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Episode 9: Did Biden derail Saudi normalization? Breaking down the Abraham Accords with ex-NSC expert Shiri Fein
00:48:47
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- [00:00]
Shiri Fain Grossman
Foreign.
- [00:05]
Khalil
Hello everybody. Welcome to episode 8 of Ask Khaliv Anything. I have the distinct honor and privilege today of sitting down with Shiri Fain Grossman, a friend, but more than a friend of mine for the purposes of this podcast. She happens to also have led regional affairs as head of regional affairs at the National Security Council of Israel during a fairly slightly vaguely interesting period in which Israel suddenly was able to sign peace treaties and normalization agreements with Arab countries that had previously officially been enemies. And so I'm going to ask her. You know, we hear a lot about the Abraham Accords. We hear about the Emirates and Bahrain and Morocco and Sudan, and we have high hopes for the Saudis, and there are generally peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt. And Shiri luckily knows about Syria and many other parts of the region and was instrumental deep in the bowels of Israeli policy planning of coordination. Most of the coordination in putting together the Abraham Accords from the Israeli side was actually handled by the National Security Council. And Shiria was in the center, the nexus of all of that planning. And so we're going to today dive into this is history, but history that happened about 90 seconds ago. We're going to dive into what the Abraham Accords means, how it came about, what it took to put it together on the substantive policy side, and what it all means for the region. And of course, I'm going to obviously ask about Israeli strategy, Israeli strategy in Gaza going forward the day after, and the prospects for Saudi normalization in the coming year. 2, 3, 1 before we dive into that, I just want to share Today's sponsor Our sponsor chose to remain anonymous, but at her request we will continue the tradition of remembering someone we lost on October 7. Today we remember Roy Moshe, 36 years old, a firefighter from Ashkelon who was killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7 while trying to return home from a night shift at the Beersheva fire station. Roy was ambushed on the road by Hamas terrorists near the Gvaim junction outside Sderot. He tried to flee into a nearby field. He was murdered. Before he died from his wounds, he was able to send his pregnant wife Linole, a voice note saying how much he loves her and their children, and he urged her to find the strength to move on. Oi is buried in Ashkelon. His funeral was on October 10. He is survived by his wife Linol, their two children, Daniel and Harel, nine and seven years old, and daughter Gilly, who was born in January 2024, three months after her father's death. He is survived by his parents, Nitza and Binyamin and 6 Maital, Morana, Dir, Kfir, Liel and Matanel. Thank you for that. And I think it's a good thing to have this tradition and I'm grateful to sponsors for allowing us to do this as well. Shiri, Hello.
- [03:25]
Shiri Fain Grossman
Hi.
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Khalil
So it almost seems silly to ask you the first question, but it's you, so I'm going to ask it because we all know something, but we, we don't actually know it from within. Why are the Abraham Accords dramatic? Are they as big a deal as everyone says? It sure feels like a big deal. It feels like a dramatic pivot in the Middle east of Israel being accepted. I think we know that Hamas and Iran were worried about the Abraham Accords expanding to normalization with Saudi Arabia, and that was part of the thinking of the launch of October 7th. They were preparing it for long before, but the timing of the actual launch of the attack had something to do with that. That's something we know from Hamas documents. Is it as big as that? How do you see the Abraham Accords?
- [04:11]
Shiri Fain Grossman
I see it as the most momentous from a positive perspective we've seen in the last 20 years or so. We remember terrorist attacks, everything. But the region has seen something positive, something of connectivity, of better relations between Jews and Arabs, of hope, of innovation, of progress, economic development, and something that we can also share with other countries. So I think it's huge, it's massive, and it's very important and I thank you for having me to share this story.
- [04:51]
Khalil
Let's talk about the Emirates, because that's the clearest and most dramatic and most significant and deepest of the normalization processes. Many, many different government agencies are involved. Many of them have MOUs with their counterparts in the Emirates. And all of that was coordinated through you guys, through the National Security Council and specifically through your section in the National Security Council. So can you tell us just literally how did the Abraham Accords come about on the Israeli bureaucratic side? So we understand what your position was and then we'll take it from there.
