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- [00:00]
A
Hello, everyone. This is Yonit in Tel Aviv. These are unprecedented times, so we will try to update you more frequently during this week and for as long as this war between Israel and Iran continues. It's Sunday, 5pm here in Tel Aviv, 5:30pm in Tehran, 10am in Washington. After two nights of nonstop Israeli operations in Iran, but also of almost nonstop ballistic missiles launched at Israel and the destruction in this country on a scale not seen before, Israel is a country at war. There are no public gatherings, no schools, no workplaces. All are closed. This is a country threatened from day one. But still, 28% of Israelis have no public shelter near them at all. No safe room, no public shelter. That means that in places like Tel Aviv, for example, underground parking lots and railway stations have become shelters, echoing a different time in history. Something about the Iranian threat, if we've learned anything from October 7, is to listen carefully when someone is saying that they want to annihilate you. In the Iranian case, it's a country saying it wants to annihilate Israel and also trying to possess the means to do so. So Israelis understand the threat quite clearly and have for a long time. The mood here, we should say, is a mood of a resilient nation. But after a year and eight months of war, we are, to be honest, also a little bit exhausted. This has been a very long monologue because my usual partner for dialogue, Jonathan, is away. But I will turn today to someone who always makes me feel smarter, if not better, a military analyst for our newspaper, Amos Sar. Thank you for talking to us today.
- [01:36]
B
Sure.
- [01:36]
A
We should say that the Israeli home front command just instructed Israelis in the central part of the country, in the northern part, to stay very close to shelter. So if we will have to cut our conversation short because of sirens, we'll return to it. But let me take us a few days back to this really breathtaking operation by Israel. So many years of preparation before this, a few top organizations, so many people thinking about this. Obviously, again, a breathtaking operation. But the question is, what now? I mean, how much thinking went into what happens after? I would ask you, is it going according to plan or is there a plan?
- [02:18]
B
Well, you know, that's the classic Israeli situation. We're very, very good at planning ahead for offensive strikes when we're on the initiative, where, as was proven on October 7th, we're not very good for at preparing for attacks from the other side. And we always have a problem closing these conflicts, perhaps more than before under Benjamin Netanyahu. We've seen that in Gaza, we've seen the IDF gradually improving the situation there, getting better results while fighting Hamas. And yet, because of all kinds of political considerations, 20 and a half months later, we're still stuck with the Gaza war with no end in sight and no decisive victory in spite of what has been promised to the Israeli public, this is a much more complicated matter. Iran is a much stronger opponent than anybody Israel has dealt with before. Of course, as could have been expected, there was a slight sense of euphoria in the different TV studios immediately after the attack because it was quite a great feat. This was something that I don't think anybody else in the world has achieved in recent years. It's probably the Israeli Air Force greatest achievement since 1967. And yet, as you said, the question is, what now? And when I'm asked, does Israel have a plan? Well, we're very good at collecting information about targets, choosing them, preparing a way to strike them without the other side knowing in advance. We're not that good, apparently. And planning in advance for complicated strategic solutions. From what we've heard recently from Netanyahu.
- [04:01]
A
By the way, I'll just say there's a siren right over our heads. So we will press pause on the conversation, continue it in, in just a few minutes. Okay? Okay, we're back. You were talking almost about the fact that the strategic long term planning, not our strong suit. Obviously, Israel is saying the main goal for this is to eliminate the Iranian nuclear plan. There's a lot of talk about the Americans. We need the United States, we need the Trump administration first. Maybe we should explain why the United States is needed if that is the goal of this current war. And the big million dollar question, will they join Israel in this operation?
- [05:04]
B
Israel has been preparing for this on and off for almost 20 years. Most of these years, Benjamin Netanyahu was in power, he was pushing for that. And yet one American president after another told him that this was impossible. The way was somewhere between a yellow and a red light from everybody, even Trump in his first term, but also Obama and Biden. Of course, once Trump showed up again, Netanyahu knew that this was his opportunity. The reason we need them is first and foremost, strategically, we need their support. The new chief of staff, Eyal Zamil, the IDF chief of staff, once he was appointed, the first thing he told Netanyahu was there's one important condition which is getting the Americans on board. And yet on board is quite wide definition. And we've seen Trump moving one way or the other during the last week or so, keeping his distance when it wasn't clear where this was leading, then, of course, claiming responsibility or demanding some of the credit when Israel seemed successful. And a day later, when things got complicated again, he suddenly found it necessary to explain that this was not an American initiative, that America itself wasn't striking Iran. The next problem is the follow up. Israel has proved quite some capabilities regarding destroying the different nuclear sites, and yet it can't go all the way. The most, you know, the pressing issue is the site at Fordon, near the holy city of Qom. This has been dug deep underground. It's protected by levels and layers of cement, and it would be very, very hard to do for the Israeli Air Force. In fact, Israeli generals have admitted for a long time that they needed American support, or perhaps even America taking the lead there in order for a strike there to achieve results. And yet it's quite clear for the time being that Trump is not interested in that. He's already looking for other ways to end this. He's probably prepared to continue watching as Israel strikes and hurts Tehran, but he's not too keen on sending American pilots to to fight there.
