Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - GALLANT FIRED, TRUMP ELECTED – with Nadav Eyal & Amit Segal

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Last night in Israel, in what came as a shock to many Israelis, Prime Minister Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.  At the same time, there was a Red Wave that swept through U.S. politics. As Israelis and Americans simultaneously process these two 180 degree pivots in their respective political systems, we are joined by two CallMeBack regulars to discuss both stories: Nadav Eyal is a columnist for Yediiot. He is one of Israel’s leading journalists. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. Amit Segal is the chief political correspondent and analyst for Channel 12 News, and for Yediot Ahronot, the country’s largest circulation newspaper. 

Gallant is popular. Gallant is everything that Bibi has not been since October 7th. So the firing of Gallant is an amazingly dramatic affair in the Israeli society and public. For me, I'm saying this as an op-ed writer, not as a reporter, it's a scandalous move to do during war. Netanyahu sees the defense establishment as a hostile administration, very powerful opposition party. And when it combined with the position, the independence that Gallant took, I think there was no other way for Netanyahu but to eliminate the threat. It's 3 p.m. on Wednesday, November 6th here in New York City. It's 10 p.m. on Wednesday, November 6th in Israel as Israelis wind down their day and as Israelis and Americans are processing a complete 180, I guess, in each of their respective political systems,

last night in Israel, in what came to be a shock to most Israelis, Prime Minister Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Galant. And in the United States, there was a decisive red wave that swept through American politics, resulting in a victory for President Trump, majority control in the US Senate for the Republicans. And while the House is still undecided, there's still votes to count, it is leaning towards a Republican majority in the House. To discuss both of these stories, but especially the Gallant news. I'm joined by Nadav Ayal and Amit Segal, two prominent Israeli journalists. We will be revisiting the outcome of the U.S. elections.

We'll touch on it today, but we'll get into it more in the next couple of episodes. Nadav and Amit, thank you for being here. Thank you for having us. Thank you, Dan. I want to start with the news of defense minister or soon to be former defense minister, Gallant. Nadav, I'll start with you. Why now?

And what were the events from your perspective that led to this dramatic moment? Well, Dan, first of all, it was a long time in the making. The firing of Gallant is something that Prime Minister Netanyahu attempted to do back in March, 2023. That was before the making. The firing of Gallant is something that Prime Minister Netanyahu attempted to do back in March 2023. That was before the war. And the background to that was the judicial overhaul. Gallant made a speech warning that the attempted judicial overhaul by Netanyahu might lead to risks to Israeli security. And he was actually calling for the government,

his own government, his own prime minister to back down and go for a compromise there. Netanyahu in a surprise move basically announced that he's firing Galant. He never sent him the letter and the reason for that is that almost immediately the country experienced the most spontaneous protest that it has ever seen in its history. This was in March of 23. Yeah. Okay.

And by the morning, a popular revolt, like we have not seen before. And of course the background was the general resistance in parts of the Israeli public to the judicial overall. And Netanyahu then just backed down. He never sent the letter. He never actually said, you know, Gallant and me are now fine. They never had a truce.

They never had a sulha, as we say in the Middle East. But he backed down. And it was obvious that he's planning to do so because Gallant was structuring himself as an opposition, and not only as an opposition, but an opposition of values to the prime minister within a deeply unpopular government. And Netanyahu has basically not won a single poll in Channel 12, I think, and in Mar-arif, in Channel 13, since March 2023, as a result of the composition of the coalition and the judicial overall. Now, in recent months, their relationships have deteriorated again on a matter of principle. Gallant, as a defence minister, is the main factor blocking the prime minister from giving the ultra-orthodox parties a general

waiver from conscription to the people studying the ages of 18 to 21 at Yeshivot across the country. They are getting a waiver. The Supreme Court in Israel announced this waiver to be illegal unless a law is passed. There was no law with an actual majority in the Knesset that could have been passed. There's a lot of opposition to that in the Israeli street, Israeli public as a result of the war, and the immense burden that reserve soldiers are now experiencing.

