Ask Haviv Anything - 154: How Israel broke pan-Arabism, and what that means for Iran, with Dan Schueftan

Episode Date: October 15, 2026

To support our work, please consider joining our Patreon community (https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything), Substack (https://havivgur.substack.com/), or Buy Me a Coffee (https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur).We have merch! Find our awesome new mug and hat at https://shop.askhavivanything.com.And be sure to check us out on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/haviv.rettig.gur/) and TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/@haviv.rettig.gur).--In the 1950s and 60s, Gamal Abdel Nasser promised the Arab world that unity would erase the humiliation of 1948 and ultimately destroy Israel. Instead, it led to the devastation of 1967. Enter Anwar Sadat, who engineered a limited war in 1973 not to conquer Israel militarily, but to deliver a psychological shock that would force American intervention and secure Egypt’s national interests over pan-Arab fantasies. Today, Israel faces a new regional axis led by Iran, fueled by religious redemption rather than secular nationalism. Dan Schueftan joins the podcast to unpack the strategic genius of Sadat, the miscalculations of President Carter, and the historical blueprint Israeli leaders are working from as they seek to break the Iranian ring of fire today.--This episode is sponsored by David Allouch and dedicated to his friend Jake Marlow, whose Hebrew name was Yaakov Avraham ben Moshe, a talented musician who was murdered on October 7, 2023 while rescuing partygoers at the Nova festival where he had been working security. This episode is also dedicated to Eden Yerushalmi and the five other hostages murdered alongside her in August 2024, and to all the tzaddikim (righteous) who were murdered on October 7. It is also dedicated as “a tribute to the memory of Israel’s fallen soldiers and to the courage of the roaring lions of the IDF and the IAF in their battle against evil.”--If you like what we do here, please consider joining our Patreon community at https://www.patreon.com/c/AskHavivAnything or our Substack at https://havivgur.substack.com/. You can also Buy Me a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/havivrettiggur. It helps us keep the lights on. On Patreon and Substack, you can also ask the questions that guide the topics we cover on the podcast, join our great discussions where listeners share news and valuable resources, and take part in our monthly livestreams where Haviv answers your questions live.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [e-mail]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Ask Haviv Anything. Dan Shifton's The Rise and Fall of the Pan-Arab struggle against Israel. The Yonkipur War as its beginning of the end is a book published by the prestigious Israeli think tank INSS, the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv in November 2024. And this book tells the story of an Israel that faced a regional project in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, whose ambitions extended way beyond the battlefield, which really drove a great many of the Arab-Israeli wars of the period. In Dunn's account, Nassar offered an answer to Arab weakness, to Arab humiliation, and the answer was unity. Under Egyptian leadership,

a pan-Arab idea, as it would come to be called, that would restore Arab power, Arab dignity, and international influence. The struggle against Israel, became a crucible and a test for that promise. It was the mechanism by which the Arabs would achieve that great unity that would solve their great historical problem in the modern age. Israel's deepest concern at the time was the possibility that one leader could mobilize the enormous resources of the region, unify those resources against Israel. Even if Israel were to succeed and survive under those conditions, the struggle is itself might consume all of the resources a country actually needs to build a successful

society, a flourishing, prosperous nation. So breaking that alignment, that unified front of pan-Arabism behind Nasser became the most important strategic imperative of Israel of that period. And if everything I just said sounds like it remarkably echoes what Israel faces today, then, yes, that's why we're doing this. That's why Don is here. I'm very pleased that he's here, and we're going to pick apart this book. We're going to look at that moment, and we're going to talk about how Israel dealt with that period, what happened on the Egyptian side of that, and the lessons that we might learn for this moment. You will come away understanding the lens of experience through which Israelis, especially Israeli leaders and Israeli military planners,

interpret the great regional trends, the changes, the standoff they find themselves in now vis-a-vis Iran. When you know what the Israelis think they're seeing, you begin to understand the regional dynamic. Dan is, as any listeners to this podcast, viewers of this podcast will know, Don is an Israeli academic. He's head of the International Graduate Program in National Security at the University of Haifa. He lectures at the University's School of Political Sciences. He's taught at the IDF's National Security College and the Army's Command and Staff College. He was an advisor at Israel's National Security Council and to former prime ministers, Itzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon.

He's the author of several books on the contemporary Middle East on its history. He is sometimes controversial. He is always interesting. He knows of what he speaks. Before we get into that conversation, which I'm very excited about, I want to tell you that this episode is sponsored by David Alush, and dedicated to his friend Jake Marl. Marlow, whose Hebrew name was Yaakov of Rahm Ben-Moshay.

Jake was a talented musician who was murdered on October 7, 2023, almost exactly three years ago, as we record, while rescuing partygoers at the Nova Festival where he had been working as a security guard. This episode is also dedicated to Eden Yerushalmi and the five other hostages murdered alongside her in August 24, and to all that Saddiquim, the righteous, who were murdered on October 7, 2023,

And it is also a tribute to the memory of Israel's fallen soldiers and to the courage of the roaring lions of the IDF and the IAF, the Israeli Air Force, in their battle against evil. David Alush, thank you so much for this very apt and beautiful dedication. Let's get into it. Don, how are you? I'm fine, thank you. I think to what we can do today is deal with the deep frustration that not only Israelis,

but people all over Western civilization have, with a conflict in the Middle East, it seems to be never-ending. In other words, we've been in it for 100 years. Sensible people who know what's going on in the Middle East don't expect it to go away very soon in the next generation or the generation after that. We will have to deal with it.

And it's extremely frustrating. And then simple-minded Israelis, or some simple-minded Israelis say, well, we need to have one war that ends all wars. We do something, we break them, we destroy them, and then everything is over. So let's have a complete victory. And simple-minded Europeans or Americans look at it and say, let's have a peace that ends everything. Let's do something where both sides realize that war is a bad thing and peace is a good thing. and let's have a Palestinian state or let's have a solution, and then everything will be over. And I think that this historic study demonstrates that on the one hand, this is illusionary.

In other words, even when you win the war of 1967 so decisively, this was not actually a major victory in terminating the all-Arab struggle against Israel. It took many years after that. And on the other hand, this illusion that if you just, you know, you withdraw from the Gaza strip, you leave it alone. And then, of course, these people would want to build a state and to give their children a better future. All of this is completely illusionary.

