The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Almost Everything We're Told About Gaza is Wrong - Urban Warfare Expert John Spencer

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

John Spencer joins "Live From The Table" for an in-depth interview to discuss the moral, legal, and strategic implications of Israel's actions in the Gaza War. Also discussed: hostages, day-after plans, and other matters.

Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to Live from the Table. I'm here today to do a special interview, and I'm excited about this, with John Spencer. Now, I'm going to read your whole bio here because normally I rush through bios, and internationally recognized expert and advisor on urban warfare, military strategy, tactics, and other related topics. Considered one of the world's leading experts on urban warfare, if not the leading expert, he served as an advisor to the top four-star general and other senior leaders in the U.S. Army as part of strategic research groups from the Pentagon to the United States Military Academy. He served two combat tours during the Iraq War. He's the author of three books, Understanding Urban Warfare, Connected Soldiers, Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War, winner of the 2023 Gold Medal Award, Best Military History Mem gold medal award, best military history memoir, military writer society of America. The mini manual for the urban defender translated into 10 languages. His writings have appeared in time magazine, New York times USA today,

wall street journal, Washington post LA times, New York daily news, wired magazine, politico, the hill foreign policy magazine, defense one Army Magazine, and other publications. Spencer is also a regular military analyst and commentator for CNN, MSNBC, Fox, BBC, and numerous news and media organizations. Welcome to the show, John Spencer. No, thanks for reading all that. That must make you very, I mean, that's an accomplishment. That's a life's accomplishment right there. I mean, I've had an amazing career from a 16-year-old boy from Indiana joining the military 25 years to advise and enforce our generals. And interestingly, after I retired, I can also say that I'm probably the only person you're going to meet who's been into many of the places that we talk about. So I went to Nagorno nagarna karabakh i went to um ukraine four times since the war started and i just and i've been

into gaza so i don't know how many of your your guests have been into gaza since the war began but i just got back in february can i ask you before we get into all the the this stuff um It came out in our little messaging on Twitter that you have three young kids, you're a single dad. I have three kids. I was raised by a single dad. And I mean, it's a deep question. Now that you're a dad and you can imagine your kids growing up, volunteering for the military, perhaps dying for their country. How has that changed you? Would you want to see your children volunteering for the armed forces? What are your thoughts on all that? moral ethical code and I've spent a lot of my time as a parent on that on who we are my son remembers when I was teaching at West Point and being around the cadets and attending football games I of course think that any amount of service would do them great benefits as growing into adults getting that perspective of the of the, of what it means to serve, what it

means to have a community and all of our freedoms, that it is backed by sacrifice. It is backed by commonality and serving the community, not just being in it. So I would be honored, but I also want to give them as much information so they make that decision. I would strongly encourage them to serve in some way. You don't have to serve in the military, right? Because all the police and the firemen and community leaders, there's many ways to serve,

but I think it's a integral part of our society and our power. So when you, when you write, I think this is a fair interpretation of what you've written, that you believe Israel is doing the right thing, that includes, it must, your idea that, well, if you were a citizen there and it meant your son going off to fight in this war, you would think this was the right thing for the country to do. And there they have no choice to call your son and have your son's life risked for this cause. A hundred percent. I mean, how do you value the survival of the nation and of your people, then sending your blood and treasure to defend that right? And, and literally something that, again, because I've had to travel the world and I try to express that right and and literally something that again because i've had to travel

the world and i try to express that to my kids i mean we live in a great united states where that actual existential threat outside of you know nuclear weapons um hasn't been visited our borders in a very very long time but there are so many people around the world from ukraine to israel and many other places who face an existential threat of they're fighting for their families to their rear. They're fighting for each other. And I say this in my Connected Soldiers book, like why soldiers fight. It isn't for, I mean, in some parts it is for your nationality, for tribe and things like that, but it's really for the people to the left, the right and the people behind them. So this is one of the problems I think we as

Americans have in judging what's going on over there is that we live in our prosperous 2024 country with really nothing real to worry about, misgendering and things like that these are the issues that we and um israel's living in essentially 1944 that's that's really where they're living and we just can't identify with that in some way i think that's the disconnect right 100 i mean people fear what they do not understand and i mean so so many people haven't had the you know hadn't had the opportunity to visit israel to visit every corner and understand the complexity of the Israel-Palestine issue, to understand even October 7th. And I had to go there. I didn't understand it.

I had to go and walk the ground to really understand the magnitude of it and what it was and to see Gaza two miles away or less if you're in some of those kibbutzim that were attacked people can't understand that because it you like you said it's like a cognitive hurdle for them to even be able to put themselves in anybody else's shoes but just to understand what's going on and this is again where people have looked at the war as something just so you you know, in their mind, they just can't comprehend how war works, how this war is so unique. And I know a lot of veterans who just can't put it into their mental framework of what type of war this is

and how foreign it is to anything they've experienced. There's so much unknown that has caused people to not, to fear this, to just want it to stop, so many angles. Yeah, I sometimes get mad and I'm arguing in our restaurant, the Olive Tree, and I tell people, and this is not to say that what I'm about to say means that Israel is right. It's just a necessary first step for people to even consider it. I say, we're here in Manhattan. Imagine this is all happening right over the East River in Queens. And by the way, Brooklyn is evacuated until further notice because nobody can live there safely. Would America give up Brooklyn until further notice

and sustain incoming rocket fire endlessly from Queens? Even if we had something to knock the rockets most of them out of the air but we'd spend our lives in and out of bomb shelters who would live that way and that again that that's not to say therefore israel is right but i think many of the people who have already come to a conclusion about that haven't even stopped to consider it through those eyes that's the problem right and they they almost discount you when you say that right like um yeah what would we do right and i've faced this and i i have my very strong opinion based on years a decade of research into this type of combat but even the former joint chief of staff general milley has very recently said

what do you think america would have done, following all laws of war, even humanity, which is one of the laws of war, right? You do everything physically possible to prevent civilian harm. way you're at you're actually right it would have been much more overwhelming force to accomplish the goals immediately and i think people don't uh you know some people are anti-war i got that some people disagree with everything the u.s military has ever done in its history i get that but anybody with actual logic when a nation is attacked, like at that scale, you know that a nation has the right of self-defense and to pursue the goals that any nation would, to include the United States, who has much more military force, but also trying to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible. If anybody's reasonable reasonable they would know that that's a goal and then they like known like you said that they don't want to they can't factor in like what if this was on our border right the the southern border whatever border okay fine you can't count that let me tell you the military challenge that is if you would give me that yes the united states would attack hamas

because of this you know these this 9 11 20 9 11 stuff but then you think that the united states militarily would do it differently is not backed up on anything that we've ever done in our history yeah well and then one more thing because and I have a lot here to ask you about, but part of, I think the problem that people don't want to admit in my opinion, is that in order to go down that road that you're, that you're talking about, you have to first accept that Israel is a real and legitimate country with the same rights that the United States has. And for many, many, many people, even those who may not realize it, they don't quite see Israel as a real country. In other words, if I said, what if London had to evacuate?

They wouldn't even spend two seconds. Of course, if London has to evacuate, England has to do whatever is necessary to bring people back. But somehow Israel is considered somehow differently. Kissinger, I've talked about it on this show before. I've been reading his book, Diplomacy, excerpts of it. And one of the things he spoke about was that the West felt so uneasy about the Treaty of Versailles that it didn't have the moral courage to be strong with Germany because they somehow felt that it wasn't fair.

