The Team House - Why the Arab American Vote Went for Trump | EYES ON PODCAST

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

Jasmine has served for over 25 years in public and private-sector organizations covering issues related to national security and international affairs, including as a consultant to the US Department of Defense, United Nations and the European Union. Her podcast, Mind/work with Jasmine El-Gamal, explores mental health in the workplace through storytelling. Jasmine served as special assistant to three consecutives under secretaries of defense for policy at the Pentagon, where she advised on national security issues. During this period, she also served as a translator and cultural advisor in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. While in government, she won numerous awards for her contributions to policy formulation. After leaving government Jasmine was a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council and a Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.  Her commentary has appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, The Atlantic, Newsweek, Time Magazine, CNN, Al Jazeera, Al Hurra, L’Orient du Jour, Sawt al Azhar, Al Masry Al Youm, Le Figaro, BBC, Sky News, The New Statesman, Sky News Australia, and other international outlets.She is the founder and CEO of Mindworks Strategies advises organizations and individuals on crafting empathy-based, culturally driven approaches to policy, strategic communications, and workplace mental health.Find Jasmine here:https://mindworkstrategies.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmineelgamal/?originalSubdomain=ukhttps://x.com/jasmineelgamal?lang=enFind Andy Milburn here:⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023https://amilburn.substack.com/https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsSupport the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse#trump Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey everyone, Andy here. I just want to put in a quick plug for the new channel, Eyes On. Previously, we fell under Team House and we shared subscribers. And what we're doing here is branching off, still within the Team House franchise. But it is important that we build up Steam with our own subscription base. So please, cost you nothing. Click on the subscribe button. Thank you. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Eyes On.

And this week, it's just me as the host, but to make up for that, we have a tremendous guest. Jasmine El Gamal, who I count as a friend. She has served for 25 years in public and private sector organizations covering issues related to national security, including as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense, the UN and the European Union. And I'm going to talk a little bit about her role in the Pentagon, which is especially impressive. She served as special assistant to three consecutive under secretaries of defense for policy at the Pentagon, where she advised on national security issues, but particularly in relation to the Middle East. And during this period, also, she served as a translator and cultural advisor in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

and if we have time at the end, Jasmine, I would love to hear some of your thoughts about that now looking back. While in government, she won a bunch of awards for her contributions to policy formulation and real awards, too, I might add. After leaving the Pentagon, she went into think tank land. She was a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a visiting fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations. And she's written and appeared extensively. I'm not going to list all the publications, but everything from Washington Post, USAA, Today, Newsweek Times, CNN, Al Jazeera, which she just came from, also European media and media across the Middle East.

And she's also founder and CEO of an organization called MindWorks, which advises organizations, primarily businesses, but any organizations and individuals on crafting empathy-based, culturally-driven approaches to policy, strategic communications, and workplace mental health, which is, you know, mental health has been a topic close to her heart as it is to mine. And so I'd love to hear a little bit about that at the end, Jasmine, if we have time. She's also, she hosts her own podcast, mindwork with Jasmine Elk Amal, where she talks about exactly that mental health

in the workplace. Jasmine, welcome. It's great to see you again, and it's good to have you on board. And by the way, she's in D.C. now, heading back to London, which is my hometown. So I hope to run into her again soon there. Jasmine, great, great to have you.

I think, you know, in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. elections, I would love to hear your thoughts on how Arab Americans voted and why. What kind of the, and I know that's an absurd generalization, but what what kind of the trends and perceptions that shaped how they voted? Of course. And thank you so much, Andy, for having me. And it's really good to see you. It's been a while since we've spoken. I think a lot has happened since then. So I'm looking forward to our conversation. In regards to your first question about Arab Americans, I mean, I think this is a really interesting topic. And there are a few different angles, I guess I would like to go into when it comes to that. I think, first of all, I think it's important to just note, and I know a lot of people know this, but we often have found in the media people talking about Arab and Muslim Americans as sort of a monolithic group that they're going to vote one way or they feel a certain way about

