The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Is Israel Withholding Aid as a Weapon in Gaza? - Times of Israel - Jacob Magid

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Jacob Magid, Times of Israel US Bureau Chief explains the aid situation in Gaza.

All right. Good morning, everybody. I'm doing a special quick one-off interview with Jacob Magid, who is U.S. Bureau Chief for Times of Israel. And I had an interview a few days ago with Mikhail Hauser-Tov that I liked very much. We don't get, for some reason, like direct answers to the most the most logical reactions that we have to the news stories so uh i figured i could contact some of these journalists directly so first question is you because i know you don't have much time and this is the toughest question of all to ask is israel has israel been using hunger as a weapon in this war? I don't think it's doing so intentionally. And I think intent is a factor in some of these legal decisions when they're coming to the International Court of Justice and other places.

However, I do think as a result of a lot of the decisions that Israel is making in a more pinpointed manner and looking at specific convoys that it's blocking from reaching the northern part of Gaza, which is really, according to international experts, is suffering or either looming famine or Samantha Power, the head of the USAID, USA agency for international development, said a few days ago that they already are experiencing famine. Moves like restricting convoys from coming in, which we saw twice on Friday, all of Saturday. That obviously impacts us. This is their opportunity to get food. And if they're not able to get it, obviously there's going to be repercussions on their state.

Israel says that it's limiting these convoys possible for small periods of time, sometimes entirely, but it's because of kinetic military activity happening in the areas where the convoys would like to go. But unless it's trying to open up other routes as it has sometimes to get more aid into northern Gaza, it's kind of ultimately responsible for what's going on there. Do I think it's doing it maliciously? Is there a cabinet meeting where they're sitting and saying, OK, we're going to limit this amount of food in order to win the war, because we know the weaker the Palestinian population gets,

the harder it is for the more it puts, I guess, Hamas into a corner in negotiations to a certain degree, even though we've also seen that Hamas doesn't typically care for Palestinian civilians. But I think so. No, I don't think those discussions are being had. However, as a result of a lot of these decisions that Israel saw, a lot of them bureaucratic, not all the malicious, though some of them are. We've had very serious situations where um that the humanitarian situation in gaza has gotten so bad and i think that's what led the biden administration after this world central kitchen strike to kind of throw the towel um and try a new approach with israel which was much more pressure oriented and we've seen some results in the past few days. So, I mean, you could imagine, this is so difficult to talk about, but you could imagine behind the scenes saying, listen, we have to feed these people.

But we also want to pressure them to, as you said, to release the hostages, to rise up against Hamas, whatever it is. And then I could see that starting as something that was just harsh, and then very easy just slipping into something that was inhumane, as humans just get used to things and things take on a life of their own and that's that's what's always been worrying me here on the other hand as you respond to this everything leaks so quickly in israel even the most confidential conversations that part of me says you know somebody would blow the whistle on such an outrageous strategy. You could not find 10 Israelis to all sign off on that, I don't think.

So what's your response to that? Yeah, I would agree. Israel leaks. I don't cover as closely other governments around the world as I do Israel's. So I can't tell you exactly how other countries work. But it is shocking to see like in real time in some of the highest, most classified meetings in real time, you'll see leaks come out from the ministers themselves, passing along recordings, passing along quotes to their spokespeople who then issue press releases or just issue those statements. And I think they all, each of them have an interest of trying to look tough or just look a certain way in these meetings. And

they use the leak as the way to do so um it's kind of just done quite egregiously so yes and that kind of um construct you're not going to see a whole group of ministers getting together and say okay we're going to use um famine as a war tactic but i mean in the beginning of the war there were statements put out by um defense minister galant the ben minister of energy yeah i actually have it here israeli defense minister galant on october 9th said order to complete siege of the gaza strip saying there'll be no electricity no food no fuel everything is closed and then on october 16th um ben gevier said that no way should enter Gaza as long as Hamas held hostages. So, you know, now Gallant, that was a temporary thing.

