The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - The Hamas Documents Reveal the Real October 7 Plan

Episode Date: June 4, 2026

Noam Dworman, Dan Naturman and Periel Aschenbrand are joined by Professor Daniel Sobelman. They discuss his research into the strategic origins of October 7, the captured Hamas documents recovered during the war, how Israel's deterrence strategy failed and what the future of warfare means for Israel and the region. Sobelman explains why Hamas believed it could fundamentally alter the balance of power, what Israeli leaders misunderstood before October 7 and why the next generation of conflict may be driven by cheap drones, precision weapons, and asymmetric warfare. Daniel Sobelman is a professor of International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Israel, and a research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School's Middle East Initiative. His area of expertise is the conflict and deterrence dynamics between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah. His current research focuses on the strategic foundations of Hamas's October 7th attack. His recent book is entitled "Axis of Resistance: Asymmetric Conflicts and Rules of the Game in Contemporary Middle East Conflicts." CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 01:30 The article that changed the October 7 debate 06:25 How Hamas deterred Israel 15:25 Buying quiet: Qatar money and Hamas leverage 20:10 The captured Hamas documents 22:30 Hamas's plan for a regional war 26:25 How bad October 7 could have been 39:00 The documents discussing Israel's destruction 46:25 Would Hamas ever accept a two-state solution? 53:35 Israel's future after October 7 01:01:05 Can Israel reverse its global isolation?x

Hey now, this is live from the table, the official podcast of the World Famous Comedy Seller. This is Dan Natterman, along with Noam Dwarman, owner of the World Famous Comedy Seller, with locations in New York's Greenwich Village and Las Vegas, Nevada. We also have Peria Al-Ashan brand with us. Hi. As usual. And via Zoom, all the way from Israel, Daniel Sobelman, Professor of International Relations at the Heard. University of Jerusalem and a research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School's Middle East initiative.

He specializes in deterrence dynamics between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah. Welcome to our show. Thank you. Great to be here. I like that black background you have. It's very like Mike Wallace 60 Minutes. Or Charlie Rose. Yeah, yeah. You should be black and white, though. Would Charlie Rose be color? How do you do that?

green screen black? No, it's just Zoom. Just my background. It's just a black background. Right now, I'm in my safe room. You know, in Israel, every, no, seriously, every apartment, every house, has a safe room, like a fortified room. So this is my, you know, so as you can imagine, it's a big mess.

So this black background comes in handy. So, sir, I'm very happy to have you on this show. There's an article you wrote. I don't know when it came out already. Strategic Origins of Hamas and October 7th, something like that. When did that article come out? Came out a few months ago in January. It's an academic article.

So in academic terms, this is brand new. That's exactly what I want to ask you. This is a very, very, very important article, in my opinion. And the first question I have for you is just like a clerical question. Why is this article in an academic? journal behind a paywall rather than released at least or as encapsulated into a column on the Wall Street Journal or a free press because this is a very and nobody's nobody's said many of the things that you've written here yeah so first of all the way it works in academia is that

articles are typically behind a paywall uh it just so happens that yesterday um my university the Hebrew University of Jerusalem agreed to pay a few thousand dollars to the publisher to open access that article. So it's now open access. It's free to read. It's a, it's an article that is really a friend with a lot of intelligence experience described it to me as the closest thing we've got thus far to a commission of inquiry. Yeah, and as a matter of fact, I sent it to Benny Morris, who wrote back, wow, something like, wow, that's a very well-researched article. He was quite impressed with it. Oh, so, all right. So that's enough telling people how great the article is. Let's talk about the article. Um, uh, there's a number of things that, um, I remember from the article,

but one is that, and I'll let you explain it, that Israel was actually playing tough, but actually had begun to blink over the years after a few of the Hamas wars. They were becoming less and less confident in their ability. to defend against Tamas, more and more aware that the weaponry and the technological advantage that they had was not overwhelming as they would like it to be. And they began to make compromises, but they didn't really express them as compromises. So tell us about that. Correct. Let me first say that this article, which really my life revolved around this article for a couple of years.

And it's basically a follow-up to my book project, which came out a year and a half ago. And it was actually under review when the war broke out on October 7th. And it actually ties into the whole story because the book, Axis of Resistance, right, describes the evolution of asymmetrical patterns. of deterrence between Hezbollah and Israel, Hamas and the Gulfstrip in Israel, the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Iran vis-à-vis both the United States and Israel.

So basically studying asymmetrical conflicts and the evolution of this geostrategic community block, which went by the name of the axis of resistance and really gained critical mass as a regional block in the years that preceded October 7th. Now, what I had described in the book was the shifting of generally in the Middle East, the shifting of the balance of power to Israel's detriment and to the U.S.'s detriment. So basically what I was arguing was that actors like Hamas in the Gah Strip and Hezbollah and Lebanon, and to some extent, the Iranians and the entire axis were kind of leveling the asymmetry and shifting the balance of power.

Now, Hamas had become strategically tethered to this infrastructure, to this potent infrastructure that came into being. And they kind of integrated into this whole construct around 2020, 2021. And this axis of resistance that had emerged in the Middle East and surrounded Israel with literally hundreds of thousands of rockets and missile, precision-guided drones, precision-guided munitions, you name it. Hamas ultimately realized that it could harness that project, that infrastructure, the service of the conflict with Israel. That's what happened in October 7th. Now, you're absolutely right. One of the things that I'm describing, and I think that to this day is not well understood, is the extent to which Israel had become deterred by Hamas in the Gaza Strip and by Hezbollah and Lebanon,

and in general, by the axis of resistance, right? So even the Houthis have weighed in and become part of Israel's strategic environment in recent years. That was what really on a, like, basic, deep level, this is something that Israel completely missed.