a certain issue when in fact actually there have been and always have been a wide variety of opinions and priorities within that community. Many Muslims in the U.S. are not Arab, in fact. They're Asian. Many Arabs in the U.S. are not Muslim. They're Christian. They're Chaldean. They're Assyrian. I mean, so it's just such a, it's a vibrant, diverse and complicated and complex set of communities. So with that caveat aside, I guess I would say that obviously one of the main issues at the top of the agenda for many Arab and Muslim Americans this last year has been the war on Gaza and the war in Lebanon in more recent months. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict writ large, but particularly the war over the last

year that that of course was kicked off by Hamas's terrorist attacks on October 7th in Israel against Israel. And so a lot of a lot of people in that community had been very hurt and frustrated at the Biden administrations, not only their policies and what they saw as unconditional support to Israel as it violated human rights law, international. law and just, you know, they were, as we all were, you know, watching the most horrific scenes across our televisions and social media for the last year. And a lot of the community really felt that the Biden administration not only was enacting harmful policies that were detrimental to the security of the region, but also that they weren't, that the Biden

administration wasn't paying attention to those. voices within the Arab and Muslim communities that were asking for meetings, that were trying to share their thoughts, offer their advice, try to impact those policies in some way. It wasn't until really late in the game when Biden was still running for president that he eventually sent some of his team members to Michigan to talk to the community there. And of course, by that point, it was sort of almost too late. Like it's so obvious that this is an election-related issue that you're just meeting with us to check a box.

You know, that's how they were feeling. And also he just sent his team members, but he didn't go himself. Right. Is that correct? Yeah. And some criticism from Dearborn, too, that Kamala Harris didn't do much better in that regard

and talking directly to them. Exactly. That's what I was. Yeah. And that's what I was coming to. So by the time that Biden stepped aside and Kamala Harris became the nominee, there was already this real kind of reservoir of frustration and anger and disappointment and hurt, you know, feeling really dehumanized, feeling unimportant, feeling unimportant, feeling like their voices didn't matter as Americans, not as Arabs, but as Americans, as voters. And so although Kamala Harris began her campaign talking about this issue in a much more notably more empathetic way than President Biden had spoken about it, I mean, if you remember President

Biden early on famously questioned the death toll in Gaza, you know, constantly feeling like he was focusing on the Israeli side and not really tapping into that Arab pain, that Palestinian pain. So when Kamala Harris came in, there was a notable shift in that rhetoric. You could see more empathy. You could see more discussion and acknowledgement of Palestinian suffering of civilian casualties. There was a speech that she gave in Selma, Alabama, where she talked about it in detail, you know, really kind of humanizing people in the Middle East and particularly Palestinians in Gaza. So there was a, I would say, sense of optimism early on that she could be different.

But I think what we saw throughout the campaign was that Harris was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place in the sense that she was vice president. So she was part of the administration that was enacting these policies that were angering Arab and Muslim Americans, or at least many of them. She was also a candidate that was trying to win an election. And with all of the politicking that comes with that. So there was really, you know, I think her team made a decision that she was made a decision that she was, not to differentiate herself too much from Biden, that she was not to step out ahead and say things that might lose certain other demographics, whether it was, you know, the Jewish vote or the larger pro-Israel vote, which includes Christian evangelicals as well in the U.S. So what ended up happening

was a really watered down campaign when it came to the issue of Gaza, not really saying much, kind of repeating the same refrain over and over again, end the war, at least the hostages, felt very empty, it felt very inauthentic. And of course, there was a blow during the DNC, the Democratic National Convention, when despite huge efforts, advocacy efforts, and engagement by Arab Americans and Muslim Americans,

Palestinian Americans, that the campaign decided not to allow a Palestinian American speaker onto the stage, whereas they allowed the parents of the late Hirsch-Goldberg-Colon, his parents, Rachel and John, who are incredible human beings. And actually, they went on that stage, and their son had not been tragically murdered yet, and they gave an incredibly moving address. And they actually mentioned the suffering in Gaza as well. And a lot of people were really grateful for them to that.

