← Ask Haviv Anything
Ask Haviv Anything
Episode 86: Alliances and rivalries in a new Middle East, with Dan Schueftan
01:11:57
Loading summary
Transcript40 lines
- [00:05]
A
Hi, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Ask Aviv. Anything. Extremely excited to have Dan Shiftan, preeminent Israeli security analyst, on the podcast today. Dan returns to us from a trip to the Gulf, where he met with senior officials in several Gulf states, returns to us from Brussels last week, where he met with NATO officials, and has a lot to tell us. We're in a real, profoundly difficult and maybe dangerous moment that not everybody really understands. The Saudis suddenly kind of surprised everybody. They announced a pivot, a strategic pivot, basically, with an airstrike turning on the Emirates, beginning to propagandize against Israel. So presumably normalization is off the table for the foreseeable future. On questions from the Yemen war, from Somaliland, from Syria itself, Saudi Arabia seems to have switched sides to the side that it has felt for two decades was dangerous to it, the Muslim Brotherhood side. We're going to ask Dan what it all means. In Syria itself, there's tremendous fighting, intense fighting in the north. The world has abandoned the Kurds, and, you know, the American forces are pulling out. There is now a great power game underway in Yemen, in Syria. What does it all mean for Israel? How should Israel react? Are there good options? Is this a much more dangerous turn for the region that nobody really expected, I think, a year ago? We're going to talk about it. Before we get into it, we have a really special sponsor today. Alex Verkhovsky, longtime listener. He wrote to us. I want to dedicate this episode to my wife, Betty, without whom I would not be the person I am today. When we started our lives together, you believed in me when I had little more than a promise, something I spent the next 30 something years trying to live up to. As we begin the countdown to our 40th anniversary, it's now your turn to enjoy the fruits of that journey. So get ready for another 40 years together, exploring, learning, asking questions, and growing old side by side. Askav Anything has become a place of learning and discovery and one of the few spaces left where ideas rather than dogmas are openly discussed. And we love listening to it and talking about it. Alex, thank you so much for that sponsorship. Betty, I think you got a good one. And all the rest of the husbands out there. I know, I know, I know what Alex just did to us all. I would also like to invite you all to join our Patreon. We have an active, lively, exciting community there. They ask the questions that guide what we talk about on the podcast. There are great discussion forums where I learn a lot from resources that are brought into the Conversation. We talk about general news. We talk about issues that rise during the day, and you get to join a monthly livestream. Please join us at patreon.com askhaviv anything. The link is in the show. Notes. Let's get into it. Don, how are you?
- [03:01]
B
Thank you, I'm fine.
- [03:02]
A
Thanks so much for being here. Let's get into it. I want to cover Saudi first, then we'll switch over to Syria and Turkey. What the heck happened? The Saudis announced this with an airstrike on basically an Emirati arms shipment, or at least that's what they claim, to southern Yemen. There's forces there backed by the Emiratis. They are fighting the bad guys, the Houthi, the people who shut down the Saudi oil production during their war in Yemen. Why are the Saudis suddenly turning on allies, on friends, on people who want the best for Saudi? I mean, don't the Emiratis and the Israelis want the Saudis to be a linchpin of the Middle east rather than, I don't know, what, Iran, Turkey, what's going on here?
- [03:42]
B
Well, first of all, the Middle east is very complex. Not as complex as matrimony, as we've seen a few minutes ago from your introduction, but very complex. And in this region, when you're afraid of somebody, at the same time, you will try to appease him, to fight him. And when we had this relatively simple perspective of the Middle east, here are the good guys, the majority of the Arab states who want stability, and Israel and the United States are on the same side. And then there are the bad guys, the Iranians and the Muslim brothers. It turns out that when you live in this region, you are afraid what will happen if you're on terms with the bad guys that are too bad, and. And people will try to play both sides. So I wouldn't say the Saudis shifted from the good side to the bad side and they'll stay on the bad side. I'm saying they're trying to work with their enemies and their friends and to find a way to survive in this very complex region. And the Saudis have really shifted recently. For instance, do they want a confrontation between Iran and the United States? Do they want a major American strike on Iran? So we should have expected, okay, the Iranians are the bad guys, the Saudis are the good guys. The Americans and the Israelis are considering the possibility of attacking the bad guys. Why should the Saudis be concerned? Well, because the Iranians can destroy a very large part of what is important to the Saudis. By the way, not only to the Saudis people in the Gulf in general, because whereas there is threat to Israel, Israel is very well defended against missiles and the Iranians only have a limited number of long range missiles. When it comes to medium range and short range missiles, the Iranians have plenty and they can hit oil facilities and population centers and desalinization installations in the Gulf. So do they want, in the final analysis, that Iran, this regime will not be there? Yes. But what will replace it? Will it threaten the Saudi regime by demonstrating that also a secular regime can be legitimate? They need to consider many more things than Israel, among other things, and primarily perhaps because they're much weaker than Israel, they're much more vulnerable than Israel. You mentioned Syria. And I would focus. I agree that this is a very important and interesting focus because what will happen in Syria will determine a lot about what happens here in the Fertile Crescent and in this part of, of the Middle east. In the 1950s and 60s we had a very interesting book by Patrick Seale. It was called the Struggle for Syria and it said that all the inter Arab struggles are really focused and represented and reflected in the power struggle inside Syria. And we're having something similar now. The Saudis are probably opting now for another layer of defense, working with the Pakistanis, the Turks, the Qataris. And in Syria, unfortunately, they are