The Dispatch Podcast - The Old Rules Don't Apply: Israel at War

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

How did the 10/7 massacre change the Middle East? What's Israel hoping to achieve in a ground invasion of Gaza? Are the Israel-Saudi normalization talks dead? Are we giving enough thought to the day after the war? Dr. Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute and its Howard P. Berkowitz chair in U.S. Middle East Policy, joins Dispatch senior producer Adaam to talk Middle East geopolitics. Also: an aside on "from the river to the sea." Show Notes: -Dr. Robert Satloff on Twitter/X (highly recommended to all you geopolitics fiends) -Satloff: Regime Change, Israeli Style -Satloff: thoughts on a post-Hamas Gaza -Hamas' from-the-river-to-the-sea "solution" (MEMRI) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. This is Adam, senior producer, and I'm joined today by Dr. Robert Sattloff. Satloff is the Siegel Executive Director of the Washington Institute, and it's Howard P. Berkowitz's chair in U.S. Middle East policy. He is a prominent expert on Arab-Israel relations and U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. He's also the best-selling author of Among the Righteous. He joins me to talk about how the massacre of October 7th changed. the geopolitics of the region, Israel's strategy towards Hamas and the Palestinians, what can we expect from a land invasion, and is there a plan for the day after the war?

Dr. Robert Settloss, thank you for joining me. It's pleasure. So let's start with how we got here. My immediate reaction to the October 7th massacre was horror at the thought of what Hamas was thinking. Because they understood the retaliation that they are inviting, given the scope of the butchery that they have perpetrated. So my thought was, are they being suicidal? Is this a suicide attack? What was Hamas thinking?

Well, look, I should say that I always. tried to avoid getting into the minds of people. We don't really know what people think. We know what they do. We know what they say. But exactly what motivates them is the realm of psychiatrists, not political analysts. What the impact of what happened on October 7th was to transform the strategic environment for Israel and for adversaries of Israel.

because October 7th was the first time in the 75-year history of Israel that an enemy attacked and took territory, even if briefly for a couple of days, within pre-67 Israel, within the internationally recognized boundaries of Israel. This had nothing to do with the occupation of the West Bank or Gaza. This had nothing to do with protest about this or that. Israeli policy. This was a targeted assault against the civilian population of the state of

Israel within Israel proper. So let's clarify what you just said there for the sake of people who might not be plugged into the history of the region. Occupation isn't just this sweeping term used in college protests against Israel. The occupation has a legal category under international law, and it refers to the territories absorbed by Israel after the 1967 war. Israel was founded in 1948, and its territories until 67, are considered Israel proper. But after the six days war in 67, Israel expands its borders but doesn't apply its sovereignty on the newly acquired territory, specifically the West Bank and Gaza. Instead, it kept these territories under military rule for strategic reasons and with intent to someday down the line potentially cede them back as part of the peace agreement.

That and only that is what constitutes an occupation. and it currently only applies to the West Bank because Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Yes, I mean, this is a huge issue that rarely gets the attention it deserves. So, for example, when a protester marches down the street of Berkeley or Manhattan waving the flag free Palestine,

it matters a whole lot whether they are saying free the West Bank and Gaza, namely the territories Israel occupied in the 67 war, or are they saying free Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Akir, Ashkelon, and Ashdod, which are the territories that formed Israel when it was first founded in 1947. If Free Palestine refers to the West Bank in Gaza,

Gaza? Okay, fair enough. One can have legitimate views about the ultimate disposition of these territories. If one is referring to free Palestine, Jaffa, Tel Aviv, and Haifa, that goes to the heart of the existence of the state of Israel. It is actually advocates for a genocidal exterminationist view about the future of the world's only Jewish state. So free Palestine, but, you know, by itself is not good enough. One has to know what Palestine people are trying to free. And by what Hamas did on October 7th, they made a statement, this isn't about the West Banker Gaza.

This is about Israel. This is about Israel itself as a state of the Jewish people. And we're going to show how much derision, how much hate we have for the people of Israel by using the most barbaric way that we can imagine to implement this attack. And so therefore,

the cutting out of fetuses from pregnant women, the chopping off of heads, the severing of limbs, the killing of families together, it was meant to send a message. And worth clarifying, because this has been a point of confusion, We've discussed before in the dispatch, but it's worth reiterating.

