IDF INVADES LEBANON, IRAN STRIKES - with Nadav Eyal and Matt Levitt
The past couple days have seen some of the most fast-moving and potentially region-altering events since the 10/07 War broke out. To help us better understand what has happened and where events are likely heading, we are joined by:
NADAV EYAL — a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news.
MATTHEW LEVITT — the director of the Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Matt served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He later served as a counterterrorism advisor to the special envoy for Middle East regional security. Previously, Matt was a counterterrorism intelligence analyst at the FBI.
Full Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
ML: There is just complete amazement at what the Israelis have accomplished from a military and intelligence perspective. This is the stuff of a Hollywood script that gets rejected because it's too fanciful. It's a paperback thriller. Like, people in this country who are in this business are looking at what these Israelis have done, those in particular really, really resonated in three letter agencies here in the United States, because the people who blew up our embassy, including destroying the CIA station, the people who kidnapped Bill Buckley and tortured and killed him, got what was coming to them.
DS: It's 9:11 AM on Wednesday, October 2nd here in New York City. It is 4:11 PM on Wednesday, October 2nd in Israel as Israelis wind down their day and prepare for Rosh Hashanah holiday. These past 24 hours have been some of the most intense and fast moving since the war broke out almost one year ago. With us to help us better understand what's happening on the ground and from a 30,000 foot perspective are Nadav Eyal from Yedioth Ahronoth and Matt Levitt from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Matt, Nadav, thanks for coming back.
NE: Thanks for having us.
ML: Pleasure.
DS: Just to recap what's been going on these past few days. Two weeks ago in a jaw dropping, very dramatic operation dubbed the pager attack, I guess, Israel took out thousands of mid-level Hezbollah operatives or at least took them off the battlefield. Last week, the Israeli Air Force dropped some 83 tons of bombs on Hezbollah Central Command, killing Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and many of Hezbollah's central command leadership and even the next level down. This was followed by the Israeli Air Force attacking much of what was left of Hezbollah's rocket and missile arsenal that were stored inside villages really in southern Lebanon right there at Israel's northern border, mere kilometers from Israel's northern border. Two days ago, Israel launched a ground operation into Lebanon, a limited ground operation, to destroy Hezbollah's subterranean infrastructure, the underground munitions, depots, weapons and tunnels, which had all the ingredients for their own version of an October 7th attack only coming from the North. And then just yesterday, Iran fired some 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, striking targets all over the country or at least attempting to. But there were no casualties on the Israeli side. Thank God. One man, a resident of Gaza, actually was walking on the streets of Jericho in the West Bank, and he got tragically crushed by a large piece of an Iranian missile debris after being shot down by Israel's air defense systems. Before we dive into some of these stories, I just want to focus on the big picture for a moment of all the Iran of all of Iran's proxies. Hezbollah has been for years the biggest threat to Israel and hanging there is a deterrent against any Israeli action against Iran. It has a substantial well-trained fighting force. It has the best weapons and artillery among Iran's proxies and a real organizational structure like a military, like a sovereign nation's military. So, Matt, let's start with you because you've got to drop off in about 20 minutes. What is left of Hezbollah, the backbone of Iran's Axis of Resistance? And what does this mean for Iran?
ML: Look, when you cut down to size a huge organization, you're still left with a lot. So this is unprecedented what we've seen. And Hezbollah really is a fraction of itself, a shadow of its former self. I think that the Hezbollah that we knew two weeks ago does not exist, but it is still a formidable adversary. The New York Times is reporting now that Israeli and American authorities are assessing that the IDF destroyed as much as 50% of Hezbollah's rockets. That's massive. Let's even assume it's true and maybe it's not, but let's assume it is. That still leaves you with about 75,000, maybe as much as 100,000 rockets. And so Hezbollah is still able to play that deterrent role for Iran, trying to prevent someone from attacking their nuclear program. Obviously a very, very current conversation today is the Israelis are sure to respond to the ballistic missile attack by Iran. What Hezbollah can't do as effectively today is fire lots of missiles. It's not clear they have the command and control to be able to coordinate that. So they can do small one-off things. They can fire a few things here, a few things there. Their ability to fight a prolonged full scale war is also severely diminished. Their ability now to carry out a cross-border raid, an October 7th cross-border raid, is also not what it once was. Reportedly when Ibrahim Aqil, one of the other top commanders on the Jihad Council was killed, he and other Radwan commanders, special forces commanders, were planning just such a raid. Well, that's what the ground maneuver into southern Lebanon is all about. And so in the moment, actually, one of my bigger fears is the potential for Hezbollah to want to do things abroad. Because as I look at the various Hezbollah command structures, basically all of which have been hit by assassinations, the one that hasn't, is Unit 910, the Islamic Jihad organization, Hezbollah's international terrorist arm. And if I were Hezbollah and I wanted to do something against Israel and I can't fire thousands of rockets, or also won't because Iran wants that powder dry, and if I can't do a cross border raid, then I tell my operatives abroad to do something. And we had a case here in the United States, Ali Kourani, who was convicted on all counts. When the FBI asked him under what type of circumstances do you think you'd be asked to put in place the pre-operational surveillance that you've done, he said, I don't know, maybe if there was a war with Iran or if Nasrallah was killed. Well, here we are.
