← Call Me Back - with Dan Senor
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- [00:04]
Dan Senor
You are listening to an art media podcast.
- [00:08]
Amit Segal
Let's say Hamas does agree to disarm. Who's going to verify? Who's going to monitor? How is it going to happen? Let's take it down from the mountain of slogans. The only way to make sure that Hamas disarms is if you have a military governance of the Israelis of the Gaza Strip and the IDF going not only house to house, but tunnel to tunnel, including in the central camps that it never fought in or in Gaza City in which a million people now live in the Gaza City outskirts. And the IDF needs to make sure that they actually disarmed. Even if they agree, and here's a news flash, they're not gonna disarm. This is the reason why a senior source last night in the Blair House has said we might need to control the Gaza Strip, not only militarily for a short period of time. So he was raising the idea of an actual military occupation of the Gaza str.
- [01:13]
Dan Senor
It's 8am on Tuesday, July 8 here in New York City. It is 3pm on Tuesday, July eighth, in Israel after a difficult day in which five IDF soldiers were killed and 14 wounded when two improvised explosive devices exploded near Beit Hanun in northern Gaza. The names of the fallen soldiers are Meir Shimon Amar, Moshe Nissim Farash Noam Aharon Muskajian, Benjamin Asulin and Moshe Shmuel Nol. Yesterday on Monday, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu met at the White House during a press engagement held at the front end of their dinner in the White House dining room. Netanyahu presented Trump with an official letter nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Prime Minister Netanyahu had sent the letter to the Nobel Committee. Prime Minister Netanyahu told the press that Israel and the US Are getting close to finding several countries willing to take in Palestinians who want to leave the Gaza Strip. He suggested that Gazans would not be forcibly removed from the Gaza Strip, but rather given the option to relocate if they so choose. Asked about the post war situation with Iran, President Trump said that the United States was having direct talks with Iran, with US Special envoy Steve Witkoff saying a meeting with the Iranians would take place within a week. The Prime Minister lauded the decisive military victory over Iran, but warned that the nuclear threat could arise again. Notably, there was no big announcement, at least not yet on the hostage ceasefire front, which many people, especially of course families of the hostages, were eagerly awaiting, anticipating and desperately hoping for. Rather, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu repeated more or less what we've been hearing over the past week that the US Is pushing for an end to the war in Gaza with the release of all hostages. Israel is also seeking a deal with Israeli negotiators currently in Qatar, but is determined not to sign, one that leaves Hamas in power. And Steve Witkoff has said he will be returning to Doha later this week, which could signal that the negotiations are, in fact, advancing. Joining us to unpack what we've learned from Monday's White House meeting, as well as what we should expect from the Washington meetings in the days ahead, Nadavael, senior analyst at Yidiot Ahrenot, and Amit Segal, chief political analyst at Channel 12, who we are pleased to announce are now part of the ARK Media team. More announcements on that coming soon. Amit Nadav, welcome back to the show.
- [03:56]
Amit Segal
Thanks for having us.
- [03:57]
Nadav
Thanks. Hiring us Amit, I think you had.
- [04:01]
Dan Senor
The single best promo for the Call Me Back podcast which you mentioned to me the other day on the phone. What was the term used there is.
- [04:09]
Nadav
The chokeshvut, the Bill of Return, according to which every Jew on earth is entitled to have an Israeli citizenship. And the definition for who can be defined as a Jew is according to the law, is, I think, a Jewish mother or father. But I would like to actually add another option which is listening to Call Me Back.
- [04:31]
Dan Senor
All right, so the Law of Return, we're gonna have to get an amendment. You'll talk to the prime minister's office and we'll put together a coalition that Knesset to amend the Law of Return so that Call me Back and ARC Media are written into the law. Anyways, gentlemen, again, more to announce in the days ahead about what the three of us and Ilan have been cooking up in terms of some special programming we'll be doing together. But let's jump into this conversation now. Nadav, I'll start with you. Prime Minister Netanyahu arrived in Washington. He had meetings. He had met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. But then he had this important dinner, it seemed private dinner with this somewhat dramatic series of engagements with the press right before at the dinner. Between that and what's happening behind the scenes, what do we know generally about what the prime minister and the president are talking about? Like, it seems like there's a range of issues that are on the agenda for this week. So at a high level, what are they talking about?