- [07:36]
A
There have been reports recently that US Military leaders, particularly centcom's Commander Kurilla, requesting more resources to defend Israel. But there has been resistance, particularly from the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Elbert Colby. Is there a concern inside the Israeli establishment of the sort of isolationist part of the Republican Party pressing the brakes for Donald Trump?
- [08:04]
B
As usual, there's quite a gap between what they say publicly and their concerns behind the scenes. For Netanyahu, it's extremely important to show that he's on the same page as Trump and that he's enjoying Trump's support. Others around Netanyahu and also in the military are concerned because of this, as you said, this isolationist sentiment around Trump. I think it's led mostly by Vice President Vance, and there's some fear that if things go wrong that the then the Americans would not be that happy to supply assistance with Biden, in spite of the reservations regarding him. That famous don't speech a few days after the October 7th strike, it was clear that he was on our side and that he was willing to take action with Trump. Harder to tell. There's a basic, perhaps a basic pro Israeli sentiment, but other than that, it's a pro Trump sentiment. And will Trump be invested in protecting Israel and helping Israel if Israel seems to be losing again? It's all about being a winner. For him, it's about the image. What's mostly Symbolic was his behavior during Friday, the speed in which he claimed credit for this. Once it turned out to be something successful, it was quite amazing. And yet, is he going to go all the way for us? I doubt it. I'm really, really skeptic about a possibility of America striking for do I be happy to see I'm wrong? Protection to a point again. Look at what happened in Yemen. He went all in regarding the Houthis and a month later, when it turned out to be costly and ineffective, he just jumped out and that was it. Okay, the American media can say what it likes, but he's no longer concerned about mainstream analysts or anything like that. Israel is a different matter. We have the support of aipac. The Jewish and pro Israeli influence in Washington remains massive. It will be harder for Trump to neglect us or desert us. And yet I think in the long run this could be a problem, especially if things get even more difficult than they are now.
- [10:21]
A
Yeah, I mean, Israel always looked at the United States as hoping it would be the good cop, and it usually is. Now it feels like there's an unpredictable cop. I should just say that that story about the Pentagon split over Trump's Israel policy is an exclusive on Semaphore. Let's talk more about the Israeli operation. And it looks like, and of course the distance is different, but it kind of looks like Israeli planes are operating over Tehran like they used to work over Beirut. It's really a new world, isn't it?
- [10:53]
B
Yes. There were signs of this during the last year or so, because as you may recall, when we had conversations after the last few times that Israel and Iran swap close April of last year and then October, we did say that Israel managed to take out some of Iran's or most of Iran's anti aircraft strategic system. Yet what we've seen in the last two days is much bigger than that. They're speaking of Tehran, not even in terms of Beirut, but in terms of Gaza. And Israel has identified a source of weakness, a point of weakness on the Iranian side, and this is exactly where it struck. And they've now announced. Yesterday the chief of the air force said something along the lines, as we have full operational freedom in the skies above Terran now, we should probably knock on wood because there could be a possibility that they somehow managed to target our planes and hit one or more of them. And yet this full control they've achieved is quite amazing. What we have now is a battle for time, of course, because the question is it's a sort of a competition not only against the clock, but against each other. What kind of damage Israel could bring to Tehran under these circumstances, with all of the Israeli Air force's lethal and accurate capabilities on the one hand, and on the other, what during that time could Iran do to us? Especially pointing its weapons towards the Israeli civilian population, the home front, Tel Aviv area, Haifa area, and so on. And as we've seen, the pictures are quite devastating. One more number that should be factored into the equation. Although we have no way of knowing what the exact number is, and Israel, rightfully so, is not releasing that information. The question is how many intercepting missiles we actually have, Whether it's Iron Dome or David's sling or perhaps more importantly, arrow and arrow free. Because it's no secret that these are very, very expensive to produce. Somewhere between two or three million dollars apiece. We don't have an unlimited number. So there's a possibility that if we keep. They keep launching missiles, it's assumed that they have close to 2,000 ballistic missiles that could reach the range of Israel, could reach Tel Aviv or so on. It's assumed that, you know, some have been destroyed already, some have been spent, have been launched. And yet in the long run, the question is, how many would they have left? If we finish our arrows, it's not that close to competition. I think we have the upper hand. We also have the American support, and we have different American batteries deployed here as well. But that's a tight spot. And these are exactly the issues that were discussed for years and years. And perhaps these were some of the reasons why the Israelis were not too keen on attacking. For a long time, Netanyahu believed in the idea. Whenever he talked to the professionals, they had all kinds of reservations. As I said, the most important of these was American support. But there were other discussions. Do we have enough ammunition to strike time after time? Will we have operational freedom? How many arrows could we use, and so on. I think we're ahead of the competition. Iran has suffered a lot. We tend to focus. This is a very Jewish thing. We tend to focus on our pain and suffering and troubles. And yet this was a devastating attack that Iran has encountered. But as this war goes on, there's this fear or danger that we step into another scenario, which is a war of attrition. And there things get more complicated. Because how do you decide such a war? How do you actually win this after failing to do the same?
