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- [00:00]
Amos Harrell
Monday Sidekick, the AI agent that knows you and your business, thinks ahead and takes action. Ask it anything seriously. Monday Sidekick, AI you'll love to use.
- [00:12]
Tara Palmieri
Start a free trial today on Monday.com.
- [00:15]
Sally Lockwood
Welcome to State OF THE World with me, Sally Lockwood in Dubai.
- [00:18]
Tara Palmieri
And me, Tara Palmieri in New York. Sal, it's been a while, but some serious news has happened. And I think it was worth it for us.
- [00:26]
Sally Lockwood
Great to see you, too.
- [00:27]
Amos Harrell
Good to see you, too.
- [00:27]
Tara Palmieri
I think it was worth it for us to debrief right now. Big moment for the US for Israel, for the Middle east, for even most importantly, the people in Gaza, the Palestinian people. And yeah, just, I mean, taking it all in, right?
- [00:44]
Sally Lockwood
I've been watching the coverage all day. It's, yeah, it's just, I've been glued to it. It's just an incredible moment. It's a historic moment. And for the hostage families, you know, it's been two years, you know, that they've been waiting and worrying about their loved ones, not knowing what conditions they were in, not knowing if they would come home. And, you know, you can really see in the coverage this sense of relief but also grief among Israelis today that the hostages are finally coming home because, of course, 20 of them have come home alive, but there are many more whose bodies are going to be returned to their families, which must just be such, you know, it must just be so devastating for them knowing that they're not going to have the happy homecoming that other families will have. But at least it's some sort of closure. And then in return, we've been seeing Palestinian prisoners released returning to Gaza today. And it's just been this real contrast of Israeli hostages returning home to celebrations as heroes. And then you see these Palestinian prisoners returning to Gaza, and, and there's no sort of triumphant welcome. And, you know, they're surrounded by rubble. There's not, you know, much functioning health care in Gaza. It's just such, it's such a contrast. And it was just, it's been such a huge day in terms of the Middle east and this brutal war. But, yeah, I mean, just a lot to unpack. And we're really lucky today because we've got this brilliant guest who's, I've been on before, Amos Harrell, who is the military analyst for Haaretz newspaper, Israel's oldest newspaper. Let's bring him in because he's going to offer firsthand accounts of what it's been like in Israel today. But also, you know, all that really interesting detail about just how did Donald Trump do it. You know, Trump says the war's over. All the hostages are home. Just how has he done it? Let's bring in Amos. Hi, Amos. How does it feel? What's the mood in Israel today?
- [03:21]
Amos Harrell
Better. Much better. Probably the best single day we've had since October 7th. That's two years and six days since the Hamas attack. 20 hostages, all live hostages, are back from Gaza, and as you said, mostly thanks to Donald Trump, and that's quite an achievement. Also, apparently, the war is over. We'll have to see. There are a lot of. There's a lot of stuff that hasn't been solved yet. First and foremost, from an Israeli perspective, 28 bodies of Israeli hostages still kept in Gaza. Hamas is about to return four of those bodies as we speak, but it's claiming that it has problems with locating some of the other bodies. And yet the war is over, and the hostage ordeal, probably the worst Israel has been through in all of our history, is more or less over. That's quite significant, of course, Amos, just.
- [04:15]
Sally Lockwood
On that, I spoke to someone in Israel this week after the news, you know, of the ceasefire, after the ceasefire started and after this news that the hostages were all going to be returned home. And they said to me, you know, I see people smiling in the street. Again, just describe what it's like.
- [04:32]
Amos Harrell
Israel, in the end, is a very small society, and the ties that hold it together are quite important. We're slightly over 9 million people, and, you know, Americans talk of 6 degrees of separation. There's only one degree of separation in Israel. Almost everybody knows everybody. And there's a deep concern, especially about soldiers fighting and so on, but also in this case, civilians. And most of the people who were kidnapped by Hamas were civilians, either kidnapped from their homes or taken hostage from the Nova Festival and so on. Some soldiers as well, but mostly civilians. So this feeling that our brothers and sisters, so to speak, are held by Hamas in captivity in such terrible conditions for so long, that was a very big issue, a very big emotional issue for Israelis, but also, I would even say, a matter of principle, a matter of ideology. The sense that no soul is left behind is a huge matter for Israelis, for Jews, I'd even say. And that was the biggest issue for a long time. Ever since we've managed to more or less defeat Hamas and also deal with Hezbollah, Iran and so on. That remained as the most important issue, as something that was held against the government because many Israelis believed that Netanyahu was not doing enough, the prime minister was not doing enough to save them. And that was a massive question for most Israelis. I think if you would have asked almost any Israeli when he or she wakes up in the morning, what's one of the first three things you think about? It's, what about the hostages? Where are they? How are they doing? Is somebody trying to save them? Today, apparently, Donald Trump was, and this is where we are right now. A lot of people believed, assumed that this could not be achieved without a final agreement. There's no final agreement yet, but however, we have the live hostages back and the war, as I said, is more or less over, which is huge for Israelis.
