As We Approach Phase Two of President Trump’s Plan, What is in Store for Israel and the Middle East? Transcript

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

The video can be found here.

Sarah Stern: Let’s see, wait till there’s at least a hundred, okay. All right. Good afternoon, and welcome to another extremely topical and extremely timely EMET webinar. We’re profoundly honored to have with us today a very, very dear friend of EMET’s, David Wurmser. David is a true intellect and a true scholar. He’s a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for Security Policy and has been a member of EMET’s Board of Advisors.

He served as the Middle East advisor to former U.S. Vice President, Dick Cheney, and as a special assistant to John Bolton at the State Department. He’s also been a research fellow on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute. He served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer at the rank of Lieutenant Commander, and he’s written a great deal of highly important books and notable papers, among them Cheney’s Ally, and he’s also prepared a paper for Prime Minister Netanyahu on a new strategy for securing the Middle East and a document entitled Ending Syria’s Occupation of Lebanon, among many, many other things.

This past Monday, December 8, Ahmed al-Sharaa, aka Mohammed Jolani, celebrated a year of rule in Syria. The Sunni Muslim leader spoke at a forum in Doha accusing Israel of, quote, exporting crises to other countries around the globe in order to deflect from its horrifying
massacres. His tone was extremely accusatory towards Israel, and he said, quote, we are not interested in being a country that exports conflict, including to Israel, but in return Israel has met us with extreme violence.

He said Syria has suffered massive violations of our airspace, and we’ve been victim of over 1,000 airstrikes and over 400 incursions. He also reaffirmed his call for the Golan Heights, despite the fact that on March 25, 2019, the first Trump administration recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. David, how does one respond to this kind of rhetoric?

David Wurmser: Well, the first thing is to remind him, with all due respect to the great Turkish assistance and his great army of liberation, it was Israel that liberated Syria from Assad. Assad’s regime was anchored to the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Iranians, essentially, as well as Hezbollah. And by obliterating Hezbollah and the IRGC in Syria, the Syrian regime was left essentially without a foundation of security and collapsed.

So first of all, he didn’t offer it, but I’d give him your welcome if for your very regime is a function of Israeli power. So first of all, I would remind him of that, and I would remind the Turks of that, because what is beginning to happen is that they’re weaving a narrative of success that is a validation of their Islamist ideology, of their most dangerous terrorist ideology. The Muslim Brotherhood ideology of Erdoğan and Qatar, as if this is some millenarian moment where all the forces, the stars have aligned, Allah has finally favored the Muslim world, specifically the Sunni Muslim world.

It has returned Sunni Islam to its capital, which was Damascus, for the first time in 1,000 years. We don’t generally appreciate the fact that Sunni Arab Islam has not ruled Damascus in 1,000 years. And so there’s this genuine sense that the world, that Allah has graced them,
and this is their moment. The second thing is they look at Europe, and they’re getting immense civilizational confidence, seeing their challenge to European civilization and their inability to really, and Europe’s inability to really fight back.

I saw a statistic yesterday, would have to be checked out, but it sounds about right, that 400,000 Europeans have been either raped or murdered by these Islamic immigrants. This is not simply a few bad people doing bad things. This is a deliberate attempt to establish dominance over European civilization and culture, and you need to go no further than the mosques in Europe, or let alone the Muslim Brotherhood ideology, but the mosque in Al Jazeera and so forth, but the mosques in Europe say that’s what they’re doing, say that this is what this is all about.

This is not us interpreting them. This is not some paranoid Islamophobic feverish dream we’re having. This is the operational plan that they are crowing about in their mosques in Europe. So we’d be blind and really engaged in civilizational malpractice if we don’t rise to the occasion and challenge that back. Now, going back to the Middle
East, it brings you back to Damascus. They’re looking at Europe. They feel that they’re about to defeat really one of the main cradles of Western civilization, which is Europe, and then they’re looking at the Middle East, and they really believe they are about to extinguish the Dhimmis.

First of all, there are only two types of Dhimmis, Christians and Jews.
The Druze, others, are not Dhimmis. The Alawites, they’re not Dhimmis. They’re heretics, and there’s no protections, and we see what’s happening. We see the regime from day one murdering Alawites and Druze. Now some people say, well, the Alawites, they were the Ba’athist regime, so it’s they had it coming to them. Well, apart from the fact that that’s not the way we should think about things.

But the second thing is when you look at Assad as he was government, he was Arab nationalist, and he bent over backwards to champion Arab nationalist causes, including Sunni dominance. So at the end of the day, he did not favor the Alawite community really at all in Syria. He didn’t really help them, and they feel now not only paying the price, but that they didn’t get anything out of it.

