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- [00:04]
Abe Greenwald
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
- [00:11]
John Podhoretz
Some preach and pain Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best, expect the worst. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, February 21, 2025. I'm John Pod Horiz, the editor of Comment magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:36]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [00:37]
John Podhoretz
Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [00:40]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [00:40]
John Podhoretz
Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [00:43]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [00:44]
John Podhoretz
And joining us today, Commentary contributing editor and puba at the foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the host of its Is it called Morning Meeting? Wait, what?
- [00:56]
Jonathan Schanzer
FTD Morning Brief.
- [00:57]
John Podhoretz
FTD Morning Brief on your podcast live feed. And you could watch it on YouTube and all of that. Jonathan Chanzer hi John.
- [01:07]
Jonathan Schanzer
Hey, John.
- [01:09]
John Podhoretz
I'm gonna read to you guys something. It is a short Excerpt from Chapter 4 of The Brothers Karamazov. And I have to thank my friend Carl Cannon at Real Clear Politics for surfacing. This quote is a conversation between Ivan Karamazov, who is the novel's nihilist, the person in the book who basically presents the argument against God and against humanity, and his brother Alyosha, who is a sort of saintly self sacrificing figure and lover of Christ and the salvation that comes from Christ. And the novel is posed as an argument basically between the two of them, one of the, you know, five greatest novels ever written and the greatest portrait of the battle between good and evil in, in fiction, in my view. Anyway, they are sitting, having a conversation about why Ivan either does not believe in God or hates God. And Ivan says this to Alyosha. Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her. They've planned a diversion. They pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeed. The baby laughs. At that moment, a Turk points a pistol four inches from the baby's face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol and he pulls the trigger in the baby's face and blows out its brains. Ivan Karamazov, this example is something that he read, heard about for why his view of the world is that it is hopelessly diseased and that mankind is hopelessly diseased with no hope of salvation. And of course, this is a perfect description of what apparently happened to Ariel and Kfir Bibas apparently more than a year ago. Israeli authorities letting us know yesterday that not only were there, those were their bodies in their in those little coffins, as opposed to the body of the woman who was returned who was not her, their mother, Shiri, but that they were shot point blank in the head. They shot them in the head. Two babies, a baby and a four year old were shot in the head probably apart from their mother in a dark tunnel not knowing what was going on and then just murdered. So if anybody wants to know why Israel can no longer sustain the fiction that, that or sustain the international world attitude that it should care about the material condition of Gazan Supply them with aid, supply them with hope for a future in which they can be self governing and all of that. Dostoevsky saw it 140 years ago when he published the Brothers Karamazov. This is what evil is. This is the root vision of evil. Murdering a baby. So that's where we are. And I wanted to have Jonathan to come on the show in part to discuss next steps by which I mean Israel is going to have to make a decision after the release tomorrow of the six living hostages and is apparently talking right now in Egypt with representatives of Hamas or you know, whatever of Hamas about the phase two of, of the ceasefire. And I don't think there's going to be a phase two, Jonathan. I don't know. Do you think there is going to be a phase two? And if there isn't going to be a phase two game out, what happens now at the end of phase one?
- [05:09]
Jonathan Schanzer
Sure. First John, I mean it's obvious a brutal thing. You know, I think you, you could kind of watch as it looked like a gut punch to the Israeli public. They all knew this was coming. When I was in Israel about a month ago, I heard from some senior Israeli officials that it was going to be bad news about the B bus kids and, and we saw the Israelis message this to their own people in, in sort of quiet ways. They weren't making big announcements but I think the, the public had braced for it. I think anyone that's been reading knew what was going to happen but I think now that it's happened it has altered the course of the war. I think you're right to, to note that I still actually think that there is a chance and I don't know exactly how to put a percentage on it that the hostage, you know, for prisoner deal continues. Maybe it's 30%, maybe it's 20%, maybe it's even 50%. But as I see it there, there are three paths we can walk down now. One is that the hostage swaps continue and that this war slowly peters out and it just quietly starts to go away. You know, the the, the bodies of soldiers are returned and Gaza goes back to being whatever it was before the war. I think there, there are people in Israel that want this, and certainly I think the international community wants this, and you're seeing it from the likes of Egypt. But also there are people in the Trump administration that are talking about keeping this deal going. I do think that yesterday may have changed a little bit of the sentiment there.
- [07:01]
John Podhoretz
We have one person in the Trump, very, very right now, bizarrely influential person. That's Steve Witkoff. Because he's the negotiator.
- [07:08]
Jonathan Schanzer
Correct. And this guy holds a lot of sway. He holds a lot of sway with it, with within Trump world, and he's close to the Qataris, which bothers me immensely. But, but you got to remember this is the point man for the negotiations, and this is the guy that Ron Dermer and the Qataris and the Egyptians and everybody, they're interfacing with him. And there is something to be said about his conception of what happens afterwards. But that, that sort of, that, that's, that, that's path one, which is quiet begets, more quiet begets, you know, some kind of a status quo. And then eventually we go back to war because Hamas is allowed to live. And, you know, it's rinse and repeat. The second option, which at this point may actually be the, the one that I would lean toward in terms of, if I had to bet, where the outcome would go is that Israel goes back to war. The Trump administration bares its teeth at every other actor in the region, and the world watches while Israel crushes the remainder of Hamas. And there is actually, I think, a world where that happens. It is grim stuff, though. I mean, let me just say that I think while many people would cheer that the idea of Israel fighting a terrorist group that will not yield, that will not surrender, and that will fight to the finish, it will be ugly, and it will be the kind of thing that inspires the useful idiots on college campuses across the United States to cheer for Hamas for years to come. Just even the idea of it, even if it doesn't exist any longer, I think that's where the Bibi government wants to go, and you can absolutely understand why, especially after yesterday. But here's the risk, and this is the third option, and the one that worries me. Israel decides to go back in. The Trump administration bares its teeth at the Houthis and Hezbollah and the Shiite militias and Iran itself. And after a time, the Iranian axis says we've seen enough and we can't sit by any longer and the war goes back to what it was in September. And you've got a seven front war where all of these different actors are firing rockets and missiles and trying to attack Israel and they've had several months to regroup. These, I think, are the three choices that we have in front of us. I do think that the Netanyahu government sees itself as having no choice. If it sits out, the right wing coalition partners will stage an insurrection. They cannot let Bibi just sit there and absorb what just happened in Israel. But Bibi understands that there is risk, and I don't know how much risk I can assign to this, but there is risk that we go back to the war that I think Netanyahu would not want. Now, one other caveat, and then I'll stop. There is a world in which Bibi says, I need to get into. I need to get back into Gaza. I need to pulverize Hamas. You have to understand that this is what the Israeli public wants. It's what my government wants. And Trump, Witkoff, the whole crew, they say, understood, we can't let you do that for whatever reason. But here's something that we can do. We can give you the tools that you need in order to neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat. And that's the trade off that Bibi makes that he decides, okay, Hamas, you can live for another day, eventually we're going to get you. But in the meantime, we're going to get the weapons that we need and the support that we need from the United States in order to finally neutralize the Iranian nuclear threat. That is the strategic imperative. As far as Netanyahu, Dermer, that whole crew is concerned. The question is whether Trump understands this, whether Witkoff understands this and offers Netanyahu an out. This is, I think, the playing field that we're looking at right now. Where we go from here really is about Trump and Bibi. People have asked me about that visit that Bibi paid to the White House. I actually believe it was the most consequential visit of any Israeli prime minister to any American president in the history of our two countries, because Bibi already knew that the Bibas kids were dead. He knew what was going to happen, when their bodies were going to be returned. He knows that Iran is weak, that Iran is vulnerable. He knows that Trump hates the Iranians because they've tried to assassinate him. The table is set. So now the question is, which way do these two leaders go?
