Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Iran’s November Surprise? with Nadav Eyal

Episode Date: November 3, 2024

With two days before the US presidential election, there is increasing (and surprising) speculation from within the Israeli security establishment about whether Iran will attack Israel in the days ahead. In today’s episode, we try to unpack what’s going on with Iran-Israel and also a possible ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah. We also discuss our recent visit to an Ivy League university and what we learned from Jewish students there.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. 

It seems that the supreme leader in Iran, who also made this threat directly towards Israel, and we know that when he does make this threat himself on the record, the Iranians until now at least mean business, he decided that it's going to be a substantial attack. Having this before the substantial interference of the Iranians with the US elections. It's 8.30 a.m. here in New York City on Sunday, November 3rd, just a couple of days before election day in the US. It is 3.30 p.m. on Sunday, November 3rd in Israel as Israelis closely monitor the upcoming US elections. And I am pleased to welcome back to the podcast Nadav Ayal from Yidiot Aharonut. Nadav, good to see you in person a few days ago. Now back on our virtual conversations.

Morning, Dan. Nadav and I were speaking together at Brown University early in the week, which maybe we can touch on later. Nadav, I want to start with speculation within Israel about a possible Iranian attack against Israel and this debate that seems to be happening within the Israeli security establishment as to whether or not Iran will strike before or after the US election. Before we get to the before or after US election, I was somewhat taken aback that how quickly the conversation accelerated to Iran is going to attack.

Because I remember in the days after Israel's last operation, which seems like ages ago, wasn't that long ago, all the conversation was that Israelis were saying they were hearing out of Iran was that Iran was unlikely to attack. So now, not only is the conversation about Iran is going to attack, and now it's just a matter of when and what kind of attack. So can you, before we get into the timing, can you just explain why all of a sudden we've gone from, really

just a couple weeks ago, the whole discussion seemed to be that Iran was going to stand down, at least for the time being, the weight of the whole conversation has shifted to Iran is likely to attack, it's just a matter of when and how. The assumption when Israel responded to the Iranian attack at the beginning of October is that there's going to be a response by Iran. And I think we even mentioned this on your showdown when I said that because the assumption is that the Iranians will respond to the Israeli aerial strike, then Israel will have legitimacy to act again, maybe this time

against the nuclear installations after the US elections. One of the things that Israel saw almost immediately after its aerial assault a couple of weeks ago is how the Iranians are starting to prepare their forces. But this Iranian attack not stemming out of Iran, but from Iraq, from several reasons. One of them is for the Islamic Republic to somehow distance itself to an extent from this attack, not that anyone is buying into this, but also in terms of timeframe, if you think about this, if you attack Israel from Iraq and not from Iran, it gives Israeli aerial

defense systems less time of preparation, of warning on the radar screens if they use Iraq. And specifically, it really depends on what areas of Iraq they're using. If they're, for instance, using the areas of Iraq that are most western, quite close to Jordan, to the Kingdom of Jordan, this gives less of a warning to Israelis. But at any rate, the assumption was that there would be some sort of an Iranian response. The question was to what extent? Is this going to be symbolic and they want to end this cycle that began by the Iranians attacking Israel?

Or would they want to have something completely different, more massive? And at least for now, it seems that the supreme leader in Iran, who also made this threat directly towards Israel, and we know that when he does make this threat himself on the record, the Iranians until now at least mean business, he decided that it's going to be a substantial attack. Some would say even more massive than the previous one, which was massive. And the April one, which was also substantial,

the biggest attack by projectiles in air in history. So what the Iranians are signaling is that they're going to do this again and that it's going to be a meaningful event. And Israel is preparing to that. The US is preparing to assist Israel. The US, to an extent, assisted Israel in its response to the Iranians. And these things have been published.

It wasn't only purely about defense. It was also giving some backing to Israel, operationally speaking, in the case that, for instance, an Israeli aircraft would be shot down. So the Americans were on air with their own aircrafts to assist if needed. And you see how the US is, to an extent, being drawn slowly to this conflict between the Israel and the Iranians.

And at any rate, the assessment in Israel is that this is going to happen in the next week or so. And there's a lot of pressure on the Islamic Republic not to do this before the elections. Not that I think that the US administration is saying this on the record, or even saying this through its backdoor channels to the Islamic Republic, but it's clear that having this before the elections is a substantial interference of the Iranians with the US elections. That would be the meaning of this attack. And if this is going to be a big one and a substantial attack, and if people in Israel are going to get hurt, then the administration will probably need to assume some sort of a public position.

