Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - The Saudi Deal and the Reoccupation of Gaza – with Lahav Harkov

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Watch Call me Back on YouTube: youtube.com/@CallMeBackPodcastSubscribe to Ark Media’s new podcast ‘What’s Your Number?’: lnk.to/HJI2mXArk Media on Instagram: instagram.com/arkmediaorgTo contact us, sign up for updates, and access transcripts, visit: arkmedia.orgDan on X: x.com/dansenorDan on Instagram: instagram.com/dansenor=============================================It’s been a busy week with a lot of moving pieces - there are new war plans in Gaza, the US-Houthi agreement, and of course, the Gulf Summit and a potential new deal between the US and Saudi Arabia. Here’s what we do know:On Tuesday, during a press availability in the Oval Office of the White House, President Donald Trump told reporters that the total number of living hostages in Gaza dropped from 24 to 21. “As of today, it’s 21. Three have died.”, he said. Israel maintains that officially, the list of living hostages remains 24. Trump also said that the US would stop bombing Yemen’s Houthis after the Iran-backed group had agreed to stop interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East. The announcement did not mention the Houthi attacks on Israel, including a missile that hit Ben Gurion international airport on Saturday, to which Israel responded with a crippling attack on Yemen's international airport in Sanaa. Following Trump’s announcement, a spokesman for the Houthis pledged that the strikes on Israel would continue. On Thursday, sources told Reuters that the United States is no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Israel as a condition for developing its nuclear program - a major concession by Washington. Senator Lindsey Graham says he opposes any pact with the Saudis that excludes normalization with Jewish state. Earlier in the week, on Monday, Israel’s security cabinet authorized plans for the widening of the Gaza invasion, which if taken to its logical conclusion, meaning Hamas refuses to surrender and release the hostages – could result in an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and reestablishing some permanent presence there.It is unclear at this point if this military plan is going to be implemented, or if it is used as leverage on Hamas as a negotiating tactic. That said, Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich said on Monday that “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word’ occupation.” To unpack what this all means, we are joined by Lahav Harkov, Senior Political Correspondent for Jewish Insider. Senior Fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security.(00:00) Introduction(04:56) Potential US-Saudi deal(13:33) What do the Saudi's want?(15:37) IDF operations in Gaza(21:10) How would occupation work?(26:58) Strain on reservist soldiers(34:13) What are the options for Hamas?CREDITS:ILAN BENATAR - Producer & EditorMARTIN HUERGO - Sound EditorGABE SILVERSTEIN - ResearchYUVAL SEMO - Music Composer 

When the Saudis do their cost-benefit analysis, the normalization with Israel is no longer as beneficial as it was before October 7th, just in terms of the risk they're taking from their population, because the Arab population is very much incited against Israel right now by pan-Arab media, but they don't want to give up on the other elements, the civil nuclear program and the defense pact with the US. The Saudis are really trying to push it. He loves to make a deal. A defense pact with the Saudis would mean selling a lot of arms, which is something that he thinks is good for the US to do.

So I think he sees less of a downside because he doesn't see progress happening, at least on that element of the Abraham Accords right now. It's 9 a.m. on Friday, May 9th here in New York City. It's 5 p.m. on Friday, May 9th in Israel as Shabbat comes in and Israelis get ready to wind down for the week. We are releasing this episode slightly off schedule as we are trying to get some clarity and piece together a lot of the big moving pieces, the new war plans in Gaza, the US Houthi agreement, and of course the Gulf Summit and a potential new deal or new deal in the works between the US and Saudi Arabia.

I wish I could say the puzzle is now complete and we're here to deliver an episode that explains it all, but it's not. The big piece in the puzzle, the US-Saudi deal, is still missing and I actually think a ways away. But here's what we do know. On Tuesday, during a press availability in the Oval Office at the White House, President Trump told reporters that the total number of living hostages in Gaza dropped from 24 to 21. As of today, it's 21.

Three have died, the president said. Israel maintains that officially the list of living hostages remains at 24. Trump also said that the U.S. would stop bombing Yemen's Houthis after the Iran-backed group had agreed to stop interrupting important shipping lanes in the Middle East. The announcement did not mention the Houthi attacks on Israel, including a missile that hit Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday, to which Israel responded with a crippling attack on Yemen's international airport in Sana'a. Following Trump's announcement, a spokesman for the Houthis pledged that the

strikes on Israel would continue. Ambassador Huckabee, the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, clarified the U.S. position just this morning, which we'll talk about. On Thursday, sources told Reuters that the United States is no longer demanding Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Israel as a condition for developing its nuclear program, which would be a major concession by Washington. At the same time, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a senior Republican senator when it comes to all matters related to foreign policy and has been a key player on the path towards Israeli-Saudi normalization, immediately put out a statement saying he opposes any pact with the Saudis that excludes

