Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Jerusalem - Rafah - Washington - with Nadav Eyal

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

Are we witnessing a dramatic change in the Biden administration’s approach to Israel’s defensive war against Hamas? Are these changes just rhetorical to mollify either US domestic political constituencies or Middle East regional actors (or both)? Or do they represent meaningful policy changes? Should Israeli leaders be concerned that the US-Israel relationship is entering a new phase? To help us understand what’s going on, our guest today is NADAV EYAL, who returns to the podcast. He is a columnist for Yediiot. Eyal is one of Israel’s leading journalists, and a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel’s most prestigious journalism award. Eyal has been covering Middle-Eastern and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print and television news. He received a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. We also have an update from Nadav on the heroic hostage rescue in Rafah.

As far as the Israelis are concerned, they just gave the administration a huge present, saying to the administration, go to Hezbollah and tell them we're not going to insist on 1701 UN Security Council decision being maintained and implemented in the north, if you're willing to stop the war where you are at right now, in a status quo of about 7 to 10 kilometers from the border. And in order to make that happen, you need the truce. You need to cease fire in the south because Hezbollah is shooting because Israel is shooting in Gaza. So everything needs to stop in order to at least

have a chance with the big agreement with Saudi Arabia and the new Middle East and what Tony Blinken is trying to push here in the Middle East. From what I'm hearing, the Americans believe that it's possible and also get a prisoner swap in the South and have some sort of a horizon and the US elections. So everything depends on Hamas agreeing to a prisoner deal right now. And this is why everything is focused on pushing them at the moment. And as far as the Americans are concerned, or in the White House, also pushing

Netanyahu. It's 10 p.m. on Monday, February 12th here in New York City. It's 5 a.m. in Israel on Tuesday, February 13th, as Israelis are getting ready to start their day. Are we watching before our eyes a dramatic change in the Biden administration's approach to Israel's defensive war against Hamas. In recent days, President Biden has described Israel's response to Hamas in Gaza as, quote, over the top, as though Israel's military response is disproportionate. Secretary of State Blinken, who has laid out a new and unprecedented approach to the creation of a Palestinian state, has suggested that Israel is operating as though it has, and I quote here, a license to dehumanize Palestinians. And he compared that to the way Hamas dehumanized Jews in its October 7th massacre. This is language

against Israel that the Biden administration had not only more or less strenuously avoided, but had actually criticized only weeks ago. Take a listen to President Biden's National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, less than two months ago. While we all want the war to end as soon as possible to stop the human suffering and to establish conditions for an enduring peace, something that the president and the entire team continues to pursue. A unilateral ceasefire with a terrorist group like Hamas is not the answer. Or Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, who speaks from the podium on behalf of Secretary Blinken. I have not seen evidence that they are

intentionally killing civilians. We believe that far too many civilians have been killed. But again, this goes back to the underlying problem of this entire situation, which is that Hamas has embedded itself inside civilian homes, inside mosques and schools. It is Hamas that is putting these civilians in harm's way for all the questions. I'm surprised I don't hear more people saying, why doesn't Hamas lay down its arms? Why doesn't Hamas move out of schools? And then, of course, there was Secretary Blinken himself. What is striking to me is that I hear virtually no one's demanding of Hamas that it stop hiding behind civilians, that it lay down its arms, that it surrender.

This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. This would have been over a month ago. How can it be that there are no demands made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim. There is a litany of quotes like this by senior administration officials over the last few months. These quotes in particular were in the last few weeks. Repeatedly, the Biden administration has gone out of its way to describe the impossible situation Israel is in in trying to fight Hamas defensively and the degree

to which the IDF has been taking measures to fight this war humanely and morally in ways, according to the Biden administration, that no other military has conducted modern warfare. So what has changed? And should Israeli leaders be concerned that the U.S.-Israel relationship is now entering a new phase? To help us understand what's going on, our guest today is Nadav Ayel, who returns to the podcast. Nadav is a columnist for Yidiot, one of Israel's largest news organizations. He's one of Israel's leading journalists. He's a winner of the Sokolov Prize, Israel's most prestigious journalism award. Ayel has been covering Middle Eastern

and international politics for the last two decades for Israeli radio, print, and television news. He received a master's degree from the London School of Economics and a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In this conversation, we also get an update from Nadav on the heroic hostage rescue that occurred over the last couple of days in Rafah, for which Nadav has done firsthand and frontline reporting. Nadav Ayal on Jerusalem, Rafah, and Washington. This is Call Me Back. And I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast my friend Nadav Ayel, who comes to us from Tel Aviv, who is in the midst of reporting and analyzing on a lot of news. Nadav, it's morning for me,

it's afternoon for you. Good to see you. Good to see you too, Dan. I appreciate you coming on short notice, given all that's going on, but that's partly why we wanted you on. In the last 12 hours, we're learning more and more about this hostage rescue in Rafah. Can you tell us what you know so far? So two hostages, Fernando Merman and Luis Herr, both taken from a kibbutz called Nir Y Tzchak on October 7 by Hamas terrorists, and were held by Hamas in Rafah in a family home, just a regular family home by their kidnappers, were released during an operation that was conducted by the IDF, the SWAT teams, the Shin Bet operational force, the Israeli Air Force that was involved in the entire operation.