And it was like a, it was a cancer on their conscience. And I think that there's an analogy here to Israel. People think somehow in some way, Israel is just not entitled to be considered exactly like the United States of America. And if it were, this would be much easier for people to come to grips with. Yeah, I mean, there are just so many topics involving Israel that tap into a crisis, I think, in people's ability to critically think. Even how would you begin to understand the Israel-Palestinian conflict

despite you don't know anything about it? You just have these feelings of bits of information you've got but i agree with you that includes israel's right to be a nation of its borders of the challenges of the history of it um you know you quoting the churchill reminds me of the oswitz letter where you know the jews sent a letter to the united states asking to intervene and to bomb oswitz, and they said no. And from the time that letter was sent until the camp was liberated, it could have saved tens of thousands of Jews. But we to be reassessing the number of people who have died in Gaza. It's still being argued out. I had made the argument on this show, a few arguments about the casualty issue, kind of put them out there. I've been saying all along that every day Israel wakes up and has military decisions to make because Israel is fighting a military war with a military objective.

And Hamas is fighting a PR war. And the most consequential decision they make every day is to announce the casualty counts. So why in the world would we think that they would ever be honest about these death counts? It makes no sense for them to do so. The only reason would be because they're honest. But obviously to attribute that kind of honor to the people who committed October 7th is absurd. So it just seems very, very pure, easy to understand common sense reasons. The numbers can't be right.

And then we had an empirical case where there was that bombing at the Christian hospital, alleged bombing, and they announced that 471 people had died. I think that was the number. And then a few days later, we find out that the hospital wasn't even bombed. So there you are. They're caught red handed. Where did you get this 471 number from? You made it up. So are we to think

that that's the only time you made it up was the time that we caught you? That can't be right. And finally, we would hear that the, well, in the past, the health ministry numbers have been close to accurate. And that's a real argument, but it occurred to me that, and you'll answer, that since those conflicts were so small comparatively, there was only so much exaggeration that could go on. And here, the scale of the conflict is so large, they have open road to put whatever numbers out that they want and nobody would know any better. So having said all that, I think maybe I was right about a bunch of that stuff.

What can you tell us about the numbers, your opinion of it, and why the UN has reassessed it? Yeah, one, again, somebody who studied urban wars, urban battles for a very long time, all of them, to include

all the ones the United States has been involved with. There's a reason that the second battle of Fallujah, 2004, was the biggest battle of the entire Iraq war. That includes against actually the Battle of Baghdad, which is close to 6 million people. But this small city of 300,000 in Fallujah was the biggest battle of the entire Iraq war. And why the Battle of Mosul in 2017 was the biggest battle of World War II? Because the enemy drives the situation of defending the dense urban terrain, using human shields, all these aspects and having an understanding. There's never been a battle or a war where anybody has ever been able to tell you what the daily civilian casualty count is. So from October until now, I've of course said that that number, I can tell you with very strong confidence, that number is wrong. Even if we're in this anti-trust, don't trust anybody world, right?

Don't trust the government. Don't trust these people. Don't trust those people. I'm telling you, in any type of war, especially an urban-centric war, it would be impossible to know how many people are dying in the war. So let's start at the end of what you just said. The Gaza health ministry has been accurate in previous wars. Well, that's both a truth and a lie. The truth is, is that after the war, yes, the number that the Gaza health ministry said after the war was close to what the UN questionably also said the number was. It wasn't during the war. I see. And they said hundreds had died during the war. And the media was running with it. And then it comes to find out it wasn't in the hundreds. That's both a truth and a lie.

That's the world we live in. So even if I took the number, it wouldn't tell the story that everybody wants to say, which is to imply without evidence that Israel, without being on the ground, without ever spending time with the IDF, without knowing how war works, to know that that number is not accurate. Because even if I took the Hamas Gaza health ministry number of 35,000 Palestinians dead, I would have to get whoever the person I'm talking to is to acknowledge that that's every death that's happened in October 7th, no matter what the cause.

If it was true, it would have to be every Hamas fighter, every combatant who attacked the IDF, because there's more than just Hamas. It would be every person who died of natural causes, every person who died by Hamas's hands, because of the 13,000 rockets that Hamas has launched at Israel, every one of them a war crime because they were targeting civilian areas. 20% of those have landed inside of Gaza and killed a lot of Palestinian people. But let's say we took the number. It still wouldn't tell the number, the narrative everybody wants to say. But yes, as of recently, both the Gaza health ministry, before the UN over the weekend said anything, the Gaza health ministry put out a note on telegram saying there's about 11,000 people that we can't confirm our debt.

If, because nobody asked, how does the Gaza health ministry, because they don't, they're not involved in wars. They don't know how people come up with casualty numbers that the Gaza health ministry comes up with a number by of course, hospital records of people coming into the hospital, but that's actually a low percentage. They also use social media reports of missing personnel. Well, to be fair, the hospitals are many are destroyed, right? No, there's only one that's actually would be considered destroyed, Shifa Hospital. Other than that, every hospital has had an operation conducted against it because Hamas was using it. But the only one that could be severely damaged was Shifa when we had that second battle where a thousand Hamas

members who were called out wouldn't and they had this big battle over it. Now we've actually destroyed hospitals by airstrikes in like the battle of Mosul when ISIS was using them. But thus far outside of the Shifa hospital, the hospitals are not destroyed. Matter of fact, all the hospitals are in some functioning capability, and there's been 10 field hospitals set up on top of those. Okay. But of the number, right? So if you understand how the Gaza health ministry, for some reason during this war alone, right? So to taglines, 35,000 dead, 13,000 children children dead which even hamas never said in the gaza health

ministry by name list to include 11 000 incomplete like i don't we don't know if that's that person is actually missing or not it's just on our list on their list there are not 13 000 children dead even if i went with the the un provided number of 18 years old means anything below 18 and below would mean a child. I joined the military at 16, was off to basic training by 17. But even the Hamas never said there were 13,000, but that seems to be the chant of every uninformed person of the world. 13,000 children dead. How could this be legal? How could this not be intentional?

Easy. One, it's not the number. And yes, over the weekend, the United 10 to 11 000 of the people that we can't track are probably under the rubble because of urban combat yeah that's what they're saying how how would they know that they're under the rubble they're missing right so somebody on social media or a family who says we don't know where this person is so they he immediately goes on the roster of dead under the rubble, he or she. But do you think there's actually a factual trail to that or do they just make it up? That's because why wouldn't they just make it up? I mean, as a matter of fact, if I were on their side and

I thought their cause was morally just, I would advise them to make it up. I don't even mean it as a criticism and you're fighting for your lives here. This is, this is your battle. Um, you're not going to say the truth, even if it's going to ruin you. No, I mean, every civilian casualty in this war has been a travesty, but for Hamas, it's a strategy. Hamas's strategy has never been to defeat the idea, right? It's never been even to hold the terrain, which is, as a war guy, you got to think about the strategy. The Hamas strategy since October 8th has been to force the world, mainly the United States, who in the past has stopped Israel in defending itself Hamas's strategy has been to force the United States to get the idea to stop on their goals and for Hamas to achieve a

massive political victory and that strategy at times has been working and the main vehicle of that strategy has been the number of civilians dead so of course I would trump that number up as well in any way possible to the point where our leaders around the world have run with the number and not even put the caveats on it

like this is from the gaza health ministry or this is every death in in gaza according to the gaza health ministry we just say i actually have a headline very recently from ap that says 35 000 palestinians killed by israeli airstrikes in gaza like that's a lie i mean gaza hamas doesn't even say that that's the news headline and then you have literally world leaders saying it without the caveats so it's like everybody's falling into the Hamas trap, the Hamas strategy. The other question is why are so many civilians dying? Can you, or why could they, why would they be dying? Can you rehearse for us the measures that Israel has taken to evacuate areas and explain why there would still be so many civilians in those areas. So I had a naive thought. If I were a parent in Gaza, it's a small area.