But there is a response. That's the good news. The bad news is there is no immediate solution. The good news is, and this demonstrates it. there is a response. It is not final, but it works for more than half a century. It is not bringing peace so that nothing can ever erupt again, but it can change the situation dramatically for the better. And if you look at these 25 years between the rise of Gamal al-Nasra in the mid-50s and the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in 1979.

And the fact that since this peace treaty, we did not have an all-out regional war with the Arab world. And we had them again and again until this peace treaty with Egypt, the separate peace treaty with Egypt, you realize that there is a response, and the response works for half a century. and even though it's not perfect, it's the best you can get in this region. So we have the 48-49 war.

Many Arab armies invade. They are uncoordinated. They don't succeed in really mobilizing populations and drafting a lot of soldiers, enough soldiers. Sometimes they work at cross-purposes. The Arabs lose the war to destroy the newborn, nascent state of Israel. And then eight years later, by 56, the 56 campaign in the Sinai, the Arabs are now basically united or becoming united behind this new Nasser figure, who talks about pan-Arabism as the answer, unified Arabs as the answer to this humiliation. What Nakhpa originally meant in Arab discourse was not the Palestinian displacement. It meant the humiliation of the Arab armies that failed to destroy Israel.

and you would unite behind Nasser and solve that problem. And so 56 was already a strategic situation that for the Israelis looked absolutely dire. These Arab armies also, you know, the Soviets threw the Czechs had armed Israel in 48. By 56, it was the Arab armies who were receiving arms from the Soviets. And then we get to 67, where there's this complex, unified Syrian, Egyptian single state for a couple of years. and the Syrians keep pushing, they're the more radical pan-Arabists, they keep pushing for the resolution of the Great War of 48 through the destruction of Israel. 67 happens, that doesn't go the way they wanted. And then what I really want us to focus in on is, so Nasir gave this promise,

Arab unity would deliver for the Arabs, the dignity and the defeat, through the defeat of Israel, through the destruction of Israel, that could not be obtained, you know, previously with Arabs working at cross purposes. And then Nasser's defeat is followed by Sadat, by this new leader. And he comes into your story in this book, in a way that I had never read in the past, as basically a strategic genius. He understands this moment of the post-67 Egypt and pre-73 war. And he starts to shift Egypt away from the grand Pan-Arabian.

to the Egyptian national interest. Can you, let's zoom in on there, and tell us that story. So there's a well-known story of Arab failure, war after war after war, and then comes Sadat onto the scene. And what does he want to do with Egypt? Before we come to Sadat, let me say something about all the wars that you've mentioned.

Because usually when you speak about Arab-Israeli wars, you look at the Arabs and the Israelis and Arab-Israeli relations, but you need to look much more into inter-Arab relations. Egypt gets into the war in 1948 completely unprepared because it wants to dominate the Arab world. The Hashemites were the most important part of the Arab world, and the Egyptians went into the war to prevent the Hashemites for getting the credit of wiping off the Israeli state. And in 1948, Israel succeeded because it destroyed Arab solidarity,

destroyed Arab unity because King Abdullah I of Jordan basically betrayed the Arab world, basically betrayed the Arab armies who went to war together by working with Israel. Actually, Jordan, Transjordan and Israel were on the same side of the 1948 war because they wanted to partition the land so that the West Bank can go to Jordan, Jerusalem can go to Jordan at the expense of Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. And also, as you mentioned, and that's extremely important, between the 1956 war and the 1967 war, this decade, it was so crucial for Israel, the question was, will we have a war as a product of inter-Arab relations, not of Israeli-Arab relations, but inter-Arab relations, and Syria manages to provoke Egypt into a war that

Nasser wanted to prevent. How does it do that? Pardon? How does Syria do that? Well, first of all, by telling Nassar, there was a question of who was responsible for the collapse of the great hope of Arab unity when Syria and Egypt united into one country in 1958, and then in 1961, it broke up. And the question of who is responsible was the most important question in what Melcon

Kerr called the Arab Cold War in the 1960s. And the Syrians said, okay, Egyptians, you say that we are responsible for it, but we can prove that you were, because Nasser, you said you will liberate Palestine. Go ahead, liberate Palestine. And if you liberate Palestine, then we are guilty and you're the greatest Arab leader and we'll do whatever. Why could they say so? Because being in the Egyptian-Syrian government, they brought up the idea of war with Israel,

and Nasser told them we will be defeated. We cannot do again in 1962 or in 1959 when they proposed it. We cannot do what we have done in 1948, namely King Farouk coming into the war unprepared, betraying young Egyptian officers like me, Gamalab de Nasr in 1948, by going into a war unprepared, and I, Gamal al-Nasr, will not do to my young officers what King Faruq did to me as a young officer, namely sending the Egyptian army into war. And the Syrians first just told Nasser go to war, and then they diverted the rivers, the waters of the river Jordan in order to be hit by Israel. The Syrians wanted Israel to hit them so that they can say, you see, we are the Arab patriots, we are the radicals,

Nasr is the traitor because we make war against Israel even though we are weak, and Nasser is not coming to help us because he is strong. they did it again and again and again and again until finally they succeeded in provoking him into doing something that he believed he can get back from, bringing his forces into the Sinai in 1967, but he lost control and went to war. And after the war, basically what the whole Arab world said is the following. Yes, we were defeated militarily, but we, the Arabs are so strong on the international level, and we can take whatever punishment war can bring forever, and therefore, Israel will inevitably lose, even if it takes us somewhat longer to do it. And there are two elements here that are important to understand, one that is crucially important until this very day.

Who can take the punishment of a perpetual war better? And the assignment. And the assignment of practically everybody, and I'm sorry to say even Israelis, is the Arabs can take the punishment of war forever and we can't. And what we tried to prove, and we have proved finally with Sadat, is that we, the Israeli society, speak about our pain, speak about our enormous difficulty in having a war generation after generation, but we can take it, Because unless there is a kind of settlement we can live with, we must fight for our freedom. So there is no way for us to give up. And finally, the Arabs gave up.

