Hey, guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today
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out at patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse. Hello, everyone, welcome to
another episode of I so On, and I'm going to announce my interrot and
the host introduction first because we never rehearsed this so and then we'll get around
to the guest I'm Andy Milburn, I'm Jason Lyons, I'm Dimitrik on Tacos
and today as a guest, we have Alex Pleisis. He's a non resident
Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council. Very interestingly, I think, I mean,
his whole resume is interesting, but of particular interest especially to our listeners.
He's just taken over the the Terrorism Studies Group. Is that right?
Alex at the Atlantic Council. You know, he's a and perhaps unlike some
of the think tank think tank crowd, Alex has plenty of practical experience.
He was Chief of Special Programs in the under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
special operations some low intensity conflict. It's so much easier saying, ASD sold
that I get beating. Anyway, kudos to you. That's one part of
the Pentagon that I think, honestly, any anyone in soft probably does want
to work, even if they don't know it. Alex, I am turning
it absolutely over to you and to guide the discussion as you wish, topics
of your choice. It is. Thank you. That was a kind of
introduction. I'd like to think of myself as like the forest gump of the
g Wat era, stumbling my way through historical events. I have no business
being involved with that's no way all like Iraq, Yes, exactly, yeah,
along those lines I mean of late. Yes, the terrorism studies program
of the Council has been revamped obviously in light of what has transpired, as
we all know from guests and colleagues in the community. You know, after
the airport fell on Cobble, the agency was basically told to take the Afghan
maps off the wall. We've all moved on. We're going to you know,
pivot to the Pacific was the famous phrase. We're going to look to
the threats coming you know from China and East China see and then South Chines
see. And then all of a sudden the terrorist said, hey, you
may be done with us, but we're not done with you globally and regionally.
Right. So we spent better part of twenty years going out after Sunni
Cellfist. You know, Jihadis groups across the region, you know, from
Alkaita to Isis et cetera, who were seen as a geostrategic threat, particularly
with the existence of the caliphate under Isis that you know, then dissipated due
to combat operations. But then we've seen a not a resurgence, but one
that's been there the entire time under you know, boiling right there under the
surface, the boiling frog syndrome, which was really the threat posed by Iranian
state sponsorship of terrorist groups in the region. And for the purpose of discussion,
right the definition for terrorism we use is politically motivated violence against civilians.
So somebody is using acts of violence against those civilians and the hopes that they
can get them either as voters or a you know, dictatorial regime, to
get the regime itself to change its behavior in line with whatever the group wants,
is what we're talking about. So for Iran in many cases that you
know happens to be in Israel or in other places, or against US forces
to try to get us out of the region where they don't want US based
sort of nearby. So that's been a focus on the counter terrorism side,
and obviously immediate short term then being Amas, which we you know kind of
talked about and October seventh, so my role at the Council in addition to
the terrorism program, so part of the N seven initiative or the Negev Forum,
which is where the Abraham Accords were sort of born, and so that's
building on the work that the Abraham Accords hadn't done. I was in Abu
Dhabi last March, Bahrain last July, and I was supposed to land in
Israel and October seventh, actually the rest of my teammates in landed from the
Council. We had about thirty members of Congress that were that were coming,
many of them we saw on television immediately afterwards saying I was in Israel,
and I was there under rocket attack, and they were there for our conference.
What they were doing there, Ministers from a number of Arab countries were
coming, Billionaire financiers from New York and from the States were coming in to
talk about financial investment in the in the region, improve the lives about Israelis
and Palestinians. And then October seventh happens and twelve hundred people are slaughtered,
and probably the most sim the most heinous fashion of scene. We'll kind of
get into all that a little bit. I took two hundred hostages at that
point, and I have to tell you, having done began analysis on the
fly at the Pentagon and senior leader spaces and then you know, through the
course of my career and sigh out here or there, seeing the ISIS videos,
seeing the al Qaeda videos, they were very business like, for lack
of a better term, black shadowy figures. Remember you know Gihati John who
was part of the Beatles, you know, with the ISIS videos and some
of the others, they would make very serious policy statements, right. Their
acts of violence were grotesque and what they were doing to intimidate people, but
it was policy base, right. We want X, you know, we
want you out of our lands. The caliphit's going to take over. And
even though we don't agree with what they're doing or how they're pursuing it,
it was seen as business with serious business in the videos and meant to intimidate.
I went to the Atlanta Council because the Israeli Embassy provided the forty seven
minutes of footage of the attack that transpired in October seventh, and I have
to tell you it was among the most heinous things I've seen, not only
for what had transpired and the callous disregard for human life, even you know,
women and children, but the maniacal laughter. The phone calls back to
mom and dad bragging about the fact that they had just I just killed Jews.
Mom, your son's a hero, and you know, high fiving each
other, giggling about what was going on as they're you know, killing people
in some pretty awful torturing folks. Basically, there's no way to describe it.
In some pretty awful ways. It was almost indescribable. And if you
think about the problem that we had there, it was twenty five hundred people
across the border from Gaza into Israel to contemit these atrocities. This was not
a cell of five to ten deranged individual it's even a couple of cells.
Twenty five hundred is a massive sample size the population there that came across the
border an unfortunately indicative of the indoctrination into the terrorist ideology that Hamas has pursued
for quite some time, and it resulted in the deaths of the twelve hundred
people in Israel. And what I also, you know, you derived from
looking at the situation is yeah, I mean dealt with hostage cases. As
part of my that was the other part of my portfolio at Salek was hostage
rescue. I was on the twenty fifteen hostage Policy Review, where we created
the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, We created the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs,
which is currently Rodner Carston's his position. And you know, we wrote the
Presidential Executive Order and the strategy for responding to hostage events. Still deal with
hostage cases, still helping hostage cases in Afghanistan, I few other places around
the world. And what the situation told me when looking at is a couple
of things off the bat. First of all, there were some debates about
whether or not Hamas truly knew the scope of what it was doing. The
hostages weren't taken from one kibbutz or one small village. They were taken from
all across southern Israel, from a number of different cells that were operating right
out of twenty five hundred people. So it was clear from the onset that
they were given instructions to take hostages and bring them back to Gaza. And
why would you take hostages in that number. The only reason you would need
that many hostages to bring back to Gaza is if you were aware that what
you were planning to do was so incredibly big and spectacular. For lack of
a better term, in terms of the attack itself and the carnage it was
going to cause. That you need to mitigate the gap and military capabilities between
the IDF and whatever Hamas has, between rockets and fighters on the ground,
and the way you do that is by hostages. That's your negotiating chip,
bargaining chip. Israel has to participated in lopsided deals for years, releasing thousands
of people and even you know, murderers for dead bodies of Israeli citizens to
bring them back. So Hamas knew what it was doing and what it created
is this nightmare scenario where you have essentially Gaza eight by twenty five miles controlled
by a terrorist organization that's effectively walled and blocked off. It's often described as
the most densely populator, and it's not the most densely popular. I don't
even think it makes top twenty five. But it is extremely densely populated.