DS: Matt, one question. For years, we have been led to believe that Hamas is a threat, but it pales in comparison to the threat from Hezbollah. Ten times, as I mentioned earlier, ten times the munitions and rocket and missile capabilities of Hezbollah, ten times the manpower, real experience fighting in Syria since 2012 to prop up Bashar Assad. So they were a real battle tested force and Israel didn't really have any great defense capabilities at its northern border. So Hezbollah totally caught Israel off guard on October 7th. Israel has to deal with Hezbollah, but whatever Israel does with Hezbollah… Sorry, Hamas caught Israel off guard on October 7th. Israel had to deal with Hamas in Gaza, but whatever Israel had to contend with against Hamas in Gaza was just nothing, on a whole other scale with regard to Hezbollah because Hezbollah could do things that Hamas could never do and Israel should rue the day that it finds itself in a live action situation with Hezbollah. And here we are and they seem completely, I don't want to say a shadow of itself in terms of what Israel's dealing with and maybe it speaks to Israel's capabilities that we didn't know Israel had, it just feels like there's something here that doesn't compute in terms of what we had been believing about Hezbollah's capabilities relative to what we've seen over the last few weeks.
ML: I don't think it's a question about Hezbollah's capabilities. I think it's an astounding statement on Israel's capabilities. I had a conversation with a very senior Israeli defense official just a few weeks ago. And this person said to me, look, we feel that we can deal with Hezbollah in stages in a way that won't involve a full-scale rocket attack against Israel and lead to full-scale war and significant casualties in Israel. And there was a lot of doubt in that group of people who were having that conversation. Well, that person clearly knew what they were talking about. Israel brought to the table extremely unique capabilities. And in a very, very short period of time, this Entebbe-style surprise decimated Hezbollah. Hezbollah still could fire 2,000 missiles a day if it wanted to. It's more difficult because the command and control is lost and because a significant number of the rockets have been hit. We don't know how many of the launchers have been destroyed, but there still is a very significant threat. And as we're seeing now in terms of the Israeli ground maneuver in southern Lebanon, there's an additional concern about Hezbollah's ability to carry out ambushes and engage Israeli forces on the ground because they know the terrain. They’re very, very skilled and capable in that kind of combat. So this is less to me about being wrong about Hezbollah's capabilities and more about being amazed at the kind of intelligence infrastructure Israel put in place post-2006 when they were very open about their own failures in that war. They've been saying for years that they completely rebuilt the way that they collect and think about intelligence targeting Hezbollah. And now we saw the fruits of that labor and it's astounding.
DS: One last question for you, Matt, before I bring Nadav in. You've been inside, in and out of the US government for years. You worked in the FBI. You've worked in various parts of other areas of the executive branch, focused on Hezbollah as a threat to the United States. You were focused on Hezbollah's reach around the world, as you were referring to earlier. As an official, a former official in the US government dealing with Hezbollah, what do you sense the mood is among American officials and your former colleagues about what Israel has just accomplished? Because Israel has been now, in the last few weeks, systematically been taking out people who've been on the US Most Wanted List for decades and for some reason have always been able to elude the US. You know, we all say it's a little bit of a cliche, Israel's success in this war is America's success. But this seemed to me to be like a crystallizing case study in that. And I'm just curious if the sense you're getting in the former departments and agencies you worked in.
ML: Look, there are two things here. One is the sense of justice for historical things that Hezbollah did, blowing up our embassy twice and the Marine barracks and all that. The deaths of Fuad Shukr and Ibrahim Aqil in particular, both of whom were involved in those 1980s Beirut bombings.
DS: And both of whom have been taken out by Israel in the last few months.
ML: Just the last few weeks. Those in particular really, really resonated in three letter agencies here in the United States, especially people who've been in long enough to remember. I know of people who are doing a jig because the people who blew up our embassy, including destroying the CIA station, the people who kidnapped Bill Buckley and tortured and killed him, got what was coming to them. That's one piece of it. The second piece of it is things that Israel is doing to deal with Hezbollah today as a current threat. And while there is concern in some circles that Hezbollah and Iran are going to escalate in response, and what does that mean for regional stability, and are we on the cusp of regional war and all those types of concerns, it is also the case that people here in the United States, and in the administration, really do understand and appreciate that Israel has successfully, in a very short period of time, eliminated a huge amount of threat that Hezbollah was posing, not just to Israel, but to the region. And for a country that has huge interests in this region, that is a huge net positive. And the final thing is there is just complete amazement at what the Israelis have accomplished from a military and intelligence perspective. This is the stuff of a Hollywood script that gets rejected because it's too fanciful. It's a paperback thriller. Like, people in this country who are in this business are looking at what these Israelis have done with tremendous professional respect.
DS: Nadav, I want to ask you, typically in a war, we get reports on developments, on war stories, when an operation takes place, like the operations I just described at the beginning of this conversation. But these events are taking place at such a rapid clip. I mean the sequence, you know, you're just processing one event, and then there's a new one that is shocking. So can you just try to now take a step back? What's the overall story here? How should we be reading these individual events as kind of in one thread?
