Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - What’s a Win? - with Dr. Tal Becker

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Watch Call me Back on YouTube: youtube.com/@CallMeBackPodcastSubscribe to Ark Media’s new podcast ‘What’s Your Number?’: lnk.to/DZulpYFor sponsorship inquiries, please contact: [e-mail] contact us, sign up for updates, and access transcripts, visit: arkmedia.org/Ark Media on Instagram: instagram.com/arkmediaorgDan on X: x.com/dansenorDan on Instagram: instagram.com/dansenorToday’s episode:Since the beginning of the war, 20 months ago, politicians and public figures have referred to ‘total victory’ and a complete defeat of Hamas to define the war’s objectives. But what exactly does that mean? And at what cost to Israeli society?Today’s guest, Dr. Tal Becker, has been exploring what it means to actually “win” the war. What does it look like? How to measure it? Tal recently served as the Legal Advisor of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and currently serves as Vice President of the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is a veteran member of successive Israeli peace negotiation teams and played an instrumental role in negotiating and drafting the historic Abraham Accords. Tal earned his doctorate from Columbia University in New York, and is the recipient of numerous scholarly awards, including the Guggenheim Prize for best international law book for his book "Terrorism and the State".CREDITS:ILAN BENATAR - Producer & EditorMARTIN HUERGO - Sound EditorMARIANGELES BURGOS - Additional EditingMAYA RACKOFF - Operations DirectorGABE SILVERSTEIN - ResearchYUVAL SEMO - Music Composer

You are listening to an Art Media Podcast. What does victory mean? Victory is not defined by what Hamas thinks defeat or victory is. Hamas can stand on a pile of rubble and maybe say it's victorious or not. That is not the dimension in which we're operating. But we also need to be able to not allow it to define what we're trying to achieve in the region and Israel's role as a force for good in the region and across the world. We need to be bigger than this challenge in order to defeat Hamas. It's 1130 a.m. on Tuesday, June 10th here in New York City. It is 630 p.m. on Tuesday, June 10th in Israel as Israelis mark day 613 days of hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza.

In recent days, while the US awaits Iran's response to its most recent proposal, President Trump has been publicly raising doubts about a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic. On Friday, President Trump affirmed his administration's position that Iran must agree to seize nuclear enrichment, saying, quote, If they enrich, we are going to have to do it the other way, close quote, a sign that military action against Iran's nuclear program is still on the table, should negotiations fail. Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Iran successfully stole information regarding Israel's nuclear program, which seems to refer to the Sorek Nuclear Research Center, located

just 12 miles south of Tel Aviv. Now according to these reports, the information that was stolen was stolen from the IAEA, not from Israel. The Iranian intelligence ministers claim that thousands of documents were attained through quote infiltration and quote access to sources and that information would be publicized soon. We are not sure yet how big a deal this actually is but obviously we will continue to monitor it. Now on to today's conversation. Since the beginning of the war, the October 7th war, 20 months ago,

we have been hearing the terms total victory as a goal in this war and a complete defeat of Hamas, quote unquote, as a goal in this war. And these are used as a measure of the war's objectives. But what does that actually mean? And at what cost to Israel are those objectives being pursued? And where is the Israeli public on these issues? And how do they think these trade-offs through? Our guest today is Dr. Tal Becker who recently served as legal advisor to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Tal currently serves as vice president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is a veteran member of successive Israeli peace negotiation teams and played an instrumental role in negotiating and drafting the historic Abraham Accords. He also last year defended Israel before the Hague. Tal earned his doctorate from Columbia University in New York and is the recipient of numerous scholarly awards, including the Guggenheim prize for the best international law book That's for his book terrorism and the state. I Welcome tall back to the podcast. He joined us from Jerusalem. Hi tall. Hey Dan. Good to be with you so tall I want to begin with Israel's definition of victory as Israel's definition of victory, as articulated by the Israeli government. How would you describe or just kind of tick through Israel's objectives in this war as they are currently articulated? R. As they're currently articulated in terms of Hamas, the government has set kind of three