- [05:28]
Amit Segal
So first issue, I think, to an extent is celebrating the Iran victory. And I think this is the framing celebrating in the White House. The White House would publish later, just one important photo of Netanyahu's visit to the White House, and that is him and the president standing in front of the attempted assassination photo of Trump, the famous one in which the president said, fight, fight, fight. And the blood is streaming on the.
- [06:00]
Dan Senor
President's face from Butler, Pennsylvania, from last summer.
- [06:03]
Amit Segal
And the caption by the White House is, fight, fight, fight. Of these two men. This is the message. We worked as a team here. The President is right now still very content, let's put it this way. And this is a really British understatement from what he has seen as to the attack on Iran, the way that the United States and Israel work together. He simply doesn't have any other relationship, any other ally that he can see as that. I think that what I just said, Dan, is more important than the details that we're going to dive into, because this gives the entire framework of the visit, including speculation about the President trying to force something on the Prime Minister. It definitely isn't the music of this visit of Prime Minister Netanyahu to the United States. So the first issue is Iran. And there, Netanyahu's aim is very simple. He wants to get a commitment from President Trump that if the Iranians don't go for a strict agreement as to their nuclear program, the US Will either strike Iran again to have a strong deterrent or it will green light Israel to do so. By the way, a senior source close to the Prime Minister is briefing reporters who has briefed reporters this night right after the meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and between President Trump. And he said we never needed to have a green light from the President because the relationship is such, is that today Israel doesn't need a green light. Okay, that's great. But the truth is, of course, that it was greenlighted.
- [07:42]
Dan Senor
It was even more than greenlit. We're now learning of the extent to which it was coordinated. And it sounds like American assets were used to assist with the operation, shall we say?
- [07:50]
Amit Segal
Absolutely. And it was said by the President. It's not me analyzing here. So the first issue for the Prime Minister, as always, is Iran. Get this right, get a good agreement with them, threaten to strike again if needed, have a credible threat of use of force. And he got that also for political aura. It's very important for the Prime Minister to have this kind of engagement with the President of the United States on any day, but specifically now. Why? Because of what's happening in Doha and Qatar, because of the negotiations to get another deal with Hamas. And here there are Two distinct layers. And without wading into Amit's field, I would say that we should really separate them according to political interest on one layer. The Prime Minister has an interest right now in a limited hostage deal with Hamas. I don't think that there is any doubt about this. The Prime Minister has said that this senior source that I'm discussing has briefed the press last night that between 80 to 90% is already agreed upon just by the proposal that was accepted by Hamas. And he talked about the possibility of a breakthrough. He said it might take some time, but he gave, I would say, a positive trajectory as to getting a deal. However, and that's the second layer. In order to get this through and survive politically. And this is for him, really, I don't want to say the raison d', but this is really important for him to get his coalition in order, he needs to add a second layer. And that second layer consists of the future of Gaza, the migration of Palestinians, de radicalization of Palestinians, the moving of some of the population to Rafah while fighting Hamas in the north, maybe occupying militarily the entire Gaza Strip, having normalization agreements with the region. This thing could be called the package for the Israeli right wing. Now, I'm not downplaying it. I'm not saying it's all cynical. I think Netanyahu really believes that. Netanyahu really wants Hamas to be disintegrated. He still talks about the disarmament of Hamas as a condition for ending the war. But, hey, this is not what we're talking about right now. Even Netanyahu would agree. This is not what is discussed in Doha. What's discussed in Doha is a two phase deed. This is just the first phase. But he needs these two layers. And the President is happy to help with these two layers. First of all, he talks about the need to end the war in Gaza, and he's very positive about the deal. Maybe this week. This is a quote by the President. And the second thing, he's very happy to discuss the vision that he had in February about the Gaza Riviera, the allocation of Palestinians voluntarily. By the way, the prime Minister is also emphasizing that it's not going to be an expulsion. And these two layers are intertwined and are essential for the Prime Minister to return back home with a successful visit.
