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- [00:04]
A
Israel Update with Gadi Tao and Mike Duran. Hello and welcome to Tablets Israel update. It's the 29th of July, and it's been one year, nine months and 22 days since Iron Swords began. I'm Gadi Taub in Tel Aviv, and on the other side of Riverside is Mike Duran.
- [00:40]
B
Hello.
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A
I was going to say I was going to start a new tradition, a new habit on our show in which I'll introduce you with a completely different title every time. What do you think of that?
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B
I like it. Yeah.
- [00:56]
A
Okay. So with me is court jester Mike Duran in Washington.
- [01:04]
B
I thought I was gonna get something illustrious, you know, like, at least. Yeah.
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A
Why would I do that, Mike? Why?
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B
You know, they have all those titles from the Middle Ages of the people who.
- [01:18]
A
Serve the king.
- [01:19]
B
Yeah. Who served the king and all. And they have them. And, you know, being close to the king was a great honor, but you could be responsible for the king's, you know, backside. Like, seriously, they had the titles like this. I thought you were going to pull something like that out, you know, But.
- [01:34]
A
I don't think I'm going to run out of titles anytime soon, so.
- [01:38]
B
Okay, but if you're going to do that, if you're going to do that, then I am going to respond by saying, yes, that is me, and I am as sane as possible under the circumstances.
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A
Okay, I'll think of a madman's title and I'll challenge you with that. So, joking aside, it was a very depressing week, wasn't it?
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B
Yeah. I mean, for me, it's also difficult because it's a week that's all about Gaza.
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A
And if there's one thing everyone is.
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B
Sick of Gaza I don't like to talk about, it's Gaza.
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A
So let's start with the headlines and I'll talk a little bit about Gaza. And then we can also talk about your article this time, which I think didn't get enough attention. I know. I made a summary. I thought it was very important. I made a summary in Hebrew, as you recall. I mentioned it last time. It got, I think, 23 likes or something. And this is the Mossad people. Don't you understand? Something very important happened. So we'll talk about that and then any remarks on regional geopolitics that we haven't treated yet. We can spare a little time for that. And of course, we'll have readers, comments and the dumbest take on the news. Okay, so, yeah, the headlines.
- [02:58]
B
All right, so the headlines, Gotti is Operation Gideon's Chariots Winds Down. That's the Gaza operation. The IDF claims it has decisively dismantled three Hamas brigade and obliterated much of Gaza's military infrastructure. Prime Minister Netanyahu now faces a strategic dilemma. Expand operations into the last Hamas controlled zones, heavily populated and potentially housing hostages, or hold back in favor of drawn out negotiations. The war's next phase remains uncertain. The hostage deal is still possible amid back channel tensions. Despite public setbacks and fiery rhetoric from Hamas, Israeli and international officials still believe a partial hostage deal is within reach. Talks held in Doha and Sardinia reportedly stalled after Hamas escalated its demands, but mediators remain engaged. Netanyahu recalled his team, but insiders say both sides are still looking for a way forward. International isolation deepens. The Netherlands bars Israeli ministers. The Dutch government has declared Israeli ministers Bengvir and Smutrich Persona non grata over their comments about Gaza. Joining a growing list of Western countries imposing diplomatic or economic sanctions. The EU is now weighing Israel's suspension from major research partnerships. Meanwhile, anti Semitic incidents targeting Israelis abroad are surging. And I might add to that that France is on the verge of recognizing a Palestinian state. Political turmoil at home. Shas poised to rejoin the government after quitting the coalition over a failed Haredi draft bill. Shas is now set return contingent on progress toward its legislative goals. Netanyahu has temporarily assumed the Shah's party's ministerial portfolios, creating a gray zone due to his ongoing criminal trial. With internal wrangling delaying appointment, eyes are on upcoming Knesset committee votes. Finally, Gadi humanitarian policy is in disarray. Israel's policy of restricting aid to Gaza while bypassing Hamas has somewhat unraveled, undercut by military reluctance to move forward and global pressure. Humanitarian convoys now flow into Gaza unchecked, with no hostage concessions in return. And Israel's public diplomacy has allowed Hamas to dominate the narrative. Even some of Israel's Republican allies in the US are voicing criticism. Over to you.
