WEBVTT - Israel vs. Hamas 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:05.760 Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.399 social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:17.240 Tim O'Brien. Today's crash Course Israel versus Hamas. Gaza, a slender, 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.040 twenty five mile long stretch of land bordered by the 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:24.279 Mediterranean Sea to its west, Egypt to its south, and 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.880 Israel to its north and east, is now a war zone. 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.240 In the wake of Hamas's recent grizzly attack that left 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.519 more than fourteen hundred Israelis dead and about another two 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:39.320 hundred taken hostage. Israel's military forces appear poised to occupy 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:45.280 Gaza to try obliterating the Islamist terrorist group. Ancient religious 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:50.000 and cultural animosities and contemporary geopolitical jockeying are the backdrop 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:53.960 for this conflict, but this newest iteration appears to have 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.760 been sparked by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the US seeking 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:03.280 to normalize diplomatic relations. Hamas, apparently fearful of being isolated 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.160 in the Middle East, may have opted for mass murder 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:11.319 to derail those talks. Other factors are at play. Decades 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.000 of simmering resentment about Israel's more aggressive regional stances and 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:19.160 military incursions into Gaza in the West Bank, outrage about 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:24.920 violence at Jerusalem's All Oxamasque, and perhaps most significantly, broader 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.479 concerns about Israel's treatment of Palestinians and its most recent 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.560 push to expand settlements in the West Bank. For its part, 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:37.640 Hamas has routinely called for the destruction of the Israeli state. Iran, 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:42.160 while pursuing nuclear weapons, has bankrolled Hamas and another militant 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.600 group in the region, hes Belah, making it a dangerous 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:50.920 and divisive regional wildcard, with Israel warning Gaza's two million 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.720 Palestinian residents to relocate as more intense warfare draws near. 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.560 US President Joe Biden has visited Israel to show support 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.120 a deadly last you know, as a hospital disrupted some 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:07.200 of the plans around his visit, symbolizing perhaps how unpredictable 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:11.280 and dangerous this conflict will continue to be. Joining me 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.960 today to discuss all of this are Mark Champion and 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:18.640 Andreas Klute to Bloomberg Opinion columnists with deep experience covering 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:22.680 international affairs. Welcome, gentlemen, Hi Jim. 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.120 Nice to be here, so Mark. 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.239 You arrived in Israel on Wednesday, October eighteenth, and we're 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.040 recording on Thursday the nineteenth. Things are moving fast and 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.640 could change. And I know you haven't had much time 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.040 there yet, but what are your first impressions being on 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:37.680 the ground there. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.920 Well, I think the first is what you always get 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.160 in countries that are war zones are becoming war zones, 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:46.000 which is that when you go to the place that 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.520 isn't you know, directly in the line of fire, then 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.800 things are completely normal and people, yeah, you know, at restaurants, cafes, 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.040 their lives go on. They are disturbed, and you know, 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.760 there is a sort of genuine unhappy piness. You know, 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:02.800 I'm going to do the awful thing and quote my 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.040 taxi driver from this morning, but he has on his 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.560 knuckles tattooed, you know, the name of his son, which 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.000 translates as happiness. And then on the other side, you 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:14.239 only live once, and he said, we always have these 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.720 bad times, and so I keep it there just to 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.120 remind myself, and I never needed it more than now. 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:24.840 And the general feeling is, with few exceptions, they don't 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:29.760 really see a way out that ends happily peacefully. So 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.760 a lot of intrepidation, but you know, in general, life 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:33.240 goes on. 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.520 And So how did we get here? Mark, How do 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:41.240 we go from diplomatic baby steps meant to bring Saudi 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.400 Arabia and Israel together to bloody, sprawling combat in the 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:46.280 blink of an eye. 