There was also a sort of a maneuver within the Gaza Strip near Rafah that was basically focused at taking away the attention of the Hamas so that they'll be able to operate in that area. And they were released at about 1 a.m. And they are in good shape. The way that it was conducted is that the IDF traced the place that they were kept in. This is because of information that they got from the Israeli sheen bed. They practiced on models. The IDF has a lot of experience with releasing hostages. This is really the history of Israel, and you probably remember that, all the way back to, you can hear some sounds here in the background because I'm in an office. You might be hearing this kind of noises as we go

along. But at the nerve center of your news gathering operation, don't worry, we're good with that. Yeah, that sounds better good. And they basically have the operational skill to conduct these kinds of operations in a way that will allow the release of hostages, sometimes unharmed. And this was indeed the aim here. They practiced on the model for, I don't want to say many weeks, but they practiced for a long time, relatively speaking. And they were looking for a specific operational window that came through intelligence so that they can act and they have a good idea that they'll be able to release these two persons,

which, by the way, one of them has his partner that was released in the hostage deal earlier, and she's back home, and other family members that have experienced, of course, the horrors of October 7th. When the forces came there, they managed to get to the second floor of the building, and then they broke into the room using explosives. They broke the door.

They had an idea where the abductors are in a way that they could eliminate them right in the beginning of the operation, which they did. But then, of course, it became much more complex because when shots were fired, fire opened against the IDF operating that area and against those hostages. Basically, the soldiers protected them with their bodies all the way through until they got into the armored vehicles that were brought into that area. And then, while all the time fired and shots are being fired by Hamas terrorists around them, they were brought back to Israel through the southern part of the area of Wafah. This involved using an immense and very

sophisticated campaign so that Hamas attention will be placed in other places, that they won't understand what's happening. And this was a highly complex and for Israel a successful operation in the sense that at the end these people people were released unharmed, and no Israeli soldier was seriously hurt during the operation. And the amount of time it takes to plan an operation like this, and I know you have a relationship with General Finkelman, who's the commander of the Southern Command, and the IDF, who would be overseeing this operation, would ultimately have to greenlight the operation. So just based on your understanding of how he sees things and how the rest of the military leadership has been anticipating this opportunity, how much time are they in a situation like this? Are they

observing, plotting, organizing, and then waiting for that exact moment to strike? So I should say that this is the second time that Israel managed to have this kind of successful operation of releasing a hostage. The first time was, of course, the soldier, Orima Giddish, and she was brought back home, really in the first three weeks of the ground operation. But this is completely different because Rafah is now so soaked with Hamas terrorists. And this is so complex, not only getting to that apartment, knowing where inside the apartment the kidnapped Israelis will be, where the kidnappers will be, eliminating them in a way that they will not murder the hostages, but also manage to get out. And that's the point, get out without Israeli soldiers dying in the process.

So they've been preparing for that for a while now. I don't want to place this with specific timeframes. I know that if they have practiced this with models, we're talking much more than a week or two weeks, and that's a lot. but they've been following the intelligence in relation to these hostages. And Israel is picking up intelligence as in reference to the hostages. By the way, it's being assisted by the United States. It's something that the US is saying out loud. This is assisting Israel in tracing the hostages around the Gaza Strip. These kind of operations are only approved if the high command, and you mentioned General Finkelman and others, think that there is a good chance of releasing

people without killing them in the process, or without their kidnappers murdering them, or without many soldiers getting hurt and the IAF suffering casualties. And that's always a question. So we can assume, and what I'm saying now is a sort of a calculated assumption, that Israel has much more intelligence as to the hostages around the Gaza Strip. And I'm assuming that the Israelis are making their decisions also in a sort of a cost-effective way. And when I say cost, I mean the cost of life to the hostages and to the soldiers

that need to take them out. And they need to make that calculation so that they make sure that it doesn't end in tragedy. And I should mention now that we had these kinds of tragedies. The IDF announced less than two weeks ago that during an operation to release hostages, they didn't exactly say what they tried to do. They didn't manage to do so, and a hostage was

murdered. So this is one thing that we should always keep in mind, that these things always have a price, and that's what it's about. The IDF has been capturing, not only killing a lot of terrorists from within these Hamas battalions, but they've also been capturing a lot of them alive and presumably interrogating them. In fact, the news over the last few days that the IDF found this massive data, subterranean data center underneath UNRWA was a result of intelligence they got from interrogations of Hamas operatives that they had captured. And that's why they went back into Gaza City to go find the data center underneath the UNRWA headquarters. In this particular case, do we know that some of the intelligence was

gathered from interrogations from captured Hamas terrorists? I don't know that for sure, but I can say that the Shin Bet, Israeli secret service, was very much involved with the operation and with the intelligence gathering here. And usually the Shin Bet is more focused on humans, on agents, and on interrogations. Human intelligence, which is for our listeners, not signal intelligence, not electronic communications, but it's actually human-to-human interaction. Exactly. And what I just said is a gross generalization, and my friends in the Sheenbet won't like it because they do everything.

But basically speaking, the Sheenbet is more focused on human intelligence, and there are other units like A200 in the intelligence branch that are more focused on technological signals. And for that matter, I sort of assume as a journalist that there was human intelligence that was gathered during the last two months that led to this operation. But when you have this kind of an operation, you need everyone. So you need both the data that will come from prisoners of war, the data that would come from signals, from technological signals, the data that would come from the air. Israel is employing, you know, just a sea of drones over the Gaza Strip. I remember once seeing a map in one of these places,

one of these headquarters, of how much just air power Israel has over the Gaza Strip as it's running its operation. It's just an amazing sight to see on radar. You just see everything was in red and everything is red. So Israel has a lot of air presence there and some of it is to gather intelligence. This news is obviously very positive and also that from what I understand, as you alluded to, the two hostages released were in relatively good condition. And my understanding is they were found above ground, not below ground. They were not hidden in tunnels.