- [05:34]
A
Yeah. So I think we should add to our topics of discussion the growing isolation, which a lot of people find worrisome, and the blackening of Israel's image in the international media, which seems to have gone very far this week. But first of all, in Gaza, so what exactly is happening? First of all, Israel was not withholding aid. That is not true. What is going on is that the army is dragging its feet and did not implement the plan which the southern theater called. How would you say? Because the literally decision.
- [06:21]
B
But it's also decisive. Finish. What was. What were you saying?
- [06:26]
A
Decisive victory. It also means vanquishing. So it was supposed to be A final blow that would defeat Hamas. And the whole plan relied on moving the population to the south, where there will be stations operated by this American company, ghf, which will take care of the food distribution. But our legal masters in the army and without it, forbade the army to move populations. And the chief of staff, which is proving to be a second version of Herzi Halevi, is only a subordinate to his own attorney general. The attorney general, as lawyers joke in this country, is the real commander of the army, because if she forbids something, nothing moves. And so we did not move the population. And the whole idea of distributing food only in humanitarian shelter areas collapsed. And so aid had to be extended to where Hamas is still in control. And that arrived in convoys that Hamas could rip off or leave those. How would you say?
- [07:46]
B
Leave those to plunder.
- [07:50]
A
To plunder. So, so. So what happened is Hamas took control of. Of some of the food. Some of the rest of it is stationed in the UN that's refusing. With un, it's not even warehouses. It's rotting out in the sun. And the UN refuses to distribute it under Israeli control. And so what happened is that there are now, actually, there are pockets of hunger where Hamas is depriving its own population of food. Because if you are not Hamas connected and not strong enough, then you cannot participate in the plunder, and so food does not reach you. So we made a half measure for humanitarian consideration in order to, I don't know, bow down to imaginary clauses that are irrelevant in the Geneva Convention, because our jurists have such a strict interpretation of the conventions that they basically tie the army's hands unnecessarily. And so we have ourselves created a humanitarian crisis which we are now attempting to solve by parachuting food. So the whole situation has been mishandled because instead of being fierce and decisive, we made half measures, calculating wrongly that this would be less damaging and would. Would be better from a humanitarian point of view. And what happened is that we created a crisis. We enabled Hamas to portray us as deliberately causing mass hunger, which is, of course, ridiculous. And the press in Israel outrageously cooperated, and then the press around the world followed. So there is an Hebrew saying that you end up eating the rotten fish, being ousted from the city, and then getting beaten. I don't know what the original. I don't know the premise of the story. Tell us in Hebrew, what is it you say? Basov gama khal nut adagima masrikhiim gam girshoot. We ate the rotten fish. We were expelled from the town and we got beaten.
- [10:12]
B
Meaning that you tried to avoid one or two of these things and you ended up getting all of them.
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A
And you ended up getting all of them.
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B
I've never heard that before, but it's a good.
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A
It's a good metaphor of what?
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B
Israel, The Churchill saying. You. About Chamberlain, you.
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A
Yeah. You said you choose between disgrace and war and you end up getting both. Or you end up with.
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B
You chose. You chose disgrace instead of war and you end up getting both. Something like that. But he said it better because he's Churchill and we're not.
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A
We are not. But there are some other new candidates around, though Israelis have not yet recognized that. Yeah. So, Mike, Israel is in turmoil. Netanyahu is getting a lot of fire from the right for not slamming his fist on the table and making the army execute the original plan of decision.
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B
Don't you. Don't you feel that there's. Don't you feel that there's. And I have to admit that I have not been following this like I should. I have to admit I had no great insight into what's going on here because I've been focusing on other things lately. But don't you feel like there's an American hand at work here?
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A
In what way?