normalization with the Jewish state and Why Graham's point is especially important is because any defense pact between Saudi Arabia and the United States Would have to be ratified by the United States Senate. So the Senate becomes a key player in this process Earlier in the week on Monday Israel's security cabinet authorized plans for the widening of the Gaza invasion, which if taken to its logical conclusion, meaning Hamas refuses to surrender and release the hostages, could result in an Israeli reoccupation of Gaza and reestablishing some permanent presence there. It is unclear at this point if this military plan is going to be implemented, or if it

is used as leverage on Hamas as a negotiating tactic. That said, Finance Minister Buczalos-Motrycz said on Monday that, quote, we are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word occupation, close quote. To unpack what all this means and try to get a better sense of what's going on, we are joined by Lahav Harkov, who's the senior political correspondent for Jewish Insider,

a publication I highly recommend and read every single day, except for Shabbat and Jewish holidays, because it's not published on those days. Lahav is also a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security, and she joins us from her home in Israel just before Shabbat comes in. Lahav, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me on.

So I want to start, Lahav, with the most recent development regarding this report in Reuters, which actually hasn't been confirmed, I've been struck by in any other, by any other publications. And let's just say Reuters has which actually hasn't been confirmed, I've been struck by in any other publications. And let's just say Reuters has not always been entirely accurate on its reporting out of Israel. But I want to start with this development about potential development about Washington

on a path to some kind of concession to Saudi Arabia in which normalizing ties with Israel will no longer be a condition for Saudi Arabia developing its nuclear program. What can you tell us about this story? So, in Israel, the sense is concerned about something broader than that, not just a civilian or nuclear energy program. The concern is that the US will try to promote the defense pact with Saudi Arabia without Israel being part of it, right? There's two parts of what Saudi Arabia wants from the US in exchange for normalization

with Israel. There's the nuclear program and there's the defense pact. Like you said, the defense pact will be much harder for them to get. There have been some reports in Israel in the last couple of days of a rift between the Trump administration and Netanyahu. I would say starting last week already with the firing of national security advisor, Mike Waltz, that the Washington Post claimed it was because Waltz

was talking to Netanyahu at the time and it was unauthorized, although both sides denied that. But there seems to be a little bit of tension. I was very skeptical of that story for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is he's keeping Waltz in the administration in a senior role. He replaced, at least on an interim basis, he replaced Waltz with Marco Rubio, who it's not like he was replacing Waltz with some isolationist anti-Israel type.

And all the messaging coming out of the administration regarding Iran and the Houthis, I guess there's some nuance here, but was still pretty strong. And they're still in the middle of a maximum pressure campaign against Iran. We were going to talk more about Ambassador Hagebi's press conference today. One of the things he said is, you know, like, basically America has its foreign policy and Israel has its foreign policy. They're not going to agree on everything, which is true. But I think you're right that the messaging on Iran has only improved as far as Israel's concerned in the last few weeks, right? When the talks started, it was a little iffy for Israel. And now they're saying that Iran can't enrich uranium at all, which is good.

On the Houthis, Trump announced that the Houthis are going to stop attacking ships. And there's two things. First of all, ships, not that they're going to stop attacking Israel. And number two, the Israelis were blindsided by this. I heard this from a very senior Israeli source who would have known they were really blindsided. Although Israel's not the only one who's blindsided, the same source told me that the Defense Secretary of the UK actually called Pete Hexeth and said, you know, we've been bombing the Houthis with you.

Why didn't you tell us about this? So it doesn't look great for Israel, but it also, if they didn't tell the British either, then maybe it has to do with chaos and the Trump administration. Well, what you're reminded of the many things is I think many observers who want to constantly write about how everything is going wrong for Israel,

sees on these things as though there's a deliberate decision by say, in this case, the US administration to make a break with Israel on something. And what they often, I think, don't fully appreciate is there's a difference between a deliberate decision made to do something in a certain way and just general chaos. And sometimes it's just general chaos. And like the fact that they didn't call the Israelis to let them know, and they didn't call the UK tells you, okay, so they didn't coordinate with their closest allies because

they just didn't, you know, and it's not like some like we're drawing a line here and we're breaking with this partner or that partner. It's just sometimes not terrific coordination. That being said, I know that there's a concern that, you know, Trump is visiting the Middle East and he's not visiting Israel and he's going to hear things from the Arabs leaders that might not be good for Israel. That's what worries me the most. What worries me the most is them having an audience, all these different leaders having

an audience with Trump and God knows what they're going to be telling him for the next few days. Especially the Qataris. Right. But just staying on this for a moment. So Huckabee gave this press conference. He said just because the US, you know, the US has its foreign policy and Israel has foreign policy, but then I think he had an interesting line in this press conference where he said,

he referred to the hundreds of thousands of Americans that live in Israel that are either American citizens that are just residents of Israel or they're American citizens who are dual citizens. And he says when the Houthis hit Israel, they're putting American citizens in jeopardy. And so that sounded like that was his way of trying to merge quote unquote America first foreign policy with, don't worry, we're still very concerned about the Houthi attacks against Israel. Yeah, I mean, to me that sounds like a very Huckabee thing to do.