- [12:06]
Christine Rosen
Did yesterday's foiled terror attack, I assume it would not change that. Equation much. But where do you see that people.
- [12:15]
John Podhoretz
If people don't know what Christine is talking about? Yesterday after at night, around 10:00 o'clock at night in Israel, three buses exploded without anyone on them. They were sort of like parked and exploded simultaneously. Israel then stopped almost all the transport in the country and had the operators of the buses and the trams and the, and the, and the trains go through and examine and see if they could find more bombs. Two other buses were found to have bombs and a there were bomb was discovered in a water park in Tel Aviv. And the apparently the idea was that these bombs were supposed to go off at 7:00 in the morning or 8:00 in the morning while people were commuting, thus creating a mass casualty event. It's very interesting that the bombs, those three bombs did go off simultaneously at 10pm suggesting perhaps that the operation had been penetrated enough by Israel security services to trigger it in the safest possible way. Because it's weird that the three that the two that were discovered that didn't go off were actually on working vehicles that had passengers on them, I think. And so that's also pretty striking. But yeah, that is what happened five or six hours after Israel discovered not only that the, the babies were dead and in the coffins which were loaded with propaganda materials, that there had been this parade in Gaza of the dancing around the coffins and that the coffin supposedly containing their mother Shiri had an unidentifiable non Israeli non hostage in the remains were of somebody else. And so this was the follow on moment anyway, so that's why I just wanted to. Because we hadn't went and mentioned what it was. So yeah, so do we. What, what, what effect does this. Foiled. Either foiled or it just didn't go off. Right. Terrorist attack.
- [14:23]
Christine Rosen
That seems to be which Hamas took credit for.
- [14:25]
Jonathan Schanzer
They did. It was. And it was actually Hamas in the west bank that took credit for it, not Hamas and Gaza, which you know, there can be different operations taking place and not a lot of coordination and I think we need to account for that. But I do get the sense right now that Hamas is essentially goading Israel into going back into Gaza. Right? I mean you parade these kids and it's a disgusting display, right. A total lack of humanity. Then you send home a body that isn't the mother of these kids and then you try to carry out a, a terrorist attack, a coordinated synchronized terrorist attack that somehow fails. Maybe it was thwarted, maybe it was dumb luck. But you can get the sense here that Hamas is just daring Israel to go back in.
- [15:18]
Seth Mandel
It felt like it felt like a grand finale, did it not? It felt like the end of a fireworks show for, like Hamas saying that's the end of the deal. That's the other thing here is that we talk about does Israel want a second round and does Bibi have the political capital to do what he wants to do? Trump wants a second round. There's one American hostage still alive left in Gaza. So that I think factors into probably. But then there's the question of what Hamas wants. And yesterday looked to me like the grand finale, the parade with the coffins supposed to be timed with blowing up. You know, I mean, it's supposed to be connected with blowing up a children's water park and, you know, and stuff like that.
- [16:03]
Jonathan Schanzer
Look, you know, this is the way I look at it. I think that when you look at Yahya Sinwar's plan on October 7, and you look at Muhammad Sinwar, his brother, and what he's trying to do and what we've now come to learn about what Hamas's plans were, how they were aligned with Hezbollah loosely, how they were aligned with Iran, loosely. By the way, Yoav Gallant, the former defense minister, has been talking about what he knows that the plan was. And it does look like there was, there were loose plans to have everybody work together to attack Israel. My sense is that Hamas is still angling for this. They understand that they're weakened, that they're on the precipice of just being pulverized. I think this is a last ditch effort to try to draw the entire region back in and to try to fight this war of elimination against Israel against all hope, against all odds. There's still a shred of hope in their minds that they might be able to get Iran and all the Shiite militias and the Houthis and everybody else to wage war against Israel. And so they're daring Israel to go back in. They think that this might be the thing because they know they're not going to live.
- [17:16]
Abe Greenwald
I have a question that pertains to this and also, Jonathan, to your third scenario in which Trump says, we're not going to let you, we don't want you to go back into Gaza, but we will help you take out Iran's nuclear facilities. We've been saying for a long time now, I mean, it's feeling like a long time now, that Israel has left Iran defenseless, taking out all its air defenses, taking out a lot of their air defenses on the way to Iran as well, Syria, how long does that last? And is what's the status of the rebuilding here? I mean, it's not like Iran's is forced to sit still in that regard right now.
- [18:01]
John Podhoretz
Right?