NE: Well, much as like Matt has said, the bigger picture is that Israel is restoring its deterrence in the region. Now, this restoration lies mainly on the way that it has been tackling Hezbollah. And as Matt really very rightly pointed out, and it's something that we said again and again on your show before these operations, it's the Third Lebanon War that we're seeing right now that the IDF was preparing to. Now, when you prepare to your next war, sometimes it doesn't succeed, right? Sometimes these plans can fail. And what we have seen with Israelis is that the IDF has basically succeeded in every plan it has made towards this war. And it's not only the IDF, I should say, according to foreign sources, it's also the Mossad. So I'll just give you an example, from something I'm writing today that wasn't published before. So part of the plan on October 11th, when the Israeli cabinet decided not to have a full-fledged preemptive strike against Hezbollah, as the military brass in Israel and Yoav Galant suggested, this is right at the beginning of the war, three days after Hezbollah opened fire against Israel. So part of the plan was as such. The IDF would give the impression of a ground maneuver in Lebanon. The fighters of Hezbollah will go to their stockpiles and have their army-made clothes and put on their tactical radios. And then according to the ability that was attributed to Israel, I'm very careful with my words now, in the operation two weeks ago, thousands of these radios would have been detonated at once. And because these are fighters, this is not in Beirut, they were meant, the explosives there, were meant to kill them. And the idea there was to destroy a large portion, if not most of the Radwan Force in less than an hour in a synchronized explosive manner. So they couldn't do this after the pager operation. The pager operation and we talked about this on your show, was very time sensitive for various reasons. They needed to go through with that operation. And because of that, the tactical radio element that was supposed to be the major element is not seen today as the major element anymore, because after the pager operation, Hezbollah was much more careful in tackling electronics. You know, you had, I think we talked about these characters and sketches of Nasrallah doesn't want to light up, you know, electricity anymore. So they were very careful from that point onwards. And this, you know, basically exploding the entire Radwan Force at once was supposed to happen together with taking out Nasrallah. And one could only imagine what would have happened, Dan, if Israel would have gone through that plan on October 11th and where we were at today. Israel, and that's the bigger picture, did not…
DS: If Israel had gone through the plan?
NE: Yes, if they would have actually done it on October 11th, and there are downsides to that. So I don't want to sugarcoat it or to be simplistic about this, but there are many downsides. For instance, launching capabilities of Hezbollah, maybe launching capabilities of Iran, not having the US onboard, many other elements, right? So maybe this was the right time to do so but the point is this, Israel did not restore its deterrence through its war against Hamas in Gaza. Why? Because the region was looking at Hamas and people were saying to me, and I'm talking about my Arab sources, not my Israeli sources. They were saying, look, Hamas, we didn't expect them to do that to you in the first place. So the fact that you occupied Gaza, destroyed the majority of Gaza, took out most of the regiments is something that we expected you to do. And we actually also expected you to kill Yahya Sinwar much earlier. You know, sometimes it's being compared to killing Osama Bin Laden. It's not the same. Gaza is a specified place. It's a small place. It's under the full-control… This is not Afghanistan and Pakistan, right? Even in the sizes that we're talking about, on the other hand, Israel is not the United States. So people in the region didn't look at Gaza and say, you know what, the Israelis know what they're doing. They understood that this kind of Tufan al-Aqsa, this kind of an operation of massacres, will lead to this Israeli response. But they weren't impressed. And the Americans weren't too impressed too. Although if you talk with military experts and people who actually understand what it is about, like Matt, you do see that they understood how urban warfare is difficult and what the Israelis were trying to do. The Hezbollah operations by the IDF, that's a completely different story. This is the moment that the tide has shifted in the region and people began understanding that the Israelis know what they're doing and that they have the upper hand. Now, it really didn't begin with Fuad Shukr being taken down on July 30th. That's the beginning of the Hezbollah operations by the IDF. I think it began in April. It began in April and the way that the Israeli Air Force responded to the Iran attack in a very targeted way. So what Israel showed the world is… first of all, I want to be clear about this without the United States, Israel wouldn't have the same results as it did in the last 48 hours with this massive missile attack against the country. And it wouldn't have the same result as it did in April, but it was at least 80% the Israeli Air Force. So people need to know that. This was not half and half. This was the Israeli Air Force that mainly did that. And in April, its response to the Iranians was so targeted and so successful that it meant a lot.
DS: Nadav, I want to talk about the ground operation or what we're calling the ground operation.
NE: Before the ground operation, I have another thing to say about what you said. Just to understand that Ibrahim Aqil and Fuad Shukr had a prize on their heads put by the US government of $7 million and $5 million. And just in the last 24 hours, Israel assassinated in Dahiya, in Beirut, Muhammad Jafar Qasir, whose nickname is Hajj Fadi. He's the commander of the 4400 Unit of Hezbollah and he's responsible for transferring weapons between Iran and Hezbollah. And he had a prize on his head of $10 million. So he was much more important for the US government than Ibrahim Aqill, which was the head of the Hezbollah operations. And this is not even, you know, reported, right? The reason it's not reported is because it's a daily thing. On the other hand, Dan, I want to warn us against being euphoric. And we saw that, you know, the last 24 hours in Israel, which have been extremely difficult. Israel has been attacked. And this was a substantial attack by Iran. The IDF spokesperson is saying that Israeli army bases have been hit, that no material ability of the Israelis has been hit. The Israeli Air Force is in full capacity and operation. Nobody died. Nobody, as far as we know, got injured, but he is saying that there was damage to Israeli army bases. There are videos online. This was a substantial ballistic attack against Israel and Israel obviously did not take all of these missiles down. And Iran and Hezbollah have much to go. Then at the same time, when Israel is fighting this war in the skies, at the same time exactly, we see, you know, the challenges of the ground with the terror attack in Jaffa, in Tel Aviv.
DS: We will get to the Iranian attack and we'll obviously get to the Jaffa attack. I just want to stay, talk about the ground invasion, which we've been hearing so much about, but we don't see much of it. And you told me offline that this is typical for the IDF in terms of how it's fighting, certainly how it's been fighting in Gaza, that we don't see that much, we don't know that much, that's intentional. So I guess what can you tell us about the ground operation and what these ground operations have revealed, what the IDF I guess, has just revealed in terms of what's been secretly in the works over the past few months?