If you look into it, then a few weeks, that was initially Gallant said he never meant. I mean, there's so many angry statements that came out in those first couple days. You know, just as an aside, I had an employee who got slashed on the subway and it it elicited in me kinds of anger and things that i was ready to say that i didn't know i had in me just in the way i felt about the people who did this to him um and it was just uh it was, it was like an insight into some way, what the anger must be on both sides of anybody who deals I'm not speaking just for Israel here for the Palestinians as well that the kind of visceral reaction you have to this kind of latitude i believe to uh uh angry statements uh especially in in the in the moments right after i know people don't want to hear that but i give that same latitude to people on the other on the other side in the end it's got to be the person's actions that they're judged by i believe their policies agree. I think we're in this absurd reality where Israel is being brought before the International Court of Justice

for probably fighting a war not drastically differently than a lot of other countries have, but somehow finds itself singled out and facing some of the most serious crimes at the most heavy tribunals. But once you're there, and once you recognize that you're at risk of being put in places like this, I think leaders have a responsibility. It's not just the man on the street that's being slashed. It's actual people who are elected to

public office that have a responsibility, regardless of how unfair these allegations might be. Even if there weren't any allegations, I think leaders have a responsibility to, especially when you're waging a war that does have such a high civilian casualty count, the reasons for that we can get into, but still to be sensitive of the fact that what you say matters and people are watching and you don't have necessarily the right as a public official to just speak your mind. I agree with you. I agree. I'm sorry. I agree with you 10,000%. I was struck by the lack of professionalism, not so much by, you know, the far right crazy, but by Gallant, you know, I understand the emotion, but you're the defense minister, you know, you can't, but, you know, the American presidents say dumb things, too. So now on the question of the aid, going back to what you said before, you had a headline. Israel says Kerem Shalom crossing blocked by undistributed aid waiting on the Gaza side. So that and that this was, I think, your byline.

This is kind of the opposite of what you're saying. It says the aid is just piling up, piling up and not being distributed. Is that true? So, yeah, this was more recently, the past few days. What we're looking at is after Biden kind of slapped Israel for really not doing much over these past few months, that Israel whipped into shape, recognized, OK, this is different. He's actually serious right now and started inspecting trucks at Karim Shalom and Nitzan. All the two crossings were it does inspections and then they're moved to Karim Shalom or to Egypt's Rafah crossing.

But everything goes to one of those two crossings and was doing it at an incredibly fast pace, expanding the hours of those of those operations. There's been a lot of criticism of Israel keeping them closed on Shabbat and holidays. And it sounds like they'll be changing that policy at least to a degree and was able to get in over 400 trucks on average for a few days last week. And I think now we're down back to closer to 300, but still far, far more than what we were seeing during the war. We had 100 trucks a day less. There were 50 trucks a day for a long period of time. So these numbers were massive. And when those numbers were lower, though, we had enough trucks inside Gaza to be able to distribute all those aid packages that were just sitting there on the Gaza side of Karim Shalom.

But once we had such an influx, there haven't been enough trucks in Gaza. Because once it's a very tricky system, it's incredibly convoluted, that the age has to change trucks like three times throughout the whole process for various bureaucratic reasons, both on the Israeli side and the UN side who require all these different steps. And there just aren't enough trucks in Gaza.

Right now there's a scramble with the UN and international organizations to try to pay for a contract, large amounts of trucks. I think I understand over the weekend there was significant progress on this and there'll be more trucks coming into Gaza. But there's still the UN and the US and Israel is also urging countries to donate trucks. And they're hoping to see that number expand significantly in order to pick up all that aid that's just been sitting there on the Gaza side and distribute it throughout Gaza. That has become the new biggest issue. I think that interestingly, I spoke with David Satterfield, the U.S. humanitarian envoy,

so there's not really like a one side to blame on this specific issue. The U.N. is maybe more responsible for this next step of trying to find more trucks but israel needs to also approve all of them and give them permits so everyone's involved and everyone's gonna have to step up but right now i think unfortunately we're still in this blame game where each side loves to just tear into the other for being responsible for the for the lack of aid reaching gaza's now what do you know oh actually let me just go on i'll come back to another question. What do you know about the actual situation on the ground in Gaza? Now, before the accusations are much more intense. We see from time to time, like Christine Amanpour tweeted out a picture of a child, emaciated child in a hospital bed, which obviously could be from famine. On the other hand, I have to say there's something