- [06:35]
Sally Lockwood
Tara, he's done it. You've probably been asleep. It's early morning there in the East Coast. But, you know, I've been following the coverage all day. And, I mean, the reception for Donald Trump in Israel was quite something. He's what, a hero to Israelis. Is that fair?
- [06:55]
Amos Harrell
And he's enjoying every minute of it.
- [06:57]
Sally Lockwood
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations, of course.
- [07:22]
Donald Trump
And I want to thank you all once again for this exceptional honor. This has been truly an honor. It's seldom that a president is invited to do this. And I love Israel. I'm with you all the way. You will be bigger, better, stronger, and more loving than ever before. Thank you very much. God bless you. God bless the United States of America and God bless the Middle East. Thank you, everybody. Good luck. Thank you very much. Thank you.
- [08:11]
Amos Harrell
The attitude here is Donald Trump, force of nature. He's the man who could do it. Remember, the Biden administration attempted to reach a deal for a long time. They were about to close the previous deal on January of this year. And then about five days before Trump was sworn in, it was actually Steve Whitaker, his envoy, who was sent to Jerusalem to apply pressure on Netanyahu. And then the second hostage deal was signed somewhere two months later. It was actually Netanyahu who broke out of the deal, who decided not to continue, but to resume the war with Hamas. And since then, we've been hoping, a lot of people have been praying for this to finally be achieved. Somewhat ironically, this happened mostly thanks to an Israeli mistake. Netanyahu's decision on September 9 to attempt assassinating the Hamas leadership abroad, which is actually the Hamas negotiation team in Doha, in Qatar, near where you are, the Fact that he tried to do that and the fact that the Israelis failed because they missed most of the important members of that group meant that, first of all, that Trump was quite angry at Netanyahu, but also that the president realized that American interests in the region were harmed by this, that he needed to put an end to this war. And the fact that he was giving Netanyahu almost carte blanche to do almost everything he wanted in Gaza Strip meant that the war would continue. And contrary to what Netanyahu is saying, and even contrary to what seems some of what the president is saying, this actually involved a lot of pressure behind the scenes. Trump was insistent that this would happen. He used any leverage he could have on Netanyahu. And that meant that the deal was signed last week. It meant a lot of concessions from the Israeli side. Our prime minister would try to portray this as a huge victory for him. Truth is more complicated than that. There are concessions on our side, concessions on Hamas's side, and yet nothing is perfect in this world. As long as we can have live hostages back, and as long as the war stops soon. That will be a huge achievement, not only for Trump, who's already thinking of the Nobel Peace Prize for next year, but also from an Israeli perspective.
- [10:37]
Tara Palmieri
Now, obviously, there are a lot of members of the nascent that are further to the right than even Netanyahu. I mean, are they going to pressure him to continue the war or say that this wasn't a good enough deal? Like, how long do you think this is actually going to hold for?
- [10:52]
Amos Harrell
It's hard to say, considering the war itself. For now, it's over. But let's try and remember what happened during the last year or so. What Israeli political analysts kept saying was that it was hard for Netanyahu to maneuver and to continue and sign a final deal because of his far right messianic partners, two parties specifically, who kept threatening to leave the government and put an end to this coalition if he does make those concessions. In the end, what happened is that they voted against Benkvir and Smozluch, two ministers voted against when the cabinet actually met in order to approve the deal. And yet they didn't leave, they didn't resign. The coalition is still there. So I think this branch in Israeli politics is not happy about the outcome, would keep criticizing Netanyahu, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they would leave the coalition and enforce early elections. These guys have their own interests, have their own groups that they want to continue with their pushing their interests forward. Some of them may fear elections because they fear that they would lose seats in the Knesset and so on. So what they're doing right now is that they remain inside the government while pretending to be out of it and not to be part of. Not to be part of those, to be blamed for what has happened. But they haven't resigned yet. So can Netanyahu keep it on for a long time? I'm not sure. But for the time being, the coalition seems more or less stable. About the future, it depends whether Trump would pressure Netanyahu to reach some kind of a diplomatic deal with Arab states and so on. Netanyahu wants that, of course, especially regarding Saudi Arabia, perhaps some Muslim countries as well, Indonesia and so on. He wants normalization with those countries. But if the price means some kind of an Israeli approval for a Palestinian state, a two state solution, a role that the Palestinian Authority would play in Gaza and the day after, all of these are problematic concessions from a far right perspective. If he needs to go there, we may have early elections. If not, if he can maintain the current situation, talk about peace, but actually not move forward, Smatlie and Benkeville may remain on board.