They were living with a family that was keeping them together with those kidnappers that were in the house, as far as I know. Which may explain why their health condition is maybe of exceeded expectations because they haven't been necessarily underground for over 100 days. Exactly. So there's a lot of excitement about this news in Israel, but there's also been some tragic news, which is more Israeli IDF casualties outside of this operation. There were two casualties, Adi Eldor and Alon Kleinman. Can you tell us what we know about those two deaths? So Adi Eldor and Alon Kleinman died in an anti-tank missile attack in the southern part of Gaza,

where Israel is having its operations right now, its most highly intensive operation, not exactly in Hanunas, but not far from it. And this just reminds us for Israelis, you know, it happened in the same night that Israelis heard about the release of the two kidnapped Israelis. So the news came entwined. Two soldiers died in the operation and two Israelis were released. And one of the most uplifting things that I saw today is the parents of Adi Eldor, Liron and Rakefet, and they spoke just before the funeral. And what they said is that our sons are dying and they are fighting because they think that this is a just war. We need to get every kidnapped Israelis back. It's our responsibility. So they were using their

airtime to speak about their son. And they were saying that this is the most important thing that the IDF soldiers are fighting for. And this is the reason that their son thought it was a just war and a war that's worth fighting. And of course, he died in that war. And unfortunately, he's not going to be the last. And Israelis know that it's not over, and it's not close to being over. And Alon Kleinman, just not that we need reminders, but we're often reminded of how the casualties in this war, and the victims of the October 7 slaughtering, and the hostages touch so many Israelis, just the circles that they touch socially, familially. And even Alon Kleinman is the cousin of the best friend of Alon Benatar and his family.

Alon, our producer of this podcast. Alon is Israeli, lives in New York, but he and his wife have lots of family in Israel and a lot of Israeli friends here. And they have a connection, indirect, but a connection to a long climate. And it's just every time I hear news of Israelis getting killed, I sort of brace for who I'm going to speak to or who I know that will know the person or know family of the person that was killed. I'm sure, Nadav, you deal with this exponentially more than I do. Yeah. So it's part of the ritual of the unfortunate ritual of this war that we wake up each morning and we ask ourselves, do we know the names of the people

that sacrificed their lives during their service in the IDF? And I'm saying the people because, you know, most of the people fighting in Gaza until lately were reservists. So these are really your friends, people that you know, I'm 45, people my age, a friend of a friend, and so forth. And then you hear the names, and sometimes as journalists we know the names. Before that, we don't publish them until the families get notified by the IDF formally and then the names are released so yes this is some sort of thing that the Israelis are used to from for other wars to the extent that you can get used to to this kind of tragedy but basically this is the longest war that Israel has ever seen it's not the war of independence in 1948 so So it's day in and day out. I should say that there are a lot less casualties now than they were a month, a month

and a half ago. The IDF has been doing much better in terms of casualties because it has been crushing the Hamas regiments across the Gaza Strip. And that meant that they are in a condition, you know, at least operationally speaking, they're much more successful and they have less resistance. So, you know, days are good when you don't hear any name. And we had several days like that.

And then you can sort of breathe as an Israeli and say, you know, yesterday was a good day. Now let's see what's going to happen today. Nadav, I want to talk more broadly about where we are with regard to the U.S.-Israel relationship in the context of this war, which seems to be evolving or devolving depending on how one looks at it. And before we dive into what's going on in the actual relationship, it seems to me that a flashpoint in the relationship is Rafa, and what to do about Rafa. Rafa is the part of Gaza that is right on the Egyptian border, right there on the other side of the Sinai. It is a 14-kilometer border between Gaza and Egypt. And what is the significance of Rafah? And why is it so

important to Israel to go into Rafah? And then we'll talk a little bit about the U.S.'s concerns. So Rafah is the last stronghold of Hamas. It has at least four regiments of Hamas that are virtually untouched by the IDF, because the IDF didn't operate on a mass scale in Rafah since the beginning of the war. It was a safe zone. It is still formally a safe zone. So there was the operation last night to release the hostages. It was in Rafah, but this wasn't the operation in order to dismantle those Hamas regiments. So this was just a very targeted operation. This was just go in and get those hostages. It was not a comprehensive operation to retake. Yeah, there was an attempt,

you know, sort of a Twitter sphere attempt to present this as though, you know, President Biden asked Prime Minister Netanyahu not to go into Rafah, and then the IDF got into Rafah. No, the IDF went into Rafah to a very targeted operation to release the hostages, but it didn't do the big thing, which is dismantling the Hamas regiments. Hamas evolved from a terror organization to a quasi-military. Its regiments are much larger in size than usual Western country military regiments. It's more than hundreds of people per regiment sometimes. Overall, it has about 30,000 or had at least 30,000 fighters. And basically, Israel went from north to south in clearing these regiments, dismantling them,

killing as many officers and soldiers of Hamas as it could. And in Rafah, there's still, again, virtually four regiments that Israel didn't tackle yet. So that's the first significance. But of course, as Israel went through the Gaza Strip from north to south, some of these elements escaped south, and they are now placed in Rafah. So it's not really four regiments, it's much more than that. So reaching Rafah is important because of two main reasons. The first is if you're going to dismantle the army of Hamas, you need to finish the job. The second reason is because of what is labeled the Philadelphia route.

The Philadelphia area is the place in between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. And it is where usually all the massive arms was smuggled from underneath the ground from these tunnels. So Hamas basically got its training in tunnels in Philadelphia and Rafah. Okay, so just so we get the terminology right, so it's not, because I think people hear, Americans, Westerners hear this, they hear Philadelphia. It's not the city of Philadelphia, it's Philadelphia, right? That's the corridor. Okay, and there were tunnels, that's the corridor. Historically, these areas are used to smuggling, massive smuggling, between Egyptian Rafa, there was a town called Egyptian Rafah, and Gazan Rafah. Somewhat like in some places in California that you have, you know, just a wall separating between Mexico andrative, any way you look at it. But because Israel imposed

its blockade of the Gaza ship after Hamas rose to power in 2007, these kind of smuggling tunnels became highly important for the Hamas rule. And just to be clear, when Israel withdrew from Gaza, the understanding was this 14-kilometer border was supposed to be secured by the Egyptian military. 750 members of Egyptian military personnel were supposed to be securing that border. They either didn't do a very good job of it, or they were corrupted. Yeah, but at a certain point, Egypt did make a significant decision. Basically, it transferred Egyptian Rafah. So actually, Egyptian Rafah, that town that was based to an extent on smuggling, was moved by the Egyptians, and they ruined the entire

