A Deal on the Verge of Collapse – with Nadav Eyal
As Israelis continue to brace for a kinetic strike from Iran, or Hezbollah, or both, this long-anticipated attack may have been put on hold by Tehran while Israel and Hamas were negotiating the last details of a hostage and temporary ceasefire deal.
Now, as we learn today from our guest Nadav Eyal, that deal appears to be slipping away.
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: Part of the Biden administration, and by the way, parts of the Biden administration that we'll see in the next administration, if Harris wins the elections, are convinced by the Israeli arguments that you cannot allow Hamas to rearm itself, and it's gonna, if you're not gonna be at the Philadelphi Corridor. They got convinced. And I didn't hear this after the bridging offer. I heard that before they made the offer.
DS: It’s 7:00 PM on Thursday August 22nd here in New York City. It's 6:00 PM on August 22nd in Chicago as Democrats convened for the fourth night of the Democratic Convention. It's 2:00 AM on Friday August 23rd in Israel as Israelis turn to a new day preparing for Shabbat and as Israelis turn to this new day and as they continue to brace for a kinetic strike from Iran or Hezbollah or both, this long anticipated attack may have been put on hold by Tehran, while Israel and Hamas have been busy negotiating the last details of a hostage and temporary ceasefire deal. And what exactly was this bridging proposal we've been hearing so much about from the US side? Well, based on officials and journalists I'm talking to in the Middle East and elsewhere, One objective of this U .S. bridging proposal, at least an unstated objective of the proposal, was simply to play for time, keep things relatively quiet during the Democratic convention. Nothing more distracting from the good vibes in Chicago than a military escalation in the Middle East. A regional war was unlikely to happen while Secretary Blinken was shuttling around the region. I think we'll be hearing more reporting about some of these objectives, albeit not all of the objectives of this bridging proposal in the days ahead. But either way, as we learn from our guest today, the deal does appear to be slipping away. This guest, Yedioth Ahronoth journalist, Nadav Eyal, who has been in touch with his sources from the Israeli security establishment and Israel's political leadership, while he is also on the ground in Chicago covering the Democratic National Convention and where Israelis Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, parents of American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who's being held by Hamas in Gaza for what seems like very soon will be one year since he was taken hostage on October 7th. One year. Unless there is some kind of deal that frees Hersh and the other hostages. Before we move on to today's conversation, one housekeeping note. As I've mentioned, we will be holding a live podcast recording at the Stryker Center in New York City on the evening of September 24th. Our guest will be Haaretz journalist Amir Tibon, who will be sharing his gripping and fascinating October 7th story and also his perspective as a kibbutznik from Israel's south. And he'll also be discussing where he thinks Israel goes from here, where it goes from here in Gaza, where it goes from here in Israel's north and beyond. The event will take place on the day of the release of Amir's new book, which is riveting and insightful and I highly recommend it. We'll include a link to the Stryker Center event so you can register in today's show notes. But now into today's conversation, Nadav Eyal on a deal on the verge of collapse. This is Call Me Back. I am pleased to welcome back to this podcast Nadav Eyal from Yedioth Ahronoth, who normally joins us from Tel Aviv, but today he's joining us from the belly of the beast from Chicago, reporting from the Democratic National Convention while still staying close to his sources inside Israel on the latest negotiations or lack of negotiations over a hostage and ceasefire deal. Nadav, thanks for being here.
NE: Thanks for having me again, Dan.
DS: I want to talk about what's happening on the ground in Israel. Can you tell me what, based on your reporting, what the latest is with the hostage negotiations or as I said earlier the lack of hostage negotiations?
NE: So first of all the deal for the hostage release is dying. I think it's acknowledged now by US administration officials. It's acknowledged by Netanyahu's people. Everybody knows that negotiations are at a critical point and nobody thinks right now that it's going to happen unless there's a dramatic and very surprising breakthrough. The US has put forward a bridging offer to Israel and Hamas. Israel accepted that bridging offer. Secretary Blinken has said that Israel accepted that bridging offer. The prime minister did not publicly negate that. So he's probably on board. But what he did do is have a conversation with the families more associated with his opinions, the Gvura Forum, and he said there again…
DS: Can you explain what the Gvura Forum is, what the Tikva Forum is?