big objectives. The return of all the hostages, the end of Hamas's capacity to threaten Israel from Gaza, and the end of Hamas' rule in Gaza. In other words, that Hamas will not be able to reconstitute itself, will reach a post-Hamas reality. That question, Dan, kind of touches on a much broader question, which is how do we think about victory in war in general, and how do we think about victory in this specific war, given the different objectives that we have more broadly, given the debate within Israeli society about what victory means? And also, I guess, given the fact that our enemies have a different idea

of what victory is, like whose definition of victory or defeat matters is also relevant to this. R. Taking these objectives, the three objectives, to what extent have these been achieved or how are they on a path to being achieved? And the ones that have not been achieved, are they actually attainable? How do you think of just kind of looking at where Israel is on the chart of progress? AC So, I mean, if we measure each three, right, each of those three, we have succeeded in returning a significant number of hostages. There are, I think, 55 now left of the hostages. That's an objective that until all return, you can't say has been achieved,

and of course it's a very sensitive issue for Israeli society. I think there's an open question about whether Hamas will ever be willing to release all the hostages, despite what it says. But that certainly is an objective that you could say has been significantly advanced, though every day of course is agony, and there's a little bit more to achieve. The second issue of is Hamas a threat to Israel from Gaza? I think that has largely been achieved. Hamas has been decimated as a military force. It doesn't propose a significant threat to Israel from Gaza today. But the third challenge is will Hamas be a threat to Israel tomorrow? Is it a threat to Gazans today? Which is another way of saying how are we doing in terms of creating a sustainable post-Hamas reality? I think that's

really where the challenge of this war is at the moment. And it's a big debate, I think, as to what it means to create that reality, what victory can look like in that sense, and is it attainable. BF So by your estimate, where do you think, and I'm not asking you to be a political scientist or a survey research analyst here, but you see the polling in Israel, you talk to obviously a lot of Israelis, a real cross-section of Israeli society that you speak to. What's your sense for where the majority of Israeli society is today in terms of what they would consider to be quote unquote victory? My sense is that there's quite a gap between where a lot of the public is and where the government is on this issue, in the sense that for a lot of the Israeli public, the top priority is to release the hostages, even if that means that you haven't created a reality where Hamas

is definitely no longer the force in Gaza. And that's, I think, less about a definition of victory than it is about the urgency and the necessity for the health of Israeli society in the view of the Israeli public and getting the hostages back. And essentially, I think making the argument that the battle against Hamas will continue, but we have to get the hostages home. And I think the government has a different view of this in the sense that we cannot end this war without it, almost like a bright line moment where it is clear that Hamas is no longer a factor in Gaza. What does a bright line moment look like? I mean, most of the Hamas leadership has been

destroyed, decimated, killed. I mean, really, it's extraordinary. Like now, Mohamed Sinwar is killed. If you look at the deck of cards that the IDF had at the beginning of this war in terms of the leadership of Hamas, it needed to take out, it's taken out almost all of it. It seems that Hamas, at least operational, as a light infantry army, that it was effectively what it was on October 7th, its capacity to operate in that form and in that structure and with that effectiveness is largely wiped out. It seems like the rockets and other projectiles

that had been lobbing into Israel for years and years and years has been largely wiped out. I guess its tunnel system is still largely intact, so that's a problem. But most of Hamas's military capabilities, as we've understood them, are gone. Yeah, so first I want to say, Dan, I was in government for almost 30 years. It's taught me to be a little bit cautious about the space between what is reported and what's actually going on. So in terms of the factual assessment, I think it's clear that Hamas has been devastated as a military organization. But I want to start thinking about this maybe first from a conceptual perspective about

when we talk about victory and then measure it against what's happening on the ground. But just when you say that the government wants like this bright line moment, I'm just trying to imagine what that is. What is the bright line? So I would say to the imagine what that is. What is the bright line? So I would say to the best of my understanding, there is a version of this where the leadership of Hamas essentially is exiled out of Gaza and relinquishes control of Gaza, relinquishes its arms as part of a day after proposal. There is the model where an alternative Palestinian governance emerges that is the dominant force

in Gaza. There probably is a continuing counterinsurgency because there are pockets of resistance in a kind of tactical sense, but Gaza is effectively governed by an entity that no longer poses that kind of threat to Israel. I think either because the leadership is exiled or because they're so weak, they do not dictate the reality of Gaza, its governance, and certainly its threat to Israel. Okay, you and I discussed offline

two different definitions of victory and war, defined by two military strategists, philosophers of war, Klauschwitz and Sun Tzu. So I want you to describe each approach and then how it applies to the war in Gaza. I have not heard either of those names invoked by military strategists in the context of this war, so I was quite struck when you brought up with me in a phone conversation in the last couple of weeks. So first describe who each of these figures were and what their kind of frameworks were and then how it applies to Gaza.