Out of two million people in that small space, with an underground tunnel network
five hundred kilometers or so, if not more. It's basically a giant ant
farm. I mean there's stuff all over the place, and so you've got
this densely populated environment that is non permissive. With a hostile population there towards
the Israelis, and with two hundred hostages dispersed across a tunnel system and in
buildings across the area, it makes trying to conduct simultaneous hostage rescue operations virtually
impossible. You've got small arms fired RPGs and potentially shoulder fired missiles, manpads,
et cetera. Make helicopter missions, you know, and they're extremely difficult,
right for any aerial insertion, you know, trying to come over the
beach is obviously difficult too, is you're going to be seen coming, So
you're really basically limited. That point to a large scale ground incursion that we
saw along with special operations for US is trying to conduct limited raids and so
you're really it puts you in a shitty position, for lack of a better
term, it really forces you into a primary stance of negotiation to try to
get the hostages released, because there really isn't a good viable means. So
Hamas really set themselves up in this case to get what it is that they
were looking for. Now, whether they're going to get it, it doesn't
look like that's going to happen here at the end based on negotiations. But
this was well planned, this was well thought out. Yes, certainly,
I mean no argument there. I think you know, that's the you know,
having spent a good deal of time in this round the last six months
up set on this program. The sad thing is, you know, as
as someone who really loves this, is that I don't think that country will
ever be the same again. I can't. I just can't see it.
I don't think that people outside the country understand that. I think you know,
and and I think at the same time and this this may not be
neither there here nor there, but it's but I think it's an interesting aspect
and I think I'm not sure what the comment is on this, but you
know, as masks whether or not, you know, as they try and
distance themselves from some of the worst random atrocities and yet claim clean you know,
responsibility for others, you know, it almost becomes irrelevant. But an
interesting point I think is and worth pointing out with no agenda, is that
a lot of those people who got out of regards who were common criminals or
opportunists, sadly, and that is what now the idea I thinks. I
mean, I'm sorry the you know, the IDF thinks occurred in some of
the kabutz is that weren't on the map but were nevertheless act right, you
hear the same thing, and I think, you know, do you right
your point? If you look at the polling data coming out, they're ninety
percent support for the war on Gaza, ninety percent for you know, eradicating
Hamas for lack of a better term, fifteen percent you know, support for
Prime Minister Notatan Yahoo, which is which you think is rare, right,
I mean, after nine eleven we saw rally around the frost. That's not
high, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, I mean having
been there on surprise that it's not hi. I didn't need anyone who liked
them, you know, that's what they're furious. But like you said,
but but yeah, they've rallied. That's absolutely the point. So so I
wanted to now kind of jump forward in and I know, you know,
every time, no one can talk about this discussion without getting angry calls,
you know, and so on our listeners know hopefully hey listen, this is
we're going to go down this pop because we need to just arguing either way
as we get you know, fast forward to where we are now, right
and I believe and tell me if this is you know, incorrect summer and
then and then absolutely want to hear your filth. So so you know,
the things over the weekend, especially in the Arab media, there was there
were kind of optimistic rumors that her Maas was going to and accept the latest
proposal, which happened to be an Egyptian broken one. Right and then and
then sometimes Sunday morning, Israeli time, har Maas targeted an assembly era in
there coron Chuan killing or Israeli soldiers wounding, wounding nine right after that.
So so that that in in in you know, as far as the Israelis
were concerned, Hey, that's all bets are off right, sure, and
that's it went into session and not then that said, I'm sorry. The
cabinet went into session, came out by unanus unanimous vote, decided to go
ahead with invasion of Rafa, her mask her Mass's claim at the time,
so us, hey, this was self defense, so we're going to take
Rafa anyway. That's why they were there in that assembly area and the whole
useless borrow of arguments. But as the as the you know, kind of
the initial shaping action start in a phase that was estimated to take two to
three weeks, you know, evacuation of personnel, insertion of special operations forces,
gathering an assembly, as all those steps are taking place. Arguably William
Burns was able to say, hey, look all this stuff is happening,
you know, kind of the veiled stake behind the carrot, and the carrot
being potentially survival of Hamas leadership. And that's and at that point Hamas counterproposed,
but it wasn't the Egyptian proposal. It had changed in at least two
points that the Israelis regard is critical. And that's kind of where we are
now agree. And I think, you know, as you mentioned for listeners
who are in there, you know, history starts for people on either side
of this argument, either after Palestinians or after Jews were killed and people argue
to the death that were Who's if you got the moral right here we're largely
talking about here is the military tactics and situation that on the ground that's going
on. You can draw your own conclusion about who's correct and who's not.
And that's not. I'm not really interested in getting into the moral rights and
wrongs here so much as like we're having a discussion about what's happening from a
tactical perspective, from a strategy perspective, what's going well and what's not,
and we and we talk, you know, we talk about politics here too.
Yeah, absolutely, I think, you know, I think our listeners
count on us to be as bipartisant as we can, or at least if
we present one view, can we argue back. And we've got pretty good
at that. That's fair. Yeah, feel free to express your views at
all. Okay, I I think so. I wrote on October eleventh that
wrote a piece for the Atlantic Council basically detailing exactly what's happening now, the
military strategy, how it was going to work. So from the beginning Prime
Minister Nataniell who laid out what he declared was his goal for the operation,
which would be the demilitarization of a moss Right. We know from twenty years
of counter terrorism ourselves, you can't kill an ideology with bombs and bullets.
That's simply not going to fly, right, But you can degrade and disrupt
a terrorist organization such as isis right in the caliphate or so called caliphate to
the point where it's rendered and effective and and operate the way that it was.
But in order to do that in an area that they control, you
basically have to conduct a giant cort on in search of Gaza, which are
then going to break up into chunks, which is what they did. So
if you you know, at the beginning of the operation, they basically,
I mean and as your well ware, you know, midway down Gaza is
Wadi Gaza, like a wadi that kind of goes across the little valley,
and they declared that to be the basically the line of advance, and they
told everybody in northern Gaza to get south, so they included the ect evacuation
of Gaza city. Roughly a million residents then fled south and Israel began conducting
clearing operations inside the city. Hamas remnants were they are the battalions, and
they fought on. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers have been killed. This was a
real battle that's been going on. You know, Hamas did stay and fight
and the goal is to get the strategic weapons and the fighters. But when
I looked at the forty seven minute video of what transpired that day, and
that's again where some of the analysis comes from. There were no strategic weapons.