- [05:26]
Shiri Fain Grossman
Sure. First of all, the timing of the normalization announcement, August 13, 2020, if I'm not mistaken, right in the heart of the COVID crisis, or a little bit before the peak of the COVID crisis. It took many by surprise in the bureaucracy. There were only about estimated 40 people with all the countries involved, that's UAE, US and Israel that knew that this was coming and we had to go from 0 to 100 in a course of a few months while Covid while restrictions, while even shutdowns and closures and every flight that, you know, we had to get that COVID test and then you had to have vaccines, and everything was very weird. And the timing issue is very important. This is only months before the American elections. Right. So we were kind of in this race against time to get as much as possible as possible achieved, one, before the election, because the US Administration thought this was a key issue for the election. And two, I mean, until the administration is leaving and it takes so much time to put everything back in the momentum, which was a very key part of the Abraham Accords, to keep the momentum going, to keep signing agreements, keep doing phone calls, delegation, MOUs negotiations. As soon as Biden took office, we saw that momentum stop. And actually they weren't sure if they want to brand it as the Abraham Accords. I was there, and it was very strange timing because we saw this as a massive, massive achievement while the new administration, because this was of Trump, didn't know exactly how to relate to it. And the Saudi normalization was actually very close before the Biden administration came into office. Kind of put on the deep freeze until there's a new set with the administration, which happens with every administration. Right. But the momentum was key.
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Khalil
So just to understand that more, it's just to focus in on that. Every time a new administration comes in, it's a kind of complete and total coup. I mean, it's thousands of people who get fired, and then different people take their place. It's like, there's nothing quite like it in the American presidency because it's such a presidential system. The federal government is so big and each administration can actually appoint so many people. It's actually, you have to reteach, you have to catch up. Right. And then they have to ask themselves, well, is this a political achievement of the previous administration? Why would I double down on this? Why would I help them politically? All of that stuff and generally American foreign policy. I remember as a reporter asking American officials in the new Obama administration back in 2008, I was much younger and better looking then. And the administration, we said to them, well, what's your foreign policy? And the basic answer was, we're not Bush. In other words, it was domestic politics rather than. And then, by the way, when Trump comes in and you ask them, what's your foreign policy? Their basic answer was, we're not Obama. And so this sense that American sort of domestic politics really overwhelms their foreign policy. So that cost us Saudi normalization. Do you think that had the Biden administration either doubled down on this, not been so afraid of it, they got into it about two years in, right then they wanted to advance, but it was already two years of freezing. There was nothing had moved. So is that a fair characterization or am I, isn't I going too far in criticizing them?
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Shiri Fain Grossman
It could be. It's very hard to answer that question because it has to do with so many bits and pieces of the puzzle. And the puzzle was the Peace to prosperity plan of the Trump administration back in January 2020. This is something Jared Kushner and others, Jason Greenblatt, if you remember Avi Berkovich, they were working on this negotiation with the Palestinians for many, many months. So actually the normalization with the UAE could have happened much sooner than August 2020. It could have happened already in April 2019. This is because the UAE was already ready to normalize its relations with Israel, but it delayed because it was waiting for the results of the elections for the 21st Knesset. And it didn't want to seem as it's interfering in Israel's eternal fair or have any effect on the election. So it waited till a government was formalized. But then guess what? The government wasn't formalized until March 2020. And then we had Covid, we had leaks to the press and everything got delayed until August20.
- [10:30]
Khalil
Okay, so how would you describe your role in the Abraham Accords as that central coordinating hub? What does that mean? What did you actually do in this whole process?
- [10:41]
Shiri Fain Grossman
So it's important to understand the role of the National Security Council in Israel's ecosystem of financial security. It really is in the center or in the heart of the decision making process by the government and by the Israeli cabinet for security, for national security. And it looks from 30,000ft up in the air on the national security of Israel. It's not an operative body. It's not like the army. It is supposed to fight and supposed to go into the field. No, it does analysis. It takes everybody's input, all the government agencies that are relevant to a specific issue or natural policy, national security policy as a whole. And it really like summarizes the situation, gives a security assessment or situation assessment to the national security advisor and then to the end from him to their prime minister about every topic and, you know, assesses the situation and gives recommendation. In my last four years, four and a half years, I was in charge of regional affairs with there, I coordinated the intergovernment process that has to do with anything on the countries I was responsible for which were the gcc, you know, Gulf countries, North Africa and the Northern Front. That means Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Very high level on things that the Prime Minister should make decisions on. So we give recommendations and the Prime Minister decides to take them or not basically. And when the Abraham Accords came to life in August 2020, we under made Beersheba. He got the mandate, received the mandate to coordinate the whole government process. There was a government team that was set up headed by the National Security Council and the Prime Minister's office. And we led that team essentially with others at the NSC of course.