Right, I mean these are two people who wrote a book called The Art of War at very different times and from very different places, one a Chinese thought and another a German one. But I think that, you know, and I'm no expert on this but I'm basing myself on an analysis I read that it really captured me, where essentially Klausowitz says that in a kind of standard way that you would assume that victory in war is the physical domination of your enemy to the point that they lose the capability and the will to fight. But Sun Tzu says something quite different. He says that in war what you're actually doing is you're not fighting your enemy, you're fighting the strategy of your enemy. Victory

in war, according to this analysis, is basically that you are able to dismantle the strategy of your enemy, and if you can do so with the minimum amount of force, then that is the highest form of victory. In other words, Klausowitz is suggesting this kind of military domination approach, a military defeat, but Sansu is suggesting something I think larger. For me, I think if you merge these two, when you're trying to think about victory and war, you're really trying to do two things. You're trying to take away the capabilities of your enemies to threaten you and cause you harm, but you're also trying to take away the appeal of the story that they're telling,

the agenda that they have. And I think this is really important to think about in terms of the war in Gaza in general. Let me try to kind of flesh it out a little bit. It helps by just honing in on what is Hamas's strategy. What is the strategy of the axis if we think about Hezbollah and the Iranian regime and Hamas more broadly? I think there are two key components to the strategy beyond the desire to essentially destroy Israel. The first is the idea that if you weaponize the civilian population, if you so embed yourself within a civilian population, you will make it so your adversary is essentially incapable of confronting you.

This idea is a idea that threatens not just Israel, but I think it threatens all democracies in the confrontation of terrorism. It's that idea that in Gaza, Hamas has essentially turned the urban area of Gaza into a battlefield and the civilians of Gaza into essentially their camouflage. If we allow that to succeed, what we are saying is they've essentially cracked the code, and democracies cannot defend against that reality. Yes, maybe there is that bright line moment of defeating Hamas militarily, but the cost you pay in terms of legitimacy, both legitimacy in the region and legitimacy

internationally is too high. And so you need to calibrate. You need to mix that with much more focus on a view towards, for example, normalization, a view towards ensuring Israel's legitimacy internationally, and not pay such a high legitimacy price because according to this argument, you know, you could kill every last Hamas fighter. But if at the end of that, the idea of normalization with Israel is off the table, you will only have won in a Klaus Witzian sense but not defeated the ideology. And I think there's a view that we need to put on the table finally, and that is that this kind of bright-line moment of defeating Hamas may not be achievable. That's an argument you also hear, right? Israel could be trapped into a counterinsurgency, it can be stuck in

the mud, and you can get yourself locked into this idea that there is this moment of surrender, this moment of bright line victory that you won't reach, and then you're trapped. Tell, when we watch protests against Israel around the world, I see this in the US, over here, the college campus protests, just the vitriol in various capitals in Europe.

There's very little about the creation of a Palestinian state in the rhetoric. I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find any rhetoric around that. There's very little about building up the moderate forces for pursuit of Palestinian self-determination of a Palestinian state that lives side by side with a Jewish state. There's like nothing about developing the Palestinian national movement as one that could live side by side with Israel. It's all about delegitimizing Israel. It's all about genocide, apartheid.

It's all about an end to the colonialist state. Is that effectively an expression or manifestation of what you're describing here as Hamas's strategy? To just make the whole debate not about what could be with regard to Palestinian self-determination or the pursuit of Palestinian self-determination, and make it solely and singularly about delegitimizing Israel in the eyes of everyone, not just those in the Muslim world? R. I think there are two aspects to the legitimacy challenge. There's the legitimacy challenge in the region, which is normalization with Israel, is peace

with Israel a legitimate idea that can compete with Iran's narrative and the narrative of others in the region? And that is one component of the legitimacy struggle. If Hamas's story can be set back in that way, that's important. And then there's what's happening in the West, and those two also are interrelated, right? In other words, I think if those in the Muslim world are seeing how the debate is playing out here, it reinforces the sense that the legitimacy of Israel is not even an option. I mean, they're not even talking about it over here.