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Jonathan Schanzer
Yeah, yeah, it's a great question, Abe. When I was in Israel last month, I had a chance to sit with some folks from the Air Force and I was able to look at a map and the map was fascinating. I mean there, there, there are sort of two kinds of air defenses that you, you think about. One is what they call strategic air defenses, where you can fire at things from far away. They're gone. I think there's two batteries that are left, if that. I, there's some debate about whether there's, you know, 2s, 3 hundreds or not. Everything in Syria is gone. You know, there's, I think nothing in Lebanon. It's a clear flight path for the Israelis. They have medium range air defenses that can move, right? They're truck mounted, they're mobile and they can hit things that are immediately over them. But when you're flying in F35, which is essentially a computer with wings that's all mapped out for you, and so Israeli pilots, basically, it's like Waze. The system just tells you, here's where to go to get around these intermediate range air defenses. The skies over Iran are naked. And the Russians have said that there's almost no point in trying to replenish the radar that Israel destroyed because the Israelis know how to destroy them again. And it's like they, they understand that this is futile. So, you know, the, what I would call it is a window of weakness that we're looking at with the Iranians. I don't know how long it lasts. I, I thought that it was going to be a month or two before something, you know, came in to replace it. It doesn't look like anybody's rushing to help the Iranian regime. Not the Russians, not the Chinese. I mean, it doesn't look like there is an out right now. So I think for the next six months the skies over Iran are potentially naked. And that is an unbelievable opportunity. Think about it. Hezbollah's really weakened. Hamas really weakened. The Shiite militias in Syria are not operating there because now you got an Al Qaeda regime instead of an Iranian regime, which by the way, let's not be too optimistic about that change. But regardless, the, the ring of fire, the axis of resistance, whatever terminology you want to use for this coalition of psychopath terrorist groups that were dead set on destroying Israel just four months ago, they don't have what they need in order to defend themselves. And Israel has ample opportunity. Now, the Biden administration told the Israelis they could not follow up on that, on that attack in late October. They told the Israelis, this is the deal. You can do whatever you want, but then after that, you have to stop. You get one run. So that's what they did, and they weakened them. Now, the really the question is that meeting again, that meeting between Bibi and Trump. Look, I'm sure they talked about Hamas, but I am sure that that was not Bibi's primary reason for visiting the White House. This is a man whose singular purpose in life right now is to destroy the Iranian regime, to destroy its nuclear program, to destroy its offensive capabilities, its ability to inflict harm on the Jewish state. He understands that this is his moment. And now the question is, what is Trump going to do? He's got a lot of people right now surrounding him that understand this as well. Mike Waltz, Marco Rubio.
- [21:44]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [21:45]
Jonathan Schanzer
I mean, these people understand the game. The question is, what deal did they reach?
- [21:51]
John Podhoretz
Okay?
- [21:52]
Jonathan Schanzer
Are they going to reach a deal?
- [21:54]
Abe Greenwald
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- [23:33]
John Podhoretz
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- [25:49]
Seth Mandel
Well, they like Deju so much that they want more of more of them.
- [25:53]
John Podhoretz
Fair enough. Okay, so maybe they do like them, although they don't seem to really care that much. But Bibi is now in a position in relation to the strike on Iran a little bit. Like you mentioned, Yoav Gallant, and we talked about this with Dan Senor at the beginning of the week and this long conversation he had with Yoav Gallant, the former defense minister, about Gallant's plans and Gallant's complaint that he had a much better strategic plan for the war than the one that took place because he said at the, you know, three or four days after October 7th when Hezbollah started getting into the war by starting to fire missiles on Israel from the north that they had ready built for many years a counter strike against Hezbollah that they could have triggered on October 11, 2023, that they could have blown up 15,000 Hezbollah fighters by triggering their walkie talkies in the same way that we saw them trigger the pagers in the late summer of last year. And that this and then they could have taken out and all the missiles, all the Hezbollah missiles were out in the open. And so they would have hit the walkie talkies and then gone in the air at Hezbollah and stood at the border and done some conventional fighting and total surprise misdirection. It's the same war. It's a seven front war of Iranian proxies. So you might as well hit Hezbollah. It's no different in that sense from hitting Hamas. And he was that was refused Bibi, Basic Bibi and the war cabinet. And I think a lot of people in the world would have said what do you the attack came from down here. What we need to do is attack, is counter attack the people who attacked us. And you may think that there's, it's crystal clear that Hezbollah and Hamas are the same, but that's not clear to anybody else and certainly not clear. We've got to, we've, we've got attack. We've got to counter strike against the people who invaded our country four or five days ago. So it's a wonderful plan. We're not doing it. Similarly, if the Israeli public is now triggered to the we cannot maintain not even a status, but we cannot allow Hamas to survive. And you know what else? And I'm going to say this like the hell with Gaza. The hell with Gaza. The hell with everybody who lives in Gaza. The hell with it. We don't care. Stop talking to me about humanitarian aid. Stop talking to me about the suffering Gazan people. We are done. It's 16 months. They're shipping out dead bodies that aren't ours. They're shooting babies in the head. We are done. And if Bibi then says, no, no, we're going to go hit Iran, because Iran's really the, you know, Iran is, you know, Iran is the Death Star. Don't worry about, you know, don't worry about the ship that blew up, you know, blew up Princess Leia's planet. We have to go after the Death Star. That is not.
- [29:03]
Christine Rosen
That was the Death Star. I'm sorry. That was the Death Star. He was shitting.
- [29:06]
John Podhoretz
I'm sorry. I'm wrong. Okay, fair enough. I'm so stupid. Okay, But Star wars you're not. You have to hit the target that hit you. And that is the. That is the one for one logic, and that it's not that Israelis aren't worried about Iran, but if they want revenge, A, they want revenge, and B, they want the extirpation of the direct evil, saying, we're going to go a thousand miles in the other direction because we have this peerless opportunity. That's exactly what Gallant said about Hezbollah. We have this peerless opportunity to do this. People aren't expecting it. Let's take it. I don't. I think it would be emotionally catastrophic because you're actually, you may be right that what you need to do is hit Iran. This, of course, has been the argument, your argument for years in our pages in the two books you published after 2020, about the Gaza, Gaza war, the war between the wars. But it's not, it's too. It's too clever.