But after 1967, everybody assumed the Arabs can take an endless war and the Israelis cannot. So that's the one important question. And the other important question was Israel was willing to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, from the Golan Heights. We said so in there is a government decision, 11 days after the 1967 war, saying for peace, namely if the Arabs abandoned the struggle against Israel, we are willing to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and from the Golan Heights. But the question was in return for what?

Will it be like in 1957 when we withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and get nothing in return? Or will we change the Arab attitude and force the Arabs? And here is the word that is the most important in our discussion. To a separate arrangement, the important word is not peace. The important word is separate. You reach a separate agreement with Egypt and then whatever happens in the rest of the Arab world, will not matter. So we came to the Egyptians and said, after 67, we are willing to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, provided you give up the leadership of the all-Arab struggle against Israel,

and only Egypt can lead the Arab world against Israel, because Egypt is the biggest Arab country, the most solid Arab country, 90% Sunni Muslims, 10% Copts. It's not like, this combination of tribes that you have in most other Arab states. And if we can get you out of the equation, which makes us much stronger vis-à-vis the rest of the Arab world, then we will do it. And the Egyptian said, NASA said it, and Sadat said it until 1977. Whatever happens in the universe, there is one thing we will never do. The one thing, the ultimate objective of the Egyptian in this regard is that Israel doesn't get a separate agreement. This is capitulation.

This is not only the end of our standing in the Arab world, but this is the end of the freedom of the Arabs. Once the Arabs give up their solidarity, then they have no hope for the future far beyond the issue with Israel. And therefore, after the 67 war, the question was not, will Israel withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula. The question was, will it do it in return for nothing? Some United Nations documents, something that the Rogers Plan in 6970 proposed, something that is other than breaking, destroying the Egyptian concept, and they admit that they depart from everything they

always said and accept something that they called capitulation. And Nasr said, I will not give this up, and I will not give up the constant position of undermining the American position in the Middle East. And what Sadat did, and here is what you mentioned very relevant, Sadat in his, I think, strategic genius up to a point, said two things. A, I am willing to get into war, and this war is designed to surrender. the United States, but I will also tempt the United States. I will impose on the Americans the one thing they're more afraid of than anything else, but I'll also give them, if they go my way, I will give them what they wanted more than anything else. What the Americans were afraid of,

and rightly so, is a Middle East confrontation that can deteriorate into a global confrontation that can eventually reach the nuclear level. What they wanted more than anything else is to change the Egyptian orientation from pro-Soviet to pro-American. And since Egypt was the greatest achievement of the Soviet Union in the Cold War, the crown jewel of the Soviet achievements

outside of Eastern Europe, outside the place where they actually dominated it, and if the Hungarians or the, or the Poles or the Czechs challenge it, they can send their tanks to get what they want. In Egypt, if the Soviet Union loses Egypt, then it is a tremendous achievement in the Cold War. So basically what Sadat said to the Americans, we want you to kick Israel out of the Sinai Peninsula and the rest of the territories that Israel occupied in 1967 in return for nothing. in return for Israel getting nothing for these territories.

And you can do it. You have imposed it on the Israelis in 1957. You can do it again after 1967, after the achievements of the Six-Day War. And if you give us that, then we will change our orientation and we will demonstrate first how much harm we can cause you by going to war, And then if you give us what we want, we will give you everything you wanted. So it was basically an American-Israeli deal at the expense of Israel.

And by the way, William Rogers went along with it. And some elements in the United States wanted to go along with it. But Nixon and Kissinger, we understood that this is something they cannot afford to do the Egyptian way, but they can use it in a way that the Egyptians will get some of what they want. They'll get the Sinai Peninsula, but not the most important thing of what they want, namely that Israel gets nothing in return. Walk us through. That is the lesson of the history. But let's take a step back and just walk through the history very quickly. Sadat replaces Nasser. And Saddam, Saddam,

But then the way you describe it in the book, really, he comes out as a strategic genius. He takes the failure of the Pan-Arab leadership of Egypt and that story of Egypt as the great leader of a pan-Arab front, and he transforms it. And he does it in a few fascinating ways. The war he threatened, as you say, we can, you know, there's a carrot and stick approach to America, threatening with war, demonstrating the damage he can cause. That's the 1973 war. the war where they surprise Israel, the war where Israeli intelligence is startled and stunned,

and the Israelis are existentially threatened, at least in the north for a while. But in the Sinai, he just takes the beachhead on the other side of the canal and holds it, a very shallow beach, bridgehead across the canal. And the point is to shock the Israelis, not to defeat the Israelis. In other words, you argue, you, I think persuasively argue, Saddad knew Israel was militarily superior. Right? So he goes to this war, not thinking he's going to win, but he's, you, I just have a sentence here. I pulled out of the book. By the way, is the book available in English? Not yet. Okay. Well, that's okay. We bring the Israeli conversation here into English. So that's good, it's good that we're doing this then. The, you write, the war in 1973 was not intended to overturn Israeli superiority, military superiority, but to suspend its effect at a critical juncture through a dramatic psychological political shock. You shock the Israelis with this, push across the canal, showing the Israelis they're not quite as clever as 1967 may make them think they are.

The Arabs are not quite as weak or helpless or bad planners or bad soldiers as the Israelis allow themselves to think they are because of the 67's success. And once you shock Israel, right? And so you restore Egyptian standing, certainly domestically, then you mobilize international pressure, bring Washington into the conflict and produce political terms. much more favorable to Cairo. Sadat was not a warmonger. It was a war that was intended to be deeply limited to achieve the political ends you just described, which is to bring the American pressure into pull the Israelis out of Sinai, with this giant carrot of you're going to pull Egypt

out of the Soviet orbit, but also with a stick of, we can produce a lot of very difficult wars in the Middle East if you don't. Now, just so just that is a story, you know, that's not how I learned it in school, right? One of the things I learned in school was that this was an Egyptian attempt, 73, to claw back Egyptian dignity, but also that it was an attempt to claw back that dignity so that they could turn to peace. You argue Sadat did not enter the 1973 war committed to a separate peace, as you just described to us. In fact, that's the opposite of what he wanted. He wanted the Americans to give it to him without. The Americans held out. Very smart American diplomacy produced a peace process that enabled a much, much larger win for Israel.

