The history of Hamas, and its likely grim future - with Jonathan Schanzer
We have been getting a lot of questions about the history of Hamas, its ideological roots and objectives, its allies and rivalries, how it wound up in charge of Gaza, the origins of this war, and whether there could actually be a post-Hamas Gaza. For this tutorial, our guest is Dr. Jonathan Schanzer, who is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Jon previously worked as a terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he played an integral role in the designation of numerous terrorist financiers. Jon's latest book is "Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War". His other books include: "State of Failure: Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State", and "Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine", which is still the only book on the market that analyzes the ongoing Palestinian civil war.
Jonathan has studied Middle East history in four countries. He earned his PhD from King’s College London, where he wrote his dissertation on the U.S. Congress and its efforts to combat terrorism in the 20th century. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] This is the essence of the Hamas government, the Hamas terrorist organization. Their goal is simply one thing, kill as many Jews, as many Israelis as possible, and ultimately in their minds, overtake the country. The idea though, that they could even do that, right? I mean, we're talking about Israel as an advanced.
country. Nuclear weapons, of course, undeclared. This is not a country that's going anywhere, but yet you have an entire people now that have been fed a steady diet of hatred and the false belief that they can one day conquer Israel. It is. Never going to happen and I think right now Hamas may soon meet its end
I'm pleased to welcome to the podcast for the first time [00:01:00] Jonathan shanzer who's the senior vice president of research for the foundation for defensive democracies. We've had Guests before from ftd on this, uh podcast including mark Dubowitz. John is also the author of two books on Hamas. He's, he's a real expert on Hamas, the history of Hamas and Gaza.
Prior to being, uh, prior to joining FTD, he was at the U S department of treasury where he was an analyst on terror financing. So he's been studying how money moves between governments and terror organizations between terrorist organizations. Between one another terrorist terror organizations, um, and obviously Hamas has featured prominently in his work.
Uh, John, what I wanted to do, uh, over the last couple of days, we've heard from, uh, Haviv Retikur from the Times of Israel. We've heard from Bret Stephens from the New York Times. A number of [00:02:00] listeners have reached out saying what, what they also need is just a primer that they, they, they know something about Gaza, they know something about Hamas, they know something about the history of the Israeli Arab conflict, but now There are two questions they're asking.
One, what is the actual history of, that led to this mess? And, and the second question is, I've said repeatedly on this podcast, this time is different. The way Israel is going to deal with Gaza now is different than Israel has dealt with Gaza at any time since Israel left Gaza, since Israel unilaterally 2005.
And so, there are a lot of questions I'm getting about, so why? Like, why is this? It's time different. Haven't they always been barbaric, Hamas? Haven't they, hasn't Hamas always been a threat to Israel? Hasn't Hamas always been more or less supported, funded by, armed, coordinated by Tehran? So why, why is, [00:03:00] why is now unacceptable?
And so I thought maybe you and I could just do a, uh, just a backgrounder, like a history. And, and so, let me just start with, like, a very basic question, which is, How did Gaza become part of the Israeli people's lives and vice versa. Well, first of all, Dan, great. Great to be with you. Great to be on the podcast.
Um, if you want to take a really rapid jump through history, um, the Gaza, uh, was, uh, Under the control of the Egyptians, uh, at the end of the 1948 war, the War of Independence, um, there was actually a moment where the Palestinians tried to declare what they called the All Government of, uh, of Palestine, uh, out of the Gaza Strip.
The Egyptians, uh, disallowed that and occupied the space. And so from 48 to 67, uh, the Egyptians controlled this territory. By the way, roughly the [00:04:00] size of Washington, D. C. It's a very tiny little, uh, patch of land along the Mediterranean. Um, then of course the Israelis conquered that territory, uh, in 67. It had been a launch point for a number of terrorist attacks and the Israelis put a stop to that.
Um, it's at that point that the Israelis took control. Um, there were talks at various points about, uh, uh, handing that territory over in exchange for peace. Of course, the Arabs roundly rejected that, uh, as a whole. How many years is that? This is 67, and you may recall, uh, shortly after the, the conquest, uh, of the Gaza Strip, there were the famous three no's coming out of the Arab League, uh, no, no, no negotiation, no recognition, um, you know, and, uh, and, and no peace, and that was sort of the moment where Israel, uh, sort of realized it was going to have to take, uh, some control over this territory, uh, militarily, administratively, uh, just as they did in, in, in the West Bank.
And [00:05:00] there are, at that point, there are how many Arabs, what we, you know, Arab Palest, what we call Palestinians, Arab Palestinians living in Gaza at that time? I, I'm gonna guess somewhere around a million, perhaps even, uh, even less. Today it's more than two million, so there's been rapid growth. And again, the size of the territory is, is, is like the size of a Wash, Washington D.
C., right? I mean, it's, so therefore makes it one of the most densely populated areas in the world. That's what they say, yes. Yeah, and, um, and so Israel takes over in 1967 and is responsible for its administration, as you say, much as it was responsible for its administration, uh, in the West Bank. And then what happens?
So, basically, from 67 until 87, there's been sort of an uneasy calm. Um, and, and actually you could hear, uh, really interesting stories about Israelis who would go to, you know, Gaza to get dental work done, uh, to go shopping. Um, [00:06:00] you know, the, the cost of goods was cheaper, the cost of services was cheaper, um, and so the Israelis had a fair amount of interaction with the people of Gaza, um, and, uh, So it's interesting, just on, on that note, John, Um, I didn't know this, I learned this in the research for my, for the, my new book, the book I've, I've coming out, uh, soon.