urban area on that border, on that southern border, so that Gaza won't enjoy the type of smuggling that we have seen before. At a certain point, the number, the amount of smuggling decreased substantially. Israel went into the Philadelphia area at some points, and it had some targeted operations along the years. The Egyptians did some work, and it became less important to an extent because Israel allowed merchandise coming to Gaza from certain areas. So of course, if you wanted to smuggle into Gaza a weapon, that would be virtually impossible through those truckloads that were coming through Israel. But you do have the Egyptian gate, and that Egyptian

gate has both a formal gate, and that's how Palestinians, for instance, can travel abroad, unlike stuff that is sometimes said in social networks. They can do this through Egypt, although Hamas limits them, and sometimes Egypt does, but this is not with Israeli control. And also you can have some merchandise coming through Rafah from Egypt, but also you have the informal routes, which are the smuggling. Now, nobody knows exactly the extent of these smuggling tunnels underneath Palestinian and Egyptian Rafah. But the point is that if you want to really disconnect Hamas from the world, if you want to make sure that Hamas cannot rearm itself, you need to make sure that these

tunnels are destroyed, and you need to have a force there that will protect the Palestinian areas of Gaza from being used by Hamas in order to facilitate, again, this kind of a regime of smuggling and tunnels and everything else. So this is, to an extent, really the Wild West. One question. I've heard two different versions over the years. One is that everything you're describing has been a problem, more or less, at the border. The other version I've heard is it was particularly bad in the 2012-2013 period when Mohamed Morsi was president of Egypt, so his party was the Muslim Brotherhood, which is like a sister organization, if you will, of Hamas. And they were very

sympathetic to Hamas. And under Morsi, the smuggling was basically, was more than just the Egyptian government turned a blind eye. They almost encouraged it or even facilitated it. And since Sisi has been in power, who succeeded Morsi in Egypt, he's taken a harder line against Hamas. And at points was so worried about Hamas's threat to Egypt, he did flood tunnels that went between Egypt and Gaza with seawater. He infected, tried to poison water, water supplies in the Rafah area to really wipe out Hamas's capabilities to move resources between Egypt and Gaza. So which version do you buy? How accurate is all of this? I think that there is no doubt that during Sisi, things worsened. I should say

something I didn't say before. According to the Israeli-Egypt peace treaty, Israel is supposed to hold this corridor called Philadelphia as a security zone. In 2005, Ariel Sharon withdrew Israel forces from the Gaza Strip, and he decided that he's not going to leave this. It's 100 meters wide and 14 kilometers kilometers long so he decided it would be impossible to defend and he handed it over to egypt and basically you know had an agreement with the egyptians to make sure that there will be no smuggling there and then they put those 750 soldiers that you just discussed down so when morsi came to power in Egypt, this became much worse. It's the Muslim Brotherhood, and they turned a sort of a blind eye.

Now, here's the point, Dan. Nobody knows if you have 10 tunnels there between Egypt and Palestine and Rafah, or you have 50 or 60. At the time, they had tunnels that were wide enough in order to smuggle cars. So this is what we're talking about. And Israel simply doesn't have enough intelligence about this area. And as we have seen, Israel failed miserably in its intelligence before the war, and specifically as to the Hamas tunnels. So it needs to assume the worst as to these tunnels in Rafah. And many Israeli officials will tell you, as long as we don't take care of the Philadelphia corridor, we don't take care of Rafah and the border with Egypt,

there is absolutely no chance that we can actually demilitarize Hamas, because it will simply rearm itself. Now, here's the third point that's maybe most important, and that's the reason we're even discussing this. This is the reason it's important for the White House. Nobody would have discussed Rafah if it wasn't a safe zone in which more than a million people, many of them are women and children, are now hiding because of the Israeli offensive in the center. And prior to that, in the northern part of Gaza, many of them are displaced persons from within Gaza. They are refugees. They live in tents. In dire conditions, there is always the

risk of humanitarian crisis. People would say it's already a humanitarian crisis. The risk is of a total catastrophe. We're in the middle of a winter year. There are rains. How can the IDF operate in that area? And now I'm going to reach my sort of concluding point about this. The IDF wants to operate there. And let me tell you this, you know, in no uncertain terms, for instance, the defense minister is very resolved, gallant, that the IDF will disintegrate the Hamas regiments of Afar, so it will need to operate there. But I would say that in terms of priority, the first priority of Israel right now is to A, finish Hanunis, which it didn't do till now, and B, get the deal. Now, maybe, and I'm just making an assumption here, the best way to get a deal is to make sure that Hamas understands that there is no safe haven for Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, including Rafah.

So if they want the IDF to stop, the only way they're going to stop it is by agreeing to release the Israelis kidnapped and going for a deal. And I suspect that people in the U.S. were too focused on the terms that President Biden described to Bibi Netanyahu as to how to operate in Rafah, and they didn't get the message. And the message was, as far as I'm concerned, that I didn't hear the president saying, according to the readout and to the briefing coming from the White House, don't do anything in Rafah. You know, I'm vetoing this. I'm saying to you, don't operate there. I was hearing, not like this. I don't like this plan. It's not the time. So if I was a Hamas official and I would have heard that the Prime Minister of Israel

and the President of the United States discussed how the IDF might operate in Rafah, I would be overtly convinced that I should at least consider a deal that will include a ceasefire for 42 days and the release of these hostages. So I suspect that this is used as leverage. Now, this is not to say that Israel doesn't intend to operate in Rafah. If there's not going to be a deal, Israel will operate there. But I think that there is an attempt here to say to Hamas, look, you have two options. First option is go for D, release the hostages and get many Palestinian prisoners out of Israeli jails, many of them convicted murderers. So it's a win for you. This is your first option.