So can you walk us through post-1973, the American considerations of Nixon and Kissinger, and all the way up to 1977, which was the year, if I remember right, that's the year where you say Sadat himself shifted toward peace, really saw the peace as the strategic, I don't know what cost, or a better future, for Egypt's national interest. Walk us through that arc of how this limited strategy by Sadat, to restore

dignity, to essentially play the Cold War game and get back Sinai through it, turns into an Egyptian-initiated almost, Egyptian-initiated peace treaty by 1977. There are two fairy tales about the 1973

war. Once, one is that it could have been avoided because actually it didn't want war, that Saddad didn't want war, and he actually always wanted peace, and had we only accepted it, we would have had peace without the war. And the other fairy tale is that we were on the brinks of extinction or that the existence of Israel was threatened in 1973. So let me say something about both and then what brought about the change on the Egyptian side. First of all, as you mentioned, Sadat recognized that Israel has an overwhelming strategic advantage over all the Arab states that went to war against Israel, and he designed the war, and this is why it succeeded in the initial stages, by saying, all I want is a few kilometers for a few days.

Now, I know that this runs against what most people know about the 1973 war. Please read the book, and you will see that there is overwhelming evidence, you can't even argue with the fact that in 1973, all Sadat wanted, not only he said so, but everything, pardon? Describe the tactic to make me understand what you're talking about, just very briefly, the missile crews crossing the canal. They were missile crews that could hold back Israeli tank attacks. They were not vast infantry brigades that could take territory. To take a few kilometers for a few days.

and after the inevitable inability of Egypt to continue the war, then you call in the Americans and you say, here is the point where you can stop the war before it creates catastrophic results to the United States. And at the point where we will give you, we will start giving you this way towards bringing Egypt over to American orientation, and now the war needs to be stopped. Now, the Americans give the Israelis a little more time so that we really threaten the Egyptian

army west of the canal, namely on the way between the canal and Egypt. But the whole war is just designed for that. Let me give you an example. Sadat only starts the war when he has a ministerial war. and a chief of staff that know that they can't match Israel in any way. They can't even cross the canal. When they did cross the canal in 1973 on the 12th of October to go deeper into Sinai than the few kilometers, then the Israelis and the Egyptian clashed on Israeli terms,

and the Egyptian military forces were decimated on this way. They lost 250 tanks in one day. Okay, so they were incapable of even going beyond these few kilometers. But the important thing strategically is to say the military objective is limited just for shocking. And Israel was never threatened the Egyptian army. You know what, from an Israeli point of view, it would have been great. If all the Egyptian army would have started going through Sinai towards the next, we would have destroyed the entire Israeli, the entire Egyptian army, and the Egyptians knew it.

So that's one important thing to understand. The other important thing to understand is that Sadat needed the war against there is overwhelming evidence that Sadat could, did not even consider the possibility of going without a war into the political phase. namely, he understood that he cannot be taken seriously unless he demonstrates that he can not only shock Israel and shock the United States, but shock international economy. He brought about, together with the oil embargo, a situation with a whole global economy was hurt by it very dramatically.

So at the same time, he demonstrated that he can cause enormous damage and to the Americans that he can cause enormous benefits to them through the change of orientation. So he did the war. Now, the question was at this point, how do the Americans act? Will they do what they did in 1957 and said, the Israelis are now dependent on the United States? states more than ever before. Israel itself is shocked. We know how much it costs us. Let's break the Israelis. Or, and this is what Nixon and Kissinger did brilliantly, is to say we can have a win, win, win situation. Namely, we can, first of all, save Egypt from being defeated as deeply as Egypt was defeated in 1967 and more. The Israeli army was in a position to destroy two-thirds of the

Egyptian army. This could have been a catastrophe for Egypt. And the United States saved Egypt from it. And the Israelis finally went along with it. I'll say something about Golomir in a moment, but first of all, it was good for Egypt because Egypt is saved from a terrible military defeat. It is good for Israel because the Americans started the process under Kissinger and Nixon that brought about under Carter the peace between Israel and Egypt, but the contribution was not the Jimmy Carter. Sadat was so much afraid of the the unbelievable stupidity of Jimmy Carter, that it helped him go in the direction that Nixon and Kessinger wanted. The groundwork was done by Nixon and Kessinger and Rolda, because they understood

that once Egypt goes under American influence, these never-ending wars will stop for Israel, because the United States will not supply Egypt with a new army like the Soviets did after every time they were defeated. So it is good for America. And when the United States becomes the dominant power in the Middle East, it's good for the United States. So it's a win, win, win situation. It's the win for Israel because there is a chance.

Wars will not continue. It's a win for Egypt because the Egyptians can claim victory and save their army from destruction and save themselves from being enslaved to the Soviet Union. And of course, it's good for the United States because instead of Soviet domination in the Middle East, we have American domination in the Middle East that lasts until this very day thanks to Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. So all of it needed to be brought to a point where Sadat is convinced of it. Was Sadat convinced of it after the 73 war?

No. Was he convinced as long as Nixon was in power and later under the presidency of Ford when Kissinger continued the same policy? Not yet. What convinced him? In 1977, Jimmy Carter comes to power in the United States and with a ludicrous perception of the world. I mean, he thought in the Cold War that what counts is the north-south issue rather than

the east-west issue. He was wrong about practically everything. And he had this fantasy. Just explain what you mean by north-south-east-west. The haves and the have-nots. He wanted to bring peace to the world. He didn't realize that if you go for the ultimate objective, you are losing the step-by-step approach towards the ultimate objective.

He didn't realize that in our real world, not the fantasy world. In the real world, you don't go from war to peace. you go from war to less war, to more limited wars, to a situation where people can live with each other. And then eventually, perhaps you reach a chance where war is not a realistic proposition for many of the people. So he wanted to come to the Middle East and bring a comprehensive agreement. For him, the attempt just to bring an Israeli-Egyptian peace is not worthy of the enormous contribution that he thinks he can make. So he wants to bring to Geneva. I want to focus in on this.

