The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Military Expert Andrew Fox: Gaza Casualties, Hamas Propaganda and the Iran War

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Andrew Fox joins Live From The Table to talk about personal courage, Gaza, Hamas casualty numbers, Israel’s military strategy, Iran, the Strait of Hormuz and what modern war actually looks like. Andrew Fox is a former British Army officer (three tours in Afghanistan), now a senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank. Fox has been to the frontlines in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine. He wrote the first papers worldwide exposing the Hamas fatality figures manipulation in Gaza and showing how Israel actually fought on the ground in Gaza from a tactical perspective. mrandrewfox.substack.com https://x.com/mr_andrew_fox 0:00 Intro 1:00 Serving in Afghanistan 4:00 Looking back on the war 7:30 Hamas casualty numbers in Gaza 10:00 Why Andrew looked into the numbers 12:00 Hamas figures, IDF figures, and media coverage 15:30 Civilian casualties and Hamas’s strategy 18:15 Child fighters and Hamas 19:25 Why Andrew speaks up for Israel and Jews 22:00 Problems inside the IDF 28:40 Iran and the wider war 31:50 Why stopping Iran’s nuclear program matters 37:30 Strait of Hormuz 42:00 What kind of Iran deal would make sense? 47:20 Why this is different from the JCPOA 54:00 Gaza casualty ratios and urban war 57:00 Was the Gaza war worth it? 1:02:00 Why Israel went into Gaza first 1:04:30 Final thoughts

Like on the MP3. Sure. Yeah. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to Live from the Table, the official podcast of the Comedy Cellar. My name is Norm Dorman. I'm the owner of the Comedy Cellar, and I'm hosting solo today. My guest is Andrew Fox, former British Army officer, three tours in Afghanistan.

Now a senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. I'm a based think tank. He's been on the front lines in Gaza, Lebanon and Ukraine. He wrote the first papers worldwide exposing the Hamas fatality figures manipulation in Gaza. We've got to ask you about that. And showing how Israel actually fought on the ground in Gaza from a tactical perspective. You can see him at Mr. Andrew Fox. Dot substack.com.

Welcome to the show, Andrew Fox. Thank you for having me. Great to be joining you. I'm very pleased to meet you. So now, before we get into it, I do want to ask you, so you were a paratrooper? I was, I was. So just tell me something about what it's like to be physically brave and risk your life. This is something, when I see a guy like you, and I don't even know if you were ever in the situation of fighting,

maybe like a Jewish person in Israel or like an American time of World War II, like where you really understand. that this is existential. In some way you were risking your lives, your life for someone else's cause. So just tell me a little bit about that. What's the psychology? What goes through your head? Are you scared?

Why do you do it? I was 7th generation military. It goes back to all the way back to the war of 1812 when one of my great-grandfathers was on the American side. He was in the Ohio militia. Oh, thank God, guys. Yeah, I had family on both sides in the U.S. Civil War. World War I on the British side, World War II on the American side.

My father was in the Royal Air Force. So military family, it's all I ever wanted to do, if I'm honest. And look, it's a strange thing when you go to war. I went to war straight from training. commissioned from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, which is the British West Point, went to my infantry training, and then went straight to Afghanistan. And really, it's, you just do what you're trained to do, if I'm honest. we all, when my generation joins, we knew we were going to either Iraq or Afghanistan,

that was guaranteed. We knew we were going into danger. We knew we were taking casualties. I mean, I had friends killed from the intake above me before I'd even commissioned. So, you know, this was very real for us. But when you actually get there and you're doing the job, it's what you're trained to do. You know, the guys left and right of you are as well trained as you are. And you just do your job.

And that's really all there is to it. And obviously the first time you get shot at, it's quite scary. But you get to learn when the bullets are dangerous and when they're just going over your head. You know, you learn when you have to take cover and when you don't. And you just do your job, really. And that's what it boils down to. I mean, you know, what's that in the Kleeneaswood movie, Unforgiven says when you take away a man's life, something like this, you take away everything he has and everything he's ever going to.

to have. Like, like, you're risking your life and you're not a big, dumb, glute. You're someone who's a thoughtful person. So at some point, you must have weighed the merits of these causes, the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, against whether it was worth your own life. Did you have those thoughts? Did you come out thinking it was worth your own life? Or you just, you couldn't bear not to do your duty? Yeah, on my third tour, I think, my third tour I developed cynicism. I did all my three tours really fast. I did 2007, then 2008, then 2009 into 2010, which for the British was actually the most violent period in Afghanistan.

And my third tour, I was getting quite cynical about what we were doing. But it was kind of like a mash situation. You know, you're cynical, but you still do your job to you the best of your ability, because actually other people rely on you, like your soldiers rely on you, your brother officers to your left, right, rely on you to do your job to the best you can. And it's a life and death situation. So you can sit there and have existential crises and have doubts about the campaign and how it's being run.

But then when you hit the ground and your boots are in the dirt, you do your job as well as you can. And then you can come back after and then years later reflect. And in hindsight, the Afghanistan campaign was a disaster. And I've made my peace with that. We spent 20 years, billions of pounds or dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban. I think it's very hard to say that that campaign was a win. But I've made my peace with it. I did my job. I did the best I could do. Other people did even better than me and were far

better at their jobs than me. But I did my best. And that's good enough for me. You have kids? I do. You have a son? Yes. Yes, I do. I'm not going to talk about that. If that's okay, I never talk about my family. No, well, I'll tell you the question I want to ask. I don't want to, probably, I only meant to ask, looking back on it, would you, would you want for someone that you love, like a son, to have risk, to risk their lives in the same way you did, or would you say, you know what, I did it and I, and I lived to tell about it. But now, knowing everything that I know now, I would not want my choice.