NE: So within the families of the hostages, you have two basic groups. You have the main headquarters of the families and they are sort of the majority and they're very critical of the government and of the prime minister and they want to see more activism by Israel to release the hostages. And you have two smaller forums that are very much associated with the positions of the prime minister and the Likud that are saying that the only way to get the hostages back is to show more force and to be more involved actively militarily in the Gaza Strip. And they're not pushing the prime minister to make concessions, but the other way around. And between these two groups within the hostage families, there's a lot of bad blood, there's a lot of mutual criticism, and the prime minister tends to meet more people from the forum that he agrees with. And this is also very much criticized by the families saying that he, you know, he should give equal share of time, of his time, to different families, even if they disagree with his positions as to a deal. Anyway, so he met that forum, the Gvura forum, and he told them that Israel will remain in Philadelphi. Philadelphi is the border with Egypt. It's the area where Hamas smuggling was at its peak.
DS: So it's about a 14 kilometer area where there are tunnels underground, these big tunnels that you can fit vehicles, vehicular size tunnels that Hamas was smuggling in weapons and supplies and people.
NE: Yep. And at the same, he talked about the need to somehow make sure that people who are armed won't go back with the Palestinians that are returning to their houses in the north. I remind you, Dan, that Israel agreed to surrender, to redraw the Netzarim Corridor. That's the corridor that separates Gaza north to south. And this is one of the main achievements of Israel during the war. It basically took effective control of the northern side of Gaza, then it built a corridor. It's not allowing civilians or anyone else to go back to the north of Gaza. And over a million people were called to evacuate and evacuated from the northern side of Gaza, Palestinians, and they live in refugee camps, new refugee camps in the south or in central Gaza Strip. And the prime minister has made the point that when people return back home, they need to be checked so that Hamas terrorists won't be within them together with arms. This is seen as something that can blow up the deal because you can't really search a million people unless you're in the corridor and Israel already agreed to leave the corridor. The prime minister has agreed that this is the Biden proposal. At the time, that was actually the Israeli proposal of the negotiating team. And we discussed this at length in your podcast. At any rate, the fact that the prime minister said that, in a meeting with the families, something he knew will be quoted, talked about Israel's red lines in such a way is also a sign that the deal is in trouble because the prime minister saying this is not going to push the deal forward. But the US itself is saying that Hamas has not agreed to its bridging offer. What's happening is that within the Israeli society, we're seeing a huge, huge rift and a very bitter rift about this, with the negotiating team of Israel, mainly comprised of security officials, off the record blaming the prime minister for not having a deal. And what they're saying about the US bridging offer is that this was dead on arrival, that the Americans, for their own reasons, bought into some of Netanyahu's points. But the bottom line is that you're not going to have a deal, and everybody knows that you're not going to have a deal with the fine details of that bridging offer. They're blaming off the record Netanyahu for that. So these are the Israeli negotiators themselves who are briefing the Israeli media. The prime minister, and it's not himself doing that, but it's like senior officials in Jerusalem, are attacking the negotiating team. The Israeli negotiating team saying, you're actually helping Hamas not get a deal because you’re sort of disclosing the rifts within the Israeli side and why are you briefing off the record? And absurdly or ironically, this brief of the senior officials in Jerusalem is also off the record. So you see that the Israeli society is really being torn about this issue. You see the demonstrations in the streets. You see the distress of the families and the distrust of many families. The Gvura forum, you know, is again a minority. It exists, and I acknowledge this, of course, but it's a minority. Their disbelief with the prime minister and they're really torn between what security officials are saying, what senior officials in Jerusalem are saying. The bottom line is that Hamas is not on board with the deal here and that many people within the Israeli defense apparatus distrust the prime minister and that the prime minister accuses them, that they don't know how to negotiate and that they're ready to give everything in and that he's standing for Israeli interest. And I hope that in the last two or three sentences, I just presented the rift in an objective way, because this is a complicated issue. This is a complex issue because I don't know if Hamas really wants a deal right now. Not having a deal now, Dan, means probably that the region is going to escalate to the verge of a regional war. We're still waiting for the Hezbollah response. We know that Iran is also planning some sort of response, although they say that the wait can be forever. I'm quoting Iranian officials. And everybody knows that if we don't get a deal now, this could very much escalate to war. And the way that the Israeli society is going into this situation… and I'm not going to sugarcoat this. You have a growing distrust with the political establishment and with the government and with the prime minister. But you also have the base of the prime minister and you have this side of the political spectrum, even if it doesn't win the polls right now, saying, what do you want? Why are you criticizing Netanyahu when the US itself is saying, Secretary Blinken is saying that Israel accepted the bridging offer. How can Israel be more lenient towards Hamas than the US is willing to be lenient towards Hamas? And I see you smiling, Dan, so I know that I represented that view in an accurate way.