There weren't even really many technicals being used. This was AK forty seven's
pistols, knives and grenades, That's what I saw. So the fighters themselves
are what conducted that attack, that threat to Israel, right, So for
them it's the act of battalions on the ground. So if your goal is
to demilitarize Hamas and also ensure that that type of attack doesn't happen again,
and I don't mean from a radicalization perspective, the people turn around say,
well, gright, you're creating another generation of radicalized individuals because they've been now
subjected to total lost their families, their homes, their livelihoods, and this
is just going to be a perpetual cycle of violence. That is one counter
argument to go from a strictly military perspective and achieving the objectives that were laid
out in front of them. You know, the only way you can really
do that is you got to go in and search, and so that would
include remaining areas or raw fund everywhere else. Because the second you pull out
and all of a sudden, IMS still has strategic stockpiles of rockets and everything
else, and rockets are flying across the border. The chiefs, the government
who is responsible for ensuring this type of tactics to happen again, look like
utter in complete clowns. So that's the political problem, never mind the actual
military problem itself of not getting the remaining fighters and the stockbillus. You're never
going to get every AK forty seven, You're not going to get every single
fighter. But again, it's about disruption and degrading the institution to where it
doesn't function, and you've got to deal with the remnants sort of afterwards.
And so the problem is when everybody pushed south again. If you look at
if you picture Gaza as a giant rectangle for lack of a better term,
and starting up the top and moving south, everybody's essentially wedged between what's a
wall on the right hand side or the east side, and on the north
side south side is a wall with Egypt, and on the left is the
Mediterranean Sea that Egypt that Israel has basically a naval blockade. So it's a
giant rectangle where everybody's stuck in the center, and so everybody's now pushed south
close to that wall with Egypt nearly two million people. Infrastructure has been destroyed,
so difficult in many cass sewage, water are those types of things.
Humanitarian conditions are extremely difficult on the ground. I mean the Sidney McCain ahead
the World Food Program has talked about famine and other issues that are on the
ground there which are very real. I mean, we've been running rescue operations
in Gaza since October, helping to evacuate American citizens and allies, and it's
the same thing you get from our folks on the ground. You know,
in terms of the conditions, they're right. So the question then became,
what the hell do you do with the two million people trapped south and around
the wall, and the Israeli answer as well, we're gonna have to shuffle
them around the battlespace literally like in a circle, and as we move in,
we'll push them one way or the other and try to send people back
north, although you don't want people behind your rear flank. And so it
became this, my god, this humanitarian disaster. You know, we need
to stop this operation. They're going to have to go into rawling. You
cannot achieve the military objective of demilitarization and leave strategic areas where you've got known
Hamas fighters and stockpiles of weapons intact and expect to achieve your objective. It's
simply not going to happen. So when everybody's arging against them, looking from
a military and security perspective, they're going to have to do it. And
then Hamas is like, well, you know, we don't want this,
We want to be fairly troops with it all from Gaza. Yeah, you
also opened a giant hole in the fence and opened up hell for lack of
a better term, with twenty five hundred people coming across the border and slaughtering
twelve hundred Israelis and probably the most heinous way they've seen and relative decides their
population. It's a very significant number of people and there was not. And
again the arguments are, well, you know, we've been trapped like you
know, caged animals in Gaza, and this is you know, resistance fighting
back against an oppressor who is unoccupied territory and they have no business being here
in the first place. The justifications will go back and forth in terms of
whether people should or shouldn't, whether you believe it was the right thing to
do or not. Five hundred people across the border. They blew a hole
and a billion dollar front system that was out there, and they murdered twelve
hundred people. Alex can I can I just not, you know, certainly
not argue that point. But to talk about U the you know, the
the operation itself, and and I think, you know, I think it's
fair to for me to share I think at this stage a pessimistic assumption about
the hostages. And sure it's not easy for me to do that. I
actually know you know, one of the hostage families and have met, you
know, But I I just it's got to always be front and center as
a strategic goal for the Israelis. I understand that. But in practical terms,
although it's importance remains great, I think in practical terms, we you
know, we we're looking at a very long shot, right, you know,
for for even getting the forty LT. But that's anyway, that's that's
kind of that's something we can can say here clear ye. But I understand
in Israel, no, you know, that's a you cannot talk about that.
But but from the from the perspective military operation. Then as far as
goals, as far as objectives, you know, it's almost an opening.
And it's not a secret. I mean, there have been rumblings among IDF
leadership about kind of lack of strategic objectives. They have no problem. In
fact, they insist that many of them, I mean that Rafa has to
be cleared. But they they're needing kind of just like they're needing some kind
of overall goal. Who takes over from her mask? That's that's number one.
How do you see that evolving? Number two? Is you mentioned and
we're all aware of this problem to include of course the Israelis, the you
know this whole clear and hold. They just don't have demand power to hold
Gaza. They haven't made an attempt to do so. That isn't for tapical
reasons. It's simply because they can't keep three hundred thousand reservers tied down.
So they've had to move out of areas of Gaza. They have tried to,
they have retained, you know, they've kept solve in that they've they've
got far better visibility of what goes on. But the plain fact is,
as they know at Hamas's backfield those areas and retaken control, and that is
always going to be a problem. So those kind of questions are linked how
how to solve that problem? Never mind, you know, let's not even
worry about well, let's not talk about the hostages at this point, but
those goals. So, I mean, I think it's it's actually probably the
most point of question and the one that needs to be answered the most.
Quite frankly, there's an obsession with RAFA right now because it's been the thing
in the news, and you know, with a progressive administration on the US
side and around the world, with seeing a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians.
It's my god, the humanitarian situation we need to focus on. RAFA
is going to be done, and not that long. This is not going
to be a very long operation. As you mentioned, it pivots to the
longer term question and it's one that has actually probably I think the worst moan
Israeli security perspective. Like you mentioned, who is going to take over security
afterwards? Inside because you need to, like we talked about clear bill and
holds, somebody has to provide security. Who is going to govern that space?
Right? And then we talk about reconstruction. If we look at the
damage that we've seen, fifty percent of buildings are damaged or destroyed in one
capacity or another. It's going to be a decade to rebuild, at least
on most estimates. If the people there don't accept the governing institution that is
put on top of them, right, they may rise up against it.
So if it's not a if the Pelstony authority doesn't come in and they're not
accepted, or somebody else outside of Hamas right now, knowledge you have Hamas
remnants that are going to rise up, but you may have the population that's
going to rise up. And then for security, if that security force ends
up being the IDF and there's not an outside force of contractors or a coalition
of Arab states or whatever or else has been proposed, you essentially end up
with the Iractionnario and I hate using these comparisons generalize ones to other conflicts,
but if we think about it, it's essentially where we are, right all
right, We've taken Bagdad, and we've we've beaten the Iraqi army in two
thousand and three, fantastic. We're a uniformed military force whose mission is to
conduct military operations and defeat an adversary. Now you're telling me, I got
a whole display. We could do the security mission. Sure, Okay,
who does governance? Anybody in here do governance? Nation and state building?
Who the hell is responsible for that? So and that's again when we had
a population and an ingenious decision to send the Iraqi army home without their weapons
and have a bunch of military age males without jobs or income who are now
pissed off at what's going on. Right, and at least there there was
at least a democratic election of local candidates who were not selected by the US.
