Gaza’s “Operating System” - with Nadav Eyal
Gaza runs like no sovereign entity. On the one hand, Hamas rules Gaza like any government does — it has a health system, an education system, a security, force, and a finance system. Hamas works with international agencies based in Gaza (like the U.N.). But Hamas does not see itself as responsible for the people it governs. How does this all work at a practical level? What is Gaza's unique operating system? That is the focus of today’s conversation, along with the latest analysis of the death of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri.
Our guest is NADAV EYAL who is a columnist Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists, and a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] This is an amazingly successful terrorist startup. A terror group took control of a territory and what they managed to do, and this is the startup, is We're responsible not for the population that has elected us, or supports us, or lives under our rule. We're responsible only for the struggle and everyone else.
The United Nations, NGOs, the PA, the Palestinian Authority, are responsible for the civilian needs of a population of more than 2 million people. And they can focus solely On an October 7th attack, and at the end of this, uh, Hamas is one of the richest, if not the richest terror organization in the world today.[00:01:00]
It is 6:00 PM on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2024. Here in New York City. It is 1:00 AM on Thursday, January 4th in Israel, Gaza. Um, runs like no other sovereign entity. On the one hand, Hamas rules Gaza like any government rules a territory. It runs a healthcare system, it has an educational system, there's a security force that reports to the governing authority, there's a finance system that's used to collect taxes and subsidize various projects.
It coexists. It coexists. with counterparts from international agencies that are based in Gaza. It coexists with the international media that is based in Gaza. But on the other hand, Hamas does not see itself as responsible for the people over whom it governs. How does all this work at a very practical level, at least up until October 7th?
What [00:02:00] is Gaza's one of a kind operating system? To try to understand this ecosystem and how it's functioned, And how it could potentially function after the war. We welcome for the first time Nadav Ayel, who's a columnist with Yediot Aharonot. a leading Israeli newspaper. Nadav comes to us from Tel Aviv.
He is one of Israel's top journalists covering a range of national security issues. He's the winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel's most distinguished journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, for the print press, and for television.
He's also an accomplished author. He received a master's degree in global politics from the London school of economics. And he also has a law degree from the Hebrew university of Jerusalem, Nadav Eyal on Gaza's operating system. This is call me back.[00:03:00]
And I'm pleased to welcome to this podcast for the first time, Nadav Eyal, who is among the most. Networked and resourced and plugged in journalists in Israel at all times, but especially now. Nadav, thanks for being here. It's a pleasure being here, Dan. I want to start, before we get into the focus of today's conversation, I want to start by Asking about the news of, of the death of Salah al Aruri, who is, I think, the number three in Hamas, a close lieutenant and partner with Yehya Sinwar, one of the, he himself, al Aruri, the, one of the architects of October 7th, and played actually a much more global role for Hamas.
First of all, what do we, what do we know now about his death, how it happened, what the, what the thinking was behind it in terms of, of what, Israel, assuming Israel's responsible, although Israel hasn't claimed responsibility, what it's hoping to achieve. So Sal Kuri was a man of, [00:04:00] uh, many talents. Most of them were dedicated to, uh, killing Israelis.
Uh, and he did that. Israel would admit, uh, remarkably well. What was both? He had a political position within the Hamas. He was the lieutenant of, uh. So, he was the vice chairman of the political bureau of Hamas, and also responsible for military operations in Judea and Samaria, and also responsible to an extent on military operations that Hamas conducted from Lebanon against Israel.
That's a relatively new thing. Hamas started shooting rockets at Israel. From southern Lebanon, together with Hezbollah, or with Hezbollah's blessing. As to the assassination itself, I should note that Israel is not claiming responsibility. And that's, that's a formal thing that the Israeli [00:05:00] government and the IDF are not saying formally that the Salah al Ghawri was killed by the IDF, but he was killed in an operation by the IDF, together with the Mossad, the Israeli Mossad, and the Israeli Shin Bet.
And together with him, uh, some lieutenants of him were killed too. And these are the guys that were responsible for shooting of rockets from southern Lebanon to Israel. He was killed in the Dakhia quarter of Beirut. And that's very important. The Dakhia quarter is where you have the headquarters of Hezbollah.
And one of the reasons that al Aruri Went to that meeting was probably because he assumed that Israel is not gonna hit the hearts of of the operational center of Hezbollah in Beirut. And he was proven wrong. Of course, Israel did, you know, a tactical operation. It was, uh, he was hit by [00:06:00] Israeli missiles, probably shot from some sort of a drone, but I, you know, I don't want to commit on, on the vehicle in which it was done either from a drone or from, uh, uh, sort of an airplane from a distance.
The bottom line is that this is seen within the defense apparatus as a major win for Israel since October 7th Israel has maintained that it will assassinate, it will take down the people responsible for the massacre El Harouri was actually the only Palestinian in the world that was informed of the plans for the October 7th massacre, before it happened, outside of the Gaza Strip.
And that's, uh, very important. They, they wanted to notify him. They didn't tell that to Ismail Haniyeh. They didn't say that to Osama Hamdan. They didn't talk with most of their networks globally, but they did talk with Salah el Aruri. Khaled Machel didn't [00:07:00] know? No, Khaled Machel didn't know.
