Speaker 1: According to a diplomatic source, Hamas is preventing civilians inside
Speaker 1: Gaza from leaving their homes when they are warned about
Speaker 1: an impending strike by the Israelis. I confirmed this with
Speaker 1: someone on the ground in Gaza City and then reached
Speaker 1: out to Hamas for comment, a senior Hamas official telling
Speaker 1: Fox News it's technically impossible. The initial information is good information,
Speaker 1: and it is significant as we are getting reports today
Speaker 1: about the Israelis telling all of the northern Gazan population
Speaker 1: to leave because it appears a ground invasion is eminine well.
Speaker 2: Ian Bremer, who were about to talk to tweeted out
Speaker 2: that more than four hundred thousand have already fled their
Speaker 2: homes in North Gaza headed south, as recommended by the Israelis.
Speaker 3: And they headline The New York Times panic gripts Gaza
Speaker 3: as Israel tells one point one million to leave the
Speaker 3: north and Hamas is urging defiance of it. So I'd
Speaker 3: say chaos is a fairly well applied term. Ian Bremer,
Speaker 3: president of the Eurasia Group, author of the Power of Crisis,
Speaker 3: to respect the commentator on a number of out let's Ian,
Speaker 3: how are you always good to.
Speaker 4: Talk gentlemen, I've missed you, and likewise.
Speaker 3: It's good to talk. The immediate situation is chaotic enough.
Speaker 3: I know you specialize in trying to imagine what the
Speaker 3: next couple of steps are. How uncertain is the situation
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 4: Well, it's very certain in the sense that the Israelis
Speaker 4: are going to escalate their airstrikes into Gaza and eventually
Speaker 4: a ground occupation into Gaza. That is very clear. And
Speaker 4: while the evacuation is going apace already four hundred thousand
Speaker 4: Palestinians of about two point three million Kasa that have
Speaker 4: left their homes and are trying to get out of
Speaker 4: Dodge for safety, far more are still going to be there.
Speaker 4: They will be unwilling or incapable of leaving, and that
Speaker 4: means that the civilian consequences for this war are going
Speaker 4: to get much much worse. This is of course, very
Speaker 4: dangerous for the Israelis in terms of the impact it
Speaker 4: has on their relations around the world, and they have
Speaker 4: to be careful here.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what we're just talking about. How wobbly do
Speaker 2: you think the United States government, France and all these
Speaker 2: other countries that have said we are with Israel one
Speaker 2: hundred percent, howe hundred percent are they?
Speaker 4: I mean, you remember when Biden said a few months
Speaker 4: ago that we're with Ukraine for as long as it takes,
Speaker 4: which you know a lot of it takes. Is not
Speaker 4: something you usually hear from an eighty year old. I mean,
Speaker 4: I worry. I worry, of course, that the willingness of
Speaker 4: the United States, in any circumstance to be significantly a
Speaker 4: long term committed to a serious fight has a cell
Speaker 4: by date. This is very far from the United States.
Speaker 4: It's very far from the heart of the average American
Speaker 4: citizen that has been through four years of America First
Speaker 4: and twenty years of an Afghanistan war, in a decade
Speaker 4: of an Iraq war. I mean, you have to use
Speaker 4: that as context. But certainly Israel is an issue that
Speaker 4: has very strong bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans in
Speaker 4: the US. Fighting against Islamic terror is something that draws
Speaker 4: a lot of interest for Americans. And yes, you can
Speaker 4: find some students at Harvard that will say that the
Speaker 4: Israelis are responsible. That is by no means representative of
Speaker 4: the vast majority of the country.
Speaker 3: Hey, let's look at this for a minute from the
Speaker 3: perspective of Hamas, You don't plan an attack like this
Speaker 3: for two years and spend the lives of a bunch
Speaker 3: of fighters just to strike a blow then go hide again.
Speaker 3: They have a plan, a strategy. What do you suppose
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 4: I think that a lot of times plans are born
Speaker 4: of desperate plans come from having few good alternatives. And
Speaker 4: over the last couple of years, what you've seen is
Speaker 4: that the Palestinians have been marginalized in the region. Not
Speaker 4: many countries have shown a lot of interest in helping
Speaker 4: the Palestinians. Fellow Arab nations have said, well, we'll work
Speaker 4: with the Israelis. And it doesn't even if the Palestinian
Speaker 4: situation is getting worse, Even as not Yahoo is expanding
Speaker 4: his settlements illegally on Palestinian territory, you have governments lining
Speaker 4: up to open diplomatic relations with Israel. So the Palestinians
Speaker 4: are loosing there and the Palestinians are becoming irrelevant for
Speaker 4: the Israelis. Israelis are focusing on things like corruption, scandals
Speaker 4: and social descents and judicial reform, and all of that
Speaker 4: I think is a useful context to understand why Hamas
Speaker 4: would consider this kind of Attech because they increasingly felt
Speaker 4: isolated and that nothing else was working for them. But
Speaker 4: let's be clear, Haamas is not new to the terrorism game.
Speaker 4: Harmas has been killing and trying to kill lots of
Speaker 4: Israeli civilians for a long time. What has really changed
Speaker 4: here dramatically is their ability to do so, and that
Speaker 4: is not in Yahoo taking his eye off the ball.