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Khalil
So the National Security Council did all the integrated staff work. Right. It was the brain that brought all these strands together. Military, economic stuff you wouldn't even think about. Right. Something you mentioned to me was opening air routes, double taxation. People are now investing. There's an enormous increase. This is something I learned from you. There's an enormous increase in trade, in investment into the hundreds of millions of dollars with each Abraham Accords countries.
- [13:11]
Shiri Fain Grossman
A very important point that guided us was we looked at the peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt and said we don't want that. We don't want something that is top bottom. We want something that is a bit more bottom up. We have peace treaties with both Jordan and Egypt, but the relationship isn't warm. We call it the cold peace. Okay, There are sometimes better relations, sometime worse relations. It really depends on the security situation, on so many things. But it really is more top down. If the leaders get along then great. If there's, you know, they don't get along. There's not good chemistry and we've seen that. I don't want to mention things but then we see that the relationship isn't so good. And when we set out as a team to build the strategy for how we're going to do the Abraham process, we said we want to build something that lasts and for it to last it needs to be more bottom up. It needs to be more people to people relationship, business to business. You know, finance, investments, travel, tourism, everything. We want people from those countries to visit here. We want a lot of Israeli tourists to go there. You know when I was in conversation in the beginning with people on the National Security Council of the. Of Abu Dhabi of the uae they said I imagine how people come for Passover at the Yas island, which is exactly what happens. And people don't know where Yas island is like the tourist island of Abu Dhabi. So that's exactly what happened. But for that's what they said that was.
- [14:53]
Khalil
That didn't come from the Israeli side.
- [14:55]
Shiri Fain Grossman
No, it came from the Abu Dhabi side. And because, you know, they have economical interest, they have strategic interest, defense. It was a mix, you know, and there were relations between before the Abraham Accords treaties, but it wasn't formal and there was nothing and there was no infrastructure. And what I mean about infrastructure? Well, you need to have a visa exempt treaty, a visa waiver agreement. You have to put in place all the agreements for direct flights. You need to put the financial system to, to speak to each other, correspond with each other. You need, you need a step. The further that we took is the double taxation treaty that, that you mentioned earlier, which was very important to the uae. And we don't have that with many countries later in 21, something like that. We also had a free trade agreement that took record time, speed time. We don't have it with many countries, so we had a free trade agreement with the uae. So all these things come together today. You know, I was just in a, in a discussion about the Saudi normalization a couple of weeks ago and I heard the government representative from Israel say, well, we have this kit that we did of agreements that we did for the Abraham Accords that will know if Saudi relations happens. We already ready to do that, but we didn't have that. We made things that we went along, we sat down, we said what do we need to get communications? You're so your cell that works, your cell phone that works the networks that works in Abu Dhabi that needs agreements. So these things are really important to build the relationships. So this is from, from a strategic point of view, very, very important. And you know, and now I'm the CEO of the Israel Africa Relations Institute and that's what I'm trying to do here as well. We have, there's 54 countries in Africa. We have diplomatic, official relations with most, but we don't have, I don't know, 80% of what we did with the UAE. And that's super important if you want to build the relations that last. And I know it's a huge success. And why do I know? Because throughout the Gaza war that we're seeing 10-7-attack and everything, no country of the Abraham Accords cut ties. Okay, Some scaled back, maybe diplomatically, but even the direct flights from Dubai from Abu Dhabi, they continue. They continue throughout. I mean it's more than Delta, more than American Airlines, United Airlines, many other airlines, they continued. And that was really a testimony for the success of this strategy because they understand the value. They are here for the long run. And we're not getting scared if there's a conflict or we disagree with this government or that government. And we've seen that too. We've seen closer and warmer relations while Lapid and Bennett were in office than with Netanyahu. And that's a fact. Netanyahu hasn't visited the Abu Dhabi yet. He wasn't still invited. And Lapid was there already. So this is super important that you build this network structure. It's a network structure and this is what we did. And it's a part of the Abraham Accords people are very not aware of.