So it’s all just really covered to kill the non-Dhimmi, the non-protected minorities. But of course, with this civilizational conference, this is now moving to another area. We have to remember Dhimmis are tolerated because we were given the Koran at Mount Sinai, and Moses and the Jewish people unfortunately corrupted it. We were, again, the West, was given the Koran once again to Jesus, but the Christians corrupted it. So we had to come again and reveal it, the Koran, which has existed, by the way, since the beginning of time in their mind. And the Muslims now get that is the pure faith.

So we are corrupted forms of their religion in their view. That’s why they say you revert to Islam, not convert to Islam. They believe we just corrupted the true revelation. So they tolerate that because obviously Allah has chosen us for revelation. But only so far, at the end of the day, we must accept them as the true faith and eventually become Muslims. And we’re reaching that point now where the tolerance of the Dhimmis is ending.

And as a result, they understand if you extinguish Christianity in the Middle East, in Lebanon and in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, truly the cradle of Christianity, you gut its soul. Like Jerusalem is to the Jews, the Levant is to the Christians. It is the beginning, the soul, the origin of Christianity. It is not something that can be sustained civilizationally if you surrender its core. And that is what’s going on now. You’re seeing the movement toward extinguishing the non-Dhimmi minorities and extinguishing the Dhimmis in part because they see they’re on a roll in Europe. And this is it. This is the millenarian showdown. This is the great war. And we in the West are acting as if this is peace.

Sarah: All right. True.

David: We’re just not picking up on how dangerous this is. And Erdoğan and Qatar are not moderates. They’re the ones who are funding, fueling, supporting, really embodying this ideology, the Muslim Brotherhood ideology that lays behind all this at this point.

Sarah: So do you find that there’s a distinction between the ideology that Erdoğan of Turkey has and the Qataris, the Middle Easterns, the way they’re interpreting the Muslim Brotherhood? And would there be a potential clash aside from the clash with the Shiites?

David: Well, yes, we do already see a clash. Erdoğan and Qatar are true Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood has some tensions with the Salafis. And you can also see it with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It’s more than just moderation versus not moderation that drives them to declare the Muslim Brotherhood illegal. And both have declared the Muslim Brotherhood illegal.

It is really a very profound difference that goes back to the origins of Islam that are probably beyond the scope of this podcast or presentation. But nonetheless, there is some tension there, and you’re seeing it manifest itself in a strategic competition between Saudi Arabia and UAE on one side and Qatar and Turkey on the other. And the battleground, of course, is Syria and the Palestinians.

And this gets to the key point about Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the, quote, peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Phase 1 was something that was in Doha’s interest and Turkey’s interest. Why? I believe that Israel’s attack on Doha was one of the most important acts in the war. And I think it’s what so freaked out, the Qataris that they
realized this war was becoming so dangerous that it could lead to the destruction of Hamas leadership in Doha and in Turkey, which, of course, Hamas leadership is there not to moderate it. It’s their asset. It’s their proxy.

So they were about to have their proxy ripped to shreds. On the ground, the Israelis finally had made the decision to go all out in Gaza, and they stopped to retrieve all the hostages. But they were willing to go all the way this time. And Hamas and Qatar and Turkey knew it. So they were facing a catastrophic collapse of their strategic asset, the Muslim Brotherhood, and, again, a civilizational setback that could puncture this balloon of confidence and so forth.

So it was in their interest to cough up the hostages and make a deal. But for the same reason that they did Phase 1, in Phase 2, their fundamental interest is to save Hamas because it’s their asset. It’s exactly the same reasoning. So while they were apparently on our side on Phase 1, they’re not on our side on Phase 2. And Hamas is important because the Palestinian issue is also the gateway for larger peacemaking in the region. So as long as they control the Palestinian issue, they control a veto.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration returned the Palestinian issue back to the center of peacemaking. The Abraham Accords actually pushed it off into a closet so you could make peace without it. But the Biden administration forced it back into the center. And I think Israeli government somewhat indulged that too much, especially the previous government. But anyway, that said, it is now, again, the gateway for larger peacemaking. And as long as Qatar dominates the Palestinian issue through Hamas, they essentially have a veto over Israeli-Saudi,
Israeli-UAE strategic relations. So, of course, they’re not going to give in.

And, of course, the Saudis are the opposite, which is they’re interested in Phase 2. They want to destroy Hamas. They don’t want to go for a fake deal on Hamas. They’ve already declared Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood illegal. So you see these strategic competitions. But again, it goes back to this larger civilizational thing. The game that Qatar and Turkey are playing is far larger than we in the West understand. Only to some extent do the UAE and the Saudis appreciate it. And they have said so in the past, that you will regret, that the West will regret its playing around with the Qataris.

Sarah: Right. So there are a lot of obstacles in this grand plan. One is Hezbollah regrouping.

David: Right.

Sarah: And Joseph Aoun said, at least rhetorically, that he is going to destroy Hezbollah, but we haven’t seen any real actions. And that’s obviously at least 50% of the Lebanese armed forces are Shia. So there is one border of confrontation between the Sunni-dominated Syria and the Shia-dominated Lebanon.