And everything now is so touching in the US, as you know, because we are in the final days and hours before the elections. So that's interesting because in the past, Iran has often activated proxies against Israel. And the understanding was the reason Tehran activated proxies is because Israel would respond to the proxies is because Israel would respond to the proxies and one major change we've seen in Israel's posture over the last few months is Israel saying we're done responding to proxies although we still may hit your proxies but if your proxies hit us we retain the right to respond to

you not to your proxy we may hit hear proxy to but we will hold you responsible and so the thinking is always been that iran activates its proxies because iran is living in in a world in which israel response to proxies and not iran now israel saying we respond to iran whether or not we hear proxies and you're saying they're still using the proxies here in this case iraq but the reason they're using proxy in iraq is not to try to create

this fake war between a proxy and Israel, but it's for operational reasons. It's for very practical reasons that Iran is at somewhat of a disadvantage because of the distance its weapons and its projectiles have to travel and Iraq gives them practical proximity. Yeah, it's probably both. And at any rate, Israel said that it feels free to respond against Iran if Iran employs these proxies. Dan, as you said, but it never did that. So if you look at just the timeline of the events,

Israel kills an Iranian general that was directing attacks against it in Damascus. Then Iran, basically on the record, has a casus belli attack against Israel back in April. Then Israel kills Nasrallah, the leader of an Lebanese militia supported by Iran, and of course a figurehead of the Axis of Resistance. Again, Iran opens fire against Israel directly. Then Israel responds to that, then there is the Iranian response, and so forth and so forth. So what we're seeing again and again is that these proxies that

have attacked Israel on October 7th, Hamas, October 8 8, Hezbollah, then the Houthis, then the militias. No, Israel tried not to escalate by attacking Iran directly. And this has a lot to do with the American administration's policy of trying not to make this into a regional war. Again and again, this administration was adamant that they want to prevent a regional war. And in other words, they want to prevent a full-scale war between Israel and Iran.

And here we are. It's not a Cold War, right? Because shots are being fired. People have died in Iran as a result of the last Israeli strike. And we're seeing, of course, the substantial damages as a result of the Iranian attack on Israel, but it's a post-war in the sense that it runs through cycles.

You attack, then we attack, and there's always considerations and negotiations between the parties or between the superpower and the parties, and it's not done on a continuum of events, right? Israel shoots, then Iran shoots, it's not the Iran-Iraq war. But this could very quickly devolve into such a scenario. And I think that at this position, Israel never said that its equation is, if one of your proxies shoot at us,

we see you responsible and we're going to respond against military targets into Iran and some people in Israel by the way within the defense apparatus would say That was a mistake to begin with that was a mistake Israel made years and years ago when it allowed Iran to build this network this cobwebs of proxies around it and allowed Iran to build this network, this cobwebs of proxies around it, and allowed it to have leverage through violence on Israel while its military command in Tehran directing this attacks always knew that Israel will not risk an escalation. The reason they're saying that was a mistake is look at how successful where the Israeli aerial responses to Iran have been in April and in October.

Iran is basically stripped out of its air defenses and Israel, it didn't even employ all the force that it has in order to do so. Was it a paper tiger? No. But could Israel have done more to deter Iran? Absolutely, it could. And this also goes, of course, to the US. Okay, I want to come back to the US. Before we do that, you and John Chanzer in one of our earlier episodes made this point about that Iran was its air defenses in the most recent operation Israel had done so much damage to Iran's air defenses that Iran is quite vulnerable or quote our

Our friend rich Goldberg who was also on this podcast a different episode where he where he said that you know The the ayatollah has no clothes, you know that they're sitting there totally exposed One would think if that were accurate and I have no reason to believe that's inaccurate that Iran would not be so brazen in seeming to escalate because if the Ayatollah has no clothes, then they're just sitting there, basically giving Israel the opportunity to respond at a time and place of its choosing, and Iran can't do anything about it. So why on earth would Iran risk provoking that?

I think it's a great question, and I think they're miscalculating to an extent. And the answer is that for the Iranians, they have come to a point in which their entire regional deterrence has been so weakened because Israel killed Nasrallah, killed the second in command, killed the entire command of Hezbollah, the most heavily funded terror organization in the world, killed Sinwar, has shown that Iran cannot compete with SA 300, SA 400, that it needs at least to show

that it could be part of the struggle of the axis of resistance. Because if Iran would have left this and would have said, okay, the cycle is done, we got our beating and we're re-collaborating right now, maybe that would be the smartest move strategically, but what would it signal to Hamas still fighting to an extent in the Gaza Strip or to Hezbollah trying to negotiate its way to some kind of truce or ceasefire in the north. Iran still has the possibility to cause major, major damages in Israel with the missiles that it does have.

I know that there was a lot of talk about the way that production of missiles was harmed in Iran as a result of the Israeli attack, maybe postponed by up to a year, but they still have stockpiles of these ballistic missiles and they didn't use some of the most heavyweight ballistic missiles yet. And they can still have at least two cycles of attacks against Israel. And I think they also suspect that Israel will not go for major energy civilian installations and that it won't attack the nuclear installations because this will probably not be as effective and provide Iran some legitimacy to advance its nuclear program. It is the eve of the US elections, and maybe the Iranians think that the US administration

is going to hold back on Israel. One of the messages that was sent to the Islamic Republic by this US administration is, if you attack Israel this time, we're not going to hold the Israelis back. So just take this into account. Again, I'm saying, and I know I'm an Israeli, but this administration has also said to Iran, before its October attack, if you attack Israel, there's going to be serious consequences.