The territories, the towns in the Gaza envelope that have been targeted by Hamas are not part of what we understand as the occupation, are not part of what we understand as the Israeli settlements. They are Israel proper by any definition, by any peace agreement imagined so far. the only way in which it has entered the coverage to discuss these towns as settlements is by this ever-expanding definition of Israel as a colonizer, Israel as a settlement, illegitimate occupation, referring to all of Israel, all the 1948 state of Israel, as in its entirety, illegitimate.

A historical mistake that needs to be undone. Yes, that's correct. The only way one can argue for the legitimacy of what happened on October 7th is to argue that every Israeli citizen, man, woman, child, young, old, mentally ill, whatever, that they are all illegal, that they are all illegitimate, that they are all forcibly occupying someone else's territory, and that their state, And whatever boundary, as small as one would like to imagine it, that their state is an illegitimate state that deserves to be destroyed. That is what the attackers of October 7th were saying. One last thing I did not intend to ask you about, but just because the conversation naturally went there. Can you give us the context?

This is an argument that I've been having backrooms for, They is unfortunately a very tiring argument, but can you give us the context of the phrase from the river to the sea, apropos what we just discussed. Yes, so this is another statement that one hears quite frequently in protests, and I hesitate to use the term pro-Palestinian protests because I think many of the protesters who are in these protests are actually not pro-Palestinian. They may be pro-hamas, they may be pro-exterminationist, But I think the, you know, as significant, if not the majority of Palestinians, don't share these views.

It's a disservice to the Palestinian movement to associate from the river to the sea with the Palestinians as a whole. It depends what aspect of the movement one is focused on. But to get to the crux of your question, from the river to the sea, I mean, al-Dahar, it sounds better in Arabic. It rhymes perfectly. refers to all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which means all the mandatory area of Palestine,

all that territory that the British ran up until they left in May of 1948, including any of it or all of it that constitutes the state of Israel. So when you say from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, that means no Israel, not in any size. Not a little Israel, not a big Israel, not an Israel just of Tel Aviv, but no Israel at all. That's what that saying means, and anyone who utters it knows precisely what they are saying because it means that there is no room for Israel in the territory from the river to the sea. And this is not ambiguous for the broader anti-Israel discourse in the Arab world

and specifically by Hamas affiliates. They would talk about their solution in contrast to the two-state solution. They would say, we believe that all, and this is a quote from a Hamas official in a public interview in Arabic, all of Palestine should be the land of the Palestinians. we did not say that a Palestine state should exist within the 1967 borders is our position, but our position is a state that stretches from the river to the sea. That's how they think of it. They think that any existence of Israel within those boundaries is categorically illegitimate.

And any attempt to describe, to launder this phrase is a disingenuous, talk justification by protesters who have absorbed this openly genocidal phrase without, if I'm being generous, reflecting or processing what it really means. Absolutely correct. So yeah, that was not why I brought you here, but it's been weighing on my chest and I used as an excuse to air it out with you. So back to where we are. So we can't say with certainty what Hamas was thinking, but it's attack.

followed its logic of wanting to push against Israeli sovereignty as a whole, puncturing the sense of Israeli invincibility and in the process terrorizing the psyche of the Israeli public and maybe getting some political leverage by kidnapping over 200 civilians. That's right. I mean, well, look, one can imagine that Hamas did this perhaps having a lot of, been told by its sponsor Iran that Iran would open up a second

front with Hezbollah, the party of God, the Lebanese Shiite group, which is a proxy group of Iran, and that by opening up a second front, it would relieve the pressure on Hamas. Perhaps the hostages were taken as a way

by Hamas to deflect Israeli retaliation, and they thought that that would be a protective shield, as it were, against what the Israelis will do to them. We don't really know for sure, but we do know what they accomplished, and we do know that along the way they took more than 200 hostages. Again, for the first time in this conflict, going back 100 years, this is the first time that a significant number of civilian hostages have been taken across borders

and used as pawns in this conflict. So there are lots of new and novel aspects to what Hamas did on October 7th. And this is why, I mean, I try to grab people by the shoulders and say, the old rules don't apply. You know, the solutions that well-meaning good friends of Israel were offering in recent years

don't apply because what Hamas did on October 7th was so new and novel and that only a different set of rules now applies to the situation. So let's drill into this, actually. What was business as usual in the past? How did Israel and its allies imagine we were supposed to manage the conflict