David: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And interestingly, there’s two big meta movements here. The first one is, you can read between the lines of what our ambassador to Turkey, or should I say, Turkey’s ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack says, which is essentially that the Sykes-Picot agreement is dead, that really Lebanon isn’t a real country.

Until now, because they were Shiite, because they were pro-Iranian, because they were aligned with the previous government, the government of Syria in cahoots with the Turks and Qataris did cut off weapons and flow of money to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which essentially strategically did help Israel. And of course, that led the United States also to say, oh, he’s a moderate and so forth.

I think we’re not appreciating the fact that that stopping has stopped. And they are now allowing stuff to go to Lebanon. Maybe not at the level it was, maybe much more limited, but it’s happening. And you ask yourself, why would they do that? And then you get to the statements of Turkey and Barrack and Al Jazeera commentators. They actually
now want Lebanon to collapse. They actually want this.

So Turkey is not a stabilizing factor. They are trying to destabilize Lebanon, because if it collapses, the Sunni part of Lebanon becomes part of Syria. And that’s a very important strategic goal. Basically, once again, if we go back to the original plan, which is destroying Christianity and its cradle, destruction of Lebanon is a major step forward in that strategy.

So at this point, I think they’re literally playing the Bob Uecker game. I mean, those of us old enough to remember Bob Uecker, he was a baseball player, but he’s most famous for his commercials for Bud Light, where he would tell one guy it’s less filling and the other guy it tastes great and get them to fight each other. Well, that’s what’s happening.

Basically Erdoğan now and Qatar are the Bob Uecker of politics of the Levant. They’re trying to trigger a fight between the Shiites and the Israelis in order to destroy Lebanon and leave a gutted nation in its wake. And then it’s prime for the takeover. And you’ve essentially eliminated Christianity and the other minorities in the Levant. And by the way, that’s a larger strategy that the Qataris and Turkey do. It’s to divide your enemy, not to frontally assault them. So again and again, we see that.

Sarah: Okay. It’s very similar to the words we heard last summer from the Trump administration giving the Islamic Republic of Iran 60 days. Tom Barrack and President Trump have given Hezbollah 60 days to disarm. Do you think that something like Operation Midnight Hammer will erupt over Lebanon with American forces in the air or something?

David: I hope not. Israel does not need the United States to fight this war at all. And I’d be much, much, I think it would be a grave mistake if Israel employed American power in any shape or form as an ally or so forth, even if strongly offered or even pressured by President Trump. My problem is that Israel has clear strategic understanding of this. Hezbollah is dangerous, but so is Turkey.

So it wouldn’t destroy Lebanon in order to destroy Christianity and open the door for Turkey. It would destroy Hezbollah in order to release all these minorities to form an alliance among themselves to resist Turkey. And the moment this turns over to the United States, we’re not clear at this point about Turkey and Qatar. So we don’t have the strategic crispness that is necessary in this situation. And you invite America in and America legitimately and understandably has a say over what happens.

So I think I was nervous about it even happening in Iran. I felt that Israel probably had options to do it less elegantly, and it would have been harder and longer. But my sense was they had options and I would have preferred them to do that. But nonetheless, I can still see the logic that America had big bombs, nobody else had. Those big bombs were the best to use against this. The destruction of the nuclear program was the primary objective. So why not? So I get that.

But in Lebanon, you don’t have those calculations. And I think in Lebanon, you’re dealing with very dangerous strategic tango here between Israel and Turkey and Qatar. And again, I think Turkey is a destabilizing force in the region out to create collapse of nations in order to take over those nations. So what Israel would do in Lebanon probably would open the door for what I think is the big story, which is the collection of minorities are beginning to galvanize into an alliance structure, which seeks Israeli an umbrella of protection.

By the way, that isn’t only the Christians and the Druze, maybe the Kurds further away. It’s also the Alawites, and very importantly, the Shiites in the end. You see, what happened was there was the Shiite awakening, which was a very indigenous Shiite political development in Lebanon in the ’70s. But the PLO working with the KGB infiltrated the Shiite awakening to create Hezbollah and control it. They took Amal, which was under Musa al-Sadr, the imam who created it, and was just basically their hands up, the same people who essentially welcomed Israeli soldiers in 1982.

I’m sure they had their meshugganahs about Israel and so forth. They’re not our best friends. Certainly, we wouldn’t go out drinking with them at night. But at any rate, they were strategically wise enough to know Israel wasn’t their problem. The Sunnis were, and their empowerment was. So they created this under Musa al-Sadr. Well, Arafat ordered Musa al-Sadr murdered, which opened the door then for what became eventually the takeover of the Shiites and the Shiite awakening by the Iranians who wanted to be the fathers of the Shiite awakening, even though they were last on scene in 1979. The Shiite awakening began in the early ’70s in Lebanon.