First of all, I mean, he is somebody who really thinks that Israel's interests are generally America's interests, but often they are. I just think like in the past when like Americans are, God forbid, or dual American-Israeli citizens are God forbid killed in terrorist attacks, there have been a few cases where it caused some form of action in the US. I would say maybe one of the most prominent cases is the Taylor Force Act. Can you just describe what the Taylor Force Act is? Because I think actually it's a very good example.

First of all, Taylor Force was, I believe, was a former Marine. Yeah, US citizen. And a US citizen who was visiting Israel. He was some sort of student and he was killed in a terrorist shooting in Jaffa. And you know, the Palestinian Authority pays these monthly salaries either to terrorists who are in Israeli prisons or to the families of terrorists who are killed while committing acts of terror. And you get paid more depending on the severity of terrorists who are killed while committing acts of terror. You get paid more depending on the severity of the crime, basically, because it's to be

paid for depending on how long your sentence is. The US passed a law, which was proposed by Senator Lindsey Graham, that the US cannot give aid to the Palestinian Authority as long as it continues this policy. I think that's a really prominent case of an American being killed by Palestinian terrorists in America taking action. Maybe not the kind of action that Huckabee is thinking of with the Houthis, but as it was significant. Okay, I want to talk about the US-Saudi dynamic. If we look at all of these big moving pieces

in the region, it begins to look as if the US and Saudi Arabia have basically decided to leave Israel and the Palestinians to just figure it out, fight it out. It seems that Israel, it seems, has more or less a green light or at least a yellow light to just, you know, do whatever it needs to do in its backyard. I hear this often from senior US administration officials who are, I would say more in the, I don't like to use the word isolationist, they're more in the what we call the restraint, the restraintist camp, where they basically say, we don't want to get involved with the Middle East, Israel's

got to take care of do what it's got to do in Gaza, they can do whatever they want. It doesn't bother us. It doesn't bother our voters. It doesn't bother our base, like let them have at it. And so I guess, is this what you're seeing too, not just from the US, but the Saudis, I'm not saying the Saudis want to see Israel run wild in Gaza in terms of extending the war beyond what many in the region think is necessary,

but is it just a general sense like let them figure it out? I think that when the Saudis do their like cost benefit analysis, the normalization with Israel is no longer as beneficial as it was before October 7th, just in terms of the risk they're taking from their population, because the Arab population is very much incited against Israel right now by pan-Arab media, but they don't want to give up on the other elements, right? The civil nuclear program and the defense pact with the US. So the Saudis are really trying to push it. And Trump, he loves to make a deal.

A defense pact with the Saudis would mean selling a lot of arms, which is something that he thinks is good for the US to do. And so I think he sees less of a downside because he doesn't see progress happening, at least on that element of the Abraham Accords right now, because the Saudis are being more cautious. And the language that they've used in the Arab League especially, the meanings of the Arab League, has been much more anti-Israel than it was in the months leading up to October 7th when we thought there was going to be normalization.

So clearly there's definitely something with Arab diplomats where they can say one thing in public and another thing in the closed room. A lot of diplomats, not only Arabs, but it's true about the Saudis as well, but they did sort of ramp up the anti-Israel rhetoric and we know that they're a lot more worried about how the quote unquote street will see things if they get too close to Israel. So I think that Trump just wants to make progress on the deal and he sees that the Saudis are not really ready right now to make progress with Israel. And in terms of what the Saudis want, what is your sense from your reporting out of Israel?

If Israel were to do something big, we're a long way from the, whatever it was, the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which the Saudis were the authors of, which called for a Palestinian state, basically. The right of return. Right of return. West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, would be the contours of a Palestinian state and the right of return.

That's right, that was in the Saudi Arab Peace Initiative, which was that Palestinian, quote unquote, refugees would be able to return. And that was a non-starter. So take us from 2002 to now, what are the Saudis actually asking for? What is the box they want checked on the Palestinian track to make it kosher, dare I say, halal,

for them to normalize with Israel? That's sort of the mystery. I don't have a precise answer, but I can tell you what they don't want, which is that anyone you talk to right now in the government of Israel is saying absolutely no to a Palestinian state and that October 7th, I mean, most of them were saying it before, but now they're saying October 7th made it especially clear that now's not the time to talk about a Palestinian state. And you see that the Israeli opposition

too, I mean, Gantz in the last few days put out a statement to that effect. So saying now is not a time for Palestinian state? Yeah, like now is not the time to discuss it. That's pretty extraordinary because it's just a reminder how this view is generally held across the Israeli political spectrum. There tends to be the sense that it's all the right, it's all the reality is that's a pretty consensus position. Yeah. At the beginning of the war, Yeager Lapid was saying it too. Now I think he's just trying to stay quiet on the subject. But Gantz has been pretty clear on it.