So, well, I want to hear more about that, but, and then, of course, this immediately calls into my mind this whole idea, which is you know, always used, weaponized by enemies of Israel and enemies of Netanyahu, that Netanyahu propped up Hamas.

But actually, Based on your article, I see that more as Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders backed into this position on the fool's errand of a hope that Hamas could be bought off and bought into tranquility somehow. I think you said that Egypt brokered a deal where Qatar would be allowed to bring money into Gaza and informal arrangement. That's the propping up of Hamas. So you can tell us whether that was Netanyahu's plan to divide and conquer, as it's described, or was this Netanyahu's kind of like JCPOA type deal with Hamas? Or we let the Iranians have money hoping they would become less bold, and he thought the same thing about Hamas.

Yeah, so first of all, I think one thing we need to understand that this is, Events like October 7th are in the League of Pearl Harbor, the Yonke Poole War, 9-11, right? You are talking about an event of seismic proportions, right? This is really a regional earthquake. And in terms of a strategic surprise, this is something that happens like twice a century, right? So this is not a some tactical event that you can, the bottom line is that you really need, in order to thoroughly understand this disaster, one needs to dive really deep and analyze the various levels of analysis from the deep infrastructure all the way up to the precipitating causes. Now, look, I'm not going to be political here.

In general, I try to be, not that I don't have a political opinion, but I try to stay above the fray when it comes to these issues. But you are right that there is enough responsibility or blame to go around because this goes really, you know, decades back, at least a decade and a half or two decades back. Now, the thing is that Netanyahu has been prime minister now for, well, he was elected in 2009. So this process, even though it did begin before he got elected, for the most part, this shift in the balance of power and the buying off of Hamas for quiet. most of this, like 90% of this happened on his watch.

No, no, I understand why he's saying that about political, but I don't mean to be political. I mean it only to try to understand what actually were the motivations for these decisions. And from what you describe, and also you, there's a lot of, I just want to forget, you also describe a lot of captured Hamas documents. I want to go into that as well.

What you describe sounds to me like a kind of, position that was come to out of weakness that Netanyahu seemed to estimate that he was a little bit over a barrel with Hamas and he can talk a good game but he kind of hoped that maybe if we

buy them off we can buy quiet. That's not a political statement that you could vote for him for that or vote against him for that. That's not my concern. I'm just trying to understand why did he make that decision. So ultimately he made that decision because the balance of power had shifted and the balance of vulnerability had shifted between Israel and the Gaza Strip. I mean, it's not, it's things of, you know, this nature and gargantuan events are never one.

It's never one explanation, right? This is really a multifaceted, multi-leveled event. Now, you could argue, for instance, going down to the real. really the deep causes that Israel or Netanyahu specifically saw huge benefit in maintaining the division, the Palestinian division between the Gostrip and the West Bank, because that rendered any serious peace process impossible. Because of the Hamas and the Goss Strip and the Palestinian authority in the West Bank, they reached the stage where they hated each other. other more than they hated Israel, which is quite an achievement.

I don't know how they pulled that off. But over the years and maintaining that approach and pursuing that approach that in so many words, you know, viewed Hamas in the Gaza Strip as an asset, as an asset because it precluded the possibility of a serious peace process with the Palestinian Authority. precluded the possibility of ever reaching a stage of a Palestinian state. Now, in that process over the years, even though Hamas was, you know, militarily speaking, hugely inferior to Israel, all these actors are hugely inferior, right?

Iran is hugely inferior, right? We can discuss this later because all of this stuff is really relevant to what's happening today in the Middle East. So all these actors are hugely inferior. militarily when you compare them with Israel or the United States or Saudi Arabia, etc. But that's still an interesting thing about, the interesting thing about asymmetrical conflicts is that even in very sharply asymmetrical settings, the weaker actor often comes up with leverage. And even though the weaker actor is often, you know, it's been dealt really

lousy cards. Nonetheless, if it is smart enough about harnessing those cards or harnessing those whatever limited capabilities it possesses and the service of a smart strategy that knows how to compensate for its inferiority, then it could get away with a lot of stuff. Now, to go directly back to your question, what happened over the years, where the Hamas in the Gaz strip because of the fact that it was able to develop within the Gazal strip, military infrastructure. And from one year to another, it managed to extend the range of its rockets because the theater of war here is tiny.

So it managed to extend the range of its rockets from the Gaza envelope, to farther away cities like Ashdod or Ashkelon and then all the way to Tel Aviv, and ultimately you managed to gain the capacity to fire hundreds of rockets in a go, or even thousands of rockets. So this really shifted Netanyahu's and Israel's in general calculations. It shifted Israel's strategic calculus, because getting into, you know, finding yourself in an escalation with Hamas in, say, 2012 is not the same thing as finding yourself in an escalation with Hamas in 2019 or 2021. Right.

And this was leverage. This was bargaining leverage that Hamas smartly knew how to exchange, you know, in exchange for Qatari money, in exchange for Palestinian workers who crossed the border every morning into Israel. and ultimately reached a number of like 18,000 or 20,000 just before October 7th. And all sorts, it basically swapped its ability to rain down hundreds or thousands of rockets on Israel. It swapped that in exchange for Israeli concessions that helped keep Hamas in power. This even reached an even more detrimental stage in the, I would say two, three years before October 7th where Hamas didn't just deter Israel.