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B
That the Americans are restraining the Israelis in some way? Is that not the case?
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A
I think it's no longer the case, but I'm not sure. I don't have any direct information what the Americans.
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B
No, we had a few statements from Trump and Rubio.
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A
The statements from Trump and Rubio are. Yeah, there was a statement from Trump saying that there is hunger, but there is also hints, and I think especially Marco Rubio, that the phase of the war is going to change. So Israelis feel, and I'm not sure how accurate these feelings are, I mean, if they reflect accurately any reality, but the sense here is that we are dragging our feet, still hoping to get a deal from Hamas, who's just playing with us. And the Americans are getting impatient, saying, well, one way or the other, because.
- [12:36]
B
Maybe, yeah, I have to say, Rubio put out a statement about the two state solution question with respect to the French argument that we need to recognize a Palestinian state. And there was a very strong statement that came out of the State Department saying that this was at this sensitive moment in the negotiations. This is really hurtful. So in other words, Hamas hardened its position and hardened its position because it's getting such benefit out of the humanitarian claim and the European diplomacy.
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A
Yeah. And then all these pictures, you know, of skeletal babies held in the hands of.
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B
You saw the one from Italy. That was a fake, right?
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A
Yeah, some of them are fake, but some of them are sick children. And you look at them, and Aretz had on its front page a really heartbreaking picture of a child. You can see the verbatre and the ribs from the back, and a mother holding that child. And the mother is not thin. And they're distributing this propaganda shamelessly. If that was hunger, then that mother took the child.
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B
That's what they did in Italy. They had a child that's suffering from a disease, took a picture of it, put it in Italian newspaper, and then they later said, oh, we made a mistake. But that's after it goes all over the world.
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A
Yeah, yeah. So that is feeding an anti Semitic campaign that the Israeli press is shamefully taking part in and even exacerbating. And Adaviyal, whom both of us admire greatly as you know, put out a story by the BBC in which an American army veteran who worked for GHF said that the Israelis were shooting at people coming to get food. And that was up. I think it's still up on the Daviyal's feed. And there was a fierce denial by GHF saying that the footage is cooked from two different settings, that there is no trace of anyone from the IEF firing at anybody in any of this. This never happened. And this guy who came to testify to the BBC is. I almost said BDS has been fired from GHF for being dishonest and other things. And the Israeli media keeps pushing that narrative, Mike, because the reason is always the same. Toppling Netanyahu is the top priority. And then there's also a trap for Israel's globalist elites, which is. I think I'm optimistic about their waning influence. Because if you look at the vectors of what is actually happening, then you see that the fiercer the bds, the more the Israeli elite is trying to fight, find favor with the boycotters by distancing itself from our government and B. And, and trashing Israel. And you see, and you know, I'm looking at this scene from academia, say, because I teach at Hebrew University, and it's all over academia, it's not just Hebrew University. And you always see these faculty who are trying to dodge the boycott by criticizing Israel ever more fiercely. And then just let me finish, let me finish. And they are going to meet the students who are coming back from reserve service in Gaza. So these two vectors are heading for a clash. And that's true of Israel, Israeli society in general. Because if Nadaviyal thinks that he will retain his influence after the war, he is gravely mistaken.
- [16:35]
B
I know the phenomenon you're talking about firsthand because I come out of Middle Eastern studies at American universities and the Israeli students who came over, and they want to make it, you know, in American academia. And to make it in American academia, you have to sing the tune I'm talking about.
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A
Unless they are Leah Leibowitz. Unless they are Leo Leibowitz, who just wouldn't refuse to take it. Was that by you?
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B
But then he didn't have an academic career. I love Leal. He's a genius. But he didn't have an academic career.
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A
I remember because we were both. Things were not as bad as they are right now, but political correctness, as it was called then ruled. And both Leal and I were working with Todd Gitlin, I as a graduate student, and Leal already writing books with him. And then these things went. You know, by the time Todd Gitlin died, he was already attacking me in Aretz. In English.