incongruous about seeing this starving child surrounded by, you know, perfectly healthy looking people, you know, how is it that these people are even plump and yet this child doesn't have food to keep her not emaciated? So the question comes to your mind, am I seeing what they pretend, what they're purporting to show um is there is there good evidence of famine in Gaza also I'll just say on on morning Joe there were reports of um people grinding up dog food you know just horrible things but there's a PR

war going on so what do you know about what's true and what's not look um i'm not in gaza um so my obviously my understanding what's going on there is is quite limited i do trust certain sources that are coming out of there and and i have contacts within the u.n and and and the in the israeli side and and u.s officials who are on the ground and also foreign diplomats so i do feel like i have a decent understanding, but it's limited. I think we're not at the stage where the hunger is, or famine might be widespread, but I do think there are certainly,

like these images I don't think are being doctored to the degree of what the question is, whether they're likely, a lot of these kids are suffering from diseases already. And then due to those diseases, once coupled with lack of hunger, they're suffering much quickly, much faster than other people. And I think that's when you're seeing these totally emaciated kids. It doesn't necessarily start with the lack of malnutrition, but it because it exists after the fact, I think it's exacerbating their their situation and then we have had situations where where kids have died um but is it the original cause being hunger i'm not sure but the i think that the concerns are not just in the un it's also us and i think it's interesting that even

us officials now are saying that that famine has started in certain areas and i think um there's this off effort by israel to say no think there's this effort by Israel to say, no, that there's enough food and water going in. And we have pictures of these markets that are selling food and they're full of food. But I think those aren't necessarily the best barometer to tell how much food is in Gaza because those markets are often being,

prices are being jacked up. People can't really afford to buy things in those places just because they're operating is only a limited picture of what you're getting there. In southern Gaza, though, where the vast majority of Palestinians are, there aren't those kinds of reports. I think the way the U.S. envoy for Gaza Humanitarian Affairs said it is that they're kind of getting the bare minimum to not starve.

So there's not famine, but there is food insecurity and the health and sheltering conditions are quite miserable, as he said. So that those are, I mean, so wherever you go, be it Northern Gaza, where it's most serious and where I guess you could argue that the idea of to give people warning to leave that area at the beginning of the war. And these are people who stayed either because they refused the warning or simply couldn't get out. I think not everyone had the means to be able to just get up and leave. Older people, weaker people among them probably weren't able to and ended up staying. And now we're looking at like 300,000 Gazans in the north and then the rest in the south, most of them congregating around Rafah. And you can imagine just the conditions of stuffing 1.4

million people into such a small area well and it should be mentioned not that i'm trying to be an advocate but i think it's a it just it it would be mentioned in any news story hamas urged people not to leave hamas had hamas had roadblocks exactly um i mean thank you for pointing that out you know you know it's a it's it's a relatively small area. You could walk from the northern tip of Gaza to the southern tip of Gaza in a day. You know, so that always gets lost. And some of these other distances are walks of hours long. So at some point, just there's a certain common sense that says, well, you know, if my grandmother were nine miles

away, I would walk with her. I'd get her there. You know, if I thought she was going to die, I'd put her on my back, you know, I would manage. So I'm just skeptical. Listen, by doing this interview, it should demonstrate to people, this is trying to defend myself here, that I'm trying to not be afraid of the facts and not be afraid of the truth. But I don't want to, at the same time, give up my right to say certain kind of common sense defenses that occur to me that i don't hear anybody commenting on sometimes if you talk to an american who's slightly informed they think that these distances are like you can't ex how are they ever going to get out there well it's actually just five or six hours walk you know it's not you're not talking could you get from the tip of manhattan to the other tip of manhattan and if you had to get the hell out you know over the course of months yeah you could unless unless people were trying to prevent you so that's what i'm worried about and let me just

say one other thing while i'm kind of putting things on the table here that might mitigate the blame in two seconds if you google what happened happened in Iraq, you'll find headlines like Iraq war is blamed for starvation, acute malnutrition among Iraqi children aged under five nearly doubled last year because of the chaos caused by the US led occupations United Nations experts said and you know, so there is a part and parcel problem of this kind of thing in what seems to me wars and having said all that this is the one area where i really demand that israel do everything that it can both because it's the right thing to do and because it's so damaging to their war effort nothing is more undermining israel's support here than the notion that they're starving children. And again, and it's, you know, it's the right thing to do. And for Jews, especially, I mean, and I imagine most Israelis would agree with that, no? Yeah, I think we're seeing slowly shifts among public opinion to not be as opposed to this idea of aid. I think there's an