Um, we have a chapter on the history of Shteyrot, which is the town, the southern town, that's really much in the news now, that's on the border with Gaza, that's been on the receiving end long before this war, of endless You know, rocket barrages, and now obviously was experiencing much more than rocket barrages, uh, in the last few days.
But what I didn't realize is during this period you're describing is, yes, Israelis would go to Gaza all the time for, for to go to restaurants, to go see doctors and dentists, to go listen to music. Uh, in fact, there were many, um, Israeli Jews from Arab countries who had moved to Israel in the [00:07:00] 1950s, 1960s, people from, you know, Iraq, for instance, and, and throughout, throughout the Arab world who, who were forcibly, who were forced out of their forced, to become refugees and wound up in Israel, and they would go to Gaza because they were very familiar and comfortable with Arab culture, and that was where they, that was where they liked to go socialize and, and, you know, engage in commerce and whatnot, and it went both ways.
That there were Israeli Jews going into Gaza, and there were Palestinians in Gaza hopping over the border and going into Sderot, and it was, it's hard to imagine now, and I've been to that border, and obviously It's certainly hard to imagine right now, but it was even hard to imagine before now. You know, there was no sense of people just going back and forth, but for the better part of Two decades, it was quite normal for, I wouldn't exactly call it the U.
S. Canada border, the way people go back and forth so freely, but it wasn't, it wasn't that much different. It was common for people to say, it was just like a hop, skip, and a jump [00:08:00] to go over one way or the other, like to go in either direction. Correct. And you still hear older Israelis talk about Gaza fondly, which is a hard thing to get your head wrapped around in light of what we're hearing.
Today, the news that's been coming out of out of Gaza and out of Israel. Um, but that, um, that relationship all changed in December of 1987. Um, this was, of course, the outbreak of the first Intifada, the first, uh, Palestinian uprising. It actually. was triggered by a car accident. Um, an IDF Jeep rear ended a truck full of Palestinians that were returning home, uh, to the Gaza Strip.
They had, uh, been working, um, as laborers inside of Israel. Um, the accident led to several deaths. The deaths led to funerals. The funerals, uh, sparked, uh, uh, some protests on the streets. Of gaza that soon spread throughout the [00:09:00] entire gaza strip and then spilled over into the west bank Uh, and by early 1988 We were watching a full blown uprising an uprising in the name of palestinian nationalism And gaza was ground zero for it and within not a lot of time Uh, you saw the emergence of hamas This was a splinter Of the muslim brotherhood.
Um, the brotherhood had up until that point been non violent as it related to israel Uh hamas insisted that it was time to uh, pick up weapons and fight the israelis for independence Uh, and so that explains the split between the movement Um, and it's at that point actually that you know, we really begin I think To track the the violence and the kind of unrest that we still see to this day Um now during that first intifada as hamas gained strength It was a an interesting moment because it prompted a sort of a standoff [00:10:00] between, uh, the traditional PLO Palestinian nationalist movement and this new Islamist group that was agitating for violence.
And, um, it was actually the rise of Hamas in the Gaza Strip primarily that prompted Yasser Arafat to engage in what is now known as the Oslo peace process. He was afraid of being, uh, outflanked by Hamas. It was really gaining in popularity as this uprising grew. In the gaza strip and and in the west bank as well And so arafat said okay.
Well, I will uh recognize israel and I will engage with the international community And what he did is he basically just outflanked hamas. They found themselves on the outside looking in whereas I think You know just maybe a month or two prior It looked like they were going to be the leaders of the palestinian movement arafat found a way to nudge them out of the picture And, um, that was when Hamas really began to grow, uh, brutal in [00:11:00] its violence.
And we began to see suicide bombings and, you know, direct attacks on Israel in ways that we hadn't seen before. And just on that, uh, just on that, John, um, this is going to sound weird the way I'm saying this, but I just don't know how to say it. Israel had seen lots of terrorism and terror attacks throughout its history.
But Hamas What you're saying, I think, at least in Israel, introduced the suicide. Bomb attack, which was, and I hate to use this word, but I will, it was a real innovation in terrorism. It was. It was actually invented in the early to mid 80s by Hezbollah, right? And we saw that with the, uh, you know, marine barracks bombing, um, and other attacks against the West.
This is, of course, Iran inspired, Shia inspired, uh, terrorist tactic. But what happened was, is that as Hamas grew, And as it became a, um, a threat to the [00:12:00] peace process, we actually saw the Israelis exile a number of Hamas leaders. They found their way to Lebanon where they learned, uh, alongside Hezbollah how to engage in this tactic.
And so as the peace process began to gain steam, uh, Hamas begins to carry out these suicide bombings. And I think what's really important to understand here is that part of Hamas's rise. I mean without question they're motivated by a desire to destroy israel But what people also don't understand is that the violence that this terrorist group perpetrated was also an attempt uh to Sideline the plo just as the plo had sign line sidelined them in other words They wanted to gain headlines.
They wanted to attract the attention. They wanted to be seen as the leaders of the Palestinian people that would not yield that would not bend to the wishes of the international community that would not negotiate with Israel. So a [00:13:00] lot of what was happening, yes, was about killing as many Israelis as they could.
Um, but a lot of it also was about disrupting that peace process that had legitimized. Arafat.
Okay. So now, take us, you know, so fast forward from there. So Israel's dealing with, with, with, um, with Gaza and the, and the delegitimization of, of, of Arafat. And so, now bring us into like, Sure. So the 1990s, Early part of the century. Yeah, sure. So the 1990s, we see suicide bombings regularly disrupt the peace process.