And this is a quote, serious consequences. And I don't know what are these serious consequences. It's not even critically that I'm asking this. Just informatively speaking, I have no idea. I don't know. I am not aware of any serious consequences that the US has led against Iran. Diplomatically speaking, for sure, the US hasn't attacked Iran militarily, as a result of Iran's continued attacks on Israel, which are again a response to what?

To a targeted strike against an Iranian general in Damascus directing attacks against Israel on a third party country, not a direct attack against Tehran. Israel killing Ismail Haneea again, a targeted assassination. Israel killing Hassan Nasrallah again, a targeted attack, and not a full-scale, full-fledged, on-the-record, our military is fighting your own military, which is how we label war. As far as I know, the Americans have been extremely supportive. You know, we remember the active defense during April. We remember what they've been doing between then in October. They've all been so been supplying intelligence, we can assume, to Israel.

They've been supplying Israel with weapons and ammunition. But what's going to be done with Iran, with this bad actor to begin with? And if you say to this kind of an actor in the Middle East, there are going to be consequences. And factually, as far as I know, again, there are no consequences that you can see. This says a lot to the Iranians. So what the Israelis would have wanted, the Israeli defense apparatus would have wanted the US to say to Iran, look if you're gonna attack again this time we're gonna get ourselves involved here. And all options are on the table including use of force.

Not committing to use of force, right? You never want to ultimatum yourself to quote Levi Eshkol, a previous Israeli prime minister, which is another way to say, don't say there are red lines that if the other side is going to cross because this only limits your strategic availability to make decisions. But in this case, that's a real question. So how do you prevent this from escalating to a constant war of attrition directly between Iran and Israel? How does it stop then? That's the question. So I'm pulling up one of your tweets here, one of your posts on X, where things started back in April, and you kind of go through how we got to this point. And then you said,

and I'm quoting here, shouldn't the American administration's core strategy go beyond merely assessing and supporting Israeli defense when it's attacked to actually delivering the Islamic Republic with serious consequences and then you ask why are attacks from the Islamic Republic on Israel being normalized after October 7th if the Islamic Republic on Israel being normalized after October 7th. If the Islamic Republic had initiated war with Israel without the October 7th massacre, wouldn't it be obvious the US would take a far more confrontational stance? Certainly US politics is the main focus right now, but the Iranians continue to

provoke and the administration, while actively supporting Israel no doubt, isn't attempting to impose meaningful deterrence on Iran. Again, I underline, the administration is not attempting to impose meaningful deterrence on Tehran. The White House has previously promised, and you quote here, serious consequences. What exactly were they? And then you point to a piece by Barack Ravid and Axios that reports that the Islamic Republic

will respond using Iraqi proxies, as we're talking about right now. And then you write, perfect, let's make it a more regional conflict. This cycle could and should end with the US making clear to Tehran it will pay a price and make them pay it if need be. Yeah. Well, I stand by what I wrote in X. If that's the question. I think that sending B-52 to the region, which is a decision that the administration made.

So the White House has ordered strategic bombers, B-52, stationed under the command of CEDNCOM, which doesn't necessarily mean that they are at any position in the region because as we know they they can take a long flight from the US boom in the Middle East and just get back and they did that against the Houthis and that was a message to Tehran that was done on October 17 and now these B2 have been again placed under the command of CENTCOM. And this was done on the record with announcements coming from Central Command that they are there to protect and defend American interests and they will respond if American personnel or interests are jeopardized in the region. I would want to guess that if Iran is going to do what it did again,

this time it's going to come closer to Tehran than just striking their militia, their proxy, the Houthis, which have been substantial in their influence in the region. Look, there's a main Look, there is a main trade route in the world that is either handicapped or shut down to an extent because of the operation of that Houthi militia. And the world with the coalition and with the decisions and with the attacks has not managed to restore security to that region. So the Iranians and the Houthis are still getting what they want. Hezbollah is still shooting at Israel.

And I think this might not be transcending the new cycle in the US because of the elections and because of other issues. But Israel is being hit hard by Hezbollah in the north. And this time, it's civilian. And also, these unmanned drones and suicide drones that are entering Israel in the last two weeks on a daily basis, on a daily basis, and triggering sirens all across the country again and again and again, with parents running frantically to shelters with their kids.

