad guys are Hamas. Well, it was really relieving for me as an Israeli to hear from Secretary Blinken actually saying, you know, that Israel wants a deal, they made the offer. But then, this doesn't come without a cost. Look guys, you have pressured Israel to make these concessions. And now these concessions are a benchmark for any future negotiation. And the fact that you pressured Israel the way that you did pressure Israel to get to a deal and said, “there is no other option”. And we talked about that, Dan, at the time, after I interviewed the American ambassador who told me there is no other option. So the fact that you did that, that gave so much leverage to Hamas. So now you understand the way that these people negotiate. What did you think? And I'll tell you what they thought. They believed what the Qataris told them, saying the deal is going to happen next week. The deal is going to happen now. There's no problem. It's going to be just great. And the Egyptians have been much more realistic. They know what Hamas is about. And also, they have not been funding money to Hamas as Qatar has been doing, and they've not been supportive of some of the Hamas aims as Qatar has been doing. So the fact that the Americans understood that they need to apply some pressure to Hamas, that's the good news. But that's the only good news here. Because Hamas has been very resolute after the first deal that they're not going to agree to any other deal until the war ends and Israel, the IDF, leaves the Gaza Strip. No corridor, no restrictions on population coming back from the south to the north. Nothing, unless Israel leaves the Gaza Strip and actually says, we failed the war. And allows Hamas to continue existing at the Gaza Strip. Now, there are two sets of ideas here. The first one is saying, yeah, but they changed their mind. And now they're willing to have some sort of a deal. And you need to push through. I'll give you an example: Israel, politically speaking, domestically, the Israeli government has huge problems when releasing those convicted murderers and Palestinian prisoners. And right now we're standing on about a thousand Palestinian prisoners out of which hundreds have blood on their hands. That means that they're convicted murderers, but let's say Israelis would have suggested that they'll release 4,000 and not a thousand. Could this push through a deal? Or is this going to become another benchmark that you can never withdraw from in dealing with this? So is it because the Israelis have not been imaginative, pushy, they're not serious enough? Or is it because Hamas is just playing with Qatar and Egypt and the United States, giving them the impression that they might agree to a deal, although they're not willing to agree to a deal at all. They just want Israel to surrender and they're not going to release any hostages anyhow, because why should they, to begin with? They know that the Israeli society as we go along, that's what happened with Gilad Shalit, the hostaged soldier that they held before for years. As time goes by, the Israelis would be able to be willing to pay more for their hostages than now, and without the hostages, what does prevent Israel and the IDF from destroying Hamas, occupying the Gaza Strip, and finishing this? So some would say it would be simply impossible for Hamas to agree, and all they've been doing is playing for time. And this goes into the aims of the war. Israel said, “release the hostages and overcome and defeat Hamas.” Could you do both at the same time? So some would say, yeah, so Israel would have needed to release the hostages, pay, you know, a huge price for that, then defeat Hamas. But it didn't do so, right? It wanted to do both things at once. And it's very difficult. And we are at a very difficult place, strategically speaking, in trying to run this. But mainly, to quote one cabinet member that you know, and you know, to be a very reliable person and very mainstream, the main problem of the Israelis right now is that they're not making decisions. So the U.S. decisions, not the White House, it's not Saudi Arabia or Hamas. In a war, you need to make defining decisions. I'll give you an example of a defining decision. The last defining decision that Israel made was to keep the corridor in the center of the Gaza Strip. A corridor of Israeli control that will prevent the population from returning back, and the terrorists, mainly the terrorists, returning back to Gaza and the north. Another defining decision was to stop the war for a few weeks and get about a hundred hostages back. That was a defining moment in the war. And then that minister asks me, look, what's the last defining decision that we made? We're not taking decisions. And if you're not making these decisions, someone else or reality is making the decisions for you. Now, we have here a vision of the United States. I don't know if it's reliable and actually I'll, I'll be happy to hear what you think about that. Of a new Middle East, with the Saudis, with the pathway to Palestinian statehood, with the PA taking control of the Gaza Strip. You know, if we don't have anything else, we should accept that. That's what many people are saying. I think that's what Benny Gantz is thinking, what Eisenkot is thinking. Many people in Israel are thinking right now, but I'm asking you, Dan, do you think it's a reliable vision? Do you think that the Biden administration can actually supply the goods? Can it get a Saudi deal beyond Congress and Senate? Can it really happen?