as the phrase goes, and what changed? So Israel, let's remember, lives in a tough neighborhood. They don't have two large oceans to east and west. They don't have democracies on their north and south like the United States. They have, you know, Hamas on the southwest. They have Hezbollah on the north. They have Bashar al-Assad's genocidal regime on the northeast. East. They do have a relatively friendly peace relationship with the Hashemai Kingdom of Jordan

on their east. But they also recognize that Jordan has its own domestic political challenges. So my point is, in this environment, Israel was satisfied for years with calm, where calm could be achieved. Not peace, not stability, but calm. And so toward the north, with Hezbollah, Israel for the last 15 years or so, has had a situation of mutual deterrence. Isbala deterred by Israeli military power, Israel for its part, deterred by the massive accumulation of Hezbollah rockets and missiles that could, in an extreme situation, wreak havoc against the people of Israel.

And so within limitations, within certain provocations, there's been calm. So too, in the Gaza border, where Israel, it's a different situation, but where Israel and Hamas, which has been the governing body of Gaza, since it took over in a violent coup in 2007.

I say parenthetically, many people say, oh, Hamas came to power in elections. Palestinians get what they deserve. Actually, that's not true. Hamas came to power in a violent coup over the Palestinian Authority. This is when if people's hazy memories need to be jogged,

this is when Hamas started throwing Palestinian Authority officials defenestrated them. Off the rooftops. Defenestrated is out the window. This was off the rooftop. Fair enough. I think there needs to be a different verb for this,

but there was a violent coup. They did, Palestinians did give a plurality of votes to Hamas in a legislative election, but that was not to create an executive authority. It was a different ballgame. Right, and for the context of people who don't remember or know the history of the region,

worth repeating in 2005 Israel withdraws from Gaza, leaving it to be run independently by Palestinians. Gazans run an election, which Hamas wins electorally, mostly because of the deep hatred in the Palestinian streets towards the PLO, then the Fatah party for their venality and corruption, galvanized by its electoral success, Hamas sweeps over God. Gaza and murders any members of the opposition party, Fatah, who still run the West Bank.

This is what starts the Hamas reign over Gaza, and Hamas being deeply religious, Islamist, and Sunni, implements a theocratic regime that relies on oppression and violence to stay in power. That's correct. And it's worth repeating, that's an independent. Hamas regime that does not rely on Israel and is not part of the occupation. That's correct. And so over time, well, just one more sentence on that. In response to the coup, the international community, such as it was, represented by something called the Quartet. This is the grouping of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the United

nations and the UN's peace process envoy, all issued a declaration saying that there'll be no working with Hamas unless Hamas accepted what were known as the Quartet principles. These are the basic entry principles for any Palestinian participant in the peace process, accepting Israel, legitimacy, accepting Resolution 242, and the Oslo Accords as the basic approach for peacemaking and renunciating, renouncing terror. And since Hamas refused to do these, refused to recognize Israel, refused to accept the Oslo Accords, refused to renounce terror, nobody would do business with Hamas. And so Hamas was, yes, the governor of Gaza, but was an isolated actor. Now, Hamas periodically wanted to break out of this isolation.

It wanted certain economic benefits for its people so that it could stay in control. And it wanted to find ways to loosen Israeli restrictions on the import of goods because the Israelis said, Hamas is going to run Gaza, then we're going to put restrictions on what can get into Gaza so that they don't build a military force. They can't build rockets. Well, Hamas would periodically attack Israel using first very crude methods, the earliest rockets, basic stuff that you could, you know, these days people would say you could make it a basement. Just to get the attention

of the Israelis and force them to take Hamas seriously. This would have several rounds of Hamas attacking, the Israelis responding, and the Israelis figuring out some new modus vivendi that would keep Hamas quiet from attacking, but which would have the unintended consequence of deepening Hamas' control over Gaza. the Israelis got used to a pattern of behavior

whereby every couple of years there would be an outburst of violence by Hamas. The Israelis would retaliate. A lot of innocent people would die. Hamas didn't care because in the end Hamas achieved a certain benefit that would in the end restore calm. And the Israeli view was, so be it.