DS: No, no, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I feel that no one wants a deal more, other than the overwhelming majority of Israelis, no one wants a deal more than the Biden administration. They're very committed to a deal. So the fact that they're saying that Israel has accepted what they have asked and the onus is now on Hamas, I'm just, I'm agreeing with you. Like what are those advising Netanyahu is supposed to do beyond that? And what do you think is motivating the Biden administration, by the way? I mean, they either…
NE: That's a great question. First of all, I think that, and I know I'm gonna amaze some people. I'm saying this after talking with some officials in recent months, they actually agree with some of Israel's arguments. So not everything is about posturing towards the election. So one of the things, one of the perks that this president got is that…
DS: Not everything's about?
NE: Domestic politics. It's not all about domestic American politics in what the administration is saying. So when you're asking, Dan, why are they presenting a view that says that Israel can have some presence in the Philadelphi Corridor with the border with Egypt, the answer is that part of the Biden administration, and by the way, parts of the Biden administration that we'll see in the next administration, if Harris wins the elections, are convinced by the Israeli arguments that you cannot allow Hamas to rearm itself. And it's gonna if you're not gonna be at the Philadelphi Corridor. They got convinced. And I didn't hear this after the bridging offer, I heard that before they made the offer. So it was born out of the merits of what they think should be. And this is, again, one of the perks that President Biden got by not running seeking reelection, right? So he can actually judge things by the merit in the few months that he has left. So this is one explanation. Now, they can change. They can change their position. Tomorrow morning, they can say, look, you know, we made a bridging offer. We're now making a new one that's going to pressure Israel because if we're not going to make it, we're not going to have a deal and we need to have a deal. So this can change. But right now, they made something that was much more comfortable for the prime minister to adopt. And I should say, of course, that he'd never adopted it publicly. Again, it was Secretary Blinken who said the prime minister has adopted this. And then after the prime minister's remarks were made public, he was asked again, does Israel still stand with the bridging offer by the US? And he said, yes. Well, they said yes to our offer. And they put the pressure on Hamas. And the reason they're doing this, Dan, is also because it worked well towards these negotiations. What they discovered is when they pressure Hamas directly, it has some sort of achievements. Hamas said from the first deal that we had that brought hostages back home, months and months ago, that they're not going to have a deal, another deal with Israel unless the war's going to end with that deal finally and they want to have guarantees. And the great achievement of this negotiation, an achievement to the US administration and to the Israeli government, is that they now understand that this is not going to be a final deal and the war's not going to be over after this deal. This is the main achievement. What the defense apparatus in Israel is saying to Netanyahu is, take the deal. And I want to give the respect to these people who is, this is their profession, both those army generals, but also the Mossad, the Shabbat. They're telling Netanyahu, take the deal because you got a great achievement out of this. We can go back to the war. We're going to get about 20 Israelis, we hope at least 20 Israelis back alive from Gaza. We're going to keep our military presence in Gaza. We have some guarantees from the United States. I published this story. Some guarantees that we can actually restart the war if needed. We're going to have a letter from the US. This is the best you're going to get here, and you need to take the deal. This is their point. What they're saying is, if you don't get the deal, even if there were no hostages, then you might see a regional escalation that will play against Israel in ways that we cannot foresee right now.
DS: You alluded to the fact that Hamas simply may not want to deal right now.
NE:Yeah.
DS: And they're just stringing along the Biden administration, they're stringing along the Israelis. NE: It's an argument within Western intelligence sources whether or not Hamas really wants a deal right now.
DS: Why would he not want it? Why would Sinwar not want a deal?