understanding that this isn't really the bargaining chip in negotiations for the hostages that we might have hoped it is. I think Hamas has its demands that are more related to allowing Palestinians to return to the north. I think they're very, very concerned about Anakba, and that's why you mentioned where they are trying to pressure people not to go follow the IDF directives and go south, because they know that right now that the potential for Israeli settlements in Gaza, it would be in northern Gaza. And if you leave northern Gaza, leave it empty to Israeli settlers, I think there's going to be attempts to re-occupy those areas in civilian fashion as well. I think that those are still fringe voices in the government,

but they're in the government and they do have impact. And I think these people are preparing for the moment where they're going to be trying to go into northern Gaza to re-establish settlements. And I think Hamas very much wants to prevent that from happening and keep people from leaving the north um so i think that's something really to be taking note of all right is there anything else that you feel people should know about this aid issue before we before we leave it look i i think i was definitely interested in this question of who's responsible because you just see these tweets from Kogat, the Israeli quasi-military authority who's kind of responsible for the aid facilitation.

And then the UN just like trading blame between the sides of Israel's responsible for not approving enough trucks. The UN is responsible for not distributing them. And it took me months to, and I think it's still up in the air a little bit, to try to get an understanding of who's at, what's the actual situation. And I did feel that the more I learned, the more I realized that it felt like a lot of the backlogs were a result of Israeli steps. But there is responsibility on the UN side that hasn't been highlighted enough, and I think has to do with like just the lack of distribution.

They're obviously working under incredibly difficult conditions. I don't think anyone would really be wanting to be responsible for trying to figure out how to get aid throughout Gaza when the desperation is so high. But there are things that could be doing better on the distribution front that could have been preparing for this situation where they needed more trucks an earlier period, but they also would have needed Israel to approve these trucks quickly. And that's not something that Israel has been proven to do over this process. So I do think there are multiple sides involved in this kind of failure. And as Jamie McGoldrick said, who's the outgoing UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, he said that it's a collective failure. And that's something I think a better way to look at it is a collective failure as opposed to trying to just single out

Israel. But if you do look into some of the details, there is a lot of problems with how Israel's been managing the situation. It's understandable. We're in a war effort. Things are crazy. But it has helped me at least to get down to specifics to understand what's been going on and why things have been so bad for so long but hopefully these past few days that the the moves that israel took to open a pair of crossings hopefully those will be open soon one of them has and the northern northern crossing that's been opened i think ashdod still has to be open as well but hopefully that when it appears well i think we'll see the surge of aid that we've been calling for a lot of agencies have been calling for for months and to the extent that israel's hopping to it now uh because of the

pressure from the american administration one cannot fault the american administration for having done that right right and i think unfortunately it gives a lot of credence to those who are saying the only way to get through to this Israeli government is through like really just a lot of pressure, like saying enough is enough. I think Biden on his phone call on April 4th basically put it bluntly to Netanyahu, we can't continue to support this effort, this war effort. We're going to have to consider very much changing our policy in this war if you don't take significant concrete steps that are implemented on the aid issue um and then within hours Netanyahu managed to do something that he wasn't willing to do for months so it's unfortunate that now you have a lot of credence to those who

say the only pressure works with Israel um I'm not sure if that's really the case but there you do have a pretty strong argument from last week and if he wasn't willing to do it to months, it does imply some sort of intent. Can you, or just at least a lack of concern, I don't know. Can you give us any insight? You know, they always talk about Netanyahu, Netanyahu, but then from time to time you hear savvier people explain, well, it's actually, it's a war cabinet and netanyahu

is not in charge the way a commander-in-chief in america is in charge and actually his main uh opposition the people most likely to take over the government if he after an election are also there making decisions with him so to what extent do does the blame for any Israeli policy have to be spread among the entire Unity government? And how much is to be blamed on Netanyahu, the evil Netanyahu? Yeah, exactly. I think most decisions that are made are within the framework of the work cabinet of the government's backing it um there are obviously tactical moves that are conversations and the tenor now himself himself has alone with world leaders um a lot of the flip-flopping that mitsunyao does on decisions um like with with rafa where he talks about that we're going in i have a date and then last night my understanding um in a private meeting with the War Cabinet,

they kind of canceled it for now, given what's going on. So all, I think his public, that kind of shtick, this never wanting to make a decision, making agreements with Biden about allowing him flour and then taking months to implement them after his other ministers blocked those efforts. I think you can blame Netanyahu, but I think it's such a lazy Netanyahu's war term that's being used by progressives on Capitol Hill to just try it.