Eventually, right, there's a democracy where you have a Shia majority government
for the first time after Saddam was removed. Right in Gaza, we're not
even talking about that. So we're talking about potentially these Raelies from what we're
hearing of these so far, because there's been no announcements to what the hell
of plan is. Right again, Rafa is the big thing. Great,
what happens in two three weeks a month when this is done? If the
plan is for the IDF to remain there at the security posture, also administer
temporary governance and then start the reconstruction process and try to find some alternative government
against there hasn't been elections in the Palestinia, a decision, by the way,
which has tremendous economic and social implications throughout Israelis society much. It's not
an operation. It's not like deciding to surge the military to Iron one hundred
percent, as you mentioned, because it's just simply not there from a size
perspective, and the economic impact to israel effort from the limited. You know,
the war went only on for a few months. We've been at war
for twenty years in the US. There was a pretty sizable impact the Israeli
economy with people that we're missing. We're seeing it Ukraine another small country as
well. You know, thirty percent of factories or thirty percent of production capacities
down in many cases for Ukrainian factories where people are off to work. So
the impacts are real, as you mentioned, from an economic perspective as well
as societal. So even if that wasn't the case, but it is,
you have to worry about that. You don't have the numbers, and you
end up with that point. So for folks that are listening right, the
definition of what we're talking about here is an insurgency where you have a group
of people who are going to rise up against the governing authority that they don't
recognize as legitimate and against the security apparatus in that case being the idea that
they don't see is legitimate either. And it only takes me. I mean,
we did this in Iraq for a long time. I gave two years
of my life almost in a country that I'll never get back over weapons of
mass destruction that didn't exist, fighting in a counterinsurgency right and against an insert
an insurgent force. And in this case what happened hamas fighter's sticking their you
know, rifle out of windows again. Like I said, you're not going
to get every aka, every pistol taking pot shots. That is rarely soldiers
killed two, three, four today, five tomorrow. It doesn't take that
much where that adds up over time and you end up in the sustain It's
actually Amasa's best case scenario. No longer do they have to break through a
fence to attack his fahlya soldiers. They can do it in their own backyard,
you know, And I and I just you know one other comment,
I guess just the kind of context. But the term occupation itself carries an
incredible emotional historical weight in discussions with the IDF, and I just turn them
insout it now. I think one hundred percent, right, is a very
emotional term. I mean even the way that you know, areas of gaz
are described as you know, the refugee camp, and people are thinking there's
pitch tens, you know, somewhere because they're used to seeing that elsewhere.
And refugees are people who flee their own homeland to go to another country,
right, Otherwise they're internally displaced persons by Definitely, if you're inside your own
country, you're an IDP. If you flee to a neighboring country orn outside
country, you're a refugee. They're not refugee gamps. People have been living
there since nineteen forty eight, right. And the terminology is important because it's
for them to evoke some emotion and you know, a reflection of what they
see as an occupation by the Israelis of land that doesn't belong to them.
Whereas this is the sovereign state of Israel, and we've got people in our
country or neighbors, they was like preferred as a dangerous neighborhood, who want
to kill us. So you're right, it's a very very different mindset.
It does evoke a lot of emotion, and we're talking about it, and
you know, there's a question of whether or not there should be a two
state solution or a one state solution, and unfortunately, this is the other
conundrum that we need to talk about as well as part of this. It's
blatantly clear, based on the messaging from the Arab States, Russia, hiling
on, China, other major players in the world, that they believe the
solution to this is a Palestinian state based on the sixty seven borders before that
war, which a large squapth of land in the West Bank with some land
swaps as they'll call it, whatever the hell that looks like. And then
the guy's a strip. From an Israeli perspective, forget the thinness of the
state of Israel at those borders, whether or not it's militarily defensible, eleven
to nine miles wide, and it's thin this point, right, you can
cut the country in half. Put that, just put that aside for a
second. This is question of now of whether a two state solutions possible.
Is there somebody they can trust to govern a neighboring state to give up that
territory? Right these are? And then are you rewarding terrorism by agreeing to
a two state solution even if it's not with Hamas after twelve hundred people were
killed? And is that now going to be seen as a forcing function for
future policy? Ask on behalf of other people? And politically inside and that's
the other thing. Politically inside Israel, there isn't the appetite if you're looking
at the polling data for a two state solution right now, So you have
that as just the general background for what's going on, then there's the political
reality. So for those of you who are not following Israeli politics because it's
not something most people would do. So it's not you know, just it
is what it is, Prime Minister NATANYAHUO. It's a parliamentary style system.
So it's a majority of the members of parliament get together for a majority and
then they elect their leader who becomes the prime minister. In this case,
due to a history of you know, then you always been one of the
longest serving premiers in Israeli history. He's got a couple of stints in and
out of the job. There. The coalition he had to put together to
get the job includes you know, what's described as the far right inside the
Kanesset, which are groups of people who are adamantly against a Palestinian state.
You know, you know, Ben Gavie's one who's very famous for being outspoken.
I mean, he was so outspoken and outlandish in his behavior. The
Idea wouldn't let him join. He actually didn't serve, which is rare in
a country work service and mandatory conscription and getting in not only just to serve,
but which he is now Minister for Security right, national security, right,
and that touches on a couple of things, like you're right, it's
Minister for national security. And so for folks who are looking at this problem
set, you've got a guy who's basically who's feelings towards the Palestinians was so
great. He's now the Minister for internal security, like like you mentioned Nation
Security, guy who's made some outlandish statements publicly, you know, like who
cares about this? This is be Israelis and the Palestinian rights don't matter,
which has been not received well so Natanyahu even if he wanted to make some
more of these, you know what would be seen as progressive gestures towards you
know, in our state or what not, Palestinian state. There's members of
his cabinet who are adamantly opposed to this. And when you have a razor
thin majority like we're seeing in the US right We've seen the shit show in
the House of Representatives over the last six months where it's like a game of
musical chairs to forgere o that hol the speaker is going to be every six
weeks. It's basically the same thing for the Israelis. Know who you know
does something that's considered too brash or too far is a concession. His government
could literally collapse in terms of these folks who pull out of the coalition and
yeah, there's a war cabinet, but at the end of the day,
they could say, you know, we're not doing this, and there's not
a requirement to call for elections, and he wants to remain in power.
So you have this domestic political problem with a razor thin majority and a group
of people who are opposed to an Arab state, and then you have a
global community who is saying that we're going to pay for this, will help
with reconstruction, will recognize the state of Israel, you know, in terms
of the potential Saudi deal on the table, but it all hinges upon the
acceptance of a Palestinian state on the sixty seven borders. And so the global
community's viewpoint on this in many states, their desires and outcome for Palestinians is
at stark contrast and odds to domestic Israeli politics and the realities of the governing
situation inside Israel. And so that is probably one of the biggest problems that
people aren't seeing. That's driving a lot of the inability to get to get
some of it's done, because you got people saying you need to do this.