- [18:32]
Khalil
You sent me the data on trade and it's kind of amazing. Apropos October 7, apropolo. All of this stuff holding together. If we're Talking about the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, trade rose 10% between 2023 and 2024. With the UAE, it's at $3.24 billion last year. And that's height of the war, height of the problems, height of Al Jazeera broadcasting really painful, difficult images from Gaza, along with propaganda all over the Arab world. And Qatar emphatically trying to upend the Abraham Accords. Trade between Israel and Bahrain, $108 million, which is essentially all there hadn't been in 2023. And then there suddenly was, right, it's a 900% increase, something like that. Israel, Morocco was a 40% increase in trade. It's not big. It's still just about 110 million. But it's, it's, it's more than right. So what was built there was strong. In other words, if October 7, one of Sinoar's Yechie Sinuar, Hamaslehra. Yechie Sinuar's purposes of October 7 was to prevent the advance of normalization. What it did, arguably, the data tells us, was demonstrate its astonishing resilience and strength. So can you really quickly walk us through what is there, what's in place? Uae, Bahrain, Morocco, what actually is in place in each of those? Where's the next maybe big step, except for the Saudi, I'll ask you that in a minute. But also we heard about Sudan. You know, there are rumors about other countries that I think Mauritania, at some point somebody talked about last week there were rumors, totally unsubstantiated that I could find about Syria. The new government of Syria potentially thinking about normalization just to stabilize, you know, it's now a big arena for different powers and it doesn't want to be. So normalization with Israel cuts one of those powers out of the equation, where do things stand? What's the next step other than Saudi? Because we'll talk about that special.
- [20:33]
Shiri Fain Grossman
So look, the premise of the question is kind of, it doesn't represent what has been done. Actually the relations with some of the Abraham Court countries are warmer than we have with other countries. So there are dozens, dozens, I think more than 50 direct flights a week going back between the UAE and Israel. They were, before the war, they were direct frights or supposed to be direct flights between Israel and Bahrain. Again, dozens of direct flights between Israel and Morocco. And those, the, the flights to Morocco and Bahrain were cut off or frozen during the war. But we've just seen a new news coming out a few weeks ago that flights with Morocco are coming back soon, direct flight. So we're going to bounce back with a lot of these things. So I would say temporarily a setback, but strategically for the long run, the Abraham Accords are here to stay with the uae. It's pretty much reached its potential. I stopped counting it like 30 agreements, okay, we have a peace treaty, we have MOU with every government agency. We have a double taxation, we have free trade agreements, communication, we have everything. Bahrain is a bit slower pro was a bit slower process. So we have not as many agreements, but it's definitely, we have a lot of things that are going on. Same with Morocco. There's more stuff to be done. You know, in some of these places you can't really compare apples to oranges. You know, people always say the Arab world is very different. You know, it's different. The UAE is a country of 10 million people. Only about a million of that is actually citizens or Emiratis. The rest are expats. You know, when we're talking about Morocco, we're talking about 36 million people, okay. With a totally different culture, language, government, government system. So all these things are important. I would say, you know, before the Abraham Accords there were about 40,000 or 50,000 Israelis going each year to Morocco. Kind of behind the scenes, indirect flights to visit Morocco, for tourism, to visit former family homes. There's about an estimated 800,000 Israelis that are descendants of Moroccan Jews. So it's a huge population in Israel and a lot of them like to travel to the homeland. And actually people maybe not aware of this. Morocco is very much in touch with the Moroccan diaspora around the world and sees the Moroccan Jews as Moroccan, the Moroccan Jews in Israel as Moroccan diaspora. So the connection, the history, the culture is very important. It's a, it's a central part of the Moroccan Culture and policy. So that also is a key part of their relations. So as you can see, there was no Jewish diaspora in the uae. So very different, very different countries. We have to treat it differently from every aspect.