supporting Shala. Remember they introduced him to Trump. They, they were the patrons of the good relations between Trump and the new regime in Syria. And they're trying to build a kind of Syria that is very problematic, I think, not only for Israel, but for many others. Because it can be a Turkish, an Urdan Turkish run state, it can be a kind of proxy for Turkey. And if Turkey with Saudi assistance will build up a strong Syria, including a strong Syrian army, then Israel can have a very major problem. And therefore what we believed is possible a few months ago, namely a kind of understanding between Israel and Ashara that will lead eventually to Syria joining the Abraham Accords. I think that this was reaching too far at the time already. But we thought that at least we could somehow pacify Syria. Now is much more complicated because we don't have on our side the mainstream of the Arab world. The Turks are the bad guys. The Turks are enemies of Israel. Wherever you look, their enemies because they are basically. Erdogan is basically supportive of the Muslim Brothers. He supports Hamas. He supported Hamas before the war, during the war, after the war. If the Americans will shove it into Gaza instead, in spite of Israeli objection, we will have a very major problem. But that's not the only place where we will have a problem. If Turkey establishes itself with Libya in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, then we have a very major problem with Israeli gas, but also with the Cypriots and the Greeks and the Egyptians. We have actually a coalition of Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Egypt, if the Egyptians will not be afraid of the Turks, where we have conflicting interest concerning the energy, not only in the eastern part of the Mediterranean going to Europe through Greece, but also giving Turkey an exclusive position in terms of Russian gas going through Turkey into Europe, in terms of commodities from the east, from India, going from India to the Persian Gulf, but then going through Saudi Arabia to Syria, not through Israel, but through Syria into the Mediterranean. Here again, we clash with the Turks. We have a zero sum game with the Turks. I think it also goes further. If you look at what is happening in Libya, in Sudan, in Yemen, in Somalia, we have the Turks always on the bad side, from an Israeli point of view. And what the Saudis have done recently is to confront the Emiratis, not only in Yemen, as you mentioned, and that's very important. And they did something very radical. You've mentioned it a minute ago. But also in Sudan and perhaps also in Somalia. So instead of having the Gulf and Israel and the United States on the same side, we now have the Saudis playing between the two camps. Excellent relations with Trump and also very confrontational approach vis a vis Israel. And since it's not only the Saudis, but the Turks, the Qataris and the Saudis having very good relations with Trump, and Trump being an important force in the Middle East. The United States made itself important. And with possible action in Iran, perhaps even more important, we can have a major problem because we don't have the alignment that we hoped to have, the moderate Arabs who don't want Iran and don't want the Muslim brothers. With Israel and the United States on the one hand and the Iranians and the Muslim brothers on the other, the Saudis are making it much more difficult.
- [12:39]
A
Well, that was terrifying. Turkey has Syria basically under its thumb. It's the main provider of electricity to the Ashara government. Syria is totally dependent on Turkey just in terms of electricity and energy. The most strongest forces fighting the Kurdish forces in the north are elements of the current Syrian national army that were actually trained back in the Syrian civil war by Turkey. Turkey is an enormous power in Israeli terms, certainly. It isn't just a NATO army. It's in the top 10 armies in the world. It has 200 ships in its navy, vastly outclassing the Israeli navy. And when it comes just to naval power and what it needs to be able to, for example, disrupt gas shipments through the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey is an immense, immense problem. And it is ideologically deeply in the Qatari camp, deeply in the Muslim Brotherhood camp. And now you're telling me that in a sense, we shouldn't make too much of the Saudi turn on Israel, turn on the Emirates. It's the Saudis because they are actually rather pathetically weak for all of their vast billions trying to taste the wind and feel where the wind is blowing. But in a sense, it's much worse than just the Saudis turning on their allies. Because what you're saying is our camp in the Middle east, our axis, our alliance that can team up with great Greece and Cyprus and Europe and try to counterbalance the Muslim Brotherhood, part of the Mediterranean and of the Middle east is actually incredibly weak. Our side blinked and the Saudis are not reliable, and you can't build a strategic alliance with them. And that is a lot of different people whispering in Trump's ear. Whereas on our side, who's whispering in Trump's ear other than Benjamin Netanyahu? So is this a very dramatic strategic pivot? There's a lot more data points. Jordan is, Jordan is launching right now, just so people understand the desperation of some of these regimes. Jordan very much in the American camp. Jordan, which gives Israel its most stable border, which is also Israel's longest border. I count that as the Israeli camp, even if Jordan has to constantly make anti Israel noise. But Jordan is instituting next week, for the first time in 30 years, universal conscription. It's building up its army. It outlawed a few months ago the Muslim Brotherhood because it fears this massive intervention in Jordan, because it's seeing what's happening in Syria. So has the region become a lot more dangerous? Is Israel facing a future that is much less secure than the past?
- [15:17]
B
The region has become much more complex and there are some negative elements and we mentioned here the most important of them. But remember, Israel is much stronger than it has ever been. It is in a very good bargaining position. And you can't push Israel into a corner just expecting Israel to roll over and play dead. The Americans understand it, the Arabs understand it, Saudi Arabia understands it. Turkey is a large and reasonably functioning army. But in terms of sophistication, in terms of the ability to wage a modern war, a, I don't think we are on the, on the brinks of war with Turkey. I don't think it will go in any way into a military clash. And second, I don't think Israel will very easily be frightened by what the Turks have.