It coerced Israel. It compelled Israel. The difference between deterrence is a threat that is designed to dissuade you from doing something, right, under, you know, a threat of punishment. Coercion, active coercion means that actor A tells actor B, if you don't do X or Y, if you don't give us Qatari money by say, you know, two weeks from today, then there's going to be a confrontation. And actor B can just infer it accurately infer it from the dynamic. It doesn't even have to be spelled out. They just, they read the situation. But let's just take a quick detour. And I think that'll bring us to the documents because this is a subject which has always

interested me and I've always wanted to really get a firm understanding of it. If Netanyahu, let's imagine it wasn't that Njahou was a prime minister, but it was a prime minister who deeply wanted to restart the peace process in a meaningful way. What would that prime minister's policy have been vis-a-vis Hamas? Because my understanding, and you correct me if I'm wrong, is that Hamas has always had the upper hand. In other words, it's 10 times more likely that Hamas will take over in the West Bank

than the PA was ever going to reassert itself in Gaza. So that meant to me that saying that Netanyahu understood that he could keep the peace process at bay by keeping a wedge between these, really? The wedge is there whether he wants it or not. How could he, did he enhance that wedge in any meaningful way? Could another prime minister have gotten rid of that wedge in a way which would have emboldened the Palestinian Authority in Gaza? it doesn't, I've never understood all that. So what, what, to explain that? You follow, you follow

me, right? No, absolutely. That's a very fair argument and you may be right. Um, I think that, um, I think that Netonio never, never really tried to pursue a, uh, a serious, um, you know, alternative, a serious, I'm not saying it. I don't know, I'm not even saying it was possible. Right. Um, but he never even tried. And for all we know is, deliberate policy was to keep that wedge. Now, whether he would have been able to somehow bring the parties to bring Hamas and the West and the PA in the West back together, I highly doubt that. Well, that's how, I'm sorry, that's how I want to use this, because you uncovered all these captured documents. And these documents tell the story of Hamas, a Hamas, which is much more

committed to the destruction of Israel than even the cynical people felt about Hamas, correct? And if you imagine that back in time, Netanyahu could say, why would I go down this nonsense road here? Look at these documents. Don't you see I was right? When I told you, it would have been a total waste of time and could actually blow up on our face. Anyway, tell us about these documents and what they tell us now about really what Hamas's intentions are. Yeah, absolutely. Just as a side note, I will note that before Netanyahu, we had Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as, you know, just before Prime, just before Netanyahu. And his policy was to try to topple Hamas, right, to bring the PA back into the Gauss strips in order to make a some sort of solution, diplomatic

solution doable. But, you know, the rest of, the rest is history and the what ifs of history are, you know, we're never going to be able to prove anything. Now, to your question about the documents, yes. So one thing to know is that the IDF has seized probably tons, at least hundreds of kilograms worth of documents in the Hamas tunnels. Now, this article, which, again, is the thrust of the article, I started writing the articles before I had access to those documents because I was interested in describing the deep strategic dynamics

that brought about the basic infrastructure to allow this disaster to happen. But then came the documents. And these are only really a handful of documents that the IDF has released for some reason. and these are really staggering. And even for me, like, I'll say this. On October 7th of the first day I was of October 7th, even though I did miss coming, despite the fact that I was working on a book for years.

And I didn't miss one, you know, I read Hamas' newspapers every day and listened to their speeches, et cetera. and I did not see this coming. But in the first hour on the morning of October 7th, I immediately understood what was going on. The minute I heard the leaders of Hamas publicly reach out to their strategic partners,

to the various populations in the Middle East, and saying, this is your day. This is our day. This is the day where all these resistance nodes, these resistance arenas, we all converge. This is the day when we all converge towards the Jerusalem. This is why the operation was called Tufana al-Axa, which means Al-Aksa flood, right? With the flood towards Al-Aqsa. And this terminology was not a coincidence. I mean, this was part of their vision. And, you know, to the extent that you can call this,

it, well, you can call this a strategic plan. And it's in the documents, which are very detailed. This was their plan to overwhelm the state of Israel that day. And the minute they made that clear in the first hour, when they called on their various partners to intervene, I immediately understood what was going on. Now, it's one thing to understand what's going on, and then it's a completely different thing to see those documents, right? Those documents are just in so many words. The technical planning for a joint surprise attack on Israel, which is a joint surprise attack on Israel,

which they had planned slash hoped or banked on we're never going to know partly because they're all dead but they were banking on Hezbollah

and the Houthis, etc. to intervene. They were also banking on the Arab masses, just Arab populations and whether it's in Lebanon or Syria or you know, Israel's a tiny

country. we have no strategic depth. So anyone in Jordan, and this is, by the way, the reason they were live streaming the whole thing, so that these populations, these various, various audiences would realize that Israel was coming down. I think you also mentioned my name. How is there a chance? It just, you know, run to the border. Right.

You run from wherever you are in Jordan. You know, within no time you're going to be on the border. And the same applies to Lebanon, the same applies to Syria, the same applies, obviously, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, et cetera. So they were banking on that. I think you mentioned in the article they also were hopeful that Arabs within the so-called 48 Arabs would join the resistance? Correct, yes. And the reason being was that in May of 2021, there was a 10-day round of escalation, which was the most severe, by the way, in terms of rocket fire, etc. Between Israel and Hamas of the Gulf Strip, and spontaneously, because you can't plan something like this, there were serious disturbances.