children to do that same risk. You don't have to answer the question. Yeah, after I left, after I left the army, they reemployed me the next day as a civilian, as an academic lecturer at the Royal Military Academy. And I was giving a lecture on Iraq. Middle East is my academic specialty. I was giving a lecture about the Iraq War. And when we came to questions at the end, one of the officer cadets said, you know,

what was it like going to war straight from training? You know, that's awesome. That's what we wish we could do. There's no war for us to go to. but you know we don't really want to do it and my answer was look everyone wants to see the elephants as they said in the u.s civil war that was the phrase when you went to battle you saw the elephant um the idea being that you're in a dark room and you can feel you know the elephant's trunk and you can feel the elephant's legs or its tail but you don't know what it is but then when you go

to war you it's illuminated and you see the whole elephant and i said look i'm glad that i got to do all my training and go to to combat um not having done so would be like being a football player and just doing wall the training but never getting to play a game. But also look around the room, you know, it was a lecture hall full of 200 officer cadets. I was like, look, my intake, there are 12 who were sat in this very room who were no longer here and they're in the ground. Like, you know, yes, you want to go to war and test yourself, but look around the room right now and pick which 12 are going to be in the dirt. And I think that kind of gave them some perspective. So, you know, any young man or woman that wants to join the military, I would urge them to do say the things

it gave me in terms of life skills and experiences were unmatched, but it came at a very high price, and you have to be willing to pay that price if you're going to go into that role. And I think that's the way you have to approach it. All right. This is very interesting stuff for me. Before we get into Iran, which is what I absolutely want to hear your take on, it says in your bio that you wrote the first papers worldwide exposing the Hamas fatality figures manipulation in Gaza. And, you know, this was an issue that I never really wanted to wade into because it had red flags that I always try to steer clear of.

One red flag was, it's the fog of war, and we don't have any reason to be sure that anything that we're hearing is reliable in terms of data. number one, number two, it's such a politically charged issue that everybody on every side of it has every reason to spin it or to even lie about it. And, you know, my rule of thumb in business is that everybody is always spinning even the good guys, meaning like when a customer tells me, I've been waiting 20 minutes for this steak. I always say to myself, it's probably more like 10 minutes, but it's too long. In other words, they don't want to risk giving me a time that they've been waiting, which I might say, well, that's a reasonable time. So they'll exaggerate it, right? So everybody's always spinning.

I know it's a kind of banal example. We're talking about such weighty matters, but that's, so I was always very, very cautious about having an opinion on this casualty number. And then one time, I'll just say one more thing. Early on in the conflict, when the number was like 15,000. and people that I knew were just dismissing the 15,000 number. I think it was Netanyahu at an interview, I think it was with Barry Weiss. And he let slip.

He says, 15,000 people have died in Gaza. And I said, oh, that's the number that everybody's saying I'm not supposed to believe. And now the Israeli prime minister is using that number. So it can't be as ridiculous as they're saying. So for all these reasons, I never really wanted to take a strong position on it. And I'll tell you later what my position was. but now that we have much better information, and this is something that you've followed

and looked into the details, what is your current opinion about how many died, what the ratios were, who was lying, all of it? Right, let me start with a caveat. And that is a regret in some ways, that we got sucked into playing this game.

This was Hamas' game. They do this every war. They've done it every war they've ever fought against Israel, where they weaponise the numbers. And by engaging with the numbers, you are effectively legitimising their position. And I think in hindsight,

getting sucked into playing this game on Hamas's turf was perhaps a strategic error. So I'll make that point up first. Second point I would say is, why did I get involved in this? I'm not one of the experts in this, but I know enough about war that when an airstrike went in

and they were like, 600 are dead. You know that's wrong. I've called for airstrikes. There is no way you can say, how many people have died within seconds or minutes of that missile striking. So there was clearly something wrong there. And that led me just to dig into these lists that Hamas put out. And I had a team that was supporting me and they were fantastic.

People like Salo Azenberg, Elliot Malin, you know, really smart guys who added huge amounts of value. And what we did was we found a bunch of errors. So we looked through the lists line by line. We found women listed as men. We found people with the wrong age. We found an adult man listed as a baby. you know, it was full of errors, but you'd expect that in a war zone. And that's not necessarily a criticism, but the point is the world's media were presenting

these figures as gospel, and even, you know, even a researcher sat in London, just going through the list line by line, can find error after error, after error, after error. The world's media were not doing their job by presenting this list as gospel. The things we found, all those errors, fine. I think that was actually the least important part of the paper, actually, the mistakes. That's the bit all the media focused on, because this had huge global media coverage. It was kind of a weird ride. But the important things that I think we found were these.

First of all, we looked at the ratios of men to women and found that it wasn't anything like the 70% met women and children that was being presented. Nowhere near. Nowhere near. The vast majority of dead people on that list are adult men. And that's now been confirmed with later numbers that Hamas has pushed out. But the other things we looked at were historical stuff. So we looked at how reliable they'd been in the past, and we found that actually what they do every single time

is hide their own fighter deaths. So the overall total, probably correct, that they've been pretty, pretty correct most of the way down the line. What's the number now? What's the latest number? 75,000 odd, I believe. 75, okay. Yeah, it was a horribly large number of dead people.

And I think that's another point I should probably inject is that this is not about disrespecting the dead or trying to minimize human suffering. at all. It's just about trying to get accuracy and fairness in reporting. That's what we're interested in here. But they always hide their own fighter deaths. And now, if you follow Gabriel Epstein on X, he's fantastic, incredible researcher. He's going through the releases that Hamas and their other terrorist groups like Pi Javier releasing. He's finding these fighters on the list and confirming what we knew that a lot of fighters are in that number. We also looked

at Israel and Israel's performance in the past and how accurate the IDF have been in reporting. the numbers of fighters they think they've killed and actually they've been pretty accurate maybe slightly overestimating but not not enough to say that it's that it's a gross error so the IDF have always been consistent in the past in reporting what they think of the numbers of dead and we can talk about why that's really hard to do in a minute if you want to but they've always been accurate so there's no reason to disbelieve them now when they say that upwards of 20,000 fighters have been killed and then the final thing we did was we looked at the world's reporting and we found that something like It was a long time ago, so forgive me if I slightly misquote myself,

around 98% of world media was using Hamas's figure, quite often without the clarification that this was coming from a Hamas-run government ministry. And something like 3% of world's media was using the IDF figure of fighters they've killed. So the world's media looked at the two combatants in this conflict, Hamas and Israel. Almost all of them platformed Hamas. Almost none of them platformed the democratic, allied country of Israel. It's an astonishing failure of global media reporting, and that's what I'll report found. And my final point that I would make is that when this came out, my goodness, it came under attack, under huge attack, lots of criticism.