- [16:24]
A
I want to take all of those pieces and open them up. First of all, why is Turkey less of a military threat than you would think? Because when I look out at the region, I see a Saudi military that is more expensive than the idf, but it doesn't actually know how to fight. It's not actually a capable, functioning military. It's a military on paper. That's basically a way for the Saudis to buy off American support. I look at Turkey and I see a military that is battle tested, real. It was sufficiently democratic for a sufficiently long time that it has the kind of feedback oversight mechanisms that prevent it from being hollowed out by the deep corruption that we saw, for example, in the Russian military in Ukraine, where not every tank on paper actually had spare parts in the warehouse because so much of the money disappeared. Turkey has a real military, 2000 tanks. It has real ground forces, it has commando forces, it has an air force that can fly modern American planes. So why is Turkey less of a threat? And then I want to also get to the perspective. You just said one sentence which I want you to open up for us. Israel is in the best place it has ever been. So just tell us about that. But first, why is Turkey not as big a threat as we think it is?
- [17:38]
B
Well, first of all, I don't think that Turkey will go to war with Israel. The fact that Turkey is a member of NATO is a problem for Israel, but also indicates where Turkey wants to be. Turkey does not want to be in a position where it makes war to Israel. You spoke about the Turkish army being battle tested. They were battle tested. What, in confronting the Kurds or something? This is not a modern war. In terms of modern war, by the way, the only military that is battle tested in wars of the 21st century is the Israeli military. There isn't a military in the world that is tested in modern warfare. Because even what you have in the Ukraine is mostly a 20th century war. Israel just waged at 21st century war war. Not that, you know, we should be happy that we are having wars, but in terms of being capable of dealing with the most sophisticated parts of war, Israel is much better than anybody else. But I don't think it's even a possibility that the Turks will launch a war against Israel. The significance of it is global. And I don't think the Turks are as dumb or as irresponsible as to do it. It will change not only Israel in a very fundamental way, it will change Turkey. Some people even say that Israel is a nuclear power. So think about a situation where this very large army attacks Israel and Israel has a problem. I don't think that anybody wants to push Israel around too much. So I don't even think that it's a possibility. By the way, Israel is not even preparing itself for a war against Egypt, which is also a country next to Israel with a very large army, with very modern equipment. But again, I don't think that it's even a remote possibility that we will have war with Egypt. By the way, Sisi himself says that Egypt is incapable of doing it. So counting tanks and the size of army is not the most effective way. It is not the most helpful way in terms of determining what is realistic and what is not realistic. This being said, nevertheless, Turkey is a threat to Israel, primarily in Syria, to a very important extent in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, in Gaza and in Jerusalem. I mean, the Turks support inside Israel and the occupied territories. They support radical elements of the Muslim Brotherhood family. And from every angle you can possibly imagine, Turkey is an enemy with the exception of direct military confrontation of the two armies. So let's focus on the real deal dangers and put less emphasis on something that is theoretically perhaps possible, but I don't think practically we should be worried about.
- [21:05]
A
You often talk about what you just told us, that Israel is in a better state than it's ever been, that yes, there are problems, but we can face them. You know, we inside Israel and among Jews I talk to, we have this anxiety problem, maybe this culture of anxiety. We look around and we say, how are we possibly going to face these difficult moments, these bad moments, things getting worse. But right now it really does look like the strategic situation is getting worse. And it will be getting worse for the foreseeable future. We just lost the Saudis. The Turks now control Syria. Real enemies of Israel are arming, are massing, are spreading. Israel is still small for all that it is powerful. And yet you argue we have never been more capable of facing our challenges. Can you prove that? Can you just walk us through that history and make us believe it?
- [21:57]
B
The best way is simply to look at the history and to see where we've been and where we are now. Zionism is a revolutionary movement. It started with a tiny part of the Jewish people that tried to convince most Jews to to re establish themselves in their ancestral homeland. And in the early days during the British Mandate, we believed, many believed that this can be done only if the Arabs acquiesce, the British support and the Jews in very large numbers will come. And before the establishment of the State of Israel, we found out in 1929 that. That the Arabs will not acquiesce. And they have not until this very day. In 1939, the British changed from a pro Zionist policy to an anti Zionist policy very radical. In 1939, the White Paper said that the Jews cannot come and cannot acquire lands. And in the Holocaust we found out that those Jews we expected to come, the millions we expected to come from Eastern Europe, were to a very large part murdered by the Nazis. So we had to start at the end of the Mandatory period with the War of Independence in a terrible situation where every positive assumption collapsed. And yet during this war in 1948, that we started by being very, very weak, on the brinks of destruction. In December until February 48, December 47 until December, February 48, we were defeated even by the local Palestinians. Later we were on the verge of being defeated by Arab armies. And yet we ended the war in 1949, not only with the Egyptians completely defeated, but with the Israeli army being in control of a much larger portion than the partition plan allocated to the Jews and with an ability to occupy, to liberate everything, not only from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river, but if he would have wanted even beyond it, I mean, King Abdullah I of Jordan recognized it and realized that he will have to acquiesce with whatever Israel demands. We ended the war being the strongest element in this part of the Middle East. But Bed Gurion was smart enough to understand that because we lost a third of the Jewish people, because these millions will not come, we cannot populate all of the land of Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river or the Hijazi Railway. And therefore we must accept, sadly, tragically, the partition of the land, because otherwise we will be establishing a Jewish state with an Arab majority. And if you have a Jewish state with an Arab majority, you cannot be democratic because the Arabs will vote us out of existence. And if you're not democratic, you will not be a Jewish state because the Jews won't stay and won't come. So we accepted, sadly, the partitioning of the land, the decision of Ben Gurion in 1949, when we could have taken all of Judea and Samaria and decided not to take it, so that we can survive as a strong Jewish democratic state. This is a real challenge. Compared to that. What we are having today is a walk in the park. We established a Jewish state without the three things that states usually a people, a land and a language. We had to reclaim the land, to rebuild the people and to revive the language. And by the way, everybody else failed in it. Ask the Irish about their own ancient language. They adopted the language of the people they hate the most. We succeeded with the Hebrew language. We started with the establishment of the State of Israel with 6% of the Jewish people after the Holocaust, approximately 4% of the Jewish people, people before the Holocaust. And Today we are 46% of the Jewish people. And this percentage will grow because Jews in the Diaspora are assimilating and have very few children. And we are not assimilating and we have many children. So first of all, we managed to concentrate a very large portion, very soon a majority of, of the Jewish people in Israel. Then in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, we had a major problem, even in the 80s, of two communities that were not used to live together, Oriental Jews and European Jews. And there was a threat of attention, even bordering on a civil war. And we managed to achieve an enormous achievement by intermarrying with each other. This is not government policy. This is people deciding who they're going to marry. And today we have an enormous proportion of intermarriage between Oriental and European Jews and more than a million, I think something like a million and a half Israeli children don't know anymore if they are Ashkenazi or Sephardic, because just to.