I don't know if probably the worst we've ever witnessed here in Israel, especially in the mixed cities, like Aco and Yafo and places like that, where, like, literally instances of lynchings took place. And that was... Lynchings of Jews? Lynchings of Jews or lynchings of Arabs? Well, both, but there were a lot more lynchings of Jews, a lot more.

But both. And I think that, yeah. So following that, the Hamas leader, Yahia Sinwa, who was the architect, because there were only, like, maybe, like, four or five people within Hamas who knew about this plant. But he's considered the architect of October 7th. He started referring to Israel's Arab population as our nuclear bomb in the heart of Israel. Let me ask you a question. Let's question. Given your read of, like, he might have been a bit naive or, you know.

Missyanaic. Yeah, he had an exaggerated idea of what the Arabs, the Arab Israelis would be ready to do. But given the most likely, the possible worst case scenario in your estimation, if Hezbollah had gone, if Iran, if the Houthis, if everybody had joined in. what do you think the outcome would have been for Israel? How, in what dire situation was Israel actually in as they were whistling, you know, on October 6th, thinking they were perfectly safe and better than they'd ever been? I mean, I'm reluctant to say this, but first of all, I think it could have been easily been ten times worse.

borderline existential and by the way what I think is that doesn't really matter I know that the prime minister Netanyahu that's the way he thinks if you listen to a for instance an interview that his closest confidant

Ron Dermer gave what he saw on October 7th the way he put it was like Israel's Jabutinsky's famous iron wall had been penetrated in the scenario that he

feared, even envisaged, was that, you know, the masses would come, you know, just like in a medieval scene, October 7th, it was a medieval scene anyway, but they would just flow through that breach. And I think that one of the most, like for me as someone who, you know, was born in Israel and live my entire life here. And for me, one of the formative, I would say the formative, ratifications of what happened was that I can now close my eyes for 10 seconds and imagine a scenario where that plan works. Right.

Why, by the way, why those disturbances happened in May of 2021 and did not happen on October 7th? And that variation, I don't know how to explain that. No one knows how to explain that. I have a suspicion based on just anecdotal conversations I've had with Arabic friends and things like that. I don't know if it's actually explanation of that specific what you're saying, which could just be chance. But what I've gleaned is that Arabs who live in Israel feel persecuted and feel second class. and have deep resentments that are certainly justified, I'm sure.

But that doesn't mean they want to live under Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. That doesn't mean they don't understand that Israel is an orderly society with a nice standard of living, with freedoms, and that, you know, the alternative is a bloody and persecutorial life, which would be much worse for them. So even though they want their life in Israel to be much improved, That doesn't necessarily mean they want Hamas to destroy the place. That could be.

No, absolutely. Look, I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you. Well, nonetheless, the reality in at least 2021 was that we saw serious disturbances to the degree that, you know, the Prime Minister Netanyahu was thinking just like, you know, just like in Iran to shut down the Internet. Yeah. Because of what was going. going on. So that was really startling. Now, I'm not saying that this could have happened or would have,

I don't know. We do know that Hamas was banking on the popular mobilization of Arab, well, citizens inside Israel, the West Bank, et cetera, and especially in, you know, countries surrounding Israel. Now, I'm not saying that, you know, they would have flooded Israel. but some disturbances something could have happened yeah yeah all you needed really i think all they were banging on that morning was that there would be a sufficient you know amount and volume of really extreme scenes that you the people are just watching on their you know on their cell phones that morning that would motivate more and more people to intervene Now, it could be, you know, five or ten Arab Israelis doing something, and then the image is seen by someone, you know, in Jordan or Lebanon, or you know what, even by Nisrallah himself.

And Nisrella that morning, you know, one of the staggering, you know, realizations even today is the fact that the, well, first of all, the infrastructure. was there. The infrastructure had been laid over, you know, in the course of at least a decade and a half. And that morning, it was basically the decision of the Hezbollah leader, whether, which I'm sure now we regrets not, you know, going in all, you know, all out. But that was up to him. Had he decided differently? And there were top senior leaders. within his ball who supported that option. Now, had he decided

on the morning of October 7th in the first hour to send his guys in, then they would have easily reached cities like Haifa or even south of Haifa. And it would have

shortened the war. I don't know what would have happened. You know, this is all Periel has a question. I have a few more. I just wanted to know what we could surmise that reason might be. Like, why wouldn't Hezbollah want to take advantage of that opportunity? I mean, they're certainly doing that now, right? It seems like... Yeah. Okay. First of all, you froze for a second. I hope...

No, she actually froze in real life, too. That's a syndrome, but go ahead. No, no, that was a question mark at the end of that. Maybe I did freeze. So why did Hezbollah forbear? Why didn't they go in? Well, first of all, we're really never going to know. However, there are several explanations.

One explanation could be that Nostrala saw already in the first hour, because Israel, within the first hour or two, A lot of people realized, and at that moment it was actually true, that Israel had basically lost the war. Within an hour, Israel lost upwards of 1,200 people. This is, like, worse than the Yongkipu War, right? In the first couple of hours and 251 civilians, including toddlers and babies, et cetera, or kidnapped into the Gaza Strip. So that in and of itself was a severe blow,

the severest blow that Israel had incurred in its history. So you could argue that from Hezbole's point of view, hey, you know, all I need to do is somehow force Israel to reach a ceasefire with Hamas. And if Hamas, this was, was done to Israel by its weakest opponent. Its weakest enemy just inflicted the heaviest blow on Israel in its history. A lot of people describe October to October 7th, by the way, as a one-day Holocaust. Yeah. So this could have been his thinking. Israel lost. Israel needs the protection

of the United States even now that morning in order to deter who? deter He's Bala not to take advantage of the situation, right? Biden's famous don't and the deployment of aircraft carriers to the Mediterranean. So that could be one explanation. You know, there must have been an interesting moment. Now that we know in retrospect that Israel had these pagers ready to go, there must have been some decision point where they wondered, should we implement this now before Hezbollah attacks,

or do we wait to see if they attack and then use the pagers? They might have wanted to preempt them if they thought it was likely they were going to attack. Maybe they have intelligence and they knew the attack wasn't coming. I presume they might have that. No, the attack, by the way, an Israel-Hizbollah war could have happened as a phenomenon, just as a miscalculation.