But I don't think I've ever released the paper that's been so validated. Like everything we said came true. We pointed out the errors. Months later, Hamas deleted thousands of names from the list because they were incorrect. You know, we said that there'd be fighters hidden in the numbers. Hamas are now releasing those fighter names and so they're allied groups. I suspect we'll be proven right that Israel's total of combatants killed is roughly right. And we're certainly right about the world's media. So, you know, in terms of where that paper landed and the criticisms

have faced, actually, that we've been proved right time and time again, which is, which is not me being boastful, but I think it's a great paper that stands the test of time. So, so you, so your current opinion is that the ratio is something like two and and a half to one, 20 out of 75,000, 55,000 civilians and 20,000 fighters? 20 to 25,000 fighters. Okay, so something like two to one, something like that. But look, there's a point, yeah, roughly, roughly that. But there's a really important point here that actually the ratio doesn't matter.

This was John Spencer's big thing and I don't like it. Like the ratios are relevant because actually what matters is how those civilians died. Well, can I just stop you there? This was, I told you I was going to tell you later. This is exactly why I didn't want to get into it because my feeling was whatever the number is, even if it's worse than that. The worst it is, the worst Hamas is because this is their strategy. And my feeling was always if they want a thousand civilians to die, they will find a way for a thousand civilians to die. And exactly what you said.

Once you accept this premise, then in a certain way you're kind of telegraphing that if they're, well, but if their numbers are right, oh, that Israel should be really ashamed of that. And I just thought that was a mistake. I say, well, if their numbers are right, they're even worse than we think they are, Hamas. That's my feeling about it. Because they could send all these people somewhere safe to the beach, into shelters

and significantly reduce the numbers of people who were dying. That was my feeling. You could tell me if that's even right or wrong, but that was my feeling. So go ahead. It's exactly correct. And you can find my paper on the Henry Jackson Society website. It's henry jackson society.

org in the paper's called questionable counting. But there's another paper on there by me, and Salo Azenberg, called Hamas's Human Shield Strategy in Gaza. And we've got 264 pieces of evidence in there showing all the ways they weaponise schools, hospitals,

kindergartens, children's bedrooms. The way they openly stated that what they want is their own people to die. They've got it. It's their own words. You know, every dead civilian for me in Gaza is Hamas's old. Not everyone.

The overwhelming majority of dead civilians in Gauges, because Hamas, where they could have built bomb shelters or they could have built tunnels for their civilians to hide in, they weaponised the infrastructure of the entire place, the entire place. Like, I've been on the ground in Gaza, I've seen these tunnels. They're incredible. And the amount of money they spent making them when they could have been spending that money on making the lives of people in Gaza better, which would have been. given us, you know, happier, richer, wealthier people, more affluent people, more cared for people

would lead us to peace because people who are happy and economically prosperous generally don't want war. Of course. But instead, they kept their people in complete poverty whilst they built this insane tunnel network of 500 miles. And really, this is all on this monstrous horror terror group, Hamas. I should just disclose, I know Salo Eisenberg, who lives in the town next to me, and we have a friendship. but I haven't really even gotten into the weeds with him on this stuff. And just last question about the casualties.

You said 20,000 adult males. That's 18, but are we right, or am I right to presume that they will go much lower than adult in sending people as fighters? Is that wrong? Yeah, there's evidence out there. Again, I'll give you another source. It's Middle East Buka, B-U-K-A-on-X, who's been tracking things like fake journalists

who are actually combatants. He's been tracking child fighters, you know, 14-year-olds who are confirmed as Hamas fighters. He's got some great threads on his page. I use him as an open-source resource really often. But yeah, and also even before the war, you know, organizations like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, you know, these left-wing anti-Israel NGOs

published reports on how Hamas used child fighters. This is not news. But again, it's completely overlooked. And so a number of those 20 to 25,000 combatants will be children. And that's just horrifying. Yeah, I mean, and that's typical to the region, right? Like Iran was sending 14-year-olds to test from mine, landmines.

All right. Anything else? By the way, you're not Jewish, correct? I'm not. No, I'm Catholic. Well, that's another interesting question. I ask people from time to time. What is it about Israel?

And you stick up for the Jewish people too. I see you on Twitter. What does that come from? What bonds you emotionally to these people? Friendship. Friendship bonds me. I worked very closely with the Jewish community in the UK. I was doing some work after the fall of Afghanistan.

I was a civilian. I was working with a charity and we rescued 3,000 Afghans to safety out of Afghanistan. And we couldn't have done that without the Jewish community in Great Britain, who gave us charitable apparatus so we could receive donations. They gave us legal advice. So we weren't accidentally people smuggling because that's actually surprisingly easy to do if you don't know what you're doing. And then 7th of October happened.

Not only did I see my friend's pain, but I also saw celebrations on the streets of London of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and my grandfather fought in World War II to end the Holocaust and that celebration in London on the night of 7th of October was a game changer for me

that changed my whole worldview and because I have friends I've also seen how this tide of propaganda has driven this rise in anti-Semitism And even this week, we're seeing synagogues being attacked in London. We're seeing Jewish ambulances being set on fire. We're seeing Jewish students. You know, I have interns from the Jewish community,

and I hear the horror stories they face at university about just going to class and being victimized for being Jewish. And it sickens me. It sickens me. And, you know, you also see these horrible fake parallels with the Holocaust. You know, Gaza is a genocidal, it's absolute nonsense. It's just the whole atmosphere around it sickens me And I'm not the sort of person

That's not I'm lucky I've got a platform I've got a big social media following I just feel that it is a duty to use it For what I consider to be good And that good is standing up for our Jewish communities in the West Because I don't want to live in a UK Where the Jewish community feel that they have had to flee to Israel Because it's no longer safe

That is that is not a country I want to live in so I'll do whatever I can to try and stop that happening. We appreciate that. I don't usually speak that way, but as you're saying this stuff, I find myself moved. What do you make of the IDF and the way they operate? Early on in the war,

videos would come out of some idiot soldiers, you know, putting on the underwear of the possessions of the houses, of the civilians, and so that you be in, you know, and I remember saying to myself, what the fuck is going on? You would think that an army could make it very, very clear to none of this, not one exception, this can never happen.

And it would happen again and something again and then cheering. And then most recently it culminated in this outrageous video of this soldier, you know, smashing this statue of Jesus. and all of us all you know Jews or Israelis all over all just hang our head in shame and I'm filled with anger at what I what seems to me as someone who kind of understands organizations as something that does not need to happen if the people at the top are properly doing their jobs am I wrong no you're correct you're correct it was horrible to watch and I found that personally painful with someone who's repeatedly gone into battle for Israel to try and get the truth out about how they've operated in Gaza.

To see that felt like a real kick in the teeth, if I'm from brutally honest. But, but, but. You have every right to feel that way. You have every right to feel that way. But go ahead. Yeah, I felt let down. I felt let down, quite frankly. And look, this is the thing here.

