HANIYEH DEAD - with Ronen Bergman & Nadav Eyal
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, is dead. He was killed in Tehran yesterday, during a visit for the inauguration of Iran’s new president.
To help us understand this major development, I am joined by Ronen Bergman and Nadav Eyal for a special emergency episode.
Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and Senior Correspondent for Military and Intelligence Affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli daily. Ronen recently won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on this war and the pre-war intelligence failures.
Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediot. He has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.
Full Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
NE: We are experiencing an attempt by Israel to restore its deterrence in the region in ways that we have not seen before. We have seen this, an assassination of Mohammed Deif. This week, Israel has assassinated the chief of staff of Hezbollah. Now, Israel has assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, who is the leader of the political wing of Hamas. During these last few weeks, Israel has also attacked the Hodeidah port in Yemen. All of the things that I just mentioned happened over the course of the last month or three weeks. So you see the war in Gaza to an extent winding down, and the attempt by Israel is to say to the Iranians and all the rest, you're threatening us with a regional war? We're ready. Here we are.
DS: It's 9:00 AM on Wednesday, July 31st here in New York City. It's 4:00 PM on Wednesday, July 31st in Israel as we drop this emergency episode, given news of the last 24 hours, in fact, two developments, one in which, uh, Fuad Shukr, a major player, a giant in Hezbollah, someone that the U.S. government has been trying to hunt down for 40 years was killed, and then eight hours later, as I said, eight hours apart, Ismael Haniyeh, one of the giants of Hamas, a leader of Hamas, was killed in Iran. To help us understand what actually happened and what its implications are, we are joined by Ronen Bergman from Ynet and from The New York Times and Nadav Eyal from Ynet. Gentlemen, thank you for being here on such short notice.
NE: Thank you, Dan.
RB: Thanks, Dan.
DS: Ronen, let's start with you. Can you tell us a little bit about the operation or what, what, you know, let's start with Haniyeh and then let, and then go back to Shukr.
RB: Uh, as we speak, there's more and more music coming from Iran saying that he was targeted by a drone or by a missile, by a rocket. By all sorts of devices and weaponry that are coming from the outside into the room where he was, um, staying in an official highly guarded Iranian Revolutionary Guard, uh, uh, post, guest house, uh, compound. Now-
DS: And he was in Iran for the swearing in of Iran's new president.
RB: For the inauguration, he came on Monday. And then the inauguration with many other ceremonies surrounding including things that are connected to, uh, Hamas agenda and some kind of a mimic of a remake of the Holy Mountain where he was one of his last pictures were taken, uh, in a ferry, uh, outside of, of, uh, where he was staying. So, he was there, he was in Tehran for already, uh, something like 36 hours. He was staying in a room in a compound where the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, are putting their most prestigious guests. In one of the most posh rooms that, it's like a small flat, where he used to stay in all of the times he was coming to, to Tehran. And the Iranians are saying he was killed by a missile. I'm not sure that is true, but why would they say something like that? Someone would tell, like, what's, what's the difference? He's dead. He's died under their protection in their guest house. I think it matters because of two things. One, if he was killed from a missile. It's at least that was fired, they say, from another country. It's at least slightly less humiliating than if he was taken from some, whatever happened on the ground. It means that there was someone on the ground who put a bullet, who put a bomb, who put a knife. So this is one thing. The other thing, which I think makes Israeli officials at this very hour quite concerned, is that Iran is trying to create some kind of balance, of equilibrium, saying if Israel attacked Iran, Iranian territory, with a drone, then we will strike back, with a drone, with a missile, with a rocket. And I, yet to be seen, and we're still working, working on the reporting here, I'm not entirely sure that this was true, but he died on something like 15 minutes after 1:00 Israel time. Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the political bureau of Hamas, was killed in an explosion under Iranian protection.
DS: What you're saying, I think, Ronan, is there was an explosion, but there's, what's disputed is whether or not there was a projectile sent into Tehran from outside the country or whether or not there was an explosion that was activated from within, from in the home he was staying. And, and so there was an explosion we just don't know what caused the explosion.
RB: Then of course, who, who, who created, who caused the explosion, how was it and how and how vulnerable and exposed the Iranians, Iranian's regime is now feeling this guy an hour earlier just met with Khamenei with the supreme leader. He was there in front of everybody. And so maybe the entity that killed him, if they could kill him in that guest house, maybe they can kill Khamenei.
DS: Okay. I want to, I want to come back to Haniyeh and his importance in the Hamas, the practical world of Hamas, and then the myth of Hamas. I want to come back to that in a moment. But on this issue of where it happened, based on your reporting so far, Ronen, is it your sense that it was opportunistic, meaning they were able to get him in Iran for any number of reasons, and so they struck while he was in Iran. But if they, if they couldn't get him in Iran, but could get him somewhere else, they would have done that. Or getting him in Iran was part of the point, which is as, as many have said, as Naftali Bennett said on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, that, you know, at some point Israel has to start making real statements against, uh, about the head of the octopus about Iran, not just fighting Iran's proxies. And there's no other bigger statement about targeting the head of the octopus than to conduct an operation in the capital of the head of the octopus. And was, it wasn't just about Haniyeh, it was about Haniyeh in Iran and sending a message like you just said, that this is a guy who hours before was with the Supreme leader. We can, we can find you and come for you anywhere, including in Iran.