We could do this for decades, and Hamas will still be locked in its cage and would not pose a significant threat to us here in Israel. So this comes down to what most Israelis associate with Netanyahu's managing the conflict approach. It's the approach that takes a green view of the chances of making real diplomatic progress with current Palestinian leadership. and prioritizes finding in the equilibrium between the different factions. A weak Hamas in Gaza that scares the PLO in the West Bank actually leads to a balance of power that is manageable because Israel can work with a PLO,

offer some protection against Hamas, and in the process, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, run by Fatah, developed security relations and even economic relations, as has been said many times in the past two weeks Netanyahu's risky strategy worked for over a decade

until it didn't. Yes. I don't personalize it because it was the entire virtually the entire Israeli national security establishment that went along with the idea that, oh, it's okay to quote, mow the grass

every couple of years and that we can maintain this situation and not worry about any true strategic threat from Hamas. And so there's a lot of blame that will eventually go around for having totally misread this situation. But it is true that pursuing this approach with Gaza set up a real contrast between Gaza and the West Bank, you know, in retrospect, not only did the Israelis fail to appreciate what Hamas was capable of, but I think in retrospect, they will come to recognize that

they failed to take advantage of the opportunities with the Palestinian Authority to make very significant progress on that front. I think that when the Gaza, current Gaza crisis clears and clarifies, you know, when the guns fall silent. And then with a little passage of time after that, Israelis will have to make a decision on a very fundamental question, which is, are we better off separating from these Palestinians once and for all? Or are we better off staying in control because we have seen, you know, what some of them are willing and capable of doing?

This is a terrible choice. Before the October 7th massacre changed everything, how did Israel's allies feel about this managing the conflict strategy? There are different layers to this. There are some, especially in Europe, who urged Israel to take a, advantage of sort of what appeared to be calm to make progress diplomatically with Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

There are others, especially in the Arab world, who were more or less willing to, you know, recognize that this diplomatic impasse isn't going away anytime soon, so we shouldn't let it stand in the way of other interests that they have, and they decided to pursue those interests by reaching peace and normalization agreements with Israel. That's what the Abraham Accords were all about, first between the Emirates in Israel and Bahrain in Israel, and then Morocco in Israel, and lots of progress made on negotiations between, Saudi Arabia and Israel, just as, just in the days before October 7th. And so you had a, I mean, some people called it the outside-in strategy for peace process,

which is instead of focusing on the Palestinian issue, resolving that and using that resolution, as a way to expand Israel's diplomacy around the Middle East, this strategy would use the interests of countries around the region to have relationship with a strong, robust, economically vibrant Israel. And then once that is done, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be sort of brought back to its needs. natural size, important, but not so important that it can impede regional progress. And if it's brought, and just just in the final thought, and if it is brought down to its

natural size, many people would argue, then it would be easier to resolve. When you say brought to its national size, part of the reason the importance of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been inflated so much as to occupy disproportionate headspace in global affairs is because of the strategic decision by Arab countries as soon as Israel declared its independence to preserve the status, of the Palestinian people as the tip of the spear of the war against

the Zionist presence, right? Almost against the interests of actual Palestinian nationalists against the aspirations of real Palestinians. The Arab countries in the regions preferred to see the Palestinians preserved in a state of lowliness in their plight so that this could be used as an international cauddle

against the Jewish state, not out of concern for the people themselves. And this is the thing that's been changing over the past decade plus, which you see in the Abraham Accords and the talks with Saudi Arabia, there's a newfound willingness to acknowledge Israel to accept it

and then out of that work towards resolving the Palestinian plight. Yes. So for a lot of Arab states they reached the conclusion

in the last handful of years that the Palestinian issue was impeding their national interests, that they had a national interest, the state of the United Arab Emirates, the state of Bahrain, state of Morocco, state of Saudi Arabia,

that they had a national interest, that they had a national interest in seeking a partnership with Israel for the benefit of their economy and for the benefit of their security, and that they shouldn't let the Palestinian issue impede that. It doesn't mean that they suddenly became anti-Palestinian or dismissive. It's that they just became more enlightened about their own national priorities. Now, it is true that there is a, you know, regrettably iron law of Middle East politics that Arab states, with very few

exceptions, love Palestine. Palestinians, not so much. And there's a huge distinction here. They love the idea, not the people, willing to sacrifice the people for the idea. We can go into some detail on this. But what we saw in the last number of years is this injection of realism. A very healthy, a welcome sense of realism. It certainly appears as though one of the objectives of Hamas on October 7th was to puncture this new realism that was dominant in many Arab capitals and to try to reimpose the Palestinian issue as the litmus test for acceptable political behavior. I mean, Iran said so. Iran, even before October 7th, the leader of Iran said, watch out, Saudi Arabia. You pursue this at your peril. And we now know what they were talking

about. So the October 7th massacre changes everything. What are we looking at right now? As I said at the outset, October 7th was not just one of these rounds of Hamas getting Israel's attention in order to achieve some marginal improvement in, you know, how many Gaza workers can come get day laborer wages inside Israel or some loosening of, you know, import regulations into Gaza. Now, this was a, this was a transformative effort by Hamas, which, of the sort that we haven't seen in 75 years of this conflict. I think this has, you know, It's the early days, but I think this will have transformative impact on Israel. I think already we're seeing, for example, Israelis articulate the objectives of their retaliation in zero-sum terms, terms that we have never before seen in this conflict, not since 1948.