I mean, they really are incredible, incredible people. And so all of that basically culminated in the Arab American and Muslim American vote as it relates to Gaza, kind of splintering. It's split. Some of them said, there's no way I can vote for Harris. A, she was part of the Biden administration. B, she hasn't shown us any reason to vote for her. She hasn't given us any hope that she will change her policies if she were to become president. So you had people who said we're not voting for her.

You had people who said we're voting for Jill Stein, which ended up actually being not that many people at all. Jill Stein hold terribly, I think 0.4% at the end. You had people who just didn't vote at all, you know, who said we don't feel included in this democratic process. You obviously don't care about us. You don't value our lives. And so we're not going to vote at all. And then, of course, you had the Arab and Muslim Americans who decided to vote for Trump. Now, I've spoken to some of them.

And there are, of course, various reasons also why they would vote for Trump. It's not only about Gaza. Some people voted for Trump because he said he would end wars in the Middle East. Some people voted for Trump because of that social values, because generally that community is more socially-christ. traditional. So they voted based on things like, you know, they, they believed, you know, that their, that their family values closer aligned with the Republican Party than with a Democratic party. And so on. And so I guess, you know, what I'm really trying to say is the community didn't

vote in one way. The vote was really passed, you know, along a wide range of issues. But certainly, certainly the Gaza, the war, the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and the wider Israel-Palestine conflict factored in was one of the main factors in many people's decisions. She ended up losing Dearborn Michigan. She ended up losing Michigan as a state. And so I guess whenever I talk about this topic, I always try to end on a positive note. And I think, and not only for the sake of it, because I actually do see a silver lining in this. And I think the silver lining is I think that probably for the first time that I can remember that the Arab and Muslim American voice and vote and community has now emerged as a political force as a voice to be listened to. And, you know, we saw that when Donald Trump went to Michigan himself and tried to court that vote in the last days of the election.

And I think that if that community, if those efforts, regardless of who they're for, whether a Democrat or Republican, if they continue to organize and if they continue to remain very active and engaged in the civic process, in the electoral process, in domestic politics, then they do have a chance of in the next round of elections, in the midterms, moving forward in general, being an active, vibrant, respected community voice, political voice. And I think that that would be a good thing for our democracy, for the community, and really just across the board. So that's how I try to look at it when I look at, you know,

what happens now and where do we go from here. That's a really interesting comment that makes perfect sense to me about values, social values, because of being a tendency towards more conservative values. You know, we always say politics are always local and why should it not be also for Arab Americans, Muslim Americans. And I think, you know,

anecdotally, I commented earlier, I found myself in the parking lot of a mask here in Tampa last Friday and saw a number of Trump stickers, you know, bumper stickers. And that did have me, you know, now it kind of it makes sense. And I'm hypervising here, hypothesizing, but finding yourself in a country that you have chosen to live in, and yet the values are always shifting a little bit, right?

And the perception of values are shifting. And maybe those values or perception of those values aren't what drew them to the country in the first place. So there's concern about that that has nothing to do with foreign policy. I think that's a great, you know, great comment. Yeah, I mean, just on that note, Andy, there is a British journalist. His name is Owen Jones. I'm sure you know him, you know, very liberal, very progressive, young voice. And he had been, like many other British journalists, had been in D.C. to cover the elections.

And he tweeted that he was, you know, heading back to his hotel in New York City. And his cab driver was a Pakistani Muslim. and that Pakistani American Muslim, and that he told Owen that he voted for Trump because of the price of, I think, groceries or something related basically to the cost of living. And, you know, my first instinct when I saw his tweet and a lot of people in the comments were commenting on this,

why do you assume automatically that, you know, just because someone is Pakistani Muslim, that they would vote for the Democrats? I mean, they're American too. They care about cost of living. they care about social values. I mean, whether or not you agree that Trump or the Republican Party is better on those issues, of course, there's disagreement there.