And in fact, it almost did. happened. Literally four days after October 7th on October 11th, Israel was seriously contemplating an act of preemption because it was still, you know, feared that Hezbollah could still intervene. And it was a huge debate. The Americans were opposed to this. Most of the Israeli, actually most of the Israeli security establishment was not opposed. was for operating those pagers in the blocky toxies, et cetera. I think it would have been a huge blunder. With Hamas still standing, right, to start a war with Israel's most threatening enemy.

But it could have happened. By the way, that also goes back to my point about October 7th. That could have happened regardless of whether Israel or Hezbollah wanted a war. So specifically by this, it was really fascinating and frightening, but on October 11th, there were already serious warnings within Israel in the intelligence community that Hezbollah has already started its invasion into Israel. And it was a matter of just a few minutes of determining whether that was in fact going on. and it turned out not to not to be the case so something of even bigger proportions could have happened another explanation why hasbollah didn't um didn't like fully join the war they only joined the war the following day and to a limited fashion was because they weren't just they were just

not prepared uh one of the things that you know in this article i interviewed a brigadier general who has since passed away but he was basically the number two in Israel's intelligence Amit Sao on October 7th and you know from his experience

and obviously saw a lot more intelligence that I did and the documents and everything that we know in retrospect he was convinced that Israel let's put it this way that we we got lucky on October 7th because his argument, which, again, we're never going to know, but it kind of makes sense,

was that we were two, at least, you know, at most, we were two years away from the real thing, from a coordinated multi-front surprise invasion by Hamas and Hasbala, et cetera. Now, the documents, to go back to the documents, there's just really a fascinating and shocking document from June of 2022 where Ismail, sorry, yeah, Ismail Hania, the Hamas leader abroad, whose leader assassinated by Israel, is about to meet Hassan Asrallah, the Hezbollah leader in Beirut. And Sinwar is now like basically briefing him in that document. It's like a six or seven page document. And he's briefing him about the various scenarios that he wants Hania to bring up with Nostrallah.

And the first two scenarios are basically, you know, he's basically talking about like a massive surprise attack, that the purpose of which would be to destroy Israel. They say that in so many words. So anyway, Hania writes back to him after the meeting with Nostralla and says, Strala stopped me after the first scenario, so that we're going, we're going to go for the first scenario. That's with the scenario we're going to work on an all-out surprise attack of Hamas, as well as the various members of the axis of resistance in order to bring down, to overwhelm,

to eradicate the Zionist entity and to liberate Palestine. So this is in the document. Now, this goes to show you that from, like, from Israel's point of view, what happened on October 7th was analogous to it's like an invasion of aliens. It's like something you just, it's just like 9-11

when the commission of inquiry you know, this is the phone most famous line that this was the most overarching level this was a failure of the imagination. Like you just could not envisage something like this.

This is like analogous to like, you know, aliens coming through the window and you don't believe in aliens. And he can't even imagine that scenario. Dan, and then I got three more questions. We're done. Yeah. So, so, you know, in relation to this idea that they couldn't imagine it, certainly there was no, nobody was under the impression that Hamas didn't want Israel destroyed. I'm assuming everybody just assumed that Hamas wanted Israel destroyed. Was it that they didn't think Hamas would dare try? Is that that? Is that, or they didn't even think that Hamas had that goal?

I think there, people realize that Hamas had that role, that goal. It's Hamas. It's in Hamas's platform. But, you know, this is also a question that I, you know, posed to myself. Because I saw, I did, obviously, I didn't see October 7th coming, but I was writing this book and I was following Hamas on a daily basis. And I was, you know, documenting, um, Hamas's, uh, state. to the effect that literally in May of 2021, they said,

this was just, what we just saw was a rehearsal. This was a rehearsal for the next thing, which is going to be the liberation of Palestine. And after that meeting between Hania and Nostrala, which I mentioned, and this is in the paper, right? This is in the newspaper that's very close to Hezbollah in Lebanon. They literally reported that the two parties had agreed on establishing working groups to work towards the liberation of Palestine, right? So even people who, you know, I understand Arabic, et cetera, and I follow them on a daily basis.

And I certainly, you know, I'm not sanguine about Hamas's aspirations and ideology, etc. But I don't think I or not me, not anyone in the intelligence, but imagine that such a scenario was even possible. Given the just given the vast asymmetry, given the sophistication of Israel's deployment around the Gaza Strip, all the censors, et cetera. So just didn't, didn't, you know, never occurred to me that's something that like this could be possible. And I guess one of the things about asymmetry is that if there's an asymmetry in the tolerance for being killed and the tolerance for punishment, that kind of evens it out, right?