The other option is you discover the IDF where you're hiding. And I think that when these options are presented like that, Hamas might be inclined to choose the rational route. The language from the Biden administration has, I think, made a very noticeable and dramatic shift. Obviously, last week was the most noteworthy where President Biden referred to Israel's operations in Gaza as, quote, over the top, which is language they have not used before. And the whole question about proportionality is not one Israel has been accused of by the U.S. government. In fact, the U.S. administration had strenuously resisted that language. And then Secretary Blinken, when he was in Israel last week, gave a press conference. He's, I think, done something like, you know, five trips or more to Israel since October 7th,

and in every one of them he holds a press conference, usually with Prime Minister Netanyahu. This time they did separate press conferences. In Prime Minister Netanyahu's press conference, he made it clear that Israel was going to go into Rafah. In Secretary Blinken's press conference, he used language I found shocking, that what Hamas did to Israel on October 7th was dehumanizing, but just because of what Hamas did to Israel on October 7th was dehumanizing doesn't mean that Israel has a, quote, license to dehumanize in its response. Almost establishing some kind of moral equivalence between what Hamas did on October 7th and Israel's response. This language, like I said, has been a massive shift, and I just want to give you a sense here. For months, John Kirby,

who's the national security spokesman at the White House, who is really the president's official spokesman on foreign policy from the White House, who is really the president's official spokesman on foreign policy from the White House podium, and Matt Miller, who's the State Department spokesman, and Secretary Blinken himself, have gone to great lengths to explain the challenges Israel faces in sometimes very effective and moving language, and that the canards that one hears about Israel responding in an over-the-top way to use Biden's most recent phrase were just not accurate. That's what the White House's position was for the longest time in December of last year. So just a few weeks ago, John Kirby

was on Face the Nation, which is a Sunday morning public affairs show here in the United States on CBS. And here's what John Kirby said to Margaret Brennan, the anchor, when she was pressing him on Israel's actions in Gaza. I'm quoting here, I think it's also important for people to remember, Kirby said, what they're up against here, meaning Israel, what Israel is up against here. Hamas deliberately shelters themselves inside residential buildings, hospitals, and schools, basically on purpose putting civilians in the line of fire. And what Israel is trying to do is get them out of the line of fire.

So it's an added burden that Israel has as a modern military. We recognize that, but it's also a very difficult burden and obstacle for them to overcome. And in other interviews, he's expanded upon that and basically said he couldn't think of any other military, including the U.S., that's ever had to deal with this kind of challenge that Israel's doing. So here the U.S. had been going out of its way to defend the way Israel was conducting this war, and then suddenly last week, in one week, we get over the top, which is code for disproportionate response, and we get license to dehumanize, which is really offensive language, as though Israel's in the dehumanization campaign, rather than Israel is defending its country and its border for a mass letter. So I want to unpack what's going on here. There's obviously a lot of U.S. politics going on here, but there's also concern about Rafah. And as you said earlier, it may be that it's impossible for Israel to finish the war against Hamas without going into Rafah. And the reality is when Israel fought in northern Gaza, they moved, you can tell me the number, but they moved a large number of

Palestinian civilians from north Gaza to south Gaza, to the Rafah area. And now the White House is saying, so you Israel say you're going to conduct an operation in Rafah. Well, how are you going to do that, given that the whole civilian population of Gaza, or a big chunk of it, now seems to be concentrated in Rafah? What's your plan? Yeah, first of all, as to the American side of the story, I'd love to hear your thoughts about that, Dan. Why did they change? The feeling in Israel is that almost everything that happens now in the United States, and specifically in the White House and maybe in the State Department, is related to the elections, of course, and that's what's calling the shots. Yeah, well, I'll just tell you. So in

recent weeks, you've had a series of polls come out. There was the NBC News poll. There was an ABC News poll that just came out over the weekend that shows Donald Trump beating, depending on the polls, which polls you look at, beating Joe Biden in national polls and also beating Joe Biden in almost every battleground state. And in fact, I can pull some of these numbers up because they're quite extraordinary. So recent polls have Trump beating Biden in Georgia, Trump beating Biden in North Carolina by 10 points. I mean, one of the only battleground states he's not beating Biden is Pennsylvania, but he seems to be beating him everywhere else.

And he's beating him again in the national polls. And just to put this in context, in 2020, Trump was never up against Biden in any single national poll. Now he's leading Biden in virtually every poll or they're just neck and neck. The Biden people are trying to understand why that is. Now, there are a number of factors for why Biden is so weak. But one is the base of his party is not enthusiastic about Biden's re-election. And the progressive base seemed to be quite animated by the Israel issue and Israel's war in Gaza. And they think this has become too hot. Now, I'm skeptical. I mean, I do think there is some progressive unenthusiasm for Biden to pin this all on the

Israel war in Gaza, to me is ludicrous. I think there are a number of factors, not the least of which is Biden's age. The ABC News poll that just came out, 86 percent, 86 percent of those polled across the board from right to left, from hard right to hard left, think Biden is too old to serve a second term. So that's not just centrist voters, independent voters, right of center voters, that includes the base. So they're frustrated with Biden or concerned about Biden's age and they don't connect. I mean, I can go through all the reasons. I think that if the segment of that electorate that is pro-Hamas is tiny, and the idea that that is going to be a deciding factor

on who turns out to vote for Joe Biden in 2024 is ludicrous, as far as I'm concerned, especially if Trump is on the ballot, meaning those voters are the most likely to turn out if Trump is on the ballot, because Trump will be the motivating factor, regardless of whatever their frustrations are with Biden. So I think they are overreacting. But nonetheless, Biden is weak. He has depressed enthusiasm with his progressive base, and they're looking for ways to remove that depressed, deflated enthusiasm. And so they're thinking of quick fixes. And one quick fix is get Israel to stop bombing Gaza and get Israel's war in Gaza off the front page of the news and off of TikTok. And then we can, you know, just, we can't even begin to think about reengaging that base. Secondly, Michigan, which is an important state in the electoral college, one of the