It becomes a really difficult thing for the Israelis to stomach. They're trying to hold Yasser Arafat accountable as the leader, uh, of the territories in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip where Hamas is still active. And so there's actually a battle going on between Hamas and the PLO. There's a battle going on between, uh, Israel and Hamas.
And there's this real political tension [00:14:00] as to whether the PA, the Palestinian Authority, can run these territories. Um, so all of this comes to a head in the year 2000. Um, Arafat is, uh, at Camp David, if you recall. He's sitting with Ehud Barak and, and Bill Clinton, and they're talking about. The kind of the piece to end all of this, right?
They're talking about a two state solution and, um, Arafat, I think looks around. I think this is a fair assessment at this point. Historically, I think the facts bear out. Um, he looks around and he says, okay, if I make peace with Israel, I may lose. Uh the palestinian people themselves and so what he in essence tries to do is to out hamas hamas Uh, he embraces their tactics.
He embraces that violence. He rejects the peace process entirely And what that does is it leads to the second intifada yet another low level war Waged by palestinian terrorist groups except this time. It's hamas And the [00:15:00] PLO, the Fatah faction, they're all fighting together against Israel. Um, and it creates utter chaos for five years, 2000 to 2005.
No one knows really who's in control of the Palestinian streets, both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Um, now from there, this is where I just, just, just so for people who don't have as much familiarity with this. So I just. And I apologize if this seems a little remedial, but I just want to, so the West Bank relative to Gaza, just geographically where, you know, just so people understand where these two places are.
Sure. So the Gaza Strip is on the Mediterranean coast, Israel's southwest, uh, abutting Gaza and, uh, sorry, uh, Egypt and Israel. And then the West Bank is to Israel's east. It is the bubble of territory, um, uh, that, uh, that is adjacent to Jordan. And uh, you know, I think the closest point or the closest distance [00:16:00] between those two territories It's only about 13 or 14 miles at its most narrow section um, but uh, you know, uh, they are very distinct in many ways uh culturally even linguistically Uh, even though both uh populations identify as palestinian.
Okay. Thank you. All right. Keep going. So, uh Anyway, the, the second intifada breaks out, um, and Israel's struggling to contain the violence. And, and as I mentioned, I think there was utter chaos on the Palestinian streets. And, um, by the time the, uh, violence is contained by 2005, there is a sense, and Dan, you probably remember this well, the, the Bush administration is Pushing for democracy.
It's, uh, it believes that democracy is the antidote to terrorism. And so, uh, the U S encourages the Palestinians to hold an election in 2006. Um, uh, [00:17:00] unbelievably to me and many observers at the time, Hamas is allowed to take part in these elections. Um, the polls taken, uh, in advance of these elections, uh, showed that, uh, Hamas would likely.
Uh, lose, and that the PLO would win, it would be a reinforcement of what was already known, and that was that the PLO and the Palestinian Authority would rule. Um, except one problem, after the vote, it was Hamas that emerged victorious, and that prompted a significant, uh, crisis. Yeah, okay, so this is very important.
So, the Bush administration, to their credit, is pushing, I mean, I served in the administration, full disclosure, are pushing, uh, democracy. wherever it can. Um, it's certainly the Middle East and this, the free and democratic election in the Palestinian territories was, was a policy objective. And then [00:18:00] Everyone seemed to be caught flat footed when this election happened and Hamas Wins.
It was it was a shock. I mean it shouldn't have been a shock because unfortunately Hamas's terrorist tactics Um were popular on the palestinian street and the rejection of israel the rejection of the international community resonated Among the palestinian population, but the the the end result here was a full blown crisis I mean here you have elections that hand Hamas the keys to the Palestinian government in essence, and the United States and Israel are pleading with the Palestinian Authority, uh, now led by Mahmoud Abbas.
Uh, Abbas came in after Arafat. Uh, died under some mysterious, uh, circumstances. He died in, uh, in 2004. Abbas comes in in 2005. And all of a sudden, he's a year into his tenure and you've got the [00:19:00] Israelis and the Americans saying, do not hand over the keys to this government. Um, uh, do not give them to Hamas.
This is the last thing that we need. It will create a full blown crisis. The world will not be able to support a Palestinian state. You need to stay in control. And so it's at that point that we begin to see a crisis building within the palestinian arena Right hamas is I think understandably furious that it is being denied Uh the election that it won and uh, and so for a year We see a political standoff and then and in what how is how are they being denied?
So they win the election, but you say they're being denied an election. They won. How does that? They were not given the ability to forge a government, which was what they were essentially granted by winning pursuant to the rules of the Palestinian Authority. And who was preventing them from doing that?
Well, it was the United States and Israel [00:20:00] working in concert with Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority to, uh, So with the overall governing body, Mahmoud Abbas is, as you said, he's the president of the Palestinian Authority. But underneath the presidential office, there's a whole government for which these elections were competed over.
And Hamas wins those, much to the shock of the United States, to Israel, and to Mahmoud Abbas, who's the, who's in this sort of high level presidential role, that he realizes, wait a minute, the gears of government are about to be handed over to Hamas, which they won in the, in these elections. I'm just not going to allow it.
So it was, you know, in essence, it was anti democratic. Um, however, you know, I, I, I would argue Hamas should probably not have been allowed to take part in these elections in the first place, right? I mean, this is one of those things where the end result would have been the end of democracy anyway, uh, were, were Hamas able to take over, you can only imagine what that would have done to the PA.