I mean, that's, I think, part of the strategy. You did that interview with Brett McGurk the other day, which I enjoyed listening to, and Brett is a really great guy. I really appreciate how much effort and work he did during the difficult period of this war, the really agonizing period. And Brett said something important, that when Western states, when their preoccupation, if not obsession, is on the critique of Israel, then that's also a signal to the region. It affects the agenda. It gives Hamas an offense that, oh, there may be enough pressure on Israel that we can hold out, but it also creates a dynamic that makes it more harder to legitimize normalization. I think Israel has responsibilities here, and our partners in the West have responsibilities

here, and I want to take a minute just to describe that. First of all, I think it's critical for us to make sure we have legitimate objectives and are adopting legitimate means to pursue those objectives. There are legitimate objectives in this war. Defeating Hamas, releasing the hostages, ensuring that Hamas doesn't dictate the future of the Middle East, continue to terrorize Palestinians, that's a legitimate objective. Middle East continue to terrorize Palestinians, that's a legitimate objective. Permanent occupation of Gaza is not a legitimate objective. Forcible transfer of Gazans from Gaza is not a legitimate objective. And I think Israel has an obligation both to its own society and its soldiers and to its partners in the region to clearly articulate what its objectives are and what they are

not and also to ensure in the horrible reality that Hamas has created in Gaza, really using Israel's obligation to the law against it to make sure that Israel is demonstrating and applying its commitment to the rule of law. That's also part of the victory of this war, to make sure that we sustain our values despite that difficulty. But I think there is a responsibility also of those who are critiquing Israel to ask how they're engaging, how their actions are being understood in the region. And let's just look at this for a minute. You have a genocidal terrorist organization that is holding hostages now for 613 days. That is a daily war crime, a daily war crime.

days, that is a daily war crime. That organization has also seeking to use humanitarian aid in order to remain in power and it is seeking to use its control of the Ghazan population as best it can to make sure that it remains in power and to leverage the hostages, humanitarian aid and other things in order to remain the power in the region and to condemn Israelis and Palestinians to a future where Hamas will still dictate the reality in Gaza. If those who are critical of Israel, for example, on the humanitarian aid issue, which is a really difficult dilemma and an important question, If their answer is, well, just allow Hamas to remain in power, just end this war and allow Hamas to remain in power, what they are saying is, we don't care that Israelis and Palestinians will continue

to be in a reality where Hamas denies us the possibility for a better future. If, for example, there's discussion now about the possibility of the recognition of a Palestinian state by some actors in response to this, I think there will be two forces who will build a statue to, let's say, President Macron if he goes ahead with recognition, which I hope he doesn't. Those will be Hamas, who will build a statue saying thank you for enabling us to show that our strategy is the one that works. And it will probably be someone like B'talas Motrich on the Israeli side who will use that to advance an agenda that I think will make it more difficult for us to offer a vision of coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians. Tal, you mentioned B'talas Motrich, the Minister

of Finance in the government. He is oft cited by international actors. Most recently, I think the government of the UK is talking about sanctioning him in particular. How do you separate fact in terms of what his actual role is in the war, Israel's defensive war against Hamas? What his actual role is, both at a strategic level and operational decisions at an operational level. How do you separate what is fact from what is perception, or how do you separate what's fact from what is cynicism or manipulation, trying to turn him into something, what I feel, even though I also disagree with a lot of what he has to say,

but I also recognize he's not parenthetically in the room where it happens. I mean, he's not exactly making decisions about what the IDF does in Gaza. So I think it's hard to separate these things out, and I don't know the answer to the question fundamentally, but I would say at a basic level, the biggest problem we face at the moment is that very loud voices from the radical right are telling a story about what Israel is doing

that is not helpful to Israel. This is about defeating Hamas. It's about creating a post-Hamas reality in Gaza so that both Israelis and Palestinians can live in a better way with coexistence. It is not about permanent occupation. It is not about forcible transfer. But for a set of reasons that I think are really quite problematic, there isn't enough of a loud voice saying clearly, no, that description of what's going on isn't actually what the instructions to the soldiers are, isn't actually what's going on. It's a combination both of a kind of trauma that Israeli society is trapped in, that it kind of feels like there's not much point in telling the world this stuff and talking