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:51.480 That is a huge question and incredibly controversial. So I 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.040 kind of stepped through the minefield. But essentially, you know, 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.160 as I can best explain it, what has happened is 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:05.520 the result of a series attempts that were made fifteen 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:09.600 twenty years ago to get somewhere towards a settlement, never 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:14.880 really worked, and increasingly since then the attempt hasn't been 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:19.520 made to make something work. So what Israel did was 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:23.479 to disengage, move out of Gaza and you know, pull 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.160 that troops or administration out. That was back in two 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:30.279 thousand and five. You then had elections, Hamas took charge. 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.240 Hamas even then was committed to the destruction of the 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:38.240 state of Israel. And this time later you moved to 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.640 a period where Hamas has been preparing has always said 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.320 it was preparing for a major attack. At the same time, 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.280 they were increasingly marginalized because of the As you laid 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.560 out these diplomatic efforts, you already had the Abrams Accords, 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.599 where some of the Gulf states of Morocco had you know, 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.960 normalized relations with Israel. Now you had the big one, 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.960 Saudi Arabia, looking very close to doing so. And all 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:07.760 of this was done without any consideration of the Palestinian settlement, 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:10.680 which was kind of put on ice some time ago. 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.520 And for Hamas, they felt, I think that this was 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.400 a kind of you know, now or never moment, and 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:21.400 they attacked as far as you know, one can gauge 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:26.440 with the intent to cause a major conflict, the wider 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:28.880 the better. As far as their concerned. 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.960 Israeli intelligence had no inkling this was coming. They looked 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:38.920 very flat footed, unaware. The Israeli military got taken by 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.440 surprise in a massive way, one of the most formidable 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.360 military forces in the Middle East. How did that happen? 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.839 Well, I mean that's going to be the subject of 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:53.120 a long investigation, you know, once things calmed down. I 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:55.640 think already we know it's probably wrong to say that 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.800 there was no inkling and that there were indications, and 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:03.360 Israeli intelligent did have some indications, but the focus, the 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.880 political focus, the security focus was elsewhere. It was in 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:11.160 the West Bank because of years of fairly aggressive settlement policies, 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.640 plus issues around Alaksa and the Dome of the Rock 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:19.680 in Jerusalem, so you had the security forces diverted to 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:23.760 protect settlements since on, and also you know, the intelligence services, 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:26.960 their attention was diverted. They were worried about trouble in 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.680 the West Bank. They thought that Hamas was happy enough 0:06:30.720 --> 0:06:34.039 in its running its enclave and that this kind of 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:36.360 scale of event wasn't really likely. 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:41.000 Andreas, let's talk a little bit more about Kaza's history, 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.719 you know, the rise of Hamas and its relationship to 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.240 the millions of Palestinians and claims to represent. 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.560 How does Gaz of you this, how does Ghaz of 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:54.600 view the rise of Hamas well? I mean Hamas is 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:58.680 an interesting one because just before the attacks or as 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:00.719 Mark said, you know, things in the agents seem to 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:04.520 be going a lot of us thought in a better direction. 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.279 And Hamas, who was not so much on our radar screens. 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:13.200 They're offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, so they're Sunni, not Shia, 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:19.080 like Hisbolla and like the Mullahs in Iran, and they 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:22.320 have this kind of Nihalist approach to the region. As 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:25.960 Mark mentioned, is that they basically want to annihilate the 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:30.840 state of Israel, and they're domestic or the Palestinian rivals 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.120 are running very badly at the West Bank, and they 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.480 are at the same time deeply embedded with Gaza because 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.760 some Palestinis in Gaza are intertwined with them, but mainly 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:49.560 because they're using these men, women, children, babies as human shields. 