There is a reserve army. Like, these are not professional soldiers. And sometimes they behave like avatures. and they behave like a rabble. And that is a problem for the IDF. And as you say, we've seen it time and time again. In the British Army, in the American Army, we have a very strong non-commissioned officer cadre.

The IDF does not have that. I think it's a weakness that they don't. Because frankly, if one of my soldiers had tried to do anything similar to that, his corporal, his squad leader, his section commander, would have been there and given him a rifle butt in the ribs and made sure that nothing so stupid even got close to occurring.

and I think it's very much the same in the US Army as well. You know, where's the leadership there? That's just, you know, because of course the leaders are reservists. They're not professional either. And that is a problem for the IDF. And I would say the IDF's professional units are outstanding. I think we have to be very fair and balanced with this. You know, I've spent time with some of the special units in the IDF, like the Ocettes,

like Yaholom, who are the, you know, Oquettes is the dog unit, the canines. Yeah. Yaholom is the underground tunnel commandos. Like they are world-class soldiers. You know, I would have, I would have been delighted to have them off to a flank when I was in the army. You know, these are people I would want to work with. The reserve units, I've spent time with them too, and they don't come anywhere close to that standard. So, and that's the trouble with the reserve army, is that these are essentially civilians in uniform. And there's a very weak excuse. Like, you should never take your phone to a war zone. It's a huge operational security failure. a mobile phone gives off electronic footprints your enemies can track you with it and then on top of that they're then using them to record each other doing stupid shit unforgivable unprofessional but they're not professional and i think that sometimes comes through with the idf even the even the sentiment upended me emotionally because yeah i understand there's a war between the islam and the jews

and I couldn't excuse it, but I could understand the outbursts of hatred and bigotry in both directions, actually, about Jews and Muslims. But, you know, first of all, I'm being honest now. It's my whole life for on Israelis. I have never heard anybody express towards Christians, especially America is basically a Christian country fighting side by side with the Israelis, you dummies.

and, you know, where is even the sentiment coming from that you would want to do such a thing? And why I say it upended me because, you know, someone's, I guess the person who filmed it might have been wanting to expose it, but in some way it just felt like it wasn't as if everybody around it react like, what the hell are you doing?

There's in some way a sentiment somewhere that is, I didn't know existed and it's totally unfamiliar to me. And you probably had the same thought. Yeah, I mean, I've been to Israel 13, 14 times. You know, I have, you know, I'm an ex-soldier. I have many tattoos. You know, I have St. Michael down my arm. I've got a Cairo on my calf.

I've got the Jerusalem Pilgrims tattoo just below that on my leg. And, you know, if I wear shorts, you can't miss them. It's pretty obvious. They're Christian symbology. And I've never had even a flicker of anyone in Israel. Nobody's looked twice. They don't care. So, yeah, I was genuinely surprised that that sentiment would be out there as well.

It's not something I've ever come across. No, to extent it makes you feel any better, because I've been around my whole life, around Jews and Israelis, speaking, you know, with the confidence that no outsider is listening. I've never heard anything like that, let alone, you know, wanting to see that kind of ugly destruction. Anyway, of a sacred thing. Anyway, it's a terrible thing.

I wish we could undo it, but you can't. Okay. One final point, I would say that I've not seen anyone anywhere defending it from the Jewish or Israeli communities. Not one person I've seen online has said, you know, this is ridiculous, it's fine. What's your problem? Everyone has condemned it almost universally. And I find that very telling and reassuring that this is an isolated thing rather than an

endemic thing. I'm not going to judge the whole IDF on the actions of one idiot. Yeah, I mean, it's akin to the shame that we felt when the terrorists went in and, this is a long time ago, and murdered all the Arab, was it Palestinian civilians? I'm ashamed that I remember the details, but this kind of thing, like, how could this person bring such shame upon us? Obviously, that was more serious because people died, but this is serious because of the sensitive time in history that it's happening.

All right. So, and of course, it's music to Tucker Carlson's ears, right? He's exactly what he's been saying. What a gift to the enemy. Here we'll give you exactly what you need, Tucker. All right, Iran. Where are you? Is this all going to work out? Look, it's, I think we have to resist the temptation to hot take this. Like, everyone wants the clicks. Everyone wants to be right.

I take a much more measured and balanced long-term view. Look, things have gone incredibly well in some cases and incredibly badly in other respects. Like the air campaign was an overwhelming win tactically. Iran barely laid a punch on the US or the Israelis. They got some rockets through, but it was a tiny amount. They landed hits on the Gulf, but for the most part, the missile defence has worked.

and that the enemy always get to vote, the enemy was always going to score some hits, but they were massively overmatched, and that was great. Obviously, the leadership, these deeply evil people who were behind everything that happened on 7th of October and subsequently have been taken off the game. They've been killed in that opening airstrike,

so clearly a huge intelligence win. From there, I think it went less well. I think the decision not to secure the straight of Hormuz first is an error that will be. we studied in military academies for years to come, how that kind of an operational level error happens. Like everyone in the world who's done anything militarily or studied the Middle East at all knows that the Strait of Hummers is vital. We live in a petrochemical world. If you cut off 20% of the petrochemical supply, it's going to cause an economic disaster. And everyone

knew this. And yet, I think they assumed that killing the leadership would end the war really quickly and they wouldn't need to worry about Hummers. And unfortunately, that that assumption backfired horribly. So that went really badly. And now I think we're in a place where we're trying to create, or America is trying to create a strategy on the fly. And it may work. And that's the other point here is that wars don't always go the way you expect them to. No war ever goes perfectly. And almost every war we've ever fought, you've had to have a sort of strategic recalculation based on events on the ground. So I'm not going to say it's a fair. I'm not going to say it's going to fail.

I'm going to say that we don't know yet. It might go really well. The squeeze that Trump is putting on cargo islands and the fact they can't get the royal outs, which means the storage facilities will fill up quickly, which means they'll have to stop production, which will really damage the pipelines. You know, that might work.

That might bring around to the table and get, you know, we'll get a deal that is good, or it might not work, in which case we either keep going as we go or America's going to have to make concessions to Tehran, which is probably the worst possible. So we don't know yet. It could go either way. My thinking about this, first of all, I think it has to start with how important one thinks

it is to prevent Iran, let's just limit it from getting a nuclear weapon. And this is a psychological problem too, because, for instance, if I told you, if you smoke one cigarette, one cigarette, you're guaranteed to die of lung cancer when you're 70, let's say. you would never smoke the cigarette because you just wouldn't. But if I told you, if you keep smoking and don't stop, eventually you're going to get lung cancer for sure, you will keep smoking. You get complacent.