- [10:52]
Dan Senor
I just want to put an exclamation point after one of the points you made, which is I had the same reaction, Nadav, of the intensity of the relationship between these two men, Trump and Netanyahu, and the intensity of the relationship between their respective governments. And I think the Washington press corps, the mainstream Washington press corps, often applies the rules one uses to cover a president, conventional administrations, to Trump, and therefore gets a lot wrong. And I cannot think of a story in which a narrative or an arc that they've gotten more wrong than the relationship between these two men up until the last, obviously up until the Iran operation. That is to say that there were all these articles, like in the Washington Post a couple months ago, about how frustrated the President was with Prime Minister Netanyahu. And this was allegedly the reason Mike Waltz got pushed out because he was too close to Ron Dermer. It was a lot of mishagas. And the reason I say that is unlike most presidencies, most presidencies, the President is rarely available to the press, is rarely shares exactly how he's feeling about someone or some government or some issue. And so there's all this press has to read between the lines and get background sources for mid level administration officials and try to like, you know, piece together what's actually going on. What's so unconventional about Trump is, you know, exactly where you stand. He's out there, he's doing these like two or three hours when you add them all up, public meetings, you know, in the White House and the Oval Office, on almost a daily basis, when he's signing these executive orders, just answering questions, he's so communicative that if he's annoyed with a foreign leader, as for instance we've seen recently his frustrations with Putin, you know, he's frustrated. And obviously we saw after the ceasefire was announced when Trump was frustrated with Israel, he made that very clear when he walked out to Marine One. So you know where he stands, which I think the image you're describing, Nadav, is all the more important because if you see that kind of intensity, you know, you don't have to read between the lines. Amit, in terms of concrete achievements that Netanyahu is hoping to bring back from this trip, and Nadav alluded to some of these, some kind of delivery, deliverable that Netanyahu can bring back from this trip, what would it be?
- [13:08]
Nadav
Normalization with Syria, maybe Indonesia, hopefully Saudi Arabia, sort of a progress when it comes to emigration from Gaza. We keep hearing more and more noise regarding agreements that are formed as we speak between the US and other countries. It's not for Israel to have this agreement because Israel can't give, give or take anything, whereas the US can give, for instance, tariffs, easing, sanctions, etc. The main problem so far has been from the Israeli side that everyone was focused in Iran. Now it's give or take over. And the second thing is that there wasn't a person in charge of the immigration within the US Administration. Marco Rubio was given this task, but he has a lot on his plate. So basically no one did it. Now, if Netanyahu wants to keep the far right in his coalition, as Nadav just mentioned, he needs to give something. And the easiest thing to give is an immigration pilot scheme. And I think we'll hear something about it. The funniest part so far was the report in Reuters, according to which there would be four to six camps in which Gazans would temporarily stay, be fed and de radicalized. I mean, and after a few weeks of being de radicalized, they will be able to move to Cyprus or Egypt or Europe.
- [14:43]
Dan Senor
Who would be running the de radicalization program?
- [14:46]
Nadav
The ghf or sort something that is similar to this. The most important development in this case is the fact that the US is actually paying the GHF $30 million.
- [14:57]
Dan Senor
GHF, meaning the Gaza Humanitarian foundation, the.
- [15:00]
Nadav
American foundation with the Hebrew, the Israeli accent, the crew. So the fact that the US pays GHF a lot of money necessarily means that Trump is devoted for the success of this thing. And it's very, very important if we get to the deal. Why? Because one of the demands of Hamas when it comes to the interim agreement, the Witkoff deal, is that the GHF would cease working during the 60 days of the ceasefire. Why? Because it's crucial for Hamas to actually restore control over the population, which go through controlling the food supply and the money flow. And that's why it's crucial that the US actually is involved in the ghf, because it says that it means that the US and Israel are united in their demand for the GHF to continue providing food, even through the cease file. That's basically the thing that Netanyahu hopes to get from these meetings.
- [16:03]
Dan Senor
When you say the countries he would like to get normalization, I mean, you think even just some kind of movement or signal on normalization tracks with any of those, Syria, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia would be a success coming back to Israel, something, even if it's obviously not an agreement, it's not going to have an agreement with Saudi Arabia, for instance, I don't believe anytime soon. But even just movement on these fronts would be a win for him.