- [13:25]
Sally Lockwood
Amos, I'm really interested to try and understand how the hostages have been treated in recent months because there was that absolutely shocking video released by Hamas in August showing eviatar David, a 24 year old Israeli who was taken hostage at the Nova Music Festival. And this video was absolutely horrifying. It showed him digging his own grave in a tunnel in Gaza and he was emaciated, so thin and frail, and there was a lot of concern that he simply wasn't going to make it. And then the images of the hostages returning to Israel today, I was quite surprised to see that they looked okay. They didn't look like he had in that video. Do you think there was some pressure applied? Do you think that there's been back channels behind the scenes in terms of the hostages? Because it was a very different picture today to the one that we saw in that video in August.
- [14:25]
Amos Harrell
So what we know from conversations from hostages who were released last January is that in the week or so before they were released, they were fed better. And I assume Hamas did the same because they knew for quite some time that this is where it was heading. What we saw today is that they still look pale. Most of them look very, very thin. They're extremely happy, of course, and I would assume, I'm not a doctor, but I would assume that there is some effect of the adrenaline of actually meeting your family and friends after so much time. And so on. It remains to be seen how they'll feel health wise and mentally within a week or so. We know from hostages who came back that most of them suffer from ptsd, have problems adjusting to normal life again, and so on. And yet they're with us and all of the 20 who we knew were alive, remain alive and are back with their families. This is what's important right now, the fact that Hamas kept them in horrific conditions and tortured them and investigated many of them and so on. We knew that already. And yet they are safe, they are going to make it, which is extremely important. And, and we have to also Remember there were 42 hostages who arrived alive in Gaza, not their bodies being snatched, but alive and died during these two years, some of them from mistaken bombings by the idf. Most of them had either health problems or were murdered directly by Hamas. So the fact that 20 are back, it's not a miracle, but it's a massive thing it creates. When Netanyahu decided to apply more military pressure on Gaza, there was all of this talk in the last month or so of the IDF reoccupying Gaza City. One of the dangers was that Israeli hostages may be killed, may be caught in between Hamas terrorists and Israeli soldiers, and so on. Thankfully, this didn't happen. What we worried about right now, what we are worried about is the fate of the bodies where they are. And this is very important in Judaism. It's important emotionally for the families and so on. And yet there's a difference between this kind of worry and the concern for the lives of the actual live hostages. This question is thankfully over.
- [16:43]
Sally Lockwood
And Tara, what's been the reaction in the U.S. i mean, Trump's done it. He says the war's over and he's got the hostages home.
- [16:51]
Tara Palmieri
I think there's a lot of shock. I think, you know, it's an example of his, his, his ability to sort of control Netanyahu in a way that other presidents have not been able to. I mean, he literally made him read off an apology to Qatar in the West Wing. We've never seen anything like that before. They have a relationship unlike others. I think it shows that his style of diplomacy is a little bit off the charts and maybe not hard to understand because it's not like he's using people who went through the Council of Foreign Relations to handle these negotiations or the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, the typical blob characters that handle negotiations in American Foreign, Foreign affairs and foreign relations. But instead you've got some real estate developers like Steve Witkoff. And Josh, Jared Kushner, who have done work, who have borrowed money from Qatar, who are Jewish Americans. I mean, in their mind, this is just a real estate deal. And so it's like a very different approach. And obviously, everyone is thinking about Gaza lago, and how Trump really wants to turn this into some sort of real estate opportunity. And I think some people, you know, obviously are questioning, will this hold? I mean, even when asked on Air Force One, in your view, is the war between Israel.
- [18:25]
Donald Trump
War is over. The war is over. Okay. Do you understand that?