battleground states, one that Joe Biden won in 2020, one that Donald Trump won in 2016. There has been much discussed in Dearborn, Michigan, a sizable Arab American community, Arab American constituency, and they are making a lot of noise now about that they're going to stay home in 2024 and not be there for Biden. Now again, as a percentage of the electorate in Michigan, they are quite small, less than 1% of the electorate. The idea that if Biden can't motivate this base, this segment of the electorate, he's going to lose Michigan, I'm skeptical of. If the election hinges on this tiny percentage in the Michigan state electorate, he's got bigger problems in Michigan and throughout the Midwest. So again, I think they're bringing a hammer to what is a very small nail on this issue.

But nonetheless, my sense is they think it's an issue that is like it's either on or it's off. And they want to turn it off. And the way they turn it off is to get the images out of the press and get the images out of social media. And the way to get the images out of the press and off of social media is just get Israel to stop. Stop the bombing. And RAFA is the opposite of stopping the bombing, or a potential operation in RAFA is the opposite of stopping the bombing. Yeah, well, sounds right to me, but you're the American expert on that. I hear from the Israelis that they understand from the U.S. that they would want to see Israel much more appreciative

to the president and specifically to what they label here in Israel in Hebrew. Sometimes I'm translating the grand plan, the big plan, the plan that Blinken presented while he was here. And I'm talking about normalization with Saudi Arabia. We discussed that then having some sort of a truce or a ceasefire for a long period of time, having the PA or a revitalized PA, whatever that means, back in the Gaza Strip, and having a horizon,

something that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been very adamant against, about. And this, for the administration, is something that they see as counterproductive. They're also using, or some officials are using, very powerful words when they talk about Netanyahu himself. So we hear that leak to NBC News about the president calling him an asshole, but it's not the only thing I'm hearing. I'm hearing people in the administration saying that the prime minister is sabotaging the efforts of the administration. And it seems that it still has a way to go. But let's remember that after these things were said,

the president spoke with the prime minister. And I think this conversation was very important. I think, first of all, that the president wanted to make sure that his over-the-top comments, the things that Blinken said in Israel, are not being misread by Israelis and by the government. It was always the tendency of American administrations, and you know that better than me, Dan, to use the leash, you know, with your allies, but also make sure that they understand that we're on their side. So in that conversation, the president, first of all, reaffirmed his commitment to the Israeli response to what happened on October 7. And he basically pressured the prime minister to send the security delegation to Cairo to discuss the counteroffer made by Hamas as to the prisoner swap deal. Now, that offer of Hamas is still perceived by both Israelis and Egyptians and Qataris as not serious enough.

But from what I'm hearing, Israel is going to send that delegation. So it's going to say yes to President Biden's request. Send it anyway, even if you don't believe it's going to happen. Let's get the talking going. And the second thing is that the president summed up that at this point of time, when you have this number of population, Palestinian refugees in Rafah, you cannot conduct a military operation there right now. And I, again, as an Israeli and also as a Hamas fighter, would

see this actually as saying, look, in certain conditions, I'm going to greenlight this. And I suspect that the president said that so that Hamas will understand that this is on the table and trying to pressure them. I should also say that within the Israeli leadership, there is a lot of tension around Rafah. There was an argument between the chief of staff and the prime minister, and this is not a thing that happens a lot during the last war cabinet meeting. And during that discussion, basically Netanyahu said something like, I want to get Rafah done by Ramadan, by the month of Ramadan. It's quickly approaching. So that would be by March 10th. Yeah. And I want to get Rafah done by Ramadan, by the month of Ramadan. It's quickly approaching. So that would be by March 10th.

Yeah, and I want to get it over with. And then the chief of staff said, in order to do that, we need to have certain circumstances in place. And what he meant is both having a coordination with Egypt and having most of the people right now in Rafah as refugees not there because the IDF cannot conduct its operations in such a condensed area with over a million refugees. You know, more than half of those are women and children. And then it was also clear that the IDF doesn't have the manpower right now to conduct this kind of operation. And then Netanyahu said, why don't we have the manpower?

Why did we release the reservists or release the units from there? And then the chief of staff said that was the decision of the cabinet. I mean, this is your decision. In other words, yeah, he didn't say it this way. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't a toxic argument. It wasn't yelling or something like that. but it was an exchange that usually doesn't happen between a prime minister and a chief of staff. And everything, we were briefed about that by various sources. More than one source briefed me about that conversation. And this tells you something about the disagreements within the Israeli leadership. And I think the Americans know about these disagreements and they're playing on these disagreements. So they know that the IDF is

basically saying, look, we need to do certain things and to get over certain things, for instance, Khan Yunis or the camps of central Gaza, like Dir al-Balak, the refugee camps there, where you still have Hamas, and we need to get the population out. And we need to prepare the population with an area that they can actually live in without having a humanitarian catastrophe there. And we need to enlist more reservists back. And then we need to prepare them before we operate in Rafah. And the political leadership, mainly Netanyahu, is saying, I want this done as soon as possible. And I would also say that everybody's also talking, but understanding that Hamas is hearing that. And everybody wants to pressure Hamas

to a deal. And here the intentions of the US, the Israeli army, the Israeli prime minister, the families of the kidnapped, they all intertwine around this idea. You need to pressure Hamas not to

delay the deal, to go for a deal as soon as possible. By the way, it's also important, Dan, because of what's happening in the north of Israel, in the northern border. So Amos Hochstein got a clear green light from Israel to advance his proposal, which I must say includes, really far as the israelis are concerned a major compromise by israel as to hezbollah basically israel has waived its demand for hezbollah to redraw beyond the litani river to the northern side of lebanon it's saying that if hezbollah redraws 10 kilometers from the border with Israel, stops shooting, Israel would be willing to stop and would be willing to discuss some border alignments,