about this. And also I think political component here plays a significant role. And I think that that is really problematic. We need to be very, very clear what our objectives are and what they are not. And we need to be very clear, both to our soldiers, to our own public, to Jews around the world, to our friends around the world. Our purpose here is to deny the enemies of peace the ability to dictate the future of the Middle East, and to create a Middle East where the strategy of Hamas, of Iran and Hezbollah, that wants to present the idea of coexistence, stability and prosperity as somehow unacceptable, that idea we are seeking to fight, and I think it's really important. Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homo Sapiens has this really important idea about how human beings took over the world, what enabled them to dominate the world. And what he says is that human

beings were able to dominate the world because of the capacity to cooperate in massive numbers in the absence of intimate familiarity, like hundreds of thousands of people or millions of people could work together even if they didn't know each other. And Harari says the reason why that happened was because of the greatest human invention of all. I personally think the greatest human invention is the air conditioner, but Harari says the greatest human invention is the capacity to tell a story.

Because if that story is compelling enough, then you are able to work together with people in community to create reality. You are able to work together with people in community to create reality. You are able to create sacrifice for that future. And this is a way to think about nationalism, it's a way to think even about religion and so on. And we need to ask questions about what are the dominant stories that are being told. And we're at a moment where the stories within each society are being contested. America's story of itself, for example, is being really contested in the US today. I think Israel's story of itself is being significantly contested.

But also within the Islamic world, there is a real contest going on about what is the way in which Muslims understand themselves. And one of the big questions we need to ask is how do we make sure that the stories we're telling and the stories we're encouraging are stories that will advance coexistence and a better future for Jews, for Palestinians, for Muslims and so on. But who are you persuading here? I hear you talking about this debate and how we have to win this debate and I'm thinking about the players on the other side of the debate. I think there are some in the Israeli political ecosystem, on the Israeli political spectrum, who don't operate in good faith on the question

of whether or not Palestinians should have at some point a path to their own autonomy or some form of statehood, sovereignty minus, whatever term you want to use. There's some in the Israeli spectrum who don't operate in good faith when they talk about that issue, but I would say most Israelis are actually operating in good faith.

I don't feel I can say the same thing about those on the other side of this debate about where Israel goes from here and how Israel gains legitimacy. I mean, you really believe you've been in the middle of this peace processing and as I mentioned, defending Israel and international jurisdictions like the Hague, you really believe that those

that are on the attack against Israel and building a consensus in its attacks against Israel are open to being persuaded along the terms at a very sort of intellectual and values basis that you're laying out here. So I think we need to separate our audiences here, Dan, and make sure that we are communicating with different audiences effectively. There are some audiences that it just doesn't matter, right? So obviously, if you're anti-Semitic or deliberately hostile or deliberately ignorant, this is not an audience that will be affected by any of these arguments. But I do want to say that I do see in the West people who are keen for Israel to frame what it's doing in moral terms. And let me

give you a specific description of this that Donil Hartman from the Hartman Institute shared with me. When Israel is accused of something like genocide or some other crime, what we tend to do is essentially look up the legal definition of that term, demonstrate that what's happening doesn't meet that definition, and then really kind of be outraged at the issued against Israel either for anti-Semitic reasons or for other reasons. So it's a very kind of legalistic approach and it has its place. But some of the people who are using this term, they don't know what the definition is.

They're not even looking it up. They're kind of reaching for a term in this social media age that expresses a kind of frustration that they see the suffering of civilians, it feels like it's reckless indifference at best. They want to kind of express their outrage by using that term. And to that audience, and unfortunately there are lots of Jews in that audience around the world, there are some in liberal democracies who want to hear Israel framing what it's doing in moral terms, explaining the unbelievable dilemma that Hamas has pushed us in to take the example of humanitarian aid. How do you get humanitarian aid to a civilian