You can walk from one, any point in Gaza to another point can be walked to in a day by a able-bodied person. It's not as if you have to trek like these four people who come from South and Central America and they walk thousands of miles to get to America. This is 20 miles in any direction. If I was a parent there, I think, well, I'll just take my kids to the beach. I'm just going to go right to the beach where they're probably not going to bomb the beach and wait this out as best I can. But they don't do that. So what has Israel done to try to get people to evacuate? And why is it not more successful?

So the way that Israel has gone about approaching evacuating the urban areas, which is the greatest what we call civilian harm mitigation step that any military can do, although it also seeds a lot of strategy to the enemy. So if you, and you know, in any evasion, right, you have to recognize that this was enemy held territory. The idea of invaded to achieve their three goals, penetrated,

you know, move forward to attack. Not all militaries in the past, not the United States, in the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, Panama, North Korea, you name it, provided warning and evacuated cities because you want to move with overwhelming speed

and surprise the enemy before he gets embedded and entrenched in using human shields. So how do you do it? If that's the route you go, number one is you announce evacuations. The number one tactic that any military has used, and these are recent tactics, right? This is called civilian harm mitigation, is to drop flyers. That's what we did in the second battle of Fallujah, the battle of Mosul, others. You drop flyers and then you try to communicate in any way, whether it's social media or in other ways, trying to communicate to the civilians to leave.

You have to establish safe corridors and a place for them to go. Those are kind of the standard techniques. Now, Israel, because it's unique, and this is two miles from the border, and they take different steps. They also put hundreds of soldiers in phone banks and called into the cities to reach anybody they could, a religious leader, a business leader, families, director families, calling them and saying, this area is going to be a combat area. Please evacuate for your safety. Go to this route. Take this road. Go to this route take this road go to this area and they there are the numbers are crazy the the millions of phone calls the text messages the pre-recorded voicemails but to say it's not effective and you also have

to wait right you have to give time for civilians to evacuate so in in northern Gaza in October, in October November, there were a million people north of the river that splits Gaza. And of those, the New York Times said that Israel successfully evacuated 850,000 of those million.

So it's like 85%, right? And they waited three weeks. Israel waited three weeks before launching their ground invasion to allow for the evacuation. But on top of that step, so that's kind of normal. They also do roof knocking, which everybody wants to discount, but they actually will call a building before they strike a building, call everybody in and say, look, this is a military target. We're going to strike this building in an hour or 30 minutes, and please evacuate. And if they don't, they drop munitions on top of the roof, and it's called roof knocking. Israel is also, as the world and as this strategy of Hamas to use human shields, to use human sacrifice,

because they themselves, the leaders of Hammas have gone on tv and said are we want as many of our people to die as possible yeah to achieve our political goal israel also started handing out their military maps so they they make this map where they cut up the city into small areas and number each city number each building israel started handing out their maps and then communicating to the civilians, okay, in this area of the city, 201, we will be conducting operations. Please evacuate. If you're not in this area, please stay away. Nobody's ever done that before. Israel has deployed drones with speakers on them.

They've deployed speakers on parachutes. They continue the phone calls. Israel has done hundreds of daily pauses. So every day to include the height and everybody keeps comparing the war in Gaza to October when there were 40,000 embedded Hamas defenders in tunnels that no military has ever faced. Which, oh, by the way, if I was a father in Gaza and there was a tunnel under my house, that's where I'd put my children as I was trying to keep them protected. And without question, 100% of the entire population of Gaza, the 2.2 million, could fit with ease in the 400 plus miles of Hamas tunnels underneath every urban area there. And not one, actually a few, there's only been about five civilians allowed in a Hamas tunnel. And those are the families of Yahya Asinwar.

But aren't the tunnels part of the targets? You know, with the 2,000 pound bombs, aren't they trying to destroy the tunnels? Yes. So that's one of the greatest criticisms somehow because if the number doesn't work is how many 2,000-pound bombs Israel has dropped. So yes, that's what the 2,000-pound bombs that everybody criticizes are used for, are to penetrate.

I'm just saying you could stick your family in the tunnels. It's better than them if you're not going to evacuate. If you're not going to evacuate. Yeah. And some of those tunnels are not reachable by bombs some of those tunnels are over 200 feet underground and yes why does a 500 pound bomb not achieve the goal of a 2 000 pound bomb is because a 500 pound bomb doesn't penetrate the earth as much as a 2 000 pound penetrating bunker busting munitionition. And for some reason,

that's been the other criticism to them, is like, okay, I don't agree that they tried to evacuate civilians. I don't agree they were effective because here's the number that we also agreed isn't real. Here's the number of civilians that have died, so it doesn't matter.

They haven't been effective. That's not true. Even the New York Times said by December, the IDF had cut the civilian casualties in half. By January, they had cut it to two-thirds. And by the time I visit in February, it's so low that they're not tracking it. They're actually aggregating the civilian casualties on a daily basis. They're not talking about on this day, this is how many civilians were reported dead.

Now, what about those cases that were reported? And I would say that a small number of these cases goes a long way in terms of the implications that it might have to reasonable people who are evacuating, that some of the corridors then got hit. Some of the places they were told to evacuate to were also hit. How do we process all that? Sure. One, the reports. I don't deny them. I think it happens. So the safe routes like the Al-Sadeen Road that goes from north to south, even the Al-Mawassi humanitarian zone, which is

the massive humanitarian zone along the board on that coastline, like you said, where it was identified by the IDF as the one place that they think that the Hamas had not dug tunnels, had not prepared defenses. In both those locations, along the road and exactly right against the Al-Mawassi humanitarian zone, Hamas set up rocket launchers and launched rockets. So has there been IDF strikes near humanitarian safety zones? Absolutely. And I believe those reports are true because of the fact that Hamas is using them as a shield to basically create an area that is, no matter what happens, it's a no-go area, is exactly what's led Hamas to the strategy of building itself underneath the civilians. It's called human shield strategy.