So, do you think that Israel has wanted to take him out, Eluri, long before October 7th? Or taking him out was one of the objectives post October 7th? Both. Yeah, Israel wanted to take him out for a long time. Um, yeah, by the way, the You know, the U. S. government has a prize on his head or his capture on information leading to his capture on five million dollars that that's a lot.
That means that he's, you know, remarkably important even for the Americans in terms of the intelligence and in terms of the damage. That he caused, you know, in these kinds of cases, Dan, as you know, there's the question of effect of assassinations. And with this specific guy, with Salah al Aruri, the thing about him is, was that he was very much talented in what he did.
For instance, this is the main [00:08:00] guy that was handling the Gilad Shalit abduction. And he was also negotiating with the Israelis in Cairo. He was up and coming. He was seen as a possible leader of Hamas. And Israel wanted to take him down anyway. But after October 7, this whole thing began to be part of the ethos of the Israeli defense apparatus.
Somewhat like after Munich 1972. And based on your sources and your Information. Did the intelligence that enabled this operation come from what Israel may, the IDF may have learned post October 7th based on the people they're capturing and the intelligence they're gathering from the war in Gaza? I'm not sure about that.
Um, I, I think that the intelligence was, was gathered very tactically. Um, you know, it was known that he's residing in the Beirut area and he's moving. on a sort of a routine, uh, between Beirut and [00:09:00] sometimes Damascus and other places, but, but you can, you know, we can count on that, that the IDF and the Mossad are doing things that they have not done before.
And this is something that is important to say in that sense. When I meet with Israeli officers, uh, high ranking officers and generals, one of the things that they tell me is that they think that sometimes the world and specifically our enemies, whether it's Iran or Hezbollah, they don't understand.
Israel is willing to take more risks right now in order to have a preemptive strike like this one than it did before because of October 7th. So something has changed materially in the region. The fact that we're only seeing, you know, the first Salah al Aruri doesn't mean that we're not going to see actions that are not only assassinations because the entire defense approach of Israel has now become much more combative.
How much of take, for [00:10:00] instance, taking out Salah al Uri, given how close he was to Sinwar, it's very, I mean, I spent a lot of time, probably too much time trying to think about what is going on in Sinwar's world, right? He's sitting somewhere in some tunnel in central or south Gaza. He Doesn't have the same access to his chain of command that he once had.
He doesn't know exactly all these parties around the world are sort of negotiating on his behalf. There's the Egyptian government. There's what's happening in Doha. There's all this stuff happening. Negotiations. He doesn't, he sort of knows what they're committing to. He doesn't really know yet. They're negotiating on exchanges that he would have to implement or bless.
He doesn't actually know who's getting captured and who's not. Then he hears that Salah is dead. How much of this is isolating Sinwar and disrupting his ability to, to run Hamas during a war? Unfortunately, Sinwar still has his control and command abilities. We know [00:11:00] that to the extent that he has regiments or units on the ground, He can still make them operate.
For instance, launch rockets to Israel. He can still do that. So Sinoir, wherever he is, can still order the rocket launches to Israel and to get them at a specific time, for instance. But he cannot, of course, operate regiments and units that don't exist anymore, because Israel killed most of the Uh, soldiers there, I'm talking about Northern Gaza, Central Gaza, they don't exist anymore and his operational command there doesn't exist anymore.
So you have guerrilla warfare there with two or three people with RPGs, but they don't have Uh, close contact with the command center of Hamas that Israel didn't reach yet. And it's important to say that as to the killing of Salha, I, I should know that between Al and uh, s noir, there's some sort of, [00:12:00] uh, an animosity.
The, uh, these guys, uh, hated each other, so I'm not sure as to how s noir is seeing, you know, El death. But he, he probably understands beyond any personal issues that this means that Israel is, is getting closer. And just factually speaking, Israel is getting closer. You know, Israel is operating its, uh, defense apparatus at 120 percent right now in order to reach Sinwar.
And it knows that Sinwar is somewhere underneath, you know, the Southern Gaza area, which suspects Central or Southern Gaza. Uh, whether it's Palestinian Rafah or it's Haniones or somewhere in the sorts, and it's doing its best to get to them. And of course, cut their communications and having them, you know, just being completely alone, really very much isolated in their underneath.
tunnel or city [00:13:00] that they have built. He understands this, whether or not the pressure is rising, we'll see by the actions he takes down. For instance, if we see him becoming rather flexible as to another deal, I'm talking about a deal in which, uh, kidnapped Israelis will be released. Uh, and in essence, Hamas is going to get probably, you know, uh, a week or two weeks of ceasefire.
If we see some sort of reproachment there. That means that the IDF is getting closer to Sinuol. Okay, I want to ask you about the IDF is implementing the third stage, you know, the third phase of the war where a large number of reserve units will leave Gaza and soldiers will be released to return to their civilian lives, at least for some time.
Back to the labor force, back to the economy, and it's in large part designed to bring life in Israel back to quote unquote normal, whatever normal looks like post October 7th and stabilize the economy, as I mentioned, [00:14:00] when the economy did suffer a considerable setback over the past three months with all of these reservists being pulled out of the labor force.