NE: So first of all, if our listeners want to go on the IDF spokesman website, they can see, I think, there the videos, the amazing videos of what the IDF has been doing, not during these ground operations, but in the last 11 months. IDF special units and commander units have been penetrating sovereign Lebanese territory, and they've been bringing home a lot of intelligence, attacking fortifications of Hezbollah, again, beyond the Israeli line, very secret operations of these units. And one of the things that they've been bringing home is just an amazing amount of ammunitions and missiles. And you can see this and what the IDF spokesman did, very cleverly I think, is that he had his people go with these units. So you can actually see the operations there. You can see the IDF going into, you know, an area in south Lebanon that looks innocent and they find in the middle of the woods a hidden door and they go to the tunnel and you see them going inside the tunnel. And then they find there those missiles that they wanted to shoot and the actual preparation, Dan, for another October 7th but a thousand times more powerful. I watched the Israeli Channel 12 military correspondent Nir Dvori. He was asked after these operations were revealed, what do they mean? And he quoted something that a senior army official told him at the beginning of the war. He told him that if Hezbollah would have surprised Israel in the North, the Nukhba and Hezbollah would have shaken hands in Dizengoff Square in Tel Aviv. So first of all…
DS: That’s chilling. That is just chilling.
NE: I want to say this is what Dvori said. I want to say about this….
DS: I just want our listeners to process what you're saying. The vision was Hamas's commandos would make their way from the South, up heading north into the center of the country and Hezbollah's commandos would penetrate Israel's northern border and move its way south, which means they would completely overrun the country. That was the vision. That was the plan.
NE: That was the plan.
DS: So just basically squeezing Israel from both sides.
NE: But when I say that was the plan, I want to be extremely careful about saying that was the plan. Why? Because we know that Hezbollah did not surprise Israel. It attacked Israel on October 8th, but it was not part of the timing of the Hamas attack. And I think it wasn't by mistake. Now, I want to say something important, and again, Israel saw in the North and was preparing in the North for a possible Hezbollah attack. This is what we have been saying in these chapters. And because of that, Hezbollah was exposed. And because it was exposed, Israel deducted in the North, quite rightly so, that there is not going to be a surprise attack. And Israel was right. You know, the Israeli intelligence was so focused on the North, was preparing the third Lebanon war, but it was also seeing that the Radwan Force is not ready. And now, you and I can see that the fact is that Hezbollah was penetrated by the Israeli intelligence. So it's not by mistake that the Radwan Force and the Nukhba didn't shake hands at Dizengoff. Israel was very ill-prepared and totally failed in the South, a failure that will echo for generations. Israel was prepared in the North and overly prepared in a sense, and this is the reason why it also considered a preemptive surprise attack three days after Hezbollah attacked it, because it saw that Hezbollah isn't ready. Let me tell you something about that, and I'm not sure it was published. After Israel considered that and decided not to, a message was delivered to Hezbollah through a third party saying to them, stop your war in the North. We are ready to act. And they heard this thing leak on Israeli press about October 11th. It began by American press, of course. But then it leaked also to Israeli press and Nasrallah himself didn't believe that the Israelis even considered doing what they did. And as we saw to the end of the war, he didn't believe that the Israelis will go through with this. But the bottom line is that the IDF knew and understood for years what Hezbollah is planning in the North. They knew where to go and they raided these places. Now, we have a ground incursion in Lebanon, again, rather limited. The prices are already high. As we speak, the families of at least three IDF soldiers have been notified in the last 12 hours that they have been killed in action. And there are substantial battles across southern Lebanon. And we're speaking on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. It's a difficult holiday in Israel because of this news, because of the, you know, the terror attack yesterday and the news about casualties today in south Lebanon. And, you know, we're talking about Israel's success. It comes with a price and the people bearing that burden are the IDF soldiers and officers and their families.
DS: Nadav, I want to talk about the unprecedented Iranian attack, the 200, some 200 ballistic missiles last night. First of all, what can you tell us about that?
NE: So the attack is a result of a directive by Iran's supreme leader. There were… you know, when Iran decides to do something like that, it goes through a process. It goes through a process. And we know that the final decision was made in the last 36 hours before the attack. The Americans didn't know for sure, neither did the Israelis, that the Iranians are going to go for it. And one of the reasons for that, and this was published abroad, that Israel delivered the message to the Iranians that if they're going to attack Israel, this time the Israeli response is going to be much more severe. And it was also reported and I cannot verify it. So when I'm saying now it was also reported, I don't mean that I'm backing that story. So I want to be careful that Israel also warned Iran that its nuclear installations might be on the table if they attack Israel this time. So during the morning, Eastern Time, United States, yesterday, the White House reached the conclusion, the NSC reached the conclusion that an attack is imminent. And they made that public immediately saying that this would carry serious consequences to the Iranians, which as far as I know is the first time that this administration has actually said, we're not just helping Israel in its defenses, which the administration has done in April and has committed itself to doing again after Nasrallah was killed, but also saying that there will be a price that Iran will pay if it attacks Israel. I don't know what kind of price, diplomatically or otherwise. Now, the White House said that about a couple of hours, three hours before the actual attack by Iran, but Secretary Austin said that 24 hours before. I wrote on Twitter, and I stand by this, that the White House could have been much more aggressive as to the Iranians.