To say that the routes have, It's called human shield strategy. To say that the routes have, there's nowhere safe to go. I agree with that, but there is safer places to go. And yes, on those routes, the IDF, yes, there have been, but nobody talks about the IDF actually putting soldiers during those four hour daily pauses along that road to protect the Palestinian people as they try to evacuate. Where I have other reports where IDF is shooting people that are trying to evacuate. Not the IDF, the Hamas. So I guess what you're saying is that there's some corridor that's set up and then Hamas shoots some rockets from that corridor. And then the IDF feels it has to retaliate. But might not it be better for the IDF simply not to retaliate at those targets because

it's more important that the evacuation be unimpeded? Right. Absolutely. This is the one we don't have every report, although IDF gives some where they look at the target and they make that proportionality assessment okay that's a military target it's a valid military target it's a it's a it's a hamas commander in a bunker underneath a civilian building or there's a rocket launching site actively launching rockets right now but it is close to hundreds of civilians

so they'll make that assessment on military advantage, military target against the expected civilian casualty collateral damage. That's the requirement by law. And if in that situation, if you're saying that that rocket next to it, but nobody knows, again, when we talk about it in hindsight of the report, well, here they attack near this humanitarian zone near this safe route well how many civilians if they did take an action were killed in that operation and is that disproportionate to the value like you said now if you're saying don't take the action

because it will be perceived as too risky well that's the issue is what is the information that the IDF had at the moment? How many civilians were near it? What was the expected collateral damage? And what is the risk to not taking this shot? Those are all factors everybody discounts on the report of in of the six months of the war, there has been no safe area to evacuate. That's not true. Or the overwhelming numbers of people that actually did successfully evacuate, it wouldn't have been achieved, right? There's nowhere safe to go. Well, it's interesting. You're talking about the issue of proportionality from the point of view of proper protection of the people being bombed. But I'm also looking at, and that's obviously very, very important, but I'm also looking at it in terms of what's the best strategy for Israel. If the consequence of bombing the corridor is not just the number of civilians that are going to be killed in the corridor, but then also the number of civilians who are now scared to evacuate end up getting

killed somewhere else, the consequence of the world having gasoline for its turn against Israel. All these things come from that. Look, anybody who listens to my show understands that I'm quite pro-Israel. I'm trying both to be a good journalist here and, as i would as a patriotic citizen of america i would never assume america is making no mistakes um i would you have to assume that mistakes are always made and and in hindsight you can see them one of the one of them actually this would be a question given everything we know now about the way the world has turned against Israel and how that is really making Israel's fight of the war

very, very difficult, if not impossible. What should Israel, what would Israel have done differently if it had known this timeline going back to October 7th now, how it would have fought the war differently to avoid the situation that it's in now, yet still be true to its goals.

Yeah, it's hard to go back in hindsight because both sides get a vote, right? Hamas get a vote. Israel gets a vote in the approach. I strongly believe, again, I'm not pro-Israel. I'm actually pro truth and i go there to do research not to listen to what i'm told to observe from my own eyes and to assess in a objective way as possible israel's actions against the military challenge and compare it with my knowledge to every battle that anybody who actually follows the law of war right we can't compare it with my knowledge to every battle that anybody who actually follows the law of war right

we can't compare it against uh russia and ukraine we can't compare it against russia and chechnya the syrians and the syrians because none of those people follow the laws of war but i can compare it objectively to every battle and war in which these are the military challenges. In hindsight, I think that the IDF would have gone in, like us, to achieve the goal as quickly as possible, while still doing everything feasible, reasonable, and possible to prevent civilian casualties, although that's the Hamas strategy. This gets to really the hypothesis that Israel has listened to the the really the hypothesis that israel has listened to the world because of it knows that it lives in this world where it's held to a second third crazy standard

that no military has ever been held in war because it's israel i acknowledge that i might not agree with it but objectively i acknowledge that because i've studied every battle to include the ones that we've been involved with, like the Battle of Mosul. But Israel listened to the world. Israel reduced its forces. It started with five divisions. It attacked on October, you know, late October with four divisions. It quickly was told by the world and by the United States, like, I don like, you have to change your tactics. You have to bomb less, you have to use less forces, and you have to reduce the civilian casualty count. Although we don't know what it is, you division, to one brigade. And Hamas has survived to this point. We can talk about how effective they've been, but the world and the United States owns some of the suffering that has happened in Gaza. Because if you end a war quicker, there is less of this. This is the hypothesis. And I'll argue again, and I think you've had guests on the show who said we just wouldn't have bombed this much. We wouldn't have used as many 2,000 pound bombs

to hit the tunnels. The fallacy, there's two fallacies here, Noam. One is that if you bomb less, there'll be less destruction. Well, if anybody's ever studied high intensity urban combat, where a single group of soldiers can turn a single

building into a week-long battle without the ability to bomb. This is MacArthur in Manila, MacArthur in the Battle of Seoul, no air power. You'll get a very destructive building-to-building battle where you have to use artillery mortars. It's actually a fallacy to believe if you bomb less, it'll lead to less destruction and less civilian casualties. The other fallacy, because the other libel or inaccuracy has been Israel has used more unguided munitions than other people have in the past,

although nobody has faced this level of combat in urban terrain. The other fallacy is that if you just had all precision guided munitions, there would be less collateral damage, less civilian casualties. And again, that's not backed up by history of any similar battle. Think about the Second Battle of Fallujah, Battle of Hue, 1968,

Battle of Mosul. I can precisely hit the building, but the enemy combatant is driving where the fighting is happening in every building along that block, leading to more destruction. But they're both fallacies. What you're saying reminds me of something I think about a lot, which is that some situations just have no good outcomes. I use a silly example when you know, when you have a kid who's behaves really badly, um, people will look at that kid and then they will look at how he was raised and then they will

find, well, you did this wrong. You did that wrong because it had to be the way you raised that kid. But if that kid had been adopted by some other family, they probably, the kid might very well have still been, you know, had just had a bad disposition. And if he was raised in an opposite way, so you shouldn't have done that. You shouldn't have done that. But the fact is there was no right answer. I sometimes think that, um, in the Iraq war, if we hadn't gone into Iraq, uh, now we'd be saying that all the people who told us not to go into Iraq were so wrong because

it would have turned out terribly one way or another. And I would just have to imagine. Go ahead. You can interrupt me. No, I agree. I mean, this is the frustrating part with revisionist history of people that study wars and battles. Even if they're involved, then they disagree with everything about it. Every reason. And they discount the information that people have at the moment if you're fighting an enemy like hamas who knows that it has to get its own people killed they will have the ingenuity and the cleverness to figure out how to do that in whatever scenario they're presented with and israel will always look bad that's what i that's what i fear is the truth.

I don't want to be callous. I mean, you know, I have to be open to listening to it. No, if they had done this and this and this, think about it, Norm, they could have accomplished it. And these people wouldn't have been killed. I have to be ready to listen to that. But my gut is that that wouldn't happen. Go ahead. Yeah. Let me give you, so that's the alternative, right? What did you, what do you think, given all the history of warfare, it was a better strategy or better actions that the IDF could have done? Okay, bomb less. Okay, I can show you how that could have led to just the same, if not more, amounts of destruction. Because now you have IDF soldiers having to close the distance to that building being held by the enemy in an attempt to get them out of that building. And no military in the history of warfare has faced a combatant who spent 15 years and

a billion dollars digging 400 miles of tunnels underneath every bit of urban terrain in an entire area. The fallacy is there was still a double way, right? I wrote a Wall Street Journal article that beginning in october there were people recommending to israel not to launch a ground invasion that they would lose too many soldiers it's not possible etc etc and they should do strategic raids and strategic bombing which is a counterinsurgency counterterrorism fallacy it's called i call it the zero Dark Thirty fallacy because General McMaster did. One, that would have to hold in time that, okay, you have to let your 242 hostages stay in captivity indefinitely.