Before we dive into today's topic, can you just paint a picture of what life going back to normal feels like in Israel? And I ask you this both as a journalist and And as an Israeli civilian, what does life now, you know, what does normalcy look like? So, there are two answers to this, and let me, you know, begin with the optimistic one.
Um, I feel that Tel Aviv is is returning to itself in a sense. If you go through the streets of Tel Aviv, through the markets, if you go to Shuka Carmel, if you go, uh, you know, to sit in a coffee shop, if you go to restaurants in the evening or Thursday night, Tel Aviv has returned. And, and it's a very, you know, it's a very uplifting thing to see after these months of [00:15:00] tragedy and trauma.
Um, and I think that there is some sort of Normality sort of regaining itself and Israel, in that sense, regrouping. But my real answer, Dan, is that nothing is going to be the same. Israel is very much traumatized. Every one of us has either family or friends that have been personally affected. I have two editors in my life as a journalist.
One of them just edited my new book. It's about the judicial overhaul, but much more than that. His family was abducted in Bari. He's basically, his entire, you know, extended family was taken in, in Beirut. Some of them were murdered. Some of them were taken. He still has an, an aunt that is, uh, kidnapped by Hamas.
And, and then I have another editor who's my editor in, uh, my, my column in Yediot Achronot. [00:16:00] And again, his entire extended family was taken, including, you know, two of his sisters. His, uh, their husbands were murdered and some of these children were taken with them and they just returned. And this is just one example.
You know people that were killed. You know the people you killed on October 7th. Sometimes you know people who were killed afterwards in the military operations in the Gaza Strip. And this feeling that you're insecure or your children ask you questions about that. Because this is lasting a long time. I don't think that people understand it.
We didn't have, you know, people launching or terrorist groups launching rockets into Israel for three months. This all began with a massive launch of missiles all across Israel by Hamas. And, and they still, from time to time, they shoot rockets at Israel. And my children need to understand that this is going to last for a long time.
[00:17:00] Because it's not going to end with a ceasefire, right? Israel is not going to agree for a ceasefire. So, now what do you say to people in the South? Or what do you say to your own children? You know, when will this end, they ask you. And because of that, I think we're in for a long ride here. And I think Israelis understand that.
Nobody thinks that it's going to be back to normal again. Israel has changed, the region has changed, forever, or at least for several years. Israel is going to be even more, in that sense, even more militarized. more defensive and We're in for a long long ride and people understand that and even more risk averse I mean the idea that there's going to be a political constituency in Israel for taking big risks for An account piece of common quote unquote peace accommodation with that's trusty and leadership Okay, I want to dive into today's What I originally reached out to you [00:18:00] about before we got into some of these new developments, which is what I call Gaza's operating system, because I think it's confusing for people, I think, because Gaza operates both as a sovereign state in a sense, which has Hamas, the kind of ruling class or the government, which is responsible for the lives of of the residents of Gaza.
But at the same time, Hamas is sort of a government and sort of a militia that's governing over this no man's land. I that no one's really in charge of, that was seized by Hamas. And so, in the latter construct, Hamas does not see itself as responsible for the residents of Gaza. They're there, they're in their way, they're in some cases cannon fodder, in other cases they're human shields, but they're certainly not, Hamas is not responsible for the life and well being of the residents of Gaza, and yet it is the government, effectively, of Gaza.
So, can you just explain how this works? Yeah, so this is, uh, an [00:19:00] amazingly successful terrorist startup, and I know you wrote, of course, Startup Nation, so Different kind of startup. Yeah, it's an irony that this, this is the kind of startup that has grown next to Israel, and it's a, it's a terrorist startup in this, in this sense.
First of all, a terror group took control of a territory, and what they managed to do, and this is a startup, is We're responsible not for the population that has elected us or supports us or lives under our rule. We're responsible only for the struggle and everyone else. UNRWA, the United Nations, NGOs. Um, the, the, the PA, the Palestinian Authority, everyone needs to get authorization from Hamas, needs to talk with Hamas, needs to pay to Hamas officials.
So they have built this kingdom [00:20:00] in which Other people are responsible for the civilian needs of a population of more than two million people, but they charge taxes and they have an absolute rule in the strip and they can dedicate everything that they manage to sort of squeeze out of this population.
In order to have an army and underground cities of tunnels, hundreds of miles of these underground tunnels, sometimes going deep as far as 40, 50 meters, 60 meters underneath the ground. And they can focus. Completely, not on education or, or about bettering the life of Palestinians. They can focus solely on the struggle against Israel and on an October 7th attack.
That's a good startup for them, and it wasn't enough for Yigal Yassinwal. So, Yechel Sinwa [00:21:00] is the leader of Hamas, and one of the reasons that he went through the October 7th attack is that strategically, he understood that the meaning of that would probably be that Hamas would not be able to control the Gaza Strip formally.
And right now, Hamas is talking with officials in Qatar and the Palestinian Authority, other Palestinian factions, and they're not ruling out the possibility that there will be a different government in Gaza. What they want. is actually to have some sort of political authority, civilian, that you can blame with everything that's wrong.
