Battleground Israel – Domestic troubles & the renewed fight against Iran’s terror proxies 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:  Good afternoon and welcome to yet another timely and topical EMET webinar. Today is day 537 of the war that Israel has been fighting on seven fronts. The title of this EMET webinar is Battleground to Israel Domestic Troubles and the Renewed Fights Against Iran’s Terror Proxies. We are honored to have Alex Traiman with us today. Alex is the CEO and Jerusalem bureau chief of the Jewish News Syndicate. He’s a veteran Israeli journalist, radio show host, documentary filmmaker, and a startup consultant. He writes on Israeli politics and on U.S.-Israel relations and has conducted one-on-one interviews with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other key figures, including members of the Knesset, the government and the war cabinet. He has also interviewed U.S. senators, congressmen, ambassadors, and former CIA heads and National Security advisors. He interviewed then Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo on an official visit to Jerusalem, and has appeared on BBC, Bloomberg, CBS, NBC, Fox, NewsNation and Newsmax. Alex is also a frequent guest on WABC and CBS radio.

Alex, I have so many questions to ask you. First off, yesterday there were massive protests in the Gaza Strip. People marched through the streets shouting, “Hamas out! Al Jazeera out!” and “Hamas is a terrorist!” What do you make of this, Alex?

Alex Traiman: I think this is healthy and it is something we have wanted to see for a long time. By the way, it does not mean that the people protesting Hamas today, were not cheering Hamas on October 7th. It indicates that the Gazans now understand that Hamas can no longer deliver to them, a normal living or a peaceful environment. They are beginning to understand that Hamas cannot deliver them a victory over Israel, which I think they would support. They would support Hamas beating Israel, but are no longer convinced Hamas can deliver that anymore They also appreciate that if Hamas does not agree to leave the strip and if they do not agree to release the remaining hostages, the IDF is going to renew its military operation. However bad the situation is for them today, I think they understand it will get a lot worse.

So, these protests are healthy and they are something the world has needed to see. I would like to see them becoming a mass movement although I am not sure if this will happen. We are also seeing that a very large percentage of Gazans, maybe even a majority, are interested in leaving the Gaza Strip given the opportunity. I am hopeful that more and more people around the world see these protests and hear the voices of Gazans that want to leave. I hope they respond appropriately.

Sarah: Okay. Some foreign policy experts feel that Gaza could be allowed to remain under the control of a demilitarized Hamas. What are your views on that?

Alex: Perhaps you are referring to the comments Steve Witkoff made on Tucker Carlson this week. In that interview, Witkoff said Hamas needs to be demilitarized, but perhaps they could stay in Gaza, “a little bit longer,” and could be involved in the political situation in Gaza in the future. I think that we should assess Witkoff’s comments in the context of the individual who gave them. Witkoff is currently engaging Hamas through Qatari mediators and he is trying to get the hostages out of Gaza. As a negotiator, he cannot say that Hamas is finished. He cannot say they must get out of Gaza, there is no future for them whatsoever and they are all going to die. This would remove any incentive for Hamas to negotiate with him. Hamas needs to sense they will receive something in return if they give back some, or all, of the hostages. I think that Witkoff is trying to make it look like he is a reasonable player and that there is a good cop, bad cop situation going on with the president. Trump is the bad cop in this situation saying, all hell to pay, wipe the floor with them, we support Israel. Witkoff, in the role of good cop, appears to be saying that he is willing to try and help Hamas if they comply with his conditions.

We also saw Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and Mike Waltz cleaning up after Witkoff made those comments. They do not want to see Hamas ruling Gaza. I think the entire world can basically agree that Hamas cannot rule Gaza in the aftermath of the war. It is not just a case of demilitarizing Hamas, rather they cannot remain as a military or political force in Gaza. Quite frankly, I think they cannot even be there at all.

I think there also the question of whether there are Palestinians, outside of Hamas, who can govern the Gaza Strip. I don’t know if that is the next question you wanted to ask.

Sarah: Yes, it is. Many people, including Seth Frantzman of the Jerusalem Post, say that after the war, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has to control Gaza because there are no real alternatives. What do you think about that?