This just became a daily thing that happens in Israel, not only in Israel's north. You can never know when it happens. And of course, they tried to hit the prime minister's house in Caesarea. He wasn't there, but they tried to hit it, and they managed to hit that house with an unmanned drone. So as far as the Iranians are concerned, they're still seeing Israeli soldiers dying

in the north, Israeli civilians dying in the north, Israeli soldiers dying in Gaza, all a result of basically their proxies in operation. October was one of the most deadliest months for Israel since the beginning of the war. This October. And I don't think that this is being reflected. I don't see this reflected in international media. I don't expect anything of that to be reflected truly. But I don't think the decision makers in the West understand that.

And at any rate, here's the bottom line. This quid pro quo between Israel and Iran needs to stop with a superpower saying, drawing the line and saying, it's over. Or saying, you know, we're going to go into this conflict and we're gonna make sure that Tehran understands that it's gonna pay a price for attacking one of our closest allies. What kind of price? I'm not pushing, you know, Israel would always, Israelis would always want the US to, you know, use its military might and attack nuclear installations in Iran directly and everything and I can understand why Israeli Why American voters American citizens and even the American defense apparatus is not too enthusiastic about that

but there are many many other things that that you can do diplomatically and I I'm not seeing these And I'm not seeing these initiatives in the region. And maybe it has something to do with trying to get an agreement in the north with Hezbollah, trying not to burn the bridges completely, and looking at this as an isolated affair. You know, Iran attacked in April, it attacked in October, Israel responded in both times. Now the Iranians are going to attack again. Then Israel is going to respond. Then we're going to end it. So not looking at this as a continuum of war,

but looking at this as tit for tat kind of thing. And then we can somehow quarantine this, and it won't escalate. Unfortunately, right now, if the Iranians are going to go for a full-scale substantive attack against Israel, this seems more like a wishful thinking to me than an actual strategy. This is something that we discussed on your show, Dan. I'm saying this about the administration. I know we're on the eve of an election.

I want to say that where are the Republicans in all that? The running an election campaign. Where is president Trump with this specifically as to Iran? The Iranians were plotting to assassinate him on US soil, right? Where is president Trump saying, no, I'm going to, it's the other way around. I saw this interview with JD Vance and I was worried because he didn't even say all options are on the table. He was basically saying, you know, we don't want a war there and we don't want them to have nuclear weapons.

But it sounded much more, I don't know, how would you define it? It's much more flexible than I would have wanted to hear. I think, look, two things. One, I think this is one of these rare situations in American politics where we have a former president who could possibly become the next president while not being the incumbent, which is sort of peculiar, who we can actually look at what he did towards Iran while he was president. And it is true, people may disagree with other aspects of Trump administration's policies, legacy, whatever.

I'm not here to get into discussion about that. But on Iran, the administration pulled out of the Iran deal and then proceed to impose a maximum pressure campaign on Iran, which included sanctions and included killing Qasem Soleimani. It is true that the Iranian enrichment went up after the U.S. pulled out of the Iran deal. But once the U.S. started to put major pressure on ron including taking out costum sulamani head of the rgc then the whole nuclear program seem to be frozen until biden got into power and became president and began pushing to get back to deal and suddenly the enrichment of uranium went back up so when iran was under immense military pressure from the US, they retreated. And they can look at what JD Vance and this one says, and that one says, at the end of the day, they know Donald Trump is unpredictable, does not operate based on conventional norms.

That is why they will. They have been trying to assassinate him. And I think all they they will look at is here's what we know we know what he did as president And so I again this is not to defend Trump or to be critical of Trump And I said, I know people have a lot of views on Trump generally but as it relates to Iran I suspect Tim Ron is more concerned about a Trump presidency Coming back into power then what is effectively an extension of the current administration?

To set the record straight as to the JCPOA, that agreement, when the agreement was signed, it's true that most of the Israeli defense apparatus didn't like it. It was during the Obama time. But when the Trump administration left the agreement, of course, the Israeli leadership, you know, Netanyahu, they were pushing for that. This is what they wanted. But in retrospect, there is almost a consensus in the Israeli defense apparatus that leaving that agreement was a mistake and it led Iran to more legitimacy and more enrichment.

But hold on, Nadev, I've got to challenge you on that. I think you're right. I think you're right about that because they're operating in a world in which the maximum pressure from the administration, including military action against Iran, did not begin till very late in the Trump term. Had there been a second Trump term, and if you presume that pressure would have continued, then I think we'd be dealing with a much different scenario. What happened is the pressure on Iran really kicked in very late in the Trump term, then Trump leaves office, then Biden comes in and quickly races back to try to get back into a deal, and I think that gave Iran much more legitimacy in the

region and internationally because here the US was begging to get back into a deal and we're trying to do counterfactuals here, which is always hard. We are, but basically what's good and credible about these people I'm speaking with, including on the record the person who was responsible Operationally for the stealing of the Iranian archives at the time and he was the deputy head of the Mossad Spoke with me on the record and he said we made a mistake We made a mistake and he didn't blame his you know other people there He he blamed only himself for not saying clearly to Israel's leadership and through them to

the American leadership during the Trump time that you should really not blow up this agreement without having any viable policy strategy there to try and prevent the Iranians from enriching again. This is just one example to a constant argument on making on your show in this argument is that it's not a matter of administration it's true that president trump has been more aggressive towards you run with the killing of suleimani and leaving the jcp away at the beginning And it is true that the Biden administration tried to get some sort of new agreement or new understandings with Iran. But it's also true that both administrations simply did not have any real strategy to tackle this bad actor in the Middle East. They didn't.