And Golan during the the war as a defense minister said I'm not going to sign on any kind of waiver unless we have a real law that conscripts some of the ultra-orthodox and is accepted by a general agreement, meaning I also want Benny Gantz to be on board and other elements of the Israeli political system. To Netanyahu, this was read as an attempt to actually lead to the fall of the government. And this is one of the reasons. For our listeners, if you are an ultra-Orthodox part of the Charedi community, you receive an exemption.

Almost everyone else has compulsory military service. The entirety of the Israeli Jewish population serves, minus the Haredim, who get an exception if they are studying, quote unquote, if they're in a yeshiva, a religious school, and they get that exemption, and it started, that exemption started during the founding of the state when the number of those exempted was tiny,

it was like applied to like 500 families or 800 families. Today, the size of the population in any given year, when young Israelis and their 18 year olds are being drafted could be in the neighborhood of like 60,000 people, right? Who get exempted. And if they can say they're gonna be at the seminary studying, they get the exemption.

That's a large number of people. It was already a controversial and divisive issue before October 7th, but a year into this war, it's even more controversial because other Israelis who aren't in seminaries are bearing the brunt of this very extended service. It's not about if you're studying in the seminary in the yeshiva. It's not about that. It's about if you are born into an ultra-orthodox family.

That's the truth, because the government doesn't have an efficient monitoring service to know if these people are actually in the seminary then. So, and that's a very important point that is being made again and again, also almost on the record by ultra-orthodox politicians. They're almost on the record saying, we don't care if you want to recruit people who aren't in the seminary, who are working in the black market, who should be conscripted according to Israeli law, it's the right of our community not to serve. Now, the meaning of this during the war is that we have reserve soldiers who their businesses,

and I'm not talking about dozens or hundreds, I'm talking about thousands, who have been serving hundreds of days of reserve service, risking their lives. And their neighbor from the other street, who is 18 years old, is not being conscripted. And they're risking their lives. Their businesses are being ruined. Their relationships are very much challenged. And they're seeing that there's a wide section of the Israeli society that isn't serving and they're seeing this coalition who

again is very unpopular to begin with because of the ultra-orthodox, because of the far-right, because of the judicial overall, it's not a popular coalition. They're seeing that they want to give during war, they want to give a waiver and then comes Gallant and not only Gallant and he says basically no I'm not gonna allow this to happen. Then the prime minister fires him. But there's even something deeper that goes on here. Look, Gallant is everything that Bibi has not been since October 7. Bibi has not taken responsibility for the war. Gallant has taken responsibility.

He said, I'm responsible. He understands that his career is over. I'm not sure that he thinks his career is over, but he He understands that his career is over. I'm not sure that he thinks his career is over, but he signaled that his career is over. Gallant is popular. He is probably the most popular minister in the government. When you ask in a poll, and some of these polls are made by Amid, when you ask in a poll who's responsible for October 7, Gallant comes almost last

in the security chiefs. So he managed to an extent to escape responsibility in terms of who the public blames. Gallant is also the man leading the war. And this is something that I don't think that transcends. In Israel, the prime minister is not the commander in chief. He isn't the leader of the army. In Israel, the leader of the army officially is the government, but unofficially it's the defense minister.

And Galant has been leading this war. He's the most powerful persona in Israel after the prime minister, and to an extent during the war, factually, tactically more powerful than the prime minister. So the firing of Galant is an amazingly dramatic affair in the Israeli society and public. It's a change in the war. It's almost like the prime minister is saying, and he's not replacing him with a different general. He just replaced him with Israel Katz.

Maybe Amit could name the success stories of Israel Katz as a foreign minister. Nothing comes to mind right now to me, And he doesn't have any defense experience in a position in which usually, although not always, you nominate a general or former general. Then you take this very popular minister, very aggressive, by the way, more aggressive than Netanyahu in terms of what you should do in the north, what you should do in the south, more aggressive, and you fire him on a conscription issue. That's an unpopular move for the prime minister to do and some would say, I wrote for me, I'm sorry, saying this as an op-ed writer, not as a reporter, it's a scandalous move

to do during war. Okay. So Amit, it's not uncommon in the history of warfare for heads of state or prime ministers or presidents to fire senior commanders or defense ministers or defense secretaries. Lincoln fired McClellan in 1862. McClellan was very popular. And Zelensky. And Zelensky, there you go. It's a nice Jewish habit to fire your defense minister during the war.