Jimmy Carter, almost at the beginning of his presidency, torpedoed these Israeli-Egyptian sort of shadowboxing tango because he said if we pull the Egyptians out of the larger Arab-Francy. and we give an Israeli-Egyptian deal, we will disincentivize the Israelis and the other Arabs for making a peace because there'll be so much less war than nobody will actually want peace. So he actually thought it was a mistake to go with a great Israeli-Egyptian peace because it torpedoed, it lessened the chance of a grand region-wide with the Iraqis and the Syrians and the Lebanese and the Saudis and everybody would all have peace together on the White House lawn. And the Egyptian Israeli separate peace would actually push that off. I don't even know what to say about it.

That is how Jimmy Carter came to office. It reminds me a little bit of how President Obama came to office and how progressives have a problem. I can't imagine. They need to overcome this problem. But the problem is they're so convinced that their intentions are so good that they come to office, surprised that everyone else doesn't immediately sing from their songbook. And that literally is how Jimmy Carter comes into office. And then Sadat and Began have to pressure Jimmy Carter to push ahead.

And what would be basically Jimmy Carter's one great legacy achievement. I constantly called Jimmy Carter Billum. Because exactly like Billum in the Bible that came to curse Israel and ended up blessing Israel, Jimmy Carter was so ludicrous, his conception of the world was so completely cut off from reality that he believed he can bring a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. With the Soviets and the Syrians and the PLO and the Egyptians and the Israelis will all meet and sing kumbaya, this completely ludicrous. To do something in the Middle East, you must get the Russians out.

If you want something to work in the Middle East, you need to destroy the position of the Soviet Union. Jimmy Carter tried to bring them back in order to do something in the Arab world, where Egypt abandons their radicalism of Syria, you must go against the Syrians. The Syrians will never accept anything that will deprive them from their ability to use their radicalism in order to dictate their way to the Arab world. He will, with the PLO, this idea, the moment you make anything dependent on the Palestinians, you destroy it.

The only thing you can do that will work is something that the Palestinian national movement does not like. Okay? Then we put it this way. If the Palestinians had the say, the Egyptian-Israeli peace would not have worked. If the Palestinians had a say,

the Jordanian-Israeli peace would not have worked. If the Palestinians had a say, the Abraham Accords would not work. Anything that works must be done against the Palestinians. Because the Palestinian National Movement is dedicated to have everlasting conflict because their objective is not to improve the position of the Palestinians, but to destroy the Jewish state. This is what the Palestinian National Movement is about.

And anybody, including its Hakabad, who doesn't understand it, will inevitably fail. And if you want to make concessions, and if you want to bring less war, and if you want to promote peace, and if you want to make the Middle East less hostile, less violent, less unstable, you need to work against the Palestinian National Movement. And if you make Israeli-Agyptian relations dependent on the Palestinians, you will get wars in the Middle East where the Egyptians, where the Egyptians, are leading the Arab world instead of reducing this possibility.

And as we know, for more than half a century, eliminating the possibility of an all-Arab war against Israel. By the way, does that mean there are no wars in the Middle East? No, we've seen now a war of three years. But we are waging this war against the real. remnants of the Arab hostility against Israel, only against the Palestinians, Chisbalah, the Houthis, of course, with Iran as a new element. Because you see, this is the irony of history. In 1979, when Egypt reached the separate agreement with Egypt, the Khomeini regime

came to power in Iran. So instead of Egypt being the leader of the regional war against Israel, it is now Iran. But imagine a war with Iran against Israel where the whole Arab world stands on the side of the radicals. What we have now is the few remnants, namely the Palestinians, they will be there for the foreseeable future. If you see how they educate their children today, if you see what the essence of the Palestinian narrative is until this very day, focused on the destruction of the Jews rather than the improvement of the lives of the Palestinians, and Chisballah and the houthis and militias in Iraq and other radical elements. But most of the Arab world, look, Egypt kept out of confrontation with Israel when Israel

occupied an Arab capital city. Stupidly, by the way, in 1982, when Israel destroyed, Just to clarify, that's the Israeli invasion into Lebanon. Yes. When we destroyed the Iraqi nuclear potential, when the Syrian nuclear project, so the reason why Israel. Even when the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamist took over Egypt after the Arab Spring, even then, Morsi did not move ahead. Yes, but this was for a short time. I'm not sure if they would have stayed in power, they could have changed. So when we look at the Muslim Brotherhood, we must understand, and this is in order to understand why Erdogan is so dangerous, unbelievably dangerous, and Qatar is so dangerous.

The number one misfortune of the Middle East is the sentiment that the Muslim Brotherhood reflects. And as long as the Muslim Brotherhood can threaten the regime in Egypt and can threaten the regime in Jordan and in Morocco and in other, places, we have a very major problem today. So the fact that Egypt could maintain the peace with Israel over a long period of time also depends on not letting the Muslim Brotherhood take over. By the way, who helped the Muslim Brotherhood take over in Egypt? Barack Obama. The same kind of Jimmy Carter approach, the same profound misunderstanding about everything in the Middle East. I can't imagine people who have a more counterproductive attitude to the Middle East than Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. By the way, we had remnants of it with Biden with the hooties, stopping the war against the hooties that the Saudis and the Emirates did,

and removing them, removing the chutis from the terrorist list and giving them humanitarian aid. You know, when you're attacked by a crocodile, give him a banana because he's actually a vegetarian, only he doesn't know about it until a well-meaning American comes and gives him the opportunity to be the vegetarian that he really is. So when you have this profound misunderstanding of the Middle East of Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama and the excellent understanding of the region that you had with Johnson, with Nixon, with Nixon, and with Kissinger, you see the two options of the Americans doing good or feeling good about themselves. You either do good or you feel good about yourself.

when you bring universal peace, when you bring comprehensive peace, and everybody will be happy, yes, it makes you feel good. But when you try doing it, it's counterproductive. Now, the change with Sadat came when you realized that Jimmy Carter can destroy everything that Nixon and Kissinger and Sadat himself built. So he wanted to say, I will give up my NASA's obsession of confronting the United States, but I will not give up the supreme taboo of no separate agreement with Israel, destroying Arab solidarity. And then he came to a point where he was afraid that his great achievement in the

1973 war, giving the Egyptians back their dignity, can be lost just because Carter has fantasies. And then actually, he undermines Jimmy Carter, because you can't come to an American president when you're the president of Egypt and say, I want to make peace with Israel, and the Americans will say, sorry, we have a grander plan, and that's not impressive enough. So let's not have peace within Israel and Egypt. SADAT destroyed Carter's attempt to do something that could not have worked and forced on him not only to accept, but actually to promote the extreme opposite of what Jimmy Carter wanted. I think the reason that Jimmy Carter became an anti-Semite late in his life, I don't think he started out as an anti-Semite,

but he became an anti-Semite outraged by the fact that Sadat manipulated him into a position of not only facilitating, but actually making him, he made a great contribution in Camp David for the concept that he negated. Dan, I'm never quite sure what you feel about any particular person or group. It's always subtle and hidden behind a curtain of politeness. I have to say...