I mean, with all the wars and all the conflicts, there has never before been a conflict since Arab states tried to extinguish Israel at its birth. There hasn't been another conflict in which either side was committed publicly to eradicate the other side. Every other conflict was political in some sense. Shipping, the Straits of Tehran,

even Sadat and several. It was war in order to trigger diplomacy, and it eventually led to the Egypt-Israel peace. Well, what Hamas did on October 7th is not going to lead to Hamas-Israel peace. That was not part of their plan. Israelis know this, and that's why they've articulated this zero-sum eradication strategy of Hamas. It's a high bar. Don't get me wrong. This is not easily achieved.

But that is what the goal will be. I think part of this, I think we're already seeing, for example, some of the traditional Israeli sensitivity to casualties or the traditional Israeli sensitivity to hostages and what they're willing to pay to get hostages released. I think we're seeing some shift on this too. I mean, historically, the Israelis are willing to do these insanely lopsided deals, you know, a thousand to one

to, they would free prisoners in exchange for for one or two taking captives. Now, I think Israelis, it's not 100%, but there's a much greater tolerance for going after the bad guys

even if it comes at the price of, you know, soldiers and our own innocence, let alone the innocence of the other side. And so I think we're going to see that, it'll be tested to be sure, in the course of battle. But I think we're seeing how October 7th has affected the Israeli psyche. And, you know, in the long run, you know, maybe this will have

a positive impact in the sense that if indeed the Israelis succeed in their goal of ending Hamas rule in Gaza, well, if that truly does come to pass, well, that opens up opportunities for a better governance in Gaza, a government which is, you know, actually cares about the welfare of its people and that might be interested in a mutually productive relationship with Israel. I think we're a bit early in this process to go there. But post-Hamas, Gaza would be terrific. It would be good for the Palestinians in the West Bank. It would be good for the Palestinians in Gaza. So, okay, so we are on the eve of an ever-delayed ground invasion into Gaza, right? This is something that there's a lot of reluctance to really launch that ground invasion,

both from the American side and, to be honest, from the Israeli side, because I think Israelis understand very well just how horrendous it's going to, to play out. It's like nobody is thinking that a ground invasion is going to reach its goals quickly and without exacting a large toll.

But it does seem almost inevitable because if the goal is to eradicate Hamas, it will require boots on the ground, right? So if the goal remains the ending of Hamas' rule, the destruction of all of its military capabilities, et cetera. You know, it's difficult to imagine that can be achieved

through air power alone. Yeah, well, what would it require for Israel to declare success? Well, it's a good question. I mean, so far we've heard Israeli political leaders speak in very definitive black and white terms.

We will destroy Hamas. We will end Hamas. We will, you know, get rid of Hamas. When you scratch the surface a bit and you ask, well, what does that really mean? Does that mean you get rid of every Hamas and janitor and every elementary school in Gaza? Or does that mean that you do you know, what if Hamas surrenders tomorrow?

Do you take them all prisoner and put them on trial? What is your goal here? Not every detail has been worked through, but I think that the Israelis still remain committed to ending Hamas political control of Gaza, and in the process of that, destroying Hamas's military capability so that no force in Gaza can undertake the sort of attack that took place on October 7. Now, do they have a clear idea of who will fill the post-Hamas vacuum? No. But even forget about that. How does Israel

guarantee Hamas is out of power? You can eradicate its entire leadership. You can have them arrested or assassinated. But if there is still enough support for Hamas-type resistance in Gaza, which I assume will only become more fervent after the war, did Israel even achieve anything? We've done public opinion polling. We even do public opinion polling in Gaza. And we did it just last summer. And no more than 30% of the population of Gaza supports Hamas. And the majority, the vast majority of the population of Gaza criticized Hamas for breaking a ceasefire that Hamas did this past summer. I think, you know, here's an interesting wrinkle here. If the Israeli, I think for a large percentage of the population of Gaza, the worst