- [30:16]
Jonathan Schanzer
Look, John, I mean, I think you're right when you talk about the, the kind of gut instinct and the emotions of the Israelis. And I think you're right when it comes to the, the kind of strategic logic that, I mean, to the extent that there is one in the way that the, you know, the, the, the public around the world would view this war. What is happening, though, is, you know, when you look at the last 10 years, not the last year and a half, for the last 10 years, the messaging out of Israel has been consistent. We have to do something about the Iranian nuclear program. It is growing. It is advancing. It is a. It's an existential threat to Israel. It's an existential threat to the United States. It's a threat to the world. What are you doing about it? And Trump, you know, I think is on board with this. That's why he imposed the maximum pressure campaign during the last time around. It's why there were significant differences of opinion between Trump and Europe. Of course, not the only differences of opinion. There's a lot that they're still hashing out right now. Obviously, we could get to that if you want, but this isn't really a change of the topic of conversation. This is a second or separate conversation that has been happening alongside this Gaza war for the last 16 months, but before that for about 10 years. And so for Bibi, I don't know if he cares. I think, by the way, the Israeli public, if you're talking about scratching the itch of vengeance for what just happened to the beboss kids, I think going after Hamas's top patrons and destroying their nuclear capabilities and possibly even truly destabilizing the regime and leaving them to pick up the pieces while their people come out into the streets and protest and maybe even try to kill some of the leaders of this regime. This, I think, does not miss the mark from the Israeli perspective. And I do think that you're going to see support, if this is the road that we go down. You're going to see full throated support from Mike Waltz, from Marco Rubio, from Pete Hegseth, from, I think all of what I would widely call the internationalists of the Trump administration, they will get on board with this. And what's really actually interesting to me right now, and this maybe feels like a bit of a diversion, but even the isolationists within Trump world seem to understand the threat of Iran, right? They may not want to support the Ukrainians and they may be ambivalent about a, you know, some kind of operation that would support Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. But I get a sense right now that the isolationists see Iran for what it is. They understand that the president wants to support Israel, and you might actually see some of these, these isolationists get on board. Again, I see a window right now that is a remarkable opportunity for Israel. It's not lost on Bibi, and I think he's just trying to figure out, is it Gaza that's small fries, is it Iran? That's the whole enchilada. Those are the big choices for him right now, and they're stark.
- [33:39]
Seth Mandel
Can I ask a question that almost sounds a little naive to me when I say it out loud as opposed to in my head, but I do want to know, is there any way that Hamas crossed the line yesterday with the Qataris and with anybody else who's inclined to like, you talked about the Ring of Fire.
- [34:03]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [34:04]
Seth Mandel
And I know saying out loud is like, well, how, how many lines have Hamas crossed over the years? But when you talk about the Ring of Fire not being there, is there any sort of sense that Israel finishing Hamas would be solving a problem even for Hamas's putative friends? I mean, is there just like this. No.
- [34:23]
Jonathan Schanzer
Okay. I mean, look, let me just say this, that on the day that Hamas, you know, lines the street with its supporters and cheers the return of these coffins of two little kids, the Emir of Qatar travels to Iran, sits down and takes a photo op with the Supreme Leader of Iran, the top psychopath from Iran, and the two of them talk about releasing frozen funds from Qatar and sending them to Tehran. These are the two top sponsors of Hamas. On the day that these coffins are returned, I don't see any remorse. I don't see any hesitation. I see. And by the way, I don't think it's widely understood that these two countries are in fact allies and that they, they don't just support Hamas, they support a broader Islamist vision for the world. And I gotta say, I mean, I know that there are plenty of people in this administration that have long standing ties to the Qataris. We mentioned Witkoff, but there's also Kash Patel and there's Pam Bondi and there's Jared Kushner. I mean, there's like five or six very senior people that have long standing ties to Qatar. This is going to be a major problem moving forward because they are, they are a huge source of the headaches that we're going to be dealing with for the next four years, if not longer, if we don't deal with this problem now. So I don't see a way of separating Hamas from the Qataris. I don't see the Turks showing any remorse. I don't see any of these traditional Hamas allies hesitating in the least. What I think we really need to think about right now is what is the message to the Trump administration to get them to rethink the way they deal with some of Hamas's patrons in the medium and long term?
- [36:16]
Christine Rosen
These Qataris also huge funders of university campuses, groups on campus that are, that are leading a lot of the protests that we saw last year. And as, as you say, John, might return the, the, the very bad bargain that many institutions, in particular many institutions of higher education in the US have made for Qatari money. Those also need to be analyzed, I think, anew in the wake of, of what's happened?
- [36:39]
Jonathan Schanzer
Oh, 100%. And there, there are some really interesting initiatives right now in Congress where they're going to start looking at sovereign wealth investments in higher ed. But also, I mean, and this is a new project that FTD is launching now. We're actually, I mean, and this is a real departure for us. We're looking at the same sorts of investments that are taking place in K through 12. K through 12 has been poisoned just as much as higher ed has. And, you know, higher ed got all the attention because of, you know, the sjp, you know, you know, riots that were taking place on campus for the last year and a half. But we have a problem across education. And what's, what's amazing to me is, you know, we have this thing called cfius, it's the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. And we look at when the Chinese or the Emiratis, they want to buy a port or they want to buy a piece of real estate near, you know, a military base, or they want to invest in sensitive tech. We don't care, apparently, when they invest in our most precious commodity, which is our children.
- [37:41]
Christine Rosen
Well, and that, yeah, the textbooks. Massachusetts just had a big scandal about some of the textbooks, books that were in use and how they described the Middle Eastern.
- [37:48]
Jonathan Schanzer
Great headline from the fp, hamasachusetts.