So, so [00:21:00] the, a terrorist group that had, who had, had in its. In its mission statement, a, a commitment, primary commitment, its primary commitment was the destruction of the state of Israel, wiping the Jewish people out of Israel, a very radical Islamist agenda, certainly, as you said, anti democratic, these were, these were a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a.
Hiding in plain sight. These are things they said, these were in their documents, these are the, these are issues they campaigned on. Not even hiding, Dan. I mean, the idea here is that, I mean, these, these ideals were probably what earned them a victory, uh, at the polls. And so, and so Mahmoud Abbas, who's running the Palestinian Authority, again, we, we can have our issues with him, but at least he was running an entity that had participated in the Oslo peace process, that had sort of recognized Israel's right to exist, that seemed to be on a path, again, as much as As corrupt and dysfunctional as the [00:22:00] Palestinian Authority has become, at least it was setting itself up to coexist with Israel.
Whereas Hamas was never set up to coexist with Israel. So how anyone, or coexist with another Palestinian political body, like the Fatah party, uh, led by Abbas. So how anyone ever let Hamas compete In free elections in the first place is, is incredible. Yeah, and I have to say that history, I think when we look back on this, history should not be kind to, uh, Condoleezza Rice, um, and, uh, and, and others that were involved in the, in trying to construct a, uh, a new Middle East, um, through the ballot box.
You just don't allow a terrorist organization. Uh to even compete if you want to try to sustain a democracy and so yes the palestinian authority mahmoud abbas They were the pragmatists relatively speaking. They were the lesser of the evils And so the end result was a year long [00:23:00] political standoff a full crisis where hamas insisted that they had the right to form a government the palestinian authority holds on um, you know really just Uh, doing everything that it can to hold on to power, uh, amidst the pressures that it's feeling.
Um, there are, uh, occasional skirmishes and, and, and spats that take place. They spill over into the streets. And then in the summer of 2007, there is an earthquake. Um, uh, politically speaking, Hamas conquers the Gaza Strip by force. Before, before we get to 2006, just, just to give them their due, whether it was the Israelis or the Palestinian Authority or, or the U.
S. officials, Secretary Rice, what is the best argument for why they did let Hamas compete in these elections? Like, clearly they couldn't have imagined what, what took place. And at the time, I gotta tell you, as someone who followed this closely, I don't remember [00:24:00] Hamas Doing so well politically and that they participate in these elections was a big deal after they won and everyone was like, oh my gosh Can you believe but leading up to that?
It wasn't that big a deal Was it that no one it's simply that no one thought Hamas would would win like you're saying it's not a surprise They were politically popular. They were popular on the street. So if you let them get on the ballot, they're gonna perform, right? So, there was, I think, A, a belief that everybody needed to participate and that if Hamas was the only other seriously organized political entity, well then, you know, they had a right If you will to take part in these elections, but the other thing that actually contributed to this false sense of security were polls Um, there is a guy named khalil shikaki Uh, he's actually still around today still producing polls Um, and his polls showed that fatah was going to win that so he's a palestinian pollster Yes, [00:25:00] he's a palestinian pollster.
There are a lot of questions about this. I mean, I think to this day people see him as a legitimate Uh, source of political information. But at the, you know, at the time after the surprise win by Hamas, people were pointing out that his brother was Fathi Shikaki, who was, uh, a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization.
There were people that were wondering whether there was an information operation that ultimately led to a Hamas victory. Look, I, at this point, you know, we won't know. Probably never know exactly what happened, but the polls did not bear out the night before the elections. The Fata guys were driving around in their pickup trucks, shooting their AK 47s in the air in anticipation of victory.
The next morning, it was the Hamas guys driving around Manara Square in Ramallah, uh, with their AK 47s, uh, boasting of a political victory. And then that victory was denied them, uh, I [00:26:00] believe justifiably, but, you know, you can understand why they were upset. And that upset led to anger and that anger led to war.
And what we saw in 2007 was a Palestinian civil war. I would argue that that Palestinian civil war continues to this day. People don't talk about this significant rift between the Palestinians. A few weeks of, uh, of fighting, Hamas was firmly in control of the Gaza Strip, the entire piece of real estate here.
Um, there were people that were pushed off of tall buildings to their death, the Fatah people, the PLO people. They were shot in the legs and arms to ensure permanent disability. It was a brutal civil war that led to hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. Um, and at the end There was two governments, two economies, two different political systems, two, you know, sets of patrons.
Uh, as, uh, my friend Aaron David Miller put it, it was the Noah's Ark [00:27:00] of the Middle East. Two of everything. Uh, and, uh, it greatly complicated this whole notion of a two state solution. Because, in fact, what we're really talking about is three states. And that's what it has been now, uh, ever since 2007. Okay, so So now let's, let's talk about the 2007 and beyond, the three separate states, and, and what the Ariel Sharon, what the Sharon government had hoped it would accomplish with its disengagement from Gaza, um, what was Israel getting for Why did Israel feel compelled to pull out, and what did Israel think it was getting from pulling out?
Right, so, this is what the, the pullout of 2005 was ultimately what enabled Hamas to take over. Um, the Israelis believed that there was a demographic threat looming, that the Israelis couldn't remain a democratic Jewish state if the Palestinian population continued to [00:28:00] grow. Of course, the Israelis had Settlements throughout the West Bank, and it was not easy for the Israelis to just simply pull out of the West Bank.
But in Gaza, there were, I think, 9, 000, uh, total, uh, Israelis living in that territory. Um, there was really nothing that, uh, Israel needed. Uh, from this particular patch of land. And so the Israelis decided that disengagement, unilateral disengagement would, uh, separate the Israelis from, at the time, I think it was 1.