So they hijacked the Shiite awakening and made it an Iranian project. As the Iranian project now is facing imminent destruction, so too is the Shiite awakening. And the Shiites know it. They know they have nobody to protect them. Other than those who are aligned with Hezbollah, Shiites too are beginning to see Israel as their only hope for survival.

So you’re seeing some fundamental redraw of alliances and structures that offer a tremendous opportunity for Israel, tremendous opportunity for the United States, because we could anchor the entire Eastern Mediterranean Levant with a collection of allies that are pro-Western, aligned with Christianity, aligned with Israel, aligned overall with the West, which will really help us face down what I believe is the emerging civilizational struggle led by the Muslim Brotherhood ideology.

Sarah: Let’s turn now to Gaza, another Sunni Muslim stronghold. Khaled Mashal recently said he will never ever give up his weapons, which is stage 2 of the plan. He said that would be like removing our souls. And obviously, this international stabilization force is not really getting off the ground, although I heard recently that Italy might join it, but they’re not going to try to enforce this mandate for Hamas to give up their weapons. So how do we proceed? And Israel is trying to walk a very narrow line to try to impress President Trump that, yes, we are abiding by his 20-point plan, but on the other hand, Hamas is not.

David: Right.

Sarah: So how do we proceed here?

David: Well, I think that we proceed the way Israel has proceeded, which is to give Trump a chance to turn it. If he really believes Qatar and Turkey can disarm Hamas, I don’t believe they will. In fact, I think the opposite. They’re the reason they’re not disarming, but at any rate, he has to be given a chance, and in the end, he’s going to get furious. And the question is, will he be furious at Israel for sabotaging his effort, or will he be furious at Hamas and hopefully Qatar and Turkey for sabotaging his effort?

And I think the Israelis right now, what they’re doing is they have their own reasons for waiting as well, by the way, both on Lebanon a little bit, on Iran, but also on Hezbollah, I mean on Hamas. But I think we’re talking in there a short fuse, a couple months, two months maybe,
and then Israel has to make a decision. This dividing of Gaza into two states, having one where you have stabilization force and economic development, it won’t work. It won’t work because there are Palestinians that cross the lines, and Israel, the international force, the whole structure will be sabotaged as long as Hamas exists.

And also, it’s very dangerous for the Israeli army. These are not very easily defended lines from what we have seen over the last 20 years, which is these attempts to seize Israeli soldiers or Israeli civilians as hostage. And that, of course, is one of the main strategic objectives now of Hamas, is to retake hostages, cast as, well, you weren’t withdrawing, so we had to do it.

So I don’t see this as a stable state, this idea of East Gaza and West Gaza, or Hamastan and non-Hamas Gaza. Until Hamas is destroyed, this is all an illusion. And I think the Israelis understand that, and they know they have to do it, but they know they have to indulge the United States. And it’s possible, Trump understands that, too, that he has to indulge the effort to show that he’s trying. But I don’t see this lasting more than two more months. And then I think it’s inescapable. There’s only one force on the face of the earth that will disarm Hamas, and that’s the IDF. So it will be the IDF that will have to finish this war.

Sarah: Right. So let’s turn now to Judea and Samaria, or colloquially
known as the West Bank. Yesterday, the IDF announced that Israeli security forces seized a whole smuggling weapons network in the Tulkarem area, including rockets, explosives, and materials intended for use against the IDF. Is this region also Hiriya?

David: Yes, not only this region, Israeli Arabs. We were surprised, all of us, that the Israeli Arabs, first of all, in Judea and Samaria, the Arabs there, as well as the Arabs in Israel, were quiet. Now, why were we surprised? One, because it’s Judea and Samaria that’s always first to be radical. But the second thing was in 2020, when the last round of war between Israel and Hamas, there were pogroms, riots, that killed Jews, burned synagogues in Ako, Lod, Ramle, Jaffa, all over the place.

The Arabs of Israel shocked the Israelis because they thought they were all loyal, and they revolted against Israel and killed Jews. Now, again, it’s not all Arabs. Christian Arabs, if you look lately at the statistics, they are in droves joining the Israeli military. Bedouin Arabs, which are Sunni, are also in droves joining the IDF. So we are seeing a major world of, I don’t think Christians even consider themselves entirely Arab anymore. But we are seeing non-Jewish communities in Israel beginning internally in Israel to understand that the mothership of Israel is their only path to survival. And the volunteering patterns of Druze, Christians, Bedouin are bearing that out.

But you also have Sunni Arab Muslims that belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, crime gangs. Crime gangs are really semi-political. Also, it’s a question of eroding power and seizing cities. So at the end of the day, Israel is facing, in my view, not just what’s going to happen in Gaza, but I think we’re at the precipice of something very dangerous in Judea and Samaria, and unfortunately, even in Israel.