DS: So the answer is yes. I think there is a deal to be done between Israel and Saudi. The normalization deal will be a three way deal between Saudi, the U.S., and Israel because there's a lot that Saudi wants from the U.S. in the context of the deal that Israel can't provide, not the least of which is a formal defense pact with the United States and a lot which that may entail in terms of various security guarantees, arms sales, potentially some kind of Nuclear capability, although that remains highly speculative, but to have a formal defense pact between Israel and Saudi would require Senate ratification, and Senate ratification requires two thirds of the vote in the United States Senate, which you cannot get without a bipartisan vote. And there are many Democrats who would not want to vote for a deal that provides all sorts of new capabilities and weapons, not to mention defense pack to Saudi Arabia, because many Senate Democrats still loathe Mohammed bin Salman, and so they do not want to give what they would perceive as a gift to Saudi. And, oh, by the way, many of these Senate Democrats are in the business right now of making the case for conditional arms assistance to Israel. So the last thing they want to do is do some big deal that rewards Israel and rewards this Israeli government, unless it's President Biden who's asking for it. President Biden in an election year, just 200 days, a little under 200 days from election day and the clock keeps ticking. Unless President Biden says, I need this, I need a foreign policy win. And I'm looking at you, Senate Democrats, and I need you to have my back. And if you get enough of them to vote yes, and assume you get most Republicans, now, there are some Republicans who may be uncomfortable with it, too. I think we tend to focus on the Democrats and not the Republicans. I think most Senate Republicans will be for it. You listen to Lindsey Graham, who I've talked extensively about this, who's one of the architects of this, who's working in the Senate on it, and he's working closely hand in hand with the Biden administration. On the one hand, he's a fierce critic of the Biden administration. On the other hand, I've been with him where he's taking calls from Jake Sullivan at the National Security Advisor while Lindsey's traveling to the Middle East. I had breakfast with Lindsey, Senator Graham, last spring when he had been traveling from Saudi to Israel after he'd just spent a lot of time with MBS. So he's in the middle of all of this. It is true that there are some Senate Republicans who will be uncomfortable with it because they think, well, why should we do this deal now? Why should we give president Biden this win? Shouldn't we wait till there's a Trump administration? Couldn't we even get a better deal with the Trump administration? And then there are other Senate Republicans who are in the more isolationist camp, and they're looking to just generally withdraw their commitments from the Middle East, not to increase their commitments to the Middle East. So they're like, whoa. Why are we doing anything that involves the U.S. stepping up its presence in the Middle East with Israel or Saudi? Don't we want to be taking a step back, you know, directionally? All that said, I think most Senate Republicans will be on board with it, and I think if President Biden and Lindsey Graham are pushing this together, with President Biden being the key figure in this regard, you'll get enough Senate Democrats, which is why there's a sense that now is the time.
NE: Okay, if Prime Minister Netanyahu goes for it, and right now, it seems like, you know, if he needed to chart a way in which it would leave him no other place to go, he did chart this, politically speaking. He's simply not having any other option there. If he wants this, that's a big way to go for him, and he's probably going to change his situation in the polls. And if I need to guess, this can, to an extent, save his political career, if he goes for this. I just don't know if he has the guts and the political will to declare again, a few months after October 7th, anything that has anything to do with Path to Palestinian statehood.
DS: I would just say, Nadav, I think on the Saudi front, my sense is talking to people who are close to the Saudis and then even talking to some people in Saudi, obviously the Palestinian path to self determination needs to be part of some kind of deal here, but I'm not sure how concrete the path needs to be for the Saudis. In other words, this is not an actual core issue for the Saudis. They're much more interested in Israeli normalization than they are in Palestinian self determination. A, it's just a lower priority for the Saudis, and B, they recognize the Palestinians are just always complicating and complicating issues for other countries in the region. So, you know, strengthening the Palestinian cause is not exactly what they think is the antidote to the region's problems. That said, they want to do something in the context of, of an overall normalization deal because they know they need to do something. But that doesn't mean it's a core issue, which makes me think the details of a path do not need to be crystal clear in terms of where they're actually going. To borrow Netanyahu's phrase, this could be sovereignty minus, state minus, a Palestinian state minus, obviously, Palestinian security forces, minus Palestinian control of airspace over whatever a future quasi state would be, minus an airport, you know, minus responsibility for security on their respective borders. I mean, it could be a very watered down version of statehood in terms of how we think of statehood conventionally. I want to just stay on this one point on the hostage negotiations. On the one hand, you're saying the U.S. is saying to Hamas, look, look at all the pressure we've put on Israel in the lead up to a deal. We've effectively gotten Israel out of Gaza, before a deal is even done. And Israel is saying, okay, so we've done these things. Even though they're not going as far as the administration is asking, you could argue at a practical level, they have gone pretty far. And Israel can say, we've left most of the strip, most of the Gaza Strip. There's no military pressure. We used to have military pressure. There's no military pressure. And we're still getting intransigent from Hamas. The reality is Israel got more progress on hostage negotiations when pressure was high. Now Israel is acceding to the American demands, pulling back. I'm not saying that it's actually in response to American demands, but let's just say how it's perceived. It's cause and effect. Americans were asking for withdrawal from Gaza. Israel has certainly scaled back its presence in Gaza. And Israel says to the U.S., so what do you have to show for that in the hostage negotiations? Nothing.