Speaker 4: The Israeli Prime Minister has access to the best border
Speaker 4: security in the world. This is not like US Mexico
Speaker 4: border security. This is serious border security. They have real
Speaker 4: human intelligence, I mean gold standard signals intelligence on the
Speaker 4: ground and in the air to be able to understand
Speaker 4: exactly what the Palestinians are up to. And for the
Speaker 4: last six months they have taken their eye off the ball.
Speaker 4: They have not focused on this issue at all. In fact,
Speaker 4: they've taken a lot of the defense forces off of
Speaker 4: security with Gaga and put them into the West Bank
Speaker 4: because they were expanding the settlements in their Palatinian reprisal. So,
Speaker 4: I mean eighty six percent of Israelis in a poll
Speaker 4: two days ago by the Jerusalem Post, which is a
Speaker 4: right one newspaper in Israel, blame not Yahoo for this,
Speaker 4: which is astonishing it's astonishing. So let's recognize that that's
Speaker 4: the biggest thing that has changed is that the Israelis
Speaker 4: do And if you're going to lock up the Palestindians
Speaker 4: in Gaza, two point three million people, ninety percent don't
Speaker 4: have access to water, fifty percent don't have access to
Speaker 4: proper food. If you're going to do that and you're
Speaker 4: going to take more of their land, you better focus
Speaker 4: on national security. You better make sure the border is
Speaker 4: secure and not in Yahoo didn't do that.
Speaker 2: So I want to get this question, and I know
Speaker 2: I have a limited time with you if I'm if
Speaker 2: I'm running China and my goal is to take Taiwan,
Speaker 2: I can't imagine a better time than when the United
Speaker 2: States is involved in this and the world is paying
Speaker 2: attention to this, and you got an old president who
Speaker 2: might not be completely with it mentally. Why wouldn't that.
Speaker 4: Have a lot of reasons. One is that China's growth
Speaker 4: right now is very low, and if they take Taiwan,
Speaker 4: it's going to be a disaster for Chinese growth. You
Speaker 4: destroy companies that they do a lot of business with,
Speaker 4: not least of which TSMC, one of the most important
Speaker 4: strategic companies in the world with all the semiconductors, and
Speaker 4: they don't get the high level semiconductors, so they get
Speaker 4: everything else there. So that's key. Secondly, militarily, this is
Speaker 4: an amphibious assault. It's over one hundred miles away from
Speaker 4: China mainland China. I'm not sure they'd be able to
Speaker 4: do it militarily right now. Certainly that's the view of
Speaker 4: people that focus on this a lot more closely than
Speaker 4: I do. And so I would be shocked to see
Speaker 4: a sudden, sudden military attack by the Chinese against Taiwan.
Speaker 4: And you know, this is a time when China has
Speaker 4: been sending signals that they want to work more closely
Speaker 4: with the United States. You know, they just met with
Speaker 4: Chuck Schumer and a bipartisan group of senators for eighty minutes.
Speaker 4: Chuck Schumer's wife won't meet with him for eighty minutes,
Speaker 4: so you know, I mean, the fact that Chijin thing
Speaker 4: did that in the run up to the Apex summit
Speaker 4: with Biden next month, I mean, does show that they
Speaker 4: are trying to normalize relations a little bit.
Speaker 2: And it sounds like you have some insight into the
Speaker 2: Schumer marriage that maybe we'll ask you about the future.
Speaker 4: God. Yeah, yeah, that's a longer conversation.
Speaker 3: Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group. A final thought, Ian,
Speaker 3: and feel free to lead your next newsletter with this.
Speaker 3: There is no way Joe Biden will be the candidate
Speaker 3: of the Democratic Party for president next November. Zero chance.
Speaker 3: If you bet me one hundred dollars up against both
Speaker 3: of my femurs, I would take that bet. Go ahead, printed,
Speaker 3: I'll do it.
Speaker 4: I will bet you that I want yours.
Speaker 5: I want yours, I want you.
Speaker 4: Had interest in yours, but I would definitely want them.
Speaker 3: Hang them on your wall is a trophy, That's fine.
Speaker 3: I'm that confident.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Biden's de nominee.
Speaker 5: There is no plan b I mean look, I mean
Speaker 5: I don't understand the fact is it's thirteen months away,
Speaker 5: and my crystal ball tells me that he will be
Speaker 5: thirteen months older in thirteen months, and that is a
Speaker 5: big deal.
Speaker 4: That is non negligible. But the president wants to run.
Speaker 4: Everyone around him recognizes that, and until that changes, there
Speaker 4: is no other nominee. So, I mean, look, I think
Speaker 4: that everyone out there would like the Americans to punt
Speaker 4: the election to twenty twenty eight. Yeah, and then you'll
Speaker 4: have two different candidates, but that is not where we are.
Speaker 2: God, twenty four is going to be a crazy year.
Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll be.
Speaker 4: Talking a lot. I'm excited about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get that Hunsky ready for me. Ian Bremmer always
Speaker 3: great to talk you and thanks.
Speaker 4: Very good guys.
Speaker 2: Yep, he's excited about your femurs, Armstrong and Getty