For instance, if your sewers, you know, are going up, if your education system is just, um, a wreck or anything like that, and they can be the warriors. for Palestine. And, and that's, that's also incredibly sophisticated of them. And the way it works, you know, on a day to day basis is very simple. One of the [00:22:00] things that usually Israelis focus on and the international community focuses on is about Qatar delivering money.
to Hamas, or Iran sending money to Hamas. No, no, no, no. The base for their economy, like any state, this quasi state of terror, the basis are taxes. They're just collecting taxes. And if you just Google, if your listeners right now are going to Google as they go along in this podcast, I do this sometimes, and they Google just taxes, Gaza, Hamas.
They see, you know, how Hamas is taking taxes for fish, for vegetables, for everything in Gaza. But the people running the schools are UNRWA. It's the UN that's building the schools, for instance. And the PA is actually paying the Palestinian Authority that's getting money from the international community and from Palestinians in the West Bank, is paying salaries in the Gaza Strip, although it was [00:23:00] kicked out by Hamas.
So this is an exceptionally well prepared, you know, well maintained operation. And at the end of this, Hamas is one of the richest, if not the richest terror organization in the world today. So to your point, you know, like when I watch interviews of Hamas leaders, when they're asked Why are you, Hamas, hiding in the tunnels but you didn't build any bomb shelters for civilians, for Palestinian civilians?
They're sort of unapologetic and they say some version of the tunnels are for us, it's not our job to protect the population. That's the role of the U. N. What is the Palestinian civilian narrative, the Palestinian street, if you will? How would they articulate this, that this is a good deal for them, that enables Hamas to be hiding in these tunnels and all this money being spent to build this tunnel network, but for your average everyday Palestinian, they're left to survive on their own?
Yeah. So, the thing is that, first of all, [00:24:00] Hamas is just a messenger of a recruited society. And the society is recruited to the idea of liberating Palestine. That's the truth about the entire Palestinian society. And this is one of the reasons that Hamas is so popular. Hamas is seen as a You know, the leader in militarily in trying to free the entire Palestine.
And that means of course, destroying Israel. And this is one of the reasons that you see support for the October 7 attack in the West Bank, where Hamas is not ruling the Palestinian society, but the PA and Fatah. Uh, but. If you watch and if you read about the polls done in the Gaza Strip before October 7 and some polls were even done after October 7 by Halil Shkaki, who's considered to be the best pollster in that sense, although I have no idea how he could poll there these days.
But [00:25:00] if you look at the polls, you see that Hamas popularity was going down. It was going down because they were raising taxes. And one of the assumptions in Israel, by the way, is, was that they were raising taxes because they were actually trying to have as many funds, as much funds as they can towards the attack.
So they were squeezing the population, a last squeeze, before they go into war. Look, initiating a war against Israel. Even if they thought it would be 10 percent casualties than they were, not 1, 200 Israelis murdered by 130, not, um, you know, 250 hostages by 25. They knew that Israel would respond this way.
So they needed to be prepared and they came prepared. This is one of the problems that Israel and the IEF is facing in the Gaza Strip. They prepared themselves for a long campaign. [00:26:00] They knew that the IDF will invade the Gaza Strip in response. And they prepared for years. How, then, if they've been preparing this for some time, it sounds like they, they had like a business plan, and the business plan was, was well financed, and they had emergency contingency funding, reserves set up, like kind of, as we would say in the U.
S., in a business plan, like a rainy day fund for when things don't go well. So assume they knew that Israel was going to invade and they want to be ready for it. How, how can Israel now disrupt this business plan, this finance scheme that Hamas has? So, first of all, So, it goes on. So if you go there to the southern part of Gaza, some parts, some neighborhoods, areas in which Israel is not operating, there are markets, food is being sold there, and people are still paying taxes to Hamas.
So this is still in operation. Israel did not capture the entire Gaza Strip. Every place that you have a market, every place that you still have Hamas presence. [00:27:00] You need to assume that they are still collecting, they're still squeezing the population, which is sometimes, you know, willingly supportive of Hamas.
So, the way to break this down is the old way. If you want to disintegrate a sort of a rule or a polity, uh, and the first thing that a polity does from imperial times to today is collect taxes. You need to have different power structures there, societal power structures, that will collect the taxes or will prevent them of collecting the taxes.
In other words, you need other people with guns. to make sure that Hamas cannot collect anymore. You need to break their rule by having something else there. It cannot exist in a, in a vacuum. And, and of course your American listeners probably remember well the mistakes done by the United States after the occupation of Iraq in 2003.
I was involved with that policy when I was in the Bush [00:28:00] administration. I would just say the difference is the Ba'ath party, despite the Press coverage of it. What we did, what the U. S. did, was it barred senior level members of the Ba'ath Party. Senior members, the top three or so levels of the Ba'ath Party.
So you need to be a pretty senior official to be barred from reintegrating in Iraqi society. People below those top levels technocrats, mid and lower level bureaucrats, physicians, you know, people providing essential government services, they were not pushed out. And so I guess my question for you is, in how we think about Hamas, where do those people fit in?
Are they quote unquote Hamas? Or can you wipe out Hamas and leave those players intact? You cannot wipe out Hamas. Hamas is a popular movement within the Palestinian society. It's Only the Palestinians can wipe it out, politically speaking, what you [00:29:00] can do is you can destroy its army. And that's what Israel is trying to do.