Alex: You are referring to the same PA that was given control of Gaza in 2005 after Israel withdrew from there. Within a year, it was clear they were losing control. By 2007, they were thrown out of Gaza, and Hamas took over. Now, we are hearing the PA saying there needs to be a unity government between them and Hamas.

Obviously, Hamas and the PA have their own internal struggles. Mahmoud Abbas has not held an election in the Palestinian controlled territories of Judea and Samaria, or what they call the West Bank, in the 20 years since he became president. He has not held an election since then because he is afraid that Hamas would win.  So, if the PA comes in to govern Gaza, Hamas will infiltrate their government in the not-too-distant future. Either Hamas will be invited in to join with the PA or the PA will start acting exactly like Hamas.

The Palestinian population was complicit with what Hamas did on October 7^th. They allowed nearly every home, mosque, school, and hospital to be used as a terror base, as a storage for weapons or an entrance into their intricate tunnel systems. As such, we must understand that Palestinian society accepted the plans that Hamas was making to attack Israel, and to draw us into a conflict inside the Gaza Strip. I think that, at some point, we have to tell them clearly that they have lost the fight for the land which they instigated. They need to understand they are not going to be rewarded with a do-over after a massacre like October 7^th and the years long war that resulted. We cannot invite the PA back, but I understand why somebody like Frantzman is asserting there is no good alternative.

There is not no great alternative. Israel made a mess by pulling out from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Israel allowed Hamas to build itself up into a very sophisticated terror force that attacked us incessantly over a period of 18 years. We have to take responsibility for that, and there are no easy answers.

I think a lot of Israelis do not want to assume the burden of responsibility for rebuilding Gaza. However, there’s only one power able to protect Israel’s interest on a military level in Gaza, and that is the state of Israel with the IDF. This is true irrespective of whether or not Israelis want the responsibility of dealing with rebuilding of the Gaza, whatever that entails. It is also true whether or not the Palestinians continue live there.

I was at the White House when President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu met, and we all heard Trump say that the Gazans need to leave. Then Trump surprised the Prime Minister by saying that America is going to own all of Gaza. He seems to have walked that statement back. I interviewed David Friedman, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, just a couple of days ago here at JNS. He said there might be a lot of international investment in Gaza by the United States or American companies. If they invest in the rebuilding there, they might own buildings, and parcels of land in Gaza. These might even be large parcels of land. That said, there is only one power that can be the sovereign in the territory, and that is the state of Israel. Many Israelis do not want to hear it, but it is the reality.

Sarah: After October 7^th, Israel should maintain a strong defense around the perimeter of Gaza at a minimum. The same is true of Judea and Samaria. Let’s turn to the domestic front. We are seeing large protests in Israel against the firing of the chief of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, and the no confidence vote against Attorney General, Gali Baharav Miara. We are also seeing protests against Israel’s return to war. What are your thoughts on these protests. They are somewhat unprecedented in the midst of an existential war. Can you also explain the reasons behind the firing of Ronen Bar and the no confidence vote against the Attorney General?

Alex: I think I could take two-hours to answer those questions but I will try to unravel the situation as succinctly as possible. We can separate the firing of the head of the intelligence from the no-confidence vote against the Attorney General. Before we do that, we need have this conversation with the understanding that Israel has a right- wing voting majority. The Israelis have voted in a very strong majority right wing government, with 68 seats. It is unprecedented for us to have an ideologically aligned, exclusively right-wing government. The government has a large right-wing majority which is actually stable. While the people of Israel are right-wing and have voted in a right-wing government, all of the major institutions in Israel are controlled by the left-wing. The upper echelons of the military and of Israeli intelligence are part of this, and they include Ronen Bar as well as the head of the Mossad. The media is certainly part of this as well, as is the court system led by the Supreme Court, and the Attorney General. The universities, the labor unions, the banks, the hospitals, and this even the majority of the major high-tech companies in Israel are controlled by the left-wing. So, most of the money and most of the most powerful institutions in Israel are controlled by the left. Yet the people of Israel have voted for a right-wing government.