But that's the, you know, that's what was at the top of his mind as an American. So I think the lesson also here is like, let's not judge people by, you know, by the, or let's not judge a book by its cover. People, you know, regardless of their ethnicity or their country of origin, at the end of the day, we're American, and we vote as Americans, and we may be concerned with foreign policy, and that may be the issue for some voters, but also not for others.

And that shouldn't be a surprise. Yeah, you know, again, a great point and applies to all groups, but I see a point about that when we come to election time, we always talk about the Latino vote and the black vote, and although the Arab-American vote is very small by comparison, that is positive that now at least it's being courted, right? And, you know, Trump, apparently Trump has even, during that speech in Dearborn, I haven't seen a transcript,

so I have to check my facts, but I've heard that he's even talked about appointing a Muslim, member with the cabinet, which would be, you know, which would be potentially an important gesture, if nothing more. Yeah, he also reportedly is going to involve his daughter, Tiffany's father-in-law, who's Lebanese American, in efforts to reach out to the Arab and Muslim world. And I think he's, if what I'm reading is correct, I mean, it's still early days that he's, he may be replacing Amos Hochstein, who is the envoy to Lebanon working on Israel, Lebanon issues. So, you know, I think that, and if you remember, Andy, he also mentioned Arab Americans in his victory speech on election night.

And so that's a far cry from the Donald Trump of, you know, 2016 when he was talking about, you know, Arabs and Muslims in this really derogatory way. now that he has been endorsed by them. He has a son-in-law that is Arab. A lot of people, and of course, time will tell. But a lot of people are taking all of those signs as perhaps hope or anticipation, that a second Trump term will be quite different for Arabs and Muslims than it was in the first.

That's, you know, and we keep, as a host, obviously, I remain nonpartisan in this. So I'm simply stating facts. And one of the facts that, you know, even looking at the last term, actually fewer people died in America's wars during the last four years of trumping and power. I'm talking not just Americans, but, but foreigners too. Fewer people died than under any other president this century. So I can't help thinking that the promise to the promise to end wars. them at least, although it sounds very vague, you know, people sense maybe, I mean, there is a genuine

desire to do that. And I'm only saying this, I think probably in the same spirit that you are, is we need to look past the bombast of election and campaigning to try and, you know, there's little point in speculating about what lies ahead, I would argue that if, you know, Donald Trump's supporters and his opponents both agree that if he has one rock solid, continuous trade it is it is his lack of predictability. That's right. But it's, you know, it's still, it's worth reminding people who are wringing their hands right now that the last year has been awful for U.S. perception of U.S. foreign policy

on the Arab Street. you and I have both been involved for a long time when the U.S. foreign policy, but you can remember the dark days of Abu Ghareb. Today's the 20th day of the Battle of Lujia that I was involved in. Those were days that Americans were not looked on very well in the Middle East. And I just returned from Jordan, well, actually a couple months ago. And I've got to tell you that, you know,

a country that has been always very friendly and pro-American, I sensed a lot more hostility and almost at the same level as it was during the worst days of the war. That's right. That's right. I mean, look, I think that there has been tremendous, tremendous damage done to the image of the U.S. in the region. I would argue around the world, Andy, of course. I know we're going to hone in on the Middle East and focus on the Middle East and the Arab opinion.

But I do think it's important to state that, you know, and I say this because I, you know, I always kind of push back on these, you know, these kind of stereotypical buckets of, you know, pro-Palestine, pro-Israel. I mean, there is also just a large, large contingent of people across the globe who are just pro-peace, you know, who. you know, Jews, Arabs. You know, I mean, they are just pro-peace. They want both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace. They want the region to be stable and secure. They want to see international law and international norms and rules being upheld by the countries that purport to be the defenders of such international norms and rules.