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B
You have to. I know. I read Leal's book with Todd Gitlin on the Covenantal Nation, the. Oh, look at this. But remind me who Todd Gitlin was and where did he teach and what year were you in grad school in.
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A
The U.S. i started at 1998, and then I was there for 9 11, and I finished October 2003, exactly five years to the dot. But I did that last one and a half years in Israel because it was. It was impossible. Mike, you know my opinions about.
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B
You're a Rutgers, right?
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A
I was at Rutgers. I had a very good instructor, Professor Jackson Lears. TJ Jackson.
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B
I was a junior professor at Princeton. On 9 11, you and I were like. You and I were like 30 miles from each other.
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A
Yeah. You at the Citadel, and I with the. With the masses. Rutgers renounced its. Its Ivy League.
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B
And yet you call me the court.
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A
In order to become a state, you.
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B
Call me the court jester.
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A
Yeah. Because, you know, we, the plebs, have a grudge on you, the patricians. So. So. So Todd Gitlin was. Was actually president of SDS back in the 60s, I think for a year or for a few months. He's not as famous as Tom Hayden, but he was president of sds. And then he became closer to the circles of dissent and Michael Walzer and what used to be the sane left, which I once belonged to. And then that sane left did not succeed in what I hope, because Todd Gitlin wrote an excellent Book against multiculturalism, from which I still quote, he said their multiculturalism is about marching in lockstep while declaring your separate identity. And there was a wave of books bemoaning the fantastic.
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B
That's a fantastic line.
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A
It is. He's a great writer, by the way. He's really good. And that whole group once criticized the anti American thrust of the post colonial left and it was attacking multiculturalism in the name of social democracy. And it was patriotic and it was many things, but it failed to make a distinction between itself and the extreme anti American left because it kept directing its own fire at the American right. So Todd, I think went over the deep end with a book called Bulldozer or something against George W. Bush. People now don't remember with the Trump derangement syndrome how the administration in which you served, Mike, was considered the end of the world. The right wing crazies have taken over the country.
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B
That was way before because I tried to resurrect an academic career after I served in the White House. Yeah. And as far as academics were concerned, I had blood up to here on my arms. And so.
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A
Yeah, yeah, like you, like Kissinger. So all these, this whole group, the, the left went over the deep end. And I think that to this day they, the, in the end they, they support, you know, the crazy, the crazy DEI stuff which they criticized back then because, because distancing yourself from Hitler, as they often refer to Trump. I don't know if any of the dissent people do, but this is, the amount of, this is the level of hysteria. Then they end up cooperating with the communist and then the jihadist. And you know, the whole Obama thing.
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B
There was this effort. I had nothing to do with it. That a friend of mine, I won't say who it is, he actually, he's the one who put it together. All these people signed the Harper's Letter. The Harper's letter. You remember that?
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A
Yeah.
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B
Oh yeah.
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A
I have friends with it.
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B
I kept my mouth shut about it. Cause I didn't. And how many fights do you want to have with people? But the Harper's letter was against.
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A
Say what it is for our listeners and viewers.
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B
Oh, the Harper's letter was against. What do you call it? Cancel culture on the left. And it was saying that the cancel culture is a terrible thing and we have to let people have different points of view, so on. But they framed the whole thing as. Because we have to unite against the evil of Donald Trump.
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A
Yes. Yeah, yeah. I have a friend there.
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B
The one thing they can't do the one thing they can't do is cross the line and find a common cause with anyone on the right. You've already validated Cancel culture when you do that.
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A
Yeah, I have a friend who signed that letter. I know Leon Wieseltier did. Yeah. And my argument was, you are standing on a non existent political ground. And it went nowhere. These people are.
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B
Exactly.
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A
They have zero influence on anything and anything.