And to your question, many of these sort of medium level. Kind of government officials within the Gaza Strip don't support Hamas. And also the Palestinian authority has more than 10, 000 people that it's paying some sort of salary, sometimes pensions within the Gaza Strip. So you can employ them, but if Israel is not going to capture.
and occupy the way that the U. S. did in Iraq. You can't actually do this, Dan. Because if you're not going to be those people with the guns, at least in the beginning, trying to maintain power and then handing over power back to the population, to the people that you select as an occupying force, according to international law, Then you need to make sure that someone or some groups will enter the Palestinian society or rise from the Palestinian society in Gaza [00:30:00] and take control for themselves.
And this is very complicated. So the way that, and this is one of the questions that the Biden administration actually asked Israel before the incursion, before the ground operation, they asked, what are you guys going to do there? What are you going to do there afterwards? What's your plan? And I'm sorry to say that the Netanyahu government and Netanyahu himself, not only did not have a plan, Netanyahu himself, you know, he didn't want to even have discussions beyond a very sort of closed circle, maybe him and Norm Dermer and.
Uh, the Malal, you know, the, the security council of Israel, something very limited because he thought it's political poison, uh, basically. So what now I just published this last week, the, the Shin Bet, Israeli sort of secret service, uh, is now has said to the prime minister, let's have local power [00:31:00] brokers In Gaza strengthened, for instance, large families, uh, what do you say in Arabic?
A large family or like tribes. Let's let's strengthen them. Why? Because Israel is. allowing the delivery of humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip and food and Hamas is taking control of that and maintaining through that its power. Now you have 200, 000 Palestinians in the northern side of Gaza that is completely controlled by Israel.
They live in sort of enclaves that Israel didn't completely occupy, although it captured the areas around them. Now, they're going to get some food and humanitarian aid. If you don't have any other power brokers there that are not Hamas, Hamas is going to take control of that. And then what did you do?
For what did you do that? So the Shin Bet is saying to Netanyahu, you know, let us handle [00:32:00] this. We're going to create this hubs of alternative power in the Gaza Strip. But this is not a long lasting solution, Dan. There's talk about, and I think it's far fetched, but there's talk about Salam Fayyad potentially coming in, former, uh, Palestinian Prime Minister, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, technocratic, smart guy in Nome, but ultimately had no political purchase among the Palestinians, so was, was marginalized very quickly based just on Palestinian politics.
So there's talk about him or someone like him, some combined, Gaza, West Bank, Palestinian Authority. Every time I hear these scenarios, I think. Who's giving these them authority? In other words, how are they going to have any relevance, any moxie inside Gaza? if they're just sort of created and superimposed from above.
That's absolutely true. They're not going to have any clout, you know, and the reason that's not going to happen is because Palestinians themselves, and Salam Fayyad himself, and [00:33:00] the Palestinian Authority are saying we're not going to come here riding an Israeli tank. And I can see, you know, their point.
You need to have people who are willing to employ arms to have a monopoly over violence, which is the basis for every polity and state against Hamas. And if you don't get that, You know, Hamas is going to fill the vacuum and it's going to continue on even underneath the ground as the ruling force in Gaza, even without weapons that we can see and eliminate.
And because of this, Israel has a challenge here. And it's a question that nobody in the Israeli administration and army have a clear answer to. Without occupying, truly occupying and clearing the Gaza Strip of Hamas, how can you hand over power to anyone, including international forces? And Israel is [00:34:00] willing to consider those.
An Arab force, an international force, a U. N. force, an American force, a Palestinian Authority force. The prime minister at the beginning seemed like he's ruling it out. Then he sent Tzahi Anegbi, his national security advisor, to write an article for Ilaf. And that's a Saudi, a very important Saudi website, basically saying, ah, Palestinian Authority, that's possible.
So, as it relates to suffocating the Hamas financial engine, could a new group be established just to collect the taxes so they don't end up with Hamas? No, you need to have some sort of an arranging order, even if this order looks like Somalia. For instance, you'll have warlords. in this neighborhood and a warlord in that neighborhood.
And for Israel, this scenario that I'm just describing is not a good scenario, but all alternatives seem, you know, quite [00:35:00] bad right now. And as far as Israel is concerned, to have in the Gaza Strip, you know, local power hubs, leaders of Hamoulas, different parties or sections is much better than to have We have a unified force with the command center of a genocidal organization that has clearly proven that it has the ability to commit ethnic cleansing with Israelis on October 7.
You referred to it earlier. There's talk about the Saudis or an Arab peacekeeping force based on your reporting. Is it your impression that the Saudis or the Egyptians or the Emiratis or anyone wants anything to do with Gaza? Do they want, do they want to take on this role? They don't want to take the role of assuring Israel that they're going to take care of Hamas.
They are willing, as part of a bigger regional deal, to, for instance, as far as the [00:36:00] Saudis are concerned, or the Emirates are concerned, to donate money for the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip. As a part of a regional agreement that will include, by the way, At least a roadmap, and I'm not talking about, you know, the Bush administration's roadmap, but something much more, uh, viable and maybe more immediate in a sense that will set a stage for Palestinian statehood or something like that.