DS: Okay. I want to take a moment on this. Hold on, Nadav. This is important for our listeners to understand the sausage making, how the conversations that we have behind the scenes, how they filter into this conversation. I will say for the first time, I think, since you and I have been having these conversations over the past year. I have been, you have been more critical of the US administration than I have. This is, I just want to note it for the history books, where I was struck by the strength of Jake Sullivan, the White House National Security Advisor. I was struck by the strength of his statement yesterday when he came out and made it clear that not only does Israel have a right to respond, but implied that the US was going to participate in that response in some way, which was a jarring 180 degree change from the administration's posture, not only last April, but of a few days ago when you had the US administration, the Secretary of State urging for de-escalation. And to go from de-escalation, which was consistent with the, you know, take the win language that President Biden had used after the April 13th attack against Israel, meaning take the win because Israel and and its partners and allies managed to defend against that April 13th attack or at least prevented from doing serious damage, that Israel should stand down, it doesn't need to respond. And that that had been the tone. The emphasis was always on de-escalation, de-escalation, de-escalation, never on reprisals. And suddenly, A, Israel makes clear there's going to be a reprisal based on what happened yesterday, and B, the US makes it clear that it's going to be involved. So I was praising the administration and you were saying, not so fast. And so why don't you just explain why you made that point.
NE: Yeah, my point is very simple. I was very happy as you were to hear the administration making these statements, but I didn't understand if this is the policy of the United States, why make them after the fact and not before the attack and make them much more forcefully as the US knows how to do, as this administration knows how to do. And I credit this administration for the way that it tackled, for instance, the Ukraine-Russia, the Russia invasion to Ukraine. So one of the things that I think changed with this administration that they've been doing very cleverly is that they are exposing, on the record and publicly, intentions of bad actors and they push it through the media again and again. So they did it this time. But if you have decided that there will be consequences to Iran, it's not only about assisting the Israeli defense. You shouldn't leave it to a readout of a conversation between Yoav Galant and Lloyd Austin with all due respect. It's the president himself or Jake Sullivan himself that needs to go on the record as soon as possible warning Iran. And by serious consequences, I would also say I understand that you would want to keep things tactically vague at this point. You don't want to commit yourself to a military action against Iran. I don't think that the US administration is about to hit Iran at this point. At this point. And I want to say something about that, because I'm not sure, knowing this president to the extent that I understand what he's doing, I'm not sure that the end game here won't deteriorate to a situation in which the Americans do something vis-a-vis Iran. And I mean a military action. I'm leaving this aside. My point is that if you change not only your tone, but you are actually saying you're going to pay a price, push it through. Deter them. You know, don't only send forces to the Gulf, but say that we have changed our position here. If you attack again, you know, they know the White House knows how to do this. This is not a lot. And Lord Austin, by the way, didn't, you know, he didn't go to the cameras. He didn't have a press conference saying that. It was a readout of an announcement with Yoav Gallant. So if you're serious, if you're not serious about it, don't say it. But Americans are serious. This administration, from my experience, is serious. And when they say there will be serious consequences, they mean it. And my only point there is you should have done it through the White House and much earlier, trying to deter the Iranians. I don't think that this is a good thing that happened, Dan. The Iranians attacking Israel.
DS: Let me push back a little bit. I agree, obviously, anytime there's an attack on Israel, it's bad and it's scary. And I have family members, very close family members that spent much of the night, two nights ago, even in Jerusalem, in their safe rooms, which is not, you know, normally Jerusalem doesn't… That's not quite required for residents of Jerusalem and the Home Front Command was requiring it for my family in Jerusalem. So obviously it was a scary 24 hours and we have scary days ahead. However, the Iranian attack, I think, makes it much easier for Israel now to have a much more ambitious approach to its response and we'll get into this, but it may have catalyzed options for Israel that Israel may not have had before.
NE: Yeah, well, first of all, it's possible. And there's always, in a war, that can be created all kinds of opportunities. And people say now Israel has the legitimacy to operate, which is the point you just made, Dan. I saw the missiles landing in the areas of Tel Aviv and Herzliya. I saw this barrage. And for many people in the region too, this was a show of force by Iran. We're talking about Israeli deterrence. At the end of the day, Iran has attacked Israel already twice with hundreds of projectiles. And this attempt was not symbolic. It was meant to hit Israel. And every time this kind of thing happens, I don't think that this is good news. And I also think that attacking maybe nuclear installations in Iran was, at any rate, on the table. So if the point is that it would have been better for Israel to be in this position after it's attacked and now it can mainly make an argument internationally speaking, I think Israel already has a good international argument about trying to deter this bad actor called Iran. I think there is something, and I don't use this word often, infuriating with this set of events. And this is one of the reasons I was critical to an extent of the US administration. I have to confess it has a lot to do with me being an Israeli on several levels, because look what happens here. You have here a regional power that pays very little price for its support for these militia proxies who make life in Israel hell in the last year and basically make life hell in Israel for a long time. Israel has been attacked by these proxies. It's not that Israel woke up in the morning and said, we have these genocidal organizations on our borders and we need to tackle that first because they want to kill us all and murder our kids and, you know, rape women and change the Middle East and they're supported by Iran and we will need to have this big war. No, Israel doesn't have the political leadership to do such a thing. Neither did it have the international legitimacy. And to be frank, you know, even the US administration wouldn't probably have supported Israel if it would have just invaded Gaza saying, we need to take down Hamas because it's very dangerous or invaded Lebanon because we need to take down Hezbollah because they are very dangerous. Now, these proxies have attacked Israel. Israel has been responding to them, disintegrating Hamas, a very heavy price also to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. And this needs to be said. And it's been now attacking, in a very targeted way generally, Hezbollah very successfully. And now this bad actor is directly attacking Israel when Israel didn't attack it first. You know, an assassination of Ismail Haniyah, the center of Tehran, of one man, is an assassination. It's not shooting, you know, hundreds of ballistic missiles with military-style warheads when our kids are running to the shelters. The fact that the world sort of accepted that, that this is what life is in the Middle East. You have these genocidal groups. They are saying on the record… I'm not saying that they're genocidal because it's a derogatory term. This is their statements. I'm just quoting them. They want to destroy this country. And you have Iran, it’s supportive of this. And then Iran from time to time, its foreign minister would meet other foreign ministers and be legitimate. You know, it's a legitimate sort of… So the fact, so yeah, it's the nuclear program that is the problem, not the fact that they've been supportive of Hezbollah, who's a murderous organization, murdering Americans, Syrians, Sunni Syrians, and Shias Syrians, and you know, all the rest who are attacking Israel. And I find this infuriating to an extent that the Iranians actually have the audacity to join the war because they're seeing that their proxies are losing and they're attacking Israel. You know, no Iranian kid right now, I'm saying the Iranians, but I mean the Iranian regime. You know, it's not fair to say the Iranians. Most of the Iranians that I know of support Israel. I'm talking even Iranians within Tehran. So if someone is hearing us right now, I don't mean Iranians. I mean the Iranian regime. I mean the Islamic Republic. But at the end of the day, it's our kids who are running to shelters. And it's the kids in Tehran who sleep every night, you know, just fine. And the fact that this is like part of life in the Middle East, this is part of life for Israelis, I think that this is how we got to this point. Because if you don't tackle these bad actors and deter them, and it's not only about normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia, it's not about bypassing them, it's about getting things done and deterring them with credible threat of force, then you get to these points. Sorry, this was my short speech about why as an Israeli, I would want to see more of the international community.