- [37:51]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, well, you know, there was this one weird ray of light. Not a ray of light. I don't even know what to call it, but. And obviously not from a Qatari, not from somebody who is like hand in glove with Hamas or, you know, a sponsor of Hamas. But the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia issued a condemnation of Hamas yesterday, which is, which I think is like utterly unprecedented in the, in the history of the struggle between the Arab states and Israel, dating back now 75, 76 years. Because he said his name is. His name is Al Shaykh. And I just lost the page, but basically you can look it up. Anyway, he said, you know, we condemn in the strongest terms. This was inhuman and barbaric, what with what the display that we saw. He was actually, I think, referring to the parade, to the coffin parade. So I now that he is, he is, he is essentially a kind of representative of the Saudi government. And so the Saudi government is obviously aligned against the Iranian axis of resistance and is implicitly either allied with or, you know, is. Is no longer an enemy of, of Israel. So I don't want to overread it, but, but, but it's a, it's something. And I think the central problem Here is the idea that Witkoff can go to his friends and gutter and say, okay, can you cut them off? And who knows what the gutters say are saying to him in private. But they're, they're not going to do it because it's so low cost to them. What, what, what price are they paying? We are not exacting any price.
- [39:40]
Jonathan Schanzer
They're paying no price.
- [39:43]
John Podhoretz
Trump is going around, like, scaring the bejesus out of every ally of the United States. And he could sit in the Oval Office and say, I am pretty sick and tired of these guys in their burnous sitting in Doha, like, feeding Hamas's leadership and basically providing them with material support. They better stop. They better stop tomorrow. I'm really, really angry. How, how much he could see. He, you know, he's willing to say anything he wants to about, you know, Germany or, you know, or Canada. What's the skin off his nose in saying that about, about gutter? Because we have a, we have a military base in gutter or because he wants to keep the lines of communication open? Because that's the way we talk to people that we don't ordinarily allow ourselves to speak to directly. I don't know, but it wouldn't take much and they're not doing it.
- [40:38]
Jonathan Schanzer
Look, it's, I had a fascinating conversation with someone in the administration the other day on exactly this topic, and the conversation was basically me saying, how do we keep putting up with this? And the response came back and it was sort of interesting. It's like, look, there are things that we ask the Qataris to do like post a base or, you know, buy us Treasuries or whatever it is that we're asking the Qataris to do. What we have not done is set the rules for the alliance. And, you know, there is a, I think there's a scenario in which you can actually come to an understanding. No one has told the Qataris what they can and can't do with regard to Hamas. There have been actually, in previous administrations. There's the Biden administration, the Obama administration, maybe even Trump won. And we're sort of trying to go back and figure out what the ask was from Trump won to the Ataris. But they have allowed themselves or they've raised their hand and they volunteered to be the people that work with terrorist groups like the Taliban and like Hamas. The question is, can we say that's no longer allowed? Can we begin to say, if you do this, that's fine, but if you do this, we're going to come down on you like a ton of bricks. Until now, nobody has actually made boundaries with the Qataris. And I think that, you know, look, it may be too much to say that we are to ask that we, you know, that the Trump administration just eviscerates the Qataris, that they, you know, remove that major non NATO ally status, we pack up our stuff and we leave the Al Udeid base. Right. We just say that's it, we're done. I think that's unlikely. But if I'm hearing folks correctly out of the Trump administration, there may be an opportunity to revise the contract and that I would welcome as a first step. I, look, I think that the Qataris are still not friends of ours. I think they are the number one sponsor of Islamist movements around the world and they would like to see an end to the US led world order. I mean, I take a maximalist view of how nasty the Qataris are, but I think let's take this step by step. Let's begin to roll back some of these things that the Qataris are doing, create a new contract and then maybe revisit it again in another year.
- [43:07]
John Podhoretz
So let's go back to the question of what Israel does after the release of the hostages on Saturday because things are white hot. And, and effectively, as I said, phase one is over. According to the text of phase two, the policy of phase two, Israel's role in phase two as it is adumbrated in, in the deal that was signed is for a complete Israeli pullout from Gaza. So as, as Matt Continetti said yesterday, this is science fictional, like Israel is never leaving Gaza ever again. Israel will keep a buffer zone between, between, you know, to create a depth of, you know, a depth of resistance both on the Gaza border with the, with the Gaza envelope in Israel and in the south to keep the smuggling route to Egypt closed forever. And so Israel cannot move on to phase two, period, as it is laid out in the deal. There are no confidence building measures. And if this is the way Seth says that, you know, this is the grand finale of phase one, what we saw yesterday with thousands of Gazans dancing around the coffins of murdered Israeli children, then there is there, there's, there's nowhere to go. So the only place to go is I'm really glad we got out who we got out. Now you die.
- [44:44]
Jonathan Schanzer
Yeah.
- [44:45]
John Podhoretz
And as you say, it could get very ugly and it could be the end of any more hostage releases and that is the most agonizing thing. And then that gets to whether or not this conflict inside Israel remains impossible to resolve. And that Bibi's efforts, to, excuse me for using this analogy, split the baby by saying, we're going to destroy Hamas. We're also going to relent to see if we can get the hostages out. The, the, the, the contradiction has finally hit the point at which he is going to have to say, we've done all that we can do. We don't. We don't really have any more that we're any further that we can go without handing Hamas a victory which we can't allow them to have.
- [45:30]
Jonathan Schanzer
So let me just say this, John. When I was in Israel in January, I met with two people that were very close to the negotiations, and I asked them because the, the, the deal had just been announced, and I was just trying to get as much as I could, the specifics. The people who negotiated this deal negotiated it in such a way that they were 99% certain Israel was never going to get to phase two anyway. The goal was never to get to phase two. It was to get out the women, the children, the elderly, the sick and the injured, right? To get back those that were uninvolved. The people that are going to remain right now if we don't get to phase two are IDF men in uniform and bodies. And I think Israel believes, and this is cynical stuff, but I think the Israeli government believes these were sunk costs. The people that don those uniforms, they knew what they were getting into, and there was always going to be a risk that they were going to die on the battlefield. Is it worth Israel risking the continuation of Hamas to get them out? I think the Israelis are saying no.
- [46:45]
Abe Greenwald
But what about the public? I mean, it's a big question.
- [46:49]
John Podhoretz
A.
- [46:49]
Jonathan Schanzer
And this, this was the, the next point, which is, you got the hostage forum, right? You've got these hostage families that have become a powerful force in Israel, right? They keep getting up in front of, you know, thousands of people, and they're blocking the roads and they're on TV and they're slamming Bibi at every opportunity to say that he's not done enough for the hostages. The question really, I think, becomes, you know, has the window just shifted when they saw these kids come home in hot, in. In coffins? Was that the moment that the hostage forum said, okay, you know what? This government just got out the civilians. We got out that. We literally got out the poster children of this war. And now the question is, are they willing to stop agitating for Bibi to finish all of the hostage negotiations and let the IDF do what it needed to do back on October 8th. But that's the question.