RB: So, first of all, at least from the Iranian point of view, as reflected in reporting by my, uh, colleague, Farnaz Fassihi at The New York Times, it is seen as if Israel did that on purpose, not just in Tehran, but on that specific day to ruin their celebrations of the new president. Uh, and maybe you can put this on top of the conspiracy theories that Israel was behind the killing of the previous president, which is, which is not true. But anyway, um, the Iranians feel that Israel did, they're sure that Israel is behind this. It did it on purpose to humiliate them. But let me add not just something about where it is taking place, but where it is not taking place, because he was traveling between three, four places. One of them is Tehran. The second is Istanbul. And I think Israel would not be enthusiastic to have a fight with Erdogan. And the third one is Qatar. And Qatar is running the negotiation between Israel and Hamas on the hostages. And they could react ballistically if Israel would, uh, or someone will bluntly violate their uh, sovereignty in performing such assassination of the territory and stop the negotiation. So in a way, if someone wanted to kill Haniyeh and he heard that Haniyeh is supposed to come to that day in Tehran, that could be a few birds in one swoop. It's not in Qatar. It's not in Istanbul. And it's a specific note date to give that gives the, uh, operatives enough time to prepare on a specific group.
DS: One more question then I want to bring to Nadav in. Can you describe what we know about the operation against Shukr, the senior leader of Hezbollah?
RB: Yeah. So, so Fuad Shukr, uh, is a long time veteran operative and a military commander in Hezbollah is one of the most important people that influenced the conversion of Hezbollah from a guerrilla or terrorist movement into a sophisticated, fierceful and efficient military with highly capable weaponry and technology. This process was run through decades. Israel met it the first time in the war with Lebanon in 2006, but it accelerated ever since. He was part of a small group that was in charge of this strategic military buildup. Most of the members that were involved are already gone. They were killed either by Israel or by the United States or by the Iranians because they were too wild. And he was Basically the last one staying. A man of the shadow, very calm, not someone that shows off, someone that is described as very meticulous, uh, long term runner, and the person who was the, maybe the most accepted, uh, character by the Iranians on a professional level, because he was in charge of smuggling all the weaponry, sophisticated weaponry, from Iran to Lebanon, and to some extent, Israel has met many surprises that he has given Hezbollah since the beginning of the low intensity conflict with them. Israel found Hezbollah more equipped with a better equipment. So more and better than it thought before. This is one of the calculus that Israel is making. Why not going now into a total all out war with Hezbollah? And the brain behind this gap is Fuad Shukr.
DS: Okay. Nadav, I want to now get your take on each of these individuals and why they loom so large in the minds of not just the Israeli security establishment, but really the Israeli public, especially Ismail Haniyeh. I mean, every Israeli I've been in touch with overnight, overnight, my time, and these are not people who are necessarily involved in the security establishment. They all, I mean, Shukr, they know a little bit about, but Ismail Haniyeh almost has like Bin Laden, like i'm trying to put it in American context. I mean, we say that Sinwar is the Bin Laden or Deif was the Bin Laden of, of October 7th. But when I talk to Israelis, they don't, there's Sinwar, there's Deif, there's Haniyeh, there's Khaled Mashal. There's a few of these guys that loom so large in part because long before Sinwar, people like, Haniyeh was, you look at the horror of life with Hamas over the last number of decades, the second intifada, the, there were a few of these guys who were the innovators and leaders of this movement. And, and so can you talk a little bit, let's start with Haniyeh.
NE: So Ismail Hanieyh is, uh, really a figurehead of Hamas for many years. And he survived assassination attempts, not only by Israel, but also by the Fatah at the time. Uh, Haniyeh rose to fame.
DS: By what is, what is the party that is the, today, the Palestinian Authority, the original PLO.