You know, I mean, it's a wide-standing coalition of people who want to see justice and who believe in humanity and the protection of human life. So, you know, with that said, I would say when it comes to the Middle East and Arabs in the Middle East, there has been huge damage done in the sense that they, you know, and you can see this a lot of Arab writers. And, you know, I would urge your listeners, actually, there's a really incredible essay. And I'll try to send this to you. Maybe you can put it in the notes of this episode.

an incredible article or sort of not analysis, but just commentary, I suppose, by a Lebanese writer. Her name is Lina Munzer. And she wrote an article that was shared, you know, so widely by Arabs, by Muslims, that was essentially talking about the most difficult aspect of the last year, not physically, the most important non-physical aspect of the last year when it comes to so many Muslims. and Arabs in the region is the sense that their lives don't matter, that their lives are lesser than, and that people that they knew, you know, people in the West, people they had considered friends or colleagues or countries they had looked up to, it was that shock of realizing,

wait a minute, have you never cared about our lives? Is this something new? Or has this always been the Have I been operating under a complete lie that you looked at me as an equal human being? Certainly, it appears that that is not the case now. And that is what I think so many people in the region are grappling with. Now, of course, some people will tell you, well, we always knew that was the case because, you know, look at what they did in Iraq and look at Guantanamo Bay and look at all these other places. for some reason this last year has hit differently. Perhaps it's because of the scale and the enormity of what we're seeing happening in Gaza. I mean, you know, there is a case at the International Court of Justice reviewing the Israeli War in Gaza as a plausible genocide. The International Criminal Court has requested that the court issue arrest warrants for war crimes against, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galant, of course, along with Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyah from Hamas,

who are now deceased, of course, so that doesn't really apply to them anymore. But it has been an objectively shocking level of death and destruction and war that the region has seen continuously for over a year now. And the fact that none of these Western, countries that are, you know, were such vocal defenders of human rights when it came to Ukraine, for example, who never hesitated to call out Russia's aggression, Russia's bombing of hospitals, you know, Russian war crimes in Ukraine, now finding it seemingly impossible to do the same when it comes to Israel, Palestine, the media, you know, the way that headlines are being written when it says, you know, eight Palestinians killed or, you know, killed by who? Like, why can't you name

what is happening? Why can't you actually name it so that you can demonstrate that our lives are of equal value and that and that it matters that we are being killed? We're not just dying. We're not just dying, right? It's not a passive act. We are being killed. And so that's the sense, you know, in the region. And speaking of Jordan, I've been to Jordan several times in the last year. And in fact, I was there the night that Iran attacked Israel back in April. And we were supposed to be flying back to London the next night. And the airport was closed because the Jordanians had activated their air defense missiles, of course, because the Iranian missiles were flying over Jordanian territory. So it's not only that people's security around the region is being,

is being affected by the war between Israel, Hamas, Israel in Gaza, Israel and Iran, Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Of course, it affects the entire region, not just the parties to the conflict themselves. But also, you've seen this intense solidarity with Palestinians. I want to say reemerge or be reactivated. It has sort of ebbed and flowed over the years, depending on what people were facing in their own countries. But we've seen that huge resurgence in pro-Palestinian sentiment across the region. We've seen very committed boycotts of places like Starbucks and McDonald's. Jordan has been the most, I would say, out of all the countries I've been to. I'm sure you've seen this when you go to Jordan. Starbucks is empty.

No one goes there. Right there in that central mall, it's absolutely empty. It's almost embarrassing. You walk past it. It's just the employees. And they're often hanging. outside because there are no customers inside the store. McDonald's, you know, and it's the younger generation too. It's kids 12, 13, 14 who are taking these boycotts very seriously. And so it's that younger generation as well that's growing up in this context of Israeli aggression, American aggression, American support for Israeli aggression. These are all things that the younger generation is now is now growing up with. But, and I'll say one last thing. about this particular phenomenon is that I think that as a result of this sort of renewed