NE:I think that for Sinwar, and this is, now presenting one side of that discussion within the Israeli intelligence, for Sinwar, he would want a deal after Israel is hit by Hezbollah in Iran. So missing the opportunity for this thing to deteriorate to a full frontal attack of the so-called axis of resistance against Israel, for him, he sort of asks himself, speculates intelligence sources, why should I go for it now? The Israelis will always be ready to have some sort of deal to get some of their hostages back, right? Because this is a top priority for Israelis. I can either have the deal right now, or I can get it after Iran strikes back, after Hezbollah strikes back, after this becomes the flood of Al-Aqsa, which is the name he gave to his operations against Israel on October 7. His vision might be materialized. So these intelligence sources are saying, if you go through the thinking of Sinwar, things are going to improve for him with the Iran and Hezbollah attack and a regional deterioration. And then Israel is going to be pressured more forcefully, maybe by the United States, now presenting a more pro-Israeli view. You know, you need to stop the war because now it's a regional war, right? And it's Israel's fault. I just gave you the most pessimistic scenario as to Sinwar's intentions. The other side in this discussion says, oh no, Sinwar understands that Iran's response might never come. He also understands that Hezbollah doesn't want a war with Israel. It might be going into a war, but he doesn't want a frontal, full fledged war between Lebanon and Israel because this will destroy large chunks of Beirut again and will be terrible for Hezbollah within Lebanon and Lebanese people don't want this. And he also understands that his days are numbered. He can be assassinated every day now. If Israel got to Muhammad Deif, the Chief of Staff of Hamas, one of the mega organizers of October 7th and a man who's been involved with terror as long as Yahya Sinwar, maybe more, if it got to Deif, it can get to Sinwar. And this can happen within hours. And if it gets to Sinwar, basically it won the war. So he needs a deal right now and he wants a deal right now. But within the perimeters that they described to begin with, and as far as Hamas is concerned, say these intelligent sources, they already made their concessions by saying, yeah, you can actually restart the war after this deal. Secondly, you'll get some of these people out, but not all of them. And Israel's army is going to have a presence in the Gaza Strip. So they made these concessions already. Also, he's going to get, Dan, a million people coming back to their homes in the northern side of Gaza. Now, let's just imagine that picture. Imagine the picture of Palestinians returning back to their destroyed neighborhoods and towns and cities, discovering what was left of them. Imagine how the international media is going to cover this. And also imagine the idea of a return, not a Nakba the way that Palestinians describe 1948. A disaster, a Nakba, in which they were expelled, as far as they are concerned, never to return. Not a Naqsa, like the tragedy for them of 1967 within the West Bank. But Sinwar, the only one who got Palestinians back to their homes. And Netanyahu critics, by the way, are saying exactly that. The reason that Netanyahu doesn't really want to deal, even if he tells Tony Blinken that he accepts the offer, he sabotages the deal with his statements, public statements, briefings all the time. Because he knows, Dan, that if he's going to see that picture of a million Palestinians returning back home, maybe jubilant, maybe in tragedy, the international media, he's going to be blamed for that. That's going to be for him in Israeli politics, say the critics, like the moments of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. This is going to be a picture of victory for Hamas. And this is going to be played out, you know, disastrously politically for Netanyahu. That's the reason why he's trying to derail the deal. And I think I just presented both the internal discussion within the intelligence community and also the Netanyahu critics. Netanyahu, of course, is saying, I want a deal. I'm willing. And I quoted these sources on your show. I'm willing for this government to fall over a deal, but I'm not going to let go of Israel's basic security needs. And now I wrapped up everybody in this.
DS: What's interesting is we will see if Iran and Hezbollah strikes, assuming the deal is dead for now, we will see now if Iran and Hezbollah strikes, if Sinwar gets his wish of some kind of regional escalation. But if he doesn't, if they strike, but in a minimal way or symbolic way, but not in a way that's more reminiscent of what happened in mid-April, that either it is a powerful strike, but Israel's defenses are strong, or they just don't bother doing something extravagant, Hezbollah and Iran. So Sinwar doesn't get his regional escalation. And if Netanyahu continues to convey that he's willing to do a hostage deal, so long as certain principles undergird that deal, and those principles are in Netanyahu's argument key to another October 7th not happening, meaning Israel in the Philadelphi Corridor, Israel in the Netzarim Corridor, and some kind of system for controlling who comes back to the north. If Netanyahu digs in on those principles, and by the way, Netanyahu's poll numbers are improving right now.
NE: Are improving, absolutely.
DS: Not dramatically, but they're improving.
NE: No, no, I think they're improving dramatically, Dan. I think they're improving dramatically. Netanyahu is having, you know, he has resurrected, really.