They're ten times more powerful than we are, but we're ready to take 100 times the casualties they are. So let's have at it, right? That plus we have a strategy. You're dealing with smart people. By the way, just on it's an interesting, just on an interesting like more academic historical note, that one thing that if you read the literature about Pearl Harbor 9-11 and Barbara Rosa and Yom Kippoo and now October 7th,

you know, the bottom line is always, it's never the intelligence's fault in terms of we always had amazing intelligence. But the intelligence before Pearl Harbor was incredible. And it's the lack of being able to imagine something like this. Can I tell you something there? At the bottom line, by the way, of that entire literature, it's always going to happen again.

Not frequently, once every 50 years, but things of that magnitude will always happen. Because at the end of the day, we're human beings with our perceptions and misperceptions. So let me tell you something. And then I'll get to ask you three kind of rapid fire questions. What you're saying now, I said this once on the show before, but I remember it stuck with me. After 9-11, maybe it was after the inquiry came out. And this issue of intelligence was brought up because we did have good intelligence.

And Fred Barnes, who was a very important commentator at the time, says, yeah, you know, it's like once you know, how the mystery novel ends, you can look back at the clues that were dropped in the novel and say, of course, like, once you know, like, you could look backwards, but within, but looking forward, there's a thousand different things that you're looking at that could be clues. And so you don't really know what you're looking at. And then in retrospect, it's so obvious. Like, of course, didn't you see the guy with the mustache and the, and the hats? Like, of course he was going to kill her, right? But that's kind of what you're describing. Like, similarly in businesses, people say, Well, why don't you just put a lot of security cameras?

Yeah, but you've got to look at, you know, thousands of hours of security. You think you're going to, who's going to look at thousands of hours of security cameras? Like you just, you just, it's a waterfall of clues and potential clues and this and that. And only, I'm repeating myself, as you go look backwards, it becomes obvious what was significant and what wasn't. You can't sift it at this time. So, okay. So question number one is, and this is people like Peter Beinart and Aaron Mate, this is a, this is a, pillar of their opinion. They insist

that Hamas would accept a two-state solution with Israel. What say you? No, I actually think that's, I think they're off the mark. They're off the mark. Hamas is never going to accept Israel's existence.

It might accept Israel's strategic existence as, you know, de facto existence. It's never going to say that Israel's, you know, a legitimate kosher entity. And even if they accepted as a strategic fact, the existence of Israel, it would be, it would be temporary.

It would be until they had, until, you know, circumstances shift in this life and balances of power shift. And, you know, the one point in history, you're weak and then you're strong and then you're weak again. they would, I believe that they would still wait for the opportune moment. So there's no, there's no, there's no, except Israel. There's no document to your knowledge that's ever been discovered where in private

conversations there was any discussion between Hamas leaders where they said, well, if we do this, we do that, maybe then they would agree to a Palestinian state on the West Bank. Maybe we could pressure them and they would agree to a two-state solution of some kind. It's always described in terms of the destruction of Israel, correct? it's always described in terms of the destruction of Israel that you know that doesn't still does not preclude temporary arrangements or temporary indirect agreements between the two parties yeah of course but you know what now after October 7th after everything that has happened I think that this is a and again I would say

this does not preclude the really the necessity to do something about the Israeli-Palestinian issue. But given what has happened, given the pain and trauma on both sides, by the way, both sides, it's just hard to see how Israel would take the risk. Yeah, I think what you're saying is that Hamas might certainly be amenable. to what would amount to basically a unilateral withdrawal of Israel back to 67-ish borders if they never had to agree that it's the end of the solution, if they don't have to agree to be demilitarized, if they don't have to agree to nothing,

but they just pocket that concession and move on. And even that is, you know, the condition that, the condition that Israel let in, you know, solve the refugee problem and bring, let back the Palestinian. Indian refugees. And now once that happens, then that's, you know, that's the end of Israel as we know it. Okay. Question two.

Question two, because we're going to run out of time. There's endless talk by Mearsheimers around the world that Israel killed way more of its own people than we suspect that the Hannibal directive was not only in effect, but that it means that the Israelis actually aimed at their own. people. What is your best guess as to how many Israelis were killed in friendly fire? And to what extent were those orders justifiable that led to those deaths in friendly fire? So honestly, honestly, well, the answer is that I don't know. I think it's really on the periphery. It would be on the periphery of what happened. I was interested.

interviewed by a never mind by who and the person said the the journalist said you know the the nova party where Hamas killed almost 400 is really you know just party goers that was that was not deliberate they weren't planning on doing it just you know they just came across that opportunity what difference does it make? Does it really make a difference? No. You're talking about 400 kids. So, you know, it was unplanned, but they did it. Well, it wasn't unplanned. It was on, they didn't know that they would see such a ripe target right in front of their faces, but it certainly planned to go in and kill people. No, exactly, exactly. I don't even know if they didn't know about the party. I don't, of not that well-versed of the, you know, about the tactical, you know,

We don't even have a commission of inquiry, right? This is one of the things that would be, you know, come into light if we did. But the bottom line is that, you know, they killed a lot of people. And it was deliberate. And it's also in the documents, by the way, to go back to the documents for a second. We have Cinewar's handwritten orders to commit acts of atrocities

that would shock the, you know, the enemy and would shock whoever watch those videos. That's his language used to commit atrocities? Yeah, yeah. That was, I don't remember the exact phrasing, but that's definitely

the gist of it. I'm not, you know, I'm not exaggerating. And this is the language. This was, and this was, by the way, this was strategic. It was deliberate. There was a strategic, you know, strategic thinking behind whatever

it is they were doing. And this was the reason they were live-streaming things. It was deliberate. Last question, unless Parrella Dan has something. What does this all mean for the future. You have everything that we now know

that Israel got wrong. We have an anti-Israel world which if they were beginning to lose, hope that they could ever win this now is reinvigorated and sees it as possible. And you have a march of technology such that these drones,

which now already cost under $1,000 each, are going to cost $50 each, five years or now, and there can be hundreds of thousands of them. What does that mean for the decisions that Israel has to make to be responsible to its citizens to at least make their best effort to keep them safe? Yeah, exactly. Will you ask a bunch of questions within this question?