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:53.480 As everyone's been saying, intentionally, in order to hit Hamas, 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.240 now you'd have to also be prepared to hit these civilians, 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.880 genuine civilians every time as well. And in fact, as 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.880 you know, the Israelis said to the Gas and Palestinians, 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.720 clear out, we're coming, and as they have been trying 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.600 to clear out, it's in part Hamas that's blocking them 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:15.360 because they want to maximize Palestinian casualties. And that's something 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.600 very often overlooked now in all these on the streets 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.720 of Europe and the Middle East and around the world 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.280 and on college campuses, is that it's Hamas that wants 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:29.760 to maximize Palestinian casualties and deaths and suffering in Gaza, 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:34.120 not Israel. So that's this bizarre and frankly, I, like 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:38.440 so many things, I think irrational. I don't understand rationally 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:43.040 how I mean, I would love local Palestinians in Gaza 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.160 to now rise up against them. I would like there 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.680 to be an effort to liberate themselves from Hamas. 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.840 You know, this notion that the Palestinians and Gaza should 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.360 clear out Andreas is something people can say in the 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:01.120 military as they're about to consider occupy in Gaza. But 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.240 the reality is it's two million people with very few 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.440 places to go, and they don't have you know, there's 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.800 not warm welcome for them awaiting in other countries in 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.199 the region. So this again feels to me like one 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:18.559 of these massive, massive issues here is two million people 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.960 could instantly become refugees with nowhere to go, refugees within 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:22.480 their own. 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:27.000 Land, and that sort of sets the Palestinians apart from 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:31.359 the millions of other refugees. I think the UN calculated 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.200 there's more than one hundred million now in the world. 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:38.160 But you know, the Syrians. Now, I covered other refugee crises, 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:40.520 you know in Europe, I'm sure marked it as well. 0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.800 The Syrians went to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and then onwards 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.680 to Europe. The Palestinians in Gaza, as you just said, 0:09:47.800 --> 0:09:50.520 have nowhere to go and we should point fingers at 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.760 Egypt as well, because it's not letting them in. Biden 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.000 was there and apparently there's some humanitarian eight trucks going 0:09:57.280 --> 0:09:59.440 into Gaza to bring stuff in, but it is so 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.320 far Egypt is not letting in these fellow Arabs either, 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.600 and the Israelis can't let them in because they'd be 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:09.280 letting in Hamas as well. So yeah, that's part of 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.720 the tragedy is these two million are trapped there in 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:16.240 the small strip of land with nowhere to go, and 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.160 they can press their faces against barbed wire, but they 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:23.000 have nowhere to go. And that's the tragedy of the situation. 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:27.120 And it's not the Israelis that wanted it this way. 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:31.240 Yeah. I think the cargo that Egypt's gonna let through 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:34.560 is twenty trucks or so. That's also not a very 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:38.280 massive concession. I can't imagine twenty trucks making a huge 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:41.720 difference to two million people, but perhaps it's a start. Well, 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.000 let's talk a little bit about Benjamin and Yahoo before 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.600 we go to the break. He's had nine political lives 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:51.520 in Israel. He was attempting to stack the local judiciary 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.760 while miired in a corruption investigation before the war broke out, 0:10:55.440 --> 0:11:01.520 and he has spent years rattling Israel's sabers at home Mark, 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.160 how do you think about him within this whole collision? 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.480 Yeah, so I think there are a few things to 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:09.640 pick apart there. 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:09.840 You know. 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.160 The first thing is that I think Nathan, you know, 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.520 at this point, is the political version of a dead 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.040 man walking. So it's a question of time before he's 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:23.040 gone because the anger at what is above all an 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:29.160 extraordinary security failure will fall on him and correctly so, 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.120 so you know, that's one part of it. The other is, 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.400 you know, how do you assign blame for something like this. Well, 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:39.920 the first thing is, in a terrorist attack, you can 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:43.640 only assign blame to the terrorists because you know the 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.959 definition of a terrorist attack is that you are attacking 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:52.840 civilians by choice. Nobody forces you to attack civilians. That 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.800 is a choice. So he does not bear responsibility for that, 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:01.280 But he bears responsibility for the policy failure that has 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.640 led us here. And I think that is I was 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:09.240 speaking today with a former negotiator on the Israeli side 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.240 with the Palestinians, and he dealt with Clinton, and he 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:15.160 dealt with some of the negotiations after and what he 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.600 was saying is that you know, this is ultimately a 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.560 policy failure of huge proportions, and it isn't just about 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:25.400 security and these sort of things that happened just now 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.520 that allowed this to happen. It is about the treatment 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.880 of Gaza, which initially was a fairly well intentioned project 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.280 to disengage. It was kind of a recognition that if 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:38.600 we aren't going to have a two state solution anytime soon, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.440 we need to give some sort of autonomy, self rule 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.720 and so on. There's no future to occupying the territory. 