DS: Right. So Sinwar then looks at that and says, wait a minute, there's no regional escalation that I was waiting for. And Netanyahu is not compromising on these principles that matter to me, Sinwarm and his political posture within Israel, and we know that Sinwar is a close follower and consumer of Israeli news, and he sees Netanyahu's political position improving that maybe Israel, this Israel of 2011 and the Netanyahu of 2011 that was willing to cut a deal to get one Israeli hostage back and release 1,027 Palestinians from Israeli prisons, including Sinwar, that that Israel and that Netanyahu are over. By the way, I'm not passing judgment here one way or the other. I'm not saying it's a good thing, it's not a bad thing. It could mean that Israel is in a new…
NE: Let me tell you something as a Netanyahu follower. The Netanyahu that was willing to release 1,027 prisoners for just one soldier, that Netanyahu is still very much here. And much of the defense apparatus resisted that. So now the defense apparatus is saying, take the deal. Netanyahu is hesitant. And then much of the defense apparatus said, don't make the deal. And he did. And the differentiating factor, Dan, was polls and public opinion. And he can say what the Israelis wanted me to do. And his critics can say it was just good for you towards the elections.
DS: But my only point is that Sinwar may be dealing with an Israel that's a different Israel. That's my only point. And what he thinks is gonna happen, that Israel's gonna be under pressure from regional escalation, Israel's gonna be under pressure, that actually the regional escalation may not happen or may not happen the way Sinwar thinks it may not happen. And Netanyahu's susceptibility to pressure from a majority of the hostage families, albeit not all of them, is not what it may have been in another time in modern Israeli history. And if that's the case, then Sinwar doesn't have… my only point is he may not have a lot of options because then he's dealing with an Israel that he doesn't recognize.
NE: That's a possibility. The problem here, of course, is that you need to have, I think, some sort of understanding. And this is in an op-ed I wrote yesterday, going into the possibility of an escalation, you would want an Israeli society that is very much united at the idea we did everything. And I want to remind you Dan, Ehud Barak returning from the Camp David failed summit with Bill Clinton. And he landed his plane. I was already a political reporter back then. And he landed, he went out of the airplane and he said to the Israeli public, we did everything. And everybody knew that because the right wing was saying, you wanted to divide Jerusalem. You wanted to get them half of Jerusalem. And they blamed him that he's a traitor and everything. But you know what he got from that? He got from that the Israelis’ understanding that the Second Intifada that broke soon after, it wasn't because of them. And he also got, you know, President Clinton to acknowledge that. And Hillary Clinton, probably the most ardent Israel supporter today with Democratic officials saying, you know, Israel did everything in its power. And we're going to maybe go into this escalation when more than 50% of the Israelis think that the prime minister is not doing his best. And that's a problem. So I'm not saying that he's not doing his best. And I'm listening when the prime minister says, this is the way you negotiate. But I'm saying that he didn't manage to convince the Israeli public with this. And if Israel is going to face an even worse war than the one that we have had in the last more than 10 months, well, you know, you would want to convince the Israelis that we did everything in our power to prevent that. And this is not only about hostages. This is about that regional deterioration. Because let me tell you, you wake up in the morning in Israel, there's a push notification about another bombing attack in the North, Israel attacked in south Lebanon. This is becoming, most of the attacks are right now in the North. This is a dire situation for Israelis. And I think that this kind of unity is very much needed in Israel today, and you're not going to get it when your negotiating team is briefing that you don't really want a deal. And of course, you can always say, you know, they're all lefties and some of the Netanyahu people are saying, you know, that's the reason we had October 7th. These are the arguments that they're making, but you need to convince the public with that. And I think, by the way, that by accepting the bridging offer by the United States, Netanyahu was trying to start to do that, but it's not enough as of yet.
DS: Okay. Nadav, we will leave it there. I know you've got to get back to covering all my friends at the Democratic National Convention.
NE: Yeah, I didn't see you around. Were you only in the McCormick Place?
DS: Yeah, Nadav, just keep looking. Keep looking. You'll see me at some point.
NE: Maybe at the Uncommitted press conference together with Ilhan Omar and Layla Elabed?
DS: My people, my people. Tell them I say hello.
NE: I'm going to do Dan Senor spottings in the DNC.
DS: Yeah, send everyone my regards and stay safe. I really mean that. And I look forward to talking to you when you're safely out of there.
NE: Okay. Thank you so much, Dan. Thank you.
DS That's our show for today. keep up with Nadav Eyal, you can find him on X @Nadav_Eyal or at Ynet. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huergo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.