And they're willing to do that. But the truth is that nobody wants. to take care of Gaza. Nobody wants this. Nobody wants to go into this territory. It was a, uh, probably a strategic mistake by Israel to take it. Uh, in 1967, there was no way around it because Israel took the entire Sinai desert. Uh, it probably should have returned it when it did return the Sinai desert to the Egyptians, or at least Insisted on returning to the Egyptians.
A [00:37:00] friend of mine on a commentary podcast made the point that the six day war was a win for Egypt because they got rid of Gaza. You know, Gaza needs a solution. They, they don't produce. It's a highly densely populated area. Although I, I have to tell you, if you look at the, what the international community has done there, if you look for instance at life expectancy, then you know that the life expectancy in the Gaza Strip on October 6th.
was higher than it is in Alabama or in Mississippi. And if you compare it to other Arab countries in the region, if you look at education in the Gaza Strip, so it's much better than many countries in our region. So there was some sort of a human potential there. And it was, of course, ransacked by the people themselves for supporting Hamas and by Hamas, who is just squeezing them as terrorist groups like that.
And if you look at [00:38:00] every state that they have run, these kind of theocrats, uh, whether it's Iran, Afghanistan, you know, the, the ISIS state or Gaza, it's, it's always a failure. And it's always. It's a destructive failure to its neighbors. So Russia was facing a similar situation in Chechnya and they empowered a kind of thug of sorts to collect taxes.
How did that end up? Is there anything, is there anything from those lessons that inform how Israel's thinking about this? So Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya is actually something that people in the Israeli Politicals, we are talking about mainly a Victor Lieberman who's a leader of, um, medium sized small party and who comes from Russia.
Yeah. Basically when the Sheen Bet offers to the Prime Minister to have local power hubs in the Gaza Strip, I think that in a sense the thinking kind of ramson ov and uh, I don't think that Israel can do that. I don't think Israel wants to do that. So [00:39:00] again, you know, Israel is a democracy in Russia. Is it?
So what, what they will do, the Israelis won't, but this is the kind of discussion that is being held all the time. When I go to the Kiryat here in Tel Aviv, the main base of the, the IDF, they themselves are, are confused. They're saying, what are we going to do with this? You know, the reason that. Israel went to the Oslo Accords is because it didn't want to control Palestinian life and it didn't want to be in the Gaza Strip and rule the Gaza Strip.
It didn't want that and it worked maybe for a while and now we might be maybe paying the price. How does it work in the West Bank, then? Because in the West Bank, you have the Palestinian Authority, which is corrupt, and one could argue it's been ineffective. But since its creation, it has built up a security force with Israel's help, and in many cases, Israel's training of security forces and funding.
And the IDF works closely, and the Shabak works closely with the Palestinian Authority security forces. [00:40:00] Again, it's messy and it's imperfect and I have plenty of problems with it. I don't, you know, I'm sure you do too, but it kind of works. And so why couldn't that kind of work in Gaza? First of all, it might work in Gaza if the Palestinian Authority will be willing to assume control and employ force against Hamas.
That's the question, but you're, you know, what you just said about the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is probably true to an extent. And if you talk with officials within the Israeli defense apparatus, the IDF, the Shin Bet, the Mossad, they all say that the Palestinian Authority is something that Israel needs to preserve.
They're very nationalist. They say things that enrage us. There's the problem of incitement for violence in their education system. You know, there's corruption, of course. The main guilt of Salam Fayyad is that he wasn't corrupt enough for the Palestinian [00:41:00] Authority, so he was sent into exile because he wasn't as corrupt as the officials there.
Everything is true. But there's one thing that's really important. The Palestinian society is torn between two movements. One of them is the Fatah. The Fatah is saying, we can have a political solution to the conflict, we have signed agreements with Israel, and we might stand by these agreements. This is the formal position of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.
And the other movement is a fundamentalist movement that wants basically to kill all the Jews. That's Hamas. And one of the things that I think that sometimes even within the Israeli discourse, right wing discourse in Israel, they don't focus about enough. There is meaning for on the record statements.
There is meaning for this internal Palestinian discussion between people who are saying only armed struggle, this is Hamas, [00:42:00] and the Fatah who is saying sometimes armed struggle and sometimes agreements. to have a Palestinian state. And the fact is that as long as they are having this discussion, and Fatah is in that position, the day to day life in the West Bank is as such.
If a drone of the IDF falls in Tulkarem, and I'm bringing you a specific example from a month and a half ago, a military drone of the IDF falls in the center of a Palestinian The Palestinian police will take this drone and deliver it to the IDF soldiers. That's a huge difference from Hamas that won't even recognize my right.
And if we don't recognize this difference, we won't be able to make the moderates there stronger. Now, when I say this in Israel [00:43:00] today, many people tell me there are no moderates. You know, if the Palestinian Authority knew that they could do the same thing that Hamas did, they would have done it. But these kinds of speculative kind of, you know, arguments, you can't handle them in the day to day, uh, Life in day to day life, you have an IDF commander in a point in the West Bank, and he needs to defend this area and Israelis living there as settlers.
And he's, you know, just doing his best. And the Palestinian Authority there is usually not in his way, but usually works. In tandem, to an extent, with the IDF. Two questions before we wrap. One, I just want to put a, kind of underline this. You're basically arguing that unless Israel is the force that is providing security slash occupying Gaza the day after the war, or another [00:44:00] alternative is doing that, that Israel trusts and can rely on.