You just have to let them. It would be too destructive if you did not just let them stay in captivity, to include babies to Holocaust survivors. You would have to leave Hamas in power. You would have to leave Hamas in power. You would have to leave Hamas launching rockets at you. And we don't know how many they have, but you can shoot most of those out of the sky. There is no historical backing to the ideal that just doing strategic raids, gathering the intelligence to find the leaders, gathering the intelligence to find the hostiles, and then penetrate that hostile area to do very precision operations. There is no history of military

history that says that that would have achieved the goals in any relative time, like literally years, it would take you to gather the intelligence to drive you that. If you could do an operation like that into enemy-held territory and leaving them continuing to launch rockets and develop capabilities, it is the fallacy of the alternative. And I'm saying, yes, there is an alternative. You could have gone in stronger, quicker while still evacuating urban areas of civilians and achieved your goal as quickly as possible. But that isn't tolerable to people. Like war is not tolerable right now because people don't understand even the variables

of what's going on in Gaza, of the challenge of 40,000 armed defenders who cannot be convinced to give up, right? So even ISIS, people discount this. There is other ways to win urban battles. You can convince the defender that it is to their advantage

not to fight. ISIS actually evacuated cities in the battles of Iraq and Syria because they didn't want to hold the city, didn't want to die holding the city. So they would evacuate

before the Iraqi security forces got there. But when you have a defender who says, I will defend this to my death, didn't want to die holding the city so they would evacuate before the iraqi security forces got there but when you have a defender who says i will defend this to my death people think that okay but you should just let them hold the city for a couple years until you can figure out another way they're just not reasonable theories that have been proven with actual it's almost like anti intellectual like well you should have tried this like what makes you think that would have worked in any amount of time yeah but you can wait a couple years it's crazy so i was reading former secretary of defense gates's memoir and one of the things um that outraged him about joe biden was that all he cared about when it came to deciding military matters were the political ramifications

and so my first thought well, if he was ready to have American military decisions be slaves to political ramifications, clearly what would stop him in Israel's case? And I try to imagine, and by the way, as a Jewish American, I've been quite appreciative of Joe Biden in general, but nevertheless, I try to imagine in a cinematic kind of way what these conversations are like in the White House when the Israelis are there. And they say, you need to kill fewer civilians. And they say, well, howmilitary person must say blah blah blah the things that you're saying because i imagine that our generals are going to agree with you they know that they can't in with a straight face give israel this kind of advice unless one gets snarky and says well these are the same people who told us we could pull out of Afghanistan in this way.

And so, you know, their expertise speaks for itself. I don't quite believe that. I think the Afghanistan thing was also driven by the politics. But, you know, I know very little bit, very little bit about this kind of stuff. But I'm fascinated by it. And we really don't ever get any good reporting on it you could just i don't want to talk too much but you could just imagine a very very testy conversation between the israeli prime minister and blinken

and saying what are you talking about you know goddamn well we can't do that how do you expect us to win do these conversations happen and what are the americans answer so one all war is politics period like we teach that you know when i taught military strategy at west point like if you really get and there is no such thing as a war a total war where the generals get to run the war whatever the way they want politicians stay out of the way all war is politics we live in a globally connected world where every every population gets to see the world and interpret it based on their expertise or even somebody who has a little bit of expertise i guarantee that those meetings happened those

meetings of you got to reduce the spilling calcium well how well just wait just just don't do your operation in rafa right now just just wait you We'll figure out a way. What do you think the way is? I can guarantee, and one of the challenges I think is scary is when you believe that there are military personnel that't, the U.S. military has never done it. So who's the expert giving the best military advice? I told you that General Milley said that it would have gone a lot differently had it been the United States based on the political objectives provided to the military to pursue. But to understand that nobody has actually faced these challenges. And when you have people or guests to tell you, well, in this case, we didn't do that. Well, okay, the variables, the context was completely different. Matter of fact, you're talking about a single battle against a very small enemy in a very small city. And there are 24 cities in Gaza. There are 10 massive cities that would be 10 times what you're talking about

in that single battle. Absolutely. And this is when I visited Nome. So I went into Khan Yunus, which is the last major operation the IDF was doing in Gaza in February with the division commander to see it for myself. I'm like, I'm too, I'm trying to find the truth. Like, look,

the world says you're doing too much. Can I see your operations? And I got taken into the city with the division commander and the things they were doing were exactly that, where they launched three brigades to surround 250,000 civilians which they can track now by cell phones and without firing a single shot they surrounded them in the middle of the night told them

to evacuate through their lines which I as a military guy like that's crazy like do you guys not like through the safe area that there's no military but through them and set up giant facial recognition devices. And they picked out out of 250,000 civilians. They are now evacuating through their lines.

900 high level Hamas combatants were picked out of that civilian crowd. So they figured out a way. Because the world said they had to. Slowly. Methodically. Week long. To figure out a way to take that strategy of Hamas away. Which is the civilian death. Perception of death. In Gaza.

So you're spot on. Those meetings have happened. And they started in October. So this phrase you said. Again it's something thought you said because the world said they had to now this is interesting because necessity becomes the mother of invention and and sometimes though the the the constraints were political and maybe based on the american election and whatever it is that you might want to criticize, if the result is that it caused Israel to quadruple its efforts to figure out a better solution, and actually there was some good solutions that were found, that in some way

mitigates the criticism of what America did there, right? If it produced an ingenious way of finding these Hamas people through facial recognition and sparing lives, hard to argue with that. I agree with you, but the goal of a military strategy is to

achieve the goals with the least amount of cost. So from the Israeli side, absolutely. And I've talked to Israeli people who don't understand how the IDF have prevented civilian casualties. They have this kind of dissonance, but they also fear within them. So you think about the hostages left in captivity now for this long even though we know where they're at uh the hamas leadership staying in power because this way so this is my fear is like yes i think absolutely innovation is you know necessity is the mother of all innovation and they have the idea have figured out a way is the mother of all innovation. And they have the idea, have figured out a way, given the context of the operation, to do it slower with less forces, less bombing, methodically.