NE: Yeah. I think this was part of the deal between Israel and the U.S., that Israel will advance and compromise and secede some of its demands in the negotiation table, but also in Gaza. And then we'll see what, what happens. And I think the Americans got the Israelis very scared. That's the truth. I think that conversation between President Biden and between the Prime Minister, after, uh, the world, um, central kitchen lethal IDF attack. I think that changed things in Israel. I think Israel was threatened and it succumbed to that pressure to an extent. But I have to tell you Dan, that's not the reason we're not in Hanunis. The reason that the IDF is not in Hanunis is because as far as the IDF is concerned and the defense ministry is concerned, they did what they can. The IDF basically said to the government, and they've been saying this since November, look, we know how to overcome a Hamas regiment. We can do that. We have showed you that the IDF can take Gaza and we have taken Gaza. And now what?
DS: It's also true that, we have a tendency in the US to think that, unless we are - the US military is in a geography where the - a theater where the US is operating, unless we're present in the theater, we're not there. And we have no ability to be there within a short period of time, because these theaters tend to be far away from the United States, right? It's not like the United States can pull out of Afghanistan and say, “but don't worry, we can be back there in a flash” - in Israel, Israel can actually withdraw from places and be back in a flash, right? Because you're talking about these places that are like mere kilometers from the border with Israel. So Israel withdrawing, it's not the same, it's not as significant. I'm not understating it, but I just want to be clear that it's -
NE: Absolutely, I think it's such an important remark that you're making because this is exactly what the IDF is saying, saying, “we're not going to be sitting ducks in Khan Yunis.” We're not gonna have, you know, small bases there. We didn't come to occupy. It's not Operation Iraqi freedom. We didn't come to free the Palestinians, by the way. We came to defeat Hamas here. Hamas doesn't exist as an organization, as a military force in Khan Yunis right now. It might return. Then we will return and Israel is continuing to conduct raids within the Gaza Strip to attack aerially every day. So military pressure is not over by any means, you know, if you ask the Palestinians, the Gaza Strip, if you ask the Gaza and Hamas Health Ministry, they'll tell you, you know, many Palestinians get killed each day. Israel would say most of them are terrorists. Hamas would say no, most of them are civilians. And it's happening daily. The IDF is saying, “why should we be inside these places, just waiting for an anti tank missile to hit our forces when we can basically be above ground, use our air force to see everything that happens and then come in and come out as we please.” And this is something that the IDF achieved for the Israeli government. They told the Israeli government, you know, “in order to get to the Gaza Strip, we will need to do all kinds of things to make sure that we have an access there that will be relatively secure. Now, tell us where you want us to go, and in less than 12 hours, we'll be there. And we'll be effective and we won't be as hit as we could have been hit when you had a Hamas regiment there.” To any extent if you took these areas, and you took effective control, and you control them, and these Hamas regiments are disintegrated, and you don't have anything to replace them with, you know, what did you do? What's your strategy? And what's your plan? It's not even a strategy, you know, it's very tactical - What are you gonna do right now? And to that matter, I have to say something about the Saudi Deal, that is like gonna save everything. It's not gonna change Gaza immediately. Even if the Saudis as part of the deal are going to say, “Oh, we're going to just channel, I don't know, 200 billion dollars”, which there ain't going to do to Gaza in order to change the way of life society there and rebuild. That's not going to change anything right now. Someone has to take control of Gaza and that means people with guns and rifles that can take care of Hamas and have a monopoly on violence. And if you don't do that, then you, you lost the war. And it's very important to acknowledge that even if you have a Saudi deal, this doesn't necessarily solve the Gaza problem. It's to an extent a regional solution. It's a major historical breakthrough. But what does it change momentarily for the people, Israelis living in the South or for Gazans?