And all of us, but mainly people living in the Middle East, are paying for the U.S. not having a coherent strategy, even if you leave the JCPOA to do that. As to the statements from Trump, I feel that to an extent, even me, I'm getting constant phone calls from friends who are Democrats who are saying, you're so critical of the administration. You're reading so much into every statement and everything that you know, Vice President Harris has not said in a response to this Demonstrator hackling her and everything. Why aren't you employing the same standard as to what President Trump has not been saying? He has been in office, you know

He at least should be you know seen as someone who knows what he's talking about and again with JD Vance I don't see them saying clearly, Dan, what I would have wanted them to say, which is quite simple. Iran is not going to have nuclear weapons and if needs be, we will use force. All options are on the table. It's a very simple statement that, by the way, that Biden has said, but I'm not hearing this as part of the campaign at all, and I'm suspecting, and you tell me that it has a lot to do with, well, with politics. You don't want to own this conflict. You don't want to maybe enrage some parts of the country who aren't happy with Biden being too supportive of Israel. So he's staying clear of that. This is the feeling that I'm somehow getting as to the

Iranian issue, specifically as to the Iranian issue, which I find funny because again, as you said, there was a plot to assassinate President Trump. But some people would say within the Israeli defense apparatus, it is actually if it's Harris, that we believe that they could actually go for a strike. And if it's Trump, it would be more difficult. I heard this from a very senior Israeli source that you know, with a high expertise in security. He said, of course, if it's gonna be Harris, Biden could do this in the last two months that he has until January 20.

If it's gonna be Trump, nothing's gonna happen. Let me ask you, now I wanna move to Lebanon, but very quickly, what on earth is Iran potentially hoping to achieve by if they were to go strike before Tuesday, what would obviously appear to be mucking around in the US elections? You know, the thing about the Iranians is that they constantly miscalculate, and this has a lot to do with lost in translation kind of issues. There's an idea there is that if they strike before the elections, then the US won't do anything before the elections in response and Israel won't do anything too. And then there's going to be an election if, and this could

basically, you know, the noise is going to be so substantial and after the elections, whoever wins might say to Israel, don't do anything now and let me get my bearings. If it's Harris, there will be increased pressure. If it's going to be Trump, the US is not going to do anything because it's going to be an administration waiting for Trump to come into office or something like that. I don't think it's a very credible idea as to a scenario of events if they attack before Tuesday. I know that the US has been really very aggressive in its messaging, at least according to Western intelligence sources to the Iranians, don't do it.

Don't do it in general and specifically don't do it now. And I think the reasons are obvious. This is by them doing this. Tehran is actually going to play a role in the news cycle of the last 48 hours or 24 hours of the elections. Now it's true that dozens of percentiles of Americans have already voted, and I don't think it's going to really influence the elections. You know, unless there'll be substantial casualties in Israel, I don't think it's going to penetrate

the general discourse in this country, which is very naturally very focused on on the elections. Okay. I want to talk about Lebanon before we wrap up. There's increasing talk about quote unquote ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah. Amos Hoechstein, who's the special envoy or special negotiator to work on this issue from the US administration, is shuttling all over the place trying to get something done. I have been very skeptical all along that there's a deal to be done with Hezbollah, but maybe I'm wrong. Tell me what you know. So first of all, there's a deal on the table with Lebanon and with Hezbollah, but maybe I'm wrong. Tell me what you know. So first of all, there's a deal on the table with Lebanon and with Hezbollah.

A deal on the table between who? Between who and who? Who are the parties to the deal? Israel, the state of Lebanon, and from within that state, there are people like Nabi Berry, the chairman of the parliament in Lebanon, who represents Hezbollah, although he's not Hezbollah, he's Amal, he's

Shia in these negotiations. And of course, Mikati, the prime minister of Lebanon. Now, I want to explain something. Lebanon is a failed state, unfortunately, and it's a very weak structure of a polity to begin with. But something happened because Israel hit Hezbollah so hard. What happened is that people who were relatively weak, like Nabi Berry or Mikati or others, became more and more powerful. Not as a result of the virtue of their personality and their political clout, but simply because a very definitive rival was taken out of the equation. And that rival was Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah and the entire central command of Hezbollah. And now the secretary general of Hezbollah, the leader of Hezbollah, is a guy called Naim

Qassem, who's anything but charismatic or powerful or influential. And he actually didn't want the job to begin with. He was probably forced by the Iranians to take the job. He was the deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, but nobody thought about him as the heir apparent of Nasrallah. This is how weak he is. And he is now the leader of Hezbollah. It's a problem when nobody wants the job. Yeah.