to your point about the well the fact that Israel is now has been hemorrhaging legitimacy and we are very unpopular in the world to that I will say well first of all that's that is unfortunately true I think it's I think it's reversible I think it's really bad historically bad some of the things that Israel has committed in the Gaza strip it's you know let's put it this way. It's the tension between finding it hard to look yourself in the mirror

as an Israeli, as a Jew, given what has happened, and the realization that it's a good idea that when you look yourself in the mirror, there be a reflection. So first you need to exist, get that out

off the table. You need to exist. And what was in the balance that more, warning was Israel's existence. And we shouldn't forget the fact. We should neglect the fact that already on October 7th, immediately after October 7th, there were demonstrations, including in New York and Timesburg and all sorts of places in the world, denouncing Israel, denouncing and condemning Israel and saying, this is your fault, even before Israel did anything, right? So there's still like Kibbutzim and like the Gaza envelope that's still

occupied and we're being denounced for being the victim and we shouldn't we shouldn't lose sight of that but we should also not lose sight of the fact that these are look I'm not a citizen of a country that has killed 70,000 people in Gaza. I'm also a U.S. citizens so I'm a citizen of another country that killed two or three million Vietnamese, right? This is, this is a, it's a complicated world. You say 70,000, I don't, by the, I'm very much on your wavelength, but I do think we should say, like, it's 40, whatever the number you think is 40,000 civilians. I mean, some number of those 70,000, we have no, we have no problem with them being killed,

right? Yeah. No, exactly. I don't know. It's a, it's a large number. Even if it's all like only 10 or 15 or 20,000, I'd still, you know, this is not something I would ever imagine. More like 40 or 50, I think. But go ahead.

Whatever it is, whatever it is, whatever it is, it's not anything that I imagine, whatever, that I would ever experience in my lifetime. But I didn't ever imagine that I would experience a, you know, an invasion of Israel in an attempt to annihilate this country. Right. So it, this is a complicated story. Now, to go back to your questions about technology and about drones and precision guidance, et cetera, yes. And this ties into the whole asymmetry analysis. A lot of the technologies that we have seen, including, you know, just think about what you've got in your iPhone. Like even the first generation iPhone, you're holding technologies that until a lot of, you're holding technologies that until

a few years ago, you had to be, you know, you had to be a CNN or a CIA or a government in order to be able to do even what we're doing now doing, just like having this, you know, broadcast it on, broadcast on Zoom or Google Maps or, you know, this is all stuff that you needed to be a state, a country, a government in order to possess those capabilities, and now everybody has them, right? Everybody has precision. everybody has very cheap precision guided capabilities, HD, cameras, et cetera. And this is something that not just Israel, but other countries are going to have to deal with

because this is not going away. Now, Israel, just like Ukraine, right now, is in a really good position to come up with solutions because Israel has always, you know, you've heard of the startup nation, right? The reason Israel is a startup nation is because we're in constant friction with our neighbors. Constant friction.

Now, the thing about friction is that military friction generates knowledge. It generates inventions. Because there's no other option. Because if you don't invent now, tomorrow you're going to be dead. If you don't invent now,

a solution in the, northern Israel and southern Lebanon to those very cheap drones with night vision capabilities that they bought from, you know, from, you know, probably off of eBay, then you're going to be in serious trouble, not theoretically sometime in the future, but like in an hour's time, you could be literally dead. So this generates a lot of inventions and knowledge and start et cetera. And all of this stuff are technologies

that a lot of countries in the world are going to want and already want. The Israeli military complex, the industrial complex, companies like Raphael, etc. They are now making billions,

literally billions, off of what has happened throughout this war technology-wise. Because other countries are going to want Iron Dome and arrow missiles, and they are going to want whatever this Israeli strategic lab has to produce. But so, and this also applies to countries that dislike Israel. They are still going to want these technologies.

But how is this, this is the last thing we're out of time, how is Israel going to thread the needle? You say that Israel's standing in the world, you think that can be reversed. And yet, I think we agree that the situation and the technology we're describing is going to require Israel to be more heavy-handed and, in a sense, more oppressive, more surveillance, more everything than ever. Like, if people thought the last Gaza blockade was bad, that's nothing compared to the Gaza blockade that's going to be required now. And how can they manage both those problems at the same time? And my fear is that 20 years from now, Israel is a total pariah state with no choice but to remain a pariah state, quote unquote, because the rest of the world simply doesn't give a shit about the actual real life predicament that they're in. It's like, spare me your belly aching Israel.

All I see is a bunch of Palestinians oppressed. And Israel is going to say, but you don't understand. They would slaughter us the second. And then we don't give a shit about that. We don't believe you. We're not interested. You know, that, that's my fear. So the way I think, the way, the reason I argued that this could be or can be reversible

to at least to an extent. And it could be, it could happen faster than you imagine is because I know that if Israel, if there was some sort of progress in the, on the Israeli-Palestinian arena. And this doesn't have to mean. a Palestinian state tomorrow. But any progress. One of the reasons the world has been so against us is because, and frankly, some Israelis too, because it seems to be, like, look at all this incredible series of phenomenal

intelligence and operational achievements that Israel has made over the past two years and seven months. All of Israel's enemies are dead. But it's never enough. It's never enough. Like when do you start to cash in or cash out? When do you translate all of this into some durable, regional, strategic diplomatic arrangement?