Every Jewish leader on earth did it. So, okay, but is there any way to interpret the firing of Gallant other than political maneuvering to pass the Haredi draft exemption along the way that Nadav is explaining? I am open to an interpretation, I'm open to a case. Is there another way to look at it? So obviously, Nadav described the ingredients of this cocktail that actually brewed into Gallant's dismissal.

It was a mix of political and operational considerations. I beg to differ about the quantities. Nadav described the fact that Gallant was the most popular minister in the cabinet, or to put it differently, the least unpopular minister in the government, because it's not a very popular one. But his popularity emanated from within the ranks of the opposition voters. I think Gallant functioned simultaneously since the beginning of the war and even before,

even since the judicial reform speech that Nadaav has just described, as both the defense minister and the effective opposition leader to Netanyahu. And it emanates from three reasons. One is the fact that the opposition is so weak, it's divided, it's dysfunctional, etc. Second, due to the fact that, as Nadav just described, the defense ministry is the most powerful institution in Israel. For instance, the Defense Minister enjoys the services of a permanent helicopter, a

military helicopter attached to him. It's not the case with the Prime Minister, not always the case. It's like a kingdom. Netanyahu was a Prime Minister for 12 years, yet when he became a defense minister simultaneously, he couldn't believe his eyes from the facilities, from the superpower named the Israeli defense minister. Gallant understood this. And third, in each and every issue, Gallant functioned as the opposition leader to Netanyahu.

He was very outspoken when it came to the conscription bill. He was very outspoken when it came to the conscription bill. He was very outspoken when it came to the hostage deal in Gaza. He was very concrete when it came to Philadelphia Corridor in Gaza. And I think the most dramatic event was the October 11th, 2023. Four days after the massacre in the south, Gallant offers to kill, to assassinate, Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, and to begin a war. Now we know, with pagers, with walkie-talkies, consecutive military operations in southern Lebanon, and Netanyahu votes against it and he vetoes it.

We've talked on this podcast how Gallant wanted to go to war with Hezbollah in the days after October 7th. So he would have been full-scale, comprehensive war with Hezbollah in the days after October 7th. So he would have been full-scale comprehensive war against Hezbollah. Full-scale and the question is what should be done first and I think only history will tell. But I'm describing all of this in order to explain why Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to fire Galant. I'll even put it bluntly.

Even prior to the nomination of Galant as defense minister, Netanyahu had doubts. 13 years ago, he tried to nominate Gallant as the IDF chief of staff in 2011, and in 2020, in 2022, he wanted to nominate him as a defense minister. They have never been friends. They never shared the same, you know, society, the same parties, the same cocktail receptions. The only reason he nominated Gallant was because they saw eye to eye the Iranian problem. And Netanyahu believed that Gallant as a defense minister will not block him from attacking Iran. Two weeks later, he regretted the decision to nominate Gallant.

And since then, since the beginning of 2023, he tried to fire Gallant. By the way, it's very rare for a prime minister to fire his defense minister, but it's not very rare for the prime minister Netanyahu to do so. He did it to Itzik Mor Decha in 1999, he did it to a Bogy alone in 2016, and to Naftali Bennett of course. This is more pleasure than business for Netanyahu to fire Bennett. But at the end of the day, Netanyahu sees the defense establishment as a hostile administration, very powerful opposition party. And when it combined with the position, the independence that Gallant took, I think there

was no other way for Netanyahu but to eliminate the threat. This is in my opinion. Okay. Nadav, what was the reaction in Israel when this announcement was made? So first of all, I need to say that the decision to make this timing was very much related on a story that was blowing up in Israel during that day. This is the day of the US elections and a story that's blowing up and should have opened or was supposed to open the Channel 12 news at eight o'clock that evening

wasn't the US elections. The story was a new police investigation against the closest associates of the prime minister in his office in regards to the possible forgery of protocols related to the war. Which Nadav broke the scoop, by the way. Yeah, thank you, Amit, because I'm not sure Dan would have given me that credit. He would never, I know him. I just said too much with the Nadav scoop, so I need a meet-on to promote the Nadav scoops.