- [28:15]
A
Give a sense, that's a million and a half out of 2 million. It's the vast majority.
- [28:21]
B
Yes, it's a very large majority. Those who are trying to revive it for political purposes have failed and will continue to fail. And I'm delighted they will continue to fail. Okay, so is it perfect? No, nothing is perfect. Okay. But what you have in Israel is an enormous success that we are not willing to take credit for. We constantly speak about the difficulties, but we ignore the enormous success that we have achieved. When we managed to deal with that, somehow we got the. The number one threat to the very existence of the state of Israel. When Gamal Abdel Nasser, the president of Egypt, became the one charismatic Arab leader that managed to unite the Arabs, he called it, from the ocean to the Gulf, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arab Gulf or the Persian Gulf. And he was capable to pull together all the resources of the Arab world. The military, the economic, the political resources, the support of Muslims around the world, and to pull all of this together and to bring all the Arab states to make war against Israel. And we had to have four wars with Egypt in 56 in 67, in 69, 70, and in 73, until we defeated the Egyptians, we defeated Nasser, we have broken Nasser. When he died, he died of a broken heart because we defeated his entire project. Compared to that, again, what we have now is a piece of cake. And it changed dramatically when we defeated the Arab world after the Yom Kippur War. This is something that people understand. We remember the hardships of the Yom Kippur War, but we don't remember that very shortly after the Yom Kippur War, Egypt capitulated. Sadat accepted, basically capitulated to the idea that even the small Israel, the open Israel, the vulnerable Israel, can outlast the Arab world in terms of a total confrontation between all the Arabs and Israel. And there is a recognition throughout the Arab world and they speak about it very clearly. And the Egyptian president says it, and I follow Arab political literature where this is an assumption that even all the Arab resources brought together cannot defeat Israel. Israel proved that even when it comes to a long war, a generation long war, namely, where one generation knows that the next generation will also have to fight and the generation after that will also have to fight. And everybody told us that we cannot last for a long time, but the Arabs have no limits. And then when push came to shove, when everything came to a ticket in the moment of truth, then it turned out that the Arabs can't take it forever and we can. And the enormous success of 1979 of the war between Egypt and Israel, ending the war that Egypt could bring together the Arab states in order to make war against Israel became impossible for more than 50 years. This is not something that we are speaking about today as a promise to the future. We are speaking about something that was tested for half a century and proven to be very, very strong because Israel is perceived as being so strong in the region that for 50 years, even when Israel destroyed the the Iraqi nuclear project, destroyed the Syrian nuclear project, invaded foolishly, but invaded an Arab Capital City, Beirut, 1982. What the Egyptians did was exactly nothing. What the Arab world as a combined force that could threaten Israel until the late 1970s, could do was nothing. And they openly say it. You know, recently Sisi spoke in an anniversary of the 73 War. And he told the top officers of the Egyptian army, he said, you're the greatest heroes because you were willing to fight Israel. After all, we, the Arabs are a Siyat and Israel is a Mercedes. Who even tries to compete with a Mercedes? Okay, you are great heroes because you tried something that you could not have succeeded. In so compared to all the Arab world standing up against Israel, what we had in 23 were only the remnants of the Arab world that were radical and Iran. And in this war Israel defeated Iran. And the ring of fire of proxies the that Iran built around Israel. Now are they trying to recuperate? Yes. Is it dangerous? Yes. Do we have to deal with it? Yes. But having first of all crushed the all Arab attempt against Israel and now also crushed the remnants of radicals in the Arab world with the most important local regional power, Iran, and reduced Iran from a first rate regional power to a third rate regional power, our problems are not over. But our ability to deal with them, our proven ability to deal with it, the recognition of everybody in the Arab world and beyond in Europe, in the United States of the strengths of Israel, the need of the United States to work with Israel, the willingness of the United States for the first time ever to participate in an Israeli initiated war against its enemies in a very major way. The fact that today the United States is willing to attack the most important enemy of Israel in the region. I'm not saying that all the problems that we have mentioned here are not serious. What I'm saying is our ability to deal with them is immeasurably stronger than ever, ever in our history. Israel is today a military power, power, an economic power, a technological power, even a political regional power. By far the strongest power in the Middle East. Maybe people like us less, but they respect us much more. If the United States wants to pivot to Asia, it needs to leave the Middle east with somebody. Who will they leave the Middle east with? You can't ignore the Middle east because if you're not present in the Middle east, the Middle east will be present in the Twin Towers. They come to America. So you need somebody here to fight the radicals. Who's the only power you can trust that will always fight the radicals? Not the Saudis, Certainly not the Turks. Unfortunately not the Egyptians. So the only power that is both strong enough and dependable enough, that will fight against the radicals, even for the Europeans who don't recognize it, is Israel. So again, is Israel about to live in tranquility, happily ever after, riding our unicorn into the sunset?