- [23:58]
Khalil
So what's the next step with Morocco? Morocco seems then one of these crown jewels of the potential for the Abraham Accords, right? But even though it has this much, much larger population, its economy is small. It's got a GDP per capita of between three and $4,000 a year. So, you know, a tenth of Israel even less and far smaller than the UAE, et cetera. But nevertheless, it's this place with, where Israeli Jews have real deep historic ties and, and trade is, trade is a tiny fraction of what it is with the uae. How do we grow that relationship?
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Shiri Fain Grossman
So first of all, you have to look at Morocco as part of Africa. It is North Africa, but it is Africa. And actually relatively to the GDP per capita in Africa, Morocco is actually one of the, the best. And you have to also take into account that it has one of the biggest, best power purchasing power, GDP per capita. Because, you know, I remember when I was in Morocco, you buy the clementine. It's, it's really cents. It's not, it's nothing. The, the purchasing power of the residents there are extremely high, While in the UAE, actually, you know, $10 can buy you not a lot of things in the uae, much like similar to Tel Aviv, where everything is very expensive. So again, comparing apples to oranges will be difficult. Yes, there are much more. There is much more we can do. You have to also remember that a lot of the trade with the UAE comes because of the transport. Right? We're exporting things from the east. It goes through Dubai and then to Israel. And it counts a lot as trade between the countries. But there is a lot more than we can do. A lot of tourism that we can, we can achieve together. There's amazing things going on in agriculture that we can achieve a lot of better results. Agriculture is one of the most important sectors in Morocco. Water and renewable energy is very important. And Israel can do, at least in water it does, and we can develop that even more. So you're right, there's more to be done, but you can't really compare between the countries unless you start to do by purchasing power. And then we'll get, I think, very different results.
- [26:24]
Khalil
So the things Morocco has a potential to develop massively and is focused on and wants to develop massively happen to also be Israel's superpowers. In other words, there's a Lot of potential there. So are you optimistic going forward that that's what's going to happen? Is that what we should expect?
- [26:39]
Shiri Fain Grossman
Yes, I'm optimistic. But you have to, I mean, in Morocco, these things take, take a while, takes time. And it's very similar to what I'm seeing in Africa. Exactly. Everything that has to do with agriculture, water, renewable fintech, everything that Israel is good at, we can offer to Morocco and Africa immense value.
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Khalil
One of the ways the Emiratis sold normalization back in 2020 was that they said we stopped the annexation that Netanyahu was talking about in that election, in the September 2020 election. And that's what they told the Arab
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Shiri Fain Grossman
world, not just the Arab world, they, they speak of. And we can discuss the book recommendations. Right. So Trump's piece written by Barack Ravid really elaborates on this. For, for the main thesis is that the Emiratis came and said, oh, how do we stop normalization, the annexation? The only way to do it, let's give them the scarrot, they've stopped the annexation. But one can view that as really what you say is more of an image thing, that other interests were there and it doesn't have to be as black or white here. It can be a mix of things. And how much percent of that was canceling damexation, I probably never know. There's only one person that really knows. So it's a mix. And Saudi is very different. So the Saudi, at least how I view Mohammed bin Salman's leadership is that, you know, historically the people of Saudi Arabia are different, are more conservative. They're very much used to, you know, disliking Israel. And, you know, actually they've been working on changing the image of Israel for a long time. I was sitting in news channels for interviews right before October 7th in September, when Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Press, he gave an interview to Fox News to talk about normalization. He was like, we're going ahead with this even with the Biden administration. And before that they came surveys that showed you that there have been a trend within the Saudi public of willing to consider doing business with Israeli of culture events and all that. So he was kind of growing the public on this idea because public opinion in Saudi Arabia, although it's not a democratic country, he does not get elected. But the internal discourse is very important and fragile and you don't want to kind of, let's say, incentivize your enemies or opponents within. So for that he needs public support. And so the carrot that Saudi Arabia will have to receive for normalization, it has to be very substantial, and it cannot, I would say, relinquish entirely what was given in the Palestinian issue. There's different debates about it, whether it's willing to concede or compromise on something. But, but I personally believe that it needs to be something that the Saudi public can compromise on, and that's super important.