People are in power, like I can't do that. My government will
collapse, and I want to remain in power. And that's essentially what we're
looking at. Sorry, yeah, ahead to me real quick. You said
something a while back. Sorry it took me so long, but you had
mentioned in the in the after you know, the I don't know, but
the possibility but you know, like an Arab led uh not I guess occupation,
but temporary governance perhaps or security or something like that. Is there in
whether officially or not, Is there are there any Arab states that would be
willing to raise your hand that you know of and say, hey, we'll
hold on to things, hold things together until you get it. And my
second part of that question would be how long would the Palaestatan people be willing
to put up with that? Because that is another I could turn it to
another occupation. So I will asge that with yes. But so yes,
there are, but with some conditions. You know, Gaza was administered by
Egypt for quite some time. People forget that, you know, historically,
it's not the first time they've had an outside the country that's helped to administer
the situation there. Egypt also has the highest anti Israeli sentiment in the entire
Arab world. I think I think a third of all Arabs live within six
miles of then out river between Egypt and Sudan. When you look at it,
it's the epicenter of our culture and language, one of the longest standing
peace deals of Israel. But the highest anti is really sentiment that's kind of
around and there's no desire I think for the Egyptians to do that. They're
broke at this point they needed the IMF loans. You know, Ceci's been
trying to God to country the best that he can, and they were worried
about a permanent displacement the Palestinians. And the reason that I mentioned this is
tied directly to your question. For an Arab forced to go into Gaza to
provide security potentially have to shoot terrorists that are trying to come out from a
killing fellow Arabs, fellow Muslims, and also pay for reconstruction without a commitment
to a two state solution based on the sixty seven borders or something that the
Palestinian people would find acceptable for a lot of the Arab states, and again
the Egyptians with opening the gate to the Sinai, the biggest concern that they
have there is if this is a permanent displacement and I open the gate,
am I complicit in the end of a Palestinian state that includes Gaza. Am
I doing Israel's dirty work for me? And the same thing is kind of
thought and spoken in the background, but not publicly amongst the Arab states as
they're looking the situation. If I provide the security force here and I do
the reconstruction and there's no Palestinian state. I essentially am green lighting the Israelis
coming in conducting their actions in Gaza, all the death and destruction that took
place. Whether you agree with Israel's justification for doing so or not, it's
the Raaly situation what's transpired. Am I complicit now in that because I'm providing
these services on the back end and the Palestinians get nothing for it. So
I think, yes, there are states who are willing to do so,
but it's going to require that to be part of a comprehensive plan that includes
a two state solution. And right now, there's nothing for them to gain.
There's absolutely nothing for them to gain to come in and offer to do
this. They're vilified, you know, by half the world, and they're
not really achieving anything and that great cost. And you know, honestly,
the impetus behind normalization has nothing to do with ideology. It's everything to do
with the economies, right and so and so why why in order to achieve
that would any country volunteer to take on a massive, unending, indefinite economic
cost, not to mention all the political baggage that comes with it. But
I'm not sure that. You know, when I say we collectively us,
I'm not sure that our State Department always understands that. I think sometimes again,
whether we're dealing with the Arab or the Israeli side, we tend to
mirror image our own goals and objectives rather than you know, be able to
see it through their eyes. You mean not everybody's warrantogy goals are aligning,
fix it and yeah, but I mean inside and inside every Middle East,
and it's just an American Texan struggling to be waiting get his or even worse
than New York helping the world. That's the case, was that life from
Block is like I would advise you that there's certain areas of New York not
to invade if you ever make it to America. When he's talking to the
the whole true, the reconstruction alone is just a bad show. Can we
can we touch on like what's going on with the hostage negotiation? He's fire
negotiation because there was like some back and forth yesterday every you know, one
side was saying yeah, we yeah, we agreed. The other side is
like no, no, no, we didn't. Yeah, So I think
that's a great place to start. So they originally started with two hundred hostages.
Let me just make something equivalently clear as far as I'm concerned from a
policy perspective on these works. You take hostages, you're holding them against their
will. You were holding them inside Gaza. The Israelis are telling you we
are going to conduct military operations here as a result of the attack that took
place. It is your responsibility as the hostage taker and you take your happy
ass and the hostages with you out of the combat area that's there. And
if you can't to basically rodrop and say hey, I can't do that.
I realized we're talking in an idealistic world, right that this is what's supposed
to happen. But from a responsibility standpoint, that is the truth. A
mosto people is holding them against their will. So out of those two hundred
people, we did see that early group of releases, right that the initial
deal that saw you know, a ceasefire that took place, and we saw
the hostages being released, So we saw that population dwindle. Since then,
we've seen a number of bodies that have been recovered either by as rarely special
forces or by you know hamas videos and announcing these people have died and then
telling them it was Israel's fault as means of propaganda. Whether it's true or
not irrelevant because they were using it for propaganda purposes. So, because how
many people are actually left now Israel knows in the literal sense, there are
people who are missing who were assumed taken on October seventh, who've either been
seen on videos or whatever else, so we know what kind of with that
looks like, and most at least state that they were taken alive. Right,
because there's another category of people who are missing though we don't know.
Yeah, live for dead bodies and people forget. The state of Israel was
founded in the modern State of Israel was founded in nineteen forty eight, right,
So everybody had come from somewhere else Zionism as they called it, starting
the Zionis Congress starting the late eighteen hundreds, right, started bringing people into
the war of independence. The modern state founded. The reason I mentioned it
is there were waves of refugees and immigrants that came to Israel, Jews from
around the world and the after about the World War two and where they're being
oppressed in other places to come into Israel to find the Jewish state, as
you know, their rightful places as a as a Jew in the world,
that you are authorized to come to Israel and become a citizen if you if
you are a Jew, both in terms of religium and also I forget the
connection is one grand parent. I forget what the bloodline requirement is. But
everybody, the point is it became somewhere else. So a lot of these
hostages are dual citizens. They're dual nationals because it's such a young country in
terms of the modern state, that the people hold dual citizenship from wherever their
parents are. In some cases they themselves were born if they're not first generation
immigrants. I believe there's still five Americans that are part of that that pool
that's there. You've got a couple of other problems. There was heinous sexual
violence that took place on October seventh. You know there you've seen the videos
of the Israeli female soldier in the gray sweatpants with the trail of blood you
know, from her the back to the backside as she's being forced into a
vehicle. While the sexual violence was not in the forty seven minute video.
I've seen enough. And then myself outside of that video itself, and then
also spoken enough people and survivors, et cetera to know that it was real.
I fear that there are a number of female hostages or soldiers who may
not come back as a result of not wanting them, not wanting to tell
that story. It is a real rim fear that I have that I don't
have anything other than a suspicion based on the way things have gone down.