sense of purpose in supporting Palestinians and the Palestinian cause, you are finding a lot of people, you know, there's kind of a growing schism between the government, you know, official government responses and what the people in the street are doing. So there's been, for example, a lot of criticism in Jordan and in Egypt, the two countries that have peace treaties with Israel and intelligence cooperation and diplomatic ties, that they haven't used that leverage, that they haven't threatened to withdraw any of that as a way to get Israel to change its behavior in Gaza or in Lebanon. You haven't seen the Egyptians. You've seen the Egyptians even. I was talking to someone the other day who was criticizing President Sisi for not allowing more humanitarian

assistance into Gaza on the Egyptian side. And so, you know, there's there's a lot of anger, I would say now, not only towards Israel and the U.S. and Western countries, but also in some cases towards their own governments for not doing enough on their part in however they can to impact the situation in the region in the Middle East. Yeah, in a way, Gaza, what has happened in Gaza, has really shown up. I mean, it's kind of always been the case that many governments in the Middle East, they beat their chest when it comes to the issue of Palestinians, but at heart it doesn't seem to be a core national interest in Egypt.

is a great example. You know, C.C. obviously is a great opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood, having thrown over Morsi, and he is concerned about Brotherhood infiltration in the Egyptian army. And so I'm sure between him and his previous intelligence chief, I know they just changed intelligence chiefs. There was kind of almost a tacit, I won't say encouragement, but certainly collaboration with Israel in this. I know I'm going to say that without sounding like a conspiracist. No, I mean, you know, cooperation, certainly, right?

Cooperation. And, you know, the Egyptians obviously were, you know, slash R to the extent that there's anything going on now with negotiations over the hostages, the Philadelphia corridor. I mean, the Egyptians have a stake. They're involved. And, you know, I will say the one, one interesting development has been, the impact on Saudi Israeli normalization prospects, where that was kind of full, you know,

going full steam ahead before October 7th. And they were, you know, the talks were very serious. They were at a very advanced stage coming on the heels of the Abraham Accords and normalization with the UAE and other countries. And then, of course, October 7th put a stop to that. Now, there were reports, of course, if you remember, member, and I know from talking to friends of mine in the administration, that those talks were still somewhat, you know, warm, I would say, in the very, very beginning of the war. But once it was clear that, you know, Israel was just going all out, you know, full, full on destruction as the civilian casualties mounted, it became nearly impossible for MBS, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia,

to entertain, you know, at the very least publicly, any kind of discussion about normalization with Israel. And the Saudis over the months have become more and more vocal, more and more stringent about their requirements for restarting those talks in a serious way, talking about a recognition of a Palestinian state and Jerusalem as the capital and 1967 borders and, you know, all of this stuff.

That, you know, it has been saying, now publicly by MBS. It's been said by Prince Turki, El Faisal, who's no longer in government, but of course is still quite an influential figure, at least externally facing to the world. And I was at a Chatham House event in London, a public one, where he basically reiterated. There is no normalization without peace, without a Palestinian state, without all of these things. And then recently, MBS, I don't remember where this was, but he basically said, you know, straight out. He said, I cannot betray my young people in Saudi Arabia, who are absolutely against this right now. I cannot betray the young voice in the Middle East. And I cannot, I can't. My hands are

tied. I can't do this and I won't. And so I thought that was really fascinating as well, because one would, you know, I think a lot of people tend to think, well, it's a monarchy. I mean, MBS can do whatever he wants. He doesn't have to listen to his people. And yet in this case, he really, really is. And he said so himself. Yeah. 75% of the country are millennials. And he has been courting millennials for the last few years. So I think that makes perfect sense. Chasmund, what would you like to see the current administration, going to avoid calling it

lame duck, but that's essentially what it is? What would you like to see them do, you know, between now and January, what can they accomplish at this stage? Gosh, I mean, that's a tough one, Andy, because as you said, it's a lame duck administration. President Biden is dealing at the moment with a lot of public fallout, a lot of blame being levied at him right now for Kamala Harris's loss, people coming out and saying, you didn't step down early enough. You only gave her 100 days to prepare for a presidential election. This is all your fault. You're seeing leaks coming from her staff saying that this was Biden's fault. So I think he's dealing with a lot domestically right now. And I think any outgoing president,