- [37:05]
A
No.
- [37:05]
B
Is Israel in a much, much better position to deal with its very serious dangers and challenges? Yes.
- [37:15]
A
In the 48 war, the Arab armies, one of the great Israeli advantages was that the Arab armies were deeply uncoordinated. They couldn't coordinate their own strategies. They didn't fight together. The Egyptians signed a separate ceasefire in Rhodes when they pulled out in, I think it was February 1949.
- [37:30]
B
February.
- [37:31]
A
And in 56, going into that whole situation, which was a big Cold War dust up in which Egypt brought the Soviets into Alexandria and into the eastern Mediterranean and the Americans were dealing with them, the British and the French were dealing with. And the Israelis looked at that developing war and they said, wait a second. This Nasser guy, he was uniting all of those Arab armies. This is a country. Israel two, three years earlier had stopped rationing eggs to children. It was very much what would have been called at the time a Third world economy. This was an existential threat on a scale we can't imagine today. Unity on Israel's borders that Nasser was capable of bringing to bear looked unbelievably threatening to the point where in the days before the 67 war, Israelis dug 14,000 graves in Yelkon park, the biggest park in the middle of Tel Aviv, because they expected this war to be so dangerous, so painful, with such a high death toll. So we remember the victories, we don't remember 10 minutes before just how bad things looked. And it's an important thing to keep in mind when we face these troubles.
- [38:39]
B
Yes. And we also had the problem that the Americans believed that they can get the radicals on their side. This is what Eisenhower believed in 56, this is what Obama believed with the Iranians, to some extent, even Biden. And Israel proved to be the only dependable. You don't appease the radicals. You work with those who undermine the radicals. And again, we don't have this combination of Arab forces. The fact that Arabs can no longer, even if the sentiment is to come and help the radicals, nevertheless, Arabs realize that they cannot afford to do it. Let me put it this way. In the Middle east, if somebody is not afraid of you, you should be afraid of them. So alongside being cooperative and helping Jordan and helping Egypt, because it helps Israel when these countries are stronger. Also, they know you go to war with Israel, you don't come out in a way that you can afford. The only people in the world who don't know how strong Israel is are Israelis. That's the best kept secret in Israel. If you want to be popular in Israel, you have to say that we are disintegrating and nothing is working and so on. Now, are we perfect? Of course not. Do we make serious mistakes? Yes. But have we achieved what no other nation has achieved in terms of starting from scratch and building something amazing? Yes. So, first of all, the success of Israel is something that is recognized outside of Israel, much more than inside Israel, Jews have this problem, this genetic problem. A Jew cannot feel good unless he feels bad. If you are depressed, then it gives you a kind of satisfaction, and then you can continue with your life. So every day everybody comes and says, oh, we are terrible and we failed in everything and nothing works, and so on. Now, have we failed in quite a number of things? Yes. Have we done dumb things? Yes. Recently, we are so strong we can afford to be stupid. But if Ben Gurion would have been as stupid as we are today, we wouldn't be here today. If the generation in the 1930s and the 1940s would be as irresponsible as we are today sometimes, then we would not have been where we are today.
- [41:35]
A
On the tip of the fork, as we say in Hebrew. What are the irresponsible things?