But then more important that you mentioned in recent days they've been negotating last couple
of weeks. The asked was for forty women, children and elderly as part
of that deal, and Amas basically came back and said, we don't have
that many that we can find. Right, Well, you took them,
so when you're saying can't find them, it's not like you know, you
put somebody somewhere like you're responsible for them. And I asked, is it
just Hamas that's holding the hostages or is it like Islamichi Hoad Are there other
groups? There were multiple, So to start out with, you had Hamas
Palestinian, Islamichi had and then as Andy rightfully noted, you had a bunch
of local criminal shitbags who also broke through the hole in the fence that well
Hamas sold the responsible and they created the whole. They let they let these
you know, pat but multiple groups that were holding them, which was part
of the problem. And again in the hostage situation, the first thing you
want to do is you want to establish who's holding them as much you could
figure out who these people are, who's the decision maker on the release,
get to them, figure out what the hell they want? Can you actually
give them something that's not a policy concession, it's a terrorist and can you
get these people released? That's what you're looking to do in these situations,
right, part of the problem. That was part of the reason they were
asking for those initial members tool ladies. I think the first ones they let
out in the very beginning, and that was I think proof that they were
negotiating with the right people. Do you have kind of command and control to
actually release hostages? And that was part of the establishment of that that,
Okay, these people are real, but you're right, does PIJ have some
folks to other people? Yeah? And I think that that may be part
of it. There still should be forty people that Hamas has alone to be
able to get their hands on. Some of it could be a means of
communication issues. But yes, Israel was bombing and they're conducting military average.
But they told you they were conducting military options. They told you where they
were conducting military operations, So all of those hostages should be safe in southern
Gaza, somewhere out and away from remain military operations were conducted. If Hamas
actually did what they were supposed to do, my fear is that either due
to military activity, you know, the combat up north, or you know,
over time, not being able to sustain these people whatever else, that
people died during that. So I don't believe that all of the remaining hostages
are alive. I don't know how many. I don't have numbers. I'm
certainly not going to speculate and play with people's emotions and toys. But when
you've got a terrorist organization who is asking for things that they want is the
reason they took the hostages in the first place, and they can't produce them
the hostages that they're supposed to in order to get what they want, that's
a problem because again, if they weren't asking for things, who gives a
shit, you know, whether we keep them alive or kill them or whatever
else. And then from a terrorist perspective, it doesn't matter. You took
the hostages because you knew you were going to need them. You knew the
only way this situation was going to end in your favor was through a negotiated
settlement, because the IDF has overwhelming military superior and advantage over you. So
going into that and knowing that's what how Mass's intentions were. If they can't
produce the hostages, the only conclusion you can draw from at that point is
they're either in community or they're out of communication, which is unlikely given the
way Kasa functions and where everything is, and more likely, unfortunately, that
there's more deceased than I think that people are willing to admit at this point.
I mean, that's the conclusion that one has to draw logically. So
my background on hostage negotiation is dealing with my granddaughter and trying to get her
to go to the bathroom. So let me ask a simple Hollywood question.
I'm sure people asking and these sorts of things. Are the families involved or
is it kind of like, okay, we'll take it from here. We'll
let you know. It depends, right, so in this particular case,
the families are unlikely to be involved, and that's due to the fact that
hostage takers are not looking for concessions from the family through the family or they
trying to communicate with the Israeli government through the family. Right, they've taken
into very public fashion and their negotiates taking place and cutter, you know,
with the representatives of different The people on the ground are unlikely to be in
communication. It's open. This is open. It's not something I'm you know,
sharing, I'm out a government, I have a clearance anymore. I'm
not revealing classified. Their signals intelligence is good. I mean they understand what's
going on inside there, which I know sounds insane in the aftermath of October
seventh, but they surge capabilities and they've got a pretty good feel for what
the hell's going on the ground. So if they were making phone calls out
with housages, talking to families, et cetera, would be be a big
problem. Which the reason they ran hard phone lines under the ground is a
means of evasion from the Israelis because they know what that looks like. So
communication is extremely unlikely. If they need to put pressure on the Israeli governments,
or they'll try to activate the families by releasing these videos of people showing
that they're still alive, to get them fired up and go protest and try
to agree. That's all means to pressure a deal that Hamas believes is in
its favor. That's the reason all that shenanigans has kind of taken place.
So I don't die. The families are not that involved here, and the
role of third parties, which normally get like folks like me and whatever else.
It's not an appropriate time for me or someone else like me to try
to insert myself in that situation where it's very delicate ongoing negotiations at the governmental
level, and unless they need help, where you have some sort of unique
thing you can bring the table, you end up meddling and causing problems.
Right, that's perfect, thank you. It's not one of those situations I've
observed myself. In your opinion, Alex, do you think hostages will be
released? Because I can't see how MAS going for hostages being released without a
deal on a ceasefire, and it doesn't seem like Israel is interested in that
at all. So I think the big problem and the biggest disconnect in all
of this is Moss wants a complete ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces
from Gaza. And it's like the guy who beats the shit out of you,
and you show up with a gun and point out, well, you
know, I actually didn't mean to beat the shit out of you. I'm
really sorry about that. I promise not to do it again, even though
I've been spewing nothing but genocid wal you know, rhetoric. If I ever
got my hands on you again, you know, snap your neck. I
mean, it's the center stud of these Raelis feel going at it right.
And like I said, if the military objective is to you know, demilitarized
Moss, they have to go into Rafa and the battle therefore is not over.
And they're not going to withdraw because who the hell is going to provide
security. They're not going to allow a Hamas to reform in the vacuum,
you know, to the extent possible. Again, that's yet to be seen.
Over time. As Andy mentioned, people you know creeping back up north
and you know, and you know, reoccupying areas so that that ship show
is already coming We're already going to see that that battle line coming. Hamas
continued existence in the form of governance and a governing structure inside Gaza is a
non starter for anybody in the West. It's a non starter for most Arab
states. They don't like Hamas. This is not like buying closed doors folks
like I hate those guys. I wish the war wasn't being prosecuted this ways,
but I'm really not. You know, all that upset about Hamas no
longer existing as institution. They're not exactly a well liked group amongst most of
the arb states. So the the issue is, then, is there a
willingness to accept reality. You picked the fight you can't win. You can
have a respite for a while. You could, perhaps, you know,
ease the conditions for folks on the ground that are there, perhaps even negotiate
your own exit, like you mentioned, to save your own ass and go
to some other country and try to live to fight another day. All those
fucking guys are dead men walking, every last one of them. The Mosada
is going to get their hands on them and they are going to die.
I don't care where they are on the face of this earth. That is
one prediction I will make. I will not make a lot of military predictions.