which are very minimal, sometimes just a few dozens of meters, not kilometers, meters along the border. So as far as the Israelis are concerned, they just gave the administration a huge present, saying to the administration, go to Hezbollah and tell them we're not going to insist on 1701 UN Security Council decision being maintained and implemented in the north if you're willing to stop the war where you are at right now in a status quo of about 7 to 10 kilometers from the border. And in order to make that happen, you need the truce. You need to cease fire in the south. Because Hezbollah is shooting basically, at least this is the tree they climbed on. We're shooting because Israel is shooting in Gaza. So everything needs to stop in order to at least have a chance with the big agreement with Saudi Arabia and the new Middle East

and what Tony Blinken is trying to sort of push here in the Middle East. From what I'm hearing, the Americans believe that it's possible. It's possible still, on the one hand. And then get a truce with Hezbollah in the north and prevent a regional war, probably much bigger than the one we have right now in Gaza, and also get a prisoner swap in the south and have some sort of a horizon, and the U.S. elections. So everything depends on Hamas agreeing to a prisoner deal right now.

And this is why everything is focused on pushing them at the moment. And as far as the Americans are concerned, or in the White House, also pushing Netanyahu. So I would say a couple of things in response. I somehow believe that it's not going to work out exactly like that. That's way too complex, and it's way too dynamic. And there's a number of issues that will just blow up in the faces of different parties, not the least of which is we're talking about the population movement from south to north, that Israel's got to figure out how to move hundreds of thousands, if not more, civilians from south to north. If that's done in a haphazard way, God knows what kind of bad actors are going to wind up back in the north, right? What kind of Hamas operatives and Hamas leadership

are going to sneak in with the civilian population to get up to the north. So if there's not a comprehensive way to manage that and actually vet who's actually moving, it could expose risks to Israel right back there again on Israel's southern border. The issue on the Saudi normalization deal, Palestinian statehood, Blinken also used language that, again, I've followed U.S.-facilitated peace processing back to the early mid-'90s, the Madrid Peace Conference under George H.W. Bush, the Oslo Process under Bill Clinton. At every peace process, even go forward to 2000, Ahud Barak, Camp David, go to 2008, Omert, go to Obama and Kerry, whoever, I mean, obviously these were at various stages of progress, but whoever has tried this, the path to Palestinian statehood was always predicated on milestones, not instantaneous statehood, milestones. And Blinken said last

week that there should be a path to a Palestinian state that is time-bound and irreversible. I'm quoting him here, time-bound and irreversible. I'm quoting him here, time-bound and irreversible. The U.S. government has never used language like that before. To me, that was a watershed moment that is basically saying, we're prepared to launch this process, and hell or high water, we're going to stick with it. What does that actually mean? What if Hamas or Hamas 2.0 figures out a way to insinuate itself in the future leadership of a Palestinian state? Is it still time bound and irreversible? Are we like, well, we have a plan, we have a timeline, and it's irreversible. So we're proceeding with the Palestinian state. Or can the parties, Israel and the United States,

shut it down? Because what they're getting in a future Palestinian state is not much different from what they've had from Palestinian leadership thus far in Gaza or Ramallah. So what was the Israeli reaction to—I'm just telling you, for those who follow these events over here in the United States closely, like me and others, Blinken's time-bound and irreversible language was quite jarring. Nobody was taking it seriously, so I'm sorry to say that. Nobody in Israel is taking it seriously. Nobody in Israel. They just think it's rhetoric. And by the way, I've had meetings in important places in Israel the last three days. Nobody even mentioned it

to me in relation to the grand deal or the big peace process of the region, including Saudi Arabia. Israelis don't think that Saudi Arabia is insistent on it. They think that if there is an insistence on it, it stems from the White House political consideration as to 2024. That's the truth. That's what the Israeli government officials think, that it doesn't come from Riyadh. It comes from the White House needing to supply some sort of proof to young progressives. it's actually committed to the Palestinian statehood. And that's the reason. And Warren Dermer, that you know quite well, is working hard in order to get some sort of phrasing that would be applicable, that would

be viable as far as the prime minister is concerned politically, won't lead to the disintegration of his government with the far right and on the other hand would be good enough for the Saudis to advance because here's the point Dan if the Saudis want their defense pact if they want their nuclear power if they want their arms deal and if they want the support of the United States they have a small window and it's closing to get that. And that's the analysis I'm hearing not only from Israelis, but also from Washington. And this is, by the way, the pitch that Americans are making to Israelis. They're saying, look, if they are going to wait for Trump, Republicans might support it, but Democrats are not going to support it. And as you

know, you need a very specific majority to pass some of these things. So you need the Democrats. And the Democrats are going to go for it because they know that Biden needs this win. And they know that part of the deal is a path to statehood. But if you're going to wait too long, they're saying both to the Israelis and the Saudis, then what you're going to get is we're going to be in an election cycle and nothing's going to happen, or you're going to get Trump. And with Trump, nothing's going to happen anyway.

So this might be a historic window. And some of the Israelis that I speak with are actually convinced, including within government, that Israel should go for it because it would change the region. Now, if the U.S. wants to commit itself to phrasing like irreversible in the Middle East, this is just political posturing, right? It's not serious. It's not the way to go in the Middle East. Nobody believes that in the first place. And again, nobody's discussing it.