I'm tired of promoting the Nadav scoops. So I published in July a letter that was sent by the prime minister's military secretary, who's a general in the IDF. He's a senior ranking general. He's not a former general. He's part of the IDF and he sits at the prime minister's office and he updates him as to military... He's the legion of the prime minister to the army. And he sent a letter to the attorney general of Israel, basically saying, I suspect serious criminal offenses in trying to forge your protocols related to the war. Of course, this is a big one.

And then the attorney general ordered a new investigation. It was under a gag order. Then it was published on that day. And the Netanyahu office is already engulfed with another scandal related to the leaking of some secret information to foreign press that the police argues might have risked the lives of The police argues might have risked the lives of IDF soldiers and or the hostages. And that's another scandal within the prime minister's office. And one of his former spokesperson is under arrest as we speak for now 11 days. So you have here two huge stories that are breaking and they're supposed to open the

eight o'clock news. At any rate, the prime minister knows that he wants to fire Gallant and he also knows another thing if he fires him at 8 p.m. then by the morning the big story is not going to be Gallant fired the big story is going to be the next president of the United States right so I want to say something about this I think that this firing of Gallant although it didn't lead to the same widespread demonstrations as we saw last time, it's a bit hard to demonstrate. When many of my friends that wanted to demonstrate

are right now in Gaza or in the northern border in the reserve service. And the entire country is recruited. And you don't want to bring your kids to a demonstration because you're fearful that there will be a suicide drone that will attack you. It's a bit difficult these days to demonstrate. but maybe people are not as enthusiastic as they were. Can I offer an alternative explanation? Gallant went or managed the war with the verdict,

you know, just flying around him. He knew it's gonna come. It wasn't a surprise. Yes, there were tactical considerations that have described one. The conscription law is another one. But we knew it's going to happen. If Bibi knew Trump is going to get elected, he would just wait another day. In Bibi's eyes, and this is something very important to understand, in Bibi's eyes, he is the underdog. The one who's dealing with a hostile US administration, with Gallant whom he sees as the US ambassador to Tel Aviv, a politician that serves American interests.

Gallant thinks Netanyahu is a coward, so they don't have nice things to say one to the other. He sees himself first and foremost as one who's working against a military establishment that doesn't see the world the way he sees it. Now in Netanyahu's mission in his eyes is to dismantle this coalition that hinders his raison d'etre when it comes to Gaza, for instance, is not ending the war until Hamas is eliminated, in Iran until Iran is destroyed, etc. So this is the framework.

This is why Netanyahu was always very suspicious towards each and every defense minister, except one defense minister with whom Netanyahu worked in a brilliant, peaceful way. It was between 2018 and 2019, and the defense minister was Benjamin Netanyahu. I think that the fact that every single defense minister that has worked with Netanyahu was either fired or resigned, and there's a lot of bad blood there, that fact really tells you a lot about Netanyahu. And here's the thing, defense ministers in Israel are basically popular. Netanyahu has no apparent air.

A good part of his job daily is to make sure he doesn't have an air. He doesn't want to have any successful politicians next to him. And defense ministers are usually successful politicians with the virtue of their position. That makes them popular. And I can go all the way back to Yitzhak Mordechai in the 1990s and go through every single defense minister with the exception of Ehud Barak, who wasn't popular when he was nominated and remained unpopular through his tenure. But if you become popular near Netanyahu, it is the biggest sin that you can have.

I'll give you another example. Firing Gallat, I'm gonna bring another name here. It's gonna sound strange. Do you remember Elon Levy, who was a spokesperson for Israel? Yeah, he was also successful. He was also popular. And the Netanyahu office also got rid of him.