DS: Bring it. I'm all for it. Let me ask you about the attack that occurred within the attack, the attack being in Jaffa. It turns out that while missiles may be very effective as a psychological weapon, in practice, it turns out that the terrorist gunmen who were attacking Jaffa killed six people, took place at the exact time as a missile attack, was much more deadly. What do we know about that incident?
NE: Well, first of all, these are two young people from Hebron, terrorists affiliated with Hamas. One of them had a history, an unremarkable history. I think he was arrested for, you know, maybe throwing stones or not even throwing stones. The other one had no history as far as the Israeli Shin Bet was concerned. Iran has been flooding the West Bank with money and arms exactly to get these kinds of operations done. Iran has been sending people money, wiring money, smuggling money through the Jordan River. It has been basically flooding the West Bank in order to get an armed intifada against Israel going. And what I'm saying is, according to my sources in the Israeli security apparatus that are responsible on these issues, they have been doing anything they can in order to try… you know, we've lost Hamas in Gaza, okay. Right now, the Israeli Shin Bet, responsible for the Palestinian arena in the West Bank and actually also in Gaza, has dozens and sometimes more than dozens, immediate threats to terror attacks against Israelis per day. Per day. Dozens per day sometimes. So these are numbers that are basically the numbers of the Second Intifada 20 years ago. And the only reason you're not seeing more attacks like the one that we unfortunately had in Jaffa last night is because the military and the Shin Bet are just stretched to the utmost capacity, trying to prevent this from happening. Israel has these huge abilities to, really no other country has the same abilities to confront a missile attack and a rocket attack. But at the end of the day, it's two guys with AR-15s that managed to smuggle the border, go on the light train in Tel Aviv, go out and start shooting, killing, for instance, a mother that carried her baby. The baby was carried by someone there to the hospital and the mother died, was murdered. For me and for many Israelis, it was triggering because you saw the videos. You know, these people are, they acted exactly like the Nukhba terrorists on October 7th. We're a year after and here you go. The first thing they do, you know, is they look for the civilians there, not all Jewish, by the way. A Greek tourist, and murdering them on the spot. You know, a young mother. Murdering them on the spot. Nothing has changed. Now this is about Hamas. You know, I don't know if you remember that Hamas was just playing this hand in the Arab world that, you know, some of its fighters, it wasn't the directive of Hamas to, to target civilians or something like that. So I'm sure that none of our listeners really bought into that narrative. But if someone does forget that, these people are targeting civilians. They are interested in killing civilians. So obviously, you know, this terror attack last night reminded us.
DS: The rockets that Hezbollah has had, that Israel has been systematically taking out, combined with the capabilities that Iran has, like the 200, some 200 projectiles they launched yesterday, there's always this sense in Israel, as I alluded to this earlier, that Israel needs to be careful how it responds to various threats because Iran either directly or through its proxies, particularly this proxy on Israel's northern border, Hezbollah, has a loaded gun. And don't test Iran because it can fire that loaded gun. And between the operation, the strike that Iran launched against Israel, and what Israel has been doing against Hezbollah, is that loaded gun, you know, more of an empty chamber at this point? Is there's perception that Iran's capabilities are not what Israel thought, as I said earlier, or maybe they are what Israel thought, but Israel's just systematically removing them and therefore Iran has made a major miscalculation?