- [30:14]
Khalil
It seems as though after the Gaza war, if it depends on the Saudi public's opinion, it's not going to happen for a long time. We had those polls that told us that about 40% of Saudi citizens supported economic ties with Israel before October 2023, and that collapsed from 40% to maybe 4%. My newspaper wrote a piece on these polls, and 40% then supported Hamas. In other words, the support for hamas went from 10 to 40 in the Saudi population and support for Israel went from 40 to 4. So literally, Israel and Hamas were replaced. Obviously different pieces of Saudi population. But it's quite likely, and I'll just hear a broadcast in Saudi Arabia, even though the Saudis consider the Qataris enemies, it's quite likely that the Saudi population is profoundly opposed to normalization right now. So what do you think that can move forward? Do you think there's a way to get over that, incidentally, assuming the Gaza war isn't solved in the next 12 months? Right.
- [31:25]
Shiri Fain Grossman
So again, look, the timeframe that we have is the next four years while we have this administration. That's the window. That's the most important window we have. The Trump administration wants to get that as quick as possible, and that's why it's part of the reason, or everything's a mix. But the Trump administration is in a hurry to end the war and they want to set the right conditions that Israel can live with those conditions. And this is exactly what they want to achieve. These surveys, they are temporary. What's important is the trend. Like any good politician will, will tell you or political advisor, the trend is important. So, yeah, like I said, I, I think that during an ongoing war operation in Gaza, there is no chance for normalization. But on the other hand, I mean, the Saudi public completely favors Israel when it defeated Hezbollah. Right. And that's something that is important then.
- [32:32]
Khalil
So it's layered.
- [32:33]
Shiri Fain Grossman
And also there's a growing, there is a growing regional player named Turkey that is growing in influence that it says, by its Erdogan, by its own statement, has conquered Jerusalem and, and, or conquered, I'm sorry, and conquered Damascus on his way to conquer Jerusalem. Now, these things in the history, and as this history Podcast will tell you are important. These are strategic, historic things. And people or leaders in the Middle east are looking at what is happening in Syria and the strengthening of Turkey and expandment of its territory and maybe taking bases in Turkey as a very big potential threat that they need to address. And that could be like a common interest that has grown and then strengthened in the last few months to put on the table. So things you always have to look at, you know, what's going on right now. But also if you look at it from a strategic point of view, from the trend point of view, the interests are still there. The timing is off. If we have the same people, it's possible. But, you know, the work it end tomorrow if they release the hostages, if they, you know, put down their arms. So, and I believe that, you know, so there is a possibility. It just depends on those things.
- [33:55]
Khalil
What are the steps that Israelis and Americans could take to move that forward? We saw this month the Saudis make a public offer to Trump saying, we will spend $1.3 trillion in the United States. Trump is going to go visit Saudi Arabia, and they're offering to spend it in four years. In other words, it's specifically timed as a gift to Trump to boost the American economy. That's obviously a Saudi play for massive American backing in the framework of a larger building of a strategic alliance with Israel, with America to serve Saudi interests. The Saudis seem really, really keen on this. The timing is off. What could Trump administration. What could the Netanyahu government. We may have an election. Well, we have to have an election by the end of next year. Right. But we may have an election sooner than what should an Israeli government, either this one or the next one, do that could push that ball along. What are the big things?
- [34:53]
Shiri Fain Grossman
Well, first of all, if there's a, if an election will be announced, most probably it will delay any normalization agreement. But I think we have to ask the bigger question. What's the end goal? What do we want to achieve? We want to achieve a safer Middle East. So how do we keep that safer Middle east with Hamas still holding to its arms? And I think that's kind of the questions the Israeli government is asking itself. And it needs to ask itself, what will get me more prosperous, a safer, a better future for all of us to live here? And then you need to prioritize. So is Saudi Arabia normalization essential to that part? You can argue that argument. You can counter that argument. Right. But I think this is where we need to start. What are the most important things what do we want to achieve? And then how do we achieve that and seeing the Saudi normalization with it? Look, I know a lot of Israelis are very anxious to visit Riyadh and Jeddah, and it's not the same experience they will get in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It's. It's super different. There is business going on behind the scenes, not formally. There's been even Israelis that have, you know, spoken conferences openly in, in Saudi Arabia. There are things that are progressing. Saudi Arabia basically can buy whatever it wants to buy. And if Israel has the best product to offer, it will come. I don't think Saudi Arabia will have a problem. It's just a way to. How do, how do I. That. There's ways around that. But the most important is the positioning. I think at the end of the day, normalization with Saudi Arabia. If it's achieved after the war, that's really a strategic loss for Hamas and for Iran. It's part of what they were trying to achieve, to destroy the normalization. So we must find a way around it strategically. But at the same time, we can't do that and keep Hamas in power. Right. So we have to sort it out. We have to lay down the plan for that, the strategy for that, and then I think all the pieces will come together.