The Saudis want to see some kind of progress. So what does progress mean? My understanding from different senior Israeli officials who have briefed me in the last few months of this topic has come up, they have different answers. They think that it's negotiable and that they could work it out. But you can't be saying, the Saudis can't say they're making progress to a Palestinian state when every senior Israeli person is saying no to a Palestinian state. Right.

Okay. So let's talk about Gaza and Israel's military preparations for an expanded campaign or a new military campaign in Gaza. From what I understand, it's a three-stage plan that was revealed in a, with a surprising level of detail actually. What can you tell us about these three stages? So first of all, the stages, I'm not sure that there's still going to be those stages just because again, an Ambassador Huckabee's press conference, he announced that there's

a new plan for how AIDS is going to get into Gaza and it's going to be those stages just because, again, an ambassador at Huckabee's press conference announced that there's a new plan for how aid's going to get into Gaza, and it's going to be completely run by the Americans. So that might change. But on a basic level, the stages are to try to prepare to get civilian aid into Gaza, because we're starting to get to the point where the IDF has told the government they're close to running out

of food in Gaza. Up until now, when there have been reports of people complaining they've run out of food, a lot of it is Hamas or other people hoarding food, but now the idea feels like we're in the last few weeks before the food runs out. And so there needs to be a plan to get food in. So that's basically stage one. Stage two is moving the population out of more parts of Gaza. And then stage three is the ground troops coming in.

And I would say maybe they're not describing it as phase four, but phase four is wherever the ground troops go, wherever populations cleared out and the army goes in, they plan to stay there, I would say, for the medium term. Which is to say, it's not the plan to stay there forever, but they're not going to repeat what they did in the beginning months of the war where they would go into a city, quote unquote, clear it of terrorists and then leave and then the terrorists would come back and then the IDF would have to go back. Now they're saying we are going to stay wherever we go in Gaza until we have a real solution

for that place. Okay. There's also been this talk about moving big chunks of the Palestinian population to different part of Gaza, I guess, closer to the border with Egypt. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, again, they did that somewhat in the first part of the war, and they're gonna try to do that again,

and they're gonna try to also deliver the aid with everybody sort of in one place, and you have, apparently now it's gonna be America in charge of distributing the aid, it's also somewhat easier, right? If you have everyone in one location. But then it's also easier for Israel to avoid airstrikes or hitting civilians and things like that. Of course, it's not foolproof, not all the civilians move, but the plan is to try to

create a safe zone. And that's the thing they did in the beginning of the war also. If Israel ends up reoccupying Gaza, even if it's not permanent, but medium term, can you just describe what that means at a practical level? What would Israel's responsibilities actually be in Gaza? So I think that it would be security based. It wouldn't be like 1967 through 1993 where Israel was like really governed, you know, to some extent governing the Palestinians. I think that it would just be securing sort of the border and also within Gaza making

sure that the Hamas isn't coming back and taking over while Israel is trying to speak with, you know, moderate Arab states, you states, to try to come up with some sort of solution. At this point, we don't have an answer what's going to be. Israel doesn't want to stay in Gaza long term. This is the famous day after plan that nobody's ever really seen. Broad strokes of a day after plan, sure, but is it a day after plan that other countries that would theoretically be partners support? I've not seen a plan like that yet. So this is where we get to a lot of question marks. When you say Israel doesn't want that, can you drill down on that a little bit?

Israel doesn't want that. Yeah. Meaning because it seems to me that some parts of Israel do want it. Yeah, no, that's true. So can you explain who's who in terms of, you know, the different constituencies in Israeli society? Who wants it? I would say you have the Judean Samaria or settler movement, which I don't think in its entirety wants that. But I think that there's first of all, some of its Knesset

representatives want it and are talking about it. You quoted Smutrich in the intro and Ben Gver also certainly wants it, and some activist figures. But when you look at polling of Israelis, a very, very large majority do not want Israel to permanently occupy or for Israelis to move in. The people who want it get a lot of attention. Smutrich is the finance minister. He should get a lot of attention when he says things like that. But when you gauge the level of influence he has on how the war is happening, he's the minority voice in the security cabinet and the decisions are made even outside the security

cabinet. It's like Netanyahu and Dermer and Defense Minister Katz and some of the leading security figures and then they bring it to the cabinet. I recently heard from someone very senior that they bring them things to the security cabinet for basically a yes, no vote. They don't even bring alternative scenarios to the cabinet most of the time, which is,

democratically, maybe not the greatest thing, but I think it tells us the level of trust and influence he has in other ministers in the security cabinet, the politics there are. Sometimes can be petty, and people, even though this is the security cabinet. The politics there are sometimes can be petty and people, even though this is the security cabinet, they're supposed to really keep things secret in there. A lot of things leak out. So I think Netanyahu really limits and then that limits their influence.