You'll keep smoking. I'll stop tomorrow, stop tomorrow. And then all of a sudden you get lung cancer, right? And Iran is, Iran going nuclear is the lung cancer here. And in some way, because it's off in the distance, It's very difficult to justify the hard, harsh action now. And I made an analogy like, you know, let's just assume for the sake of argument because it's disputed that it was a lab leak that caused COVID, which I think it was. If I had, you're not, you're not, well, it doesn't matter.

Just for the sake of argument. I generally don't know. It's not my area. You know, if I had said to somebody, listen, it's worth. blood and treasure to stop gain of function research because this is just too dangerous. Say, what are you crazy? You can't go to war to stop gain of function research, you know? So I'm telling you, it's a big risk of a pandemic. And it could be the most deadly event in modern history. You cannot rally people around the fact that it's very, very, very, very dangerous,

but uncertain. And that's what Iran going nuclear is. Very, very, very dangerous, high probability of something terrible going, but you can't guarantee it. So that's, I think that's the initial psychological hurdle. But assuming that you do think that Iran is very dangerous if it goes nuclear, then I think it becomes relatively easy to say, well, if we're ever going to stop it, it's never going to be lower risk and cheaper to do than it will be today when Iran is totally prostrate on the ground and defenseless. So, You give it a shot now. Worst case, you just put more distance in time between now and the time they can actually get this breakout period back to where it was.

And if it doesn't work out, you're still better off. That's my feeling about it. If the regime goes six months from now, a year from now, that would be great. I don't know the answer to this, but it seems to me that maybe the 12-day war, six months later, did have something to do with the fact that millions of people turned down to the streets in January, and maybe that cycle could happen again? I know all these are the thoughts I'm having, so I'm going to stop talking. You can comment on any of it. No, I like it, and I'm having similar thoughts. Look, I supported the war on day one. Let's be really clear. I think it was a good thing. I'm disappointed with how some of the

decisions that have been made played out, but that's, that's, that's Walsby. In principle, I support the war. I think the nuclear capability is the big one. I think you're right. I mean, degrading their rocket stocks and, you know, there's all kinds of stuff in the media floating around even today saying that they're still got 60% of what they had. And rockets aren't difficult to build. Like Hamas manage it in the sandy tunnels of Gaza. You need a tube, you need some propellant and you need a bit of guidance. Can I add to that? Add to that. It's not difficult. I just add a little flavor that'll let you continue. Hamas manages it despite the fact they were under the most strict embargo of goods in and out in human history.

And they still managed to tens of thousands of rockets. So go ahead. Yeah, so you can delete the rocket capability, but that's easy to rebuild, especially in a country as mountainous as Iran where you've got places to hide all over the place, you know. So degrading that rocket capability, good thing, needed to be done, but it's not decisive. Killing the leadership, you know, hideous human beings. is nobody's going to mourn them. Good thing overall, but they'll replace them with new leaders

who are probably just going to be just as horrible in due course. The nuclear stuff is the big deal for me. They've got this highly enriched uranium, H-EU, 400 kilograms. I don't know what that is in American, probably about £800, something like that. And, you know, that's a big deal.

But look, it was 60% enriched. They weren't enriching it now because they knew it would bring bombs. They've had bombs anyway. Once this is all drawn to a conclusion, what we have to do is make sure that they now don't just go for it anyway because what have they got to lose? And that's the kind of thing I think they're going to have to work through

in these negotiations is if you've just bombed the hell out of them and the only reason they weren't enriching uranium to weapons grade is because they were worried that you'd bomb the hell out of them, what have they got to lose? I think that's the point to repeat. And it's stopping that thought process and the ability to follow it through that's going to be the really decisive piece of the negotiations for me. And anything less than them either blending that uranium down or handing it over or physically being secured by somebody other than the Iranian regime, then we can probably say this war has not achieved its main goal.

And that's the one I'm really looking out for when I'm looking at the end deal, whatever. that looks like. Yeah, I agree with you. I hope Trump stays the course. Now, tell me if this is right or wrong. It seems to me that if we keep that cork in the straight, the cork meaning, you know, us blockade, we don't let anything in and out, except if we wanted to go in or out. At some point, they have to say uncle, no? Yeah, or do we say uncle? That's the, well, I keep saying we. But we don't, we don't have to say uncle. We will just say, uncle, if our leader, Peter loses his nerve. But they have to say, uncle, they'll be reduced to nothing.

Yeah, but look, look at what could happen to the wider world if, if that straight is not reopened. It's not just oil. Okay, I've already spoken about the, you know, 20% of the world's all supply. We live in a petrochemical world. Like, we're going to get inflation. Like, how much are you paying for gas now? Like, it cost me 85 pounds to fill up my car before the water.

It would have been 72. You know, that's a lot. And, you know, I'm okay. I can take that 12 pound here. There are families out there that can't. That's really, really hurting people right now. But we've also got helium comes out. 50% of the world's helium supply comes through the Australia Formers.

You can't make microchips without helium. When reserves of that come out, it means that you won't be able to make those microchips over in Taiwan. That means that the cost of electronics is going to go up. We live in an electronics world. Which country does it come from? Does it come from Iran, the helium? It's all of the Gulf countries. It's a byproduct of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the, of the,

finding process as I understand it I'm not an expert in that area but that's why I understand is it's a byproduct that then gets sold ammonia for fertilizer is another byproducts like there are countries in the world if they don't get fertilizers they will have a famine like people will die of starvation because the straight of what merges is closed this is not something to be brushed aside and say hey you can take the head at the gas pump for a couple of weeks now again I don't know Fertilizer seems like something that can be transported on trucks to the Red Sea. That's not possible? Potentially, potentially, but that's not quick.