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:48.160 So it was relatively well meant at the beginning, but 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:55.400 increasingly what happened essentially was that Netnunyahu empowered Hamas, and 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.079 he did so in order to weaken the Palestinian authority 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.720 because in the World Bank what was happening was that 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:07.960 his coalition partners parties of the settlers of expansion, some 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:11.160 call it annexation within the West Bank. So that what 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.080 he wanted was not a negotiating partner for a two 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.319 state solution in the Palestinian authority or a strong authority. 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.160 What he wanted was the ability to give his coalition 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:25.079 partners what they wanted without too much interference, and he 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.920 just parked how much to the side and essentially empowered 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.160 them by weakening the Palestinian authority. Because when you provide 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:35.800 essentially no hope for a solution, where do people turn? 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.920 He left them nowhere to turn. That was non violent. 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:42.960 On that note, We're going to take a break, Mark, 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:45.120 and we'll come right back and pick up our conversation. 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.440 We're back with Mark Champion and Andreas Klouth Bloomberg opinion columnists, 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:03.160 and we're talking about the already bloody and tragic Gaza conflict. Andreas, 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.840 Joe Biden just traveled to Israel. Was that a good 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.120 move or a rash move? 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:12.480 I think it was a good move, and he did 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.199 it very well. He's due to speak from the White 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:20.000 House to the American audience tonight, but so far he's 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.080 managed to hit the right notes, which is very difficult 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:28.280 every time he's spoken out since the attacks, and again 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:30.840 he did so in Israel. I mean so it almost 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.120 went south on him. There were political risks and physical risks. 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.960 The political risks included something like this horrendous shelling of 0:14:39.000 --> 0:14:43.920 the hospital in Gaza, which Israeli intelligence now think was 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.360 a stray rocket from the Islami Jahada, in other words, 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.520 from as Biden said, the other team, not the Israeli team. 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.600 But because of that, half of his itinerary was in 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.160 effect cancel, because he was going to go to Israel 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:00.640 and Jordan to meet with the Palestinian Instrudanians in a there, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.080 which is sort of part of the iconography of the trip, 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:09.400 the US President coming in and talking to people on 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.320 all sides. So half of that fell away, which made 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.200 it harder. But I still think he found very good 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:19.720 words in again, as he had already not saying these 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.720 sentences that you hear in talks to like yes, calm up, 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.320 but you know, yes we support Israel. But no, he 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:30.000 was genuinely supporting them and calling this Hamastach pure unadult 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.000 rated evil, and he showed genuine empathy, and he reached 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.359 into history and there were inklings of his own personal 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:41.440 biography of loss that allowed him to empathize with the 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.480 families of the victims he met. There were sort of 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.760 echoes of the awareness of the Holocaust in the background, 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.360 and that was genuine. So one audience, the israelis I 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.320 think mark making confirmed this or not, but was genuinely reassured. 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.520 At the same time, the Palestinians, Arabs and all their 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:04.320 friends also genuinely saw how concerned he is to protect 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.880 them as much as possible, specifically Natanyahu's sitting next to 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.120 him as he was speaking. I liked one passage where 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:17.360 Biden essentially said, you know, we Americans, after what we 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:19.840 went through after nine to eleven, we understand the all 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:24.320 consuming rage that has now gripped you because we had 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:27.440 that rage. But don't let that be your counselor your guide. 