But it's required immense amount of time. And in wars, again, this is where people discount, why did it take nine months to take out 4,000, not 40,000, 4 000 isis fighters out of the city of massoul i can tell you why because uh the security forces were were dying a lot it was really it's a very tough challenge but to think that time is always on if you understand that war is politics and this hamas strategy of using inaccurate numbers to force, you know, now you have universities protesting everywhere. Now you have U.S. administration say, we're not going to send you any more bombs to protect yourself from even Hezbollah in the north who's attacking. And those munitions would be time is never a indefinite variable in a war. So yes, this way caused there to be,

but also the context is different. This strategy that the idea figured out in Khan Yunus would not have worked in Gaza City where you had tens of thousands of enemy combatants under the ground resisting and holding the ground. This is a strategy that worked in the context of the mission variables at the moment. And this is how everybody wants to talk about today like it was October when the war started. The number of bombs, the number of civilians, casualties, they just hold these things in

constant without understanding all the variables that we're talking about. So yes and no. Well, also, it came to my mind after I asked that, that Israel also has these hostages to consider. A hundred percent. And that puts a pressure on time that the enemy may not be entitled to the same consideration that it would be if they were not holding these hostages. Because obviously every day that Israel is slower is every day that another hostage is suffering or dying. Which brings me to the question of international law and the hostages and common sense in a way. What is international law even left standing here, given that in my estimation,

the world has really come around to the opinion that the side that uses human shields is the side who needs to be considered and that this is the royal flush strategy and that if you don't bend and and and relent in the face of their using human shields in other words if the evil person uh uses human shields the good guys are supposed to uh capitulate otherwise they become evil themselves in which case all warfare now will be fought with hostages and human shields um so answer that and then we'll get to the this the negotiation for

the hostages which i also cannot understand but what what is the current situation of human of international law after this right um i think it's it's very precarious where you have a situation and where it isn't the law but the perception of the law and the use of force which drives people to say that you can't do the operation right this would and i agree with you you're the sentiment and this is what i've strongly said, that if Hamas' strategy works to conduct an invasion of another nation, fall back into your civilian population with the intent to have as many of your civilians killed as possible while using hostages to get at the psyche of the other nation. If this isn't stopped, if Israel isn't able to defeat Hamas and this strategy, then you'll see it popping up everywhere. Hezbollah will try the same tactic. Other people in other countries will try that. This is the so what to, yeah, but Israel, you have more power. Just wait. Wait a few months, leave the hostages in captivity. The problem with international law, though, is that you have credible organizations. And again, because I have been studying this for years, I've seen the evolution of this,

not what the law says, but what people of credibility say the law says. I think international law is, I want people to follow the law of armed conflict because it actually puts bounds on brutality and we never go back to targeting civilians to try to convince their governments their regimes even evil to give up you know that's the bombing of civilian areas that's the carpet bombing the the the fire bombing of tokyo i agree that the law has evolved

to put limits on the brutality of war, but the law should never be developed to the point where you say, yeah, but you don't have the right to defend yourself. Just deal with it. That would be a really violent world we would then live in because how many more people would view this as a very asymmetric strategy to achieve political goals. The law is there to put limits on the brutality of the law. But what we've seen is credible organizations within the United Nations and human rights groups interpreting the law and then nobody questioning them on that. I mean, in 2022, Amnesty International, who had some credibility, said it was illegal for the

Ukrainians to be in the cities, the military, to be in their cities that they're defending because it's a violation of law to be intermixed with civilians. That's the level. And all these organizations, again, people don't understand the history of this. UNICEF, the United Nations High Commission of Human Rights Activists, have all been saying these things about anybody who follows the law of war, like the United States for the second battle of Fallujah, the United nations high council of human rights said,

we've, we targeted civilians. We massacred civilians on purpose. We violated all the laws of war without evidence. And then later years later, the U S forces were cleared of that. But this is the world where we're now living in that people who want no war want to say the law says everything that Israel is doing is illegal when it actually in no way, shape, or form. given all the variables, and then implemented every measure that's ever been thought of, and like we talked about earlier,

created new ones to prevent civilian casualties. But if anybody thinks there's ever going to be a war where there's zero casualties, and I've heard people, world leaders now saying this, the right number of casualties in Gaza is zero, civilian casualties. Well, then that means Israel cannot conduct a military operation in Gaza. Because that's not what the law says. The law says you do the proportionality, military necessity, you take all precautions, possible, constant care to prevent civilian casualties. But the law never was meant to be developed where you would ever fight a war and there would be zero civilian casualties. The number one law of war is don't target civilians, period. I know.

And there's so many war crimes going on here. And I understand in some way that we expect more from the quote-unquote more civilized people. We expect more from Israel than we expect from Hamas. But it descends into just a total, first, just a ignoring of the topic. And at some point people forget about it so much, they begin to take Hamas' side without even realizing what they're doing here.

You dismiss Hamas' responsibilities because you consider them barbaric. And then before you know it, you're taking the side of the barbarians and just forgiving everything they do. Every, as you said, every missile and rocket is a war crime. The fact that they don't wear uniforms to purposely make it impossible to tell who's a civilian

and who's a combatant. The human shields, the tunnels. I mean, every single, the hostages, every single thing they do is a war crime. And this is all forgiven. And then tomorrow Israel will commit some jackass Israeli soldier or commander will order something, which is a war crime. And the entire world will screech to a halt. Israel has committed a war crime because we no longer even care about the other size war crimes. And I think I'm being fair here.

I don't think I'm just speaking as a pro-Israel mouthpiece. I think this is a problem if you believe in morality. Yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, it's not only is it fair, it's backed up by all evidence that of these organizations that accuse Israel for doing wrongdoings, none of them tell Hamas to stop violating the laws of war. The United Nations calling out what happened on October 7th, the use of the hospitals, the use of the schools,

the use of the UN facilities, the use of sexual assault against the not distinguishing themselves. And a great example I give of that is, you know, again, the Russian-Ukraine war, the civilians partook in the activities. They turned themselves from civilians to combatants. But this is the every picture you ever see of Ukraine, you see a civilian with a yellow or blue tape wrapped around their arm because they don't have a uniform, but they're trying to follow the laws of war and distinguish themselves. But not one of these organizations, with their accusations based on whatever report that they have, has called out Hamas daily for violating all from attacking humanitarian aid ports of entry and gates to attacking civilians, hoarding know hoarding humanitarian aid despite all the reports but it's this is where you got to think that it's it's more than just about the law of war here nothing seemed clearer to me than the fact that the administration was undercutting israel's attempt and possibility of getting the hostages back when it was basically asking Israel to stop the military pressure in order to negotiate for the hostages. When it seemed as clear as day to me, at first they had a surplus of hostages and Israel's barrage was so overwhelming. I could

imagine they traded some just to get a breather. We have plenty left over. Now they're down to their last batch of hostages and they're not going to trade them except for their lives or for an Israeli surrender. And when America pressured Israel to stop the military action, why in the world would they think Hamas was going to release the hostages? I don't know. It has been the psychological warfare against all of Israel is this hostage situation where even their population is like, do anything possible to bring them home. One is understanding it's not a normal hostage negotiation, right? Hamas has a history of, I mean, why did Yair Yasser Mouar sitting in Israel's prisons develop this strategy of, well, if we take some prisoners, it'll put this situation in

such a complexity that we'll always have an advantage, right? Israel has exchanged thousands of prisoners, Palestinian prisoners, for just a dead body of a single IDF soldier. I mean, this is understanding who we're negotiating with, but I agree with you. And all the negotiation was theory. The biggest thing that has brought hostages home

has been military pressure and that there are kind of undeniable truths for both sides. existence will be threatened based on the words of Hamas, not an ideal, like it, like an assumption. No Hamas says since the war that if I survived this October 7th, it was just a warmup and I'm going to keep doing it until I get the job done. So as a hostage negotiation, first principle,

you know, that Hamas cannot stay in power. You also know that just extending this indefinitely cannot continue if you just understand that war is politics, that the United States and everybody else, the UN Security Council, all those variables. Hamas, his strategy that we've been talking about, has also been on time. Eventually, time will run out for Israel, for the world, and for the hostages,

because God forbid how many hostages are still alive, but Israel still will do everything possible to bring hostage bodies home. Hamas knows this. Why on earth did anybody think that Hamas would negotiate for hostages? It is right, but you have to try. I but you have to try i agree you have to try by all and if hamas wants a couple more weeks to survive to try to achieve a victory fine but you have to go into principle that nobody can force israel to say the people who did october 7th get to survive in gaza and remain in power and you just have to live with that. That's putting a nation at risk. You have to try, but you have to, as I said, you have to try while you're making it clear, listen, buddy, you're going to die. Take this deal because you're going to die.