And we're talking about volume here. This is a lot of volume we're talking about. And these are the concerns. Yes, there will be mitigations. And hopefully those mitigations are taking place, which means that the straight of formies can continue to be blockaded by the U.S. Navy. And in which case, great, because, yes, you're right. this will hurt Iran too

especially when those oil facilities at Carg Island fill up especially when they can no longer produce because they've got nowhere to store it but you know the Iranians can mitigate that by making new storage this is this is insanely complicated there are so many

variables at play here and look Iran's income is not only from oil you know they have other sources of income they have financial reserves there's no guarantee that this will cause them to collapse and actually they still have guns and nobody else does in Iran. And unless you can get past the core problem here that no matter how many protesters rise up, the regime have the guns. Yeah. Then, you know, they're going to get mown down in their hundreds,

and their tens of thousands again. And I think the answer here potentially lies in the Artesh, which is the conventional army, not the IOC, it's the sort of green army, if you will. Can they be persuaded to change sides? Can they be persuaded to turn on the IRGC? Or I don't know. These are all possibilities and variables that we have to consider, but it's really complex. And I think that's one of the key lessons that comes out of this. I think when we're looking in hindsight, is the war's not easy. Like Carl von Klausovic's writing in the early 1800s, right, in war, the simplest thing becomes difficult. And it's true. And we can't apply simplistic solutions to incredibly complicated problems. And this is the problem that at the moment, Centcom, the White House, the Pentagon,

we're all wrestling with. It's an incredibly challenging and difficult problem without an easy and obvious solution. All right. So they're going to negotiation. And by the way, just say, I wonder if no matter what happens at the straight, the other Gulf countries, now that they've seen this card actually played, that priority one doesn't become, all right, we need a plan B. So 10 years for now, when they pull this shit again, they don't have us by the balls, excuse me. So we need new pipelines. And I mean, I don't know the logistics of all these other helium and fertilizer, but whatever those logistics are, you know, I'm sure there are solutions. Maybe not perfect solutions, but solutions that would defang Iran and neutralize their leverage.

Okay, so they're negotiating now. And many people are snarkily saying, well, this is like the JCPOA, which I don't think is a strong argument. I'll see what you think. But what would you think that given all the uncertainty, everything you've laid out, that the United States should accept? And let me just add to it the question, as much as I hate to admit this, allowing the other side to save face is often necessary if you want to get a deal. So in some way, there will often be something in there, which we don't want them to have, but you just, it's a psychological thing. You have to allow it. So with all that, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, look, there are commentators out there no matter what happens. Some will say this is the worst thing that ever happened.

Trump's an idiot. Some will say, art of the deal. This is amazing. Like, you know, the cheerleader the council will cheerlead, whichever position they take. And, you know, good for them. I don't think they're useful. They're not people I listen to. You know, personally, not a fan of your president. But I try not to let that color my analysis. You know, I want Mr. Trump to come away with a good deal here.

Like, I want Donald's to be able to say, look, we got everything we wanted in the regime and are needed. That's a brilliant outcome. I'd be delighted and happy for him. What concessions would you be prepared? I mean, that's huge. I think I'll go back to my earlier point and just say, look, this is all about the uranium for me. They're going to build missiles, whatever you do for now. They're going to build missiles. You're not going to change their minds of hating Israel and believing that the Mahdi is coming back and that one day there will be a global caliphate. You're like, you're not going to, you know, these unrealistic things that aren't going to happen.

So what's realistic? I think the uranium is the big deal. And if that has to come with sanctions relief, then that might. might be a pill we'd have to swallow. And that's, again, a really good lesson about about getting your operational and your strategic design correct, which I don't think they did because they didn't secure Hummus before launching the strikes. And unfortunately, that's what you then end up in a position where if you want to achieve your core end state, which is around never having a unique, you have to make concessions to Iran. It's a horrible and unpleasant truth, but I think that's probably where we're going. Unless as you say, the economic stranglehold works and the regime collapses and the artist

change sides, in which case that's a complete game changer. So I'm not going to get my crystal ball out, but I think whatever happens in those negotiations, as long as you come away with their uranium and some kind of guarantee that they won't dig up more uranium and start enriching it again, that feels like a successful outcome to me. The only thing that worries me, and I agree, I kind of funny, you're thinking along the same lines that I think, the sanctions relief, I think, is going to have to happen. I think that's the face they have to save. But what worries me is that they'll give up the uranium and then they'll set about collecting so many missiles and drones such that seven years from now, they're going to

go on TV and rip up this piece of paper and say, we dare you to try it again now. and we will not be able to handle them then without tremendous bloodshed. And then we will lose. So I feel like it's very dangerous to make any deal that doesn't maintain our ability basically to bomb them at will. I know this. I don't understand. I'm not actually be possible what I'm saying.

But that would be the right solution. No more uranium. and limiting your armaments such that if you cheat, we're not, we don't find ourselves precluded from being able to handle it. Otherwise, we're going to deal with a nuclear Iran unless there is some regime change. Is that possible? Yeah, and then you have to go and think about what you do about Holmiss, because if you bomb them again, they'll just shut at Holmiss again.

So, you know, the concurrent activity there, I think, is working out what you do about the straight-of-formist going forward. How do you say, how do you bypass it? How do you find another way to get stuff out? How do you stop them closing it? That could be an option. Difficult. Really, really difficult. And look, I don't think a deal with Iran is worth the paper.

It's written on these are psychotic jihadists with an insane religious theology that leads them to do these awful things. But let's frame this threat. Let's frame it and give it a structure. It comprises three things. Opportunity, capability and intent. Right, they've got the individual. We know they do.

So what we have to do is make sure they can never have the capability and we deny them the opportunity to turn that risk into a concrete action. And I think that's the framework I would use, but how do we make sure that they don't have the capability? How do we make sure they never have the opportunity to use it? And I think when you look at it through that lens, when you get, whenever we see what the final deal is, I think we can then assess it against that framework and that gives us a pretty good idea of where we are.

So that's the kind of academic lens I'd bring to this. This is why the JCPOA analogies or comparisons, I think, are very weak. As I recall the JCPOA, we knew that Iran, Obama told us that Iran was two months away from a breakout, two months away. So the dynamic there was Iran saying, listen, we're two months away from a breakout. and there's nothing you can do to stop us. But if you act before midnight tonight, we will, you know, we will forego this unilateral option that we have if you give us palace of cash and blah, blah, blah, blah, and we'll agree to it for 10 years.

And we were like, please, thank you so much, where do we sign? Because Obama was not going to go bomb Iran, right? This is quite different. We do have them over a barrel. Yes, nothing is costless. Everything that you've laid out is a cost. But they're in a desperate situation. They don't have the unilateral ability

to just break out if they want to. They're years away from that now, probably just because of all the damage they've done. And they're totally exposed. And we have a president now for the next two and a half years who's not risk averse. And he will bomb them again. and again and again and again and again.