Israeli response would be all the bombing and all the killing and not to end Hamas's rule. That if at the end of this, Hamas is still running Gaza, then that for many Gazans, that would be the worst tragedy and the less worst tragedy is all of that but getting rid of Hamas and so you know

it's I mean there's this is a terrific a website called Whispered in Gaza which quotes which does interviews with Gazans today in the middle of the conflict and what you hear from them is

look this is horrible this is terrible But if you're going to do it, finish the job and at least get rid of Hamas so that we're not left with this horrible, terrible regime when this is all said and done. Wow. Beyond Israel's standard operation approach to try and prevent civilian deaths during its attacks, is Israel making an effort to keep the Gaza's strong

street on its side, the people in Gaza, whether it's the general public or key resistance figures in Gaza on its side so that when the day comes, there will be a form of leadership or a civic society that is willing to work with Israel or at least to accept a detent with Israel. So I can't say that this is at the moment a very high Israeli priority. I think the base thinking is when Hamas is gone we're in a different universe us and our friends

our Arab friends our European friends our international friends will have to figure out how to fill the vacuum but the key part of filling the vacuum is to ensure that it's not filled by Hamas and basically almost any other alternative will be more constructive I don't think they're spending

much psychic energy or practical effort in trying to reach out to elements within the Gaza population at the moment. Isn't that worrying? No, not particularly. I mean, you know, these are people that are about to plan or implement the most significant high-risk military operation that the country may have, has ever seen.

I mean, we tend to forget, you know, we tried, the United States did this sort of thing in Raqa and Mosul without all the international journalists, you know, photographing American soldiers, every step of the way, without protests in major American and European cities. What the Israelis are about to try to do, totally unprecedented. And I think their focus is on that. Looking at the way that the international community has responded to the past two weeks, there have been some encouraging signs, including from Francis Macron, and certainly from the Biden White House,

these are reactions that have acknowledged the gravity of what happened and the necessity of Israel to act while also exhorting Israel to respect international law, whatever that means. While also you see them more discouraging, if still predictable, reactions from the likes of the UN chief

who devoted his speech to provide the context that prompted or justified in his mind Hamas' decision to launch a pogrom against Israeli Jews. Are there adults in the international community who rather than make perfunctory calls for a ceasefire actually try to think through what a post-Hamas world might look like? So there are very serious people that have begun talking about this. My colleagues and I here at the Washington Institute produced what I think is a, what I hope is a useful contribution detailing what we thought would be constructive principles for post-Hamas administration in Gaza. I think that there are several other such efforts going on elsewhere in Washington. You know, they all more or less focus on the need for an interim administration

before the Palestinian Authority is in a position to become the administrator of Gaza once again. There's some debate about the details which are important, but, you know, not earth-shattering. So yes, there is thought being given to this. But we're nowhere near this yet because, remember, this only kicks in with stunning Israeli victory, with Israel achieving its strategic objective of ending Hamas rule. Not to be trite about it, but every battle plan lasts, you know, barely survives contact with the enemy, and the enemy gets a vote in all of this. And so we will see where, you know, where the Israelis are once this begins.

Yeah, I do think that there will be even more work done in the post-Hamas options once we know that the Israelis are, in fact, going in. Oh, you think there's a chance that we are going to avoid ground invasion? Look, is there, look, you know, I think we should all be modest about what the future will hold. Fair enough. This is where October 6th, we wouldn't be having this conversation, right? So it's not zero. So as somebody who does have the benefit of thinking long-term and strategically, can

at least give me a sense of what are the scenarios that you're imagining should Israel achieve its objectives? And also, what does the word look like if it doesn't? Well, yes. So, you know, if they succeed, well, you know, nothing succeeds like success. If they succeed in a stunning fashion, you know, part of it will depend on how. many, you know, what sort of terrible damage is done in the process. The, you know, the very sad and regrettable toll and innocent lives that will, that will be lost in the process. Is this done swiftly?

Is this done slowly, agonizingly? We'll see. I mean, in the best case scenario, the swift collapse of Hamas. and the Israelis go in rather quickly to mop up the leadership, arrest a bunch of local political officials, and then having gathered all the weapons, stockpiling them, and then leave because they have no desire to reoccupy Gaza.