population without at the same time empowering the force that is terrorizing that civilian population and that will deny us the ability to get to a post-Hamas reality? That's a serious challenge. And disengaging from that conversation for that audience increases the perception that Israel is not engaged in a moral conversation, and I think enhances the kind of way in which Hamas wants to frame us as illegitimate. Now there's also a moral responsibility on the critics. They are not offering answers for how to get to a post-Hamas reality. They are not treating seriously the unbelievable dilemma that Hamas presents because of its irreconcilable evil. We've got this tension going on

now between the GHF, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, and the UN at the moment. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation can do no good according to the UN's version. If the Gaza Humanitarian's objective is to find a way to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians without getting to Hamas, then at least its objective is noble. I'm not aware that the UN has put in place mechanisms that prevent its aid from getting to Hamas. And that means that that aid is empowering the group that is in the end damning Palestinians to live under the rule of a terrorist organization. That is a serious moral question. So I think victory is not defined by what Hamas thinks defeat or victory is. Hamas can stand on a pile of rubble and maybe say it's victorious or not.

That is not the dimension in which we're operating. Who is shaping the agenda? Who is shaping the mindset? And yes, we need to be in constant military security vigilance against that threat and against eliminating that threat and diminishing that threat. But we also need to be able to not allow it to define what we're trying to achieve in the region and Israel's role as a force for good in the region and across the world. We need to be bigger than this challenge in order to defeat Hamas. Tom Bilyeu, Ph.D. Tal, you and I have talked about in the past, and I continue to be struck by this,

even Brett McGurk in the conversation I just had that you referenced made a version of this point, that the debate is so lopsided internationally that every time Israel takes an action to respond to an action from Hamas, the whole focus of the discussion, the scrutiny, the finger wagging, the hectoring, the demonizing is about Israel's action as though it was never actually a counteraction, that it was never actually a response to anything. Brett was just saying, you want this war to end, release the hostages and basically lay down your arms and this all ends tomorrow. So everything you don't like that Israel's doing,

it is a response to something. And we never have a discussion about the something, we just have a conversation about the response to the something. In other words, it has gotten so out of control that the only press coverage, including this, I don't want to start singling out individual press articles because we'll spend all day providing examples, but you know what I'm referring to, it just seemed like the deck in this regard is so

stacked against Israel, that we're in this absurd situation that the only news that warrants coverage is Israel's response to things rather than the thing. Let me maybe tell a story about that. I don't tell too many stories from my diplomatic past, but I'll share one that I think is really important. Jared O'Reilly See, I figured there was a way. This is just the circuitous way to just lure you in, Tal, to start finally giving us the goods.

Darrell Bock Yeah, well, in one of my conversations with a large group of ambassadors before the Rafah operation, they came essentially to say that Israel couldn't effectively engage in the Rafah operation. They came essentially to say that Israel couldn't effectively engage in the Rafah operation because although there were several Hamas battalions in Rafah, there were simply too many civilians there for this operation to be conducted without devastating harm to the civilians, and therefore Israel could not engage in the Rafah operation. And I said to them in that conversation that, of course, Israel has a supreme responsibility to protect civilians, even as it's targeting Hamas. That's something we share.

We share that moral commitment. But since you have that moral commitment, I wondered how many of you have called on Hamas not to position its battalions in the civilian population. Because if you care about this, then we wouldn't be having the question about how Israel is responding to this challenge if Hamas didn't create the challenge in the first place. And I said that because I knew that none of the countries of those ambassadors had made a statement condemning Hamas for the war crime of positioning its battalions among civilians. So there was an awkward silence, and then one ambassador raises her hand and says, well,

Dr. Becker, I'm very sorry. We don't have influence over Hamas, but we have influence over you. And my response was basically, this isn't a question about influencing Hamas. It's a question about rewarding Hamas. If it is right and appropriate to question what Israel is doing to respond to the Hamas challenge. But if you do that without putting the responsibility first on Hamas for creating it, first for endangering its civilians and willing to sacrifice its civilians as a war aim, as a war strategy, as almost a theological act, then what you are doing is playing into Hamas's hands and

making this a strategy that works. And that has been a story that has accompanied this war all along. And this does not absolve Israel of its responsibilities, but unless you put it in the right moral frame, you are playing a very dangerous game. Because let's say, for example, that Israel simply just says, you know what, Hamas's challenge is too hard. It gets immunity. It broke the code. It's figured out how to so booby trap its civilian population. It's spent 16 years creating this battlefield in such a sophisticated way that there is no way for us to respond without least harm to civilians, so they get to keep hostages,