Implementing any kind of post Hamas operating system, governance system, for Gaza is impossible. There's got to be a force there that is willing to fill the vacuum, provide basic security, provide order. Have some kind of monopoly on violence. This was our experience in Iraq in early 2003 after the war.
Spring, summer of 2003, the U. S. forces went, got scaled way back and there was a massive security vacuum and all sorts of bad actors tried to fill that vacuum and it was hard to maintain order, political order. It was hard to provide basic government service when there just wasn't a serious military footprint on the ground by someone, whether it's the U.
S., whether it's a multinational force. Whether it's a built back Iraqi military capability, which took time to rebuild, unless there's something there enforcing the political order, enforcing a system for running the financial engine and dispersing [00:45:00] government services, it just all spirals out of control.
And I think what you're saying, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I think what you're saying is unless Israel is willing to do that, or unless Israel can find somebody to do that, you're going to get a version of what we, what Israel had before October 7th in Gaza. Not exactly, and let me tell you why.
Because Israel is not going to allow anyone to build the military force that Hamas has built prior to October 7th. And it doesn't matter, you know, who collects the taxes in that sense, and who doesn't. Every time that Israel will see anything that comes even close to the military infrastructure built by Hamas, Israel will attack, will attack aerially, will attack with a ground incursion, will send a division in, a regiment.
It will not allow them to reach any place close to what they had before, militarily speaking. This is the doctrine. Okay, let's [00:46:00] begin with that. But you cannot solve the Gaza Hamas problem because the aims of this operation is to not have Hamas, amongst other things, as the ruling power in Gaza. In order to do that, you either need to have another ruling power in Gaza, and ruling means employee force and having a monopoly on violence, even against Hamas, that's going to be a huge problem.
Because the Palestinian Authority thinks about itself as something that incorporates Hamas, not as something that is willing to assassinate Hamas leaders. Mainly not because it's so weak and corrupt, as we said. Or you can have local power centers or hubs or warlords or whatever you want to call it. And they're not going to answer to anyone.
And then, you know, the biggest gorilla in the room is going to be Israel. So that's maybe, you know, way to [00:47:00] go. Now, the Israelis, to be frank, and I don't think it's a good thing what I'm going to say now, but this is how it is. Strategically speaking, the Israelis don't really care what happens in Gaza in a long term strategic view, as long as it is not a threat.
to Israel. So Israelis don't care. And if it's going to be 20 years of factions fighting in the Gaza Strip on control, as long as they're not shooting rockets and planning another sort of pilot for genocide on our southern borders, Israel is an option. Now, I'm going to say something important. The world and the U.
S. Is not going to, they're not going to allow that or they're going to try not to allow that. They're going to say we want political solution. We want the framework for a solution for the Palestinians. that will include national self determination. We want to see some sort of a path to Palestinian statehood, something that [00:48:00] Israelis are definitely not willing to consider right now.
But they need the U. S., they need either the Biden administration or any other administration that will follow. And the region, they need the region. And this is something that I'm saying about Israelis. Israelis don't understand that we need the moderates in the region. We need Egypt. We need Saudi Arabia.
We even need Jordan for all their hateful statements in these recent months. Alliance of moderates and states that recognize Israel collapses. Yigya Sinwar and Hamas got what they wanted to achieve in this war. So if the price to pay for maintaining this alliance are political compromises of sorts with the Palestinian Authority, this is something that Israel definitely needs to do.
Because if we lose our relations with the Arab world, Then Sinoir and the Fundamentalists [00:49:00] got exactly what they bargained for when they ordered the October 7th attack. This is what they wanted. Complete struggle against Israel again. Back to the 1960s. Back to the nose of Hattom. Some of your listeners might remember those.
The nase of Hattom. So, We need to stop this and we need to be clever about this. It's not only about employing force It's about understanding the region and being Middle Eastern in that sense And it's it's a very difficult problem very difficult challenge for Israel. The US definitely didn't do too well You know, in the Middle East, when it tried to do that, that's the truth, they did their best, you know, but they, they didn't manage to maintain it, you know, for a long time, maybe at the end of the Iraq, you know, you can see a clear path there and there is a government there.
of sorts that is functioning. They have elections. They, the, yeah, I mean, with a lot of us support and also there's an [00:50:00] American presence and there's an American presence. Yeah. There's American presence. Right. Right. But it's one of the healthier polities in, in the Arab world. The flip side to what you're saying earlier though, is that if my sense is based on conversations I've had with different officials and unofficials and non officials in, in the, at least the Gulf states, that If Israel doesn't figure out a way to deal with Hamas, eradicate Hamas, wipe out Hamas, they will view Israel as weaker than they thought before October 7th.
And that also has its downsides. Of course, they want us to destroy Hamas completely. It's very important. And by, by the way, I see what the Saudis are writing. What the Egyptians and the Emiratis are writing. And it's a funny thing, you know, as the operation goes forward, I see in Western media more and more criticism.