Sarah: So looking now towards the south with Egypt, Egypt’s been securing or building up its troop builder along the Sinai. There are many drones that are going into Gaza and into the West Bank or Judea and Samaria with weapons. We’ve had a relatively quiet peace with Egypt since 1979. And what do you predict is going to happen there?

David: I don’t think war is inevitable, but it’s possible. And we should really recognize that there is a possibility of it. The idea that what has been will be is a very dangerous assumption in politics and in intelligence. Now, clearly something’s changed in Egypt over the last five years. They saw Erdoğan’s Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas as the agent of Erdoğan to be their primary enemy. They were probably harsher than anybody in the Middle East against Al Jazeera, against the Qataris, against Turkey, against the Muslim Brotherhood, against Hamas.

And then suddenly five years ago, you started seeing the smuggling qualitatively change, quantitatively and qualitatively, where we weren’t talking about pieces of equipment and stuff like that. We were seeing wholesale breakdown of controls of the border and the massive flow of weaponry that led to Hamas being what it was on October 7. And one really has to ask, what changed? Because Egypt at that point was no longer helpful. They actually also strategically deceived Israel.

When the Shin Bet asked Egypt, what do you make of this buildup in preparations that Hamas was doing, the Egyptians very clearly said, it’s just an exercise. Please, don’t do anything. And then the Egyptians consistently through have been trying to shackle the Israelis, achieving a victory in Gaza, whether it’s taking the Corridor, the Philadelphi Corridor, destroying Hamas and so forth.

So again, they’ve shown sympathy toward Hamas. So the question is, what’s going on? My sense is that the Egyptian government is more dysfunctional than we think. They don’t fully control their military anymore. The rank and file under the flag rank is all Muslim Brotherhood. They’ve essentially lost control of their society. And they’re now riding the tiger. And they’re trying to survive the best they can. And they think maybe they can harness it and move it this way, that way, avoid a war with Israel.

But the truth is the Muslim Brotherhood, these organizations know exactly what they’re doing. They’re doing it on behalf of Erdoğan and the Qataris. And I think they’re navigating Egypt slowly to a state of conflict with Israel. And then it’s only a matter of something awful triggering it.

Sarah: Okay, now let’s turn towards Iran. Since the 12-day war last June, Iran has resumed about around the clock manufacturing of missiles. According to the lovely Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, they plan on launching about 2000 missiles a day. So Israel also has to keep its eyes towards the Far East, around the Far East.

David: Iran is now building missiles at the same pace as it was before the war apparently. Slightly cruder technologies to do so. They’ve gotten a lot of assistance from China in doing this. So this is also a geopolitical issue here with China. And I think it’s an aspect that has to be aggressively dealt with both by Israel and the United States. The idea that Israel and the Middle East is a separate world from the Far East, and that the strategic tensions in the Far East don’t affect the Middle East, I think is over.

Israel and the United States have to understand that there are major strategic games going on in the Middle East that play into China’s strength overall. The Belt and Road, which in the Middle East is anchored again to Iran, to Turkey, and to Qatar. And by the way, this is another thing that we’ll get to Egypt in a second. The Belt and Road is the extension of Chinese strategic presence into the Middle East. It’s encircling India, and you see the tensions between India and Turkey.

Almost nobody notices, but there are very serious tensions between India and Turkey. Why? Because it’s an extension of the Belt and Road initiative, as well as India’s abutting the Muslim world. So it’s again, this flowing together of the CCP geopolitical thrust with the Islamist world thrust as well coming together in Central Asia. In opposite, you have once again, you have the Indians trying to get
the UAE, the Saudis to understand that. Israel does understand that. Greece does understand that.

So you see this corridor emerging called IMEC, India-Middle East Trade Corridor, Economic Corridor. But it’s really, it isn’t about trade. It’s about strategic alignment. And it’s essentially to try to draw a southern barrier to the Belt and Road. Well, in that context, Israel is right in the middle, as are UAE, India, Saudi Arabia, and Greece.

They’re not only in an Islamic, radical Muslim brotherhood thrust against the West. They are also part of the Chinese CCP Belt and Road initiative against the West. So one has to look at the strategic question also through that. And again, that brings you back to Syria, where that’s really the battleground right now. So, we have that with Turkey. Well, I’ll leave it at that. Follow-up, not exactly what the question was.

Sarah: All right. So Israel has to absolutely, this is really an 8-front war if you talk about diplomacy and all of the other fronts. The Israeli people, I know, I have a son-in-law who’s part of the IDF. You have a son that’s part of the IDF. They’re exhausted. And do you think the IDF is stretched thin? I know that the Israeli people are also incredibly resilient, but they also understand that this is their home that they have to take care of.