And the thing with Gallant there, the thing with Gallant there is not about Netanyahu being a big ideologue. It's about a really simple thing. The ultra-orthodox will lead to the fall of this government if they don't get a waiver, and Gallant refused to give the waiver. So Netanyahu fired him, and he's going to pass a new law to give them the waiver. Even if Gallant had stayed in office, you would not have seen thousands of Haredi's

marching to the IDF. Yes, Gallant, I think, expressed what Israeli soldiers and their families think about the disproportionality, this morality of the situation in which there is a community that doesn't go to the army. But I'm not sure that even if he stayed, we would have seen them coming. But it's more than that. I agree with you. Yes, he doesn't like popular figures around him. But it's more than that, I agree with you, yes, he doesn't like popular figures around him. But I have to say that over the last year, I was horrified and shocked to see the level of mistrust,

of curses even, between the prime minister and his defense minister and vice versa. And I don't think to be honest, that wars can be won with such a level of the relationship between those two. Okay, Amit, here's my question for you. Basically, what you're arguing, I think, is that there was dysfunction in the relationship

between Netanyahu and Gallant for a variety of reasons. There's always some politics mixed into it, but you're basically saying it's not exclusively politics that made the relationship unworkable, and that Netanyahu is still publicly spirited, public minded, and was not subordinating the interests of the nation or the war when he got rid of Gallant, subordinating them to his own political interests or political needs. But then you look at who he replaced Gallant with,

Yisrael Katz. It's not like he replaced him with someone of Gallant stature, capability, experience. So that's where I put it to you, like how do you square, oh, it's just the relationship was dysfunctional, but he replaced Gallant with a first rate, you know. With a four-star general, but this is the case.

I think here, Nadav and me agree. Netanyahu wants to dismantle this outpost of opposition to him. And the way to do it in his eyes is to nominate a single political figure from within Likud who lacks military experience and therefore the only security figure within the Israeli establishment and government would be Netanyahu himself. By the way, in my opinion, if Netanyahu would have replaced Gallant with Yossi Cohen, the former head of Mossad, I think people would be more cooperative with this move.

One third of his voters are unhappy, to say the least, with Netanyahu's decision. Part of it is because the conscription deal, part of it is because the fights in the middle of the war, and a significant part of it is the fact that people want to see stable hands on the wheel. And to be honest, they don't think Israel cuts is the figure. OK, do you think now that there's so much scrutiny of Netanyahu and how the security

establishment is going to run now with Galant gone, and perhaps others to follow who will be gone as leaders in the security establishment? Do you think there's a possibility that Israel will make some dramatic strikes, some military operation do something big militarily perhaps against Iran to demonstrate that just because Galant is gone doesn't mean, you know, you say like responsible hands on the wheel, Netanyahu basically saying, yeah, it's Israel cuts, but he's there's adult supervision here. I'm here.

Me and my people are here. We're basically running the defense ministry. I'm not sure. I haven't spoken to Khamenei lately, but I don't think he's really disturbed with the question who's going to be the next defense minister. And I don't think Gallant and Netanyahu had disagreements on the Iranian question. It had more to do with the Gaza issue. And no, I don't think anything is going to change.

If there is going to be any change, it has a lot more to do with the election in the US and the fact that Trump is going to be the president rather than the question of who's going to be the next defense minister. Okay. Does this make Netanyahu stronger in terms of his ability to drive through this Haredi deal? So even though it looks cynical to many Israelis, politically cynical, it will have been a politically deaf move and Netanyahu comes out stronger, or does it make Netanyahu

in the eyes of the Israeli public look more desperate? And is this, could one argue this like the beginning of the end of the Netanyahu era? It makes Netanyahu way stronger from a political perspective, but vulnerable from a public perspective. Politically speaking, he strengthened his coalition. He made a reshuffle within his cabinet. Now he has figures that have been marginalized, and he's the only boss in town. But he has a challenge, which has a lot to do with the Haredi community.