Those men will not survive. They will eventually say Israel's going to get
them. So since Sinwar who's in charge, who, by the way,
is a sociopath. The guy is a psycho, the one who's elected to
take over Hamas. He was the internal security enforcer for Hamas. At one
point he went to prison for only almost twenty years inside Israel. He was
one of the ones that was released for a Gilliat Shalit back in six At
that point he had brain cancer and was and survived because an Israeli neurosurgeon removed
the tumor from his brain. So he had murdered Palestinians and I think plans
to kill Israeli soldiers back then, and that's why he ended up going to
jail and he got out. He's run on the show now from the tunnels
under Gaza. He's the one that everybody's basically waiting on to say yes or
no on this Teal And so far it seems like Micheal and some of the
others who were in you know, in different plays in do Hard and Negotiating
or wherever they happened to be hiding. It sounds like there's more favor from
those outside to try to negotiate a deal, and he's basically like, no,
it's not going to happen. So the question of whether or not there's
a deal and hostages is going to get out is depend upon Hamas accepting the
fact this war will continue at some point. You pick the fight that you
know you can't win, and the Israelis are going to finish it one way
or the other, right, And it's whether or not you're willing to give
some reprieve to the Palestindian people and release some you know, innocent civilians and
everything else if they're interested in doing that, and so far, you know
what came back yesterday was that they significantly produced the number of postages to be
released and also extended the timeframe in which they would be released, like three
a week or something like that, as opposed to three a day, which
is a non starter for the Israelis. So it would take Hamas getting serious
on releasing the hostage as well as accepting the long term fate that Israel's going
to continue to fight. Look, if you don't want fight, you shouldn't
start in the first place, right, and their argument's going to be,
well, then we'll continue to hold the hostages and at some point Israel's going
to have to go in and try to recover the to themselves and take the
territory, or there's going to have to be a deal settlement. But the
terms that were put on the table yesterday, from a security perspective and politically
in Israel, non starter, not gonna happen. And then and then,
and Alex stick correct me if I'm wrong. Then you've got this really convoluted
kind of chain of communication for the negotiations, right, So not even the
US are in the room. The israelis not so, and the parties are
not And then the parties that Hamas sends to Doha can't make decisions for Hamas,
right, They've got to And as you said, Alex, for some
somehow they're connecting with Sindjah beneath you know, beneath Kaza to get his final
say so on things. And it's like what's real Taliban, And in Doha
as well, it's the light of misfit. Everybody there's a mouthpiece, but
we can make any decision. They go go back to Kanda Arkabo to get
a decision render. So yeah, you have that problem, and then it
sounds like yesterday. Another shit show is the fact that this you know,
negotiation allegedly was taking place without the Israeli's dollars that there changing to the terms
saying yeah, and the way I read that was Hamaskan O I like this,
this I could deal with. Everybody's been saying that it's Hamasa's fault for
saying no. So I'm going to come out publicly and I'm now going to
say yes, I've accepted the terms of this deal. At the same time,
political pressures bounting in Israel for a deal to be accepted and basically trying
to throw the ball over the Israeli car. Well, we accept the terms
of the deal. It's like Congress plays the game, right, we passed
the law, We're going home on break. Yeah, but your law coming
out of one chamber of the other is completely unacceptable to the other side.
So I don't even fun if you pass it and you're going back home from
wherever you're from, it's it's that's not gonna fly. And that's essentially what
we landed on yesterday. As it's like, I'm glad you negotiate with yourself
and came up with a deal that you thought is feasible. Doesn't work for
us. We're going into rafa until you guys get serious. So the Israelis
are basically saying, hey, that deal is in a fucking sushi menu.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there will be hostages released, there will yeah,
yeah, I mean it's in business, business too. You're a businessman
as well, in addition to having time and service. When you you know,
forget Donald the r of the deal, there's only so many levers of
power you can pull inside of deal structure. Right, you've got terms,
you know, payment terms net thirty, net forty five, net sixty.
Right, you know how much profit margin you're going to have, what other
conditions you can have or terms on the sale that's going to be beneficial to
somebody else. Right, you can tweak those levers, but it deal's got
to be good for both sides unless some of these backs. And at the
end of the day, Hamas is trying to pull all those levers in its
favor and Israel is never going to accept that. But Alex, I don't
see any shaded air in the then diagram at all, you know. So,
so you know, as far as organizations, possibly there's some wiggle room,
you know, Israel Hamas maybe some wiggle room, maybe kind of a
Tunisian type exit for the leadership. As you said that the Israeli snow will
only be temporary, right, you know, I mean it took them,
It took them twenty four years, but they got air faed in the end.
Right. Well, it's actually but actually fascinating story. If we got
time for that. When you're done, I want to hit that piece because
actually, yeah, yeah, you're going to steal to stop talking. I
would love to hear that. So Arafat. So I got to meet one
of the agency doctors at one point and kind of told us the story about
what had happened with Arafat because it kind of came up as a means because
his job was to assess the health of foreigners and see how they're doing right,
and so everybody I was looking for antidote anecdotes are cool stories when you
go to training classes in the community and said, well, you know,
Arafat, he actually died, and you know he's like the Israelis didn't didn't
actually get him and I said, what do you means? He said,
but they kind of did. I said, can you explain what you mean?
And he said, well, he got sick. He ended up with
septis semia where he had you know, the infection had gotten so bad I
got in bloodstream and when he was septi scemic and required surgery, he was
in France, right, so he was supposed to have surgery. I believe
he was in Paris where they were going to conduct the surgery, and supposed
the French doctors got together, like with the septi seemia that's here and the
conditions and his age and everything else, there's a good chance he's going to
die in the operating table. I'm not fucking touching him. I'm going to
be the one labeled as responsible for killing Arafat on the table. And he
was so paranoid that the Israelis would get him, you know, in a
medical situation, they would get to him, like in a hospital somewhere,
that he held off on medical treatment till the very end, until it was
too late. So he's like, well, the Israelis didn't get him.
It was the paranoia that they had induced in him after years of assassination attempts
that actually caused him not to seek medical treatment until it was too late,
and for the French to go, fuck this, I'm not touching him.
That is such a great no. I mean, that's such a great story.
I mean the irony because how many times did Marsat try to kill him?
I Meangman, you know in that book Rise and Kill First. If
you look up assassination attempts on Arafat, it's like, I mean, asan
barrock at one point when he was prime minister, because he had been there
and dealt the force equivalent commander in terms of uh Syria. McCall right.
I think at one point in his book he talked about standing there with like
a I don't know if it was an RPG or like a shoulder fired rocket
that he was in a field that was supposed to be aimed at killing Arafat.
And then then Arafat's in charge. Eight years later, he's the prime
minister and the two of them were trying to negotiate a peacedale. I mean
exactly that. It's just give you an illusture of example of how fucked up
the politics are there at that point. But there's some symmetry there when Malacham.
When Bagan wanted to visit the UK in nineteen seventy seven, the British
had to remove a a an arrest warrant for murder for for connection with the
blowing up the hotel. David back in when does that forty five forty one
there in the forties? Absolutely insane? I mean one day you were fighting
one next to your that's right, yeah, and they found out almost at
the last minute. It was a hilarious story. Special Branch is that's awesome,
but we need to be there for the arrival summit ceremony because we've that
is insane. I got one more question about the whole What does Egypt do
because like there's been some talk about Egypt kind of spinning up and is not
interested in like like you said, like you know, a million refugees coming
through there, you know that border. See does the Egyptian military do anything?
Do they spin up I don't see it now, spin up perhaps on
the other side of a fence to make sure that people escape, because there
were some reports yesterday that you know it must be blow try to blow a
whole the fence to cause chaos and let the palestin the in start of escape
the situation. The reality is, if you talk to the vest majority of
Pealestinians, yes they would, they would like humanitarian assistants. They don't want
to leave. They want their own country. So by them leaving, right,
they're not going to get they want. I think there's people be happy
refugees and get the hell out of Gaza. Don't get me wrong, given
the circumstances. But for the Egyptians, they're not going to start a war
with these railies. They're not going to There won't be military you know,
you know, uh clashes between the two so to speak. It would be
the situation's sort of unforeseeable. They do have one of the oldest I mean,
let's not forget look how far we are into this war and the conditions
that you see in Gaza and what the you know people are talking about.