When? The only reason we haven't made any progress vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia is because they're conditioning that, not on a Palestinian state, but on some, you know, prospect of progress on the Palestinian front. Now that, I happen to be someone who believes that that would be in Israel's interest anyway. Absolutely. Because otherwise, because otherwise, that by definition just do the math, this is not going to be, you know, this is going to be a one-state reality. And I don't think the two parties are going to get along that well, to put it mildly. I'm with you. Yeah, I mean, you, by, I mean, you, by,

my fear, and I know it's everybody's fear, is that, okay, and then that's on Monday, and then Tuesday, Hamas takes over on the West Bank also, and then... No, but Hamas has been decimated. Hasbal has been decimated. Yeah, so they're, they're not out, but they're definitely down. Yeah. All these actors, including even Iran, all of the Syria is gone, right? Israel's the, like, all these actors that I wrote my book about, like, literally there's

no one's still alive. And a real strategic environment has completely shifted. So the problem is actually disappeared, but they're completely. They seem to come back. But just so you know, like I express now like the angel or the devil on my right shoulder. On my left shoulder, I constantly toy with the idea, well, maybe they should just unilaterally withdraw from everything. Yes, it's going to be risky. And yes, there's going to be from time to time some bloodshed.

but it might still be better in the alternative than where this is going, which is really an unsustainable nightmare, I think, for not just Israel, for the Jewish people all over the world. Exactly. Yeah, and a lot of Jews, including in New York and other places of the world, feel a lot more vulnerable since October 7th, and I completely understand that. I will say that if you feel vulnerable now,

just imagine how vulnerable you'll feel if Israel were defeated or didn't exist, then you would feel a lot more vulnerable. But that still doesn't mean that it has to be, you know, doesn't have to be in the extremes. We have to find some sort of arrangement solution that is not going to be risk-free. Nothing in this world is risk-free, and we're never going to have, you know, forever peace. But you have to take risk.

You have to take risk. I think Israel is really fast approaching that stage. All right. Daniel Solberman, I'm very pleased to meet you. You seem like a very, very measured, fair-minded guy. I don't know why you're not, or I think you should be more out on the circuit in front of people's eyes. This article, I'm happy to hear that it's going to get a wider release. And maybe, I don't know if you're interested.

I have some connections. Maybe there's a way that you could write some things from time. the time for commentary, the free press or whatever it is. I'm very, very impressed with that article. I sent it to a lot of people. I hope you don't mind that I violated your copyright protections there. Thank you. You'll survive. Thank you so much. And now it's open access here. You're off the hook.

I'm off the hook. So, and I hope you thought the interview was good. Really, this, I really recommend everybody who's interested in this conflict, read this article. as opposed to all the windbaggery out there. This is a researched, as I say, measured, logical analysis of the situation and brings to light information, which I'm a pretty close follower of this stuff. I didn't know this stuff. So it's quite impressive. Any last word is yours?

Can I ask a question? You said we're out of time. I don't want to pose on his time. If he's okay, you're okay. Are you in a rush? If you are, it's okay. I can, uh... Oh, I'm fine.

So one of the things that I've found most disturbing on top of all of it is that this idea or fact that in order to be able to infiltrate in, um, the, the kibbutzim and Otef Azah, that Hamas was given very detailed maps that were, um, that articulated, um, the names of people who live there, bedrooms, children's names, pets. names, really down to the most specific details of these people's homes and that they were given this information by Palestinians who ostensibly were not members of Hamas, who had been going back and forth from Gaza into these communities as workers for 10, 15, 20 years. And that without this information, none of this would have been possible. So if you could

sort of speak to that and say if it's true or if it's not true, I mean, as somebody who lives in New York and who has all sorts of people in and out of her home, as I think many of us do, it's, you get close to these people. I mean, this is really one of the more disturbing parts of, like I said, all of it. Yeah. So again, well, the bottom line is like I don't know. I don't have the, you know, are data. I'm sure that some instances to that effect did in fact occur. However, you would be surprised by the volume of open source intelligence that, well, everybody just, just civilians, you know, posting to, you know, Instagram or Facebook or Twitter from their houses, it's really easy to collect intelligence about

about anyone nowadays. But what's even worse is that soldiers within the IDF were also posting stuff to Instagram or TikTok and that's all out there. And there's a lot of intel. I actually attended a lecture

a couple of years ago. Someone who literally this is the stuff that he researches. And just the examples of the stuff that Intel literally the It's open source, but nonetheless, it's intelligence. If you're planning on invading those localities, those Kibbutzim, the accuracy of intelligence that can be gleaned and garnered from such, you know,

Facebook or Instagram or TikTok posts is just incredible, including from within IDF bases. you can see gates you could see infrastructure you can see all sorts of stuff so all of this is there people tell you you look like bill pullman the actor the president of independence day exactly and the other one and the other one I get a lot more of Michael Douglas ah yeah I can see that too people tell me I look like Michael Douglas One day I'm going to meet him, and I'm going to say, remember you visited Israel like 50 years ago and met, you know, he had that affair.

Well, he's a sex addict. Give me a break. All right. Here I am. All right, sir. Thank you very, very much. Good night. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Good night. Bye-bye.