Understatement is my credo. Yeah, yeah, we've heard. It's... This is Sadat coming to Jerusalem. Yes. This is Sadat taking this dramatic step... And giving Israel... The Israelis could hardly believe.

...than Israel hoped after the 60s... And giving Israel more. Right. Right. And then... Saying in Jerusalem, in the Knesset, We welcome you in the Middle East. This is dramatic.

This is the antithesis of everything Sadat himself said only two years earlier. It's unbelievable. Because you realized, I'm coming back to what I've already mentioned, that when it comes to being able to take difficulty for a long time, the Israeli society is stronger than that. Arab society. We assume that because they can take economic punishment, they can do it indefinitely. Actually, what Sadat understood, Egypt cannot continue to be Egypt if it doesn't abandon its position as the leader of the Arabs confronting Israel. And since then for more than half a century,

they stick to it. So even if it breaks down tomorrow, it's a historic achievement. And I don't think it will break up tomorrow because this war only reinforced what Sadat is saying. Namely, nobody can afford to confront the Israelis. One of the reason that we are being hated in the world today is that we demonstrate to radical Arabs. You cannot take the consequences of your attacking Israel. It's a very important lesson to be learned in Gaza. Lebanon, in Iran, we Israelis, if we know what is good for us, we take the New York Times and we do the opposite.

If the New York Times is not against what we do, it is ineffective. It is effective only if the New York Times hates it. And even the New York Times and the BBC and the CNN will not save you, or the Green Party in Britain, will not save you from the consequences of the United States. of your attempts to destroy us. We will levy from you so much that even you cannot deal with it. And we are doing a great service to moderate Arabs. The only way that moderate responsible Arabs, and that's the majority of the Arab world today,

can explain to the radicals why they're not going to war, is to say, you see, this is something that even we cannot take. If we want to strengthen a very moderate person like King Abdullah, we must do something that he openly must say he is against it, but actually this is what keeps him in power. We would not have a responsible leader like King Abdullah II in Jordan had we not done what King Abdullah must condemn three times a day. And if I were his advisor, I would advise him to condemn it five times a day. Let's get to the lessons.

Lessons are pouring out of this whole story. One, divide an enemy alliance. We face now the Mukawama axis, Iran at the head of all of these Shia groups and some Salafi jihadi groups and the Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood groups. And they have created an alliance. Now they all think each other is a terrible evil heretic infidel who will be destroyed at the next stage. The first stage is to get rid of the Jews.

The second stage is to turn on the Sunni or the Shia, depending on what side you're on. But they're united against us. They're united in financial terms. They're united in training. They're united in the grand strategy. They're united in the argument you just made, which Hezbollah has talked about publicly and openly.

Iran talks about. This is the sumud of Hamas, the clinging on, the resilience, that we are eternal and proud and brave and will sacrifice everything. The whole mass martyrdom cult that is the sort of Shia Leninism of the Iranian regime, which there are episodes in this podcast, people can go back to to learn a lot more about that, is all about we can last,

they cannot. When Chisbalah leaders say, we love death and they love life, and that's why we will win, what they mean is we have faith, we believe that our death creates more martyrs, we believe that there's a grand redemption story here. The Jews, they have nothing. They only cling to this life. They don't know about the greater things, the divine. things, the redemption arc of history that we good Muslims know about. And so we are destined to

win because we can sacrifice more. And the Israelis are trying to disprove that. But there are two aspects of it. One is that resilience. Two, pull people out of it, pull central actors out of it. The toppling of the Iranian regime is meant to remove the Egypt from the newest grand redemptive alliance that depends on the destruction of Izzo. That's one lesson. But there are also other lessons. Golda Meir not destroying the Egyptian army in 1973. Giving the Egyptians an

out is another lesson. The idea that there's a political response that is a very significant part of this story that you have to, seeing in the enemy, right, Sadat went to war with Israel, but his audience was in Washington. So sometimes the audience is not the audience that's sitting in

front of us. All of these lessons seem to echo, they seem relevant. So I want to ask these questions bluntly. What is the biggest lesson that we learned from that story of Nasser and Sadat to today? And I know that Israelis look at the present problem, the predicament, based on that through the lens of that story. And that's why this book is so fascinating, and that's why we're having this conversation. But more than that, I want to ask if it is actually parallel. You know, when Sadat turned away from the Nassar path, he he was dealing with secularism, he was dealing with pan-Arabism, he was dealing with a nationalist

story, he didn't have to worry about God breathing down his neck, whereas the Islamists of various kinds, the Shia, the Sunni, the different kinds that all ally against Israel, there's a God there, there's a grand story of redemption, there's a willingness to mass martyr themselves that we didn't see with Arab nationalists. Is this, can these people be defeated to the combination of resilience, restraint, you know, very successful prosecuting of a war, but also knowing when not to blow things up, that kind of careful calibration and alliance with the Americans and careful politics on all sides. Can that work with Iran? Is that really relevant to today? Or facing an enemy that is religiously motivated, redemptionist, totalitarian?