Half of his voters don't want the Haredi to get this exemption. And he'll have to deal with it one way or the other. And okay, this is a very important point. You're meaning half of the voters in the Likud slash national religious base are not happy with the idea that the Haredim, who are part of Netanyahu's government, guarantee that the Kharedim, who are part of Netanyahu's government, guarantee that the Kharedim get this military exemption. So this is like a position that's unpopular

with Netanyahu's own base. And this is the only point, I mean, it's amazing to understand that a year after October 7th, the only weak point within Netanyahu's own base is not the failure on October 7th, but it is this conscription bill. And this is why, in my opinion, Netanyahu is going to find that it's not very easy

to actually legislate this bill. Yet I think that Netanyahu will survive till 2026 as a prime minister, and now just in 20 seconds. In Netanyahu's eyes, the conscription bill is something marginal. Even economy is marginal. The judicial reform is marginal. The only game in town is security and diplomacy.

And now he got his opportunity, his golden opportunity to have a peace treaty with Saudi Arabia and to attack Iran with Donald Trump. In my opinion, he'll do whatever it takes in order to get rid of the so-called nonsense, marginal things and to concentrate on these issues. Okay. Nadav, Amit just said about what Trump's election means for Netanyahu and Israel, but maybe more just to get a little more granular,

what does it mean over the next few months? Because there's the big picture, what does it mean? And there's still a lot of cards to turn over for us to have a sense for what it means. But then there's the operational, very practical next few months during this transition, during the lame duck session of Congress in the US, during this lame duck period for President Biden. How are Israeli decision makers thinking about this period? Bibi's decision to fire Gallant

was basically any way you look at it, even if you accept everything that Amit just said, and I accept some of it at least, he's basically prioritizing political considerations over Israel's security. If he would have nominated another general or Yossi Cohen, the former head of the Mossad or anything like that, the reason he's nominating Israel Katzdean is because he's not a threat.

And I think that for many reserve soldiers, and I'm talking about people who texted me, people who responded to me online, people are saying, go and demonstrate in my name, because I'm not right now in Gaza. I think that Netanyahu is pushing this to the limit by saying, oh, I'm going to give a waiver from conscription to the Orthodox, because I need to survive politically.

I'm going to fire the most popular minister, the most trustworthy minister in the government who's gone. Cabinets in Israel do not serve for the pleasure of the prime minister. Unlike cabinets in the United States, we have a different system. Their obligation is to their portfolios, to the ministries, to the Knesset. It's a different system. So firing Golan in this atmosphere, this is beyond something that I would have imagined that Netanyahu would do.

This is not a popularity contest and it's not about hitting Iran. If he would have wanted to attack Iran, keeping Gallant in the process would be very important in order to garner legitimacy with the Israeli public. Now, half of the Israeli public will assume he's doing that in order to be in power. Now, to your question as to the United States and to the relations. So, of course, Netanyahu, and to a larger extent, Ron Dermer both placed their bets with Donald Trump in recent weeks. And if we would have spoke today, Dan, and the winner would have been Kamala Harris, I would have said the same. And I would have said that this was a dangerous bet.

And looking at this in retrospect, this was the right bet as far as they are concerned to make. They understood the political field in the US. And they really made some moves as to Donald Trump to try and safeguard their position. And the most important move that the prime minister made was to reach some sort of a new relationship, a new page in the relationship with Donald Trump, who, as we remember, was extremely angry and angry for years with Netanyahu and gave interviews about Netanyahu and said

terrible things about the prime minister. And both Trump and Netanyahu, from various reasons, decided Netanyahu was looking for Trump for a very long time. He understood that he's coming back and he wanted to make amends. And Trump, from his own reasons, decided after many, many attempts, many emissaries sent to Trump from the Jewish community in the United States, people who were close to Trump, he decided to go with Netanyahu and to allow him to restart the relationship.

So that was the most important thing as far as Netanyahu is concerned. I will add one other point. I have heard from people who have heard from him that President Trump was very impressed with what Israel has done over the last number of weeks. He was very impressed with the operation against Hezbollah, Nasrallah, the pagers. So there's also a little bit of strength and success, has a whole momentum and it attracts a lot of friends. That's what we're certainly seeing in the Gulf.