- [41:40]
B
For instance, if you want just something very recent, the position of Sheket Yaneb Sheket, when our radical jihadist elements are quiet, we should not respond to that. If they're not attacking us, it's because they're preparing to attack us and we should preemptively attack them. But we needed the trauma of 7th October 23rd in order to learn it. And now to adopt the good strategy of saying, we have a ceasefire in Lebanon. What is a ceasefire? When they don't fire and we fire every day, that's a ceasefire. That's an Israeli ceasefire. For more than a year, we killed approximately one terrorist every day in Lebanon and destroyed factories producing missiles and arms depots and so on. Why are they not responding? Because they're afraid of us. Because we can escalate in Beirut because they're not yet ready. And our business is to see to it that they're never ready by constantly hitting them. And if it brings war, let it bring war. Because the only choice with these radicals is this is not irrelevant to Egypt or to Arab countries. But when it comes to the jihadi radicals, there is either the war that you're willing to risk when they're not ready or to wait until you have a war when they are ready. These are the two options. So risk war when they're not ready by destroying them so that they will not be ready. And don't wait for them to to be ready. The problem is we learn it again and again in our history and then we forget it. There is a cycle of 20 years where we forget our lessons. We forgot in 29 what we've learned in 21. We forgot what we've learned in 36, 39. We forgot what we've learned In 47, we forgot what we've learned in the second intifada before the 7th of October. And I'm afraid that in 20 years we will forget the lessons of what we had now. So if you want stupidity of the Jews, here is the stupidity of the Jews. You want another stupidity? Take the Oslo process. In terms of concessions. I went beyond Rabin, okay? And I came to him and I said, you know that my problem is not with the concessions. My problem is that you never had a Palestinian partner. You don't have a Palestinian partner, and you will not have in the foreseeable future a Palestinian partner. Here is another stupidity, the stupidity of people like Smotrich that want to incorporate the Judea and Samaria into Israel. Is it our ancestral homeland? Yes. Do the Palestinians deserve a state? No. Will a Palestinian state bring peace? No. But incorporating Judea and Samaria into Israel will bring about an inevitable civil war in Israel, and the success story in Israel will die. Am I very strongly attached to Judea and Samaria? Yes. Do I know that the Biblical stories that I'm very attached to took place primarily in Judea and Samaria, not in Ramat Aviv? Gimel? Yes, but incorporating it in Israel, this is what I learned from Ben Gurion, is not a question of military strength. It is the question of what do you do with millions of Arabs who will become citizens of the State of Israel? Or even. Even if you are trying foolishly not to give them citizenship, the inevitable result of Cohabitating with the 5050 population in Israel will inevitably create a civil war. So you're looking for foolish steps by Israel. Here is a number of them. What? We allowed the ultra Orthodox community to become a danger to the very continued existence of the Jewish people. For me, a ultra Orthodox Jew who works, pays taxes and serves in the army, I have no problem. He's my brother. But when you're a parasite and you don't work, when you don't serve in the army, when you abuse your children by not teaching them English and mathematics, and you make them unemployable, this is a danger to the existence, to the continued existence and success of, of the Jewish people. So have we been stupid? Yes. Again. Today we are so strong that we can afford to be stupid with the exception of the two things that I mentioned. Now, if we are stupid incorporating Judea and Samaria into Israel or stupid allowing the hardcore of the ultra Orthodox community in Israel to dominate Israel, this will be terminal for the Jewish people. But are we today strong enough as we've proved in the last two years to overcome our stupidity before October 7th, has the Israeli army performed miraculously? Has the Israeli society shown resilience of the kind that goes beyond what the British have shown in the Blitz without a very impressive government? Okay, to put it very mildly, it's the worst government that we've had. So here is what we are capable of doing, even when we make mistakes. And by the way, democracies are never ready for war. Never. Look at the Brits in 38. Look at the Americans. They were not prepared for war. Hitler was prepared for war. Hamas was prepared for war. I mean, societies who have nothing to build, nothing, they're not constructive societies. But when a democracy faces the consequences of being unprepared for war and then demonstrates in a war how strong only a democracy can be, because the strength is not only military, the strength is the society, the strength of the Israeli society. And let me come back to what you mentioned before about what's happening in the Arab world. There are Arabs who recognize this weakness of the Arab world and are trying to do something about it. I think we mentioned it in a previous discussion when we speak about the Emiratis. But do I want today democracy in the Arab world? God forbid, Because Arab public opinion is radical, irresponsible, dangerous.
- [49:33]
A
Arab public opinion will tend to the radicalized Muslim Brotherhood version of Islam and those kinds of regimes.
- [49:42]
B
Yes. So we need to hope for democracy when Arab public opinion is ready for democracy. Remember, in Europe, democracy did not come in the beginning of the process. It was the crowning of the process. And you need to do it in a pace that is digestible to these societies. So if today the Emiratis are trying to bring up their elite on tolerance, this is for me more important than democracy at the moment. Okay? When you can walk in a mall in Dubai or in Abu Dhabi and see, on the one hand, women with burqas and at the same time, women that are hardly dressed at all and they get along together. Okay? The status of women is always a very good litmus test for what is going on. If you're trying to educate people for tolerance, it is at the moment more important for me than democracy. Do I want, in the final analysis, to be surrounded by democratic, liberal countries? Yes. Is it available in the foreseeable future? No. Is the most positive thing that can happened to the Arabs. Responsibility, tolerance, and finally democracy. Responsibility. Most Arab states, including radical states, are responsible. The Egyptians were responsible, made peace with Israel. Assad was responsible. He refrained from war with Israel when he realized that he will be defeated. The only people who have no responsibility whatsoever are the Palestinians, because they know whatever they do, the whole world will come and help them get something they don't deserve. So they behave in an irresponsible way. Responsibility is the first thing. Tolerance is the next stage. Pluralism, gradual digestible pace of pluralism is the second thing. And, and in the final analysis, I will be delighted if we can also have democracy there.
- [52:10]
A
What? Given that the Saudis are flapping around in the wind because they are desperately weak. First of all, I hope the Emiratis can hold the line. Not so much for Israel. Worst case scenario, Israel is where it was five years ago, but much more powerful internally, inherently. But if the Emiratis have that strength, if the Emiratis have that strategic vision, if the Emiratis know that just because everyone in the Arab world says a thing doesn't make it true and certainly doesn't make it a path to strength and independence. The Emiratis will find a measure of the kind of strength and anchoredness and tranquility, therefore, and strategic seriousness and weight and safety that the Israelis have found. And so I wish for the Emiratis that cultural strength that will also bring other kinds of strength. But I have to say we face this change, this profound shift, the Americans might be abandoning us in another administration or in two terms from now, and it could go either left or right. JD Vance might not be such a pro Israel guy. We might lose the Americans. We might face a Turkish adversary that is far less saber rattling, blustering, but far more actually competent than the Iranians. What do we do? What do we do going forward into this? I accept your point. We are not in the 50s, we are not in the 70s. We are more powerful than our enemies. We can do more damage to them. The only reason they don't realize it, and we don't realize it, is that it hasn't been actually asked of us. If those Iranian missiles had leveled city blocks in Tel Aviv in the 12 Day War, Tehran would look like a different city. But nevertheless, despite the power gap, how do we face these vast dangers?