- [47:46]
John Podhoretz
But it's a, It's a, it's an interesting, psychologically, it's an interesting case by case question. Because, of course, what Israelis are hearing from the hostages that have been released are unspeakable stories. And so if you still have a family member in there, it doesn't matter whether he was a soldier. He wasn't a soldier. What, you know is that he, he is likely being subjected to unspeakable horrors. Unthinkable. I mean, like, it's just, it's. It's. I can barely bring myself to read or listen to any of it because it's just, you know, you can't imagine they, they're doing it, you know, it's. They're doing it for sport.
- [48:28]
Jonathan Schanzer
Yeah. Utter brutality.
- [48:30]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [48:30]
Jonathan Schanzer
I think we have to understand that. But I also think that the Israelis have your family now.
- [48:36]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [48:36]
Jonathan Schanzer
They've got 10 million people that they have to defend.
- [48:40]
John Podhoretz
No, that's the government. But I'm saying you're, you're saying the hostage forum. Yeah. Or the people who have been agitating essentially for a continuing or almost permanent ceasefire with the goal of getting all the hostages out, their desperation may be growing rather than them sort of like coming to a horrendous reckoning with what the nation needs and what the fact of the remaining hostages is doing to make sure that this war isn't fought to its completion. And I find it hard to imagine that that is a leap that a lot of them can take. The question then is, what does the Israeli populace decide? By which I mean, last poll we saw last week said that 70% of Israelis would prefer a permanent ceasefire to not getting the hostages out. But things change. And what happened yesterday may be one of those moments where public opinion undergoes a significant shift. John, you say you gotta go. He's gotta go do his morning brief. So just remember to stay on until you see it says that your track is uploaded. Don't shut the machine. Okay. But thank you so much, Jonathan Schanzer, for, For being with us.
- [50:08]
Jonathan Schanzer
Thanks, guys.
- [50:08]
John Podhoretz
You want to click the leave button?
- [50:10]
Jonathan Schanzer
Cool. Do.
- [50:11]
John Podhoretz
Okay. Sorry to. Sorry to share. Share the backstage machinations of working in.
- [50:18]
Christine Rosen
The behind the scenes commentary podcast.
- [50:20]
John Podhoretz
That's right. But, but, but. There we have it. Okay, so while we. Why don't we move on to the fact that after sort of the last week of absolute, like, jaw dropping misbehavior and horrible, disgusting things that have been said about Ukraine and Zelensky, and all that, that there is finally pushback and blowback on the right against, against the Trump administration's rhetoric and talk, typified, I think, interestingly, by the front page of the New York Post this morning, which says, this is the face of a dictator. It's a piece by Douglas Murray put on the front page with a giant picture of Putin that sort of goes through what Trump is getting wrong about Ukraine. Can we, yes, just.
- [51:12]
Christine Rosen
Sorry. Sorry to interrupt, but can we also add to the pushback? And actually, this is where those of us who are always saying, don't despair. Our system has built in ways of dealing with overreaches of power, whether they come from the left or the right. The. A chainsaw wielding Elon Musk at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, this weekend, contrasted with suddenly you see a lot of Republicans in the House, for example, stepping up and starting to push back on whether or not Doge has the power to do what it is doing in some of the agencies in Congress, finally waking up from its long slumber, hopefully to start doing its job. And that will include pushing back on some of the efforts of the Trump administration to change the way that federal government works.
- [51:54]
John Podhoretz
So, so, so we have two fronts there. We have the domestic front, which is, which is, is Doge, you know, is, rather than using a scalpel, it's using a hatchet. And it's starting to hit, you know, it's starting to hit vital body parts with the hatchet as opposed to, you know, taking cancers out with, with, you know, surgically and carefully. And, and so I think all of us are thrilled in many ways by the, by the use of the blunt instrument. But, yeah, if you're Katy, Britain, Alabama, and you got a lot of federal workers who are doing, who, by the way, are doing critical things like in, in the maintenance of our nuclear arsenal and our nuclear stockpile and, and, and that sort of thing. And places elsewhere.
- [52:42]
Seth Mandel
McCormick and Pennsylvania had a bit of a rough go at a town hall.
- [52:46]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [52:47]
Seth Mandel
So that people were, you know, Pennsylvania is as hugely important for the people that Trump is targeting to bring into the GOP coalition on a more permanent basis. Right. You're supposed to be attracted, trying to attract this work class.
- [53:03]
John Podhoretz
We have, we have Musk. We have this particular moment where Musk is, I mean, to say that he's out over his skis everywhere is kind of remarkable. But, you know, he went, he was at CPAC again, said, what are the Ukrainians dying for? What exactly are they dying for? Because it's wonderful Trump wants the Ukrainians to stop dying. You know who doesn't want the Ukrainians to stop dying? The Ukrainians. The Ukrainians want to die on their feet, then live on their knees. They want to not be vassals to a slave state and are seeking to maintain their independence at unbelievably high cost. And it is, of course, bizarre conservative, isolationist, anti neocon paternalism that is leading a lot of people who seem to think that it's terrible when the United States tries to dictate terms to other countries, that we are now dictating terms to a country that wants to fight to save itself, that it's supposed to stop because it's, it's killing its own people. And we, we, we just can't. We just can't take that or handle that.
- [54:17]
Abe Greenwald
You know, it's just a thought has occurred to me today, listening to the show, especially because of what happened yesterday in Israel. You know who's kidnapped babies by the thousands? The Russians. Yeah.
- [54:32]
John Podhoretz
And what are they doing?
- [54:33]
Abe Greenwald
Thousands. Thousands of Ukrainian babies.
- [54:35]
John Podhoretz
They're not killing them.
- [54:36]
Jonathan Schanzer
No, no.
- [54:36]
John Podhoretz
They're brainwashing.
- [54:37]
Christine Rosen
They're brainwashing and turning them into soldiers is right.