- [37:18]
Khalil
Do you think we have a strategy? What you just said, just to clarify, is Israel needs a strategy for defeating Hamas. It needs a strategy for moving Gaza off this grand chessboard. Right? Gaza has some kind of day after, some kind of day after that is satisfactory to the Saudis, even just in terms of their image in the Arab world as they normalize with us, and then we move forward in the Saudi normalization. Now, if I understand what you've said, the Saudis are super keen on it. The Israelis are super keen on it. The Trump administration is super keen on it. There is already the package. We already know the details. We already know how to put together a double taxation treaty. It's all the templates are there, except that all of that is Israel piecing together a strategy and implementing it in a successful way. Do we have a strategy to end the Gaza war?
- [38:08]
Shiri Fain Grossman
So you're essentially asking if Netanyahu has a strategy. I'm going to answer diplomatically, and forgive me for that, but there's two schools of thought on this. One, A, I know people, you know, that worked with him, that have followed them for many years, and say the guy doesn't have a plan. He only thinks about the next five minutes. There's not really a Strategy here, there's just remaining in power. Politically, we hear that discourse, then another school of thought is a complete 180 of that. The guy's a genius. You don't understand the strategy. You don't understand what's going on. You don't understand the limitation. He knows the US Better than anybody, and he has a plan. You just don't understand it. And that's a problem because I understand that even if he has a strategy, he doesn't want, probably doesn't want to expose it. If, let's say, a government agency, a security agency said, hey, let's do a preemptive attack on Gaza and take down Sinwar, let's take down death, let's take everybody down, we have all the intelligence, we have all the means. Why let's do it now? So he thinks, okay, what comes the day after? If I topple Hamas, will Fatah come to power and then I'll get the Palestinian state again? That to me, kind of seems like we lost our strategic way.
- [39:32]
Khalil
Can I just. I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt. Are you speaking about something specific? I don't know if you can share that with us, but was there a plan that Netanyahu said no to, to take down Hamas in Gaza? You're making an argument here that enemies of Israel occasionally make because Netanyahu said these things, right? He said, we keep Hamas in Gaza. It's good because it prevents a Palestinian state. Those are things that leaked out of his meetings with far right activists and things like that. But Salah Smotrich would say it on camera and has said it on camera. And I have argued. No, no, These are excuses that he's making to the far right. I don't think he has a great strategy. I do think he has strategic. He's primed for certain strategic preferences. In other words, I fall somewhere in between. It's not that he has zero strategy. It's not that he has a grand, clever plan. He has certain things he's afraid of and doesn't want ever happen as you're describing. He has certain things he would like to achieve that are very dramatic. And he's constantly looking for how to sort of walk between the raindrops on that, to beat a path there so as opportunity. In other words, when you know what you want, you can take advantage of opportunities that come your way. Was there ever a recommendation to Netanyahu to pre October 7 to take out Hamas, and then he refused. There's reports on this. There are rumors on these things. Do you know of a specific case where we can really see that play out.
- [40:59]
Shiri Fain Grossman
Well, I can't comment on specific things like that that did happen or didn't happen. There should be an investigation to it and a lot of information needs to be considered. But even if that offer was on the table, it still has to take into account a lot of factors like will I have the international legitimacy to take that action against Hamas? Do I have the support of the American administration to take that offense attack? Does it align with the current situation with Iran? Do I want to now focus on Gaza and not the Iran nuclear bomb, which I perceive I'm just. Everything I said is just in the head of if I, I'm Netanyahu, it's not my personality.
- [41:44]
Khalil
So if in 2021 someone told them, you got someone from the intelligence community, the national security advisor, let's say she from the National Security Council, right, told him, you got to bomb Iran, or excuse me, you got to bomb Sinwar, you got to take out Hamas. That doesn't mean he has to do it. In other words, you're saying that even if there was, he did not have easy options here at any turn.