they get to target Israel, and there really isn't an effective response. If that is the outcome, then this is that second part of Hamas's strategy. We're creating a reality where no democracy can fight this kind of terrorism and when more civilians will suffer. So Israel has a responsibility to minimize civilian harm and to show that it's doing it and to consider carefully how it's doing it. But I think there is also a responsibility on those countries in the world who claim to care about this and I share their concern. We have an obligation of compassion, of empathy for Palestinian suffering. We have an obligation to minimize Palestinian harm, but we also have an obligation to see how it is that Hamas's strategy is the core mover in creating the conditions

for that suffering. And if we don't deal with it, we will be perpetuating a reality where both Israelis and Palestinians suffer from it. Okay, Tal, before we wrap, I just have one final question. Next week, France, the government of France alongside the government of Saudi Arabia will co-host a conference a UN conference in New York aimed at Recognizing a Palestinian state as part of that it will from what I understand call on disarmament of Hamas release of the hostages reforms of the Palestinian Authority and then reconstruction of Gaza If a Palestinian state is recognized in the near future

reconstruction of Gaza. If a Palestinian state is recognized in the near future, whatever that means, if the idea of a Palestinian state starts the recognition of one, starts to get more momentum than it has, even if Hamas is removed from power, don't you see a scenario in which this war will be written into history to the narrative or the story, as you said, of the Palestinian people as Palestine's war of independence? And it will have been Hamas actually that catalyzed it. If what we're seeing is that essentially the response to October 7th is recognition of Palestinian statehood, then that I think will enable Hamas to say,

we got our issue on the map in that way. And it also says something to Israelis. Essentially, the Israeli interpretation of this will be the reason why October 7th happened was because there wasn't a Palestinian state. It's not because there's a genocidal terrorist organization that is completely opposed to any Jew living anywhere in this area, committed to rejecting Jewish self-determination in any boundary, objecting peace. That's not the reason this happened. It happened because of this idea that Israel didn't agree to it, and that I think empowers

the wrong forces on the Israeli side as well, and makes it feel impossible to ever reach a post-Hamas reality and advanced coexistence. There's a real difference in foreign policy between doing good and looking good. It's easy to have a conference. It's easy to make big pronouncements and symbolic gestures in one direction or another. At the end of the day, the real questions in foreign policy are about how do you make people's lives better? And this goes back to Sun Tzu and Klauswitz. If the enemies of peace have the capability to advance their objectives, people's lives will be worse. If the enemies of peace are rewarded for their strategy and it is seen as the pathway to advance a goal, people's lives will be worse off and the prospect of coexistence and peace will be set back.

So yes, Israel has an obligation, in my view, to articulate a vision about where we want to go. I've said this before on your podcast, I'll say it again because I think it's important. Victory is not just about what you want to destroy. Victory is about what you're trying to build. Victory is sometimes about making sure you capture the momentum. You set the agenda and your adversaries are trying to spoil it and it might take time. But victory is also about making sure that you are not doing things to reward the strategy that is so destructive to the possibility of a future. And you can tell, you know already, when this idea of recognition came up, Hamas celebrated it.

If that's not an indicator that it's a problematic approach, I don't know what is. Yes, I want to reach a future where both Jews and Palestinians live in dignity, security, peace and prosperity. But I will not achieve that if Hamas feels empowered and Iran feels empowered and Hezbollah feels empowered. Now that acquires things of Israel, absolutely, and we need to articulate what we're doing in clear moral terms. But I think our partners, who I think have, I hope have good intentions and want to create that

reality, need to ask very, very hard questions about who in fact they will empower if we don't first make sure that we reach a post-Hamas reality before we ask how are we going to create a better future? Because or else Hamas will get the benefits rather than the people, Palestinians and Israelis, who deserve the benefits of ending this war in a way that's victorious, in a genuine way. All right, Tal, we will leave it there. Thank you for doing this. And I look forward to continuing this conversation you've given us a lot to think about and to

be continued. Thanks, Dan. Good to be with you. That's our show for today. If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who might appreciate it. Time and again, we've found that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the Call Me Back community, so thank you.

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