The Multi-Layered Middle East Chessboard Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Sarah: Good morning. Yes. Okay. Wonderful. Good morning and welcome to another topical and timely EMET Webinar. We are extremely honored to have with us today Brigadier General Amir Avivi. Amir is the founder and chairman of IDSF or Habithonistim. Amir is one of Israel’s most highly respected voices on the scene today. He is also the widely acclaimed author of no Retreat, which describes how to secure Israel’s future for generations to come. During his service, Amir held a series of very senior roles for the IDF, including Deputy Comptroller of Security Forces, Director of the Office of the Chief of Staff, Deputy Commander of the Gaza Division, Commander of the Sagai Division, Commander of Battalion 605, and commander of the School of Combat Engineering. There are so many battles that Israel is fighting on so many fronts right now. Let’s begin with Lebanon. Yesterday, Channel 12 news reported that Israel plans to present White House Deputy Special Envoy to the Middle East, Morgan Ortegas, with intelligence it says proves Hezbollah is rebuilding and rearming in southern Lebanon. That the Lebanese armed forces are either unable or unwilling to curb Hezbollah’s violations. Foreign Defense Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Hezbollah is arming itself much quicker than it is disarming and that the responsibility for this lies with the Lebanese government. President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon promised to disarm Hezbollah. What exactly has prevented him from doing this and why?

Brigadier General Amir Avivi: I think there is a common interest between the Lebanese Army, Israel and the U.S to reach a point where in the near future Hezbollah will be disarmed and Lebanon will be in the position to join the extending Abraham Accords. The U.S. is working very hard to build an alliance, a big coalition, bringing in even countries like Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and all the way to the Pacific, and Lebanon doesn’t want to be missed out. Lebanon is in a very problematic situation economically. Typically, they want to move from the Iranian axis and join the moderate Sunni axis and normalize relations with Israel and get closer to the U.S. At the moment, they’re not getting funding, not from the U.S, not for Saudi Arabia or the Emirates. They understand that in order to reach their goals, they need to disarm Hezbollah. The problem is they don’t have the capability. The Lebanese army is very weak, it doesn’t have the power to deal with Hezbollah, and this is where Israel is relevant.

Israel is determined to degrade Hezbollah to the extent that will enable Lebanon to deal with Hezbollah and since the ceasefire, we have attacked, almost on an everyday basis, attempts of Hezbollah to regroup or reorganize. More than 350 terrorists were killed. Many sites were attacked, but still Hezbollah is trying to rebuild themselves, and I think that what we’ll see in the coming future is Israel enhancing dramatically the attacks on Hezbollah in order to reach this point that we want to reach where Hezbollah will be weak enough for Lebanon to deal with them, and so Israel now is taking advantage from the fact that there is a ceasefire in Gaza and really shifting the center of gravity to Lebanon attacking more and more, and this will only increase in the coming weeks. The big question is, is Hezbollah going to retaliate, because so far no matter how many attacks we did, they are deterred and they are not attacking Israel. I don’t know if this will continue forever, there might be a moment when they will shoot back, and Israel is preparing for this moment, the moment they will shoot back as well we’ll go all out with all our force and really attack in a way that will bring Hezbollah to a very weak point, and then we’ll see if Lebanon can deliver them.

Sarah: How entrenched is Hezbollah in the government and what percentage of the Lebanese armed forces, the Shiite and sympathetic to Hezbollah?

Amir: The Lebanese army, you have quite a few Shiite soldiers and definitely sympathetic, and this only creates a bigger problem. Also, this army is underfunded, it’s not trained well. It’s hard to say how much cohesion and how much motivation there is. Lebanon has a long process to really build an army that can create sovereignty inside Lebanon and dismantle all the militias and groups. It’s not only about Hezbollah, it’s also Palestinian groups, it’s Fatah, it’s Hamas, it’s other groups that are armed in different places in Lebanon. Lebanon is a very small country, but very problematic.

Sarah: Let’s switch to Syria. This weekend, the IDF was under fire from Al-Jama’a Al-Islamiyya and they opened fire and [inaudible] killing approximately 13 terrorists and six soldiers were wounded, one seriously. Yesterday, President Trump warned Prime Minister Netanyahu “not to interfere in Syria, praising Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and warning him not to disrupt the Syrian new leadership” and a senior White House official claimed that “Bibi is seeing ghosts everywhere”. What is happening here, why is President Trump suddenly taking the side of a former Al Qaeda operative?