It's not to say that Smutrich doesn't have an influence, but I think when Netanyahu is trying to keep Smutrich happy and keep him in his coalition, he tries to do it in other ways and not about how the war should be conducted. to keep Smetra happy and keep him in his coalition, he tries to do it in other ways and not about how the war should be conducted. So in terms of thinking through how this could work, some have compared Israel going back into Gaza and having a long-term presence there. And by the way, full disclosure from the beginning,

soon after October 7th, and I said this several times on this podcast, thought that that was somewhat inevitable, that Israel, not a permanent occupation, but it was unrealistic not to expect Israel to not have some kind of, you know, medium term presence, you can call it a reoccupation. I also, my concern was always like, this is going to end up like Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. So let's talk about that. Okay.

So can you describe what that was like and compare it to what's being contemplated now and why that works? I'm hearing some beeping by the way. Guys, do you hear beeping? Oh my God, there's a siren. I didn't even hear it because my headphones are in. Oh.

I'll come back in 10 minutes. Sorry. Okay. Okay, sorry about that. Lahav, welcome back. A brief intermission, just for our listeners to understand what just happened. Siren went off, Lahav is in the Jerusalem area.

Sirens actually rarely go off in the Jerusalem area, but one just went off in the Jerusalem area. It's usually other parts of Israel. When the siren goes off, you have to go into your mamad, which is your safe room, means that there's a rocket attack or concern about a rocket attack of some sort. And so what do you have to do? What did you just do Lahav when that siren went off?

Well, I had to, I called all my kids. They were watching TV, not paying attention to the siren. And- How many kids? Three, the oldest is eight. Yeah. So we all went in the room, which is my two boys bedroom, and we closed the door and I had to make sure to close-

And that's the Mammad, that is the designated safe room. Most Israelis use it as a bedroom, as an office. It just has the reinforced walls and we had to close. And that's the Mamad. That is the designated safe room. Yeah. Most Israelis use it as a bedroom, as an office. It just has the reinforced walls and we had to close the special metal window and we're supposed to wait there for 10 minutes. So, you know, luckily it's a kid's bedroom. They have toys and books and things. So we passed the time. Yeah. And then we can leave. And the way you know that you have to go to your Mamad is when there are sirens and notifications on your phone. Right. These days, the sirens are supposed to be if you're outdoors, but the app is supposed

to be when you're indoors. So you heard it. And all that works unless you're recording the Call Me Back podcast and you have headphones on and you're totally lost in the engrossing conversation with your Call Me Back host and you don't hear the siren or the notification. And I was sitting here in New York City and I was hearing this weird beeping. And I thought to myself, I'm hearing some beeping

and I ignored it at first. And then I said to Alon and Lov, I said, what guys, are you hearing some beeping? I just thought it was like someone's a notification for someone's phone that it was, well it was, but not an emergency. And I was just gonna say, can you silence it? Right, I was ignoring it,

because usually when my watch buzzes, it's nothing urgent. This time I looked down and I was like, oh, bye. So, and then you disappeared for 10 minutes, but now you're back and I'm glad everyone is okay. And while you were gone, my brother-in-law, Saul Singer, who lives not far from you, he also messaged me saying, I'm sitting here at a Jerusalem coffee shop, siren just went off, everyone in the coffee shop

calmly went down to the underground parking garage, which is I guess the Mammad for that coffee shop or coffee shop slash bar. And he says, everyone's down here just hanging out and people even brought their glasses of wine with them. So life in Israel. I wanna pick back up exactly where we left off. Can you describe Southern Lebanon,

Israel's presence there in the 80s and 90s? And is there a concern, because you brought this comparison up, is there a concern that this could be a redo of, or going back into Gaza could be a redo of that? What are the parallels? Why is that comparison being made? In 1982, the war in Lebanon, when Israel started, it was Operation Peace in the Galilee, is how it began. There had been terrorist attacks and rockets shot at northern Israel from southern Lebanon,

which is where the PLO was based at the time. Israel went in there to try to clear out the PLO, and they did manage to exile some of its leaders. That's one comparison people were making at the beginning of the war, where they were like, well if we exiled our fatotunist, maybe we could exile Sinwar, too late for that, but maybe his brother. In the end, it was, as the Americans like to call these things, a quagmire, and Israel kind of said that it needs this sort of defensive perimeter where the IDF needs to remain in

southern Lebanon to stop the terrorists from shooting and endangering northern Israel. They ended up staying there for 18 years. It wasn't like the problem was solved after they left, because six years after that was the second Lebanon war. But for a time being, northern Israel seemed safer. Then it turned out that Hezbollah was biding its time and collecting lots of missiles and rockets, amassing them. The parallel, I think, is just you go into a war and you don't know how you're going