- [14:44]
A
Same in Gaza, this could still escalate. I mean, Israel can say we're targeting, you know, oil rigs, we're Targeting, you know, government officials and. And the Iranians could say, we're going all out and hitting, you know, central Israel and populated areas. And this could escalate, you know, at a level that, that we haven't seen yet.
- [15:04]
B
Sure. This is a period when all bets are off. And this is an attempt to achieve victory on both sides by any means necessary. Now, if we go back to the Iranian strikes in April and October last year, what you saw was that they decided to target either military or intelligence sites which were close to places like Tel Aviv or Beersheba, but usually on the outskirts, air force bases and so on. So there was a certain damage to civilian population centers, but it was mostly focused on these air bases or intelligence bases. This time, some of the fire was targeted at the Kiriyah base at the IDF and the MOD headquarters in the middle of Tel Aviv. And you could see, again, Israeli laws do not permit us to discuss the exact sites where these missiles have fallen. But anybody who's watched videos from Tel Aviv, and they were all over the place, understands how relatively accurate these attacks were. This is nothing of the sort of attack that we've seen in 91 and first Gulf War. Then there were Skadra missiles, which were quite primitive, launched by Iraq's, by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And then it hit the main target, but it could hit a few miles away. This time it's much more accurate. On top of this, they attempt hitting infrastructure and so on. And it's quite clear that they do not take any steps of caution regarding the possibility of killing civilians. And in their view, they have an excuse because Israel began this war by targeting the many important officials of the regime. True, most of them were either members of the army, of the Air Force, or of the Revolutionary Guards, the irgc. And yet these people were killed in their homes, sometimes with their families. So for the Iranian leadership, first of all, there's anger towards Israel because of what we did. But there's also a perfect excuse to strike at our population centers, because what we're telling their crowd is this is time for revenge. It's the Israelis who started this.
- [17:13]
A
Okay, so that is one thing. Obviously, what I'm leading into is a question about escalation. This could still escalate. I mean, Israel can say we're targeting, you know, oil rigs, we're targeting, you know, government officials. And the Iranians could say we're going all out and hitting, you know, central Israel and populated areas. And this could escalate, you know, at a level that we haven't Seen yet.