- [54:41]
Abe Greenwald
Into Russians. Yes.
- [54:42]
John Podhoretz
Well, yeah. Or they are teaching them Russian. They are trying to create a kind of internal Ukrainian population that will be servile to Russia, will not know Ukrainian, will not know Ukrainian history, will be taught this potted version of Ukrainian history, that Russia is the savior and all of that. And that is a very significant propaganda campaign if you start thinking through it. The horrors of it are almost, you know, it's not shooting them in the head, but it's a version of, you know, it's kidnapping for the purposes of.
- [55:25]
Christine Rosen
It's murdering their ability to have an autonomous future in their own country. That's what it's.
- [55:30]
Abe Greenwald
Right.
- [55:30]
Seth Mandel
Well, that's what it is. It's the culture.
- [55:32]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [55:32]
Seth Mandel
I mean, forever Russia has fought against recognizing Ukrainian language, you know, and then when Ukraine went independent, Russia couldn't really stop that, so they're going to try to do it by other means. But it's also a reminder that of the long term, the long view that Putin and the Russians take on this, like, we may get a ceasefire in Ukraine. And, you know, as I said the other day, Russia has, you know, in the modern era, has never given back an inch of land it has taken from its neighbors. And it just sort of builds on that. This is another thing that they build on. This is like a sort of internal occupation in a weird way, almost like a psychological occupation. And it's just each, each war they do, they take one more step that becomes permanent and frozen in place.
- [56:17]
Abe Greenwald
I mean, the thing is that, you know, so if it's, if it's just Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Maga alone in this idea that Zelensky is the villain and Putin needs rehabilitating on the global stage, I don't think that will stop him. I mean, I think he's fine with that. He'll rant and rave and say everyone's wrong Trump, but I don't see him veering from this course. I don't know what knocks him off this course.
- [56:55]
John Podhoretz
I think that's a problem. But if we go back to the domestic question that Christine raised. So Trump has been fulfilling conservative desiderata. You wrote this in your newsletter yesterday. And we should, of course, remind everyone to sign up for Abe's newsletter that, you know, Trump sort of the first three weeks of the administration were sort of like a fulfillment of some of the, you know, like wishes beyond conservatives wildest dreams about what was being targeted particularly, you know, on the cultural front with the, and transgender and all this other stuff. Then Doge came along and that also looked amazing because he was targeting other things. And now this, you know, again, sort of going agency by announcing somehow that Doge is going to be used to, to find 8% savings a year in the Pentagon. And it's, you know, it's all kinds of programs that people like in health care are being disrupted and interrupted and all of that that.
- [58:00]
Christine Rosen
Wait, can we add one more, can we add one more thing to that? The prom, the floating. The idea that he's going to send checks to the American people with refunds, which Speaker Johnson yesterday said, you know, I'm not so sure about that. If there's money coming back, it's going to take. We're going to use it to pay down the debt, not hand out checks. I just thought that was another interesting, very mild pushback against some of the rhetoric we're hearing from Musk and.
- [58:22]
John Podhoretz
Right. So, but I mean, so there was sort of shock and awe and Republicans were sort of, you know, had this, you know, but we're on this high and now elected leaders who represent, as our structure of our government has it, right. Senators represent states and members of Congress represent localities. And so there are jobs in localities and there are industries that sort of govern states. And having been kind of like in an opium haze or, you know, like lying back, you know, the lotus eaters, like, like in a state of complete, you know, sort of glorious paralysis because of how wonderful everything seemed. They're all waking up at the same moment to, to say, you know what? I don't this thing you're doing over here is bad Doge for my state. And somebody else is saying it's bad. This is over here is bad for my state. Congressmen are saying this is bad for my district. And they're, we're talking now about Republicans and conservatives. And so Trump, who seems to have total control of everything in the Republican Party, it's true. But we are seeing the first elements of the balance constitutional system in which interests cannot be levied from above. Foreign policy, they can. But in domestic policy terms and things that Congress money is, Congress has already appropriated and all of that, that money was appropriated because somebody wanted it to go there.
- [59:54]
Christine Rosen
Well, and, and the test will be how he and his administration respond to the pushback the, generated by our democratic system of checks and balances pushback that he is getting. And so far, you know, there have been some threatening letters issued to congressmen who have pushed back. There have been, you know, by, by the Department of Justice. There have been all kinds of sort of weird power plays. We, which again, when we talk about whether he can do that on the international stage, yes, he can. And we can criticize him, whether we like it and praise him when we do like what he's doing. But on the domestic front, he is beholden to what Congress says. In many cases he has certain powers, but not full powers. And that's where I keep coming back to the chainsaw wielding musk. I mean, a little musk goes a long way. And I think a lot of Republicans are starting to wonder, does this guy, whose interest does this guy have in mind? And so that's where it's very heartening to see the Republicans push back. We have all the Governors in Washington, D.C. right now meeting and you're seeing all kinds of conversations happening among the governors of states, both red states and blue states, about the impact of some of these changes too. So all of the, again, all of this ferment is very healthy. The question is whether there'll be a healthy response from the Trump administration when he is challenged on some of these things.
- [61:10]
John Podhoretz
Three pieces of data, then we can close up for the week. One you mentioned that Ed Martin, who is the U.S. attorney will be of D.C. sent a letter to a Democratic congressman named Garcia who said something like we have to stop them wherever we may have to go on the street, whatever, something about Musk. And he Basically sent him a letter saying, you seem to be threatening Elon Musk and we are going to open investigation into you because you're not allowed to do that in our. Okay, that of course is psychotic. This is an elected congressman. He's allowed to say whatever he wants to say about Elon Musk. He can even say things in threatening verbiage that is out over skis. Right? Then we have Tom Homan, the head of ice, who was saying things like Eric Adams will do what I want him to do or we'll come after him with the, you know, or, or, or it gets the hose. So these guys are acting like Trump, but they're not Trump. Trump is Trump. Trump is elected. Everybody chose Trump. These guys may be deputized by Trump, but they, they are not him. And they, and the effort to kind of Trumpify, to go down levels with Trump like behavior by these officials, some of whom have yet to be confirmed, like Ed Martin is, I think they better get some control over the behavior of these people because they are going to create blowback. If you see Ed Martin attacking Garcia, the Democratic congressman from California, I think, and you're a Republican congressman from somewhere, maybe, okay, that's fine. But like, what if he comes after you? What if he writes you a letter? What if you're Thom Tillis to the Senate? What if you're on the panel that it has to confirm him? And like he might write you a letter saying, I'm going to investigate you. Like I, you know, you're not going to. This is something they are getting perilously close to a world in which they are asserting the authority that they do not possess, that the president himself may possess, but that they do not. And if I were a canny Trump person in the White House with his long term interests in mind, I would start handing out Klonopin or Xanax or something to some of these people because they're going too far. But you know, it, his agenda, it's.