Amir: I think that the U.S is looking at the very big picture. U.S is looking globally, regionally, peace agreements, alliances, and they want to see all the pieces moving to the right place, they want to see Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Oman and so on joining the Abraham Accord. When Al-Sharaa says, yes, I want normalization, I want people to be part of the process, this gets the President excited and, okay, this is moving the right way, but the reality on the ground is Al-Sharaa is maybe controlling 30, 40% of Syria. Vast areas are controlled by the Kurds, are other by the Druids, other by the Allowies. There is ethnic cleansing inside Syria, there is no water. Even in the areas Al-Sharaa controls, he has militias that are supposedly within that are challenging him and maybe even it might not survive. In the long term I believe personally that Syria will go back to civil war. It’s not a stable country, and as much as I’m optimistic about might be in Lebanon, Syria is a whole different situation. Israel, unlike the U.S is dealing with everyday problems on the border, terror organizations, attempts to attack Israel, attempts to kill the Jews, and the example of this radical Sunni elements a few kilometers from Israeli border is exactly the reality we’re dealing with. This reality is very tactical and pinpointed, it’s not a reality that the U.S is, the U.S is the big picture. We’re dealing with different levels of reality.

Sarah: Yeah. Prime Minister Netanyahu has to walk a very fine line between trying to protect the residents of the Golan and trying to please President Trump, who I think has his eyes on a Nobel Peace Prize for and it’s a very difficult walk.

Amir: This is why the Prime Minister is flying to Margorago, which is the President, because there are things you need to speak, come with the map and speak in a very detailed way. It’s not just about the big picture. Israeli society is not in the place where we are going to agree to any danger, to any Israeli citizen because of dreams and big ideas. We are all about doing peace agreements and extending the Abraham Accords, but not at the expense of our existence or security.

Sarah: Exactly. Especially after October 7th. Speaking of October 7th in Gaza, we are seeing Hamas troops regenerating. They see this 20 point plan as kind of a hadna, a temporary cessation of violence to rearm and retrench and regroup. I think Hamas sees this as a smokescreen, and there have been many that have been approaching the yellow line behind which Israeli troops have been retreating. Does anybody have any illusion that Hamas is suddenly not a terrorist organization that doesn’t want to regroup and revamp itself?

Amir: Okay. Let’s understand what’s going on. We signed an agreement that says that Hamas needs to lay down their weapons, Gaza needs to be demilitarized, they need to get out of Gaza, and at the moment it’s not happening. The agreement basically created a reality where Israel is controlling 53% of the Gaza strip on the eastern side, also controlling the high ground overlooking the coastal area of Gaza, and Hamas is controlling 47% along the coast and down in the other side. The first part of the agreement was to bring back all the hostages. There are still two hostages who are not alive in Gaza, one Israeli and one from Thailand, and we are demanding to get all our hostages. We know that Hamas has them, we expect to get all the hostages, but at least all those who were alive are in Israel. What we have been dealing lately is that even in the areas Israel controlled, this 53%, there were still some strongholds of Hamas. There were terrorists in tunnels. Israel very systematically searched these areas, we found them, and we apprehended and killed the terrorists on our side, but as we were dealing with that, Hamas also tried to launch several attacks along the yellow line against Israeli positions, and Israel retaliated and killed them. Now, the reality at the moment is the agreement is not happening, Hamas is regrouping, they are not laying down the weapon, they are building themselves, and this is very problematic. The US says, we want a coalition to deal with Hamas. There is not a single country that is willing to come, go to the Hamas side and fight Hamas in order to get them to lay down their weapons. Basically, it’s crystal clear that it’s just a matter of time until Israel will have to renew the offensive, and we’re getting ready for that. Only Israel will destroy Hamas, only Israel will dismantle them, only Israel will demilitarize the Gaza strip and destroy all the tunnels, and then once there is no Hamas and no terror infrastructure, then we can talk about how Gaza will be managed civically and what’s the next steps. At the moment, the U.S wants to build in the area of Rafah and start moving gardens to Rafah, and also once we get all the hostages to open the Rafah crossing, and then I think that we’ll see many Gazans leaving. They will get a chance, if they want to to leave the Gaza Strip, and I think many do. The bottom line is this war, and I’ve been saying that from day one, this war is going to be won decisively, there will be no Hamas at the end of the day. At the moment, for us it also works for us that we can for a moment be more focused on Lebanon, and also we need to work on our equipment and tanks and train the army, so we’re doing many things, but there will be a moment where the IDF will go in and finish the job.

Just this week, the government voted on an order to bring 280,000 reservists to draft them, so they wouldn’t vote on that if we were not intending to actually bring the army and get the job done.

Sarah: All right. Now turning to today in Samaria. Yesterday, there was a stabbing attack of two young Khayelim, two young Israeli soldiers the day before, and a female Israeli soldier was rammed with a car. Do you feel that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad want to keep the Jihadist fire burning, is this another front that Israel has to be very careful about?