particularly one of his age, will be thinking about the legacy that they leave behind. And it's not looking good at all for Biden in terms of legacy, whether you look at the Middle East, whether you look at domestic politics, he really, really, he really messed up by waiting to step aside for as long as he did. And I think in many ways, Kamala Harris was therefore almost set up to fail because how do you prepare a presidential campaign in 100 days? So he's dealing with a lot, you know, how much effort he will put into trying to do something different in the next couple of months. I don't, I have to tell you, I can't think of, you know, a single thing that he might do in such a short period of time. I mean, we are now coming to the deadline of this letter that he sent to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galant, who's now no longer defense minister, because Netanyahu fired him on Election Day, which was a great distraction in his mind as he fired his defense minister.

So he, you know, the Biden administration had sent this letter about 30 days ago, giving the Israeli government 30 days to reverse a lot of the policies, a lot of the actions that they had taken over the last several months that had resulted in. such a dire humanitarian crisis. And I mean, even as I say that, that's such an understatement. I mean, it's a catastrophe. It's, you know, when you hear Jan Eglin of the NRC, you know, or any really any humanitarian organization talking about the deep level of shock based on what they've seen, what they've witnessed coming out of Gaza, their staff members who've been killed. So the Biden administration gave the Israelis 30 days

to fix that to the extent that they could. And here we are coming up on the 30 days, whether anything will happen, whether there will be any consequences. When the administration released that letter publicly, you know, they said basically that they would consider looking at security assistance to Israel and other such levers of leverage if Israel were not to comply.

So we're coming up on that. So let's see what happens. But I think it's important to note also to your listeners. And maybe people will know this. And I've talked to people again in the administration, reporters here in D.C. who are in touch with who know sort of what's happening on the inside to the extent that you can know that a lot of this policy of the Biden administration has been a very personal policy, has been a very personal issue for Biden. He is deeply committed to

Israel, to Zionism, to the protection of Israel. He really sees that as a very personal issue. for him, coupled with the fact that he saw a lot of parallels between what happened to the U.S. on 9-11 and what happened to Israel on October 7th. So all of that combined led him to be sort of by word and deed the most pro-Israel president that I think we've ever seen, or at least recent history. I don't know if you would agree with that, but I would certainly say in recent history. And so whether or not that same president would suddenly see it necessary or fit to dramatically change course in the last two months of his presidency, I find it difficult to believe. So I am not holding up and holding out any hope that anything changes.

We do know that Trump has told Netanyahu that he wants him to wrap this up. by the time Trump is in office. I don't know how Netanyahu is going to interpret that, you know, wrap it up as in go do as much damage as you can between now and then to make sure that, you know, come January, you can start scaling back. I don't know. We don't know what the exact nature of that conversation was other than the headline that was released, which is wrap up this war before I'm president or by the time I'm president because I don't want to deal with it. you know, again, I don't see anything huge changing or major changing in the next couple of months. We do know that President Trump has promised to end the wars.

We also know that his staff and his people, his advisors on Israel, Palestine, have been some of the most extreme voices in that field, in that sort of, you know, you have ambassador David Friedman. who is not only, I mean, even when I talk to, you know, Jewish or Israeli friends of mine or reporters who describe him as, you know, the most extreme of the extreme, you know, he's, you know, he represents the most extreme of settler, you know, movements and mentality and policies, which is extreme even for Israelis. So, you know, what role will he play? Of course. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law has always been quite pro-Israel reportedly saying that he doesn't believe in a two-state solution. You know, you don't know exactly what he's thinking. We know that he is very concerned with economic issues, particularly vis-a-vis the Gulf. So there's a lot, there's a lack of clarity and there's a lot of fear around the people that Donald Trump is going to surround himself with when it comes to the Middle East. So even though he says, I want to end the wars, what I was saying the other day on Al Jazeera is,