- [16:26]
Nadav
The threshold is as Indonesia could give a peace agreement normalization like we have with the uae. Saudi Arabia can go a long way, not through Normalization, in my opinion, they work slower and their demand is at least ending the war in Gaza. As for Syria, it's not. It's neither a peace agreement nor normalization. It's just ending the war between the two countries. So we are not about to see an Israeli embassy in Damascus and an Assyrian embassy in Tel Aviv. It's not going to be the case. But there can be an option, according to which, for instance, Syria would recognize the Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights. Israel would withdraw from the parts it conquered temporarily in Syria. American forces would be on the Syrian peak of Hermon, the highest mountain in the region. This is give or take. Everything.
- [17:21]
Dan Senor
Okay, Nadav, this morning, a draft of the agreement, a draft of the purported agreement between Hamas and Israel, Obviously indirect negotiations that Qatar has been mediating. It's dubbed, actually the Qatari draft. This was leaked to the press. Can you just go through some of the key points we should know about this draft and obviously all the caveats. It's fluid. It's just a draft. As we know from these negotiations, there are steps forward and often many steps back. So things could change and likely will. But as it relates to the hostages, at least the humanitarian aid and the final end of the war, can you just talk through in those categories what we know?
- [18:02]
Amit Segal
Yeah. So first of all, the first issue that's being discussed is, strangely, the humanitarian aid, it's not that strange because of what Amit just said. It's an Israeli interest to keep the GHF still alive. And specifically after the mass shooting and the deaths around the GHF and the way that this is seen internationally, for Israel to close down the GHF would be very meaningful. And mainly the far right in the government simply won't hear about this. Not only won't they hear about the closing of the ghf, the fact that Israel now is allowing convoys of trucks, the old method, through humanitarian groups into the Gaza Strip through a cabinet decision. This enrages the far right in the government, in the cabinet, and they're blaming the idf. And that's an entire different story we're probably going to discuss. So maintaining the GHF is absolutely essential for Israel as far as Netanyahu is concerned, but also essential for his coalition. And Hamas, again, as Amit mentioned, doesn't want this to happen. And there is a clear compromise here, Dan. There is a clear compromise. And the compromise which they are discussing is that the two methods will be happening at once. I need to say something about that. That's very tactical, but Essential to understand based on a senior military source in Israel that deals on a daily basis with the issue of aid to the Gaza Strip. The GHF has also become a source for Hamas. In what sense? With the ghf, it's food distribution centers. People need to walk there. Now, not the entire population can walk to these centers through a war zone. It's usually young men. So what the big traders of Gaza are doing is that they're paying young men to go again and again, and they can go five times an hour if they manage to, and pick up food, and it comes in big carton boxes, take it back, and then they take it back to these traders, according to that senior military source. And then Hamas takes its cut from these big merchants or traders, and then we're back to square one. Now, could they do this the same that they do this efficiently with the truck convoys? No. Say Israeli defense sources, they can't. But are they doing this right now? According to these sources, they are. So that's the first issue, Aid. The second issue is, of course, what would be the pullout of the Israeli IDF when it pulls out. And here you have specific issues. For instance, the Murad Corridor, it's an area which is north to Rafah that Israel has taken over and has cleared during this operation. The chariots of Gideon. And now the question is, is Israel pulling back now? Israel is not going to pull back and leave Philadelphia. The Philadelphia corridor. It's out of the question.
- [21:14]
Dan Senor
Okay, and again, just Philadelphia Corridor. Just quick reminder.
- [21:18]
Amit Segal
So the Philadelphia corridor is actually the border between Israel and Egypt, between Rafah and what was Egyptian Rafah, by the.
- [21:26]
Dan Senor
Way, the Egyptians destroyed and Israel, the idea of maintaining a security presence there. The impulse behind that has been about, among other things, preventing smuggling of arms and people into Gaza over the years. I mean, I'm just saying that's why. And especially since October 7th.
- [21:41]
Nadav
Yeah.