Amir: Israel has been operating fiercely since the 7th of October in Judah and Samaria. We reached for the first time a moment where every single murderer that existed in Judah and Samaria was killed or apprehended. It’s not that there is no many terrorists, I’m talking people who actually executed terror attacks, so Fatah, Hamas, all the time, I’m trying to rebuild capabilities are there are many weapons that are coming from Jordan that they’re bringing in, and we are walking around the clock and we looking strategically, we need to drain the swamp, okay, and the swamp is not the kind of Trump swamp that he talks about, it’s a swamp of incitement and terrorism that comes from the PLO, from the Palestinian Authority, from Hamas. They keep inciting, they keep paying for terrorists, and until they go, there will be endless amount of mosquitoes that they create that we need to hunt, and it’s better to drain the swamp than just deal with the mosquitoes, so this is what we need to do. I think that we’re starting to build ideas out of the box for the day after the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic, Jihad in Gaza and in Judah and Samaria, and I think that we’ll see development in the coming year as we move to a new reality and maybe in a moment where also a bus that is more than 90 years old will naturally finish his era, and then we’ll see what happens. It’s a whole new ball game.

Sarah: How many years is he in? It’s supposed to be a four year term.

Amir: Many years, 20 years.

Sarah: 20 years. All right. Also looking south to the border with Egypt, there seems to be a huge military build up there. I know they’re sending drones with armaments and weapons. About three weeks ago, Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz declared the border a closed military zone. How is Israel responding to this buildup?

Amir: First, we see the lack of motivation, governance, or even maybe intentional policy of Egypt to flood Israel with weapons and flood Gaza with weapons as they have been doing for many years. Whether it’s drugs, weapons, it happened in many ways, but lately we see it with huge drones carrying weapons into the areas where the Bedouins are, and from there they take it, some of it goes to Judah and Samara, and some of it even goes to Gaza. Israel is trying to deal with this, but we have to understand this phenomena in a larger context, and the context is that we have been fighting for two years, the fight on along our borders, all the way to Iran, but the next big challenge of Israel is the fight over the land of Israel, the fight over the Negev, the Galilee, Judah and Samaria, and our enemies have changed strategies, are focusing all their capabilities inside Israel. They want the Israeli, Arabs and Palestinians to revolt and fight us, and they have hundreds of thousands of weapons. It’s extremely dangerous, and I think that we need to be able to move very fast from the huge focus we are putting on this war once we stabilize the borders to move to strengthening the police, the border patrol, timber, everything that’s happening inside Israel and go and really deal with this. We cannot have a reality or Israeli citizens or Palestinians hold hundreds of thousands of illegal guns that in no time will be pointed at us all over Israel. We can do it, it’s not that difficult, we simply need to decide that we are dealing with this.

Sarah: How confident are you that Iran is not rebuilding its defensive missile capability and its nuclear weapons capability?

Amir: We have to look at what happened in Iran as we finished 67 and we have to get it ready for 73. Iranians want to retaliate, and we’re watching very closely what they’re doing. Israel is preparing plans. There are three things that can bring Israel to attack again; one, them trying to rebuild their air defense and closing the corridor we have now to Tehran, second is them trying to produce again massive amounts of ballistic missiles and the issue of nuclear capabilities. This is being monitored very closely by Israel and the U.S and if we need to attack, we’ll attack. Israel is getting ready for that.

Sarah: I was listening to an interview of you yesterday where you explained how you had taken your soldiers 50% of whom had never seen the Kotel, to Jerusalem. What do you feel is the most important lesson you can impart to our mostly American audience today?

Amir: I think that the core issue, and it has to do with everything with antisemitism, with the legitimation, with lack of unity in Israel, or between Israelis and the diaspora, it all goes to the basic vision and the basic story. We are part of the greatest and most glorious story in the history of this globe, and it’s all written in the Bible, in our stories. For thousands of years, we were the heroes of the biggest story of all, and in the last few decades, with a lot of propaganda, somehow we became the villains in our own story, not the heroes, and I think that we have to go back to the basics. We are the heroes of the greatest story of all, and the resurrection of the state of Israel is the most amazing, exciting, wonderful thing that happened to the globe and to us, and this is how we have to look at it, and the future of the Jewish people is in Israel. Israel is going to experience after this war a huge boom, there will be prosperity and security and massive Aliyah, and we need to reconnect and we need to learn to differ between our basic values, which are holistic and problem solving. Yes, there are many challenges, there are many issues we need to deal with, but you don’t give up your identity to solve problems, you use your identity, you empower yourself with your identity to deal with problems, not the other way around. I think this is the most important message to the Jewish people, and this is the really the core issue we need to deal with it, without that, there is nothing we can do with antisemitism. If we are not convinced that we are not the good guys, why would we expect anybody else to think so? First let’s get our acts together and remember who we are and how fortunate we are to be the Jewish people, and when we are convinced, I think it’s easier to convince other people.

Sarah: Wonderful. Amir, you are one in a million. I wish you strength and to continue with Habithonistim IDSF for many years to come into influence and everybody, all the Jews around the world to have a pride in their national identities, their ethnic and religious identities, and to know where you came from, because if you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where you’re going.

Amir: Definitely.

Sarah: Okay. I know your time is short, and I just want to thank you very much. Lehitra Otzbah[?], I will be there in a few weeks.

Amir: Thank you very much. Thank you. Looking forward.

[END]