So they got a few more years of having to live this way. So they are the ones who really want a deal in a way. Are they? Are they? I think that's a very... Well, that's a good question. Yeah. You tell me. I think you're imposing a rationality on them that I think perhaps doesn't exist in the jihadi mindset they have. Well, let me tell you why I think they must be.

Let me tell why, well, if I'm right, this will be the reason. Okay. You would imagine that someone would say, look what happened in January. This was because people were struggling because of inflation, because of all these reasons. They were angry at us. If this goes on six months a year, they're going to be even more angry at us. I don't know, maybe we should try to avoid rolling those dice again. That would be the conservative, jihadi, but rational view of this.

So maybe it's better. let's make some kind of deal. Maybe we can get away with cheating. Trump is not going to be president forever. There's going to be some liberal Democrat after him, and we will have our way with them. If we can just get through the next two and a half years, promise whatever you got to promise,

and let's just shut this guy up because we can't handle Trump. That would be a rational argument within that boardroom, in my opinion. Go ahead. Yeah, okay, now we're on the same page. Thank you for that clarification. Yeah, I see where you're coming from. And I agree to an extent.

Let's try as a thought exercise. just put yourself in the head if whoever's in charge in Tehran right now, whether it's Gadibath or someone from the IIGC or whether it's Kamenei himself. Like, what do I consider a win here? I consider a win, first of all, regime survival. That's my number one above all else. Gold standard victory. If I survive this, I'm still in command of Iran, still control Iran, then that's a win for me.

So how do I get to that end state? And I'm looking at, as you say, I'm looking at the White House. I'm saying, look, I've got to suck this up for two and a half years. And then everything changes because they're not going to have another Donald Trump. And there's no one quite like him anywhere on the horizon. I think he's a one of a kind. And I'm looking and saying, look, you know, I do this for two years. I, you know, I suck it up.

But on the flip side, what I also need to do is because I'm in the Middle East is project strength. I need to have some way of projecting strength at the end of this deal. if this deal is a humiliation, if it rubs my face in the dirt, if it makes me look weak, I cannot sign it at all at any cost. And so that's the calculus I think they're probably working through in Tehran right now is how do I give this guy what he wants without looking weak? And I think that should be in the American negotiators' minds that they need to throw some kind of a bone to the regime to get them to sign a deal

and then be very aware that they will be on a clock for two years and then everything changes. And these are the balances they've got to try and find in strike. Depending on how sophisticated they are, there's another kind of clock that could be ticking, which is if you read the American press, the midterms are a big issue within Donald Trump's calculus, right? Is it going to lose the Senate? Everybody probably knows he's going to lose the House. But is it going to lose the Senate because of the war in Iran?

But if Iran allows this thing to drag out past the midterms, at that point, Trump doesn't give a shit anymore about politics. And at that point, he could become much more formidable to them and really dig in because this is, I mean, this is one of the things that Republicans have complained about Trump. I think it was Bill Barr, who was Trump's attorney general, said that he was, what bothered him about Trump is that he had no care whatsoever for his party. He would throw the entire party under the bus for his own personal gain. And after the midterms, whatever happens, that ship has sailed.

So, you know, maybe they feel urgency to get it done before the election, or maybe they're not sophisticated enough to think that way. Or maybe that's actually not all that significant. I don't know. Or maybe they see Trump getting more unpopular by the day. I think I saw a poll today saying he has 67% disapproval rating, which is pretty punchy. And, you know, the more unpopular he is,

the more chances that he loses the Senate, which means that impeachment proceedings are a guarantee, which means he's going to be busy fighting that, than worrying about fighting around. You know, again, I'll get back to my earlier point. So many variables here. Domestic American politics is one of them as well. Everybody says that impeachment becomes a guarantee.

I'm actually not sold on that only because these proceedings backfired again and again and again and again on the Democrats. And maybe they'd be smart just to let the clock run out on Donald Trump without giving him a cause-seleb, you know, like all these people who are actually turning against. them, this happened after that first time he was indicted. People started rallying around him because of the injustice of the indictments, and they didn't even like him. They said, but this is, anyway, that's American politics. All right, before I let you go, I just want to circle back because I didn't ask you two questions about the casualty figures in Gaza, and people will be disappointed in me if I don't ask. The two to one ratio, how does that line up historically to other conflicts, in your opinion?

Yeah, it's low. It's a really good ratio. Just to be on the record, and I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I genuinely think the idea I've set the platinum standard for civilian protection in Gaza. When you're fighting an enemy that has a human shield tactic, that is trying to get its people killed and has said it's doing that, this is not me making stuff up. They've said it in their own words, and you can check my report.

It's all cited and quoted, and you can check the links and see it for yourself. when you're fighting an enemy that is trying to get its own people killed to only, and I put that in air quotes, to only kill 45,000 civilians at the cost of 25,000 fighters, that's really impressive. And I really hate this conversation because, as I said earlier, it doesn't matter how many civilians you killed. It does ethically, it does morally, of course it does. But from a legal perspective, it doesn't matter how many you killed,

as long as you killed them legally. And that could only be assessed on a strike by strike basis. So looking at the overall campaign in broad terms, I just don't think it's useful. Because you could kill one civilian for one fighter and have a one-to-one ratio. But if you kill that civilian illegally, it's still an illegal killing. You could kill one fighter for 10 dead civilians. And as long as they were justified through that strike and you've done your strike planning process and you've looked at the law of proportionality and said, yes, this one military guy is worth the death of 10 civilians.

therefore I'm hitting the button and doing it, then that's legal. So you can have 10 to 1 and be legal and 1 to 1 and be illegal. Right. So the ratio thing doesn't really hold for me. And when you break it down into raw numbers like that, look, we are talking about dead human beings, many of whom were totally innocent. And by reducing it to these great swathes of ratios, it just doesn't sit right with me. And like I said, right at the start, it's a game that I, in many ways, regret playing

because it's Hamas's game. And you're never going to win. And the reason you're never going to win is because, look, you go, hey, it's a two to one ratio. And someone goes, cool. One of the two was a baby. I'm really annoyed about that baby. And rightly so. You know, a baby dying in conflict, in an airstrike is a thing of utter horror, but it can still be legal.