NE: Yeah, and, and that used to control the Palestinian society. And Haniyeh himself rose to fame because of his position near Ahmad Yassin, who's the founder of Hamas. And Haniyeh was his bureau chief. Um, you know, he was his chief of staff. And for many years he served Ahmad Yassin and from there grew his prestige as a leader of Hamas. He was also expelled by Israel to Lebanon and that expulsion that was made by the Rabin government back in the 1990s. So he's really an elder statesman of the Hamas movement and he was a prime minister for the Hamas movement and actually for the Palestinian Authority at the time that it was still accepted by a sort of national unity government. I'm talking towards the disengagement and and also after the disengagement Haniyeh symbolized the fracture within the Palestinian society between Fatah and Hamas because Abu Mazen, the chairman of the palestinian authority basically threw him out and he wouldn't leave office. And that was the moment that the Palestinians diverged to Hamas controlling gaza and the fatah controlling the palestinian authority In in the west bank Haniyeh himself, uh was not heavily involved In recent years with tactical operation. So this man is no, Muhammad Deif is not Yahya Sinwar and as far as I know, and maybe Ronen can correct me, Haniyeh was also was not notified beforehand as to the date or the actual planning of October 7. So he was not in Gaza, of course, at the time. He was residing already abroad. Between him and Sinwar, there is a lot of bad blood. Sinwar is, of course, the leader of Hamas uh, in Gaza. So Haniyeh went through from, from Turkey to Qatar. These are the areas that he operated as the head of the political bureau of Hamas, whatever that means. And we can talk about this, uh, if you want. And, uh, As far as I know, one of the first things that I was told by my intelligence sources is that Haniyeh and what we call the foreign Hamas, the Hamas out of Gaza, was not notified. And if they were to be notified, the Israeli intelligence would have known about the October 7 attack. So one of the things that they kept under the wrap uh, and, and sort of try to secure intelligence and information was that Hamas in Gaza, uh, did not tell Hamas outside of Gaza that this is going to happen the way that it did. It's not that they didn't know that there is an idea of an attack that will ignite what Hamas calls the war of independence. And this is what happened on October 7th. This is a notion within the Hamas narrative that has been going on for many years, that there would be an attack or an assault made by Hamas that will begin the war of liberation, uh, for the Palestinian people. So Haniyeh was very much into this, uh, but, uh, Sinwar didn't want people outside of his close circle knowing of this. Having said that, Haniyeh is very much a speaker for the Hamas goals around the Arab world. This is the man who recruited the Arab world after the disengagement from Gaza, the Israeli disengagement from Gaza. This is the man who preached about the Israeli blockade. And of course, this is the man who continuously incited for the murder of Israelis and has been a practical leader within Hamas highest ranks for many years. And I'll just give you one quote after October 7, during October, 2023, in which Haniyeh talked from Qatar and he talked to the Palestinian people. And, and he said, we, we need the blood of our Palestinian civilians and the blood of women and children. It only strengthens our resolve against Israel. And he said that this blood only brings out our revolutionary spirit against the Israelis. And the annihilation of Israel is inevitable. This is the kind of rhetoric that we've been seeing from, from Haniyeh. And you're right, Dan, Haniyeh is a household name in Israel. Uh, so for many Israelis, this is you know, uh, a moment to, uh, you know, it's a solemn moment in the sense that he's responsible for it.
DS: But just on this point, uh, Nadav, like when we think of the Second Intifada, which claimed the lives of over a thousand Israelis in, at, up to that point was, you know, now because of October 7th, the, the, the innovation and barbarism has reached a new level. But, but during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, when Israeli children and women and just regular civilians were being slaughtered with suicide bombings on buses and cafes and pizzerias and discotheques and that, Haniyeh was part of all, was a key architect of-
NE: Of course, he, he was right beside uh, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. And I remind our listeners that Israel, uh, by the orders of Prime Minister Sharon, ordered the assassination of Ahmad Yassin, uh, in Gaza during the second intifada, the beginning of the second intifada. And actually, Haniyeh himself uh, got hurt in one of these assassinations attempt was physically hurt at the time. And one of the reasons that this man rose to power is because again and again, Israel assassinated other people in Hamas, uh, during these times. And he was sort of, I don't want to say the last man standing, standing, but if you look where he came from and his history, this is to an extent, they're elder statesmen, right? You, you have Khaled Mashal, you have Ismail Haniyeh, you have Yahya Sinwar. And Sinwar spent so many years in Israeli prisons. Um, it was Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal and Mohammad Deif, of course, that Israel assassinated, uh, or we think that it assassinated, it's not for sure yet, a few weeks ago. But let's look at the bigger picture. I think the bigger picture is so important here. Look, we are experiencing an attempt by Israel in the recent month to restore its deterrence in the region in ways that we have not seen before. We have seen this, an assassination of Mohammed Deif, the chief of staff of Hamas for many years, a person responsible for suicide bombings back to the 90s. This week, Israel has assassinated the chief of staff of Hezbollah, Shukr that we have just spoken about. Now, Israel has assassinated, according to various sources, Ismail Haniyeh, who is the leader of the political wing of Hamas. During these last few weeks, Israel has also attacked in a substantial aerial attack, the Hodeidah port in Yemen, in Western Yemen, all of the things that I just mentioned happened over the course of the last month or three weeks. And this is an attempt by Israel to restore its deterrence across the region using more and more aggressive military tools together with the war in Gaza. So you see the war in Gaza to an extent, winding down, there are simply not enough targets there. The IDF is coming in and going out as it pleases from Gaza when it gets the info. And now the attention of Israel is being drawn, the