Can a Sunni-Israeli alliance win the war? - with Nadav Eyal
Al Jazeera is constantly blasting a steady stream of stories and images to the Arab world about 'tens of thousands of Palestinians dead,' according to the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health. Condemnations against Israel are issued all over the place, with charges of Israeli genocide leveled on U.S. college campuses to the International Court of Justice. And, yet, those Sunni Arab countries that have already integrated with Israel have not reversed course, and those countries not yet integrated (i.e. Saudi Arabia), seem to be pushing ahead.
The Sunni Gulf seems to have ambitions that necessitate continued and deeper cooperation with Israel. The question, though, is what do we make of the Saudi requirement for some kind of Palestinian state, however defined? What would it take for Israel to meet that requirement (or check the box) for the Saudis? And how far will the Sunni Gulf go in working with Israel to pacify Gaza?
Our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for 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.
Essay discussed in this episode: “Israel is still winning the political war. From the West to Saudi Arabia, its days of isolation are over," by Dr. Edward Luttwak in UnHerd.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] It's a time of reckoning for Israel. There's a new doctrine being born. So here's the vision. If this war ends, with Hamas not in power in the Gaza Strip, our kidnapped Israelis back home, having normalization with Saudi Arabia, and having a path for Palestinian statehood, and that Palestinian state would be demilitarized.
And having international assurance to that, I think we won the war. And I don't think we only won this war. We have won the conflict. It
is 11 p. m. on Thursday, January 25th in New York City. It is 6 a. m. on Friday, January 26th in Israel, as Israelis get ready to start their day. Not one of the Arab [00:01:00] countries with whom Israel has diplomatic relations has interrupted them in any way. Even more important are the statements of Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, who has made it clear that normalizing ties with Israel will not long be delayed once the fighting ends.
That is a quote from a longer analysis by Dr. Edward Luttwak. who is a longtime military strategist in the U. S. and a military historian. I've known him for some time. We quoted Edward in our first book, Startup Nation. This quote is part of a longer essay in the British journal called UnHerd, which I highly recommend.
I will link to it in the show notes. Edward's piece is titled, Israel is still winning the political war from the West to Saudi Arabia. Its days of isolation are over. Now, it's quite a contrarian take, but one I increasingly agree with. If you look at the history [00:02:00] of Israel's wars, Israel, in just about every decade during its major regional wars, was completely isolated.
Today, at a time that Al Jazeera is constantly blasting images and stories to the broader Arab world about tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, According to the Hamas run Ministry of Health, condemnations against Israel issued all over the place, with charges of Israeli genocide leveled everywhere, from U.
S. college campuses to the International Court of Justice. And yet, the Sunni Arab world, that has already integrated with Israel, like the Bahrainis and the Emiratis, have actually not gone in reverse. And those countries with whom Israel has longstanding diplomatic relations, like Jordan and Egypt, relations are tense, but the peace agreements are still intact.
And those countries not yet integrated, Saudi Arabia, I'm looking at you, Seemed to be pushing ahead. [00:03:00] Ludwak goes on, and I'm quoting here from his piece, The purpose of that deliberately horrific attack, he's referring to October 7th, was precisely to stop any alliance between the Saudis and Israelis. That was certainly the goal of Iran, he writes, which has every reason to dread the fusion of Israel's technology with Saudi Arabia's financial resources.
Tehran. rightly fears this would entail some form of military cooperation, which in turn might bring Israeli air power within a short distance of its Iranian targets. Lutwak goes on to lay out why Saudi Arabia needs Israel if Saudi Arabia wants to further modernize its economy heading into 2030. And the need for Israel has not changed because of October 7th.
So, the Sunni Gulf has much larger ambitions that necessitate cooperation with Israel, but the question is, [00:04:00] what do we make of the Saudi requirement to make real progress on some kind of Palestinian state as part of that process, however abstractly that is defined? What would it take for Israel to check that box?
for the Saudis? And how far will the Sunni world go in working with Israel to pacify Gaza? These are some of the questions I had today for Nadav Ayel, who returns to the podcast. Nadav is a columnist for Yediot, one of Israel's largest news platforms. He is one of Israel's leading journalists and a winner of the Sokolov Prize.
which is Israel's most prestigious journalism award. Ayel has been covering Middle Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli print, radio, 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.
I also wanted to check in with Ayel on what is actually happening [00:05:00] with regard to Israel's transition to this new phase in the war. especially as news settled in of the highest casualty day for the IDF since Israel went back into Gaza in response to October 7th. Nadav Eyal on whether a Sunni Israeli alliance can win the war.
This is Call Me Back.
And I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast from Tel Aviv, my friend Nadav Eyal. Nadav, thanks for being here. I'm happy to be with you again, Dan. Last time we were with you, you were en route back from the Hague to the much more calm and civilized Israel. Israel at war. There's been a lot of talk, Nadav, about a U.
S. proposal to end the war. Some of it's based on leaks, some of it's based on [00:06:00] normalization with Saudi Arabia. As well as other Arab nations being involved in exchange for a and I choose my words carefully for a quote unquote path To a two state solution with the Palestinians and we'll come back to what path means versus an actual concrete two state solution, but essentially a an Israeli Sunni alliance against Iran and the Shia Muslim world would be formalized.
It's been partially formalized through Israel's Abraham Accords with some of the Sunni Gulf, but obviously having Saudi Arabia's involvement would make it, you know, largest country, most powerful country in the Arab world. It would, I think, take this, the concreteness of this, to a whole other level. We obviously lack details based on these possible agreements and negotiations.
But we are learning more and more about a long term approach that's worth discussing. But before we do that, I just want to start with a quick update on the war effort. The IDF has completed the transition to phase three, [00:07:00] in which it now has a smaller footprint in Gaza and includes focused raids and attacks currently on Khan Yunis.
That sounds to be moving along with some success. So. Before we get into the normalization, potential normalization with Saudi Arabia, what is your understanding of the state of the war effort as Israel is now in this transition to phase three? So Israel has not completely transitioned to, to phase three.
Phase three is about the IDF taking other positions in the Gaza Strip and moving from a highly intense combat mode to raids, attacks from the air. And trying to drain the swamp, if you want to use that expression, and that's very different than occupying and taking territory and gaining effective control at that territory.
And the reason I'm saying that Israel has not really morphed into phase three, although the U. [00:08:00] S. and the administration wants to say it did, is because across The Gaza Strip, it is at a phase three mode, but in Hanounis, which is the only place in which it is on the attack, it's on phase two. So it's really in Hanounis.
Taking territory. It has encircled Hanunis. Hanunis is the place that Yigal Sinuar came from. We talked about that. He was nicknamed the Butcher of Hanunis. It was rumored that he is hiding in the underneath city of tunnels underneath Hanunis. And at the first part of the week, Israel has completed encircling Hanunis and now it's taking effective control of a huge and important hub of the Palestinian population and maybe the most important fortress of the Hamas regime.
In the Gaza Strip. After it finishes with Hanunis, and this is something that will take [00:09:00] some time, you'll be left only with the regiments of Hamas in Ravbakh. So it's trying, it's striving to destroy all the organization, the military organization of Hamas, reducing their military organization to very small units.
So Hamas has changed from a paramilitary Uh, of a quasi state into a sort of a guerrilla organization operating across the Gaza Strip, including in the north, where Israel is in full control, or in the center of Gaza. In northern Gaza. When you say the north, you mean in northern Gaza, right? Northern Gaza, yeah.
And, and, but, but in Rafah, it still exists as a sort of an army and it is there that the IDF soldiers are fighting. They are, by the way, fighting above the ground. They are fighting underneath the ground. We know this because the IDF is basically saying this on the record that it's been killing terrorists, you know, 20, 30 meters [00:10:00] underground fighting.
And it has this week published those terrible. Dreadful pictures and videos showing those tunnels underneath Hanounis with rooms within these tunnels with cages In them and we know for sure the hostages that Israeli kidnapped were held there Yeah, the IEF soldiers found there for instance paintings of one of the girls, the Israeli girls, that was released in the previous Her drawings.
Her drawings, yeah. They found her drawings in one of these rooms underneath Hanunah's. So, these kidnapped Israelis, 136 of those, have been probably moved to other locations. And the IDF is trying to, I don't want to say clear, because clearing the territory, militarily speaking, is completely different than taking effective control.
And it's trying to take effective control of, of Han Yunis. [00:11:00] This week has been very painful for the Israeli public. You asked me about the state of the war. We had an event in which in 24 hours, The IDF lost 21 soldiers, all of them reserve soldiers, people who have family, children, most of them. And these came from all across Israel, and that was when they were trying to detonate a series of buildings just 600 meters from the border in Israel.
An anti tank missile was shot at one of these tanks. And somehow during that skirmish, the detonations in the houses were activated. And that's how 19 soldiers died there and, and more died in attack. Another two died in attack. So, um, uh, yeah, it's been, uh, for Israelis, it's been a very difficult week. This was, of course, celebrated by Hamas.
Was it 21 soldiers or 24 soldiers? I'm seeing reports of 24. Yeah, it's because there were three other [00:12:00] officers. That died before that in Hanunis. And this was the single deadliest day in the war for Israel since October 7th. Yeah. I'm struck by this in conversations I've had with Israelis since this horrendous day of casualties.
The sentiment I'm hearing, and it's anecdotal, there's not a question among any of them about whether or not this is a sign that Israel needs to pull back. If anything, it's strengthening resolve. Yeah, I don't see any signs of, uh, Israelis saying, You know what? No, we need to just stop the war, pull back the, the IDF to the international border, count our losses.
You know, you might hear that some, in some specific places in Israeli press sometimes, of course, radical left wing would say that, but basically no, it's, it's not there. I don't even think the radical left is saying it. Well, you know, believe me, but, but then you ask them, and then what happens? Then what happens?
Because there are [00:13:00] people living. On the southern side of Israel, and I think that people back home sometimes in the U. S. don't understand that you need to give answers to those communities that have suffered ethnic cleansing and mass murder and You know a kibbutz like Near Oz 50 percent of the people living there were hurt or kidnapped or killed You need to answer them.
How can you Come back and live in these areas. And if the answer is the way that you can do that is by Just understanding that you're gonna live near this monster. It's called Hamas and Yerushalayim. Now, well, that's not a reasonable answer is it for Israelis or for anyone else? I just saw that that we spoke before recording about the Harvard Harris Capps poll.
Yeah, and I saw them. I think 80 percent of Americans think that Hamas should be overthrown in the Gaza Strip. That's 80 percent of Americans. [00:14:00] And it's not even, you know, an American disaster. So in Israel, you'd get a higher number than that. Yeah. Okay. I want to talk to you about this new vision that's being softly proposed for ending the war at some point, that the U.
S. seems to be advocating for, in some way, it's not clear exactly how forward leaning they are. But can you, let's just call it the U. S. vision. Again, I'm not sure it has the total buy in from across various corners of the U. S. administration, but let's, for argument's sake, say it represents the U. S. vision.
Can you just lay out in broad terms what this proposal is? So there's a big plan and there's a small plan. And here we go. The small plan is, let's get a ceasefire first. It's going to be temporary and get a prisoner for kidnapped swap deal of sorts During that ceasefire which will take a month, two months, [00:15:00] three months, four months.
And this is just all about for Israel getting the hostages back. It's about Israel getting the hostages back, but it's even more complex than that because If we do have that ceasefire, the Hezbollah will stop shooting in the north. It did that last time, you might remember that. So Hezbollah is not going to shoot at the northern side of Israel for months, because it's going to take months.
And who knows, maybe the Houthis are going to also stop their attacks at the Red Sea. It's also very important to the U. S., because as you know, Dan, this thing with the Houthis is not going well. And it would probably warrant more usage of force by the coalition, because it's not working. And when you say it's not going well, it's not going well from whose perspective?
It's not going well for the Western coalition, for the U. S. And why not? Because we have just seen today, two major ships of a major company trying to cross, being escorted by [00:16:00] American forces and they were shot at and these ships were ordered by that shipping line to just head back and they decided not to use the Swiss Canal anymore.
So the U. S. is not achieving its stated goals until now just deterring the Houthis. from basically attacking shipping in this area. Anyway, if you get some sort of a ceasefire and the hostages back. Can I, I'm sorry, I just want to stay on this for one more moment. Someone in the Israeli system. Said to me recently the israeli security system sin war and muhammad def understand that at the end of the day the only true line of defense they have to protect them and the people in the Leadership ranks are these hostages and once they give up?
the hostages, they really have nothing left. I guess my question is, A, do you share their assessment? And B, if that's the case, why on earth would they give up every last hostage? That's [00:17:00] a very negotiation strategy type of question. But to answer you, the quick short answer is that Israel doesn't believe that they're going to let go of all the hostages, no matter what.
But they do have a sort of surplus of hostages there. And let me explain what I mean. They got a thousand prisoners for one soldier, Gilad Shalit. And one of those prisoners released was, of course, Yehia Sinwar himself. So now they have 136. With this count, we don't know how many are alive. And that's an important point.
But even if there are left with only 30, then they're gonna get thousands of Palestinian terrorist prisoners in Israeli jails for just 30. So they can use these numbers excessively. And one of the things that we do know is that Sinwa planning this attack on [00:18:00] Israel, he didn't think it's going to be that successful and that they're going to have so many Israeli hostages.
And one of the reasons that he decided on the pause last time was because he had their children and women. It was a burden internationally speaking. It looked bad for Hamas. Hamas has not let go of the idea that it might be a player still somehow accepted, if not by the West. So by Asian countries by African countries and others and one of the reasons I say that is that the course of this week It has published an 18 page Description of why it did what what it did and it also translated it to English so people can find it online And can see what's what Hamas is saying about the October 7 attack.
How is it describing? The murder of women and children. What does it say in that sense? So, what Hamas wanted to do was sort [00:19:00] of decrease the pressure last time we deposed and they have so many Israeli hostages unfortunately, because of the Israeli because of the IDF failure, because of the political failure of October 7th.
So, to your question No, the assessment within the Israeli defense establishment is that Hamas is not going to let go of all of its hostages, but it can let go of a substantial number of those, and that Israel should do whatever it can. And there is a growing understanding that releasing them through a military operation, the type of the 1970s Antebe operation, in which the IDF flew thousands of kilometers and managed to free Israelis in a, really, a daring attack operation in Uganda, that this kind of thing cannot happen underground because of the structure of the tunnels and the way that they are built.
So militarily, it's almost impossible, but you can assume that. [00:20:00] The IDF is also trying to, to ask itself, how can you do that too? And it managed to free one Israeli soldier, Orima Giddish, at the beginning of the war from Hamas, but she was not held underground. So Hamas can let go of at least some of the hostages.
So I was presenting the small scale, just limited de escalating plan. Let's get a ceasefire. Let's get as many hostages as we can out. And this can lead us to a path of de escalation and a regional agreement of sorts. And there comes in Saudi Arabia. And the Palestinian statehood and all of these issues and they're what the Arab countries.
This is not an American initiative per se, still, but in an Arab initiative, what they're saying is let's use as leverage normalization with Saudi Arabia in order to get the IDF and Israel out of [00:21:00] Gaza. Let's structure and model the self rule in Gaza on the day after, and let's lay a path to Palestinian statehood.
And this time, this path should be viable. So no bullshit this time. That's what they're actually saying. You know, no big speeches, no, you know, President Bush roadmap that Ariel Sharon made sure will never be, you know, the first phase is. Stopping incitement. And the second phase is inspecting the stop of the incitement.
I was covering this. I was traveling with Ariel Sharon on his airplane, you know, to Washington, and during that year of negotiations with the Bush administration, and I was struck how, you know, I was wondering, because I understood from my conversation with Sharon, that there is no way You know, that this person is going to allow Yasser Arafat or anyone else, Abu Mazen, to have a Palestinian state.
And I was just asking myself, did Condoleezza Rice or did President Bush understand that [00:22:00] too? And were they playing along with him? I don't think so. I don't think that they understood to what extent Sharon was It's very much resolved that nothing of the like is going to happen. There were so many quotes that I published at the time of what Sharon thought about, generally about the Palestinian liberation movement and the Palestinian aspirations for statehood.
It wasn't a positive, it was quite extreme about these issues. So this time, no, say the Saudis. and the Egyptians and also the Americans. This time we want to have a path that will be viable, that Palestinians would truly have said to themselves, you know, something has changed in the region. And this is different than, than it was.
prior to the war. I should remind people listening to us that before the war, if you would have taken a look at the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, or Israeli newspapers, you know, June, July, August, September, the main [00:23:00] story is that Saudi Arabia and Israel are on the verge of history, of making history.
And that's a deal that has a lot to do with what the Saudis want. In terms of their defense from the United States, for instance, civilian nuclear power, and of course F 35s, and different stuff that they're not going to get. And a formal, and a formal defense pact with the United States. Yeah, it's sort of, it's not exactly, you know, it's a, it's not a classic defense pact, but it is a defense pact, you're absolutely right.
Right. And, Basically, you know, why did they want to normalize with Israel? The answer is that they didn't really want to do that, but they understood what the Emirates and the Bahrainis and the Egyptians understood before that, that normalizing with Israel is essential to get some sort of legitimacy in Washington and specifically at the Hill in Congress.
The places that count when you need these. issues approved and you [00:24:00] need legislation passed. And then Hamas made its decision to strike on October 7th. And I think it is heavily related to the possibility, and we talked about that, is that the region will see a tremendous stride forward to peace with normalization between the most important, at least symbolically, Arab country, Saudi Arabia, that holds the two most holiest sites for Islam and Israel, Israel having a land bridge.
You can travel from, from, from Asia all the way. To Europe through Israel that could have changed the region and after October 7th attack And this is something that Hamas managed to do one We need to acknowledge that it became clear that you cannot shove aside the Palestinian issue anymore to an extent This was the aim of that operation at least the on the record clear [00:25:00] goal that was presented by Hamas is that you cannot sideline completely the Palestinian issue and again, Arab states now making this suggestion and also the White House is Accepting that you need to tackle this In order to have some sort of normalization process in the region, and that's the big plan.
Now, what does the White House do about that? First of all, they're checking if Netanyahu is ready. And this was published this week about the conversation between Biden and Netanyahu. Then there was, of course, a discussion of what exactly was said in that conversation. Everything that relates to the Prime Minister's office in Israel is always Very much publicized and very much complex and his relations with Democrat presidents is always problematic and it is today with President Biden and Biden was talking on the record of having several types of statehood.
So Israel is talking about a demilitarized state or talked at the [00:26:00] past a demilitarized state and then Netanyahu issued what you call non denial denial. He said, Palestinian sovereignty would mean that we don't have an overreaching security responsibility for the West Bank and Gaza. I will not accept that or something of the sort, but he didn't say, no, there will not be any Palestinian state ever at any form whatsoever.
So this he did not say, and this sort of left a tiny window, and I'm saying it's a tiny window because Netanyahu basically cannot agree, politically speaking, to any concession, even just rhetorical, because if he'll do that, the far right, the extreme right within the Israeli coalition government will overthrow him.
And I'm talking about, uh, the Kahanist, uh, Benfil, I'm talking about Smotrich, and they're not willing to accept that. But basically, as to the grand [00:27:00] plan, the grand plan is ceasefire, exchange of prisoners, and, uh, release of Israeli kidnapped, then having Some sort of a path laid to palestinian statehood in the meantime having normalization with saudi arabia having saudi arabia get its defense pact with the united states And civilian nuclear power and others and then you have a new middle east.
I know that the saudis Who are almost the most important part of this kind of grand deal because they're the cherry for the israelis, right? They're the bargain for the israelis. No israelis don't want to have right now after october 7th At Palestinian Stadium, they have no desire to give Palestinians more powers and more serenity, but they do have a desire still there to have some sort of legitimacy in the region.
And I wrote this week that if this war ends with Hamas not in power in the Gaza Strip, are kidnapped Israelis back home having [00:28:00] normalization with Saudi Arabia and having a path for Palestinian statehood. And that Palestinian state would be demilitarized. and having international assurance to that, I think we won the war.
And I don't think we only won this war. If this is going to be the result of the October 7 attack, Israel has won the Israeli Arab conflict because it was granted, you know, legitimacy from all major players in the region. And it has managed to turn an attack on it. That tried to open the gates, you know, the flood of Al Aqsa, the gates of hell, a regional war who's turned upside down into legitimacy to the Israeli presence in the region by not only Saudi Arabia, because after Saudi Arabia, other countries will recognize Israel's right to exist.
So, that's the grand plan by the U. S. administration. I don't think that they're too hopeful about that, to say the least. Hold on, before we get [00:29:00] to that, one could argue that that was the path on which Saudi and Israel and the rest of the region were heading before October 7th. So you're saying the outcome of October 7th is still that plan, but it sounds like Israel probably could have had a version of that plan without the horrors of October 7th.
No, because Hamas would be still in control in the Gaza Strip. Ah. That's very meaningful. So if you get the same thing, but Hamas is not there, and Hezbollah is deterred, and the entire Iranian proxies around the region understand that there is a price to pay, and they didn't manage to derail it, Through their campaign, this time their campaign of an attempted genocide.
That's a big win. And that's the difference Okay. Now you were saying before I cut you off. You said let's not be too hopeful Yeah, i'm saying that the american administration is uh, you know The biden administration is not too hopeful about the grand plan. And the reason is netanyahu basically netanyahu Politically speaking is [00:30:00] weak today.
He's disliked by israelis He's even disliked within the right wing. Most people say he should go, and by saying most, it's like 70 percent of Israelis. The only conversation is, should he go now? That's about a third of the Israelis. Or should he go right after the war sort of pauses or stops? And that's one of the reasons he's being accused by many Israelis that he wants a prolonged war, because if the war stops Then he needs to issue some sort of a decision about his fate.
I don't know if that's true Yeah I'm very skeptical of that partly because those advocating for a long war are not people who necessarily have his political interest in mind People like Gallant and and Benny Gantz are also advocating for a long war and the last thing they want to do is protect Netanyahu's political position.
Yeah, I would say this way, you know The people running the war are not Netanyahu's office, you know, in Israel, the commander in chief is not the prime minister. And this is something that people [00:31:00] don't understand that the actual commander in chief in the Israeli war is the defense minister, Gallant. And the relations between him and Netanyahu is that they don't talk anymore, unless it's You know, if they need to talk on very specific issues, and the IDF is actually running the war, and what the IDF wants is to win, and as soon as possible.
Well, win as soon as possible, but recognizing, I mean, my understanding is the IDF is obviously as soon as possible, every army would like to win a war as soon as possible, but recognizing that it may take a long time. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, the IDF is taking, is saying, you know, this can take another six months, or another nine months.
Some people say another three years, but they're not gonna take a phone call from the prime minister's office. It's not how Israel works. They're saying, maybe don't take this town because we want to have this war slowed down or something like that. It doesn't work in Israel this way. And if they do that, it'd be, you know, immediately leaked to the press because in this country, everybody speaks with everyone.
And, you know, nobody is [00:32:00] going to accept this as a legal operational command from the prime minister because he's not the commander in chief, right? So the people ordering the IDF And then you have Eisencoder, who's a former chief of staff, and Gantz, who's a former chief of staff, and Gallant, who's the defense minister and a former general, and again, you can't bullshit them.
So, I think that basically Netanyahu can't do this. He can't go for the grand plan. And some would argue he can't even go for the small scale plan because the far right within the government coalition is continuously threatening him. And his only support today comes from that far right within the Israeli society and public.
And because of this, Netanyahu is in a bit of a fix here. If he doesn't agree, With the vision of the Americans, he might find himself missing a historic opportunity for normalization [00:33:00] with Saudi Arabia and for ending the war and having someone control the Gaza Strip in the day after and having someone rebuild the Gaza Strip because these Arab countries are saying, you know, hell no, we're not going to rebuild Gaza to have some sort of instability and to have the Israelis bomb it in a couple of years again, right?
So we want to understand that this is going to be stable for years. We're going to build something that will last. So missing this opportunity is politically very dangerous for him. He has Ghanlan there, he has Ganser, he has Aizencourt there. They will know. That he decided to say, Oh, no, I'm going to pass on a historic peace deal, which will also solve the Gaza war.
That's a problem. If you think about how Netanyahu's most powerful attributes or political assets through his Many elections over his long political career if I had to boil them down to two themes one was he was mr Security you could agree with him. You could disagree with him, but he kept a handle on things [00:34:00] from a security standpoint, which was obviously Challenged by October 7th.
And the other one was you know to quote Literally the English translation of one of his campaign slogans on another level that he plays on another level meaning. He's mr. Geopolitics he's plays on this global level He wheels and deals with leaders from around the world in a way that no as he would put it parochial Israeli politician no other politician in that was that was a league of his own if you want the translation Oh, sorry, and that league of his own was of course him picturing himself in The Likud advertisements with President Trump and with Putin, right?
Right. Yeah There's still those big signs hung up in Jerusalem of him and Putin and him and Trump But his message was I'm the one who could deliver the Abraham Accords. Yeah I'm the one who's gonna lead normalization with the Arab world and I'm the one who will do it with Saudi Arabia if that is one of his political assets one could argue if he wanted to make the biggest political gamble is [00:35:00] endure the risk from the Right flank of his government and go for gold and be the guy who still is the one who can architect Normalization with Saudi Arabia.
I agree I think that Netanyahu can do that and still in a way save some of his legacy That is today to be frank, really, you know This is a man who said again and again that he knows the risks and he knows to identify the threats to Israel. This is his claim to fame. He presented himself as a modern day Churchill that understands that Iran is the worst fear to the world, as did Churchill understand this about Germany.
And of course, more than a decade of him being in power resulted in the worst day that Jews had since the Holocaust. And not only that, but every system underneath him as prime minister basically failed on that day, or on the days [00:36:00] before that, prior to October 7th. So for him to, to say, yeah, I'm going to agree to a demilitarized Palestinian state, and that's the price to pay Dan, it's not going for normalization.
Everybody wants to go for normalization, right? I'm going to agree for a demilitarized Palestinian state. It's going to be gradual. I trust the U. S. with security guarantees. We're going to have a grand bargain here for the region, and this war is going to end with an amazing Israeli moderate Arab victory to the West.
I think that would be excellent as an Israeli, and I think it would be the best kind of scenario for him, and then he can sort of step out of the stage of history. I don't want to say triumphant, because he's not going to win this after October 7th. But at least people would say, yeah, he understood what he needed to do.
Now, after this fantasy, let's, let's [00:37:00] return to real life. In real life, at least for now, Netanyahu first thinks that the American administration now, in an election year, cannot supply the goods. It would be very problematic for President Biden to grant Israel all it needs to start walking at this path. I should remind you the type of things that were discussed with the Obama administration, with the Bush administration, if there's going to be a Palestinian state.
Secondly, the Israeli public, it's not about only his politics. Israelis don't want to see commitments to a Palestinian state after they have surrendered the Gaza Strip. Dismantled army bases there evacuated forcefully the settlers living there only to be almost momentarily after attacked with rockets basically Tortured for years by the Islamic Jihad and by Hamas, and finally attacked on October 7th.
So, he has a PR problem with that, [00:38:00] with his own public, with his own voters. And thirdly again, the Prime Minister himself is sort of signaling the sentiment that he's here to stay. He doesn't understand that his political career is over. And if he doesn't understand that That's not going to be a golden hour for him because he doesn't want to take the risk.
He just wants to be in power. And for a right winger to be in power, you need to resist the Palestinian state. So, um, it's a difficult one. You know, Israeli politics is just full of surprises. So you have Menachem Begin surrendering the Sinai desert, and you have Ariel Sharon going for the disengagement from the Gaza Strip.
And, and, and usually the tendency with Israeli politics is for right wing leaders Turning to the center left and going for peace. That's the basic tendency. And here, he doesn't really have Well, at least that's when it's been successful. When left of center politicians have tried, it typically fails. Your point is, it's Begin and Sharon.
We can debate whether or [00:39:00] not Gaza was ultimately Disengagement from Gaza was a success. But for years and years and years, we had labor politicians toiling in the vineyards of two state solution and peace process, and it never ended up anywhere, and it was actually No, they did bring the Oslo Accords, right?
Robin brought the Oslo Accords. Yeah, but they were never, but never fully implemented. Exactly. Yeah, I'm not saying, I'm not talking about successes at all. I'm just talking about sort of the inner movement of Israeli politics. And it's a classic for, you know, a center right or rightist leader to move to the center.
But Netanyahu's different. So Netanyahu could have made that decision years ago, and he would have become instantly supported by 80 percent of the Israeli public. This is the amazing thing about Netanyahu. Netanyahu could have been the most popular leader that Israel has had. He is the prime minister that has ruled Israel more than any other prime minister, including David Ben Gurion, of course.
But he's definitely not the most popular one. He's not trusted by [00:40:00] at least half of the public. He's considered extremely, for Israelis, center left, he's considered political poison. And, and because of that, it's, it's very strange that he never took that route. And what he says himself in sort of close conversations is that it was a principled approach that made him reject the idea of Palestinian statehood, and that he would never agree to that.
Of course, in the Barry Lund speech at the time, during Obama, he did say that he supports some sort of a Palestinian state. Yes, he did deliver the Bar Ilan speech, but Netanyahu was also But he never meant it. He never meant it. That's the most important thing. Right, it was tactical. It was a tactical, it was a tactical compromise to buy time.
Yeah, but this is always the game with Israelis about Palestinian statehood. So, for Netanyahu to let go of these ideas now, after October 7th, seems implausible, [00:41:00] but it can still happen. At any rate, he is the major roadblock when you think about that grand plan. I would just say one, I do believe, I know many observers are cynical about Netanyahu and his motivations, but I do think on Palestinian statehood, you can disagree with his analysis, but I think his position is genuine.
He does not believe the creation of a Palestinian state, at least in the construct of anything that has been presented and all the Decades of peace processing would actually produce peace for Israel. I think he genuinely believes that and the much better way to sequence things is to start with trying to normalize with the Arab world and then deal with the Palestinian issue after you normalize with the Arab world or at least do the two in parallel.
But the idea of dealing with the Palestinian issue as a standalone issue before you resolve broader issues. He's just always believed it was a fool's errand and would put Israel at risk. So I think it's not, you know, again, one could disagree with it, [00:42:00] but it's not, I think his motivations are sincere.
It's not just about political posturing, but let me ask you about the Palestinian side because in order for a Palestinian state to work, it takes two to tango and one of those two is the Palestinian leadership. So let's take Yes, in war and Mohammed Dave and the other rest of the leadership of Hamas off the table.
They're saying already that if they had the opportunity, there would be another October 7th. There'll be more October 7th to follow. So let's just say their message is not at all in the spirit of we're looking for an accommodation that would produce a two state solution. There's the Palestinian leadership outside of Gaza.
Khaled Mashal just gave this interview. Last week in Turkey, television interview where he was asked about a possibility of a two state solution. There's all this talk about the two state solution. He completely shot it down. There will be no two state solution. There's a one state solution, which is we, the Palestinians in charge of all of Israel.
In fact, he said not only from the river to the sea, but he broadened it. from not just the river, the sea, but from [00:43:00] Rosh HaNikra all the way down to a lot. So he just wants to make sure if there's any confusion or ambiguity, the Hamas vision is to cover every single inch from, from east to west and from north to south.
So that was his reaction. In the West Bank, you have Abu Mazen, you have the Palestinian Authority leadership, which at best is ineffective and corrupt, and at worst, not changing its policies at all. Post October 7th to try to bring the temperature down, but has not condemned. Hamas for what happened on October 7th refused to still from my understanding is maintaining its pay for slay policies of rewarding terrorists or families of terrorists for their attacks on Jews and the toxic content in Palestinian schools and in the Palestinian press I mean it is it is still full steam ahead on a demonization of Israel which was always an impediment not the only impediment But it was always an impediment to [00:44:00] implementation of Any kind of real concrete two state solution.
This is what people like Dennis Ross and others who were working on the diplomatic track for the U. S. have complained about. That there was just so limited, the actions by the Palestinian leadership were always so limited as to make actual normalization so difficult. And we still have the same problem today.
So, people now are talking about Salam Fayyad possibly coming back, I like Salam Fayyad, I know him, he's a wonderful guy, he's an enormously talented, technocratic guy, it's not clear to me he has any political purchase among the Palestinian public and the Palestinian ecosystem, I think he's working at some university right now, outside of the region, so I'm like looking around and I'm thinking, it's fine for everyone to have these grand plans about a Palestinian state, who exactly is running this Palestinian state?
That's an excellent question, and nobody has a good answer to. The Saudis are the ones that wanted Salam Fayyad to begin with. Because the Saudis understood that Salam Fayyad is [00:45:00] a major sin, is that he's not corrupt, as most of the people now running the Palestinian Authority, or at least the people around them.
And because of that, it's a major question. Not only because who's going to run it, but who's going to agree to the agreement? Everybody's talking about an agreement for a Palestinian state. Well, you need to negotiate with Palestinians and you need to have a Palestinian leader that would be able to sign an agreement.
And that's the reason why Saudi Arabia and Egypt and the U. S. are not talking about the actual formation or establishment of a Palestinian state of sorts immediately, but a path to. And the reason they're talking about a path is because they know that there's the issues of Refugees and the issue of Jerusalem and all the different issues that prevented the Palestinians and Israel to achieve an agreement in the past, including in the Kim David summit with Bill Clinton, Prime Minister [00:46:00] Barack and Yasser Arafat and Many of these issues have not changed.
The Palestinians, the Fatah, has not signaled that they are really, I'm not talking about Hamas, as you said, Dan, you know, Hamas is not ready to recognize Israel anyway, Israel's right to exist anyway. But Fatah has recognized Israel's right to exist, and they're not ready to let go of the right of return, they're not ready to let go of any part of Eastern Jerusalem, and they have a bunch of other demands.
So, nobody really thinks, to be frank, that in a year or two, you're gonna have a Palestinian state that is not sort of an interim or a middle ground, provisional state of sorts while you negotiate everything else. It's more of a Good Friday agreement, I'm talking about Northern Ireland, than it is a final status agreement.
That's the truth. That's what they're talking about. But even then, you need someone to [00:47:00] sign it. Who is this gonna be? You know, Abu Mazen is more than eight years old. He's not gonna be there for long, any way you look at it. And, and because of that, it's, it's a highly complex issue. And what's really happening is that Riyadh and Washington and Jerusalem are again speaking about the Palestinian issue without having a Palestinian partner or power broker of sorts that they can actually trust.
That's a huge issue. I'll give you just one thing that they agreed upon. One thing that the Saudis said, or the Arabs said, during their grand proposal. They said, let's agree, in relation to the Gaza Strip, that anyone involved with the planning or the execution of the October 7th attack is not going to be involved with ruling the Gaza Strip.
And this is the kind of agreement that we'll have as to the government or the, the [00:48:00] day after solution of the Gaza Strip. And, and the reason that they were using this kind of label is because they didn't want to say anyone that was in Hamas. Right? So instead of saying, no, Hamas is not going to run the show, they're saying anyone who was involved with planning or executing the massacre.
Of course, we don't know the names of everyone involved, but basically, you could say that everyone in Hamas was somehow, if not involved, was very supportive of this. And if you look at polls, uh, more than 70 percent of Palestinians, including in the West Bank, not in the Gaza Strip, are supportive of the October 7th attack.
This is, you know, there are so many, so many problems if you look at it. seriously for an agreement there. So I just wouldn't hold my breath to see this kind of grand plan, although I would want to see it. And the only way to go about it is really disregard [00:49:00] the Palestinian issue without saying it. For instance, saying, we have agreed that there's going to be a path to a Palestinian state.
We're going to have an international conference. process. And we're going to have a timeline that will be very specific. And we would want to see a Palestinian state in provisional borders by 2026. And Israel is going to do and is committed to do this and that. And it's going to be a demilitarized state.
And Israel is going to get security assurances from the United States. And there's going to be, uh, I don't know, a defense pact, maybe with Saudi Arabia, but also with Israel, something that was. discussed at the time. And then, basically, you're still postponing solving the actual problem. Final question, Adav.
Israel and Israelis cling to hope, historically, right? You remember Ben Gurion's famous line is to be a realist in the Middle East is to believe in miracles. The national anthem of Israel, Hatikvah, is the [00:50:00] hope. Israelis have tried peace processes. They have failed. They tried to bypass the Peace processing and bypass conflict by just kind of managing the conflict, which was basically the policy of the last 20 years or so, and October 7th that came crashing down in the most horrific attack against Israel in, at least since the Yom Kippur War, and you could argue even farther back than that.
So I guess my question is, Israelis now, they're both dealing with trauma. And. As I talk to more and more of them, they're also trying to figure out, where's the hope? What's the hope? What are they actually rooting for? Now, obviously things can change quickly. You can go through a very dark period, and then there can be, out of nowhere, a surprise positive outcome.
So if you think about the 1970s in Israel, 1972 was the Munich attack at the Olympics. Israeli athletes taken hostage, slaughtered, just [00:51:00] Unbelievable trauma for Israel. 1973 approximately a year later, the Yom Kippur war, Israel completely caught off guard, all the celebrated success of the Israel's success in the six day war is evaporated by Israel being completely caught off guard and humiliated, at least in the first couple of weeks of that war, 1974.
Wave of terrorist attacks, the most symbolically visible and important at the time, was Ma'alot, where Israeli schoolchildren are slaughtered, slaughtered by the PLO. 1975, the resolution passed in the United Nations equating Zionism with racism. So the founding impulse and philosophy and framework of the only Jewish state is declared racist.
by this international body. 1976, in Tebbe, which ultimately was a successful rescue, but a reminder that Jews can still be captured, taken hostage, separated from non Jews, and it had a Holocaustian [00:52:00] feel to it. Um, that Jews weren't safe to travel internationally in commercial travel. So one setback after another in the 1970s, and then 1977, Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt, the leader of the most important Arab country in the Middle East, gets on a plane, flies to Ben Gurion Airport, goes before Israel's parliament, and says, I recognize Israel's right to exist, I want to be on a path towards a peace agreement.
And then from that point through 1979, Israel reaches this historic peace agreement with the most important and powerful country in the Arab world, that includes Israel returning the Sinai, which was three times the size of Israel, and normalizing with Egypt in a peace agreement that while it's a quasi cold peace, it is still intact today with all its warts.
So you'd look at the trajectory from 1972 that I just laid out through 1977, if you'd have told Israelis when they were living through the horrors of, of 72, 73, 74, you know, military setbacks, diplomatic [00:53:00] setbacks, growing isolation. in the region, internationally, and then 77, you have Anwar Sadat saying, I want peace.
Give me a vision. Give me, give Israelis a vision for what they can hope for. That's a, almost like a version of what I just described of the 1970s. I know it's not a perfect comparison for a variety of reasons, but, um, tell me how you, how you think about that. Israel is being surrounded by, uh, these actors.
That their stated goal is to, to destroy it and in the way to cause as much harm, as many deaths as they can. I'm talking about Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, all supported by Iran. And the idea within the Israeli sphere was that you can manage the conflicts. You can manage the conflict. Even, you know, there was a philosophy of this.
There were books written. about the success of Israel managing the conflict and during that time building a successful tech economy and a very vibrant [00:54:00] democracy of sorts and What we discovered on October 7th is that there are things that you cannot manage because if you fail if you fail for seven Hours, you'll get the type of massacres that we have seen.
So here's the vision. It's a time of reckoning for Israel There is a new doctrine being born. You can't have these types of non state actors, genocidal, on your borders anymore. You need to act on the one side, but on the other side, if you'll be smart enough, using force, using diplomacy, then the region is ready to absorb Israel and to have Israel as a legitimate part.
No Arab country, and we are approaching more than 25, 000 Palestinians who have died during this tragedy in the Gaza Strip, as a result of the Hamas [00:55:00] attack and the Israeli operation, no Arab country has disconnected its relations with Israel, has announced that the peace agreements are void. And because of that, if you manage to both destroy Hamas and manage to secure your southern border and have only Hezbollah as your threat in the north.
Reduce the power of Iraq. Have some sort of normalization with Saudi Arabia. Then, from this terrible tragedy and dreadful failure of Israel, something else was born. And some of it is also the understanding that the Palestinian issue cannot be completely sidelined by the Israelis, that there is a responsibility.
I'm not talking about historical responsibility. I'm talking about the responsibility of the Israeli leadership to Israelis to find some kind of a viable, [00:56:00] sustainable solution for life with the Palestinians. Because if you don't, those extreme factors within the Palestinian society win. And if they win, Our lives here in Israel near Tel Aviv are under threat and understanding these things can be So important to building the type of country that we would want to see here in the Middle East and the type of a sustainable solution for the future.
And we're really, if you look at this from the side and you just hear the news about what the Saudis are discussing, what the Egyptians are discussing, what the Palestinians are saying, what the Israelis are saying, we can touch that vision. It's not that far away. It's much less far away than it was in the 1970s when people thought that if Sadat It's going to land in Jerusalem, you know, the chief of staff was saying maybe it's all a ploy and when the doors of the airplane open, there will be a bunch of Palestinian terrorists shooting [00:57:00] at Golda Meir and Menachem Begin standing there to greet him in the airport.
So just imagine the levels of suspicion there in the 1970s and today, just when we're recording, the Washington Post is publishing that the head of the Mossad is going to meet. The Qatari a Qatari high ranking official, I think the Qatari Prime Minister in a sort of a conference to dis discuss the hostages crisis.
This is where we are at today, that even after the Israeli Prime Minister is insulting Qatar and saying something like, maybe the US shouldn't have extended its agreement, its contract with having the military base of the US in Qatar still. Dedi Barnei, the head of the Mossad, is going to travel to Europe and together with other players from the region, Arab, is going to meet the Qatari Prime Minister.
So, I think we're almost there, but we need to clear out the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, and we need to do [00:58:00] that in a way that will also supply hope for Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip. It's not something too much discussed in the Israeli sphere because it's not politically popular right now, but you do need to have something built there that is not fundamentalist and Hamas like.
And if we do that, again, we have won. And we have not won, as I said prior to this, during this conversation. We have not only won the Gaza War, we have won the conflict. So In Hebrew, we say, me'azi atza matok, and I don't know how you can translate this, but it means that out of a crisis, something, you know, much better can be born, and that's the kind of vision that we need, and I don't want to, after being so hopeful, I don't want to water this down, but the problem is that for that, you need the kind of leadership that sees ahead and is not embroiled With a survival gambits of sorts and to be frank We don't have [00:59:00] at least for now.
We didn't see that we have this kind of leadership But if suddenly, you know Prime Minister Netanyahu wants to surprise us with this Let me tell you that people would say yes, you go go for this He's gonna get 85 percent support with polls if he's gonna do the grand bargain in a way that would keep Israelis safe There we go.
You quasi hopeful, quasi demoralizing note, which is the perfect thematic fit for this podcast, which at the end of the day is very Jewish. Just, lest you be too hopeful, we will dampen some of that hope. We will always end on dampened hope. Nadav, thank you, as always, for this and for your insights and for your explaining, and look forward to talking to you soon.
Me too. Thank you so much, Dan.
That's our show for today. To keep up with Nadav Eyal, you can find him on X. at Nadav [01:00:00] underscore A L, E Y A L, and you can find his work at Ynet and at Ynet. com. One housekeeping note, Haviv Retikgur and I were in London earlier this week where we did a couple of speaking events, and one of the events was co sponsored by the Jewish Chronicle in the UK and Stand With Israel at the JW3, the Jewish Community Center in London.
And that conversation was turned into a podcast. The podcast is called Israel Briefing, and its host is Jake Wallace Simons, who's the editor in chief of the Jewish Chronicle. It was a, I thought, a very rich conversation, and Jake is a great moderator, so he got Haviv and I going, and you can listen to the conversation.
In the Israel Briefing podcast, you can look for it anywhere you get your podcasts. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, [01:01:00] Dan Senor.