- [21:41]
Amit Segal
And Netanyahu presented this as, you know, no less than Israel's existence. And this is not me, again, analyzing or paraphrasing. He used this phrase. And then you have the Murad Corridor that is slightly up north and is north to Rafah. And Amit, correct me if I'm wrong in the geography, but this is another area that used to isolate Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip, and it's another buffer zone, and Israel would want to stay there. At any rate, Israel is staying at the perimeter, which is about, let's say, up to one mile from the Gaza Strip border, and it wants to stay in these areas. So it wants to stay in as much territory as it can. That's the bottom line. And Hamas is saying, no, we want you back to the ceasefire lines. And that's. The Qatari proposal is returning to the March 2nd lines. The March 2nd lines is when the ceasefire collapsed. That means that Israel retains Philadelphia, retains the perimeter, but the areas that it took over during this operation, the Chariots of Gideon, it lets go. And that's a big deal because it's this government that promised that it's going to stay in these areas. And there's a lot of criticism coming from the right, not only from the far right, by the way, also from the center, basically saying that was your entire shtick here. That's what you said to everybody in the world. Now we're taking control. Now you're taking control of. You took control of these territories and you cleared them. You're going to release them back to Hamas for a limited hostage deal, and then they're going to rebuild in these areas. And the soldiers that died in these areas have died, and more soldiers are going to die in the same territories that now you're releasing back to Hamas. That also relates with the terrible event in which five IDF soldiers died this night. Although to clear about that event, those five soldiers who died then, they died in an area that is less than a mile, much less than a mile from the Israeli border. And it is within the security perimeter of Israel that Israel has never let go.
- [23:57]
Dan Senor
You mean the security perimeter that Israel established after October 7th once it went into Gaza?
- [24:02]
Nadav
Yeah.
- [24:02]
Amit Segal
It's not only Bethann that's very close to Sderot, it's 3km from Sderot. It's specifically in a place in Bethanun, about 1km from the Israeli border.
- [24:13]
Nadav
I just have two things that I don't agree with, Nadav regarding this case. One is that I want to explain the last phase. What was the mission of the last operation in the past, after October 7th? Still last April, the main target of the Israeli force operating in Gaza was to kill as many terrorists as possible. You come to Bethun, you come to Jibaria Khaniun Yisrafah, you kill as many terrorists as possible and then you retreat. That was a failing strategy. It emanated from the fact that the IDF had many more missions, including fighting Hezbollah in the north most of the time. But the outcome was that there is no shortage in terrorists in Gaza. So even after The IDF killed 60% of the fighting soldiers of Hamas, terrorists kept coming either because there are many, many millennials in Gaza that want to kill Jews. And because Israel funded Hamas through the humanitarian aid. So we paid the salaries of the new terrorists. So the message changed. Now the IDF works against the infrastructure, especially the tunnels that Nadav has just described. I'll give you an example. In Rafah, the IDF, prior to the last phase, eliminated 25% of the tunnels and now it's 90%. So even if we have to withdraw during a ceasefire, terrorists nowhere to come. The whole city lies in ruins. This is one thing. The second thing is the humanitarian aid. Nadav hinted that the strategy of the GHF failed. And I don't think it failed. But it's not successful enough. But it wasn't the purpose, the main purpose was not to have a takeaway restaurant. GHF is a takeaway restaurant. You come, you get the package, which 22 meals, I think, and then you get back to a Hamas controlled area in northern Gaza or central Gaza. This is one option. It's important because you take the revenues from Hamas, but it's not enough. What we need is not a takeaway restaurant, but a full Airbnb service, AKA the humanitarian city that Israel wants to build southern to Morag corridor. Inform a Rafah. Why? Because then once, if you want to get food, you have to go through an inspection system where you are investigated or interrogated if you are a Hamas member, if you are innocent Gazan, you can just walk without weapons, of course. And then in this Hamas free zone, you get as much food as you want. But the idea was to create a much better place in Gaza where hundreds of thousands of Gazans can move without the fear of being controlled or killed by Hamas. This is the initiative. Now here is the absurd. In order to implement it, Netanyahu wants to get a ceasefire. Why? Because in order to create the city, you need many bulldozers to actually evacuate the ruins and build the infrastructure. But they are needed now in northern Gaza for the fighting for destroying Hamas infrastructure. Now, Netanyahu has a vision in his mind. The vision says that there is a ceasefire. But when the ceasefire is going on, Gazans would see the works to form, to establish, to build a new city. I am not sure this idea would work. Why? The Israeli side is tired of fighting grounds. And I'm not sure that in two months from now, there will be a lot of appetite for for Israelis to relaunch the fight. And as for the Gazans, it's not going to be very easy. By the way, this is the reason why the IDF opposes the idea. Eyal Zamir the IDF chief of staff, claims that it might create a problem from a humanitarian perspective that different parts of Gaza would fight each other, different gangs, inside an area controlled by Israel, for instance. So it's too early to determine what's going on in Rafah.