attention of the defense apparatus is being drawn to the regional enemies and to the proxies across the region, trying to mark this, trying to burn this to their skins, to quote one source that I've been speaking with, that what has been will not be again I'm talking about October 7, I'm talking about this fracture of Israeli deterrence that has led Hezbollah to attack Israel on October 8, something that people don't understand enough. You know, this attack in the north, we have just seen the murder of 12 children in a soccer field in the Golan Heights as a result of this October 8 attack by Hezbollah, as a result of this war and the attempt by Israel is to say to the Iranians and all the rest, you're threatening us with a regional war. We're ready. Here we are. You know, you're not going to deter us. If we want to hit Damascus, we're going to hit Damascus. If we want to hit Tehran, we're going to hit Tehran. This man, as Ronen just described, was under the hospice, hospitality, and defense of the Islamic Republic. And the fact that Israel would do this to a person that was invited to the inauguration of the Iranian president and will assassinate someone who is a guest. And there are also cultural codes in this area to not give him that defense while he is staying in Tehran in an apartment owned by the Revolutionary Guard, as far as I know, this is Israel saying to the region, no, we're going to restore the idea that we can do to you and we can do to our enemies what we feel is necessary in order to prevent this violence and attacks against us. You're not going to deter us with these kinds of responses, you know, 200, 300,000 projectiles flying out from Iran, missiles flying from Hezbollah. It's going to be a regional flood. It's going to be a regional war. The Israeli defense apparatus is saying enough. And by the way, I have to stress that sometimes they're much more aggressive than Israel's government. So, it's the IDF that was pushing for many of these operations and the, the political leadership, including Netanyahu. And again, I'm saying this to their credit, we're really hesitant as to, should we go for it? It's the IDF who is pushing for a more aggressive approach in the North. So the jury's still out, we'll see how this develops. But this is a massively ambitious attempt by Israel to reframe the conflict and to restore its deterrence through, in practicality, not only assassinations, but also strategic attacks like the ones that we have seen in Yemen. And this can change everything in the region or can lead us to an escalation into a regional war.
DS: I want to ask both of you about that, the possibility of it leading to a regional war. Before I do, just one question for you, Ronen. I understand why Shukr was of, of high interest to Israel, the Israeli security establishment, but I think what most observers don't appreciate is how much he's been a focus of the U.S. security establishment going back decades, and he's eluded the U.S. security establishment. So can you just briefly provide that piece of history because I, it's, it's being portrayed as very much an Israeli story, but many in the U.S. security establishment that I spoke to yesterday, or some, were commenting on this point that, wow, we've been trying to get this guy for a long time. Um, and Israel seemed to not have a hard time getting him. So I think that, um, from a certain age, uh, up in every American heart and mind, memory, collective memory. Images of U.S. Marines coming back home in coffins and body bags after the massive explosion of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 are very vivid, and people, um, react and see this is a profound moment in the history of the U.S. This is when the U.S. wanted to send a peace court to Lebanon, the M.N.F. together with France and other countries. But instead of bringing peace, they were severely, severely hit by something that was not known back then. Suicide terrorism Um, suicide bombers that are driving massive trucks. The one that hit the, the Navy Barracks was like, I think six tons of TNT. I have a friend who was a kilometer and a half from there in the Shin Bet headquarters. He said like that there were parts of the building and bodies that fell on their hands, and was part of the, of the planning of, of this, uh, uh, this massive attack, double attack, because at the same time, they, they also attack the, uh, French base in, in, in Beirut. That attack changed history because it drove the foreign forces out of Lebanon and basically substantiated the control of Iran and Hezbollah over this country. And he kept on being part on the, on the screen, if someone, uh, look at the, the massive troves that Edward Snowden brought from the NSA, uh, they are a joint project by Israeli and American intelligence by 8200, uh, and the, the NSA called cat one, cat two, cat in the basket, all sorts of code names about how to infiltrate Hezbollah ranks and codes and decrypt their communication and you see that Fuad Shukr is profoundly present in all of these communications in a very bad way, of course, um, creating an army that is now a strategic threat to Israel.
DS: I now, I now want to come back to what, uh, Nadav, uh, referenced earlier, the possibility of a regional war. Ronen, do you think, and I'll ask each of you this question. I'll start with you, Ronen. Do you think this increases the likelihood of a regional war or does it, does it actually have the effect of, of de escalation via deterrence?
RB: I'll, I'll, I'll answer this with a major caveat and hesitation, because I have only regrets when trying to forecast the future. I'm always wrong. And, uh, this is because I'm an optimistic and avid optimist, and I tend to let this sort of distort my ability to see into the future. So in order not to be in this position, I will answer your question. Yes and no, it does and iit does not inflame the chances of, of a regional war, and I'll say, and I'll say why. Why it puts the region in a much, uh, more dire, dire threat because Iran has already swore to revenge the killing in of Foud Shukr in the Dakhia quarter in Beirut. This was enough for the Iranians to say, we will not stand down, maybe through Hezbollah, but we will retaliate. Then on top of that, something from their point of view, much more severe happened and they were deeply humiliated in the center of Tehran in a guarded facility. Someone killed their dear brother and guest. And so they already spoken in very harsh terms about their reaction. This reaction, whatever that is, we know what happened on April 13th, that the massive attack with drones and cruise missiles. It can happen again. On the more optimistic side of this, This could be a real chance for Prime Minister Netanyahu to end the war.