- [53:57]
B
First of all, we are in a much better position than we've ever been to face these dangers. But the most interesting thing that you mentioned is about America, how they're going to abandon us. Look at the whole history of Israel and the United States and you will find that with minor ups and downs, the overall trajectory is a deepening and strengthening of American Israeli relations. And even if the amount of Love for Israel among parts of the American public opinion or sympathy for Israel is declining. The amount of respect for the power of Israel is constantly strengthening. Remember the following. The United States and Israel have exactly the same enemies in the Middle East. The question is only are the Americans dumb enough not to recognize it or smart enough to recognize it? If, for instance, Eisenhower in 1956 believed that he could appease Nasser and he could get the radical Arabs on his side, strengthening an anti American force and the need to break this force and the United States and Israel together broke Gamal Abdel Nasser.
- [55:26]
A
You're talking about eisenhower intervening in 56 to push the Israelis back in the Suez War.
- [55:32]
B
Not just Israel, Israeli small potatoes. He undermined NATO. He destroyed France and Britain.
- [55:39]
A
Just tell us that story in two sentences. For readers who don't know what you're talking about. For listeners who don't know what you're talking about.
- [55:46]
B
Nasser threatened the most important American interest in the 1950s by allowing the Soviets to come to the Mediterranean to anchor in Alexandria, to become an important force in the Middle east, jumping over the wall that the Americans tried to build to protect Europe and the oil reserves of Europe from the Soviet Union, from Stalin. And then he nationalized the Suez Canal. And the British and the French understood what you do with a radical, you hang him on a lamp post in order to signal to everybody else you don't undermine a power, we will see to it that not only will you be defeated, you will be humiliated. In 1956, Britain and France had this huge head of global experience with a tiny body of countries who were not defeated in the Second World War, but weakened and become almost insignificant after the Second World War. Next to them stood America with a huge body and a pinhead, not understanding anything about global reality and believing that you can function through the United nations, bringing nations together and fighting the Cold War by having the non aligned countries on your side. They didn't understand that non alignment, what we call today the Third World, is essentially anti American. And it's anti American because the Soviets support it because it's anti American and the Americans support it because they're stupid. So they're being supported on both sides. And then when the Brits and the French came to Egypt to do what needs to be done to a radical, what the Americans did with Saddam Hussein, unfortunately by invading, they could have killed him without invading Iraq. But when you have somebody like Nasser, like Saddam Hussein, like Nasrallah, you kill him. You don't appease him, you kill him. The Brits and The French understood that it needs to be done. The Americans have broken the British and the French, kicked them out of Egypt, made Nasser the radical success in the Middle east and then inevitably suffered the consequences of Nasser's radicalism for 15 years until Israel, with the United States, with a smart president like Johnson and a smart president like Nixon, broke Nasser and Sadat and finally came to the point where the Americans, the Israelis and the Egyptians had a win, win, win situation. This is the genius of kissinger during the 1970s, the early 1970s. But Israel survived, not only benefited from the smart American presidents like Johnson and Nixon, but also managed to become stronger in spite of dumb American presidents like Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. We survived these guys who didn't understand the Middle east at all, by the way. I don't think they understood anything about the world scene at all. Okay. And in spite of the major ups and downs in the relationship between Israel in the United States on the day to day basis, where you sometimes had clashes of interests, when you look at the trajectory over 75 years, Israel is constantly strengthening its relations in the United States. The United States needs Israel if it wants to leave the Middle East. Because when you leave the Middle east, who do you leave it with? You leave it with the only country you can trust. You can't trust Saudi Arabia, you can't trust Egypt, you can always trust Israel. Not because the Israelis are nice people, but because you have exactly the same enemies. The enemies of the United States in the Middle east are the radicals. The enemies of Israel in the Middle east are the radicals. This is constant, this is not changing. Arab states will sometimes cater to the radicals. Let me give you an example. Jordan, on the eve of the 1967 war, wanted peace with Israel and made war with Israel. Because the real choice King Hussein faced was make war with Israel, lose the west bank, don't make war with Israel, lose both banks and and the 20 top inches of your physical existence. So he made war and did the right thing because the radicals were in control. If you don't break and humiliate the radicals, the Middle east will be much more of a problem than if you do it.
- [61:38]
A
But Dan, just to drive the point home and finish, the radicals are on the march and Erdogan is the radicals. Qatar is the radicals. The Saudis can break because they turn out to be made out of. How did Nasrallah keep.
- [61:54]
B
Americans are not on the march. This is exactly the mistake Americans have always been making because they think the radicals are on the march. The radicals in Gaza were killed the radicals in Lebanon were destroyed. The radicals. The radical regime in Syria fell. The arch radical of the Middle East, Iran, is weakened dramatically as a result of the war. We always make the stupid mistake of assuming that the radicals will win. They win only because we wrongly believe that they will win and we don't break them. And Israel must break them. It can't afford to be stupid.