3 or 1. 5 million people that were ultimately going to be a demographic challenge to Israel's democracy over time, the Bush administration convinced Sharon that this was the right thing to do. He had the overall backing of. his people, uh, in Israel because, yeah, he had successfully helped to guide Israel out of the Second Intifada.
The violence had been contained and, um, you know, uh, Sharon being a [00:29:00] good ally to the United States was trying to work with Washington. And I would just also point out that part of this unilateral disengagement, the key word is unilateral, meaning for years and years the Israelis Had tried to engage bilaterally we will work with the palestinian leadership depending, you know at various points Certainly in the 90s and and the and in the early 2000s We will work with the palestinian leadership to try to reach it a negotiation and accommodation That is acceptable to both parties that would result in israel withdrawing from territories, depending on which territory was, was being discussed.
West Bank, Gaza, whatever. Um, Israel would, would withdraw and there'd be concessions made on both sides and obviously some mutual recognition of two, the two states living side by side peacefully. Palestinian state recognizes the Jewish state and it's right to live independent and, and, and be [00:30:00] secure and vice versa.
Israel would recognize a Palestinian state. And, and These negotiations, which we don't need to go through now, but stop, start, stop, start, stop, start, but ultimately ending in lots of violence with no deal reached and, um, and the Palestinian leadership constantly rejecting it. And finally, part of what motivated Sharon is to say, okay, fine.
It won't be done bilaterally. I'll do it unilaterally. We're out. Goodbye. This is yours. We're not going to, we're not going to have some signing ceremony on the White House lawn. We're not going to make a bunch of concessions to you. You're not going to make a bunch of concessions to us. There will not be mutual recognition.
But guess what? You've been clamoring and arguing for and fighting and killing for this territory. It's yours. We're out. And in the summer of 2005 It was extraordinary. It was in the summer of 2005, the Sharon government forcibly removed all those Jewish Israelis, you talked about living in Gaza Strip from their homes.
I've [00:31:00] never seen anything like it. It was gut wrenching. Israeli soldiers having to go door to door in settlements in the Gaza Strip. These are settlements that were built over multiple years, multiple generations, over successive Israeli governments from the right and the left, who had encouraged these Israeli Jews to live in the Gaza Strip, and then suddenly the Israeli army goes door to door and pulls these families out of their homes, relocates them.
You know, into Israel, you know, pre 67 borders, uh, Israel, and, um, families having to dig up graves and cemeteries, abandoned greenhouses and other assets they had developed for their livelihoods and for their communities. Uh, it was, it was, An extremely difficult time, this is another issue we write a lot about in our book, because it was another time that Israel was very divided.
These protests we've watched in Israel over the last nine months have been both impressive and very upsetting for, you know, different reasons. The [00:32:00] protests around Israel's disengagement with Gaza were on a similar scale, not identical, but it was, it was another time that Israel's deeply, deeply divided.
And yet Israel took the step because they just wanted out, like, leave us alone, we'll leave you alone, and both of us can mind our own business. That was the hope that Sharon had. Correct. That, that was exactly the thinking. Um, and again, done in concert with the United States, uh, in lockstep with the Bush administration.
Right. The idea here is, you know, let's diffuse that demographic time bomb of, you know, one and a half million Palestinians that Israel didn't want to ultimately have responsibility over. Um, and so they left. And, um. This was the window for Hamas to take over. They did so with utter brutality. By the way, they did so with the help of Iran.
And I think here's where we really begin to see, um, the designs that Iran has on the region. Now, [00:33:00] just to be clear, Iran had been supporting Hamas from a very early stage, right? They, you know, worked with them to teach them the art of suicide bombings. Um, they had armed them. train them. This has been going on since the early 90s, even maybe the late 80s, uh, for that matter.
Uh, but here we actually see Iran's fingerprints on the war plan that ultimately led to Hamas's conquest of the Gaza Strip in 2007. And so subsequent to that, What we see is essentially, I mean, the only way I can describe it is kind of a Taliban like government in the Gaza Strip. Islamist in nature, right?
Brutal, authoritarian, complete absolute control over the population. and utterly dedicated to the destruction of the state of israel and within not a lot of time we start seeing, uh, a concerted effort to uh to [00:34:00] build to fire rockets now Let me just actually back up for a minute and just note that between 2000 and 2005.
There were a lot of attacks that were taking place inside Israel, um, suicide bombings primarily that had really jarred the Israeli public, you know, the sort of outrage that we see right now in the aftermath of the carnage that took place, um, in Southern Israel. This is the kind of thing that was actually Some, I mean, not anywhere near the scale of what we just saw over the weekend.
There were regular suicide bombers streaming across the border from the Gaza Strip and detonating themselves in population centers in cities around Israel. And so Israel created, um, a barrier. And they built a barrier around the entire Gaza Strip, preventing terrorists from coming in, and that barrier was complete by around 2000, uh, 2005 6.
Um, and so what we began to see after that [00:35:00] was an attempt, if they couldn't cross the border directly to attack Israel, they started developing these rockets. This was the next strategy for them. Aided, uh, in large part by Iran, but also using household items, right? I mean, we're talking about, you know, sewage pipes as the body, uh, of these rockets, lawnmower motors, um, right, and other small machinery to, uh, to power some of these rockets.
Unguided, crude stuff that, uh, Iran was helping them build, all with the intent of destroying Israel. Okay, so I, I want to stay on this for a moment because this This may be perhaps the most important point of this conversation, or at least the point I, I hope our listeners who are just learning about this issue in the history for the first time understand.