DS: Well, to be clear, to end which war? To end the war with Hamas?
RB: To end this phase of the war with Hamas, with a deal of the hostages and a ceasefire, because Israel now has the upper hand. Israel now killed the most important Hamas figure in the world, the leader of Hamas. Not just in Gaza, in the world. So in a way, now, of course, we see Sinwar as the face of evil and the mastermind behind October 7. As Nadav said, the Israeli intelligence believed that Haniyeh didn't know. I think that there may be a day when we'll learn more about what he did or didn't. But so far, this is the view. And in any case, I'm Sinwar is in Gaza, Haniyeh is not a lesser or less important figure, Israel, even if not admitting it, everybody's believed that Israel killed him. So it's like a, it's like a, a, a victory photograph that Israel cannot show off, but maybe can satisfy the government to say, all right, we had enough, we have our victory for the time being. It's not that we give Sinwar a pardon, we can sign the hostage agreement from a position of advantage.
DS: Yeah. A position of strength.
RB: Exactly.
DS: Hamas is on the run and therefore Okay. So, Nadav, what's your reaction to that?
NE: I think it's, uh, spot on. I think that, uh, Israel has an argument today to come to the Israelis and to the region and say, look, uh, we've killed Muhammad Deif. Most probably we've killed, uh, Haniyeh. We've killed the chief of staff of Hezbollah. There is no actual resistance of Hamas in the Gaza Strip that is threatening Israel on the Southern border. Uh, we can go to a hostage deal right now. The problem is a problem of dynamics and you, you should hear what Qatar said today and what that, what they said is it's, it's difficult to negotiate when one side assassinates the other. And it's a fair point. You know, it's, it's a fair point that it's, it's difficult to have, uh, this kind of development. I think I said this on your show. Israel's position is let's have a hostage deal, then going to come to you, Hamas, and we're going to kill all your leadership. And, and this is really the position of Israel. It's, it's a very tough sell. Uh, which by the way, one that I, to an extent, support. So I, I, I can understand the Israeli viewpoint here as an Israeli. Uh, but how do you make something out of this, that isn't a vortex of escalation. And this question, Dan, Lies with the United States and with the Biden administration to a large extent. Will they be able to somehow rein in the region? Because I think that what the Israelis have been doing in the recent month or so is trying to supplement for the lack of deterrence that the U.S. suffers from to an extent in the region. Look, the Israelis attacked uh, Yemen in a way that was so impressive in the region that echoed through the region many months after the U.S. led its coalition against the Houthis and the Israeli air force did just one thing against one port, and I'm definitely not underestimating what the U.S. led coalition has been doing against the Houthis, but in this region, it's also a matter of appearances. So in order to, to prevent this escalation and to lead this, to this optimistic scenario, that Ronen has just portrayed, which I think is very plausible. You need to have global leadership here coming into the region and, and trying to make something out of this mess after Israel had its achievements. And, and I think it's, it's, it's possible. I want to believe that the U.S. administration will try to do that because the other option is that we will be down to an escalatory route and we don't know how will it stop. I keep hearing the same stuff that Ronen is being hearing. Let's have three or four days of fighting heavy fighting in the north and then sometimes they tell me and then the Americans will envelope it into some sort of ceasefire. This is the expression they use I'm translating from Hebrew. Uh, and we don't know that it's going to happen. And also the tendency of these kinds of wars is that then there's civilian casualties on one side or the other, then the other side, it needs to retaliate in a more severe way. Things get out of control. You don't control the scenario anymore. Then there's pressure to go into a ground assault to a wide ground, a wider ground assault and so forth and so forth. And we have been we, we saw this story in the second Lebanon war. So, yeah, so American leadership is very much needed right now, uh, in the region in trying to, I would say, consolidate the Israeli achievements lead to what the Israeli defense apparatus is saying is a prime interest of Israeli strategy in the region. What they're saying is, and I've said this on your show, and this is an agreement between the head of the Mossad, the head of the Shabak, and the Israeli chief of staff, they are all saying the same right now it's an Israeli interest to have a ceasefire and a hostage deal right now. Uh, this is the interest of the Israeli defense apparatus. It's not about the Israeli society. It's not about solidarity and all the rest. They're saying it's a security interest of Israel right now to have a ceasefire and a hostage deal because of various reasons. This is the position they presented to the prime minister. This is also the position of the defense minister Yoav Gallant. And now after these achievements, maybe it's more politically plausible.