We're never going to let you stay in power. But instead, the Biden administration, they're obviously pulling. They'd be very happy. They would not be upset at all if Israel decided to let Hamas stay in power. And Hamas is seeing that and say to themselves, our strategy is working. Hold the line. I think we might actually pull this one out. Let's string them along with the hostages. I mean, the cynicism to offer 33 hostages in the first round, but we won't tell you how many of them will be corpses. And that the fact that the world didn't, that that was not too much for the world to just say,

enough with Hamas already. How dare you this late in the game be playing such games? They still treat it deferentially. Oh, that's illegitimate. Let's keep the negotiation going. Nobody negotiates in good faith and makes that offer. It's obvious what they're doing. It's just very upsetting to me. Is it possible that behind closed doors, there's somebody in the Israeli military or cabinet that says, look, the best way to get the hostages back is to fight as if there are no hostages? No, I honestly don't think so. I think even if it was us, even if I, your understanding, this is again, how do you negotiate with evil?

Period. Hamas is evil on earth. Now, if you're uninformed, you think Israel has evil intentions. Like, why do you think that? When Hamas showed you, it showed you in thousands of videos that they are evil to the core in their words even when you try to reason with evil and say for the safety of your people so that we can bring more humanitarian aid we should you should do a temporary pause and give hostages no no we don't care about our people and they've said those words they're not our problem they're're United Nations. I do believe, though, if you're the idea, if you absolutely have that at't know any of the hostages that were taken.

This is the degrees of separation between the idea and the hostages or this, you know, anybody who suffered from October 7th. But that doesn't mean, and I say this as somebody who's done the research, that the IDF have this, let's just go kill them. Let's just go kill them let's just go get them no they're actually following a legal ethical moral code of who they are so that that applies to how they move forward to destroy hamas but also how they move forward with every action thinking that there's a hostage in some type of situation in front of them well obviously you know more about this than I do. It's just somehow the negotiations are psychological. Negotiating without leverage is begging, as I always say. And it reminds me of one of these philosophy class scenarios of two cars driving head first

into each other, who's going to pull off the road first. And the solution is to take the steering wheel out of your car, you know, throw the keys out the window. So the other side knows you have no way of pulling off. And then the other side pulls off and somehow Israel needs to convince Hamas, you're going to die. You are going to die. And then they will get serious about releasing the hostages maybe that's yeah i don't even think you have to say that right it's just you're not going to remain in power like would i be fine if they all unilaterally surrendered and oh yeah that's what i mean the only the only way the only way you won't die is take safe passage out otherwise

you're gonna die yeah exactly sorry i mean i don't think they can be so you're just so i'm clear like i i don't think that israel can make a deal where hamas senior leadership just gets basically put into exile because they still will have achieved this massive victory and the threat that it would pose to israel would be massive as well and i'm i'm we haven't even talked about i think they would i think i think politically they'd have no yeah i think they would but but maybe they'd find a way to assassinate them years later but i think the israeli public would demand that yeah let them go to tunisia or whatever it is that's what i think it may not be wise in the long term but in the short term i don't see

how they could not take that deal right but this is for me that as a strategist you know like how does hezbollah view that deal that hamas survived the war um and we're wrapping it up if if um hamas were to stay in power i just want to make the point that in my opinion the lightning bolt of energy that would go through this cause and the entire Arab world, it would make the notion of a two-state solution almost impossible. If you believe, as most Israelis do, that the only reason the Palestinians will accept the two-state solution is because they feel they have no choice, not because they think it's just.

They'll never think it was the just solution, but they will think it was the best they could get. But if they see Hamas win, then they will say to themselves, you know what? As I said before, let's hold on. We might win this thing. So why accept two states now? 100%. And you can't, if you want to put the middle east in a constant state of war

let october 7th become palestinian independence day let that be the vehicle which forces a two state solution rather than a political process which many u.s presidents democratic and republicans have tried to broker where both sides acknowledge each other's right to exist and to abandon terrorism. But if you want to put the Middle East and for massive amounts of human suffering to continue forever, let Hamas survive the war and let that become a forced two-state solution out of October 7th. I should have asked you this earlier. But it was brought to mind by something I saw on the Joe Rogan show where he was. It was some video of Israelis killing some people that under what looked like questionable circumstances. We tend to view things through frameworks that we already understand. And I think quite often we view military footage within everything that we've learned about how police are supposed to operate vis-a-vis criminals. So you're never supposed to shoot a criminal in the back. If a criminal raises his hand, there's all sorts of rules about what you're supposed to do with a criminal if he's unarmed and all the rest is that a good analogy for how war is supposed to operate or is are there differences so that's just what we call a softball absolutely let the record show he's he's laughing at me if you're listening but go ahead um absolutely not so i don't think that's the great tragedy of observing this war.

I think the great tragedy is looking at this war from a counterinsurgency, counterterrorism framework. The idea that you're creating more terrorists by pursuing Hamas in this way, that you're not protecting the population. It's all counterinsurgency. It's like saying the way you destroy the Nazi military matters because you're just turning more Germans into Nazis. It's not the framework in which you would look at a conventional war.

Yes, the day after matters. And yes, Joe looked at that video in a more, I guess you could say, Western policing strategy. What is a combatant? So in my world, there are two things. There's a noncombatant and a combatant.

And a combatant is anybody who's partaking in the hostilities as a member of a military force or in actual actions. So the idea, which Joe says, and I'd love to talk to Joe about that. I really respect Joe Rogan's pursuit of knowledge but one of the things he says in there is that you're not carrying a weapon unarmed civilians you don't have to be carrying a weapon to be a combatant

your actions before that video started could have put you in the what you're doing who you are and again i told you about the facial recognition if you are hamas i can destroy you period um and if you're a member of the enemy force i can destroy you no matter what you're doing because you're you're the enemy you're you're the other combatant and there are so many particulars in the law of war on what determines an act of hostilities or being a member of the military force. Whether it's wearing a uniform, but you don't have to be carrying a weapon.

You could have popped out of a tunnel. You could have been doing something before that. I could have facial recognition. I know exactly who you are. And now I have a point where I can take you out because you're walking in an open field that is a hundred percent legal normal everything but this is where we live in a world where i can watch a video and go you know clearly unarmed he actually uh they actually say kids like They can tell what age those people are. Unarmed kids not carrying weapons.

Of course, civilians. Israel just took them out. Just by watching the video and the use of a precision guided munition, Israel absolutely knew who those people were. You would have to know what is the information you had about these individuals

that you precisely attacked and killed? But agree, people want frameworks to view what they're seeing. And unfortunately, we live in a world where they don't have a framework. They're just making their own assumptions based on some type of experience. Or even if you have a veteran who's applying a counterinsurgency mentality. We destroyed the Taliban and removed them from power in weeks. We destroyed the Saddam regime and its military in weeks. After that, you're in a counterinsurgency, counterterrorism thing.