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.440 It leads to bad decisions. And he said, well, we 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.440 are democracies, and we're fighting terrorists, and we're going to 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:36.880 set an example by the way we fight. And I 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.960 think these messages arrived they were intended at Natanyahu, and 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:42.840 I think he intended them, but the rest of the 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.640 world was paying attention to. His primary objective is, of course, 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.600 to keep this war from widening, and so not just 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:54.240 his bollah in Lebanon and Iran, but I think even 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.400 the people Iran is supplying with weapons, which is Russia 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:03.200 and even China and even possibly North Korea. He's assuming 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:08.359 they're all listening, and he often repeats that phrase, don't 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:12.600 don't don't. And he's got two aircraft carrier groups parked 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.720 next to it off the event in the Eastern Mediterranean 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.720 to make that clear. But he's saying, don't let anybody 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:24.439 get ideas. Let the israel Alias do this properly, and 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:27.800 let us try to help the Palestinians as best we can. 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:30.840 And I think that's such a task for subtlety. And 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:34.760 he found the right tones and notes even though half 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.080 the trip got canceled. So I would say he's been 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.440 doing as well as one can possibly do. Whether the 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.560 intended audiences are all listening, I mean the people demonstrating 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.720 on campuses and streets and the Mullahs for instance, I 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:47.159 don't know. 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.520 So it's enough in your mind. The rich symbolism of 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.479 him being there justifies the visit, even if he's not 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.439 bringing home many trophies or breakthroughs. 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.840 Yes, And to me it reminded there were other visits 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.120 like that. He was there for seven and a half 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.000 hours already, as by pure coinstance, seven and a half 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:09.080 hours is how long Sehn F. Kennedy was in Berlin 0:18:09.160 --> 0:18:12.240 in nineteen sixty three. That was a big moment in 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.400 the Cold War. Two years after the Wall was put up. 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.440 A lot of people were about to lose heart. He 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:22.119 came and after that everyone found their heart their lion's 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:23.160 hard after that visit. 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.159 But they still had to wait nearly three decades for 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:28.120 the wall to come down to well. 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.440 Actually, and in this case, I mean, when we get 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:33.920 back to this conflict, this may be longer than three decades. 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:36.520 I mean, but although at the time, by the way, 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:38.760 just before the wall open in nineteen eighty nine, we 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.000 thought that might be forever. We didn't think it would 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.200 end in our lifetime. But that was a different kind 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.560 of conflict, and I think this one is more intractable. 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.680 While we're on the US, just one last piece on that, Andreas, 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:53.720 which is that the US is wrapping up military hardware 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.520 support for Israel as well. That has been curious to me, 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.959 simply because Israel has already been very well funded, it 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.000 already has a robust military. There's been an argument out 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.440 there that it actually didn't want outside funding or support 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:10.680 because it wanted to show it could fight its own wars. 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:13.399 And in a very short period of time, now we 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:18.760 have the US wrapping up military aid to Israel. Explain 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:19.160 that to. 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.960 Me, I can't explain it. Very well, I mean there's 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:26.639 a practical consideration, is that iron Dome, this system which 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:30.240 we now see in these early haunting and beautiful images 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:33.639 right when it's in action shooting down rockets. But my 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.359 understanding is that it's been in use so much that 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.960 they'd need to replenish that AMMO. So America can help great, 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.520 and of course America should help if there's other ways 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:44.959 to do it. I think there is a lot of 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.760 symbolism with this. As you said, the israel Raelis are 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.080 well off compared to the Ukrainians, for instance, had the 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:54.840 money have the AMMO. I don't think it's going to 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:56.600 come down to that, but I think there's just a 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.720 domestic American political imperative on both sides to just show 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.239 where they're with you and we support and therefore in 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.080 every way it is now in every way possible. So 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:11.000 it is not to me politically pause. I don't regard 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.840 anyone you know that you see the pundits or the politicians. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.840 It is not possible now not to offer that because 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.439 that's just a task. And the bizarre thing is that 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:23.840 this comes at the very time as not half but 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.480 part of one of the two big parties wants to 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:31.400 stop supporting Ukraine for different reasons, but exactly as strategically 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.200 important for the United States to keep supporting Ukraine against 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:38.280 Russia as to support Israel, and Ukraine does need to 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:42.240 help more urgently, by which I mean it stops getting it. 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.320 And according to the Ukrainians, they might lose against Russia. 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:49.680 Israel will could militarily win. It's not about that, it's 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.000 how they wage the war. Then, as you know, they're 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:56.640 now thinking of bundling the Ukraine issue with the Israeli issue, 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.960 with the southern border with Mexico issue, which is insane, 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.040 and even with Taiwan, as if like every problem in 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:05.960 the world into one package, just to get it past 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:11.200 the troglodytes in the House of Representatives on the Republican side, 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:12.680 you know, just to get it. 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:17.119 Through the dysfunctional troglodites. Mark. This could obviously all change 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:19.399 in a few days between this interview and when this 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:24.240 podcast goes live. But what is Israel weighing right now 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.480 as we watch this unfold. 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:31.679 Well, that's a really good question. I mean, so what 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:37.040 clearly President Biden, Joan Chancellor Schultz, British Prime Minister Sanak, 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.240 maybe Macran's coming to what they all want Israel to 0:21:41.280 --> 0:21:44.480 be weighing is be very careful how you do this. 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.520 Think about the day after, because what we know about 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:52.600 these kinds of conflicts is that the more people you kill, 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:58.119 the more that stirs resentment and creates a fertile recruitment 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:03.800 ground for organizations like come US and these organizations, you know, 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.400 when you kill them off, they also castasize. The US 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:10.840 was pretty successful in neutralizing al Qaeda after nine to 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:13.879 eleven over a number of years, and then you know, 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.040 you go into Iraq, you kill a lot of people, 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.159 and you have Isis, different organizations, Samem. 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:21.920 Afghanistan, and then you go occupy Afghanistan. 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:24.199 So I think this is you know what President Biden 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:26.600 was trying to get at when he was going back 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:29.760 to nine to eleven. You know, we made mistakes, and 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.080 clearly he didn't want to say it, but going into 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:35.080 Iraq was a mistake, and you know, you have to 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:38.560 think about the day after, which is a great failure 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.080 of the US going into Iraq not thinking about what 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.720 will we do with this place when we effectively break 0:22:45.760 --> 0:22:48.760 it and own it. So the Israelis, you know, I think, 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:51.919 will be less naive than the Americans were, you know, 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:55.520 in Iraq. They know all about Gaza, they've been there before. 0:22:56.119 --> 0:23:00.680 But I think one thing we don't know is how 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:04.320 much they're thinking this particular issue through. Are they concerned 0:23:04.359 --> 0:23:07.480 simply with we just need to go in and deal 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.080 with Hermas. Everything else will deal with later, or are 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:13.840 they trying to think through what will happen the day after? 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:16.119 How do we do this so that we don't end 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.480 up with unintended consequences that actually make it all worse. 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:24.560 And unfortunately, what we see doesn't suggest just from the 0:23:24.600 --> 0:23:28.640 comments that Israeli leaders have made and from physically what's 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:31.320 going on, with the intensity of the aerial bombing in 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:34.840 a very small place, it doesn't lead us to think 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:38.720 that it's a very reflective moment. It's really an operational one. 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:41.240 We just have to get in there and deal with Hermas. 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:44.000 And Mark, what about Egypt? What role does it have 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:44.600 to play here? 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.400 I think Egypt is just desperately trying to stay out 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:49.600 of it. 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:52.359 They want Egypt wants no role. 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:55.639 They want no role whatsoever. And to go back to 0:23:55.720 --> 0:23:58.640