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B
And by the way, it was spineless. Because the one thing that I have a great sense for now after having come out of academia is I call it spinelessness. I call them feral sheep. Right. You've never met people, and this is. And I'm very comfortable making a completely, you know, a complete. What do you call it? Generalization about a whole group of people as a nation. Academics are the weakest people you have ever met. You remember what's his name's. I have Alzheimer's. I can't. Buckley, William F. Buckley said, you know, I'd rather be led by the first 20 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. It's true, though, if there's anybody you do not want to be in a foxhole with, it's an academic. They are such sheep. And it's because the whole profession is built on confidence, on consensus and conformism and so on. Right. So they. The only. If you ever see an academic taking a really hard position and saying, you know, I don't care, I don't care. I'm. I'm just going to let the chips fall where they may and I'm going to attack X. You can be sure that they are absolutely secure, that they're going to be validated by everyone else in their, you know, you know, I don't care who's offended by this, but I'm going to come out and just say it. Child rape is a terrible thing and I'll fight to the death over this. This is the kind of positions they take. But a lot of times it's against the right, you know, they'll hit somebody on the right knowing that they can get away with it. And when they. And when, and they love it when they can do that, they become absolutely feral. They start foaming at the mouth and they'll rip people to shreds and destroy them. Absolutely destroy them. Like they're really fierce and honorable people.
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A
I call him the choir of Emil Zolaz. The point of being Emil Zola is singing against the choir.
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B
It's too learned.
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A
So Emile Zolak wrote an article entitled Jacuz I accuse in which he said that the Dreyfus trial was an anti Semitic charade and he was a lone voice, or not completely alone, but he broke from the anti Semitic crowd and did it bravely. And now the whole choir is pretending to be Emile Zola, as if they are taking a brave stance. Where the brave stance is against usually the government, usually against Israel in this case. But what is missing from that picture is that it's never against their peer group. That is the difficulty. It's not difficult to take a position against China from Israel. They don't. Against America from Israel. That's a better example that. That's easy. What is hard is to take a step and criticize your own peer group. And what I think is happening here is the left in Israel has based its identity on a conception of the conflict in which we are in the wrong. So once there was a triumphant militaristic Israel, and then there are a few lone voices, and there were lone in the beginning, I'll give them that. Like Uri Avneri and other pioneers of the radical left who said, no, no, no, wait a minute, the Palestinians are the victims here and Israel at least should somehow compensate them from. For pushing them out of their own indigenous land. So that was once a brave, though not morally convincing argument to make back then and now. What happened with October 7th, Mike, is that it shook their world. And what you are seeing now, and the reason the Israeli press is all over this Gaza hunger lie, this lie that Israel is starving Gaza, because it puts their world back in place, it reorganizes their moral map by which they have positioned themselves vis a vis Israeli society. And so we are the communists now because you have to exonerate the Palestinians in order to set the world right. And that view is the progressive view where the post colonial view, the university view, the Edward Said view, in which, as we know, indigenous brown people are the righteous victims and white settlers, in this case, Jews are whites or coded as whites, are the bad guys.
- [28:26]
B
You're onto something here. You're onto something here. This is. I can feel this going on in America too. What's that? Oh, yeah, in America, in academia, allows everyone to go back to who they were before their world was shaken up.
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A
Yeah, yeah. Let's see. You know what?
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B
History moves on, my friend. History moves on. And Israel's gonna win this eventually against Hamas. I just wish they'd hurry up and get it done.
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A
I hope so too. It looks increasingly difficult, Mike, because of.
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B
Course it's difficult, but it's gonna happen.
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A
But we are heading into an election year, and we may find ourselves with an imposition of some uncomfortable truce that will leave Hamas half standing. So I know you're optimistic. I'm increasingly worried.
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B
It's because we're heading into an election year that I believe that Hamas is going to be defeated. Because what's going to happen is Netanyahu is going to call early elections at some point. He's looking. I have no information. I'm just looking logically. The calendar he has to have, by law, elections have to take place by October 2026, right?
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A
Yep.