if you look at Trump's first term, and back to what you said, Andy, about fewer people dying in the region in his first term, you know, he killed Qasem Soleimani, who caused a lot of death and destruction across the region, particularly in Syria and Lebanon. He oversaw the Abraham Accords. Um, he, you know, so people look at those things as reason to believe that Trump will be good for the region. What I caution, though, is I think that there's a difference between real peace and superficial peace. And I think that superficial peace doesn't really serve anyone in the region, including Israelis, of course, because I count them as part of the region. And so this time around when he talks about peace in the Middle East, is he going to do this? same thing that they did last time, which is focus on economic deals, ignore the Palestinian question,

you know, or is he going to actually try to enact policies that go to the heart of actual, you know, root causes, you know, final status issues when it comes to Israel, Palestine, issues that will in the short term be very painful, I think, for both sides to address, but that in the long term, I believe are the only chance we have at a genuinely peaceful and secure and prosperous region moving forward. Well, Jasmine, I know we've come to an end, and that was a great, you know, that was a great comment at the end. I just like to add, I agree with you 100% on that we're seeing, you know, under Biden, certainly, this emotional attachment to Israel, which is disturbing, regardless of administration. You know, we want to see U.S. interests come first, of course, as Americans.

And it reminds me of Kissinger, you know, in contrast, in the, you know, you probably remember reading about this in the Yom Kippur-war, Kisinger talking to Golda-Maya and reminding her, you know, Prime Minister, I'm an American, I'm the U.S. Secretary of State and I'm a Jew in that order. And, you know, yes, Golda Maas said. And that was, you know, that was his attitude and the attitude of the administration that was considered even then pro-Israeli, but that they always put U.S. interests first, that it's not, U.S. interests are not reflexively Israeli interest, I guess, is a reminder that it's good to remain for it for all of our policymakers. No, I mean, you, you, you, you,

can put in Israeli or any other country there. Look, absolutely. I also think it's important, you know, on behalf of my Jewish and both Jewish and Israeli friends and peace activists that I've been working with over the last year, they always ask me to share, you know, this point whenever I can in the media that, that also Jewish interests are not necessarily Israeli interests and that also Israeli interests are not necessarily the Israeli government's interests. So a lot there, you know, so much nuance there when we talk about this issue. And I think that so often assumptions are made about all of these groups and everything tends to be lumped together like it is with Arabs and Muslims. And so I also

just think it's really important to listen to, you know, you know, voices that represent different ideas of what, you know, issues that matter to Jews, issues that matter to. to Israelis issues that matter, to pro-peace Israelis. All of these things are really issues that need to be, they're so nuanced and it's so important to recognize that nuance and incorporated into U.S. policy. And of course, at the end of the day, it's exactly like you said. The U.S. president has to think of U.S. interests first.

And then he also has to act as the leader of the free world in terms of protecting, you know, international law, international norms and rules, as we said before, protecting human life, you know, anywhere that we can. But at the end of the day, he's the U.S. president and he's going to be focused on U.S. interests. And we'll have to wait and see how Donald Trump interprets that and how much time he spends on foreign policy versus domestic policy, on the Middle East versus China and of course who his team will be which will give us a greater understanding in terms of what may may lie ahead. Jasmine, thank you so much.

And for our listeners, Jasmine's going to send me links, her Twitter, obviously her Twitter handle, but also link to MindWorks Strategies and your podcast too, if you don't mind, Jasmine or anything else you would care to share with us. I just want to say, what a great discussion. Again, next time we have you on, I'd love to hear your views on radicalization and, you know, the road ahead the last time we talked to, I believe, the irregular warfare podcast with Nate Rosenbladder. I don't know if you remember that. It was a really fascinating discussion about the radicalization of Western Muslim youth. And the path there was then, was to Iraq and Syria and the Islamic State. But with the world inflamed, over the last year, the way I've just described,

you know, however Gaza ends in the next few months isn't going to be how Gaza ends, I think, is my feeling. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. I know you don't have time to talk about that now. But thank you so much. Thanks for having me. You're coming on. Thank you.