- [18:30]
Tara Palmieri
You need to understand that this is. The war is over. And I think people question if it will hold. But I. I can't help but think that there are people who. Who question President Trump and wonder if maybe all along the blob needed a little bit of a poke and it needed a little bit of a shakeup. Now, listen, I question all the business interests involved in all of this. You know, Cutter gave Skibit Goff, I think, $100 million for his park Hotel. And these people are not. They don't. They don't have the cleanest hands when dealing with these interactions.
- [19:03]
Amos Harrell
But.
- [19:04]
Tara Palmieri
But sometimes when there's money on the line, that's what makes people move. I mean, this is essentially, there's a lot of money on the line here. Trump wants to continue doing money in the Arab markets, and he knows that if these countries like Qatar and UAE and etcetera, if they don't seem safe or Israel, like they've been presented to the Western world, then their real estate opportunities are. Are not possible. And they need to. They need to. This can't be Syria. You know, these need to be places where people can go and vacation and feel safe and live. And so there's a lot. There's. I don't know that for them, they're thinking about the Palestinian children so much as they're thinking about their business interests.
- [19:50]
Sally Lockwood
Certainly Trump revealed quite a lot in that Q and A with reporters on Air Force One that you just mentioned there. And Amos, there's one comment he made that hasn't had a huge amount of pickup, but it definitely pricked my ears. And it's something I really want to ask you about because you're a military analyst now. He talked about how they were. They'd basically been involved, the Americans had been involved in extracting the hostages from Gaza.
- [20:16]
Donald Trump
Getting them was amazing, actually, because we were involved, and they were in places that you don't want to know about. Deep, deep, deep.
- [20:28]
Sally Lockwood
But I just thought that was really interesting. It sounded like there was American involvement in the hostages being returned by Hamas. What do you know about that?
- [20:36]
Amos Harrell
So I don't know a lot. And Trump talks quite a lot. His speech, I think, in Israeli Knesset today, the Parliament was probably more than 45 minutes. And a lot of this was improvised as usual with the President. We do know that the Americans have been deeply involved since the beginning, that they've been split, flying information, sharing intelligence with the Israelis. It was never a case of a joint operation. There were four successful small Israeli operations in which eight hostages were forcefully released from Hamas's hands during the first year or so. It didn't succeed later on. And there were also failed attempts. We don't have much information about that, but we know that there were more attempts that failed. So we can assume that the Americans were somehow involved in supplying some of the information. But other than that, I don't know of cases of American boots on the ground in Gaza regarding that. These were mostly Israeli military operations. And even that was put to an end after August of 24 because the leadership of Hamas military wing gave orders to its terrorists to shoot on sight the hostages if there was any sense that the Israelis were coming to get them. Slightly over a year, we didn't see new Israeli attempts. It became too dangerous. Since then, the only road open for us was through negotiations. And even then it didn't materialize until the President decided to pull his weight. Once he did that, this was over with. One could say maybe had he acted earlier, we would have gotten the hostages earlier, but this is where we are. And again, I don't think anybody else could have done it. I'm not a big Trump fan, but I have to give him credit for that. Nobody else would have achieved this, Applied such pressure on the Qataris, on Hamas through the Qataris, and also on Israel. And the fact that he got Turkey on board and the Egyptians and the Saudis and all of those countries that were mentioned, that's a huge. That has huge importance because this is where we're heading. I think Tara is perfectly right. A lot of this has to do with business interests. This is the reason why Jared Kushner is suddenly here after we haven't seen him in this part of the world for the last five years. The Trump family is involved and so on, but they're looking for their business deals and for their angle. But for the time being, this is very good news for Israel. As long as this continues, that would be great news from our perspective.
- [23:03]
Tara Palmieri
Yeah, money talks. That's why we're not in other regions.
- [23:07]
Sally Lockwood
Do you think Donald Trump is going to stay across the detail? Tara, you know, this is only just the first stage of what is supposed to be a huge plan to, you know, get Hamas to disarm and rebuild Gaza. Do you think he will stay interested?
- [23:22]
Tara Palmieri
I mean, okay, so last night he was engaging in friendly fire or complimentary texts to Xi of China as he was about to ramp up 100% tariff and he decided to back down from that taco. Trump always chickens out. You know, he's also talking about giving Ukraine Tomahawks to take take on Russia. We're in, I think, the eighth day of a shutdown. I don't know what his capacity is and I know for paying attention to too many topics at once, but I'm sure if there is any sort of disruption, you'll see him focus again on it. But it's really down to his negotiators. I do think the fact that Jared Kushner and Steve Wyckoff are involved is probably a good thing because they have his ear and, you know, he's a direct line. It's, it's the son in law, it's his best friend. And they'll, they'll keep him apprised because the Nobel Peace Prize is allegedly on the line based on his own hopes and dreams, perhaps. Yes. I mean, this is a personal thing for him. This is his ego, which is probably numero uno in his heart. As he said, he doesn't think he's going to heaven, so this is about all he's going to get. Guys, I can't believe he said that. I'm really hoping he did say that. He said, I don't think I'm going to heaven. Question mark. Jeffrey Epstein.