I often hear that the Palestinians have a, a territorial grievance with Israel. [00:36:00] That is to say, the Palestinians have territory. Israel has denied them the full control of that territory. Israel has occupied that territory, even where Israel has given Palestinians political control. The fact that there's an Israeli military presence there, um, you know, compromises that the sense of political sovereignty and independence.
And, and that ultimately, yes, Palestinians in Gaza, historically, in this particular case have gone to extreme measures, but what do you expect, they are an occupied population. And. Just to put up just to put an exclamation point 2005 Israel leaves Gaza So it is no longer occupying Gaza so they can do with Gaza, whatever they want.
They can elect Hamas, which they did They could they could they could they could they could develop Gaza. They could turn it into a tourism Mecca on the Mediterranean there They could, they could take all these, um, [00:37:00] assets that were left behind by the Israeli families, the greenhouses, the homes, the, and, and, and develop those and, and capitalize on those.
They had plenty of options and the, and the world, and specifically the Arab world, was rooting for them. So there was, there was so much that could have been done with responsible leadership, responsible governance, um, responsible development. And a lot of things happened in Gaza since then. But one of which was.
Uh, attacks against southern Israel, which Jonathan is talking about and getting to. Attacks against places like, you know, Sderot, which is just on the other side of the border with Gaza. And attacks against Cities throughout southern Israel, Ashkelon, Beersheva, Ashdod, attacked from Gaza into these places and then all the way up to Tel Aviv.
So why? Like if they've left Gaza, if Israel's left Gaza, so the Palestinians in Gaza no longer have a territorial grievance about Gaza, over Gaza, why are they [00:38:00] attacking places that were never in dispute in the first place? Uh, these towns all throughout southern Israel. Why are they attacking from Gaza those places?
And then, and the reason I'm bringing this up now, John Is you're saying Iran is now involved in all of this and Iran is getting closer to Hamas. What? What does Iran care about, about any kind of territorial dispute, if it actually is one? I don't think it was a legitimate territorial dispute at this point.
But, but what is Iran's stake in this? I mean, if this really is about people being able to govern their own lives or their own territory, Israel's out of the territory that the Palestinians in Gaza had been asking to get out of, and yet areas in Israel that were never in dispute in the first place are being attacked now.
from this territory they left, and one of the political players helping Hamas engage in these attacks is a country, Iran, which is actually far away from the neighborhood, uh, I mean, still in the Middle East, obviously, [00:39:00] that's in the middle of all this. So what's Iran's stake in this? What territorial grievance do they have in any of this?
Look, what, what I think bound Hamas and Iran was what bound Hezbollah, uh, and Iran. The Islamic Republic seeks The destruction of Israel. This is an ideological tenet embraced by the Islamic Republic And this is part of the Hamas charter as well. It's part of the Hezbollah ideology In other words, what Iran was starting to do is to wage war by proxy This has actually been going on since the 1980s early 80s.
They create Islamic jihad Mid 80s they create Hezbollah late 80s. They create Hamas. These are all tools Uh, that Iran wields. By providing them with cash, with weapons, with training, with other material, all with the goal of surrounding Israel. Uh, my colleague Mark Dubowitz calls it the Ring of Fire. I think it's a good, uh, an apt description.
The goal was to surround [00:40:00] Israel and to wage war by proxy. Iran sits back, uh, you know, uh, you know, uh, hundreds, thousands of miles away, uh, from Israel, safe within its own borders, while these Uh, proxy groups attack Israel with regularity. Hamas becomes a very important tool for the regime. Um, now some people say it's a wholly owned subsidiary.
I would probably beg to differ there. They are heavily influenced by Iran, the Hamas organization, but they do, I think, maintain a modicum of independence. They often agree with the regime, but they don't always. Regardless though, the amount of money, the hundreds of millions of dollars that the regime has lavished upon Hamas over the years has bought the regime significant influence and access so that when, uh, the regime comes to Hamas as it did apparently several weeks ago [00:41:00] and said to, uh, Hamas.
We have a plan and you can attack Israel. You can, uh, pierce the border and you can slaughter Israelis and you can take Israelis hostage. Hamas says, okay, we're listening. So take us to now take us to. This past weekend. I mean, or maybe before we get to this past weekend, talk about the nature of the skirmishes.
I mean, I've sort of alluded to them, these rocket attacks, you know, that have, but just, like, give us a brief summary of what actually happened with, with, between, basically, 2007. Sure. regard to today with regard to Gaza. So what we've seen actually, since 2007 is a series of rocket wars. Now, the rocket attacks have been actually somewhat constant.
Um, they're not only fired during times of war, so to speak. Um, you know, you see one off. Uh, rockets fired at Israel with some regularity, um, Israel responds to this threat through the development of a new defense [00:42:00] system called Iron Dome. I'm sure your listeners have all heard of it, uh, but it has successfully shot down something like 95 percent of all the rockets fired out of the Gaza Strip, or allowed them to land, um, in open spaces where no damage can be done.
Remarkable technology. Um, but. Hamas hones this skill, Israel hones its defenses, and then in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, uh, we witnessed rounds of, um, intense battles, uh, between Hamas and Israel, marked primarily By the firing of rockets in recent years, we've also seen tunnel digging, uh, where commandos enter into Israeli, uh, territory with the intent of grabbing soldiers or civilians.
Um, and, but these are the battles that have taken place. Ended in, uh, with no, obviously, territorial gains for Hamas, and no real gains in [00:43:00] any other realm. Um, and, and really I think these have been futile battles from Hamas's perspective. Israel has beaten each one of these things back. But Israel has also refused to go back into the Gaza Strip.