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B
So that's a little bit over a year. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to wait until the. Until the legal term is up, because then he's going to be going to elections on the anniversary of October 7th. Who wants to go? And because also, the farther he gets away from the victory over Iran, the worse it gets for him. I mean, this is as good as it gets right now. So he'd like to do a partial hostage deal and then maybe go to early elections and then campaign on what? Finishing the job. We got to finish the job. And the other side's going to say, what? No, we're not going to finish the job. They're going to. They're going to. They're going to.
- [30:29]
A
They're going to say. They're going to say you cannot finish the job because you have had all the chances in the world to do it, and you haven't. That's what they're going to say.
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B
So he's got to finish the job. He's got to finish the job before and then go to early. The. Okay, if we're right about that, the logic is then he's got like four or five months to finish the job and then go to elections, right?
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A
Yeah, but there are several ticking clocks. One of them is the. The stretching, the reserve part of the army in a way that is going to backfire in the end. And also that in election year, you're going to have other limitations on your room of maneuver, but we'll see about that. But as we say in academia, Mike, enough about you. Let's now talk about your work.
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B
I did something for you the other day, like a month or two ago, and I forgot to tell you about it. I didn't do it for you. I just did it for us. I did it for us, for our relationship, because I care about our relationship.
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A
Oh, that's touching.
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B
We had a discussion that was very insincere. Gotti that was.
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A
No, it was sincere. You're just American. Yeah.
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B
It sounded sarcastic, actually. I looked up. Remember we had this discussion about Somerset Mom? And then you said that there was this great line in the Hebrew translation.
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A
Yeah. That was not in the original.
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B
I looked up. Yeah. I found this story, I think. Ah, it's called Madame. It's called Madame.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yes. Yeah. I found the story and I read it, enjoyed it a lot.
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A
Cool. With Dave the Dude.
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B
Dave the Dude, Yeah. Yeah. So anyway.
- [32:21]
A
So you noticed J. Edgar Hoover entering as a Greek nick or something?
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B
I forget all the people, but they didn't have. Somerset's mom's name does not appear.
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A
It doesn't. I was shocked.
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B
Your Hebrew translator really took liberties.
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A
It was amazing. But he did it with another metaphor that I used to bring as the, you know, the signature style of Damon Runyon. And he invented that one too. And that one. I'll say it in Hebrew. Maybe you can translate. It is. Oh, it's the same. It's the. It's about Somerset Mahm. Said he was the narrator. Says in the Hebrew translation that he was introduced to this sham party as Somerset ma'. Am. And then he said, vani. And then he. Somerset Moam and any Domele. Somerset Moam, California. Now that's a rolling. A rolling Damon Runyon metaphor.
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B
This is tough for me. I'm not Somerset Mom. I don't even.
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A
I never was Somerset Maugham.
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B
I'm nothing like Somerset Maugham. I'm not even. And you got to do the rest for me.
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A
And I resemble Somerset Moham as a Siamese cat resembles a divorce certificate from a court in Los Angeles, California. Now, that's. I'll have to say for the translator that, that this is really Damon Runyon's style. It is. It's. He has these amazing metaphors, but he was not there. And for years I've been telling people, look, this is how Damon Runyon writes. This is amazing. It's not him, but still, you know, I, I, I read Damon Running in two languages.
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B
Who was the translator? Do you know?
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A
And Eliezer Kami. I have it here in four volumes.
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B
Is he still alive or not?
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A
No, no, no. He's long gone. He's long gone and he did it. It was a labor of love, but.
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B
It'D be nice to have a conversation with him about it.
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A
Yeah. Yeah. So. So. Financial havoc, courtesy of Mossad in Iran. Mike, tell us the story first.
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B
So, yeah, I wrote this article together with my colleagues in EBR BUAH in the Wall Street Journal. A week or two ago we got information about what the 8200 and Mossad did to the financial system in Iran during the 12 days war. And they shook the foundations of the financial system. All this was reported. It's all out there in the open source information. But the significance of it hadn't really, I think, sunk in. Sunk in to most people.
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A
Did you have any new information in that piece or was it all open already?