DS: I'll tell you what I think. I think you're right. It's not a sufficient comprehensive solution, but it is a necessary step, and it is a necessary step because Saudi Arabia is the most important country in the Arab Muslim world. It is the most powerful economy, it is the most powerful military, it has the most geopolitical and diplomatic heft in the world, and it has religious authority, as my experts in the Arab Muslim world point to me, because of Mecca and Medina, it has the, the sort of, I'm really going to butcher this, but indulge me, the sort of stamp of approval. If Saudi says, “we Saudi Arabia, we the monarchy, recognize Israel's right to exist, we recognize Israel as the Jewish state”, a very important point. “We recognize Israel as the Jewish state.” If Saudi Arabia, given its authority in the Muslim world and in the Arab Muslim world, recognizes Israel's right to exist, recognizes Israel as the Jewish state, it of course does not solve the Palestinian problem, but it sends a message to Palestinians that the tide is turning. That the world is turning, and specifically the most powerful players in their own region are turning. They're going to send a message that the tide is turning towards normalization with Israel. And the Palestinian cause will no longer have a veto on the path towards normalization with Israel in the Arab Muslim world. It was one thing when it was the Emiratis and the Moroccans and the Bahrainis. It's a whole other thing when it's Saudi Arabia. And it's a whole other thing, when everyone in the region knows that Saudi Arabia is cooperating with Israel and working closely with Israel on security matters, including preventing attacks against Israel one week ago. But it's an entirely new level and a new world we'd be in if it's Saudi Arabia saying publicly, a version of Sadat's trip to Israel, to Jerusalem in 1977, Anwar Sadat, when he said, “I recognize Israel's right to exist.” That was a watershed moment when Anwar Sadat did it. And when, if Saudi Arabia does it, it's an even bigger deal. And I think it's a bigger deal in terms of sending a message to the Palestinians.
NE: I think you're absolutely right, but it still doesn't solve -
DS: I get it. There's concrete things to work out. I'm not suggesting, I'm just saying, but it's -
NE: No, but they have no, Saudi Arabia has absolutely no real leverage on the Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. It's a major blow to fundamentalism across the region, but then you have to materialize that. And we already have a massive blow against fundamentalism in the region. Israel basically occupied most of the Gaza Strip. And the reason that you and I don't feel that the war has been won is because there is absolutely no other force there. Now, this force can be a United Emirates force. It can be an Egyptian force, or it can be a Palestinian Authority or Fatah force. But someone has to take care of Gaza in order for this war to be over. Now, I, for one, you know, as an Israeli, I would want to see this happening, but no big declaration or peace agreements can move us forward with these tactical problems until we make the decisions ourselves. And to an extent, I think Netanyahu is not making these decisions because he exactly, as you just sort of hinted, he has not made his mind as to the Saudi deal. And also there are questions to be asked here about, to the extent I agree with what you said, that really the Saudis are not very much interested in Palestinian rights for nationhood - that's not their thing, right? But, they are insistent right now that there will be some sort of recognition. And I sort of wonder, as an Israeli, and these are things that are mentioned within the Israeli arena, can Israel be sure that it's not only being used by Saudi Arabia to get their nuclear program going, to get that pact with the United States, without the Saudis really supplying normalization? Because Saudi Arabia is a very closed society. And it's true that MBS is changing that. And will they really support Israel, or will they, you know, basically get the candy from the United States, then drop Israel in the near future, and not give Israel that push that you're talking about? Now, I don't know. I would go with the Saudi deal anyway, okay, and that it's better than where we are at right now. But we have here, you know, very serious acute problems that need to be solved. We have those dozens of Israelis held by Hamas. We have their families blocking roads. We have mothers blocking roads of young soldiers, female soldiers that are held by Hamas. This society, the way that it looks right now, is less resilient than it looked on October 10th. And that's not a good message to the region or for the Saudis. And this needs tackling in way of leadership.