And of course, and of course, the reasons for that as Gallant to quote a tweet by the Defense Minister of Israel, Yoav Gallant. His days in this position are numbered, you know, and there's a countdown going and there's even rumors that the Iranians didn't announce his position before he was smuggled out of Lebanon, which I don't know if it's true, but you know, wouldn't surprise us because they're fearful that Israel would... I should remind our listeners that Israel killed the heir apparent and he died together with another central command of Hezbollah after Nasrallah died. So this is the third one in the line. So as a result of that, you see people who were allies of Hezbollah but actually hated

Hassan Nasrallah and hated the interests of Iran and Lebanon. I'm talking about Waleed Jounblad, the leader of the Druze, Sameer Jaja, part of the Christian party that actually supported it at the time, was an ally of Hezbollah and others that are formally and on the record then saying that they don't support Iranian involvement in Lebanon, which is a code name to say, let's weaken Hezbollah. So something has changed in Lebanon as a result of Israel's actions against Hezbollah. What changed is that Lebanese civil society, for lack of a better description, or Lebanese politics, normal politics to an extent, is actually resurfacing.

And the army of Lebanon, that is to a large extent, by the way, maintained by the United States, has become much more powerful because Hezbollah isn't there. And because of that, there is a chance for an agreement. I don't wanna say that I am optimistic. I'm gonna say that I'm cautiously pessimistic, which is how I sort of recommend to look at the Middle East in general. Being cautiously pessimistic is always the right way to go.

But Netanyahu isn't pessimistic about this. Netanyahu thinks that there is an agreement that it's near. Gallant thinks the agreement is near. The IDF thinks that there is an agreement in reach. And this agreement has three pillars. The first one is an implementation of 1701, UN Security Council decision. The Security Council resolution from 2006 that pushed Hezbollah basically back to north of the Latani River and had a security vacuum filled or was supposed to have filled by UNIFIL by UN forces and by the Lebanese army, the ILA, but was never really implemented. That's absolutely right, Dan.

And one of the reasons to that was because Hezbollah was saying that it won the 2006 war. Of course it didn't. And later on, Nasrallah said, if I would have known what that terror attack against the Israeli soldiers would lead to, I wouldn't have ordered it to begin with. But they presented themselves as the only Arab party in history that managed to fight off the IDF. And this was one of the reasons for this myth of Nasrallah growing in its power across the Arab world.

So it's not only implementation of 1701, but also an extended 1701. And by extended, I mean that the Litani River flows sometimes close to the Israeli border. For instance, in the area of Metula, what we call the finger of the Galilee, which sort of spreads out of the border towards the Lebanese border. And because of that, just to give you specifics, there is an agreement that this area, although the Litani River is quite close to the border there, this would be declared by the Lebanese army, a closed army area, and no one would be allowed

to that area. Insofar that Hezbollah would even be drawn more to the north than the Litani River. That's an extended 1701. Another element there is the mechanism. So one of the things that you didn't have after 2006 is a really international mechanism to see the violations made by Hezbollah that were the violations that led to its buildup of military force on the northern border of Israel. This time Israel is very insistent that there will be an international mechanism, that it will be possible for Israel to report violations by Hezbollah in that area to that mechanism. And if the Lebanese army and UNIFIL don't take care of these violations and build up, Israel does.

And this is another important, significant point. Part of the mechanism is supposed to be a letter to be sent by the White House, possibly by the president, to the Prime Minister of Israel. In this letter, Biden, whoever that is, probably President Biden, is going to state that Israel has a right to defend itself and to respond to these violations. And it is the phrasing of the letter that Amos Hochstein has been dealing to, to an extent in the last few weeks What kind of assurance is Israel getting from the US that it would be legitimate for the IDF to operate there? I want to say something about that and let's say that Israel gets this lecture

BB is very big on phrasing and letters and all the rest but I should remind our listeners that when Hezbollah built a tent within the sovereign soil of Israel, I want to say this again. Before October 7, Hezbollah built a tent with its operatives armed within the sovereign soil of Israel at a specific point near our northern border. It wasn't an incursion. It was a few meters into Israel, but it was definitely in Israel. Israeli political leadership, they didn't convene a cabinet meeting, say, take out that Hezbollah tent that had Hezbollah operatives inside.