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B
Oh, no, no. Well, it's all out there. I think we brought it all together in one place with the significance of it. And what they did is they started, they went after Bank Sepa, which is the bank of the irgc. One of the things that I don't think was really clearly stated in a lot of the open source reporting, Reuters and so on was they specifically targeted the assets of the irgc. So they started with the bank that finances the IRGC and not just the irgc.
- [36:08]
A
What is it exactly that they did?
- [36:11]
B
They wiped the data of the bank. So what is a bank today other than just a repository of data? I mean, it's not just a place that has money in a building with a lot of money in it. In fact, it often doesn't have a lot of money in it. But it's got the data about the money that you have in your account or that you deserve or that you owe, that you owe, but also your pensions. So all the pensions are processed through the bank. And so people go to the bank, to the ATM at the bank support to pull out their money, get their pension, make a deposit, whatever, and the whole thing shut down. And that then caused a run on all the banks. So once word got out that bank surpass no longer exists, basically everybody ran to all their banks to pull out money. Now you remember also Donald Trump said, get the hell out of Tehran. So you want to get out of Tehran, what's the first thing you do? Go get the cash so I can go pay for things elsewhere when I leave Tehran. There's a run on the banks and the banks couldn't supply the cash. So the Central bank of Iran tried to put money into the system by printing money and by putting foreign currency into the system. But there was such a demand for the foreign currency traders for foreign currency that they had to shut that down. The stock market collapsed. Basically, if it was a Western, normal, Western economy, we would say the entire financial system collapsed. But that's not where they didn't stop there. This is where it gets really good. The IRGC has set up an underground financial system through cryptocurrency. And there's the 90%, basically, or something close to 90%. A very high percentage of all Iranian crypto transactions go through one crypto exchange. And the Shmorny Mataim, or whoever, the.
- [38:27]
A
Israeli intelligence unit in charge of cyber activity.
- [38:32]
B
Yeah. Went into the wallets. The crypto wallets connected to IRGC entities and individuals and erased all the money. I mean, they. They permanently burned all of that money. They picked the pocket of the irgc. Now, they could have taken down the whole exchange if they wanted, but they decided just to make a point, they just went after the IRGC accounts.
- [39:15]
A
And, you know, I'm now basically saying your economy is a hostage now and we can pull the plug on it.
- [39:26]
B
Yeah. You survive economically at the will of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Mossad.
- [39:34]
A
Yeah. So you don't have to burn oil wells in order to collapse the Iranian economy. We can just do it through cyber. That's actually a very scary thought, Mike.
- [39:44]
B
No, look, no, this is the world we live in now. When I wrote this, I wrote an introductory paragraph where I said that this is a new form of warfare or something like that. And then I called up a few friends who actually study war or have participated in war to a greater extent than I have, and they said, nah, nah, this is ridiculous what you're saying. This is war today. This is nothing new. So then I started talking to them. Well, what is new here? Because this is new. I've never seen anything like this before. And so we started going through all the different kinds of attacks that there have been. And it is new. It's a different level of scale and destructive intent. Because usually these kinds of attacks on financial institutions, they're designed to cause disruption. They're designed to make money by holding stuff at ransom. And then once the ransom is paid, people let it go, or they just steal assets. But this was designed really, very cleverly. Two very, very targeted attacks, but designed to have this systemic impact. That's the thing that I think was missed by any of the reporting, was that the goal here was to really shake the system. And now, just think about it, Gadi. Now, if you're a member of the Iranian elite now, and you've got, like most people, you've got some concern about your own wealth, and you've got concern about passing some of your wealth on to your kids, taking care of your kids, are you going to trust the Iranian banks? I mean, the trust in the system has to have been completely shaken. I'm not a financial Expert. I don't know what to compare it to, but this is a complete. A complete attack on the trustworthiness of the reliability of the whole system.