- [28:26]
Amit Segal
I want to say about this, Dan, I'm not big on historical comparisons. They're always flawed and. But what we just heard from Amit is a good description, I think, to a North South Vietnam kind of thinking here in terms of what's happening in Gaza. Let me be absolutely clear about this.
- [28:45]
Dan Senor
Using the V word is going to trigger people.
- [28:47]
Amit Segal
So, yeah, Israel has resumed the war in March. We have 38 IDF and one police fighter that have died. 38 since the resumption. Since the resumption, it's a rate of about 10amonth. @ first they said, no, the problem is that we're not staying in these territories. The reason that the IDF didn't want to stay in the territory is because it knew that it's not building a military control, it's not building a military governance of these areas. Therefore, a guerrilla will appear. Because if you're staying in a territory, as we know from Iraq and Afghanistan, the fundamentalists on the other side are studying your convoys, your habits, your bases. You're digging, they're digging deeper. And this is exactly what has been happening in the last two months. So the IDF has been intensifying and it's been losing more soldiers. Okay, it's worse right now. And most of these soldiers are lost to IEDs. And there's a lot of ammunition in the Gaza Strip, a lot of bombs that didn't detonate that Israel dropped on the Gaza Strip. And now they're saying, you know, we need to intensify even more. This is the surge. But they're not even saying the surge, as they said in Iraq, because the surge in Iraq, as you remember, worked.
- [30:17]
Dan Senor
Well, I would say it was clear hold and build. So it was clear the area of the enemy, hold it, hold the area, secure it, and then build some kind of independent local governing structure and possibly even a local security force that could then take over the holding so US Forces could pull out. That was the sequence. And it sounds like here there's the clearing, there's the holding, but there's not the building for all the obvious reasons. And that's where they become sitting ducks.
- [30:47]
Amit Segal
No, but there isn't a holding too. And here's why. Because, look, the IDF never wanted with this chief of staff or the previous chief of staff, both Think that a military governance of the Gaza ship is a big mistake. Okay, is a trap. But the reason that in Iraq there was some sort of stability there is because the United States always said, we're coming to free the Iraqi people, its Operation Iraqi Freedom, and we're going to be a military government. This is what we do. The Israelis tried to have here a startup. They tried to go into the Gaza Strip to fight Hamas in different methods, staying, holding, raiding, without building a military governance that will engage with the population at a certain point. They understood something that every military occupier understood in history, and that is that you need to engage with the population. Because the power of the governance of Hamas stems from the population, as Amit just said. And then they built the ghf, for instance. But the GHF now, as Amit said, it's not enough. So you need to build a city in that city. You need to move all the population of the Gaza Strip towards Rafah and to build a city for them. Now, what's missing from all of this then? I'll tell you what. An economy is missing. Who's going to fund this? What are the Palestinians in Rafah going to do, even in Iraq or in Afghanistan or any other place I know of? Moving the entire population. You want to have a local economy. You want people to go back to work. Nobody's even discussing this. You want kids to go to schools? So now they're saying the people who built this plan with the humanitarian area and Rafah are saying, no, we'd have schools there. Yeah, but what's going to be the economy? Who's going to fund all this? According to Israeli reporters, it's the Israeli citizens that are funding the ghf. So right now it's Israel that's funding it. This is not sustainable. And it looks like the reason. I meant I raised the V word as you said, Dan, Vietnam is because it looks like, and I'm quoting one of my sources, that is an official look. It's confused. This is what he told me. There's a lot of balls in the air. You have the humanitarian area in Rafah, you have the deal. You have a talk about the end of the war. It looks like this. Because it is like this. And there is no coherent strategy here. Now, as to the overall vision of the Prime Minister, it's very clear he wants the Hamas to disarm and he wants Hamas not to control the Gaza Strip. But between the coherent vision and what the IDF can do, and this is part of the reason there are major confrontations right now. The worst confrontations between the IDF and the cabinet in Israel since the beginning of the war in October 7th have happened in the last 10 days. I have reported on some, by the way, Amit has reported on some.
- [33:45]
Dan Senor
Amit Nadav says you've been reporting on this too. What's your take?