- [62:41]
A
The security cabinet of Israel is in the room. We're planning the next five years of Israeli actions, of coordinating with the Americans, of coordinating with our ally. What do we do in the next five years? Facing what nevertheless looks like they are. If the radicals include the Turkish military. I hear what you're saying about Turkey won't choose a war that would be catastrophic for Turkey. It would be catastrophic for they would rearrange global affairs. NATO would have to reconsider whether it.
- [63:07]
B
Could ever come down. It's not even a serious.
- [63:10]
A
It's still a million men. It's still a real power. It still has the funding and finances and economy to be capable of diving deep into the pockets of pro Hamas forces in Jerusalem, in Jordan, in Gaza, in Egypt, destabilizing these countries. The Libyan civil war would not look as terrible as it looks now. Please look it up, people. Without Turkish involvement, they are frankly trying to maintain the Russian choke hold on energy to Europe as leverage. They are enemies of the West. They are enemies of Europe pretending to be something else. And the ideology of the party and rule in Turkey. The AKP party is born out of the Muslim Brotherhood. Whatever it was 60 years ago, they were like three different parties. They were made illegal by the military rulers and by the democratic ruler. But nevertheless, that is their actual ideological lineage. So the enemies are on the march. So give us advice. Give us. Let's imagine that I got elected prime minister of Israel because I'm being punished by God. What do I do?
- [64:08]
B
I think Israel is already doing the right thing. First of all, in Syria, we must be very careful to prevent, on the one hand, and even by using force, the establishment of Turkey in the south of Lebanon. And the establishment.
- [64:32]
A
How do we prevent that? Ashara is dependent on Turkey for his electricity. He's dependent on them for his strongest fighting forces to maintain the regime and unify Syria. There is no unified Syria that isn't a Turkish puppet. Is there. Is there any other way forward for Syria?
- [64:47]
B
I don't think we are about to have a unified Syria. I think that it is still very difficult for him. And because of his very strong links with the Turks, I don't think it is an Israeli interest that you will have a unified Syria and we can have an impact there. You have to walk very carefully in Syria because you need to do it with an American understanding that Israel cannot afford to let Erdogan have what he has in Syria. We have to walk very, very carefully there. Our policy in Syria should be like porcupines making love with extreme caution. Okay, we need to prevent the establishment of Turkey in Gaza. We need to understand, and I think this is an important point, that the Israeli leadership today understands that Turkey is an enemy. By the way, the Turks could have been smarter by not coming out with their animosity so clearly. Because the most dangerous thing in a democracy is being stupid and believing in sweet words. They would have been smarter if they would not have been so radical. I want Erdogan to call Israel Nazi and Hitler every day so that Israeli public opinion and Israeli governments don't make any mistakes about Turkey and understand that this is an enemy. We can work with the Cypriots, the Greeks and the Egyptians concerning the eastern part of the Mediterranean. We can make many concessions to the Americans on things that are dear to to their heart, provided the role of Turkey and Qatar in Gaza is as limited as possible. We need to stay at the moment inside Syria. I would have loved to get out of what we've recently taken in Syria in return for a policy of Shara that Israel can live with. But because of Turkey, I think that Israel cannot afford to do so. And Israel should take very careful military action, not directly against Syria, not directly against Turkish forces, but for instance, when the Turks are about to take over a certain base, to bombard it before they come there and indicate to the Americans that Israel cannot tolerate it because the Turks want to stop the corridor, to block the corridor that Israel has in order to attack Iran. Again, the Americans want Israel to be helpful in Iran and the Turks can be an impediment for it if they control southern Syria. So again, I think that Israel is basically doing the right thing, namely understanding that Turkey is an enemy and trying to prevent Whatever is good for Turkey is bad for Israel. It's a zero sum game. Whatever is good for Turkey is bad for Israel. And I think that we should lobby in the United States. And Israel is being listened to on military affairs against the F35s, not only to Turkey, but but now also to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia was less important. I think Saudi Arabia becomes also important of seeing to it because of this link between Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, particularly in Syria.
- [68:59]
A
What do we do with Saudi Arabia normalization's off the table. That, in a sense, also frees us. What do we do with Saudi Arabia?
- [69:07]
B
I never expected much from normalization with Saudi Arabia. What I wanted is cooperation with Saudi Arabia. I think the Saudis need us in terms of air defense against the Iranians as much as we need them in terms of air defense vis a vis the Iranians. I think cooperation with Saudi Arabia in CENTCOM is much more important than having Israeli tourists going to Mecca and etching their name on the Kaaba. Okay, I'm not particularly excited about normalization. I think the very important point is that if there is a route going from India through the Persian Gulf, it should go not only through Saudi Arabia and finally Syria, but through the uae, Saudi Arabia, and then Israel. This is more difficult now than the relations, when the relations between Saudi Arabia and the Emirates are not good. But we can speak about it in the United States and try to persuade the Americans that having a route that goes from India through the Gulf and the Emirates and Saudi Arabia finally to the Mediterranean through Israel is a much better option than giving Turkey total control on all the routes, both the Chinese route and the alternative route. It is not lost in the United States. Americans listen to us, and they may not go with us against Turkey, but also not to go with Turkey very strongly against Israel. So here is where the Americans and the Israelis need to cooperate in the Middle east against radicalism. And we must make some allowances for American considerations. And I think they will make allowances for what is a vital Israeli interest.
- [71:30]
A
Dan Shiftan, the great power politics. We saw this with Maduro. We saw this with the Greenland crisis. Great power politics are back. Israel is incredibly well positioned to play this game, but it has to be smart, and it has to actually play it. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. This was fascinating.
- [71:50]
B
Loved it, as always. Thank you.