David: So they are stretched thin. It isn’t quite what we think. It isn’t because Israel’s not just not strong enough to defeat its enemies. What you’re really dealing is the long-term consequences of the United States not backing up Israel for real under Biden. This war should have been finished in three weeks or four weeks, but it couldn’t be because the Biden administration didn’t allow it. And then the Biden administration began its embargoes on Israel.

So Israel essentially and also, unfortunately, and this is something Israel has to ask itself, and this is emotionally a difficult question to ask, but the hostages were an effective strategic tool employed by
Hamas to shut down Israeli strategy. And it will cost Israel much more
in the future, hundreds of hostages, hundreds of dead and strategic damage.

I understand the reasoning because Israeli society, anybody who’s been there, they know there’s a familial aspect to Israel, whether it’s an Iraqi Jew sitting with a Polish Haredi, there’s an affinity, a feeling of family, and you just don’t leave your family behind. And there would be a rip in Israeli society, which I understand if the government of Israel just early in the war said, it’s the price of war, goodbye, we can’t really save these guys.

So it had to do what it did, but there’s a cost to that. So between that and the global pressuring on Israel to halt and constantly halt and stop and never quite win, which is, by the way, the pattern since 1948. We forget in 1948, why did the ceasefire happen the day that it happened?
Because the Israelis were about to invade the old city of Jerusalem, and they had the power to do it. It was made to preempt an Israeli victory in the walled city of Jerusalem, which would have been a game changer.

So it would have been an inescapable catastrophic defeat for the Arabs, dramatic victory for the Jews, returning to Jerusalem in ’48, the sort of thing you had in ’67 would have been in ’48. Similarly, in ’73 and in ’82, again and again and again, Israel is halted from a dramatic victory. And it’s not because of its limited power. It’s because it doesn’t believe it’s strong enough to resist its allies who are asking for the war to stop. And that’s something that I think is causing the exhaustion among soldiers.

It isn’t the length of the war. It is the frustration that there isn’t a decisive move to victory. Almost all the Israeli soldiers I talked to would be willing to give it that last major shot if they know this is it. This is now finishing the war once and for all. And make no mistake, no Israelis think this war is finished in Gaza, in Lebanon, Iran, or the war emerging with Turkey and so forth.

So I think the societal impact, and it’s severe, it’s also psychological, trauma, battlefield trauma, a lot of which has to do with the sense of futility in what you were doing, that you keep taking the same territory and giving it back. You keep going in and out. You see your friends killed because the legal division of the IDF put such restrictions on you that Israeli soldiers were more easily forfeited their lives than an innocent civilian.

Despite the propaganda, Israel paid a huge price in soldiers’ lives protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza. And a lot of soldiers are frustrated because those civilians were the ones who took the hostages, raped the kids on October 7. So that’s causing a lot of trauma in the Israeli army. And I think Israel has to think long and hard now about going forward, how it changes the way it does war so that this does not happen again.

Sarah: Right. So there was a poll that was just taken by the Israeli Democracy Institute, and it says 71% of Israelis feel another war is imminent with Hezbollah, 69% feel another war is imminent with Iran, 53% believe a war is likely with Hamas, and 47% believe a war is likely with Yemen. We didn’t even discuss Yemen and the Houthis and what’s going on there. And 59% believe a war is likely in Judea and Samaria. So, and 55% believe that selling F-35 power jets to Saudi Arabia will harm Israel’s security. So first of all, what is your feeling about the F-35 fighter jets?

David: Well, I think that the bigger issue is tech transfer. The Saudis and especially the Turks are not so good about protecting technology from China and others. So if we transfer the F-35, don’t be surprised if major elements of that wind up in China. That’s one thing. The Saudis per se, I’m going to buck a little bit the trend here. I’m not as worried because the F-35 is a horribly difficult aircraft to maintain. Basically, you need to know what you’re doing immensely after one flight. Otherwise, that plane gets grounded.

And the Saudis are incapable of maintaining that aircraft. So they have to come up with an agreement to have the United States maintain the aircraft for them. So if those aircraft are used against Israel, I would imagine the United States would have in there a termination clause if it is used against Israel. And perhaps that’s what Israel should negotiate. Turkey is a little different. Turkey does have capabilities. They might be able to maintain the aircraft. And they would get them earlier. By the way, the Saudi aircraft, my understanding is they’d only arrive in 15 years. And you already have the F-47 under production.

And the Israelis are really going for next generation. By the time the F-35s will be in Saudi Arabia, Israel will already have, along with the United States, a generation ahead aircraft. And the Israelis will be right at the front line with the United States. Their technology now is such that it is really a joint effort between the United States. And by the way, the relationship between Israel and the United States has to change in that way. No longer aid, but more joint programs. Because Israel is a value added to being a partner.