They still have diplomatic relations, you know, with a number of countries,
they have peace treaties with it. Right, they haven't suspended, they haven't
pulled thembasters. So we haven't even gotten to the point where we start,
like the diplomatic dictance that starts before that the combat starts where it's like,
Okay, I'm going to recall this guy for consultations. Now I'm going to
pull the ambassador from here. We're going to degrade, you know, our
status here in this country. We haven't even started executing through those diplomatic steps
yet, never mind getting down to a military conflict between the two states.
So I think of anything, it's potentially we see them, you know,
providing security around around Gos and to make sure people don't come into Egypt.
But I don't I don't see them them going inside. They don't want touch
it, as we're mentioned earlier, as any mentioned too, for political reasons,
for economic reasons. They don't want to do it. It's they would
like this is a they don't want to touch this with a ten foot pole,
nless they have to. And and also to be clear, for the
Israelis, having CC and control in Egypt is the best of a number of
bad options. You know, they have delighted that it's not more sea still
on the Muslim Brotherhood, but who you know, the Cross is an offshoot
of the Muslim Brotherhood. So and there is and there's more collaboration and cooperation
behind the scenes than people realize is the Egyptian government is sensitive to its own
public, who as wait, so hates Csraeli's but that the pragmatists, you
know at the desert they are are. So what happens now? What's your
best prediction? I know that's horribly unfair, but we've got we've got nothing
closer to an expert. I know you don't like been cool an expert.
God help you wait, I can't imagine anyone closer to an expert. So,
I mean, how I see it going. The key decision that still
has to be rendered is by sin More and whether or not he's willing to
accept reality on some of these major points in the deal. So far it
seems to be a bridge too far that they're unwilling to do that. Israel
will go into Rafa. It's going to happen sooner, or it's going to
happen later. I believe that the IDF will be asked to provide security inside
of Gaza, at least initially while they're there there is I mean, we
are too close to the end of an operation of with no mobilization of forces
from an Arab country to expect them to be the day after scenario to take
over security. So the short term and the midterm is becoming increasingly clear.
What is still unclear this point is a long term solution for governance post war,
reconstruction and security, and that is where I think we're going to attempt
to see some more US broker deals in the background and trying to see this
normalization go on. The sticking point I mentioned on one side more he's willing
to accept reality there. The other sticking point then for the longer term solution
is whether or not Israel is going to move towards the state Tuesday, Alex,
you're breaking up a little bit there towards the sixty seven middle. Yeah,
Alex, Sorry we lost you there. You got a little choppy just
from the lost pomp. Yeah. As you're telling you about the state solution,
it was, you know, a sense it that the whole thing.
So for the folks or you know, pro two state solution, there isn't
the domestic support inside of Israel for that. So again, if I mentioned
sin war being the short term issue in terms of his willingness to accept reality
and what's not going to happen as the result of the negotiated settlement to the
war. There's a long term issue that has to be addressed, which is
on the Israeli side, which is the you know, a two state solution,
and there isn't the domestic will Ford right now. And for folks again
not following Israeli politics, well, nen Yah who just gets out of office,
this is all going to get solved. You know, he's a conservative
loan and you know he doesn't want a two state solutions never going to happen
if you look at the polling data. First of all, he's really left,
has been decimated. He's really left in politics, but relatively doesn't really
exist in terms of a functioning entity right now. Those days are long gone,
and who knows what happens in the future. But you know Benny Gantz
is likely going to come in afterwards. And while he comes with a lot
less the political legal baggage that Netanyahu does, if you look at his stances
on the war and the other people in the wark Habin, their stances are
just as firm as that who is on a lot of these issues, and
they're subject to the same public opinion poll and votes as Netanyahuz. And so
there's two things that in order for this really to get moved. There's two
things that have to get solved. Sinmar has to accept reality for this war
is not going to end on his terms, and the fact that he wants
these Raelies out in a permanent ceasefire. That's great. I want a golden
Ferrari. No one's parking one of my driveway next weekening it to happen.
And the long term, there needs to be some sort of willingness to move
towards a two state solution but not make it look like it's rewarding terrorism,
which is a difficult balancing act in order for us to see a realistic foreign
security force and investment in reconstruction to take place. So unfortunately, we are
coming close to the end of the end for the end of becoming shortly for
Rafick. It's a small area that needs to get cleared. We are getting
very close to where the day after scenario is supposed to start, where the
day after scenario is completely undefined. And so that is the biggest concern that
I see in front of us right now is the coming insurgency that I believe
is coming. Yikes, Alex, I'm not going to make a flippant come
in at the end about you wassend on a on a high note because you
know, I think sadly you are right on tugget. I'm a Mets fan.
There's always next season. Oh god, yeah, you know if I
always a sports fan. I think it's something pathetic to say, you know,
to try and raise our spirits right at the end. But instead I'm
gonna turn over to d all Right, Alex, everybody can find you on
Twitter and LinkedIn obviously, right, Alex plezis what's your Twitter handle? I'm
gonna put it all in the description anyway, so if anyone love it,
fellow Greek has to stop to try to get that last name correct. You
know, it's that because you try to pronounce it the other time. And
I was just gonna say, pleizzis. I mean I heard, I think,
probably the most insulting comment, which you can't even you know, say
in this environment anymore. Boot camp twenty years ago, I had a drill
sergeant and looked at me and goes, do you know what pleza is?
I was like, what, you know those moments where you're like, oh
God, what's coming? Because that's the one part of the buffalo the natives
would need. I didn't even know how. I sat there utterly stuck.
I didn't even had to respond to that. It's so for Twitter, it's
at A L e x P L I T s A s so at Alex
bleitzis and linkedin' the same subs Alex Bleitzas. All right, I'm gonna leave
all the links in the description, of course Andy's award winning book. Congratulations
Andy, congratulations. Maybe yeah, the link will be in the description.
That's the last episode. You need to do that, But I appreciate it,
all right, higl buying a copy of you guys having a Bandy's book.
Yeah, it's incredible, it is good. Yeah, well, thank
you? What else? Okay, if you're listening to us, rate and
review. If you're watching us, like and subscribe, check out our Patreon,
Patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse. We have a really important guest tomorrow
on the Teamhouse. Adam Gamal. He wrote the unit. Uh yeah,
he's in studio too, but I'm gonna be blocking his face out live,
so hopefully I don't screw that up and show his identity. There's another Team
House podcast. Yeah, can you imagine the actually yeah, you audacity you
know what they see me and Jason. Everyone wants to be us. Huh
exactly. It's not that, it's not that fucking Jack Jack Something Murphy,
Jack Murphy, that Green Beret rabble rouser, another musclehead, Dave popped it,
said warrior scollar right to one of these. Thanks als, We really
appreciate that. Yeah, you guys awesome. That was guys. You do