DS: I want to ask one final question that relates to what we're talking about, which is, earlier in the week, last week, the UN Security Council voted in favor of a resolution to recognize a Palestinian state. I mentioned this at the beginning of the conversation. It was vetoed by the U S thankfully, but it was the first time that a majority of the 15 U.N. Security Council members, meaning above the two thirds threshold, voted in favor of a Palestinian state. Twelve voted yes, two abstained, and as I mentioned, the U.S. was the one that vetoed. What exactly was this vote for, in terms of borders, right of return of Palestinian refugees? Like, what was the significance of this vote? I mean, obviously, it was insignificant in the end because it was vetoed, but in terms of the substance of the vote, because, it's not clear that the Palestinians, if they were able to participate in this vote for a Palestinian state so long as it existed alongside a Jewish state. It's not clear the majority of Palestinians right now want a two state solution, be that as it may. What was this a vote for?
NE: You know, this is a push by the Palestinian authority basically to get a recognition as a state while they would not themselves decide to declare a statehood. And that's something that is often escaped by the international community. The way that Israel was formed, it was established, you know, it was a sunny day and David Ben-Gurion and the members of the founding fathers of Israel decided that, although they didn't know what would be the borders of Israel, that they're gonna issue a declaration of independence and see what happens, and Ben-Gurion, unlike many others, understood it's going to be war and he prepared himself to war. Others didn't think that. Palestinians never really declared independence, you know, they did declare in tunis, you know, Yasser Arafat did a declarative thing, but the Palestinian authority never said “hey, you know, we're a state.” You know how states are really formed. They get a recognition like Israel got, a de facto recognition from the United States, then it got a de jure recognition from the United States. And I think that if the Palestinians would today convene a town hall meeting in Ramallah and say, “we, the Palestinian people have decided to form a state”. I think there will be many states in the world that will start, you know, just addressing them as a nation state, a normal nation state. And this is how actually countries join the family of nations. It's by the recognitions of their peers. And the fact that the Palestinians have not done that, but they keep on pushing through international bodies for recognition, is because of the same reason that negotiations with the Palestinians have always collapsed. They collapsed because the Palestinians would never agree to have compromises on essential issues for them like the right of return, like Jerusalem, and other issues. And because of that, they would never say, “Oh, we're going to have a state now, and then we're going to deal with the other issues.” One of the ideas that was floating around during the beginning of the 2000s, was to have a Palestinian state in temporary borders. And the idea is, yeah, you have a state now, then we negotiate for a final recognition. It's like a border dispute between Israel and the newly formed Palestinian state. Palestinians never went with that. So what was this vote about? Dan, you know what it was about. It was about Israel bashing. And virtue signaling by all these countries supportive of that decision. It could not have improved the Palestinian condition in the Gaza Strip, you know, in Judea and Samaria. It was a way in which the Palestinian Authority and Fatah are trying to say to the Palestinian population, look, there are two ways to go, right? Hamas is saying, only through armed struggle, and Fatah and the Palestinian Authority are saying, through the international community. So for them, it was very important to push this through in order to say, look, this is the venue that you Palestinians should march through that is through diplomacy, through the international community, and not through this disastrous armed struggle by Hamas. In that sense, I really prefer them pushing for international decisions, even though as an Israeli, I might object to some, other than the fundamentalist, murderous, genocidal vision, offshot of the Muslim Brotherhood called Hamas. So if I need to choose between the two, I definitely would go with them pushing through international decisions of sorts, including some that are preposterous to begin with.
DS: Nadav, we will leave it there. Thank you, as always, for your time and your insights, and I want to wish you, I hate to say, a happy Passover, but, um, you know, it's a, it's obviously a, it's a loaded, it's a loaded time. So it's hard to, I was talking to my sister this morning who lives in Jerusalem, who we're doing our Seder with. And she was saying that she was advised by some rabbi that we have to take this moment into the Seder that we're in. But the Seder cannot be only about this moment. It has to be present, but we also have to have the Seder. And we're going to try and do that.
NE: We're going to leave an empty chair in our Seder to remember the hostages. This is something that it's being promoted by the hostage families here in Israel. And I think it's very important for us to remember that, you know, this Chag is about liberty, right? It's about freedom and these people are there. And I think it's going to be on everybody's mind in Israel and probably around the world.
DS: Yeah, yeah, it's everywhere. I'll talk to you soon. Okay. Thank you, Nadav.
NE: Thank you so much, Dan.
DS: That's our show for today. To keep up with Nadav Eyal, you can find him on X at Nadav underscore Eyal. You can also find him at Ynet or at Yediot Ahrenot. Call me back. It's produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huergo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.