DS: Okay. So I just want to, I just want to summarize the, the, the two takes on the impact on the hostage negotiations. And I just have one other question for both of you, just to summarize, the positive case for impact on the hostage negotiations is that the, the government, the Israeli government can now declare they've won or they're winning and they therefore can do a deal out of a position of strength. And in fact, they're able to get the concessions they're able to get from Hamas because Hamas is really under pressure and, and, and needs to bring the temperature down. And that is a result of these aggressive and quite impressive moves that Israel has been making. Deif, Haniyeh, even Shukra, even though he's not Hamas, they see what Israel is able to do right in the heart of Beirut.They realize that Israel can be anywhere and everywhere. So that's the, the positive case.
RB: I must interfere. Sorry. I was, I was talking about not just Hamas concessions, but Israeli concessions, because the, the point where we are now in the negotiation is that Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu withdrew from things that were already agreed with the mediating countries and agreed by Hamas, and now Israel has put the obstacles again on the negotiation. What I was saying is that I, I think that there's a chance that being in such a powerful or a much more powerful position vis a vis Hamas, following all the recent blows in Gaza and outside of Gaza, this could give the Israeli leadership the, the, the, the, the space, the breath, enough energy to give up on or go back to what was already agreed and go further to the negotiation.
DS: Okay. Fair enough. And then, and then the concerning case potentially, is that Hamas goes into kind of lockdown in the negotiations in response to this, that they say, we're not, we're done talking. You're, you're taking out our, our leaders systematically while we're trying to have a negotiation, and, um, and we're, we're, we're not going to continue that. We're not going to, we're not going to reward your hits against our leaders. And therefore, you know, pencils down in the negotiations. Am I right? That's the kind of, okay. I want to talk about, just this the possibility then just coming back to the possibility of a regional war with Iran and i'll ask both of you this uh, i'll start with you Nadav and then go to you Ronen. If this is the beginning of a, uh, a real head to head, very direct confrontation between the beginning phase of, or the beginning of a phase now of direct hits back and forth between Israel and Iran. I guess the real beginning was mid April and now we're, and now it's escalating. What does that look like as it escalates?
NE: How does it look like? Uh, well, first of all, Hezbollah is going to respond, uh, and we're waiting for its response. Uh, we don't know the extent of the Hezbollah response, but Israel hit Beirut. Basically, Hezbollah has said, if you hit Beirut, we hit Tel Aviv. Uh, now it's true that this is a targeted assassination in Dakhia. And I think that Hezbollah understands that if they're going to hit Tel Aviv, in a substantial way or the Gush Dan area, the center of Israel in a substantial way, then Israel is not going to be as targeted at the Dakhia as it was. And Israel has shown what it can do in Beirut during the second Lebanon war in 2006. So Hezbollah needs to have a calculated response to this targeted assassination. And the question is, to what extent is it, is it possible, technically for them to do so? Uh, what's their desire, what they want. And this assassination, uh, in Tehran is to that extent, and I'll be happy to, to hear, uh, what Ronen has to say about this, this is a relief to an extent for Hezbollah because now they have a real access and they have a real ambition here. You have two sides here that actually three together with Hamas that have just been hit or together the same week. So Hezbollah can now imagine, uh, or foresee a situation in which they coordinate a response with Iran. And that, that's a big thing. I, I should remind our listeners that, uh, you know, when Iran attacked Israel, this was after an assassination, uh, of an Iranian general in Damascus, a man who was, uh, handling the attacks on Israel and it's north and northern border or helping those attacks, but this was not a coordinated attack as such a full scale proportion of the entire axis that Iran is leading. Um, and the Iranians were very clear what they're going to do. I, I'm not part of the conspiracy theories that somehow they tried not to have too much damage. That's that's nonsense. They try to do the worst and Israel together with the United States and together with its regional allies, uh, we managed to, to block this, but this time, if you're, you're asking me about a pessimistic scenario, the pessimistic scenario is that Hezbollah Iran and Hamas together with other proxies, like the Houthis that have just been hit in their port by the Israelis are going to coordinate a massive response against Israel. And that's the worst kind of, uh, pessimistic scenario. If you're looking for one Dan, uh, uh, that you can think of then a massive response again, against Israel that will in turn, uh, will lead Israel to a massive response of its own together or with the United States or with that, with our other players in the region, the U.S. has said that it will help to defend Israel, but the U.S. will not coordinate any sort of retaliatory attacks by Israel against Iran and its proxies. So I think that What they label the self labeled axis of resistance or actually axis of terror in this region, they're now deliberating and they are having their discussions of what kind of response they want to see against the Israelis and if they're going to go for the big one uh, it's going to be war. It's going to be full, you know, full fledged regional war. I want to believe that they understand that this can get out of control, that they are to an extent fearful of the Israeli response and impressed by the Israeli capabilities. I know that the Iranians, and I know this from intelligence sources, uh, Western intelligence sources, that the Iranians were highly impressed by the Israeli attack after their drone attack and missile attack against israel. The Israeli response was very targeted not far from Natanz, and the people speaking with me told me you could really see through intelligence the way that the Iranians are thinking. At the beginning they didn't understand what israel was doing, then they were starting to say hey, they hit this specific place and they went unnoticed and they managed to hit a strategic, a very important place strategically and they did that with a couple of missiles, and we didn't hit nothing, you know, with hundreds of projectiles and they did something so targeted, so they can do much more than that. And they told me these sources, you could really see the, the process of understanding the Israeli capabilities through that. And these Western sources were saying, you know, they were so appreciative. Of the Israeli response, um, after the Iranian attack, they said, in retrospect, it's exactly what Israel should have done. You know, many people thought this kind of attack could lead to a regional war. But, in this case, this is a much more dangerous spot. Now there's another thing I should just throw into our conversation, and this is the question of effectiveness. And I, I, I would really want to hear Ronen on this because he, he wrote this amazing bestseller, uh, Rise and Kill First, and, uh, I think it was a New York Times bestseller and about how effective are these assassinations to begin with in fighting terror organizations or, or these kind of terror armies like Hezbollah, is it effective, you know, the fact that these people earned, you know, an assassination attempt and, and they're, they're all, you know, evil people and, and, and they should be brought to justice or, or, or targeted because of their actions and mass murder. You know, there is no discussion on this, but I'm sort of wondering, is this effective, you know, in hitting the capabilities of these organizations?