- [24:46]
Sally Lockwood
Muck. I did think of you. I'm actually secretly relieved. As someone who lives in the Middle east and cares about this region and what's happening, I'm secretly relieved that the Nobel Peace Prize has been kicked a year down the road for Donald Trump, if he does get it, because hopefully that will mean he does stay interested in what's happening in Gaza. But, Amos, what are your predictions for what happens next? Hamas haven't disarmed yet. In fact, they're fighting rival factions in Gaza by the sounds of it, and people are still dying because of infighting.
- [25:22]
Amos Harrell
Now.
- [25:23]
Sally Lockwood
What do you see happening next?
- [25:24]
Amos Harrell
So, you know, making predictions is very hard, especially about the future, but we'll have to see. Regarding Hamas, they're not done yet. They're not dead. They're deeply involved. They're brutal. They are back to their old evil ways, and they're trying now to threaten anybody else in Gaza who may take their place. They're now fighting with all kinds of clans. But what happens if indeed an international Arab or Muslim force arrives on the Gaza coast? Do they just stay out of this and say, good luck with, with Gaza, we'll have to see how this proceeds? It's still a very, very dangerous terrain we're at, and it's an unchartered territory. Nobody has tried to do that before. Hamas has not given up on anything. And it will be very, very hard to force them to give up their weapons. And yet we should also remember that most of the leadership is dead and that they've lost around 20,000 of their fighters and that it will be extremely hard for them to regain control of the Strip. So they have to be handled in one way or another. Could Trump do that? As you've mentioned, he has all kinds of his version of add. I don't know how long he can stay focused on this. And he has a lot on his plate, whether it's China, as you mentioned, or Ukraine and so on. But he still remains interested. He's very much in favor of Israel. If you've listened to his speech today, it was really, really clear his sentiment was pro Israeli and pro Netanyahu. So he's still invested in this. He's already been quoted today that this is his biggest achievement ever. In his view, maybe every achievement for Trump is his biggest ever, but that's important as well. So as long as he's invested in this, I think there's hope for changes. And you caught me on a very optimistic day. It hasn't been the same in recent months or the last two years, but this day I'm hoping for the best.
- [27:24]
Sally Lockwood
And Moss, I hope this sense of optimism stays for you. Israel has been through such a lot in the last two years, as have the people of Gaza. And I'm sure we're going to have you on again discussing more of the developments soon. But enjoy this moment today. And thank you so much for joining us.
- [27:40]
Amos Harrell
Thanks for inviting me.
- [27:42]
Tara Palmieri
Yes, thank you. Yes, thank you. And get on to writing your brilliant piece, which we'll feature in our description. So appreciate it if you could send it to us.
- [27:50]
Amos Harrell
Thanks a lot. Bye bye.
- [27:52]
Tara Palmieri
Sally, I'm so happy that you got Amos back on the show. I always thought he was one of the best guests ear to the ground. And, you know, he's been a healthy skeptic of the government, but you know, when he gives credit, he gives credit and he, he thinks that this may hold, which I thought was really interesting to me as a political reporter because of the internal pressures that are on Netanyahu. We'll see.
- [28:17]
Sally Lockwood
I mean, I've been speaking to people on both sides this week. If you look at previous episodes of State of the World in the last couple of weeks, and there is a sense of optimism on both sides that this potentially is a new dawn and that this ceasefire could hold. But of course, for Hamas, they've lost their only bargaining chip now that the hostages are home. So it's really going to be interesting to see whether Donald Trump does manage to keep Benjamin Netanyahu from going back into fighting. Let's see what happens next.
- [28:49]
Tara Palmieri
Thank you all for tuning in to another great episode of State of the World. Please tell your friends about this, because that is how we keep doing this. You can rate, subscribe, send it to all of your friends. Leave us a comment. We want to hear what you want us to cover because the world is large and we will obviously stay on top of the this story and a number of others. And of course, hit that subscribe button. See you again next week.