- [17:38]
B
Sure. This is a period when all bets are off and this is an attempt to achieve victory on both sides by any means necessary. Now, if we go back to the Iranian strikes in April and October last year, what you saw was that they decided to target either military or intelligence sites which were close to places like Tel Aviv or Beersheba, but usually on the outskirts, Air force bases and so on. So there was a certain damage to civilian population centers, but it was mostly focused on these air bases or intelligence bases. This time some of the fire was targeted at the Kyria base at the IDF of and the MOD headquarters in the middle of Tel Aviv. And you could see again, Israeli laws do not permit us to discuss the exact sites where these missiles have fallen. But anybody who's watched videos from Tel Aviv and they were all over the place, understands how relatively accurate these attacks were. This is nothing of the sort of attack that we've seen seen in 91 in first Gulf War. Then there were Scudre missiles which were quite primitive, launched by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And then it hit the main target, but it could hit a few miles away. This time it's much more accurate. On top of this, they attempt hitting infrastructure and so on. And it's quite clear that they do not take any steps of caution regarding the possibility of killing civilians. And in their view, they have an excuse because Israel began this war by targeting the many important officials of the regime. True, most of them were either members of the army, of the Air Force or of the Revolutionary Guards, the irgc. And yet these people were killed in their homes, sometimes with their families. So for the Iranian leadership, first of all, there's anger towards Israel because of what we did. But there's also a perfect excuse to strike at our population centers because what we're telling their crowd is this is time for revenge. It's the Israelis who started this. And secondly, the strategic situation has somewhat changed. Iran is in fact pushing for a bomb. What we've seen in the last two years is Iran speeding up its attempts at enriching uranium. And especially since Trump was elected and after Hezbollah was defeated by, by Israel. And also we now have more information about what is known as the annihilation plan, the secret Iranian strategy discussed in recent years. And perhaps these discussions were, had become more intensive after October 7th. A real plan of how to destroy Israel with a combination, not necessarily by nuclear force, but with a combination of massive ballistic, massive number of ballistic missiles and also incursions through using the militias on Israel's borders. The way hamas operated on October 7. So this became more troubling. And we're now told by some Israeli officials that recent action by Iran in the last few months had led Israeli intelligence into assuming that Iran in fact was preparing to, to take the final steps towards producing a bomb. Now we'll have to see the judgment is not out yet, the verdict. We'll have to see what kind of information is out. And do, for instance, do Western security agencies agree with the Israeli assessment of the situation? And yet this is quite serious. For instance, David Albright, who's one of the leading nuclear experts in the world, has mentioned the IAEA latest reports which talked about a massive amount of uranium produced in Iran to a level of 60%. And what Albright is basically saying is, listen, nobody in the world produces such an amount of high grade level uranium if they're not interested in making the final step towards 90, 93% and producing a bomb, there's no other explanation for it. So Netanyahu could be right on this. And of course, he's been focused on this for years and years and years. My question remains. On the one hand, this could be the right decision. And apparently, for instance, if you listen to what Eyal Zamir, the new chief of staff of the army is saying, this was a justified decision. There was no other way to deal with that. On the other hand, I have my doubts about the person making the decisions considering his legal situation, considering during the political situation, and remembering all of his attempts to, you know, push away any claims of his responsibility to the October 7 disaster. So, you know, you could, you could hold the same two beliefs that the two different beliefs at the same time, on the one hand that this was in fact necessary and on the other hand that perhaps Netanyahu was not the right man to take that call.
- [22:45]
A
Finally, and maybe this is a difficult question, but how does this end? How long will it take? And you know, and how does this end? Let's try the optimist's version.
- [22:54]
B
You know, it's hard to say. It's a battle for time right now. Who has more time and who uses the time more effectively. If the Israeli air force continues in devastating attacks, maybe Iran's leadership will be pushed into a corner. They have huge problems with their civilian population. Most of Iranian citizens, as far as we know, object to the regime and would like to get rid of it. On the other hand, this is the exact reason why the regime, in their view, can probably not give an inch. Because if they do, they expose themselves as even weaker than We've assumed. And then that may lead the way to an attempt for revolution. So this is one possible outcome. Possibly Israel would be better at this than the Iranians shooting the missiles. Gradually, we'll see this cannot go on forever because there's a limited amount of weapons on both sides. But gradually we'll see that Israel will have the upper hand. And then with a combined pressure from the United States and perhaps even Russia and China, some kind of an agreement is reached. And that's a better agreement than the JCPOA signed in 2015, better than what Obama achieved. And for Trump, that would be a great win. The question is how much would it take? How many days would this take? And what kind of price the Israelis are going to pay for this. And then there's a possible. And that could go on for weeks. Then there are other possible scenarios. This could be a war of attrition, which could take months. Think of Russia and Ukraine, the battle. Think of Iraq, Iran in the 80s, what was called the war on the cities. The Iranians are up to this in a way. It would not be that destructive. But we're further away than Iraq is from Iran. And yet this could be dangerous. And we could also fail, God forbid. But I should raise the scenario in which at one point or another we have to admit that we tried pushing Iran into a corner and it didn't work out. We were very successful at the beginning. But the question remains, do we have a follow up? Can we persuade the Americans to join? And do we have an exit strategy? And these questions, I can't say that I sleep at night easily when I think of that, because as we said in the beginning, this is exactly the stuff which Israel doesn't really do very well if you judge from the current history.
- [25:21]
A
You started your answer by saying a few weeks, then you went to Iran. Iraq, which lasted a war that lasted eight years. I'm going to choose to keep with a few weeks. We're really grateful for you talking to us. Thank you so much. Sure.
- [25:36]
B
Thank you.
- [25:38]
A
And as noted, we will try and update you more frequently than usual. Check out more episodes later in the week. And everyone in Israel stay safe. See you soon.