- [41:59]
A
Yeah, and an attack on trust is. You know, my father was an economist. He was a philosophical kind of economist. And he used to say that business is trust and money is belief. It's credo. Credit is credo. And once your belief is shaken, the paper is not worth anything. And now belief has become so vulnerable because you believe in something that's actually virtual that, as you say, it is no longer the case. I just had someone on my Hebrew show who got a Chasut commercial advertisement from my Hebrew show, and he deals in gold. And he said, look, in this world, just own gold, because that cannot be erased by any cyber. And this guy has a safe in Eilat where there is no VAT tax. And, and, and in this safe he actually has gold. So, you know, it's like it's the old Fort Knox. It's. It's the financial. The pre Richard Nixon financial system where there was a gold standard and against every dollar there was supposed to be a piece of gold owned by the. By the American government.
- [43:17]
B
I totally believe in that. I have my. I just have one big problem with that. With that. And that's that I don't have the money to buy the gold. So if you can help me with that, I would. That's the. But I'm totally in favor of having large numbers of gold bricks in my basement or safe somewhere under the ground. I just don't know how to get them.
- [43:41]
A
I should give you a short lecture about how to monetize podcasts, but I'm not going to do it on air. Yeah, I'll just say that. I'll just say that Israel Update is not as lucrative as my Hebrew podcast, and not because I didn't want it to be.
- [44:02]
B
No, no gold bars have come my way because of Israel Update. The. Okay, I'm looking at the clock, Gadi, I have a problem. I have to go away. This is early in the morning, my time, and I gotta run, so I'll just make.
- [44:17]
A
So we'll skip the dumbest. Make two short comments. One, I have a piece coming up on tablet. Two, by the time this podcast airs, it will probably be already on the tablet side. And it's called the Bugs Bunny trial, and it's about the Netanyahu trial. And the occasion for it is part two of a documentary about the Netanyahu trial. And for Israel Update. Mike, I got permission from the producers of that 20 minute documentary with English subtitles to put it on our channels. On our channel. So if you guys want to watch the original Hebrew documentary about this crazy looney trial that ended up with Bugs Bunny, then, then, then that would be one of the perks for following our channels. You are also welcome to comment, to like and to share this podcast if you like it. And if you don't, you have exceptionally bad taste. Mike.
- [45:18]
B
You'Re going to leave us and I have to find people to fill in for you. Obviously no one can fill in for you.
- [45:23]
A
No, but I talked with Moti Kedar and it would be great because we said we will talk to our viewers about the Emirates solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The author, Moti Keidar, Dr. Motiked, an orientalist, will be happy to speak to you, Mike, in my absence. So I'm going to make the connection.
- [45:45]
B
Okay, So I will talk to Motikedar. A few weeks ago I made a stupid joke where I said that we were gonna have a segment on sex and chocolate. And one of the readers after that commented that that was really beneath me. She said, I think it was a she. I'm assuming she said, maybe it was a he. I don't know.
- [46:06]
A
Mike, you should not talk about chocolate. We've been through this. That's.
- [46:11]
B
I was thinking, I was thinking maybe I'm gonna. I don't want to. I'm sorry to offend our viewers, but I may, I may have a sex and chocolate segment while you're away.
- [46:21]
A
Have a ball. Thank you very much.
- [46:23]
B
What else can we. What else can substitute for Gadi tab? How long are you away for, though?
- [46:28]
A
Two weeks and a little bit. And. But I'll be in, in a safe, undisclosed location, so I'll take.
- [46:35]
B
That means. That means three weeks, right?
- [46:37]
A
Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I think. No, no, but I mean, I, I think I will not miss more than two shows. But that's what I mean. Two weeks and a bit.
- [46:48]
B
I may have to miss a show in there. We'll see. We'll see. Anyway, I'll keep everybody.
- [46:51]
A
It's August. It's August. Everyone's on vacation, so. So thanks for listening and. Or watching. And Mike will be here in my absence with Dr. Mordechai Kaidar. Thank you very much.
- [47:06]
B
And others.
- [47:08]
A
And others.