to get out. If the idea is to have no terrorists, there's no guarantee that there's not going to be any terrorists. Israel needs to set a standard for itself of what does victory mean and what does eradicating chamas mean. And sometimes I think they're not so clear on what eradicating chamas means. Different people have different ideas about it. You don't know what happens in war, so maybe the criterion can't be totally precise, but

if they don't have some sort of standard of what that means and how this war, they want this war to end, we could be stuck there for years and years. And that's what I'm seeing. Too many things, too many of the goals are vague. A lot of people who I like to read and listen to say that it's important that Israel talks about victory and talks about winning. And I don't disagree. That should be the language where we want to defeat the terrorists.

But again, when will we know that they've been defeated? Yeah, Amos Harel from Aritz, who's on our podcast soon after October 7th made this point that his big fear early on was that Israel and Gaza would wind up in some kind of Lebanon from the 80s and 90s. I want to spend a moment on what that means for Israeli society. Can you describe, and I know you're personally affected by this because your husband is a reservist, could you describe how average Israelis serving in the reserves have been bearing a lot of the, not all obviously, but a lot of the brunt and the sacrifice of these past 18 months. And the reason I ask that is because I know

people, friends, family who have served hundreds of days in Gaza or up north since October 7th, and now they're starting to get called up again. Can you just describe what this means for a big chunk of the Israeli population? So I don't talk to myself a lot in these things, but I'll just give myself as an example. So I have kids who are age two, five and eight. The two-year-old was nine months old when the war started. My two-year-old and five-year-old are almost exactly the same age as Kfir and Ariel Bibas, which is its own very chilling experience. My husband was called up on October 7th. Since then, he's done 200 days. He just got called up for another

hundred days, which he'll probably end up doing less than that because they are a little more understanding of parents with children needing to take some breaks. But it's a lot of time for him not to have been home. The kids miss him, but it's also really difficult to just, you know, work-life balance is that cliche. Like, you have to make sure that somebody is picking up the kids from school every day. You don't have that extra partner who's helping you with

all of the things at home. It's taking a financial toll on a lot of people who own their own businesses and things like that. A lot of businesses have closed down or have slowed down a lot. It's a really difficult situation. I'm lucky and haven't had like that, you know, my kids haven't gone crazy from this or anything like that, but you have a lot of kids having real psychological and behavioral issues from not having their parent at home and from being anxious about their parent being at war. And also parents who are very worried about their, you know, sons who are at war as well. as well. In the beginning of the war, it was like this world with no men. It almost reminded me of when people would talk about World War II and all the men were

off at war and the women had to run factories and things like that. It continues to take a real toll. I think politically it's been interesting because you see a lot of the wives of reservists who have become politically active, and they're the ones who go to the kraset and say to the government, we need to be paid for all kinds of things. We need compensation for all of these extra babysitters we have to hire and things like that. Also, Orthodox women, like religious Zionists, so it's similar to modern Orthodox in the US,

women have started a really big movement to call for conscription of kharitim, of the ultra-Orthodox, because two population groups that disproportionately serve in combat roles in the IDF are religious Zionists and kibbutzniks. Kibbutzniks historically always had that role and religious Zionists, it's in more recent decades. So, Lava, I just wanna, I think this is extremely, extremely important point. I'm glad you're bringing it up.

I wanted to do something on call me back about this topic, but didn't plan to get into it now, but you're getting into it. So I wanna explain a little bit. We talk a lot about in this podcast how the overwhelming majority of Israelis serve in the IDF, but one demographic, which is a growing demographic is the Khareidim, the ultra-orthodox who have an exemption.

And there's a lot of politics going on in terms of whether that exemption will continue. But for now, it's basically there for all intents and purposes. And that means that the rest of the population, there's a disproportionate burden on them because there's a big chunk of the population that's not still a minority,

but it's a considerable size minority is not serving. Now just this year it's about 18,000 young men who could have been conscripted and weren't. Right, which means that then adds to the burden of everybody else. And now what I find most interesting what you're saying is among the everybody else are not just the kibbutzniks or the secular or quasi-secular Israelis, but also very religious Israelis what you call national religious, which I think you would say in the US that would be comparable to modern Orthodox. Is that what we call modern Orthodox here?

Yeah, if we were to get in the weeds, it's from modern Orthodox to Yeshivish. But yeah. Okay, from modern Orthodox to Yeshivish, but yeah. Okay, from unorthodox to Yeshivish. So that community is A, growing considerably in Israel and B, they are proudly serving in serious roles, including in serious combat roles and a lot of they have suffered quite a bit of the casualties in this war since October 7th. And they, as you are saying, are looking at the Charedim, who are also Orthodox, are there looking at them saying, why are we serving?