I think it's more politically palatable to call it Netanyahu's war. They did it with Putin and Putin's war in Russia. So now they're doing it with Netanyahu's war in Israel. Totally misunderstanding the fact that this war is being widely supported by the Israeli public, is being widely backed by the war cabinet. It's just pure laziness and a lack of understanding how Israel works. And it's just about trying to, I think, appeal to a base where people may be not totally comfortable yet, even though these circles, I think they are probably pretty comfortable with just saying Israel. I don't think they look at Israel any more highly than they look at Netanyahu at this point. But there are some parts of the Democratic Party who are more uncomfortable with just calling it Israel's war, being critical straight up to

Israel, as opposed to saying Netanyahu, who is undoubtedly a less popular figure and someone they can get behind criticizing. And that's what you're seeing a lot of these folks do in the U.S. It's quite interesting that the scope that it's taking place. Jamal Bowman, the New York representative last night, I saw tweeted about Netanyahu's war and callousness after the Iran strike, not mentioning the Iran strike. It's just like a total la-la land some of these lawmakers are in, trying to appeal to their bases, but not even understanding what's going on on the ground

or willfully ignoring some of the facts that are happening. But so again, al-Sinai obviously has agency. And I think the biggest frustration among israelis is that he's refusing to take any responsibility it's like beyond insane that you could have something like this happen and and the leader who's who uh indisputably is behind all of it regardless of he knew um there were failures on the military level but at the end of the day you're in charge there's a phrase right now um you're at the helm, you're responsible. And Netanyahu does not see himself as responsible for what happened on October 7th and only for the good things that happened since. And I think that's frustrated a lot of Israelis, but that's a different angle of this, of blaming him than what we're seeing on the left.

So, because I don't want to run out of time. So just I would tell you, Yair Lapid had a long tweet yesterday, where he almost sounded like Netanyahu, you know, so people should look it up. Two more things quickly. One, actually one question, then I want you to tell me about the Iran strike, which happened yesterday. There is, it reminds me of Trump, that if you don't like Trump, you can't give him credit for anything. You know, they call it Trump derangement syndrome. And just as a guy who, I'm not pro Netanyahu, I don't know enough about Israeli politics to be pro Netanyahu but I did note I do notice certain things that correlate to Netanyahu's regime one is that Israel is very wealthy and able to afford a lot of uh armaments

and technology and is a completely different place than I knew 15 20 years ago when I was young. That seems to be very good. And Netanyahu is part of that story. And Israel would be in a much worse situation if not for that. And I noticed that the Arab world came to help Israel yesterday as these missiles and drones came in. The Arab world. And this has to be credited to netanyahu as well he saw that these alliances were possible while the american administration

mocked him am i wrong for giving him credit for those things well it's tricky um you say the arab world was helped in the strike and intercepted some of the missiles from my understanding right now the only country that I've been able to confirm that took part in this was Jordan and that was a Saudi Arabia also involved in helping with the I would love to be have the exclusive on that whether that's actually happened I haven't I know that for the for example the reports the UAE had also participated in that. That I was able to confirm was not true.