But as the operation goes forward and Hamas is being destroyed, I see much more reproachment in the Arab world towards [00:51:00] Israel. And the reason is because Israel is showing that it's here to stay, that it's powerful, and of course it's showing these regimes. that it will tackle Hamas. So it's important to tackle it, but it's important not to allow them to win the public opinion and the region, in a sense.
So, this calls, you know, to really, the sort of the founding fathers of Israel, their abilities to, on the one hand, to be in a state of war with the Kingdom of Jordan for many years, and on the other hand, To have meetings in the same camp that I was in Tel Aviv, the Kiryat of the defense ministry with King Hussein, who would come disguised to Tel Aviv to meet, you know, Israeli prime ministers.
This is what is needed now of the Israelis. My family used to live in Iran before the revolution, part of the Israelis that lived there and worked in Iran. And my grandfather used to say something that his [00:52:00] Iranian friends would tell him, and he had great Iranian friends, by the way, most of them immigrated to the U.
S. after the revolution. And they said, you know, in this region, there are three things, what you say, what you think, and what you do. And make sure that these three never are the same. And this is the kind of thinking that is very much not So the American, European, and to some extent, not Israeli, but this is what we really need to do now, as in so far of Gaza and the region.
Last question for you, Nadav. Hamas has developed a sophisticated operating system for Gaza, pre October 7th. kind of business system, as you said, the finance system, the collecting of taxes, yet not being responsible for government services, as though, as you said, working with every government agency, international government agency that's in Gaza, working with different Arab [00:53:00] governments that are doing business with Gaza, with Hamas, dealing with journalists.
And I mean, it had a very sophisticated, very professional operation, and yet it's Attack of October 7th seems to be deliberately, by design, one of the most horrific and barbaric attacks, not just for Hamas, but that we have seen It In the world, in history. I mean, I don't need to tell you that the New York Times chronicled it all in a two month investigative piece that ran recently, um, how Hamas used very systematically sexual assault as a tool of war, in not just a one off way, but in a very I hate to say this in a very scalable way, meaning huge numbers of people were involved in implementing that.
Now, on the one hand, it's just incrementally worse than what they used to do, and what they used to do was really bad. And yet, on the other hand, it was a whole other level, and they had to have known [00:54:00] it was going to shock the world. So how do they Reconcile, we want to be viewed as a professional, quasi governing institution and not just a crazy, radicalized, insane terrorist organization with what they did on October 7th.
That's a wonderful question and the answer is that Yigal Sinwar decided, consciously, to let go of the idea of a quasi state or a state. He decided, and the leadership of Hamas in Gaza decided that they wanted to assume the banner of Jihad. Jihad at all costs. And they fooled the Israelis. And there is an interesting interview that one of the Hamas officials, I don't remember if it was, uh, Osama Hamdan or someone else gave and he said a few days after the October 7 attack we fooled them to think That all we [00:55:00] want to do now is to improve the life of Palestinians and to talk about Palestinian workers They decided to desert the idea of having a better life, of actually sort of conforming to the civilization idea of the good life that everything is based about in our culture, at least in the West, Western.
Well, they're not only in the Western world trying to achieve, you know, a better life to the citizens living in your society. And they turned to a messianic vision of the Strip. But it was also rational to the extent that they saw that the Palestinian issue is being neglected. Saudi Arabia is the most important, at least religiously speaking, the most important Arab nation is going to sign an agreement in Israel within months.
Nobody's talking about the Palestinian issue anymore. And [00:56:00] they're not good at what they do. Paul said that the people hate them. And why should they assume this responsibility? And a lot has to do with the personality of Yehoshua Sinua, who is, Israelis suspect, or Israeli security services suspect, a real psychopath, the butcher of Han Younis.
That's his nickname. Khan Younes is the place he came from. And the butcher of Khan Younes is because he was arrested by the Israelis, not for killing Israelis. He was arrested and he's set in jail for murdering Palestinians. So, this combination, there are no real one reason answers for anything in this region.
Or in history and politics, but I just gave a few ideas about why, why they did that. And they understood full well what would be the result. They just expected the floods, they call it the flood of Al Aqsa. They expected this flood to be somehow much more [00:57:00] inclusive with Hezbollah and other groups. And to lead to a real strategic change in the region.
I just sat today with a top official here in Israel, and he told me, I think it's going to create this change that they're talking about, Hamas, but it's going to be the other way around. It's going to be in our favor and we're working on it right now because they will see the price that they're going to pay and this will echo in the region.
They will have their claim of fame for the October 7th horrific attacks against us. They'll be able to talk about this within the fundamentalist genre for many years, for 50 years, but the region will see what we will do. to Hamas for a hundred years from now. And it will be a lesson that will change the region.
And this is something of course that we'll see. I hope they're right. I believe it's essential for Israel, Israel's strength, Israel's continued [00:58:00] growth, flourishing, Israel's continued normalization within the region, but a lot of work ahead, needless to say. Nadav, thank you for doing this. I hope to have you back.
I've learned a ton from you before this and then was learning a ton in real time in this conversation. So I do really appreciate you being here. Thank you so much, Dan. Pleasure being with you.
That's our show for today. To keep up with Nadav Al, you can find him on X at Nadav al. That's at Nadav al EYAL. You can find his work at ynet or@ynet.com. You can also find his books wherever you purchase books. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.