and do we just have to smash and smash until it falls somehow? Walk us through the comparison. Well, first of all, the idea of redemption doesn't have to be just in religious terms. Gamal of the NASA was perceived as a redeeming leader of the Arab world in something that is not less deep than religious redemption. And also, you know, you only need. to read, and I bring it in great detail, the speech of Sadat on the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad in 1972 to see that the religious element with Sadat was extremely strong, and he spoke

about it in exactly the terms that we've discussed a moment ago. So he says, as you promise, as God promised us in the Quran, the Jews should be subjugated. The Jews should be subjugated. The Jews, we will bring them back to where they belong. So this element, both religious and national redemption is there also when you don't have a regime like the Iranian. In Iran, the great hope is the distinction between the regime and the society. In the Arab world, Arab society is not very promising. You know, we believed, or not me, I mean, this was the real reason of my agreement with the mainstream of my profession, the assumption that what is wrong in the Arab world is the leadership, the corrupt and the dictatorial leadership, and one day the people

will rise and then the society will express its great values. Look at what happened in the Arab Spring. Arab societies took over from corrupt Arab leaders, and the result is even worse than before. In the Arab world, the problem is with the society. In Iran, the problem is with the The Iranian society is very impressive. If you get rid of the regime, then the Iranian society is a constructive society, and I think it will be the greatest ally of the United States and of Israel, once you get rid of this regime in Iran. But my broader comment is, forget about solutions and look for respect. Effective responses that will improve the situation. You know what I'm teaching at Tel Aviv University at Haifa University is strategic thinking and I basically try to respond to an approach that is a very American or if you want also a very German approach say there's a problem What's the solution? That's good for engineers when it comes to human issues the question is here is a problem without a

a solution. What is a response that will combine damage control and the use of opportunity? Will it bring a perfect situation? No. Will it dramatically improve the situation? By the way, look at Western civilization. Western civilization doesn't tell us that democracy is the ultimate answer for anything. We know the weaknesses of democracy. And we say to ourselves, democracy is not perfect, it's only better than anything else. We cannot get perfect democracy, but let's progress towards it very carefully, and let's see what we can do about it. And everything you and I enjoy today, the freedom, is not somebody that one day brought us the perfect reality. These messianic movements, even the communist messianic movement, or in a way the Nazi messianic movement, trying to create

a perfect situation or claiming to have the way to a perfect situation. What do we in Western civilization, in a mainstream of Western civilization, say? We have very serious problems. These problems don't have, certainly not immediate and final solutions. And for Jews, the term final solution is threatening because of our history. Let us improve the situation. Okay, peace with everybody in the Arab world is not possible at the moment. Let's do it with Egypt. Okay, at the moment we don't have a solution to the Palestinian problem, but let us try an approach like the disengagement. And again, we can discuss if it succeeded or failed or why it succeeded or why it failed.

But the moment you realize that we are dealing with human problems and therefore, Certainly they don't have immediate solutions, but you can start on a way that leads to a better situation. The fact that today most of the Arab world doesn't want to go to war with Israel, the fact that today most Arab regimes are struggling with an Arab public opinion that is very radical. Jordan has the most radical, one of the most radical Arab public opinions that you can possibly imagine.

And yet King Abdullah knows that Jordan exists thanks to a strong Israel. And having no war with Jordan, in spite of the fact that Jordanian public opinion, hates it, it's full of Palestinians and Muslim brothers. So that explains a very large portion. And we should say last year Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood by law. Yes, and then they bring them into the Senate, and then they outlawed them, because again, they know there is no solution to it. There is a way you can deal with the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.

You cannot ignore it, it's too strong. You cannot destroy it. It's too strong. So you must live with it and sometimes oppress it and sometimes open the doors for it for a short time. And we have lived for another year. In Jordan, that's the best option. King Hussein in 1967 wanted peace with Israel.

made war and did the right thing. He did the right thing because the real option was, go to war, lose one bank, or don't go to war, and Arab public opinion will hang you on an LAM post. So you lose both banks and the top 20 inches of your physical existence, and Kik Hussein was not a very tall guy. He couldn't afford to lose the top of his.

So the choices in the Middle East is, not between good and bad. They're between catastrophic and disgusting. And I always go for the disgusting because it's not catastrophic. In the Middle East, if somebody is not afraid of you, you must be afraid of them. In the Middle East, before somebody is afraid of you, you can't talk with it. You can make concessions only with people who know that there is another alternative, who know that if they, they, challenge your existence, you will be very unpleasant. Let me put it in the words of an American nursery rhyme.

Once there was a girl and she had a little curl in the middle of her forehead, and when she was good, she was very, very good. But when she was bad, she was horrid. If they don't know that we can be horrid, they won't let us be very, very good. we are today giving water to Jordan. Jordan would die of thirst, were it not for the water Israel gives Jordan beyond what we are obliged to give them, according to the priest treaty with Jordan.

You can make enormous concessions once people know that if they try to undermine your existence, you will break their face and you won't feel guilty about it, because it needs to be done, there is no other choice. And if you don't know how to be at the same time, Sparta when you must and essence when you can, at the same time, when you mentioned Goldemeyer before, on the one hand, bringing Egypt to the point where the Egyptians realize that we can destroy their army, and then not do it, because, she is not dealing with winning this war, but with winning the overall wars. Okay? And we won. Let me put it this way. In 1973, Israel won militarily,

Egypt won strategically, and Israel won historically. Okay? So they won, we won militarily because we could have destroyed their army. They won strategically because after the war, the bargaining position of Israel was weaker and the bargaining position of Egypt was stronger. And we won historically because what we really want is to forget that there is an Egypt. We don't need Egypt. Israel is not focused on what it can reach in the Nile Valley, but in the Silicon Valley. Okay? What we want is to forget that Egypt is there, and to focus on our constructive imperative. This is what Israel is about.

Now, if you can get partners in the Middle East for it, delighted. I would be delighted if we can broaden the Abraham Accords throughout the Middle East. But what is the final objective of Israel? I can say it in Hebrew, and you will give me the best translation. anu banu arza live not or lehbanaatba we came to our ancestral

homeland to build it and to be built by it or is there a better term to be rebuilt by it to be built yeah to yes so that's what we are about we are not about winning wars

we need to win wars so that we can concentrate on the constructive imperative. To have a more robust democracy, a more diverse culture, a stronger economy, a more innovative science. This is what we are for. Dan, two quick questions just to tackle the dimension of the lessons. One, American diplomacy mattered. When it was smart, it pushed everything forward. And when it was foolish, it was the great obstacle to anything good moving forward.