NE: Well, that's a great question. And the answer, Dan, is very much related to time span. If we are going to stretch this, then Israel's advantage is going to erode. And this is not my strategic assessment. This is what my conversations with my sources, both with the Israeli leadership and Israeli security apparatus are saying. So right now, the Israeli advantage is substantial. But at the end of the day, Iran is a powerful country and it's willing to invest a lot of its power, prestige, and money in order to strengthen different proxies and bad actors across the region. Now, they took a major blow. And even in terms of legitimacy, as you pointed out earlier, Israel has an upper hand. You know, I just heard President Trump saying something last night, which I found extremely discouraging as an Israeli. He said, it's like kids fighting in a school yard or something, I'm paraphrasing, but he did use the metaphor of kids fighting in a school yard. And sometimes you need to let them fight. So, you know, I was critical about the US administration earlier saying the right thing, but not saying it at the right time. But this is definitely not the right thing. You know, these are not two kids. This is Israel. One of the worries that the Israelis have is that this would be seen as exactly this perception. It's a tribal kind of thing, you know, in the Middle East, it's a war of attrition. Who cares? It's not part of the news cycle. And then Israel will be left to its own devices. And that could be terrible for the region and for Israel, because at the end of the day, David Ben-Gurion, the founder of Israel, knew what he was talking about when he directed in the defense doctrine of the country that wars would be short and decisive. What Ben-Gurion meant is pay a heavy price to have the war very and extremely short, or you will pay a bigger price in a longer war because you do not have the strategic depth. Neither do you have the strategic ability to sustain a long war. We need to remind ourselves as Israelis, we're fighting this for a year. Israel is a small country. It's a very globalized economy. You know that, as the startup nation person, writer. So Israelis don't remember what it means to be euphoric after 1967. Now is a golden opportunity. Everybody agrees against Iran, against Hezbollah, but it's not going to sustain itself for long.
DS: In terms of Iran and Israel's response to Iran, how vulnerable is Iran to an Israeli attack and what could that attack look like?
NE: It's extremely vulnerable to an Israeli attack. Israel responded against Iran after Iran shot its hundreds of projectiles in April, right? That response took out, according to foreign sources, a specific radar station of these Iranian air defenses not far from an Iranian nuclear institution. That means that whatever took it down didn't worry too much about that aircraft being taken down by the Iranians. So Iran is very susceptible to an Israeli attack and there are many, many possible targets. The oil installations of the Revolutionary Guard is basically Iran's army. So that's a legitimate target. Israel can be more ambitious. One of the biggest questions is whether or not Israel should attempt to take down some of Iran's nuclear capabilities because it can't take everything down. So one of the questions is, is this the time to start doing that? Because this is the risk. And by the way, one of the things that was happening in Iran in the discourse within the Iranian sphere is that the Islamic Republic, after Nasrallah was killed, started sort of flirting with the idea that now that the deterrent force that they built in the region has basically been crippled, maybe they need to really break out towards a bomb, towards a nuclear bomb. And even this sort of discussion would sort of point you, if you were the US or Israel, that there is a possibility that you need to take out that plan. And the problem of course is the problem of cost effectiveness.
DS:I was speaking to one former official, senior official, over the last couple of days who made the point to me that if you would have tried to draw a line from Sinwar's decision to strike Israel on October 7th to Hezbollah being paralyzed and the threat of Hezbollah, which has lived with Israel now for decades, just being, not gone, but perhaps temporarily paralyzed and the Iranian regime being dramatically set back, its nuclear capabilities, perhaps senior leadership within Iran being taken out, much like senior leadership of Hezbollah has been taken out. These would be the most historic and from an implication standpoint, wide ranging events and catalysts in modern Middle East history. We haven't seen anything like we've seen over the last couple of weeks in decades. And the implications of all of this, it was all triggered by Israel having to respond to October 7th and realizing they had to deal with other events in the region as a result and on its other borders as a result of October 7th. And if you would try to draw that straight line from Sinwar's decision to where the regime of Iran, the head of the octopus, as Naftali Bennett calls it, being as vulnerable today as it seems to be, that line would have never been a straight line. Like you could have never imagined from this to that. And it's one of, perhaps one of the great accidents of history, or it's perhaps one of the great miscalculations by Tehran, not that, you know, that Tehran helped create this monster that is Hamas that was able to do what it did on October 7th, that it funded it, it trained it, and enabled much of its activities. Iran could never have imagined that Hamas's action would lead to Iran perhaps being at its weakest point against Israel and the West than it has been since the revolution in ‘79.
NE: Absolutely. Yeah. You know, it's really very much dependent on how you think about the arc of history, Dan. Basically, Zionism and the project that is the State of Israel has always distanced itself from the notions of an absolute war, a war that will reshape everything with one type of exception, and that is 1967. These operations in 1967 were defensive in nature. People tend to forget that. They were not made in order to expand the State of Israel. They were made because Gamal Abdel-Nasser threatened annihilation. And the feeling in Israel during the time of waiting before the 1967 war is that we might all be eliminated, killed, murdered, every single one of us. And it was this difference between a sense of personal harm and a euphoria of victory that really changed the world and the Middle East. And to a large extent, this might be the case in recent days after the killing of Nasrallah. It begins with an existential feeling of many Israelis that we spoke about in your show, really in our first shows, I told you about people getting sticks of wood that they can put on their shelter's door so that they can hold their handle. I say people, every single person I know, including myself, getting that piece of wood so they can close the handle in a way that it won't be opened by terrorists outside.
DS: So just for those who don't live in Israel, every Israeli home is required to have a safe room, which is where you're supposed to go stay during a rocket attack or a missile attack, which is supposed to be protected from those projectiles or the impact of those projectiles. The problem is there's never been a requirement that those safe rooms can be, have to be locked.
NE: No, it's the other way.
DS: From the inside.
NE: Not only, The requirement was that they will never be locked. It's forbidden to put locks because the whole idea there is that the risk of the shelter rooms is from bombing. It's not from an invasion and terrorists across. It's not like, you know, panic rooms in this country.
DS: Right.
NE: The idea of shelters is that, you know, first responders would be able to pull you out if the house...
DS: To get in. To get in.
NE: Right. So the direction of the Israeli army was always never lock these rooms. And if you would have installed a lock, it would be against regulations. And suddenly people wanted to lock them because they were fearing invasion. And...