So the threat has metastasized. It has grown. Hamas's Ames, um, you know, continue to be the destruction of Israel, but they continue to get new, uh, material. They get new technology. They get new weapons from Iran year after year. And so what has been largely described as a tactical threat, a very minor threat to Israel, all of a sudden this past weekend, we see that it's more of a strategic threat that this ragtag group that barely governs Gaza.
Is now able to penetrate, uh, Israeli territory to kill 900 people to take upwards of 150 people hostage and to scar the psyche of Israel. And so it took basically from 2007 until now, [00:44:00] this entire time, Israel has effectively, um, agreed to live alongside a terrorist state as long as the status quo was not upended.
Well, now it's been upended. And this will be likely the battle, at least I think this is what Israel hopes, that could be the end of Hamas after this long saga. And Hamas must have known that. They must have known that, uh, you know, that, that it could provoke. The response that I think is about to get into high gear.
So what on earth were they thinking? Well, this is I think the big question right now dan and and and I think we won't know until you know, the israelis go in Um, but I you know One has to wonder whether hamas and iran right? We know that they planned the first phase of this right the invasion of israel the killing of hundreds the the the taking of hostages Everything that just transpired the nightmare that just [00:45:00] transpired in israel The question is is there a phase two of all of this?
In other words, were they inviting were they baiting the israelis to enter into the gaza strip? So that they could capture more soldiers so that they could wage Um, you know a different kind of urban warfare against the israelis Or here's another, uh, way of interpreting the events that maybe once Israel, I mean, Israel's called up 300, 000 reserves.
I don't know how many will go into the Gaza Strip, but there is a determination to bring back, uh, the citizens of Israel that were, uh, that were held hostage. Um, once Israel puts these assets on the ground, Do we see another front open, for example? I mean, does Hezbollah, and we've been watching their sabre, the sabre rattling from the north, uh, for the last several days now, does Hezbollah enter the fray?
And then all of a sudden we've got a two front conflict, perhaps not even ironically, on the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Fifty years almost to the [00:46:00] day here, we could be looking at A second front opened. You've got to wonder right now what Iran was planning. I still see Iran's fingerprints on all of this and I think there is reason for concern.
I'm sure the IDF is weighing its options right now and trying to determine what Iran had in mind when it opened this front. When I watch the videos that are flying around social media of the, just the barbaric acts committed by these terrorists roaming through Israeli towns and Israeli homes and Israeli kibbutzim, and it's just, I mean, to say it's shocking is, is, it's, like, like, There's this phrase in Hebrew, ein milim, like no words.
You know, there are just no words to describe this. You just, even in conventional warfare, you just don't see, you know, we say raping and pillaging, it's literally raping, going door to door and raping women, slaughtering young people, systematically kidnapping little children and [00:47:00] grandmothers and women.
And then the images, once they're taken over the border, back into Gaza. of just the cruelty, the humiliation. It's not just like, oh, these are, these are tradable assets for us. And we'll use them to negotiate with Israel. It's, it's almost this gleeful, um, this, this gleeful feeling they're taking and just tormenting.
And there's one image that still gets me, and maybe it's because I'm a father of two boys, but the image of this little boy could have been any one of our little boys, a group of Palestinian boys, a little older than him, just taunting him, clearly about to. Truly torment him in being egged on by By the adults there.
I mean, it's like sick stuff, it really, I'm telling you John, I watch this, these images and it is, it's the closest I've seen in terms of images of 1930s, you know, in Germany and in towns in Eastern Europe and it has this pogrom feel to it. It really is like Jew hunting. And. [00:48:00] Do you think that was strategic?
Because they document it all. They put it all on social media. They film it all and they broadcast it out, which also doesn't make sense to me, unless one thinks they were hoping to break the will of the Israeli people, that it was a psychological operation to truly humiliate, that they were actually encouraged.
Torment the Israelis and document it all and get it out there and that'll break the will of the Israeli people, that'll humiliate the Israeli people. That's One conclusion I come to. The other conclusion is, I'm overthinking it. For an entire generation. For two generations. These Palestinians, the ones in Gaza, have been taught, educated, indoctrinated to believe.
Much like the Germans in Nazi Germany were taught, educated, indoctrinated to believe that the Jews were scum. And that if you get a Jew in your hands, you do with it what you do to scum. And it's, it's the ultimate in dehumanization. And that that's what they've been taught. Or maybe it's a combination of both.
[00:49:00] But like, I, I just, I watch these videos and I'm thinking, what is this? Yeah. And look, I think it underscores the Hamas ideology. Which is just simply built on hatred and the desire to destroy israel This is the essence of the hamas government the hamas terrorist organization Their their goal is simply one thing kill as many jews as many israelis as possible and ultimately in their minds Overtake the country the idea though that they could even do that, right?
I mean we're talking about israel as an advanced country Nuclear weapons, of course undeclared. This is not a place This is not a country that's going anywhere but yet you have an entire people now that have been fed a steady diet of hatred and um the belief The false belief that they can one day conquer israel [00:50:00] And so this is what I think explains, you know, some of what we're seeing right now these horrific videos that you mentioned um, it is Never going to happen, right?
I mean and and I think right now Hamas may soon meet its end You know and and this sort of hope that they have will be snuffed out I think Israel right now is thinking that it's time to do this Not only because it has emerged as a strategic threat as as opposed to you know The tactical one that it was believed to be some time ago, but that there's a, um, perhaps a need to reestablish deterrence and to disabuse, uh, Israel's enemies of the notion that the destruction of Israel is even possible.