forward. The America that we face today, nowadays, bipartisan, Trump has been wiser in the ways of the Middle East. That might be a critique if you're not in the Middle East, but it is certainly a benefit, but he's wiser in the ways of the Middle East in the sense that he's much more transactional, much more blunt and pragmatic. And in the Middle East, that is a better way to function for American interests. In other words, you will get more out of the Saudis. If you can have that kind of functional relationship, then if you obsess about the one journalist, the Saudi regime murdered, right? And therefore don't have a relationship with them for two years, like the first two years of the Biden administration that meant that when Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden had to beg the Saudis to up their oil output because he had cut a lot of the ties with the Saudis over the death of this one journalist, a horrific death. But still, America has vast interests and this obsession with one person because, Progressive elites have these obsessions they chase after that are not, that cause often more harm than good because they're not a larger policy. Good policy saves more people, helps more. It's,

it doesn't feel morally inspiring, but it saves and helps more people. So the, the Americans have this way of focusing them on the wrong things often. We're criticizing here, the progressives. It happened on the conservative side as well in American history right now. It really is a progressive thing. And my question to you is, we are facing an America after Trump that on both sides, whether it's a president Vance, a president AOC, will have an isolationist conservative story, a progressive moralizing lens for looking out at the world, will have a domestic political interpretation of everything happening outside of America. It's that same kind of solipsism. America looks at the world, but only really sees itself in a mirror that will make it harder, I suspect. I have come to believe from reading

and listening to Americans talking about the world, not just Israel or the Gaza War, but generally Ukraine and Saudi and China and Taiwan. The Americans have brilliant strategists, but the people who actually make the decisions at the top are domestic political actors who really can only see everything through domestic politics. And I worry won't be able to play the role of the Johnson, Nixon's and later Carter when he was left no choice by Saddam Begin, but in fact, we'll play the role of early Obama administration, early Carter administration, and early Biden administration, who froze the Abraham Accords, and then by the time he wanted, he had no other legacy in the Middle East, and he wanted to get them kickstart again, he'd wasted two years, and the Saudis had

pulled away from the Abraham Accords. So will we have an American leadership that can play a role, a constructive role in, A, the question of Iran, toppling the Iranian race? that is the engine and core of the Mukawama axis, something that all of America's Arab allies want to see. Never mind Israel. You know, President AOC, you can still hate Israel. I grant it to you, full permission, bring down the Iranian regime, do everything possible to that end for the Arab world.

Will we have that kind of an America that can see a bit of a larger strategic picture? Or will we have early Carter going forward? My concern is what is happening in America is much wider than the Middle East. First of all, all democracies are in crisis. Look at what is happening in the United States, in Britain, in Germany, in France, in Israel. We have a major problem with democracy having lost its way, and unless we reinvent ourselves, and particularly the Americans, we are in very deep, in very deep trouble. Second, America is the defender of liberty in the world. You know that European monarchs use to add to their titles Defender Feeding, the defender of the faith. The United States is defender liberty.

In other words, without a strong America, we will lose against China and liberty the way we know it will be gone. Because there will be. a world order that will make it impossible for the kind of life that we enjoyed in the last three, four generations to establish itself, to maintain itself. I can't see with the existing prospects in the Middle East a kind of presidency after Trump that I'm very hopeful about. Perhaps if Rubio becomes becomes president, I think this is the best chance that we can possibly have because both J.D. Vance and what is happening in the Democratic Party are frightening me. And again,

far beyond the Middle East. At the moment, what we have with Trump is not really a strategy. I mean, this guy is incapable of composing a coherent sentence, let alone a coherent strategy. But he has instincts, and some of them are very good, and some of them are bad. And he likes the wrong people. Look at his attitude to Erdogan and to some extent vis-à-vis Putin. We have a very serious problem. So some of what he did was very good because his instincts worked well. And let us not forget, he brought the Abraham Accords.

I mean, this is something that for a long time will be to his credit. And the real question is, what will Israel do? Namely, Israel is now in the process of strengthening a society that demonstrated a miraculous resilience on the level that I could not, in my wildest hopes, expect more than what we've seen from the Israeli society in the last three years, in spite of the fact that we had the worst government we ever had, with the parasitic ultra-Orthodox and the fascists and the messianic elements and what have you,

and most incompetent. And when a society can perform as well, in spite of the fact that it lacks an effective government, this is my greatest hope. And now we need to focus on strength. the Israeli society. We cannot determine the outcome of what will happen in the United States, but we can determine, and this is what these elections are about, the quality of the Israeli society, not because we did it in order to sustain the next war. Yes, we do, but that's not the important part. We need it for the, what I mentioned before, the constructive imperative of what Zayy

Zionism is all about, about building our society so that when, not if, when Jewish life becomes almost unsustainable, not only in Europe, as it is today, but in the next generation in America, Jews will have a good place to come to, a place that they can choose and say, not because we are pushed out of other places, but because we are drawn into what is. here. And this should be our number one concern. And I would hope Rubio will become president because I think that more than any other senior American statesman, he has moral clarity beyond a policy that I can support. But we have a very serious problem. Look at what is happening in all democracies. We took liberalism too far. We developed it in the wrong direction. It's the best

way and we can correct it. But this is what we should be focusing on. Dan, Sadat was murdered. Sadat ruled a coherent Egypt. Will there be a Sadat in Lebanon who could take advantage of the weakening of Hezbollah? Will there be more saddots in the Arab world? Our measure is the Abraham Accords. That's in our interest. But even just building competent states that don't fall for all redemptive perfect ideologies to destroy, you know, where you burn the Middle East to the ground, and that is your perfect redemption story. Just don't fall for those guys, Muslim brothers, Salafish, the Shia revolutionaries. Just build competent states. Will there be more saddats when even Egypt itself could not contain Sadat for very long and and the Israeli leadership

at the end the core idea of Zionism is that we shape our world, we shape our reality, we take responsibility for our place in history and our situation. It's kind of inspiring that we're going to an election just because we're making we're making choices. I hope I hope the Arab world looks at Israel and says, you know, there are non-mystical reasons for Israeli strength. We could copy a lot of this. A lot of Israel's strengths are replicable in the Arab world. That's a topic we're going to crack open in another time. Dunn, thank you so much for coming on, for teaching us, for telling us your thoughts on everything, and for this fascinating historical study that is so relevant to understanding Israelis right now, but also I think understanding the situation

in the Middle East. Thank you.