And I think it's the case with some in the US as well, perhaps including President Trump. I think it's a terribly important remark for anyone who knows who Trump is. Winning isn't the most important thing. Winning is everything. And with Trump, it's all about winning. That's a Vince Lombardi quote, by the way, former coach of the Green Bay Packers. I've never heard you quote an American athletic icon, but I digress. Yeah, but it's an important quote. So you really could see at the beginning of the war

that Trump was, he didn't know how to associate with Israel because he was seeing the opposition to the Biden administration. And there was this interview with Israel Ayom in which the reporters came back. I think we talked about that in your show, quite shocked. They didn't hear from Trump the same things they wanted to hear him, just supporting Israel. He basically said you should end the war.

He didn't say that in terms of you should lose the war, but he said the pictures coming of Gaza are terrible. The reporters said we didn't get enough about how terrible Hamas is. And they came back a bit shocked. And then when Trump saw what Israel is capable of, he was like, what you're doing is great. I don't want to interrupt you because it's so important what you've been doing, showing an appreciation for Israel

being successful. And I think this is really the basis of the relationship between Israel and the United States. It's not about Trump since 1967, about Israel being successful in the Middle East and surviving in the Middle East. What the Israelis want is first and foremost, the most basic stuff, releasing ammunitions, 2,000 pound bombs, all kinds of stuff that the US administration has been stopping. They want this.

They want more coordination as to Iran, maximum pressure on Iran right now. They want all options on the table. As far as the US is concerned, I'm not sure that this is the case. They want to have more of coordination as to Iran, and they want the US basically to tell Iran, you're going to go and attack Israel, we're going to respond to you directly. So as usual, the Israelis would want the US to be in direct confrontation militarily with Iran. They think this is the only way to deter it.

President Trump has said in his victory speech, I don't want to start new wars. I want to stop these wars that we're seeing. What does it mean as to Gaza? What does it mean as to the rest? I don't know. But definitely what Jerusalem doesn't want to see is Trump flipping or saying something like you need to leave Gaza in a month or two and you need to end the war. They don't want to see the kind of dramatic change that sometimes is really signifies know, signifies Trump's behavior on the

international scene as far as to Israel. One of the things that they were looking at suspiciously in the last few weeks is the way Trump was reacting to the Arab and Muslim community in Michigan, his appearance with Dearborn, Mayer and others. But the vibe that I'm getting from his circle is, don't worry. You know, we've got this covered and, you know, look at the Republicans right now. Look at the people who supported Trump. Look at the people who were there in Mar-a-Lago.

Don't worry about that. He knows who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. And they also say to me, you know, he also knows that Iran tried to kill him and that's not going to play well for the Islamic Republic. So right now I'm really eager. I'm serious now than to hear what you think about that. Oh, I would add one other point, which is Donald Trump has always been such an unusual fit for the Republican Party and such a counterintuitive fit for the Republican Party. On the one hand, on the other hand, he's always been very much in touch with where the base and the energy of the Republican Party is, where the grassroots are, where their energy is,

where their center of gravity is. You can see it based on the decisions he made when he was president last time, in terms of his appointments to the Supreme Court, for example. He has a real sense for where the party is in the base of the party and on this issue not foreign policy generally But specifically on Israel the US-Israel relationship The US role in the Middle East as it relates to the threat from Iran and its proxies

The base of the party is unapologetic The base of the party is knows exactly whereetic. The base of the party knows exactly where it stands, and it's more than just an analytical point about real politic and foreign policy. It's a cultural issue here in the United States. That's why I think people don't understand. When you go to the Republican National Convention, and unprompted and in a completely organic way,

you see tens of thousands of activists and delegates waving the Israeli flag. That's not a command coming from on top. That is a cultural connection that tens of millions of Republican voters, primary voters across the country feel for Israel, and I would say for the Jewish people. And so, you know, it was interesting, one of these exit polls that came out last night it said something like 60 plus percent of those who voted in the election yesterday did not think US policy was tough enough in meaning against Israel's enemies that was the complaint and so by the way that 60 plus of US voters does not just represent

Jewish voters right because the Jewish number of US voters does not just represent Jewish voters, right? Because the number of Jewish voters is minuscule. They're important in battleground states, but it's a tiny percentage of the overall electorate. Yeah, I think that even beyond that, you know, the fact that Democrats did not distance themselves enough, and I wrote about this, I think you quoted this on the show, did not distance themselves enough with these kinds of far left accusations against Israel about genocide and others.