DS: Right, and that's October 7th. October 7th was, no one thought hiding in their safe room that they would have to worry about terrorists trying to barge in. And therefore… I just want to come back to your point about the bars.
NE: And I know families where grandmothers with their grandkids behind them, granddaughters, held that handle for hours. And when I met them, they could still not operate their hand because they were holding the handle of the door of the shelter while terrorists were trying to get in and shooting through the door. This was the existential threat. It wasn't an existential threat like in strategy and think tanks. It was a very immediate feeling that it is your family that could be next. And in the last two weeks, some of this tension that was made by plan, by design, of the terrorist organizations, of the fundamentalist archenemies of Israel, of the Axis of the Resistance, were evaporated, you know, in the recent two or three weeks because of the IDF success. Because at the end of the day, as Israelis tend to say, what do we have if we don't have the IDF? We have seen on October 7th, if the IDF fails for seven hours, this is what happens. And because of that, to your remark that maybe this was a miscalculation by the Axis of Resistance, but one thing is for certain. The people who planned this, Sinwar and his folks, and to a lesser extent, Iran and the rest, because this thing wasn't timed with them, they didn't want to be in the place that they are at right now. Right? They didn't want to be in a place in which Israel is considering to attack Iran. It's legitimately, internationally, it's legitimate. The US might join in. The US is considering punitive measures against Iran. Hezbollah leadership is destroyed. Gaza is basically taken by the Israeli Defense Forces. And the next target on the radar is of course Yahya Sinwar himself, who according to some sources might be already dead. They didn't want to see this. but there are things in the region they did want to see. So it's up for the Israeli leadership. It's the IDF who has supplied them with the tools and means together with the Mossad and others to recreate the region. You know, the Saudis, the moderate Arab countries, you're speaking with them Dan probably more than I do. UAE, they're waiting. They're waiting for this change to be manifested also in diplomacy, also in policy, but they're impressed. And now is the time. Now is the window of opportunity like no other to change and reshape the region. And we'll see if the Israeli leadership and also the Arab leadership, to be frank, and also for the first time, I think, in this eve of a new year, it seems that chances are much better for Israel to improve its strategic position in the region than they were in any time before in the recent year and probably in recent years. Some would say, you know, in the Zionist outlook, they would say, no, you know, the way that we would have wanted this to happen, Dan, is to have another 20 years of nothing and low friction confrontation with Hezbollah and with Hamas. And in 15 or 10 years, the regime might have fallen and Iran's regime might have fallen. And we didn't need October 7th to do that. So that's also a very much mainstream Zionist concept. I think that Sharon once said about Hezbollah, you know, let their missiles rust, let them rust. And he meant that. And of course, that didn't end well, that perception at the time. And I think one of things that we are discovering this year is that these perceptions that bad actors will disappear, will grow up, will mature, something will happen to them. You know, we paid a very heavy price for this perception.
DS: Nadav, before we wrap, just one minute on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. We try to look for hope as we transition to the New Year. It's hard to be, in some respects, hopeful while there's 101 Israelis in the dungeons of Gaza, while Israelis are still risking their lives to fight these wars. There've been many obviously very, very dark periods, but I just want to share with you briefly my children's Jewish day school letter that went out to the parents yesterday. This I'm going to read from it. This afternoon, right before Mincha, we gathered for a short assembly where we shared some information. I'm quoting here about the Iranian attack and also encouraged everyone to reach out to their family and friends in Israel. We gathered as a full high school community to center our hearts towards our brothers and sisters in Israel. We then recited a chapter of Psalms and the traditional prayer for Israel's welfare. We ended our assembly singing Hatikva. Today and every day, our hearts are with Israel. We pray for the safety of Israel's soldiers and the safety of all of Israel's inhabitants. We hope and pray that the days ahead and the year ahead bring peace and security to Israel and to the entire region. May you and all your families and your loved ones be inscribed in the Book of Life, Shanah Tova, which is the Hebrew for wishing one a happy new year. And I was just reminded as I was reading this, there's the sense of Jewish peoplehood, the sense of the diaspora's connection to Israel, but also Israel's connection to the diaspora. And it's that latter point that I've wondered a lot about long before October 7th is how much Israelis think of themselves as part of a broader Jewish peoplehood. One thing that I've observed since October 7th is the sense that Israelis have this connection to the Jewish people around the world and that they are not alone is extremely important to be reminded of. Obviously on this day as we enter into this new year, may it endure that sense of connection and the strength of Jewish peoplehood. And I just wanted to acknowledge that and wish you a Shana Tova.
NE: Thank you, and I want to say something about that because I've been, you know, mainly because I've been on this show during this last year. So I've been talking a lot with Americans, mostly people from the Jewish community in this country. And I want to say something that Israelis don't say as often as they should and that is thank you to these people who are, at the end of the day, very much involved emotionally, very much invested with the future of Israel, even if they don't live in Israel. So I know that this is sometimes taken for granted. And if I would say that to my American friends, they'll say, obviously, right, this is what we expect. I don't think it's obvious. I'm not taking it for granted as an Israeli. And I want to say something that I sometimes say when I speak with these groups. I say, if there is a time that Israel needs help, if there is a time that you will remember for yourself that you were there to its side when it was difficult, this is the time, because this is such a test to Israeli society, to the Jewish diaspora and to the Jewish people. And as we are speaking, the IDF spokesperson is announcing that overall eight IDF soldiers have been killed in action in southern Lebanon in operations against Hezbollah during the night.
DS: May their memory be a blessing, Nadav, thinking about all of them and their families and all of us here and in Israel. Shana Tova.
NE: Shana Tova.