- [42:06]
Shiri Fain Grossman
That's correct. I mean, even if he did, there's other factors to take into account and I'm not in his place to decide.
- [42:17]
Khalil
So does Israel have a strategy in Gaza?
- [42:22]
Shiri Fain Grossman
If it does have a strategy, I am not really 100% understanding it.
- [42:29]
Khalil
That's a big story.
- [42:30]
Shiri Fain Grossman
Or seeing it.
- [42:35]
Khalil
What does Israel want after the day after in Gaza? What does Netanyahu the strategist, the prime minister, not Netanyahu the politician, want the day after in Gaza? Or what would be a good strategy? If we're not talking about, let's say there's an election and there's somebody none of us have predicted, a random person is running in government, they come to power. What should their strategy be?
- [42:57]
Shiri Fain Grossman
So first of all, the thing about the war in Gaza is mainly about the question of hostages. They, for a good reason unfortunately, were very smart to take so many hostages and to keep that leverage over Israel. If it wasn't for the hostages, it was a completely different ballgame. So it all comes back to the question of hostages. And that is, I think, a value based question. It comes to the essential values. It's not the security. I understand people who claim that it's difficult, but I think for security reasons that we have no other choice. They won't get back. But this is a strategic decision that is being made that we have to make it. But for me personally, it's a question of values. And also, if I look at it from another point of view, what will that do to Israeli culture and set of values that we're here for everybody, we're gonna save everybody. We're not gonna, you know, give up on any single person. You know, we want to keep sending our children to the military knowing that they'll be taken care of. So I think the hostage question is embedded in that kind of strategy. But if it wasn't for the hostages, I would say we have to annihilate Hamas. We have to go in, we have to get rid of them. I saw the John Spencer episode. I completely agree.
- [44:46]
Khalil
The bottom line is, I have argued that we do need a day after just even to open political windows to allow the war to proceed properly. And for political reasons, this government can't produce even imaginary day afters, even theoretical day afters. It literally can't speak about it properly because it is divided on this fundamental question. And that's costly for Israeli strategy going forward. So thank you for confirming my beliefs. That's super awesome when that happens. I hate it when I turn out to be wrong, which happens, unfortunately, more often. Thank you so much, Shili. Before we finish, last question. We have just a couple of minutes. Are you optimistic about this process? Who you know from deep within the system, the personality obstacles, not just the sort of grand strategy obstacles that we can see from the outside, the bureaucratic obstacles, the sheer scale of work it would take to actually piece together that kind of an agreement and how all these things have to synchronize. That's a beautiful image of just timing and people and interests, all of it at the same time. Are you optimistic that this can move forward?
- [45:59]
Shiri Fain Grossman
I'm optimistic, but I'm very concerned and worried because I've seen, and this is part of my kind of also development in my career that I've seen a lot of bureaucrats. I'm a bureaucrat, like Netanyahu likes to say. But talented people have left the system. They left public office, so many of them. And I don't want to discount or anyone that stayed in the system. But there's a huge challenge in recruiting good talent for various reasons. And like any businessman would tell you or any corporation, you need the best talent. And so even if everything's aligned, you need people that know how to execute
- [46:46]
Khalil
because of the political discourse about the deep state and because of a sense that it's not.
- [46:53]
Shiri Fain Grossman
Look, I've seen it, the discourse, at some point, nobody listens anymore, doesn't care what the bureaucrats say. That's what I've seen along the way. It's like, okay, I set up a National Security Council, but I'm not going to listen to most of the people that sit on it. Or I know better, maybe it does. But there is kind of organizational memory. There are skills, especially in the things that I told you about the Economy and Ministry of Health and other things. It's. But also in the security apparatus and Minister of Foreign Affairs. I think it's clear to everybody that a lot of the talent is left. The Ministry was drained out of its talent because of various reasons. So I think if we want a good government, we need also good, talented people to be part of it. And you talk about this populism is kind of eating away at the system and I'm very troubled by that. So that's, I'm optimistic. But we have to still not kind of burn everything into the ground. We have to keep the good people, talented people in office.
- [48:13]
Khalil
Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. And we will circle back the moment there is universal peace and harmony and love and brotherhood in the Middle East. And thank you for all your hard work on that score. And thank you very much to everyone who's listening and watching for joining us.