- [33:48]
Nadav
I think there is something that should be explained here. This current IDF chief of staff, Al Zamir was nominated on the best basis of supporting the plan to actually separate Hamas from the population and the humanitarian aid. Now he changed his mind, it's for sure. On the cabinet meeting that actually approved his nomination, the defense minister Israel cuts read a plan written by Yald Zamir, how to defeat Hamas in 100 days. Now we are in the 121st day. So apparently something changed. And what changed is that two things. One, Zamir thinks that the time to get the hostages out is now. And the second thing is that he probably no longer believes in the idea of having this humanitarian city because he sees it as an introduction for a full military regime in Gaza Strip. I think he should explain it to the Israeli public. It would be way more helpful. But I can't explain how important it is for the Israeli public to take this in the eyes of the Israeli public. What we see now in Gaza is more of the same, more of a lot of same over the last 21 months, but it's definitely not. We are on the verge of a historic decision to be made. Either we end the war, withdrawal from Gaza, taking all the hostages and letting Hamas be there, or at the risk of having a military regime in Gaza. I think the Israeli public should be aware of the situation. If there is a third option, I think everyone would be happy to hear it.
- [35:28]
Dan Senor
And when you. Just to understand what you're saying, the reason you put it so starkly, I just want to have our listeners understand exactly what you're saying. Your point is there's no way Hamas will agree to an end to the war if they do not maintain some kind of presence or governing role in Gaza. You're saying that that's your assumption. That's why you arrived at that binary scenario.
- [35:52]
Nadav
Even more than this. I interviewed the foreign prime minister, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapida Victor Lebanon over the last two weeks. And they all of them said that we should end the war. And then I asked them, each and every one of them, okay, so you agree to actually evacuate every inch in Gaza Strips. So Hamas would be hundreds of meters from Be' eri and Kfar Aza and said no, we would stay in the perimeter. So I told them, but Hamas doesn't agree. So they told me simultaneously. I mean, in different interviews, no, we can actually have it.
- [36:30]
Dan Senor
And your point is? Hamas will never agree to that if.
- [36:33]
Nadav
Hamas agrees to this. So there is no difference between Lieberman, Bennett Yargolan and Prime Minister Netanyahu. But as long as Hamas doesn't agree, and I don't see any sign of Hamas agreeing to this, we have to take really difficult decisions. Because I think, unlike many, many of my colleagues, that if there is a deal according to which Israel can stay on the perimeter and Philadelphia corridor, thus preventing ammunition smuggling towards inside Gaza and releasing, of course, all the hostages, I think Netanyahu would take it, even with Smotrich and Ben threatening to leave.
- [37:11]
Amit Segal
You're talking about the first phase of the deal. No, no, no.
- [37:15]
Nadav
The entire to wrap up the war. As long as Israel has the ability to attack Hamas inside Gaza. If the IDF recognizes a sign for terrorist activity, I think that Netanyahu would actually be in favor of it. But it's a hard luck that Hamas doesn't agree to it. So let's stop all this camouflage and start speaking about the situation, about the harsh situation that we are handling.
- [37:42]
Amit Segal
So the demands of Netanyahu are not just the perimeter in controlling Philadelphia. I think that Hamas would agree to end the war with Israel controlling Philadelphia because Israel controlled Philadelphia in the past. This is not a precedent. As to the perimeter, I don't know. I simply don't know what they'll agree to. But the point that Netanyahu is making is he doesn't want to do this before the Hamas leadership is exiled, which as far as Arab sources across the region, both in Qatar and Egypt, they are agreeing to a limited exile. They also know that it will defend their lives. And I'm just breaking this into parts. And there is the whole issue of disarming Hamas, which is something that the Prime Minister is talking about and I think is very warranted. Now, I want to explain something which relates and to an extent agrees with the meat. Look, let's say Hamas does agree. It agrees that it needs to disarm. It agrees that there's going to be a different government in Gaza. By the way, Hamas already, I explained this numerous times on this show. Hamas has already agreed that there will be a different government in Gaza. Israel wants to make sure that Hamas is not behind that government. Okay, so it agrees to a different government. It agrees to disarm. It agrees to Philadelphia being controlled by Israel. And as to Israel's right to attack Hamas if it engages in plans for another October 7th, we don't need Hamas to agree to that. And as far as I know, Israel is not demanding that Hamas agrees to that because it's our right for self defense. It's enshrined at the UN Charter. We don't need anyone to agree to that. But let's say Hamas does agree to