Until this conversation, I heard it once mentioned before, and it's when Secretary Blinken actually uttered the words. It wasn't mentioned to me by any Israeli official since. Just for our listeners to put a fine point on it, if there is to be some kind of advanced, deepened diplomatic and defense relationship, some sort of defense pact between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. It has to, to your point, Nadav, it has to be passed in the Senate. That's two-thirds vote, which means it's got to be a bipartisan vote. The Democrats are not looking, most Senate Democrats are not looking to give bells and whistles and toys to Saudi Arabia, certainly Saudi Arabia led by MBS,

post Khashoggi, post Yemen. I mean, post Saudis fighting in Yemen, that was the source of a lot of tension with Senate Democrats. And they're not looking to give a win to Prime Minister Netanyahu. So if this is seemed to get the region on a path to Palestinian state, that could be digestible by the Senate Democrats. And if it's important to Biden in an election year where he gets a big foreign policy win, that's also something that Democrats, Senate Democrats will understand. And so the idea is that's why it's important to get this done now. Yeah. And this is something that, first of all, makes sense.

I'm asking you, Dan, because you're there in the US. To me, it sounds right. And as far as Israelis are concerned, it can be history in the making. We discussed this on our latest encounter in this program. This could be a big win for Israel and for the U.S., for the moderates in the region. But for that thing to even mature, you need to have some sort of a ceasefire and a prisoner swap in Gaza. And you need to have Netanyahu with the political will and courage to risk everything on this. Because even if there's some sort of a solution, some sort of phrasing that will be

fine by the White House and good for the Saudis as to the Palestinian statehood. And it won't be irreversible. It will be good enough to have normalization. Even then, the far right will probably withdraw from government. Anything that has the words Palestinian and state within it are very dangerous for Netanyahu. And Netanyahu, at any rate, is losing in every poll. He's in a very precarious situation. He's not trusted most of the Israelis.

He's getting terrible polls. You're talking about Biden. You know, I see the polls that Biden is getting. Biden at least has some of his, at least 45, 48% of his base. Here in Israel, the coalition is losing, in the latest poll, about 20 seats. So their condition is very dire. And for Netanyahu to do so, he's not the kind of politician that makes these big maneuvers. He's usually being stressed, being forced to do something, like he did the Y plantation agreements when he compromised on Hebron at the time. So he was pressed by Clinton and pressed again and again.

It's not for him this kind of a Shimon Peres or Yitzhak Rabin or even Ariel Sharon move. He prides himself in being reserved and careful strategically. This is something that he talks about as part of his legacy. For him to say, yeah, I'm going to acknowledge the need for Palestinian national self-determination and even a demilitarized Palestinian state just a few months after October 7, he wasn't the character to do so. So I'm not too optimistic. I don't know.

I don't want to use the word optimistic or pessimistic, but I don't think it's very plausible that Netanyahu will go down that route. And those who expect him to do so need to explain to him, too, why should he do that? Because if he commits this kind of political suicide, as far as he's concerned, the agreements might not pass, too. Because right now in the Knesset, you don't necessarily have, you know, the type of votes. And other people would say, no, of course, they'll pass. They'll just pass not with the right-wing votes and members of Knesset. But this is way down the road, in Israel, not just with Netanyahu's base, but across the board

and across the political spectrum, or a wider part of the political spectrum than it may have been pre-October 7th. And I think including over here, it could be a domestic political issue against the normalization and against passing the Senate and against the Biden administration, is if October 7th could be interpreted as the new Palestinian Independence Day, that the Palestinians got their state because of October 7th. If that is how it appears, or if it looks like Israel is on a path towards making that happen, I think you could have political reverberations in Israel and here in the United States. I agree. And I think that this is a point that Netanyahu is making, but also it's a public sentiment.

Look, if it's a bluff, it's just saying Palestinian statehood. Nobody really cares. Israelis understand bluffing very well. We live in the Middle East. Everybody does it. And of course, Israelis do all the time, Israelis now, in terms of the electorate, will never agree to any concrete steps towards the formation of a Palestinian state. And even if there will be security assurances from the United States and there will be some sort of guarantees, right now, the electorate won't hear about anything that's related to compromising with the Palestinians. Specifically, when you see the polls conducted by Dr. Shkaki and others in the Palestinian territories, the West Bank, where you see that the support to Hamas there is very much entrenched, more than 50% of the public, and more than 70% of the public is supportive of the October 7th attacks. So trying to convince Israelis in this kind of political environment that they should now,

after October 7th, compromise in a concrete way with the Palestinians is not something advisable for anyone who wants a political career in this country right now. Now, saying on the other hand, look guys, I'm going to bring normalization with Saudi Arabia and we're going to win regionally only if I utter the words Palestinian stated somewhere in the future in a very theoretical way. This they can understand. And Netanyahu has multiple tools, including his own media, in order to make that message very clear that he doesn't really mean it, and he's being forced to say Palestinian state, and he's not going to allow the formation of Palestinian state. And the Saudis just need this alibi in order to have a peace

agreement with Israel. And if he can make that argument, and he can get that phrasing, Israelis are going to buy it. They're not going to punish him for uttering these words. They are going to punish him if he's going to do something towards that direction as a result, as you said, Dan, of the October 7 attack. This is something that won't fly politically in Israel. Again, in terms of the far right, you never know. It really depends on polls. If the far right thinks it's good for them to overthrow Netanyahu,

Ben-Gurion and others, they'll do that, of course, even if he just utters these words. But electorate speaking, Israelis are fine with saying something they don't, you know, the prime minister doesn't mean in order to get the concrete steps of normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia. And they also understand something that I think that in the US they don't understand, sometimes people that I speak with, that the Saudis don't care about the Palestinians too much, and they don't care about the Palestinian cause, but they need to have this kind of assurance that they advanced it substantially because of normalizing ties with Israel. All right, Nadav, to be continued. Thank you for this and for the quick turnaround. Grateful for your insights and your reporting, as always, and I'll speak to you soon.

It's a pleasure being with you, Dan. Thank you. That's our show for today. To keep up with Nadav Ayal, you can find him on x at Nadav underscore Ayal. And you can also find his work at Yediot Akhronot. We'll put these links in the show notes. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.