So that’s the real aid. You have Israel and America jointly producing stuff, Israel having independent production, learning things from that, and so forth. So I think the fundamental nature of partnership versus aid has to obtain. But the problem is with Turkey. Turkey apparently gets those aircraft earlier. Turkey does have the ability to use those aircraft and maintain them.

But also then you go to the civilizational. Right now, UAE and the Saudis are standing against Qatar and Turkey. There isn’t a civilizational statement made by giving them the F-35. Giving it to Turkey. And Erdoğan is out there saying the most ridiculous, brutal, expansive, imperialist things from relitigating the end of World War I, to saying Israel is a goner, to talking about Greece taking over Greek islands, and so on and so forth. This is a dangerous imperialist lunatic. There’s no way to put it. He’s a lunatic.

Sarah: Right. And he maintains the second largest army in NATO.

David: Correct.

Sarah: And I don’t think there is any way to expunge him from NATO.

David: No, and there is no way. Then there’s no way to expel somebody. They can walk out, but you can’t expel somebody. But he’s also anchored to Damascus and this millenarian civilizational confidence against Europe and in Sunni Islam. So giving our most developed fighters now to that camp convinces them, we have no will to defend ourselves. We are easily manipulated. We are going down. And that will have impact in the United States because Muslims across the country who believe in this Muslim Brotherhood ideology will feel deeply encouraged, and it will lead to another 9-11 or worse.

Sarah: Right. I’d like to turn to some of the…

David: [Inaudible] Directly on the F-35.

Sarah: Yeah. And I do want to say the F-35s are battle-tested by Israel. Israel makes improvements all the time and shares them with Lockheed Martin. There’s a nice relationship there. And I don’t think there’s any other country in the world that is as open about sharing their revisions and improvements to [inaudible].

David: There’s no other country in the world that has revisions and improvements in such magnitude as the Israelis. We gain tremendous amount from it. Our F-35s double their capacity simply by working with Israel. It’s like we buy two squadrons for every one.

Sarah: Right, right. So there are a bunch of questions. One is, Sarit Zehavi of Alma, she brings up the issue of the massive complex into Lebanon that dwarfs Hamas’s tunnel system. So this woman would like a response regarding the strategy of containing Hezbollah. Is there a role or a lack of political will of Mr. Haytham to confront Hezbollah?

David: Well, first of all, I don’t think necessarily that Lebanon and its survival is in the interests of the Sunni Lebanese or the Turks or the Syrians. So by triggering a fight between Israel and Hezbollah and having vast destruction, it’s a destabilizing act that they think that they can gain from. So I don’t think that they’re really that eager to disband it.

Now one may be, but again, what we’re seeing is power that between the lack of will of the Sunni leadership in Lebanon, Walid Jumblatt is a Druze and he’s a little bit lost. The Druze themselves don’t…You go underneath him, they get it. Believe me, he’s a dinosaur, but he’s a dinosaur whose mouth still works. So it’s a little bit of a problem.

And the Maronites and other Christians are getting it. And even some of the Shiites, but at the end of the day, there is no containing, just like there’s no containing Hamas. There is no containing Hezbollah. They will rebuild. They will become a force. They will use their power first and foremost to reassert their dominance over their own Shiites, then over Lebanon’s Christians, and then over all of Lebanon. And a wounded cobra is still a cobra. It can kill you easily. Don’t turn your back on a wounded cobra.

So I think there’s really no alternative here, but Israel, like with Hamas, I think there’s no force that is going to disband Hezbollah other than the IDF. And I think that’s something that’s still ahead of us, unfortunately. But again, hopefully with the strategic understanding that these things have to be done decisively, hard and fast, not dragged out.

Sarah: All right. Okay. Someone else wrote in that your insights and analysis are very useful, but he would like you to just discuss what actions you would recommend. One action I can recommend is the Eastern Mediterranean Gateway Act, which is actually a piece of legislation that was put forward by Brad Schneider, a really, really brilliant piece of legislation talking about Israel, Cyprus, and Greece, and the United States working together in terms of the exportation of
gas together to undermine the entire Russian-Iranian network and Chinese network.

David: The previous government in Israel, I think, did a fundamental mistake by not using the gas to create a gas pipeline to Cyprus and to Europe when they had a chance, because then came the Ukraine War. And I can’t tell you how many pings I got from European gas structures, desperate for Israeli gas, only to find out that Israel had a moratorium on developing an export structure to Europe. Had Israel really done that, they could have really seized that trade.

It’s not too late. By the way, I think the maritime agreement between Lebanon and Israel was part of that strategic failure in the sense that Israel never realized that the reason why that gas structure was needed to be released, the Lebanese gas structure, is that Qatar and Hezbollah. Remember Qatar likes to play both sides, Qatar and Hezbollah wanted to make Lebanon a gas hub for Europe and Turkey and basically dominate the East Mediterranean gas strategic structures and knock Israel out.