disarm. Who's going to verify? Who's going to monitor? How is it going to happen? I'm sorry, let's take it down from the mountain of slogans. The only way to make sure that Hamas disarms is if you have a military governance of the Israelis of the Gaza Strip and the IDF going not only house to house, but tunnel to tunnel, including in the central camps that it never fought in or in Gaza City in which a million people now live in the Gaza City outskirts. And the IDF needs to make sure that they actually disarmed. Even if they agree, and here's a news flash, they're not going to disarm. This is the reason why a senior source last night in the Blair House has said we might need to control the Gaza Strip, not only militarily for a short period of time. So he was raising the idea of an actual military occupation of the Gaza Strip, which again, something Amit has just alluded to. Because all of these conditions, who's going to do this? The Americans? They're going to have boots on the ground? No. The Emiratis, The Egyptians, the Palestinian Authority? The Abu Shabaab militia? Another fantasy. I'm not saying that the militia doesn't exist, but can it be the savior of Gaza? I don't think so. So this is just sloganism. And I think, and I'm speaking like this about this, because there needs to be a plan. Soldiers are dying in the Gaza Strip and we have politicians now, Lieberman, for instance, who's not a, you know, he's not a left wing politicians, he's definitely in the anti Bibi coalition saying the soldiers have died on the altar of the survival of the coalition. This is where we are at in the Israeli conversation right now in which politicians in Israel are saying that the war in Gaza isn't warranted anymore. Now you can agree with them, you can disagree with them, but you can disagree with this becoming an extremely problematic situation. From a war that was a complete consensus to something in which centrist anti Bibi politicians, okay, granted, like Lieberman would say, dying on the altar of the coalition this is a very dangerous point. And this is one of the reasons that the Israeli defense system is saying apparatus, is saying take the deal.
- [41:52]
Nadav
I think that part of the sentiment in Israel that the war doesn't really work is because it didn't go all the way towards siege on northern Gaza and establishing the humanitarian cities. So the right wing is disappointed because not enough is done, and the center left is disappointed because too much was done. So then again, we are on the verge of taking a dramatic decision, and it would be very, very interesting to understand what was discussed in this respect between Trump and Netanyahu. I think in a few days or even weeks, we'll know more than this.
- [42:28]
Dan Senor
Okay, then I want to ask you one closing question before you go, Amit. Very quickly, you wrote a piece for the Telegraph, which we can link to in the show notes that I thought was very good, where you laid out why this war in Gaza, this front, if you will, has taken so long and been so costly relative to what Israel did against Hezbollah and Iran. But the lead of the piece was, or maybe the title of the piece was, we just need a few more months in Gaza. And you listen to the casualty numbers that Nadav just walked through. 38 soldiers killed since March, and really most of those were killed in the last two months. So when you hear those numbers and you say a few more months, that's like, I don't know how the Israeli public processes that.
- [43:09]
Nadav
It's not that the months would pass and everything would happen. We need a few months. If we do the right things. I think it would be one of the most stupid things in military history when people will read in a hundred years from now about how Israel fed Hamas, thus preventing itself from winning the war a year and a half ago. But I think if we do the right things, we can actually do it. One idea is emigration. One idea is this humanitarian city. But without separating Hamas from the humanitarian aid and the population, nothing would happen. If it happens, two or three months would be enough. If not, let's end the war now and acknowledge that we accomplished only part of the mission.
- [43:52]
Dan Senor
Okay? We all have to run in different directions. Amit, Nadav, obviously. To be continued. Many, many, many times. But so the offline conversations the three of us have been having will now be online in our formal relationship on ARC Media. So look forward to talking to both of you very soon.
- [44:09]
Amit Segal
Thank you.
- [44:09]
Nadav
Thank you so much.
- [44:19]
Dan Senor
That's our show for today. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who might appreciate it. It time and again, we found that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the Call Me Back community. So thank you. And to offer comments, suggestions, sign up for updates, or explore past episodes, please Visit our website, arcmedia.org that's arkmedia.org where you can deepen your understanding of the topics we cover. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Lon Benatar. Sound and video editing by Martin Huergo and Mariangelis Burgos. Our director of operations is Maya Rakoff. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.