I spoke with some pretty senior Emirati officials. I'm looking into the Saudi angle of this as well. And it's possible that they did contribute. But the main country that I think made the most headlines in addition to the U.S., the U.K., France and others was Jordan. I think that was what was so fascinating, seeing how furious Jordan is over Israel's conduct of the war and still deciding to help Israel. Obviously, I think there are reasons that it has on its own right to want to take part in this. I think they don't like the idea of having foreign countries' drones flying through their skies. That puts their own citizens in danger. They don't even want, I think, these drones managing to strike in Israel and killing lots of civilians. I think that

causes regional unrest that bubbles through into Jordan that's not to their benefit. And I think the relationship between Israel and Jordan is really quite nuanced. You have a lot of animosity, especially during wartime, but even afterwards. But at the end of the day, they do recognize that they do have these strategic interests. And I think because Gaza, what happens in Gaza, maybe kind of stays in Gaza, as my brother mentioned, when I was talking to him about this, that, but if something were happening in the West Bank, where Jordan really sees that area as much more existential, if there was a mass migration of Palestinians from the West Bank into Jordan, I do think we might not have seen Jordan take the steps

that it did take last night or two nights ago. But I think, yes, it's definitely a change. We have an opportunity right now through this strike to demonstrate or to really solidify this new umbrella demonstrate or to really solidify this new umbrella defense or operation between some of these regional allies, even ones that might not have participated, but would be willing to, because I think this really does draw a line in the sand of which side you're on. Is it with the Iranians or with the West-backed or the U.S.-backed Arab alliances

that also get help from the U.S., that also get help from the U.S., that also get help from the U.K. and France. And I think it's clear that a lot of these countries that you mentioned, whether they did participate or didn't, do want to be part of this. But it's going to require, as they say, some sort of cooperation from Netanyahu and the Israeli government on the Palestinian issue.

And I think they're saying that over and over again. We're willing to cooperate with you. We're willing to make normalized relations with you, Saudi Arabia says. But we need to see some sort of progress, some sort of horizon created for a future Palestinian state. It doesn't have to be created tomorrow. It doesn't need to continue having these wars every few years and then being asked to fund the reconstruction of gaza or the reconstruction of other areas because we know that those buildings are just going to be blown up because the conflict isn't being solved it's just being managed and that's been netanyahu's mo for the past few decades is managing the conflict right not i mean it's that's a complicated issue maybe we have another conversation um my suspicion is they don't expect actually the Palestinians to accept these things, but they expect Israel to offer them in good faith, at least that they can tell their citizens, you line, I think there's going to be a lot more pressure than what we've been seeing on the Palestinian leadership.

Like on previous peace negotiations between Israel and Palestinians, there was nobody really doing this. got further than probably anyone has gotten. And Abu Mazen just didn't answer inexcusably, wasting away what probably was the best opportunity the Palestinians would have had to have the largest state that we're going to get. And everyone's facing the, obviously it would have been tricky. Olmert was on its way out due to corruption charges. Maybe it wouldn't have panned out anyway.

But that was an opportunity right there that Palestinians just totally squandered and they're not going to get anything nearly that good since. But I think if you have a player on the Arab side sitting behind Aboumaz and saying you're not getting off this table unless you take something that we think is reasonable, I think that could change the dynamic of the talks. And I think that we'll be in a better position to reach some sort of agreement. But of course, we're so, so far away from this. There's one thing I believe, and then I'm going to just ask you to tell us what you want to tell us about iran in my soul about israel is that if you say

wouldn't maybe wouldn't have panned out anyway if there was a real peace offer that was real in the way sadat's offer was known and seen to be real i would stake my life and my family's life on it that israel will embrace it i do not believe there is a majority of israelis who would turn down a a two-state solution if they believed it was really the end of the conflict i think a huge number of the people who oppose it say you're going to get us killed if you accept this. Not that they don't want it. That's my strong belief. I think that has long been the sentiment. I do think that we have seen a shifting in political discourse and political opinions in Israel further to the right as a result of the Intifadas. That's my point, because of the Intifada, not because they don't

trust them. They trust them more than ever. I think people at this point are it's not just a trust. I think there's a belief that the more land you have, I think does give more security. I think those people have reached parts of government and that they have real influence over.

And I think it shows that the sentiment is strong in Israeli society. So I'd like to think that, yes, the majority still believe that if something was on the table that was genuine, they'd agree to it. But I think there's a growing amount of people who are of the more religious types that I think are deeply believe that any sort of compromise is not something that they can live with. And I think having covered the West bank and seeing the demolitions of like nine homes that were built illegally and seeing tens of thousands of people come up and try to, to prevent those demolitions from moving forward.