DS: Ronen, and then, and then I have one other question for you and then we're going to wrap up.
RB: I'll be a good, good Israeli to answer with a question. Let's say that tomorrow, Israel is able to-
DS: By the way, Ronen, that's, that's a Jewish trait, not just an Israeli trait. We're now in the era of Jewish peoplehood!
RB: I, I knew that, but I thought maybe saying Jewish is not, this is a Jewish thing is not politically correct. I took it upon myself. So I don't know. Anyway, I'll, I'll answer with a question. If Sinwar is killed tomorrow by an Israeli strike and Israeli assassination targeted that killing, would that be effective?
NE: Sinwar would be very effective because Sinwar is really the actual leader of Hamas.
RB: Yeah, if Nasrallah the same, you can ask counterfactual history, um, riddles, like if Stauffenberg would have put the bag on the other side of that table and kill Hitler or if Fegal Amir would miss. So it's very, of course, history is also directed by people. But I think the lesson for Israeli intelligence, at least, was that if you are not dealing with the leaders, the leaders have a different group, when you kill leaders, you will probably change history, you just don't know to which direction it can be worse. Anyway, if you go to the operational level, even the commanders. Assassination by themself is not, it's always, it's not enough. It needs to be part of a strategy. It needs to be part of an overall massive campaign of different fronts, different, uh, platforms. Uh, and, and, and sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't, and sometimes Israeli leaders did this only to show that they are doing something because the public felt helpless against, you know, the threats and the horrors of terrorism. Um, I think that Israel has a difficulty with Hezbollah because it defined Hezbollah as the enemy. It's not, and I'm not calling for that, but it did not define the Lebanese state as much as not the Gazan state. They say they're very, very keen, the military spokesperson, to say the terrorist organization of Hamas. So the differentiation, who is the enemy and what Israel is not allowing itself to do to that enemy or limiting itself. And so what is, what Israel is left with as a main weapon is assassinations and very hard to predict, but for example, Israel has killed numerous, in that sense, I completely agree with Nadav, Israel killed numerous Hezbollah commanders since October 7th. People who were on the most wanted list for 30, 20 years, the, the, the, the, the, the, the operational dreams of Israeli officers and intelligence operatives for decades on us and on us are killed. They are taken off the chart things that, that, that in, in like a year ago and more Israeli officers can only dream of. And now they're off the chart. Now, did this stop Hezbollah from firing at Israeli cities? No, it did not. But, of course, you can say that it could have been much worse. Very hard to assess, as much as it's hard to assess what Iran, um, Iran would do next. The only thing I can add, maybe to, I agree with everything that Nadav has said, I think the only thing maybe I can add is that if we go into the time machine of the podcast and we go back and heard that you're, you have the equipment, right, Dan, you go to the time machine of Call Me Back, the three of us, the rest of the team, and we go back a year and a half, and then we watch what happened ever since, then you see that, you take Hamas aside, but all the other members of the, so the, the Jabal Muqama, the, the resistant axis, the, the, the, the radical front, Israeli intelligence, they showed restraint. If we would take the time machine, go back, if Israel or Hezbollah would do to each other even a fraction of what they have been doing since October 7th, we would have a year ago, we would have a, an all out war long ago. So all sides including Iran have demonstrated restraint and a lot of patience with containing horrible things that they're doing to each other and not deteriorating into war. And I and again, maybe it's just my optimism, uh, or wishful thinking but I do believe that this kind of mindset will continue to dictate the coming history of the region.
DS: Last question. And I mean it really the last question, but you know, I keep saying that, um, how well do you believe the Israeli home front is prepared for, if we are really in a new phase, what this new phase could look like? I throw it to, this is a jump ball. Either of you can.