Why are our sons dying? Why are our husbands not around? And you're not, you're in your yeshiva's study. And this is creating an internal tension that I don't think really existed before October 7th. And that's a societal, it's an intra-Israel societal tension that we don't spend as much time focusing on as we probably should but it's also a tension within the Israeli government because every faction I just mentioned

the Kharedim, the national religious, then the regular Likud voters which tend to be more secular certainly than the national Orthodox in the Kharedim they're all part of the same government and suddenly some factions within the government are saying to other factions I mean there was this unbelievable moment a couple of weeks ago where Bezalel Smotrich the finance minister And suddenly some factions within the government are saying to other factions, I mean, there was this unbelievable moment a couple of weeks ago, where Becalis Smotrich, the finance minister, who's the leader of one of these national religious parties,

basically said the hostages aren't the priority, defeating Hamas entirely is the priority. And he got some pushback from one of the head of the UTJ, United Torah Judaism, which is one of the Haredi, one of the ultra-orthodox parties. And he pushed back and said, that's absolutely not true. The hostages are the priority. And Smolchuk from what I understand pushed back and says, okay, well, if you're saying

it's such a priority, why aren't your sons going into Gaza and fighting and dying? Like if you're going to start telling us what the priorities of the war are, then go serve, but you're not. And these are ministers in the same government. Yeah, it is interesting because I think the dynamic between the religious Zionist and the Haredi, the ultra-Orthodox, always used to be that the ultra-Orthodox didn't really respect the religious Zionists. They felt the religious Zionists aren't religious enough, but the religious Zionists still respected them. If there was criticism, it was very mild from the religious

Zionist side, whereas Rabbi Avad Jei Yousef, who is since deceased, but one of the most prominent Haredi rabbis in the last half century, once called the religious Zionist party the house of goyim, of non-Jews. The total disrespect. And now, the religious Zionists are pushing back. They're saying, no, sorry, you might have amazing Torah study, but you also, this is the land of Israel and there are religious reasons why you should be fighting in this war too. And again, within the coalition, there's a lot of tension.

Within Likud, there's tension. People in Likud are very reticent to criticize Netanyahu or pressure Netanyahu, but there is a faction within the party that's also really outspoken about this. And they themselves are mostly Likud Pesah members who wear a kippah, a yarmulke. Yeah. Okay, so I want to come back to Gaza just before we wrap. It's been communicated,

I just want to go back to these phases, right? We talked about this three-phased war, and it's been communicated at the end of each phase in the war, there'll be an exit point for Hamas to, quote unquote, climb down the tree and negotiate, especially before implementing the second phase, which would be potentially moving part of the Palestinian population.

How do you, what is your sense based on your reporting? I know no one knows what Hamas is actually thinking, but based on your reporting, at least, what do Israelis think Hamas is considering as it assesses its options, as they try to process and understand this plan that may be coming their way? So I think Hamas has been consistent for a while now,

which is basically that they want the war to end and then they will give back all the hostages. This is what they say. If you believe them, that's what they want. The end of war and they get to survive the end of that war. They don't agree to disarm, they don't agree to exile. It's just ceasefire, exchanging hostages for thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jail, some of whom are terrorists who have murdered multiple people.

I don't trust them. I don't trust them to uphold a ceasefire for very long, but I also don't trust them that they would get back all the hostages because I think it's their best leverage. It's terrible to think about it that way, but that is Hamas's leverage. They've been able to delay this planned escalation of the war, right? Because they'll go into negotiations, and then they'll leave negotiations. And the government is, like you said,

they have all these exit points, right? They're taking it slow because they want to give Hamas a chance. They want to give the hostages a chance. But I think Israel is not willing to give up on the other war aim, which Smotrich, but also Netanyahu, recently said is the primary war aim, which Smotrich, but also Netanyahu, recently said is the primary war aim, which is eradicating Hamas.

In a scenario in which Hamas does not surrender, what is your sense for Israel's approach to the remaining living hostages? I don't think that there's optimism that they'll be able to rescue them all, but I think that there will be an attempt, not only at the government level, but I think that the soldiers going into Gaza are motivated. Some of them are motivated, I think, primarily by that, but it's definitely a huge motivation for a lot of them. They will try to find signs and they will be working to look for them, and that's not

something anyone's going to discourage either. That being said, it's hard for me to believe based on what's happened in the last year and a half that that's going to get another 21 hostages out. So I think they're just going to continue trying to work via the US and the Egyptians to get some of us to return the living hostages. In the last week, there was some interesting talk about Qatar. Finally, Netanyahu was sort of speaking out against the Qataris a lot more. Somebody very senior in the government recently said the Qataris had a negative influence