And they were trying to keep some sort of a middle way, you know, between pro-Palestinian or sometimes pro-Hamas demonstrations and between the Israel. When you look at how popular Israel is in the US and specifically with independence, which is what they wanted to bring to the post. Look at John Fettermann in Pennsylvania, who was an outcast for Democrats. I think he didn't come to the convention. I was there in the convention and I remember that he didn't come because of the type of response he would have gotten. He said, I'm gonna stay with my family. It was such a big mistake politically speaking.

And it wouldn't have taken much by the way, imagine if Harris or before that Biden, but let's stay with Harris, had a sister soldier moment, had that moment where she locked arms with American Jewish voters who were really on the front lines of dealing with this unbelievable, unprecedented rise in antisemitism over the last year. Imagine if she'd gone to a US college campus

and stood shoulder to shoulder with Jewish students, like the ones we met with at Brown, if she had done something to make it clear whose side she was on. She didn't do that. She would say Israel has a right to defend itself, and Hamas is responsible for October 7th, and then it was always a but.

And then she would attempt to say, signal to those critical of Israel, but don't worry, I hear you too. And she literally would use those words, I hear you too. Sometimes she was asked about the protests against Israel, and she would say, I hear them, I hear them. Well, to many Americans, the people protesting are waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags

in the campuses of our most important universities and cultural institutions. And we're seeing they're saying, what do you mean you hear them? By saying you hear them, you're legitimizing them. And actually the challenge and the opportunity for her was to say, not only do I not hear them, I stand with their opponents.

And their opponents are American Jews who feel besieged right now. And she never did that. And I think that the Harris campaign would say, you know, what do you want? And I'm saying this because the Harris campaign did say that. What do you want? You know, we're supportive of Israel in terms of the facts and we are being attacked. And it's not that you're seeing Trump doing all these things, Dan, that you just suggested. You don't see him, you actually see him playing.

No, no, no, no. So it's very interesting that you say that. No, no, but I don't support that. No, no, I just want to say, just to your point, what they are missing in that, just in fairness, what they are missing when they say that, the Harris people, what they are missing is that Trump many times has said he was going to clamp down on the pogroms, you know, on campuses or the protests. Like he made it clear, like no compromises, like he's going to deal with this craziness. So she was never saying that he was talking tough about how he was going to take on these

protesters. That's all. So I think he had a lot more running room because he made it clear. In politics, you know, sometimes it's not about being just. It's about what's effective. It's your job bringing independence and specific parts of voters to your side. And this is the whole Josh Shapiro story that we're not going to go into.

You know, I remember reading something smart, I think, that Nate Silver wrote. He wrote if Josh Shapiro, if she would have picked Josh Shapiro, and the far left or the progressive left would have said absolutely not because Josh Shapiro is a Zionist and he supports Israel and he said he supports Israel during the war, and actually because he's Jewish, you know, but they wouldn't have said that, that would be a plus to Kamala Harris with independent voters who was not Jewish. That would actually mean she's Kamala Harris with independent voters who are not Jewish. That would actually mean she's more mainstream and not less mainstream.

To the credit of Nate Silver, who was wrong on many things during this cycle, he said that months ago that the resistance coming from the far left to Joshua Peoria is something that she can actually play with in order to be much more in the middle of America, which is something that she should be aiming for. No, no. They were so focused on getting the right tone, you know, like with that student who was shouting about genocide.

And I wrote about that. And you know, he was heckling. You shouldn't judge people because they're heckling. But no, why wouldn't you just say this is not a genocide? I do not recognize this as a genocide. I'm taking this out of the question right now. And then everybody would be terribly furious with you, with whom? With people who are going to vote for you anyway.

So all of this is, you know, this is going to be for the retrospective analysis of what happened in this election, which I suspect is going to last for years now. Yep. All right, Nadav, we will leave it there. Thank you for this. Okay. Thank you. That's our show for today. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Alain Benatar, our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Research by Gabe Silverstein, additional editing by Martin Huérgou. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan C. North.