This is the level of deterrence that Hezbollah held on Israel at the time. So having a letter from the US president, that's great. But will Israel, after it's returning its civilians back to the north, actually attack Hezbollah for every violation, thus reopening this war? I don't know. How do you make sure that this is actually implemented, that this goes into your pessimism? How do you make sure that it's actually happening? Now, a third element is a sort of an arms embargo on Hezbollah, and that's the most ambitious part there. This arms embargo is to prevent Hezbollah from re-arming itself. Now, there it becomes interesting. Israel is having some sort of signaling or tacit attempts at understanding with the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria because these things are landing in the Damascus airport.

Now in order to have an understanding with Bashar al-Assad, so he won't be rearming Hezbollah, his ally, until not far long ago. In order to have that, you need to have the Russians in, right? Because the Russians are the patrons of Assad and the reason he remained in power. And one of the things, I published it last week in Yediut, is that Israel is thinking that the Russians should have a role in making sure that Hezbollah is, to an extent, restrained. And when I said that to my American sources, the Israeli decision makers, and I wasn't speaking with spokespersons when I wrote my story, when I said, the Israelis think that Russians should play some sort of role. I couldn't finish the sentence before the US people I was speaking with were like, what are you talking about?

They have been supplying weapons to Hezbollah. What are you talking? We're not going to allow any role. There's not going to be any role. And I can understand why. So I came back to my senior officials I spoke with and I was saying, the US is saying out of the question. And the Israelis went, well, we don't think we should be too reliant on the US on these

issues because this is Syria and Lebanon and they're not controlling the Damascus airport. I said, yeah yeah but what kind of role are you talking about? They said you know we have an operational hotline between Jerusalem and Moscow since the beginning of the civil war in Syria and we're thinking about extending that to include Lebanon and we think that the Russians are very impressed by what Israel did to Hezbollah because the Russians do value use of force and they understand what the Israelis did. And they have an interest there because they want to make the rule of Bashar al-Assad more legitimate.

And again, I go back to the Americans and they went crazy about this. Again, I can understand why because they're saying these are the destabilizers in the Middle East. They are the cornerstone of the support internationally for the axis of resistance. Why are the Israelis even contemplating about talking with them? They are the enemy. Now, I'm not going to pick sides here. I can understand on an operational level what the Israelis are saying. I can understand on a strategic level what the Americans are saying. Anyway, it's not going to be a formal part of the agreement. The US is not going to sign any agreement, be party to any agreement that would say that

Russians have any role to play with this kind of a ceasefire. But it's very much on the table. It was discussed by cabinet. Cabinet gave a go ahead to the prime minister and the defense minister to close the deal in the north. And the prime minister and the defense minister to close the deal in the north. And the prime minister wants a deal. The prime minister wants a deal. And if the Lebanese are going to be serious as much as they can, and if the US is going

to supply with some assurances, the general assessment in Israel is that we're going to see a deal in the north in the coming two weeks, unless the deterioration and escalation we run is going to derail this completely, and that's always an option. Nadeav, you and I visited Brown University this past week. We spoke at an event together. We attended an evening with a group of students put together by Brown, Hillel, and Chabad. Any impressions you had specifically about that experience, or more generally, about what's going on these days for Jewish students

on elite American college campuses? So of course, maybe you can say some more about this. But I think what was meaningful for both of us was not only speaking in Brown with the general audience that came, but also meeting with these Jewish students afterwards and hearing their experiences of living through the campus. These are undergrads.

And what struck me, and maybe you can talk about this some more, Dan, is how socially difficult this year has been to them. And of course, college is, you know, it's all about, I don't want to say it's all about the friends you make, it's also about education, right, or it should be, but it's a lot about the friends you make and how you move through life, right? This is such an important part of growing up and becoming a grown-up and the people you meet there.

And it seems to be, after hearing them, that this is an experience that will change their life because it was so substantial and extreme and unpleasant. The way that, you know, people talked about hiding who they are, hiding their identity, hiding their Zionism. There was a report that came out last week by the relevant house committee that had initially brought up the presidents of the universities from MIT Penn and Harvard that I think Catalyzed a lot of the government's focus Congress's focus our focus on what's going on on the rot that Exists in many of these campuses and this a new report 400 page report just came out a few days ago We're gonna visit that topic in a few days

Because I do think the report is very important and we should learn more about it. It reveals a lot. But I think Nadav, what you're talking about is something different, which on the one hand, this is not a discussion or an observation about how the Brown administration has handled Jewish life on campus and the response to October 7th and the aftermath. But what you're zeroing in on is just very much the experience of what it means to be a Jewish student today on an elite American campus and being someone who proudly identifies as a Jew, Jewish communal life and Jewish observance and Jewish identity

is a big part of who they are, and therefore their Zionism and connection to Israel is a big part of who they are. And the massive social cost these students have to endure in order to maintain that to me was shocking. In every academic environment I've ever been in, I have had political differences with many of my fellow students and friends. And I never imagined that the political differences or philosophical differences or ideological differences, whatever you want to call them, were destructive of personal relationships. And what these students were describing was a reality

in which any association with Israel and in many cases with Judaism can lead and often very much does lead to isolation in your social life, in your social networks, among your campus life. And I don't know how representative that is. The group we had dinner with was a smaller group. It was a fascinating discussion. I applaud the students for attending. I applaud Chabad and Hillel for organizing it. But this was an aspect of Jewish life on campus that