or a negative impact on the most recent round of negotiations. And then all of a sudden, it seems like the Qataris are back to try to get some sort of deal done, which is why there's a little more talk in the last couple of days of continuing to try to delay this escalation. And I mean, in that sense, if that is true, then one could argue that this whole focus on a new military plan and the escalation has been helpful. Well, that's been the theory of Netanyahu and Katz

and it went all along, which is that military pressure is a form of pressure on Hamas. They've tried this other form of pressure now for almost two months already of cutting off aid, which did lead to protests in Gaza, but I guess it wasn't enough to really pressure Hamas. And so maybe real military action will work. One of the objectives in the second phase of this proposal is to pressure Gazans to leave the Gaza Strip entirely to several countries around the world, which from my understanding is Israel is trying

to negotiate with some of these countries. Do you know much about this? What do we know? How feasible is this plan? A large percentage of Gazans want to leave. Think something like 40% of Gazans would want to leave. But there's a sort of a mismatch, I think, between the countries willing to accept them and the countries they want to go to.

That should surprise no one. They want to go to Canada. They want to go to the UK. And the countries Israel's speaking to are, let's say, Muslim countries in eastern Asia, which are fine. I think the standard of living there is not worse than, I think it's comparable to Gaza before the war, maybe even better if you live in certain urban areas. But there's also talk with some African countries like Somaliland, where I think Gazans are

going to say, well, maybe I'll just stay in Gaza. Like I don't think that's, they're going to see that as a better life. So there needs to be incentives there. There's nothing out in the open yet. And from just a macro perspective, what do all these developments mean for Israel? Like for Israel, politically inside Israel, just if you add all these pieces up, what is your sense of where all this is going? I think there's frustration on all ends for different reasons.

Left to center, Israelis are frustrated because the opinion there is that an escalation in the war is going to endanger the hostages and for them the hostages are the number one priority. I think on the right there's frustration that things are moving so slowly, that the war is just kind of paused for so long even though we don't have an actual official ceasefire that we're getting something out of. So we're at like a very, I would say, impatient time in Israel when it comes to the war and how it's progressing. And that's true on all political ends.

Okay. And then, is there a lot of conversation, just coming back to what I was talking about earlier when we were talking about what, you know, if Israel has a medium term, just a medium term, not even a long term presence in Gaza, is there a lot of conversation about what this means for Israelis? Are people talking about, my gosh, we're, you know, as you said, you're just your own life family experience, hundreds of days, husband gone. You know, most Israelis, they do their army service, then they do Milovin, they do reserves

for two to four weeks a year, you know, basically until they're 40 years old. And now over the last year and a half, they're doing something they've never really done before, which is hundreds of days in reserve duty. And then if there's no real end to this, and we're talking about a decade of presence in Gaza, does this pressure on the Israeli men largely become the new normal? Yeah, I mean, I think that there is a worry

that you're gonna have to do a lot more days of reserve duty every year. It's also not good for the economy. There's definitely a lot of talk about that. The motivation goes down, so the soldiers maybe don't do as good a job. I think that fits in with the frustration and impatience that Israelis are feeling where they they're like, we want to end the war, we want to win the war, but we want to win it soon. It really goes against what David Ben-Gurion, how David Ben-Gurion thought Israeli wars should be fought and how they were fought up until now. All right, Lahav, thank you for this. I'll give you one little piece of

good news and what is otherwise a pretty unsettling time, which is just this week, John and Mindy Gray, two American Jewish philanthropists, John is the president of the Blackstone Group, which is one of the largest investment firms in the world, was just in Israel this week where they announced a $125 million donation from their foundation to the Tel Aviv University Medical Center, it's the largest single donation

in the history of Tel Aviv University Medical Center. It's the largest single donation in the history of Tel Aviv University. It's to deal with concerns on a range of fronts, including concerns about shortage of doctors in Israel. And as at the ceremony, Buji Herzog, the president of Israel was there. A number of various officials and leaders in Israel were there. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl,

who's a prominent rabbi in the United States, friend of mine, full disclosure, she was there and she gave a speech where she said, probably the most important message was that at a time when Israel is being ostracized all around the world, this donation is not only important, but the fact that John and Mindy Gray wanna put their names on a building so prominently

at this time in Israel is an important statement and we would encourage more and more Jewish philanthropists to continue support in Israel and also in the diaspora here. To me, that's like the one of the silver linings in all of this is that I think you see like a lot of Jewish pride, a lot of Jews coming together around the world, and that's a beautiful thing. It's unfortunate that I had to come from a dark time, both in Israel and from rising anti-Semitism. But I hope that we can continue to sort of be united and work together in a way that we hadn't

in the years before this. Yeah, I think there's a new sense of Jewish peoplehood. I think we understand it now at a more practical level than it was thought of before, both by Israelis and Jews in the diaspora. Lahav, Shabbat Shalom and stay safe. Shabbat Shalom. Thank you.

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