That doesn't mean people are going to be happy with it or be sold on your argument that this was illegal and moral campaign. So, yeah, you're fighting very strong. and very justified emotional reactions with facts. And the analogy I'll give you is when you're having an argument with your partner and you say, calm down, you're being emotional. Like, how does that go? So, and that brings me actually very nicely to my last question. So, you know, hundreds of thousands of people died in the American Civil War,

but we freed the slaves. And although people like Papi Cannon question whether the Civil War was a good idea, idea, it's, you know, everybody does understand that there was a tremendously important result to that war. Similarly, with all the people who died in World War II, well, yes, but we defeated the Nazis. And that would have been, that was a pretty, say, now maybe there was a way that fewer people could have died, but nobody thinks, well, defeating the Nazis wasn't a tremendously important outcome for the world. Now Israel has killed, let's say 50,000 civilians, and let's attribute every one of them to Israel.

It has to be weighed, even though Hamas is responsible for those deaths. The war still has to be seen as worth it in terms of the benefit that it brought to Israel as compared to the situation they would be, and if they hadn't gone to war in that way. And it may be too soon even to make that determination. Do you have any thoughts about that yet? Was this outcome worth all these innocent people dying, even if it's Hamas, who is legally and morally responsible for their death? Yeah, there's a nuanced point to be made here.

You can tell my opinion, because I'm just finishing off my first book. It's being published later in the year, and it's called redemption. And it's the entire story of the Seven Front War. So, in my opinion, you know, the IDF failed on 7th of October. and have redeemed themselves. And I think Israel is in a safer position now than it was on 6th of October 2023. So, you know, I think, I think from an Israeli perspective,

you know, they can take away some really big gains from all of these fronts together. I don't think you can just look at Gaza. You have to look at them as an interconnected front across, an interconnected war across seven fronts. I think the reason a lot of people outside Israel don't see it that way is that there's no happy ending for the Palestinians.

There will be a temptation, some people, not entirely unjustifiedly, where they hold all of the Palestinians responsible for their own misfortunes. I know Aynat Wilf does. Well, no, let me correct myself. Aynab Wealth is written about Palestinianism and the idea that from the river to the sea

means the destruction of the state of Israel, and until they get past that idea of Palestinianism, there won't be peace, and I think there's real merit to that argument. but you know the people in Gaza who aren't members of Hamas or P-I-J or you know he may not be sympathetic to Israel but they're not criminals they don't deserve to die just because they don't like the state of Israel that's not grounds to kill someone but there's no happy ending for them and that's not Israel's fault you know it's Hamas's fault it's their leaders fault it's the Palestinian Authority's

fault frankly it's Yasser Arafat's fault for turning down their own state on multiple occasions but there is no happy ending for these gardens. They are still stuck in tents amongst the wreckage of their homes. And I think whilst it's good for Israel, the wider world will look at that and say, you know, hey, good for you, but what about these people? And I don't think that's an unfair point to make either. So in summary, yes, good for Israel, not good for the Palestinians, and therefore the wider world, I think, given how good the Hamas propaganda campaign has been for two years,

we'll see it slightly differently. But I think it was a redemption war that has ended well for the Israelis. Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I think it is too soon to know. I do struggle with it. It's so hard to grapple with people dying like that. And then, of course, one of my arguments

is something that I'll never be able to prove, which is that I feel like, and I'd said many times, especially since this Operation Spiderweb in Ukraine, where the Ukrainians managed to take out 20% of the Russian Air Force or something with a bunch of drones of each one less than $1,000 each, that if Israel didn't act now, 10 years from now, five years from now, they were just going to be overwhelmed

by this very, very cheap lethality. The bottom is falling out of the market for the price of killing and I mean how could Israel possibly defend itself against 200,000, 300,000, 400,000 drones, each one of them costs a couple hundred bucks each? So Israel had to take control of this situation now before it was too late. But you know, you can't prove that,

so it's hard to make the case that that was worth killing so many people. Well, you know, the reason so many people have died is the nature of the war that was fought. And if we go back to, say, 8th of October, 2023, you've got 253, I think it was, hostages in the tunnels of Gaza. You've got 1,500 of your own people lying dead on the ground in the Gaza periphery. What do you do? Yeah.

What do you do? And look, I've spoken to Yoavgan's about this. I've interviewed him a few times from my book. And his calculation was actually what I do is I go to Hezbollah. they're the bigger threat at this point they were always the ones with the rockets that could overwhelm Israel's missile defences they were the ones who posed

the Radwan force threat of an incursion into the north of Israel so Gallant's position was actually what I do on 8th of October is I go to north to Lebanon and we let Gaza simmer and once we've dealt with the big threat we come back down and deal with a little threat Bibi took the opposite view

and rather than another punitive raid that we saw you know Guardian of the walls and all those other operations that had been in Gaza in prior years, they were going to deal with Hamas once and for all, because that was the political answer rather than military strategic. Gallet is a military strategist. He's not a politician.

The political answer for Bibia. And I think it was maybe the right one. I'm in two minds. But by the way, it happened. And rather than going for a raid, they went in full divisional force and conducted combined arms maneuver warfare in an urban setting where the enemy had human shields. and that's why Gaza looks the way it does.

Most people think it was destroyed by airstrikes. It wasn't at all. It was destroyed by ground maneuver. Yeah. And that's why Gaza was smashed because the political decision was made that this threat to Israel could not stand and Hamas's infrastructure had to be dismantled,

which I think is a reasonable position to take in the aftermath of 7th of October. There was a, this is, I'll let you go now, there was a report, and I'm pretty sure it's going to become someday a powerful scene in the movie

that will someday be made about this conflict where Gallant and Netanyahu were discussing this very issue I read about it in the paper and Galant was advocating to strike to the north and Netanyahu

says, they're looking out the window Tel Aviv says look at these buildings they'll all be gone. Tel Aviv will be on fire. He couldn't, he was scared. Like this was a huge price to pay. I guess he knew about the pagers at the time, but he didn't understand how successful they would be. But it's very hard to judge people in

hindsight. Anyway, sir, this has been a wonderful conversation. I hope you were happy with it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. It's been great. If there's anything that you didn't get to say that you always want to tell people, you have time right now to say it. question that I didn't ask you, but that you want to express? No. It's not required. Huge about of stuff. Look, that was thorough.

That was thorough. And you've given me some interesting insight as well. You've raised some stuff that's made me have a little ponder. So thank you for you for this excellent conversation. I'm grateful. All right. If you ever get to New York, please stop by the club, have some drinks, see some comedy. I would love to meet you in person.

I'll get Sallow to come join us as well. All right. All right. Andrew Fox, everybody. Thank you very, very much. Good night. Thanks again. Thanks, man. Take care.

See you.