NE: I, I, I'm not, I'm not going to speculate. We have numerous reports by the defense community, by the straight comptroller that the home front isn't ready. So I didn't see any report saying that the home front is to any extent ready. And by ready, I mean, I'm talking about electricity. I'm talking about infrastructure. I'm not talking even on, you know, explaining to people that this is going to be a completely different war, there's going to be thousands of rockets shot at Israel every day. So this is not my call to make if the home front is ready. It's the call of the Israeli administration. The Israeli administration itself is saying to itself, It's not about the media saying this, it is the state and state officials that are saying that they're not ready. So one of the things that I keep hearing from, from people in Israel, from within the government is you want to have an all out war with Hezbollah, with them shooting thousands of rockets against Israel. Well, you, you needed to have prepared for three years before that war. I'll just give you one example of a story I published at the time. Uh, the, the government, uh, the Netanyahu government decided to build thousands and thousands of safe rooms in the Northern border towns. So we're talking about towns that are going to get hit in a way that they might not have a sewage system by the end of the war. So they're going to be hit tremendously hard by Hezbollah. So we're talking about thousands of safe rooms that were supposed to be built in private apartments in these towns on the northern border. And I went to one of these towns called Shlomi. And the mayor told me that in his town, he was supposed to get, just in this town, more than a thousand safe rooms for apartments, and they built 32. This is the execution rate of the Israeli government in preparing, and this is the north. This is even not starting to prepare in places that we didn't think that Hezbollah has range to. So I think this is a calculation. Now let me give you Dan, the answer of the defense officials that I speak with, because I want to be fair about this. First of all, they're saying look, when we talked about safe rooms and preparing, um, infrastructure, we didn't have the capabilities that we have today on two different levels. One level is our defense. Our defenses are much better. We can shoot down much more Hezbollah rockets than we Could have done before, A. B, in terms of attack, Israel is under the conviction, the IDF is under the conviction that in the first 72 hours of the war of Hezbollah, it can hit Hezbollah in ways that Hezbollah cannot foresee. I, I can't say more. I won't say more. I don't know more than that, but this is the conviction of the IDF. This is what's leading the IDF mindset. This is, I don't want to say that this is the concept, you know, the ‘conceptia’, as we say in Hebrew, but this is really the main paradigm. We can hit Hezbollah so hard in the first 72 hours that it will decrease its capability to hit the home front. This is an assumption made by the Israeli defense forces presented to the Israeli decision makers. So it's on them. It's on the Israeli defense forces. Now, this is the reason why on October 11, 2023, the entire defense apparatus, almost all of them besides, you know, one specific lieutenant general in the intelligence community told the government that it needs to have a preemptive surprise attack against Hezbollah. And this was blocked by Gantz, Eisenkot and mainly Netanyahu that didn't want it at the time, because Netanyahu feared this kind of full scale war with Hezbollah. And again, I'm saying this to his credit, this is difficult when the entire defense forces and your defense minister is saying, let's attack Hezbollah and you as a prime minister, together with Gantz and Eisenkot, you're blocking this? And then, then by the way, Netanyahu had a series of conversations with various people within the Israeli society. I can say this because he didn't, he didn't have this conversation with me specifically in which he explained retroactively, his decision not to preemptively strike Hezbollah, and he explained this by saying that a war with Hezbollah right now is something that Israel is not prepared to. And that was in October. He said that to numerous people in these conversations, including figures from the Israeli media. And he wanted to make sure that they understand this so he won't be portrayed, you know, as a deficit of something. He wanted to make sure that we understand that these are the reasons. So to your question, you know, as far as the Israeli government is concerned, it's not ready as well. As far as the Israeli defense forces are concerned, they're saying we're never going to be ready. You know, it's not going to be, it's not about being ready. It's about acting now. We have the capabilities to hit them very hard right now. And we need to do this. And we, if we wait out to be ready, we're going to lose. So we need to do it sometime and we need to take that risk.
RB: Very briefly, I think that the Israeli assessment of the different agencies, uh, government, state controller, uh, as the dove mentioned, but also some, um, think tanks that check the level of preparations in the Israeli home front towards a possible all out war with Hezbollah. It all came to very, very problematic conclusions, but those conclusions we're coming from the calculation of Hezbollah capabilities as were known before October 7th. And as I said before, the capabilities that were discovered after October 7th exceeds not just with Hamas, not just with how many tunnels and how long they are in Gaza, they exceeds the quantity and quality of armament that Hezbollah is holding. And so if Israel was not ready to what they knew about Hezbollah before. Of course, they are not ready now. I hope, I believe and hope that what Israel discovered about Hezbollah during these last 10 months will be taken as a serious lesson when preparing for the war that, you know, most Israeli officials and professional, uh, military intelligence veterans, most of them believe one day or the other is inevitable.
DS: Ronen Bergman and Nadav Eyal, thank you both. I know you have, neither of you have slept in the last 18 hours, so I appreciate you calling me back and hopping on this podcast.