I did not know much about. How these Jewish students who want to just proudly associate, not hide, not keep their heads down, they're stigmatized. They're ostracized for being who they are. And I don't see that happening to any other demographic on campuses. It's just happening to the Jews. The isolation and the ostracizing and the stigmatizing of Jews. And I assume this is going on everywhere,

a lot of these campuses, and that is a new world because I've talked on this podcast before with John Podhoretz, we did a podcast many months ago about what this period means in Jewish life in America. And there's a sense that Jews just generally are being driven underground. That big part of what we're experiencing right now is Jews who wanna proudly associate with their Judaism,

and again, Zionism is therefore a big part of that, are being driven underground. They're being told, you can be who you are, but they're being told by the non-Jewish world, you can be who you are, but keep your head down. You know, do it on your own time and your own place. Mind your own business and we'll leave you alone. But if you're very public, you're not going to be left alone. Yeah. I think that this has a lot to do also with political tribalism and levels of political

tribalism. What you said just in the beginning, Dan, about this, it's the sense that you cannot be friends with someone who you think diametrically different on major political issues. So some of these students, even that we spoke with, said that this could definitely be the same if someone has this and that opinions about politics. So I agree completely that this is not something that's done to other demographics in terms of identity. But generally speaking, you're seeing a rise in political tribalism. That's actually the meaning of political tribalism. When people define themselves and others only based on these politics, and they cannot see anything more complex and friendship cannot come in the way of either alliance or hate.

This is something spreading through the West in general, which I find very interesting and it goes through universities. And of course, if the orthodoxy in some universities or even in some classes justifies this to an extent. It's all about absolutes and binaries, right? And justice and injustice. Then it becomes so extreme and very unpleasant and to an extent, you know, a sort of a repression. I've been told by friends who, for instance, work in Silicon Valley, who have had long careers in Silicon Valley. So they work in the tech world.

They say there have been divisive political issues, ideological divisions in the Silicon Valley that have never, the things got tense, but they never ended business partnerships, multi-decade business partnerships, multi-decade friendships, never until this issue, until October 7th. They said it didn't happen over abortion. It didn't happen over the George Floyd killing and riots afterwards in the summer of 2020. It didn't happen over the Muslim ban. When President Trump first came to office, the quote unquote Muslim ban, it didn't happen. I mean, I can go on and on. It didn't happen over the Trump election in 2016. It's that things got tense, but there was never this kind of isolation and friendship ending like there is over Israel.

There's something about the issue of Israel where it reaches a different level. But even the students were describing what it's like when there's a, a speaker that's sympathetic to Israel that's on campus, and they, the Jewish students who are involved with the event, want to bring their non-Jewish friends who are open-minded. That's what, remember they told us this about the, they want to bring non-Jewish students who are open-minded, who want to learn, who express a genuine interest in learning, except those students don't want to be seen coming in and out of the event because just by appearing as a non-Jew attending an event by a genocide sympathizer quote

unquote that those non-Jewish students will be then put you know ostracized so they don't want to take that risk so that's how crazy and as you're alluding to how antithetical this is to what we think of as a dynamic learning environment where people are engaging with ideas including ideas they disagree with that even if you're not a student you run the risk. I'm being tagged as somehow affiliated or giving hearing to the genociders yeah but i think we both were inspired by the students and by their ability you know. First of all to assemble you know they do, they do assemble, they do organize, they were there in the room with us. They're organizing their events and they've been challenged and this is part of history. One of the things we spoke about, I spoke about with them is

that Jewish student groups in Russia, the beginning of 20th century used to convene in rooms and they felt attacked and criticized because they were Zionists. And this is something that's happening again. Of course, it's unfortunate. It's part of the Jewish experience and the move through history. It is unfortunate, but it's part of who we are in the world. And it's not that this is something

that we should somehow celebrate, but it is part in the world. And it's not that this is something that we should somehow celebrate, but it is part of the experience. And unfortunately, it's, of course, still there. And what I'm trying to say is that even though that there is this kind of acidic criticism and, to an extent, anti-Semitism, this has led. These kind of challenges have led us in so far. And at least with the Zionist project, with the Zionist story, have led at the end to

the formation of Israel and in this country for the success of the American Jewish community. And I think that to an extent this happening again, you know, it could be a moment of depression, but also a moment of inspiration. Your lips to God's ears. Nadav, we will leave it there. Thanks for doing this. We'll be back in touch soon. Thank you, Dan.

Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huérgaux. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Sinor.