The idea of having to do that for thousands of homes, let alone like way more than that, which might be necessary, is to me mind boggling. I don't really see how that could work out. But again- No, they're going to have to have land. They're going to have to have,

as they propose, land swaps. There will be land swaps, but there will be certain places that will probably have to be moved. And that's going to be tough. It's going to be awful. But I just don't want people to think that, I mean, you said it in your answer,

that people feel that they need the land for security. If only they didn't feel they needed land for security, you'd be stuck with these religious fanatics and that would not be enough to control Israeli policy. I mean, as it is, the Israeli elections swing on a tiny sliver you know and that's without a good faith offer from the palestinians um anything you wanted to i know you had a hard night at 8 30 it's already 8 32. anything you want to tell us about the iran thing including what were you in israel while it happened no you weren't including what you were

feeling you know anything you want to tell us about the iran strike sure um i just i'll go to the response i think i mean it's a phenomenal success for israel as far as israel's concerned and speaking with uh i was on a white house briefing last night about just like the extraordinary success that this was i think there was a period in time where there was real concern about whether when you it's one thing to prepare um for this kind of thing but 100 ballistic missiles fired at once you don't really know exactly the success rate of that's going to be and i think there was some tense moments in the situation room tense moments in the war cabinet room in tel aviv at the kyrgyzstan um waiting to get those results but um phenomenal um without without um putting

putting any um i don't know without diminishing the horrible tragedy of this seven-year-old girl who was seriously injured from the trap from an intercept and also that we also had this base in Nebatim with the main air force base in southern Israel nearby that also was minor damage but that was it pretty. That's pretty shocking when country fires 300 drones and missiles at you to only come away with that is pretty remarkable. kinds of technologies who organizations like APEC, who I think were really lobbying for some of this military defense that came to bear this week. And then looking because it was so successful that I think in the amount of help that the U.S. gave Israel with half of those drones being basically shot down by the U.S., the commitments between other countries that led that were the U.S. helped build were also involved. So major player here for for helping stop this attack.

Obviously, the majority of the ballistic missiles were shot down by Israel. But and I think that Israel has a bit of an open checkbook to the U.S. right now. And I think it's why we haven't seen some rash, immediate Israeli response. And I think Biden really wants to keep this from becoming a full blown regional war. And that is why I think we haven't seen some major Israeli response yet. I do think it might come eventually. But I think the response that might win the day for now is that we're going to write this down and we'll respond to the time and place of our choosing. And I think keeps Iran on its toes, keeps the diplomatic international community, I think, in Israel's camp right now, which is a rare moment right now where Israel isn't being demonized. I think it's seen as the victim in this scenario and seen as acting

responsibly, trying not to escalate the situation further after such a horrendous attack. There's concerns, I think, amongst the right in Israel that that shows weakness and that Arabsbs only understand force i hear you kind of hear those arguments or that iranians only understand force but um for now i think if they wait for a specific time of the choosing i think they'll be able to keep the by the administration on a bit on more on their camp after quite a few weeks where those ruptures in the relationship between the us and israel were getting quite stagnant if there were a referendum tomorrow on whether the israeli people wanted their government to uh address the missiles in the north and get rid of them or to kick the can down the road another 10 years like they like they have uh do what do you think the answer would be so okay i i haven't seen polling

i don't think anyone's done polling this quickly yet. I tend to think, speaking to people there, that there is some comfort in kicking the can down the road right now. I think the Israeli people are going through six months of war right now, are quite traumatized. And there's also recognition that this strike does put off, to a degree, the hostage negotiations. And I think that is the issue that's most salient for most Israelis right now, is getting those hostages home, knowing that every day their lives are at further risk if many of them are even still alive. And just moving attention away from Gaza to Iran does not benefit the hostages and efforts

to get them released. So I do think that, I don't think there's this drive from the majority of Israelis right now. We have to respond. We have to respond. The success of this, the results of this, that nobody except for one person was injured, are enough to go off of to maybe, okay, let's put this in our pocket for now and we'll deal with it in a timely place of our choosing. All right, sir. Are you in New York? Where are you located? I'm currently in Chicago.

All right. Well, if you get to New York, you should come down to the, to the comedy cellar and hang out with us. A lot of interesting people hang out in there. All right. I want to thank you for your time and, and for your good work. Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye.