Loading summary
Transcript35 lines
- [00:06]
A
Welcome to Lunch with Jamie, the series where I sit down with thought leaders and have meaningful conversations about hot button topics with a live virtual audience. To participate in these online conversations and be in the room where it happens, subscribe to be a paid member on jamieslist.com you'll also be able to ask questions, participate in the chat, and get updated information from my guests in real time.
- [00:26]
B
Foreign.
- [00:31]
A
I chat with author, political analyst, host of the Call Me Back podcast and expert in all things Israel, Dan Senor. We discuss the current state of the war, the next steps for Gaza, how to bridge the political divide, whether or not Netanyahu bears responsibility for October 7th Iran, and much more. Now here's my conversation with Dan Cenor. Hey everybody, welcome. It's been a hectic couple of weeks. I'm so much going on. Really excited to have Dan Senor joining us today. He's far and away one of the most prolific voices on Israel in the Middle East. If you don't know, Dan was senior foreign policy advisor to the Romney campaign. He's a host of Call Me Back. He's written multiple books. The Junior Visit Israel, Startup Nation. Uh, Dan, thank you for joining us. As this is called Lunch with Jamie and we have a lot of very critical topics to cover. We are going to start with a food question which is what is some of your favorite Middle Eastern restaurants around the world?
- [01:32]
B
First of all, it's, it's great to be back here. I think I was on with you guys soon after October 7th.
- [01:37]
A
Yes,
- [01:39]
B
I'm in New York so it's 4pm so thinking about lunch right now is, is not fair. But my I, I've obviously restaurants in Israel are on my mind a lot these days for two reasons, one of which is I'm getting on a plane Thursday night to fly to Israel and I there are a number of spots I'd like to hit when I'm there. There's one of my favorites is a Drew's restaurant D R U Z E a Drew's restaurant by that's run by a woman named Naifa Moolah. It's in the Nevitsedek area. If you've never had Drew's food, I highly recommend it. If you've never had Drew's food in Tel Aviv, I doubly recommend it. And she herself, Naifa is this she's like Drew's not Jewish, obviously from a, from a small minority community from northern Israel and has become one of Israel's most popular chefs. She won the equivalent of Israel's Top Chef or whatever the reality show is. And if anyone wants to go on this call when they're next in Tel Aviv, let me know and I will make sure she entertains and takes good care of you. And then there's a number of chefs that I am a huge fan of that are. Have become global sensations. From Israel, Iel Shani, Michael Solomon of you may know a number of these names and many of these chefs, and I could circulate a list of about five of them, have built real empires globally, opening restaurants all throughout the U.S. europe. And many of these restaurants, Israeli restaurants, all of them have been under siege. There was just one of a Yelshani's restaurants was just attacked in Melbourne, Australia two days ago with people chanting death to the IDF as they attack the restaurant, mimicking or inspired by the. The whatever his name is. Bob. Bob Villain. And so these restaurants are now becoming targets. They have been time. I think that's been the case in la. So my little advertisement here is let's help these restaurants out. And if you're in a city where any of these top Israeli chefs are operating restaurants, try to frequent them as much as possible.
- [03:54]
A
Well, thank you for that. And is you bring up some really critical points about the. The food scene relating to what's going on in the world. Tel Aviv has extraordinary food. You know, I, I love, I love that city. Udalay and July, which is an Egyptian restaurant that I love. Amazing hummus places. Hakusam, Abu Hassan, Jasmino, Habasta. The list goes on and on. I could eat forever in that city.
- [04:22]
B
And wow, you really know them. Jamie, like one of my favorite. It is my favorite falafel place in, in Tel Aviv. And wait, you mentioned Udalay. Yeah, which is. Wait, the guy who I'm blank on.
- [04:37]
A
It's the sister restaurant.
- [04:38]
B
Right, right. Of. Of machine. Yehuda. Exactly.
- [04:41]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's not called Lunch with Jamie for now.
- [04:44]
B
Safranit. It's a safranit. Yeah.
- [04:47]
A
Listen, first, let's, let's just start what with what's the situation today in the Middle East? You do such a great job on Call Me back of setting the time and the place and the date and where it is and I don't know what time it is in Israel right now, but give us a sense of what's happening right now.
- [05:05]
B
1108, there you go.
- [05:07]
A
With the ceasefire potential. Iran, obviously we just had the meeting with Trump and Netanyahu in the White House, so give us a kind of as short as you can, an update on where things stand for the first
- [05:21]
B
time in a long time. I think it's, and this is sort of hard for me to say because it's, it's obviously on a day that we've just gotten unfortunately some pretty horrendous news out of Israel where, where five Israeli soldiers were killed yesterday, last night and many more wounded, some in pretty serious condition. So this is not like a victory lap observation I'm going to make. That said, I do think for the first time in a long time Israel has, is winning the wars. And I say the wars because it is a multi front war. You know, Victor Davis Hansen wrote this book about World War II where he called it the Second World wars because there were so many fronts. In many respects these fronts had a lot in common and yet the allies had to fight them as though there were many different wars. And Israel's been fighting many different wars all at once. And, and if you think about it, as I've been saying recently, on October 6, the day before October 7, 2023, if Y Sinwar had been told the architect of October 7, that less than two years, let's call it, you know, just shy of the two year anniversary of October 7th, the Middle east would look like the following. One, Hamas would be largely wiped out. Hezbollah, its sister terror organization on Israel's northern border, would be totally wiped out. The Assad regime, which is a satellite state, was a satellite state of Iran, was a constant thorn in the spine of, in the side of Israel is 53 years in power under the Assad's 1314 year civil war. The Assad survived hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs slaughtered during that civil war. And then in a matter of 13 days in an uprising, the regime falls and Bashar Al Assad and his family are now living somewhere in Russia. So the Assad regime gone. And actually Syria I believe on the cusp of signing some kind of agreement with Israel which will, whether it's formally part of an expansion of the Abraham Accords or not, there will be some kind of normalized relations with Syria. And then the other proxies, the Houthis, while a persistent nuisance, are weaker and just that, a nuisance. The militias that Iran had backed elsewhere in the region against Israel, like out of Iraq, are, are not a threat or at least nowhere near the threat they used to be. And then Iran, which was the head of the octopus is, you know, I mean, where do I begin? I mean they've spent billions of dollars and years investing in A proxy system throughout the region. That proxy system is, is basically gone. They don't really have a conventional military to speak of anymore. They have no air defenses. So Israel and the US have free reign over Iran's skies. Their nuclear program has been and we can debate whether it's been set back for months or it's been set back for years. And it depends who you talk to and what your assumptions are. And figuring out what is the basis for determining the viability of Iran's nuclear program to have some kind of resurgence. I tend to be on the, I think it's years, not months. But either way, the we were in a situation before, just before, just a few weeks ago, where if Iran chose to dash to a nuclear bomb, they could probably have done it in a matter of days, if not days, then weeks. And that's no longer the threat. Its economy is a basket case and it's facing some pressure internally. And so Iran, I don't want to say the, the piece has been taken off the chessboard, but it is definitely not the threat it used to be. And I can go on, but this is and oh, by the way, now there's a possibility for, I mentioned Syria as part of an expansion of the Abraham Accords. I think there could be some, I don't know if it's Abraham Accords, but I think you can see an interesting relationship emerging with Lebanon, between Israel and Lebanon. I think you can see Muslim countries outside of the Middle east like Indonesia opening up and ending its diplomatic freeze of Israel. And then obviously the crown jewel, which is Saudi Arabia. I think while that is not imminent for reasons I can get into, I do think the direction of travel is only going one way, which is towards normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So if you told, coming back to Yechiel Sinwar, if you told Sinwar on October 6 that that would be what the region would look like on the two year anniversary or just before the two year anniversary of October 7th. I'm not sure he would have launched October 7th because it was his decision to launch October 7th, the massacre that catalyzed a bunch of things that have resulted in what I've just described or catalyzed a bunch of events and decisions that resulted in what I just described. And so in that sense, Israel's geopolitical position in the Middle east is transformed in a way, in a positive way like no other period I've seen in Middle east history. Going back, I think the closest example you could get to is what, what the Middle east looked like From Israel's perspective after the 1967 Six Day War, that's how big the transformation has been. I'm comparing it to that. So that is very positive. Now, do I have concerns about some trends inside Israel? Yes, and we can talk about those. But generally speaking, the Washington and Jerusalem have never been closer. The ties between the US and Israel are extraordinary, as evidenced by not only the US decision to step in and kind of finish off the operation against Iran, but as I think we're going to learn about in the days ahead, the extent to which the US was actually involved in helping Israel on the front end. So, so I'm, I'm again cautiously optimistic and again, we can, we can get into any one of these issues. I can also, we can talk about what some of the concerns are. But on balance, I'm, I think Israel is in a very strong position and therefore it's sort of like an inflection point for Israel because for the first time it's had this kind of success. I also think it's in a position to take some risks, to wind down some, if not all of these wars. I mean, obviously it has to remain on guard, but it, but it can definitely take risks as it relates to Gaza that it was not comfortable taking before. And I think Israel and Israeli society need it.
- [12:09]
A
October 6th in Israel. It's something I've talked about a lot and thought about a lot. What was October 6th in Israel like to take a step back for us? Because it's hard to, I know it's, in some ways it's hard to do that. And you know, Yuval Harari talks about kind of not looking back in some ways, I know whether, and, but I think at the same time it was a very different landscape in the, in this, in, in Israel at that point. Would you mind taking us back to that moment?
- [12:33]
B
Well, I think October 6th in Israel was very tense for reasons that don't have to do with Israel's security situation. They're very tense because Israeli society was very divided. It was polarized. There was, as you recall, for about a year before, about, about a year up until just before October 6th or October 7th, was this very divisive debate, debate over judicial reform inside Israel. And the debate over judicial reform, I always felt was never really about judicial reform, although it was in part about, about the reform of Israel's judiciary and the role of its judiciary and how it interacts with Israel's political process and political system. But I, but I think that the, the tension around judicial reform was illustrative of a deeper tension inside Israel, which is, you know, that this government, the Netanyahu led government, which was largely populated, not entirely, but largely populated by people on the hard right, on the hard religious right, and who, many of whom also did not serve in the IDF and who represent communities that do not serve. And there were many people in Israel who were both major contributors to Israel's security based on where they served in the military and the intelligence community, and also people who are, you know, outsized contributors to Israel's economy, to the startup ecosystem, who, who felt like why, you know, decisions about the, the constitutional future of this country are being made by, by people who don't contribute to society the way we do. And so this created this extraordinary tension in Israel now, large, most of that vanished on October 7th, thank God, because the country really was stood with one voice. And I actually think for the many months after October 7th that was true. We, we've seen that fade, obviously, that unity in recent months. And so we've seen the reemergence of some of the tensions that existed before October 7th. But October 6th was that tension I'm describing in extremis
- [14:52]
A
now that we're in sort of getting to another place? I mean, it's hard to sort of predict out the future, obviously. But are you starting to see some of that? I mean, obviously Netanyahu's actions, with what he's doing, the judicial are sort of preparing for that moment. I mean, what, what do you sort of see? I heard someone talking about how all those people you just referenced are the people who were protesting that year leading up. And they're the ones who've also been on the front lines of this fight. And now they're coming back and going to, you know, are they going to be back out in the streets? Are you seeing some of that already? What, what are you seeing?
- [15:30]
B
Yeah, it was a great line a couple weeks ago in Hebrew, like on like social media in Israel, where someone said Kaplan street, which is where the protests were taking place on Judy, over judicial reform, which is like a main hub of the protest activity inside in downtown Tel Aviv. And then also was, is a main area of protest over the last few months when there's been these, the hostage families have been protesting and people supporting a deal that gets the hostages back. That like you would have hundreds of thousands of people protesting largely on Kaplan Street. And someone pointed out, some made this observation, Hebrew saying Kaplan Street, Tel Aviv is so boring these days with all. They call them the Kaplanistas, which are the Kaplan street protesters, they said Tel Aviv is so boring these days because the Kaplanistas are all busy flying over, flying over Tehran, meaning that the people who are protesting are fighting this war against Iran, which is something extraordinary and I think quite moving about Israel, which is actually unlike any country, certainly our own. The people who could be on the front lines on a given day, most irate with their government about this or that decision, don't think twice about, you know, copping in the cockpit of a, of a Air Force plane, Air Force jet, and conducting a military operation, very dangerous military operation, very risky military operation at the direction of a government it loathes, speaks to sort of the Israeli secret sauce, that they can have these paradoxical views about their role in society and protest versus service. And anyways, it's, it's a fascinating thing. I think that there are two things going on going forward on Israel domestically. One, I, I think that on the one hand, Israelis are tired of this government, the current government. I mean, just speaking in general terms here in the interest of time, but generally speaking, if you look at the polls for some time, they've tired of this government. They believe that the government has not been as, as focused and proactive on trying to reach some kind of ceasefire with Hamas, with Gaza, not as committed to, you know, taking major risks and major steps to get the hostages back. I think that criticism, that specific criticism is a little unfair. But be that as it may and that generally speaking, this government was in charge on October 7th and that's it, like, period, end of story. If they were in charge when there was such a massive catastrophic failure, security failure, on October 7th, they own it and they should not be in power again. And I think that was the more or less, and sorry, I should add that the government, because it has two of the major Haredi or ultra Orthodox parties in the government, the Shah Party, which is largely Sephardic, and the United Torah Judaism, which is the Ashkenazi Haredi party. Because those parties were so influential in this government and because most, not all, but most of their, of the constituents they represent, most of their voters do not serve in the idf, there was also something just fundamentally unserious and disconnected from reality, if not flat out unfair about this government being in charge during wartime when so many Israelis are so overstretched and, and so exhausted and, you know, risking their lives and dying in many cases to be led by a government where there are parties that have a role in the government, where they're, they don't serve and they don't want their their voters to serve is is not fair. So that was I think I've just kind of briefly summarized what I think the inputs were for why the government had a difficult path forward if they were ever to go to elections. On the one hand on the other hand is Ari Shavit talked about in in podcast episode I did late last week. This was the last episode we had before we last interview I had before I'm dropping another one tonight which is an interview but it's the last interview episode I had and he's a centrist center left guy former columnist for her it's and he says but balanced and he says, he says look, so everything I just said he would probably agree with. But he also says that many Israelis, including many critics of this government have come to recognize that what Israel accomplished against Iran was extraordinary. It was a, it was the culmination of a multi decade struggle and there's a grudging acknowledgment or respect for the fact that it probably wouldn't have happened without Netanyahu the way it happened. And I can get into that but that Netanyahu played a probably a singular role in getting all the stars to align line including how he managed on behalf of Israel, the US Relationship and the US role in all of this which was very important that, that Israelis need to acknowledge that as much as they've been frustrated with this government, what it's accomplished basically call it from fall of 2024, the pager attack and the action against Hezbollah for fast forward all the way through the last few weeks against Iran was you know, if we Want to call October 7th the singular failure of the, of this government, you've got to look at recent events and also acknowledge that it may have been a singular they were singularly responsible for the success as far as any of the political decision makers are concerned. Obviously Israeli intelligence and military played played an outsized role. But and so this is now the like the tension inside the Israeli political discourse is that there are there are a majority of Israelis who are very frustrated with Netanyahu and there's probably a plurality of Israel who are are trying to balance their frustration with him and his government with the reality I just described, which is strengthened Netanyahu's political position if he goes to elections, which I think he will or he has to by October of 2026. You know, given, given the most recent successes Israel has has had. So the question, I think the two questions for Netanyahu are one, does he take the success the regional transformation, as I would describe it, and turn it into some kind of progress against Hamas on the diplomatic front, getting hostages back. Can he do that? And two, can he leverage this success to try to get Israel on a firm path for normalization with Saudi Arabia? And I think both of those are very much in reach. I think the cease fire deal, we're going to likely see progress pretty imminently and the Saudi deal I think is going to take a lot longer. But I, but I, again, as I said earlier, I think it's only moving in one direction and I think he may, when he goes to elections, make the elections about normalization with Saudi Arabia, meaning he'll, he'll, he'll run on that, he'll run on making that happen in a future government.
- [22:36]
A
Yeah, that was a great podcast you had with Ari Avi. And I actually quoted that same thing as a question for you. And to be specific, it was if we acknowledge that Netanyahu was responsible for October 7, then we have to acknowledge he was also responsible for June 13th. And at this point, and I don't think you agreed or disagreed really with the comment because obviously it's a pretty bold statement. I mean, is it fair to say that, you know, we need to acknowledge Netanyahu is responsible for October 7th?
- [23:09]
B
I don't look, my general view, in a, in any democracy, when there's a massive setback, a massive catastrophe on the elected leaders watch, they own a big part of it. So let's, let's, so I, so, you know, that's, you know, and I, I could give you any number of examples throughout modern history where I would say that's true in Israel or anywhere else. I do think as it relates to October 7th specifically though, there was a consensus. And it's not letting Netanyahu off the hook. It's just it, there's a, there's a structural problem in Israel. And the structural problem is that there was a consensus in Israel going back basically soon after 2005, that while there would be these skirmishes between Israel and Hamas and Hamas would, you know, there'd be these volleys back and forth, some military action, Hamas would fire rockets, Israel would, you know, bomb parts of Gaza, or Hamas would, you know, take a couple people hostage or Hezbollah would take people hostage, there was a sense that, obviously not on the scale of 10-7-Sense that there was these military volleys. But, but Hamas ultimately wanted some kind of normalcy. They were, they were not looking to upend their situation vis a vis Israel. And therefore, and this sounds so crazy, to say now, but I'm just going to say it, that Hamas was basically a manageable problem. This was the, what they call the concepcion, the term they use the concepcion, the concept inside the Israeli security system. Now it is true that there were some in the junior, more junior and mid tier levels of Israeli intelligence, particularly within the 8200, which is the signal intelligence unit in the IDF, that were flagging concerns about activity that was happening vis a vis Hamas and the consents that maybe Hamas is up to something in Gaza. And then they were observing some training that was going on and they at one point had got a hold of some plans that looked eerily similar to what we now know as October 7th and, and that it was never acted upon. But you know, in the world of intelligence, you, you get information and you have to balance the information because there's information flows coming into intelligence agencies all the time. Like all the time they're getting all these inputs and, and often they contradict one another. So on the one hand you, Israel, I mean just again over simplistic here, but Israel was getting intelligence like the what, what I just described, which is something's cooking with Hamas. They seem to be gearing up with something at the same time that Hamas was working quite intensively to get more work permits for Gazans working in southern Israel. And we're trying to, you know, send signals that they were looking for, you know, economic support and some kind of economic normalcy. And so you get all these inputs that seem to contradict one each other. And so ultimately you need the security system, the political leadership needs, okay, what's our point of view? Like what's our thesis? What do we, what do we think Hamas is actually up to? And then we can balance all the info we're getting against our thesis. And their thesis was that Hamas was looking for calm, not for war. And if they were looking for war, it was going to be more like the war we saw in May of 2021, which lasted 11 days. It was again these, these short skirmishes that, you know, that certainly don't amount into any kind of existential threat to Israel. So again, manageable. That was the consensus in the Israeli security system. Now the problem if, if you look at all the political actors on the Israeli scene these days, they were all in some way part of that consensus. Like I mean really. And I say this, these are people I have great respect for. I have some of these people are friends of mine, there are many people have had my podcast. But you know, every single one of Them, I mean, really, you. I, I can, I can get very specific, but every single one of them was either in a position of authority. In the case of the government in 2022, the Bennett Lapid government, senior officers in the IDF, like Yoav Gallant or, or Golan, who's the head of the Democrats Party. You know, I mean, I can go through every one of these people. They, they were all in positions of authority in the years leading up to October 7th, and none of them were screaming that the consensus, the conceptia, was wrong. They, they were all part of it. Again, this is not, I'm not criticizing them. I just want to. There was a systemic problem in terms of how Israel viewed the threat from the south, from Gaza. And, and so, yes, Netanyahu was absolutely in charge. And yes, the person who's in charge deserves, you know, will have to take or should take responsibility. But as we think about who governs Israel going forward, if we're headed to a post Netanyahu era, I think there's a serious question for anyone who may replace him, like, what, what did you get wrong? And you know, what is your lesson from this period? Or do we need a total, like kind of wholesale change? And, and I do think you're going to see some political actors enter the Israeli political scene who have not been on the scene at all. These are new players, many of whom are the miluimniks, what they call the reservists, who have fought 100, 200, 300 days in Gaza during this last, you know, 20 months, who are who, I think, I think you can, you're going to see some new, like a new political party, potentially some new actors who completely, you know, have no track record with this, with these last, obviously failed decade and a half as it relates to security on the southern border. But absent that, I think almost everyone else on the scene right now sadly, is tainted.
- [29:06]
A
It makes total sense. I, you know, I, obviously, I am someone who supported that Israel needs to do everything they could after October 7th to go after Hamas and, and get rid of Hamas once and for all. Obviously, this conversation has been one of the most hot button topics in the US and across the world at this point. It does appear that the destruction of Gaza, the loss of children, loss of women, the fact that aid's not getting in, obviously it's such a complex issue. But, you know, is there a, how do you handle both those, those goals and his in your mind, you know, has Israel gone too far at this point when it comes to Gaza? Is there should they be doing more. And you know, how do you sort
- [30:02]
B
of
- [30:04]
A
wrestle with that?
- [30:05]
B
You know, I'm often asked how was Israel able to fight so effectively against Iran and Hezbollah in a way that it hasn't. Didn't that war fighting against Iran and Hezbollah did not have all the characteristics and the, the ugly characteristics that you just described that we've seen in Gaza. And I would say for three reasons that that Gaza has been so much more difficult and a much more difficult fight for Israel to fight. First of all the hostages. I mean, it's just initially Hamas having 250 hostages and then even now having approximately 50 hostages. It's no. I mean, you just talk to military experts. You talk to, you know, ex West Point professors who study this stuff. I mean, there's no precedent for this where a country has to fight a defensive war, which is what the post October 7th war has been for Israel against an enemy that has, you know, thousand proportion to the U.S. population, thousands and thousands and thousands of your citizens, if you were thinking about it in the US Context, hostage makes war fighting very difficult. A B A tunnel system that we've never really had to go back to World War II. We fought to some degree in the Philippines where there was like a tunnel system, but that there's no otherwise. There's no precedent for what Israel's had to deal with in fighting an enemy that hides in a tunnel system and who is not looking to minimize the suffering of its civilians. It's not looking to minimize casualties among its own population. In fact, it wants to use the casual. The use civilian casualties as, as a way to fight and shame and isolate Israel. So this is like a unique set of characteristics that you can't point to any country in the world that's had to fight a war like Israel's having to fight a B At the same time that Israel is being expected to get humanitarian aid into a area where its enemy is basically in control and that its enemy basically had been until very recently, siphoning most of the aid, humanitarian aid that was coming into the country and use it for its own purposes and its own survival. Again, I can't think of another example where a country is fighting a defensive war after being attacked and is forced to provide aid to the population of the. Of the enemy. What's fighting. We're led by the enemy that it's fighting and the enemy is taking that aid from the population, using it for its own survival. And then three, while, while Israel in this case or you know, is fighting a war on Multiple fronts which just, you know, strains their own resources and makes it harder and harder for them to fight. So it's a unique set of circumstances that Israel's fighting. People who are frustrated with what that looks like in practice. Everything I just described, which contributes to what, you know, obviously the, the much of Gaza is flattened, looks like Stalingrad. I mean the images, obviously a lot of extraordinary suffering. Humanitarian, no doubt. We can debate the numbers. You know, I'm highly skeptical of the Gaza Health Ministry numbers, but doesn't matter, you don't need the numbers. You can tell that people there are suffering. My response to that is people who say it's enough, Israel needs to stop that. That is a sentiment, that is not a strategy. It's a sentiment. And unfortunately we all get to express ourselves with sentiments. But, but decision makers in Israel, within the government, within the idf, they have to have a strategy to protect their country. And so my response to people who have the sentiment that say just make it stop. Okay? My response is okay, in place of what, like what? So Israel makes it stop and then what? You can't just say make it stop. You have to say, so what is the, I mean Israel's tried different things, right? In 2005 it just said we're out, we're just going to pull out of Gaza entirely. So we'll just leave Gaza and let the Palestinians, let the Gazans, let the Palestinian Authority, let ultimately Hamas do with it what it may. Okay, well no one can plausibly argue that that is a realistic solution now for Israel after what it learned after October 7th. The second scenario is for Israel just to totally reoccupy Gaza. Go Back to pre 2005, just say, you know what, we thought we could leave the Gaza to itself and they could run things. And obviously we're never going to make that mistake again. So we're retaking Gaza and we're going to control Gaza entire. I think that's a non starter. I think everyone on this call, I think many of Israel's critics would agree that that's the last thing Israel should do. It's the last thing most Israelis should do. So not total withdrawal, not total reoccupation. So that, so then what? Like it's basically a version of what Israel's doing now, which is fighting a really ugly war to make sure that this threat doesn't emerge again. Now if there's another way Israel should be fighting the war in the context of this third decision, this root, I'm all ears. And I have criticisms of how Israel's fought this war on the margins. But as far as, like, people who say, just, like, make it stop, they can't do this anymore. That is not a strategy. That is just exasperation. And I get exasperation. We're all like, humans, obviously, but Israel didn't choose this war. And so Israel's enemies can't just decide that they get to choose when to end this war, because Israel's basically saying, we can't have this security vulnerability emerge again. And so we're doing what we need to do. And if you have another way that we can accomplish that, please propose it. But that's not what Israel's critics are doing. They're not proposing another way Israel can do it. They just want it to go away. I'd like it to go away too, by the way.
- [35:50]
A
Right. I think that's fair to say to everybody. What do you think at this point is a realistic peace plan? We only have five minutes left, so you're gonna have to do this. And I still have about 20 questions to get to, so I'll have to come back.
- [36:03]
B
You'll have to come back.
- [36:06]
A
What's a realistic piece? I know you and Ari spoke about it a bit, and you talked about northern Sinai, but what's a realistic plan?
- [36:13]
B
I think that Israel will have to maintain some security presence. Not a total reoccupation like that existed before 2005, but Israel will have to. The IDF will have to maintain some security presence in Gaza, particularly in the. In the Philadelphia corridor, which is that area right by the border with Egypt, by the. By the Rafah border, which is where a lot of the smuggling had come in that supported Hamas. A lot of the munitions were supplied, where a lot of people had come in that were building up Gaza's, Hamas's military capabilities. So I think Israel will have to maintain some security presence in the Philadelphia corridor, perhaps in a couple areas in the middle of Gaza. And then certainly there'll be a security perimeter that's been built up and has existed since October 7th just by, like, stay, like, in that immediate area by Israel's southern border. So. So Israel have some security presence there. The question is, who can they hand off civilian authority to? Right now, there's not an obvious party. You know, the Netanyahu government says no, no Hamas and no Abbas, meaning no Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority can't be trusted to be running Gaza. I think they may move on that to some degree. I think there's a world in which the Palestinian Authority will have some kind of responsibility the challenge here, Jamie, is that the Arab countries do not want to step in. There had been some hope that the Emiratis would step in or the Saudis or the Egyptians. And I just don't think any of that's going to happen because those countries don't want to risk the lives of their young men in Gaza for the Palestinians, which is ultimately a cause they don't really care about. So there's not a natural third party to run things in Gaza. No one has really emerged. There are a couple tribes and whatnot that have emerged that could play some role, but no one that has real, like, authority inside Gaza. And so I feel like the security part, I can envision how Israel maintains some security presence in Gaza. It's not clear to me who the civilian authority is. And I think there's no way for Hamas to. It won't be acceptable to the Israeli public on any part of the Israeli political spectrum for Hamas to maintain any authority in Gaza. So in that sense, I think Israel's sort of in a, in a stuck situation. I, I do like the. I think they will breach a deal pretty imminently on the ceasefire, which will buy about 60 days of calm. And not only will Israel get hostages out during that time, but I do think it's 60 days to try to figure out, you know, who could possibly play a civilian administrative role in Gaza. But right now, the options are not obvious.
- [39:03]
A
All right, last question. You know, I like to leave people with action when a guest leaves us. One of the things that I'm always focused on, you know, here domestically, is how do we reach across the aisle? How do you reach across to different people at different perspectives? How can we be working together in Israel here to sort of reach out to people who, who are at odds on this topic and this conversation, which is leading a lot of this anti Semitism, which is leading a lot of the stuff on college campuses. What are some things you've seen, even organizations you've seen that are doing great work that we should look into and learn about? Read up on do.
- [39:42]
B
I'm going to give you a counterintuitive answer to that. My focus increasingly. And I gave a speech on this topic to the 92nd Street Y about two months ago, which I can circulate to this group. It was like they call it, they cut this event they call the State of World Jury Address. And it was, and what I argued in the speech and it was an episode of my podcast again, I'll send it around. You can circulate it. What I basically argued is of course we need allies, Israel needs allies and the Jewish community needs allies here and the Diaspora writ large. But we also need to make sure that young Jews are bought in, bought into the idea that Judaism, Jewish community, Jewish rituals, Jewish life, Israel are worth defending. And I think we spend too much time, and I'm, and I'm victim, I'm guilty of this too. We spend too much time in the fight and the fight is important in arguing and debating and telling people why it's not okay to say globalize the Intifada and it's not okay to, you know, take over libraries, universities. And I, we need, and we need to yell and scream about unfair press coverage. I think all that is true, but we also need to spend time to make sure that young Jews don't see in Judaism just the fight, that there's actually something wonderful about being Jewish and it enriches one's life and it gives people a sense of community and it gives people a connection to a history that goes back thousands of years and God willing will be going forward thousands of years and there's joy in it. And, and that we're actually blessed to have been born into this unbelievable inheritance. And, and I, I'm trying to spend my time and my resources investing in that, connect Jews to Judaism and not just connect Jews to the fight on behalf of Judaism that connects Jews to other Jews and has Jews invested in, in their fellow Jews and in Jewish life. And, and, and that could be Jewish day schools, that could be Jewish learning, whether it's youth learning or adult learning, that could be Jewish camps, that could be having young Jews spend more time in Israel, whether it's summer programs or gap year programs. I mean, I can go on and on about this topic, topic, but if you look at the history of how, how we have survived that in thousands of, over going back thousands of years and this last 20 months has been brutal, but the reality is most of Jewish history has been brutal. In fact, the last 80 years has been the holiday from history. Most, most of our, most of our experience has been pretty bad. And relative to what most of Jewish history has had in store for us, this, this, you know, last 20 months actually, tragically has not been that terrible. But if you look at how we've survived throughout Jewish history, it is, yes, fighting for our survival, but it's also investing in our future and investing in future generations and, and you know, making sure that future generations feel as invested in, in Judaism and the Jewish future and Jewish existence as, as we feel and that that is the ultimate antidote to Israel, to Jewish life being under threat and under stress. That is Jewish continuity. And, and so we got to think about allies, we got to think about fighting enemies. But we also have to look inward and say we got to make sure that the Jews that come after us and the Jews that we are raising feel as committed to this, to this life in this community as we do.
- [43:33]
A
I appreciate that and thank you for your time. We have, we're, this is almost a two part conversation. We have Fareed Zakaria coming on in two weeks and so this will, that will be part two of this conversation. So great. Thanks, Dan. I appreciate it.
- [43:47]
B
Thanks, guys. See you, Jamie. Bye bye.
- [43:51]
A
Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Lunch with Jamie. As always, be sure to subscribe to the newsletter@jamieslist.com for my thoughts on all things food, pop culture, politics and more. And remember to join these online conversations and ask my guests questions in real time. Sign up to get a paid subscriber. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Audible and be sure to leave a review. Thanks and see you next time.