And by signing that agreement, Israel essentially conceded that strategic concept to the Qataris, and that was Bennett, and that was
more than anybody, it was the energy minister Karine Elharrar from Yesh Atid, Lapid’s party. So this was one you can’t blame on Bibi, and believe me, you can blame stuff on Bibi, but this is one you really can’t. He did get the gas stuff. Well, you have this gas structure, you can still do it. It’s going to be a little slower, etc., but you still need to do it.

The other thing is, gas in Europe comes from various points in the coast, in the far west, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco. But you got to pull the curtain back beyond the coast, and what you see is all the gas pipelines actually converge in one point. So there may be four gas pipelines coming off the coast of the Mediterranean littoral, but they’re coming from one point in Algeria, which is a really dangerous thing.

And that’s, by the way, also where the Trans-Africa, Trans-Saharan pipeline from Nigeria comes in. And a lot of Europe’s import comes from Russia, but also a lot comes from that. So if Israel plays its cards right, the gas structure isn’t enough to fuel Europe for 20 years, but it’s an insurance policy. Israel can provide Europe what it needs while it gets over a hump of a year or two to retool. And so I think this is a major strategic issue Israel has.

By the way, it’s, again, related to the whole Belt and Road and IMEC Corridor and so forth, because the UAE and Saudi Arabia, they want to bring their gas to Israel’s coast and then send it off from Israel to Europe. And if it is now including UAE and Saudi gas, then you are talking quantities that really can replace Russian gas. Israel alone can’t, but they could. So this is a major strategic play that, again, flows into these larger questions that, unfortunately, we’re somewhat dropping the ball on.

Sarah: Right. All right. Another question. Did Qatar turn events into a victory for themselves? Trump declared Qatar a non-NATO ally, took Qatari blandishments in exchange for air defense assistance and supply F-35s, and finally made Bibi apologize to Qatar. In the end, hasn’t Qatar found our Achilles heel using greed and corruption that the US is for sale?

David: Well, yeah, this is a very deep topic, but I can’t ever get this saying right, is it snatched the victory from the jaws of defeat or [crosstalk] from the jaws of the victory?

Sarah: Defeat, right. Right, right, right.

David: Qatar was in a state of crisis after Israel attacked Doha and was ripping to shreds, Hamas. It was about to be a major defeat. And they leveraged that into portraying themselves as some moderates who delivered. And then they cashed in on that. And I think what it reflects is something a little bit frightening, which is, President Trump came in to clean Washington up and he has been trying. But there are so many powerful structures in Washington, the intelligence community and so forth, which are really tainted, in some cases, even corrupt, and like the intelligence community to some extent.

And I’m fearing here that there are enough journalists or quasi-journalists, enough influencers, podcasters, Washington elites, the cocktail crowd that we all grew up with, you and me, Sarah. There are so many of them that really do redefine their concept of American interest that mysteriously then becomes their personal interest. So that is a form of corruption, true. And I think President Trump has a Herculean task to stand up to that and to undo it.

And unfortunately, I’m seeing too many people on the conservative side are sabotaging this instead in standing up on behalf of Qatar, or Turkey, or in general, whoever is out there to undermine the American position in the Middle East. So this is really an indictment, in my view,
of American political elites, that they are not able to see this threat for what it is and protect our country for what it is.

At the end of the day, the biggest threat to this country is our youth, our youth’s inability to understand what this country stands for and its values and how we organize ourselves in the world around those values, common understandings that have informed us for 300, 400 years, not 200 years. And that is who Qatar and Turkey are destroying. They’re funding money to destroy our youth, to divert them into communism, into Islamism, etc. You look no further than the campus protests, who funds them, etc. Who’s behind them, care, etc.

And you see the role Qatar is playing, the teachers who are being
tenured in the universities, the endowments of the universities. You see a tremendous strategic effort to destroy our youth’s understanding of America as it is, as it was. And that’s a strategic attack on the civilization of the United States.

Sarah: That’s exactly right. Our youth have been so coddled and so pampered. Many of them have no idea what war is. War is not pretty, but Israel is facing an existential war of survival. And it is part of Western civilization. And without Israel, unfortunately, I don’t think that the United States could survive in the Middle East. And we see…

David: We’d be expelled.

Sarah: Right. We’d be expelled.

David: And then we’d have to fight our own endless war globally and retreat.

Sarah: Right. There are so many other questions. Maybe some of them I will email to you. And then you’ve been an amazing speaker. Please try to donate, if you can, towards centerforsecuritypolicy.org and also a emetonline.org. We can both use your funds. And it’s very, very important that in a world which is replete with inaccurate information and facts, that there be analysts and policymakers such as David Wurmser and such as what we try to do every day on Capitol Hill in EMET. And please support us both. We do depend on you for our survival. And David, you are one in a million. Thank you so much, really.

David: It’s so great speaking for EMET.

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