There is no counterinsurgency in Gaza. Hamas is still in power. You can't be fighting a counter-insurgency against the ruling authority. It's a war. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so happy I had you on the show. When we were first contacting, I don't know if you just heard that alarm. I said I didn't know your work. I did know your work. I saw you in Newsweek, this article like everything we know about Gaza is wrong or something like that. And I saw that article and I was astounded by that article, but somehow, respectfully, because it was Newsweek and Newsweek has had this transition from what it was to then what it wasn't to what it seems to be coming again, I really didn't know

how to rate what you were writing. And it's not to the credit of our mainstream media that I didn't hear the things you had written being echoed on CNN or even the Atlantic or places like that. So I really didn't know how much to adopt what appears appeared to be an outlier opinion, even though it might be a hundred percent correct. So I apologize for that. Um, but I did know who you were and I had read your article at the time when it came out in March.

I think it was, um, the day after Israel gets a lot of flack for not having a, a well thought out clear day after plan. And I, this irks me not because I wish they wouldn't have one. Of course, I wanted to have one. But any day after plan, how that would be a knock on our fighting of the war. The fact is, and this is a business analogy, very often in my world, sometimes I purposely know it's almost futile to spend too much time figuring out what I'm going to do when I get to a certain point in time. Because I know from experience, nothing is ever as I thought it was going to be anyway. But I know that I have an

objective I have to pursue, and I pursue that objective. Israel is pursuing its objective. If it's going to have an Arab peacekeeping force, it needs Hamas destroyed because no Arab country is going to come in with that insurgency. If it's going to have the Palestinian Authority in charge, it's going to need Hamas destroyed because they took over Hamas, took over from the Palestinian Authority once before in a coup. If it's going to be a military occupation,

I mean, whatever it is, Hamas needs to be destroyed. So a long question. Is it fair to Israel to expect them to have a day after plan right now? So I think it is. I think it is. Israel waged the war against Hamas.

It knew it would destroy. It knew it would leave a power. A vacuum of power. But this is again the idea that Israel hasn't. Thought through the day after. That it hasn't already taken steps. To what even the security environment. Would look like the day after. And this is already taken steps to what even the security environment would look like the day after. And this is,

this is not true. Like I am not, I have, again, when I went and visited, I asked those questions and they've actually presented and they've talked to the United States and other people about the challenges of the day after what they're already doing with the increase of,

of road networks, the cutting up the different networks. There's already like a Gaza security force. But who, again, trying to imply a counterinsurgency, counterterrorism framework on war. You're right. The day after in a war starts the day after. But people think that Israel is just not thinking about that. Right. It's only focused on hostages and destroying Hamas. It doesn't give credit to the actual work being done, but also the has got there's always been somebody else whether it was the right pick or not that would be the coming in governing force then you'd work with

all these different security forces and yes there are plenty of lessons that the united states learned after years of doing it wrong to establish local power structures, local security forces that want to actually secure their environments and pursue prosperity. Concrete walls, all this stuff. I talked to General Petraeus on my podcast about this, but you have to give Israel credit. Yes, now they have done a crappy job of communicating that to the world absolutely that that they have they are working on the day after plan with both in security but they have also with a foundational principle is israel will not govern gaza ever again period it has to be a governing force in there but it's not just an israel problem but where is egypt where is jordan where are the Arab nations on what that day after looks like? Right now, all they want actors who have to be involved Authority, if I were you,

as a viable person to be in Gaza, especially with their refusal to abandon terrorism, the pay-for-slave program that is vibrant in the West Bank and with the Palestinian Authority. But Israel does own part of the process and is working to establish conditions that would lead to a better day after now they have done a crappy job on communicating that i agree with you while they're being attacked by hezbollah iran the houthis as they're trying to just to finish Hamas.

So take it with a grain of salt. But yes, you understand some of the challenges uniquely to what the day after could be in a world that has many approaches have been tried. You think Israel should go into Hezbollah after they finish with Hamas? Do you think they have to do that? There is no way Israel can continue without dealing with Hezbollah that is attacking daily since October 8th. There are 80,000 Israelis for over six months who are living in hotels and friends' houses because they can't go home. And I went to the north on my last trip and visited the blue line. In any other case, it would warrant a full-scale defensive war.

But Israel cannot achieve peace without having Israel dealt with in the north. I'm not saying that's the only military force that has to be used, but the current level of attacks and situation with Hezbollah on the northern border and existential threat cannot continue. And I really am wrapping it up now here. I had a thought. I don't know how into the politics you are. I'm just I'm really is, the indignities, the checkpoints, all of it, I would probably fear that the day we had our own state, it would descend into civil war. And I might very well make the calculation, as bad as this is,

I prefer the status quo to what I would imagine would be the reality of an independent Palestinian state. And I think that might be also something that goes on under the surface that makes a two-state solution more difficult. I'm not sure Abbas and people like him are that eager for a two-state solution. Correct, or would have happened, right? of the biggest travesties that people don't know is that the United States forced an election on Gaza. Hamas

won that election by force. The Palestinian authority said, not on our watch, not on the West Bank. And Hamas would have won an election in the West Bank had the Palestinian authority said, not on my watch. And by force said, said no it hasn't held

an election since i agree with you 100 for the palestinian people the greatest ways that that they never achieve peace is to allow hamas to survive allow the current strategies continue and i'm not exalting israel right? I know there are lots of complexities to this, but if people think that the two-state, it's almost literally diplomatic laziness to just keep using the word two-state solution, believing that that's the solution to the problem. And the fact that every US administration for decades have tried to pursue that with both whoever it is, Arafat, Abbas, Netanyahu,

or whoever it is. It isn't just those three actors. And they've never been able to achieve that because of some very big first principles. Like, say I have the right to exist. Just say it. Like, say I had the right to exist. Just say it. Just say that Israel has the right to exist or the Palestinian state

and that you will stop the terrorism program. I mean, it- Well, I think they did say Israel had the right to exist, but they never actually changed the charter. I saw a New York Times article in 2014. Abbas wouldn't even respond to President Obama about his plans. I looked up today just before we started.

It's interesting. The per capita income on the West Bank, not Gaza, is the highest of any non-oil Arab state. By my look at it, a little bit higher than, than, uh, Jordan and Algeria and Egypt. Um, and that's interesting to me, you know,

they, and I had some Arabic friends echo this to me that, you know, they thought that it would be a lot of, there would be a lot of bloodshed there, God forbid. so then the final question is, would you have dropped the

atom bomb in japan i wasn't ready for that one of course i would have and you would have okay of course i would have to end that massive amount of suffering and i also know that legally the question has never been answered whether that was legal to do. But we would live in a much different world, I personally believe. At that moment in time, had that not happened, we'd live in a much different world. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I'm not an expert on it. I tend to agree with you.

But mostly because the people whose opinions I trust on most other matters have come to that conclusion, not because I've done the arithmetic myself. All right, sir. I really want to thank you. I don't know if you ever get to New York. You're at West Point or you have been at West Point? I work for West Point. I work remotely in Colorado. So you're in Colorado. So if you ever get to New York city, I'd be very happy to meet you in person. I really appreciate you spending the time on, on this show. So thank you very much. Thank you very much.