Um, I, of course, shudder to think about what happens to those hostages when Israel Puts boots on the ground. Um, it's already pulverizing, uh, Hamas assets all across the Gaza Strip. [00:51:00] I think Israel has to know that those hostages are going to be in peril. Uh, they may even need to operate under the assumption that they're no longer alive, even as they go in trying to save them because they cannot fight with one hand tied behind their backs.
The IDF cannot work that way. Um, but I think right now, from what we hear in Israel, the goal. is now the destruction of Hamas, um, to finally put an end to this. This notion that this ragtag terrorist organization could somehow destroy Israel. Two questions before we let you go. One, assuming, and I think you're right, Israel can no longer coexist with Hamas in Gaza.
So Hamas as a governing entity in Gaza has to be eliminated. Two, the military capabilities of Hamas have to be, and the other groups, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, other groups in, in, in Gaza have to be eliminated. [00:52:00] Then what? The abyss. I mean, really, this is the, the real challenge here is grappling with the future, uh, of the Gaza Strip without Hamas.
You've got two, 2. 2 million people in this territory. It's, uh, 40 percent of the population there is reliant upon UN handouts. The poverty level is high half half the population is unemployed half the half the adult population is unemployed, right? There are no natural resources Hamas has not enabled the growth of industry.
There's really nothing there That anyone could point to that would sustain this population. Uh, you know, I mean the sort of irony here is that Iran, maybe with the help of the Qataris, the Turks, these are also sponsors of Hamas, they've kept this territory afloat for all of these years since 2007 and you know the question comes after Who's going to [00:53:00] support this population?
How are they going to sustain themselves when there has been no infrastructure? There's been no growth. There's I mean, this has been look, Hamas has sustained the Gaza Strip as a military garrison. Um, from which attacks against Israel are launched. There's really nothing else. There's no other investment that has been made.
But again, it, right. I mean, I, I, the last time I was in, physically in the Gaza Strip, not on the border, but in the Gaza Strip was in 1993. I went, uh, with, uh, I was, I was interning for, uh, uh, a reporter, an American reporter from the Chicago Tribune, um, while I was studying in Israel for the year. And we went, we spent a A weekend in the Jabali refugee camp, in the refugee camp, which was one of the early sparks of the Intifada, uh, spark, uh, areas where it got sparked.
Um, and we spent a weekend in the Jabali refugee camp, and the whole time I was in Gaza, all I was thinking was, Wow, it's on the Mediterranean, it's, it's [00:54:00] this beaut it really is just, just Topographically, it is this beautiful spot. If you didn't know who was inhabiting it and how they were running it, you would think this is a piece of territory that could be developed.
It could be, I mean, obviously it connects borders with Israel, borders with Egypt. There's so much that it could have been done with it from a commerce and, and, and trade and tourism, it's, it's ludicrous to say tourism, but I mean, really, it could have been turned into something. And I mean, it's not ludicrous when you actually think about the territory in that regard.
And to your point, neither the Hamas or any other Palestinian leaders were trying to do anything with it other than turning it into a terrorist safe haven as a launchpad and all these countries in the region that claim to be so worried about Gaza and the Palestinians never tried to do any of the things I'm describing.
Yeah. And that's the tragedy of Gaza. You now have a population of, you know, 2. 2 million people who may soon [00:55:00] lack leadership. Um, not that there was. particularly good leadership to begin with, but there's a fairly good chance of chaos to follow. Um, you know, Israel's not there to do state building the way that the U.
S., you know, the U. S. traditionally invades a country. It helps ensure that there's a stable government afterwards. It's unclear what the Israelis are going to do. And by the way, it will be unpopular for the Israelis to remain there, uh, as occupiers. That's not something I think that the majority of Israelis want to see.
But at the same time, I think there is a very clear sense now that the status quo cannot prevail. Hamas needs to be ousted from the Gaza Strip and now, you know, now to the abyss. John, I said, I was gonna let you go, but one more minute. I know, I know you got to run. And, uh, there's often talk about Israel needs to withdraw from the West Bank.
What is the lesson of [00:56:00] the Gaza experience as it relates to, you talked about the West Bank, it's, it's on the border, uh, with Jordan, it's on the eastern border of, uh, of Israel. Um, it is a pathway to Israel from the broader Arab world, uh, if certain countries were ever to become radicalized or overrun themselves, like Jordan for instance.
What, what is the lesson here? Look, the lesson is, first of all, withdrawal doesn't work. Right, unilateral withdrawal was a huge mistake back in 2005, holding elections when there are, uh, no democratic institutions to speak of is a mistake, allowing terrorist organizations to compete in those elections, huge mistake, um, but really I think if there's one big takeaway, it's that Israel can't afford to hand the West Bank Over without making sure that there is infrastructure there that will be safeguarded, [00:57:00] that there is going to be a reliable system.
Not just a guy, right? Not just some Palestinian leader who says, look, I'm going to do what I can, right? That there needs to be institutions. That are reliable that will live beyond the dictator du jour and I think that uh, You just don't see it in the west bank. There is nothing there that israel can rely on to sustain uh calm to sustain the even uneasy status quo, and so this notion that Israel just needs to pick up and leave the West Bank, I think, I mean, that has been debunked thoroughly over this past weekend.
John Schanzer from the Foundation for Defensive Democracies, uh, really, thanks for this tour de force. I, um, like I said, a colleague of mine this morning texted me saying, I need a backgrounder. I need a history. And so, I had him in mind, but it occurred to me there are probably [00:58:00] many others who said, uh, who, who would benefit from something like this, so I, I really appreciate you taking the time.
My pleasure. Anytime.