That's the best case. then we better be ready to work with them to install a civilian administration, preferably based on local Palestinians and Palestinian expatriates, to run Gaza with the support of what I think should be regional police forces, not armies, no military occupation, but just to protect against looting and retribution, that sort of thing. and then a massive, you know, repair, reconstruction, redevelopment effort led here also by major Arab donors. This is the best case, you know,

and then, you know, before too long, three years, five years, the Palestinian Authority will be in a position, hopefully, to resume its original role as the government in the area. This is the best case scenario. if the Israelis go in and regrettably find, you know, find themselves unable to achieve their goals and they are forced to accept a diminished Hamas, but yet Hamas still runs Gaza,

or to put it another way, if Muhammad Daif, the head of Gaza's military, and Yahya Sinwar, the head of Gaza's, political administration can emerge from the rubble and wave their flag and say, still here, we're still in charge. In my view, this will have been a strategic defeat for Israel that over time will likely only invite more audacious, more threatening, more lethal types of attacks of the sort that we saw on October 7.

Given that, as you just suggested, there are other countries that are paying close attention to what's going on right now and especially the Iran orbit. And we know that there have been attacks or a smattering of attacks launched from Syria, from Lebanon,

Hezbollah, and from the Iran-backed hoodies in Yemen. Are they testing the ground or doing the bare minimum to show support for Hamas? It's an interesting question. Iran already achieved enormous political victories by the end of October 7th. It already, through Hamas' attacks, punctured the image of Israeli invincibility. It inspired the Arab street, as it were, for the first time in years, to unify in support of the Palestinian cause.

It undermined the diplomacy that was on the way to leading to a Saudi Israel peace. And it, you know, it showed that its path, the path of violence, killing, maiming, raping. This was the path that actually struck a blow against Israel and put this issue back on the map. So it scored great, you know, for it, great successes by October 7th. That means, well, one implication of that is, Well, maybe we, Iran, if you're sitting in Tehran,

maybe we don't have to throw more assets into this fight right now. Maybe we don't have to expend our Hezbollah assets. Maybe we don't have to, you know, turn on completely all of our Houthi or Shiite militia assets against the Americans and whatever and their allies. Maybe we can save them for another day when they'll be even more needed. And so we haven't really seen the Iranians yet throw those assets into the fight. Now, perhaps also they're being deterred by the impressively robust American military deployment in the region in the last couple of weeks. I mean, it is no small thing that the United States has moved two aircraft carriers into this region

and a marine amphibious force, lots of aircraft, all of which is designed. designed to warn Iran and its, you know, bedfellows against escalation. So I think both of these factors plays a role. Iran satisfied that they already had significant achievements. And Iran saying to themselves, why do we need to pay a bigger price for the gain will probably be marginal, but we might pay a bigger price if we throw all of our other assets into the fight. So, so far they've held their powder, to mix a couple of metaphors, so far they've held their powder, I don't know. If the Israelis go full, into a full, you know, ground effort

against Hamas, maybe that's what triggers something. Or maybe the Iranians say, sorry, guys, you're on your own. That's also a possibility. because here, you know, that iron law of Middle East politics that I referred to earlier, it applies to the Iranians too. They love the Palestinian issue. Palestinians themselves, you know, if it means Hamas and Palestinians in Gaza lose their lives, the Iranians are not going to lose sleep on that.

You mentioned that one of the goals for Iran was thwarting the talks between Israel, and Saudi Arabia. It's two geopolitical opponents. Are these talks dead? No. It's a good question. I don't believe that they're dead.

I have reason to think that the two sides still see value, see great value in finding a way to an agreement. But there's just so much else that's going on at the same time, too. And so, look, why does states make peace with Israel? And so this is an important point to underscore. Why are these countries in the last number of years making peace with Israel? Because Israel was perceived as strong, powerful, able to take care of its own interests, and while doing that, building up a strong, powerful economy.

October 7th damaged that image and unless Israel is able to repair that image then there'll be an uphill challenge to get others to sign on to further peace agreements I think they want to but before they do they go on to see that the Israelis really repair their broken deterrence yeah prove to us you are who we thought you are

prove to us you are who we thought you are, that you are the partner we thought that we were about to sign an agreement with, the strong, a powerful, you know, partner that is able to deterrence enemies and defeat them when necessary. That's what they want to see.

Dr. Sattloff, thank you for joining me. Very happy to talk with you. I'm going to be able to be.