- [64:04]
Abe Greenwald
It'S interesting psychologically I think, because while I don't think Trump is a tyrant or a dictator there, he certainly, there is a cult of personality there. And one feature of cults of personality is that the, the person at the center, everyone sort of starts adopting his ways, his mien, his way of dress, his way of walking, his way of talking. And they are sort of, you know, they're self cloning, you know, they're cloning themselves into little Trumps. And you see it and you're right, John. And for Republicans, they're thinking, okay, I'll take it from Trump. I know what world this is. That fight is over. But who the hell is this guy?
- [64:56]
John Podhoretz
And by the way, when MAGA is in Congress again, they have some legitimacy conferred to them by the fact that they were elected by the people in their district or in their state. And so Marjorie Taylor Greene is loathsome, I think, and Lauren Boebert is loathsome, and Nancy Mace seems to be, you know, like, in desperate need of help and all of that. But they have a legitimacy in our system based on the fact that the voters chose them and the voters can retract their choice. The only legitimacy that people inside the federal government have is that they were hired or can be fired at will if they are not in confirmable positions and if they're in conformable positions that they, that the, that under the advice and. Advice and consent of the Senate, they were, they were allowed to be appointed to their, to their jobs. They do not have independent standing to do, to behave in whatever way that they choose. And, yeah, an elected official, you know, if you're Thom Tillis and you're a senator and somebody starts a, you know, again, I, this is a, this is a scenario. But Ed Martin doesn't like it that you said Trump shouldn't, you know, Trump shouldn't be saying what he's saying about Ukraine. And Ed Martin writes you a letter. Thom Tillis goes to John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, and says we may need to initiate impeachment proceedings against this guy, the U.S. attorney from D.C. because he's threatening elected officials with actions by the Justice Department for matters of. That we have free speech for whatever, you know, like it. It is. And this will harm Trump. That's my point, is that it looks like it's all fun and games for maga, and they just love seeing it, and they love seeing mini versions of it. You know, like, if you like a really good horror movie, maybe you like a knockoff horror movie that's half as good, but, you know, it's like, satisfies your itch. You know, you like Halloween, so you might not mind Halloween 5, but Halloween 5 will make a fifth of the money that Halloween made. And you can't, you can't go back there. So I would just say with this preposterous analogy, I don't know if I want to end on this, but nonetheless, they better be careful because, you know, we're already, like, in a state of, like, horrified over, over the behavior in Ukraine. They love it. That's Fine. But, you know, and that's Vance. And that's Vance and, and Trump, and they are the two elected officials in the administration, and they, they're the leaders of the country. But, you know, the deputy assistant secretary for thus and such is not. And so we'll see what happens if the deputy assistant secretary for thus and such starts going around Europe and saying, we will, you know, we will bury you, and slamming, you know, his shoe on the, On a table. And then see how, how people like that, like, you know, some, some power plays have to be reserved for the one who actually has power. You dilute your power if you spread it too thin among people who, you know, who don't have the, who don't have the standing to have it.
- [68:16]
Seth Mandel
So, and, and if people, and if people freelance, right. That's the other thing, which is that, you know, the, the bridge gate thing with Chris Christie, you know, we just sort of crushed him. And it really, it probably wasn't the case that he, you know, I mean, the Trump people have been known to, like, write in the margins of checks. You know, this check is for bribery and corruption. You know, like, they've, They've sort of come straight out with it. But Christie, you know, was. Wasn't telling people, you know, what you should do, you should go do this. But almost nobody cared he made that argument, right?
- [68:50]
John Podhoretz
They induced it from, they induced it.
- [68:52]
Seth Mandel
From his, you know, well, somebody rid me of this troublesome. But also, but also the fact that the, the way he ran his office, right. Christie, was, you know, he.
- [69:02]
Jonathan Schanzer
Elbow.
- [69:02]
Seth Mandel
He threw elbows constantly, and they threw elbows, too. So there's, there's this chance that somebody could, you know, take Trump's Q wrong and freelance and do something on their own, and they will have no idea what they're doing and get everybody in a lot of trouble.
- [69:18]
John Podhoretz
Right? Well, it's sort of like, I'll use my final pop culture analogy. Maybe this one will be better. Dwight Schruti from the office, right. Who is constantly asserting his authority as the assistant regional manager. And Steve Carell, right. Steve Carell constantly has to say, assistant to the regional manager. You have no power, you have no authority. And so that is the possibility now of MAGA down, you know, sort of down in the depths of the bureaucracy saying, I speak for Trump. It's like, well, maybe you do, maybe you don't. Trump speaks for. Out of both sides of his mouth three times every hour. But you better watch it, because you're gonna say, I speak for Trump, and someone's gonna say, oh, yeah. Well, I will be happy to take it up with Trump personally, whether or not you're allowed to say that to me. And he needs my vote on the budget deal. And I may just withhold it because you're being an ass.
- [70:18]
Christine Rosen
And you know what Trump doesn't do? He does not stand by his people. When his people undermine what at that moment, at any given Tuesday he happens to be feeling, he will throw them under the bus quicker than you can say boo.
- [70:30]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [70:31]
Seth Mandel
My campaign manager, I never heard of that guy.
- [70:33]
John Podhoretz
Right. Okay. Well, I hope everybody has a wonderful weekend. We'll be back on on Monday, maybe a little less morose, a little more determined and have a better sense of what the future is going to hold for Israel and Gaza. So until then, for Christine, Abe and Seth, I'm John Pothoritz. Keep the candle bur.