With respect to the genesis of the current war with Hamas, the left-wing military basically denied Hamas was a threat capable to harming Israel in any way. That explains in part why Israel got into this war with Hamas to begin with. They certainly did not want a war. They were the ones that wanted Israel to pull out of Gaza to begin with. They just want to separate from the Palestinians. They do not believe in strong borders. They are not nationalistic and they really want the western world to like them. They want Israel to be a secular extension of Western Europe on the Eastern Mediterranean. There is a completely different view of what Israel is, and what it should be, between the left and the right.

The head of the Security Services, Ronen Bar, has been at odds with the Prime Minister, almost from the beginning of the war. Netanyahu understood that we had reached a moment in time where we needed to correct all the prevailing misconceptions. and that we had to achieve what he calls a total victory in the war.

We understand that the Biden administration did not like working with Netanyahu. They backchanneled through the top echelons of the military the entire time. They worked with Yoav Gallant, the defense minister fired by the Prime Minister a couple of months ago, and also with Ronen Bar, the head of the security services. They had differences of opinion on how far and deeply to conduct the war, and how to conduct the hostage negotiations.

We understand that the left wing in Israel wants Netanyahu to do anything and everything possible to bring hostages back and to end the war, even if that means that we give up on all the war gains. What they do not understand, or what they do not admit publicly, is that if we give in to every single one of Hamas’ demands, we will not get the hostages back and this is something that needs to be understood.

We have already witnessed protests in Israel like the type we are seeing now over the firing of Ronen Bar. This is not some kind of spontaneous movement that came out of nowhere all of the sudden. We saw massive protests over Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms just before October 7^th but that was not the beginning of the protest movement either.  We have had five consecutive elections in Israel in a period of five years, and the protest movement began during those election cycles. We even had protests during COVID at a time of strict lockdowns here in Israel. We were not allowed to go more than 500 meters from our houses except to the supermarket, the doctor’s office, or to an anti-Netanyahu protest, which for some reason was protected under the law.

This protest movement has continued to build momentum over a period of years, even though it has morphed overtime. The same people who organizing these judicial reform protests, the Kaplan Force as they called themselves, took control of the hostage family’s forum from day one. People do not understand that the slogan ‘Bring them Home’ was focus tested and carefully selected because it puts the onus of the return of the hostages only on the Israeli government. The slogan is not, ‘Let them go Hamas’; it is ‘Netanyahu, bring them home’ as if Netanyahu is the one that has the hostages in his basement under his house.

Part of the reason they picked the slogan is because they understood the result was not in Netanyahu’s control. At the same time, Ronen Bar and others told Netanyahu he has a problem in that he could not win the war and bring the hostages home at the same time. They asserted that if he chose to win the war, he was condemning the hostages to die in captivity.

Again, this strategy was focus tested. There were major ad agencies behind the signage, the slogans, and the organization of the protests. So, Netanyahu cannot conduct a war with the head of the security services opposing him.

It is important to understand that the head of the security services, the Shin Bet, reports directly to the Prime Minister. The Shin Bet is part of the executive branch of government. In the United States, if the President of the United States does not get along with the head of the FBI, he fires the head of the FB. He then hires somebody willing to do his bidding as the director of the Executive Branches Security services. In Israel, they think that the head of the security services needs to be something that the Prime Minister cannot control. In their view, he is there to protect the country against the whims of some right-wing government that sweeps in.

Aharon Barak, the former head Justice of the Supreme Court, is basically agreeing that Netanyahu is driving Israel to a civil war by firing Bar. No Israeli here wants a civil war, not even one. There might be some inside the protests, but outside of the boundaries of the protest, there is not a single Israeli who wants to be in a civil war right now. We are already fighting a war against our enemies.  Barak also said we have to protect Israel against the, “tyranny of the majority.” Excuse my French, but he is basically saying that the masses are asses and that they voted incorrectly. He is essentially asserting that the majority wants to take the country in a direction which the left-wing elites don’t like and we need to band together to protect the future of this country against the will of the majority.

The same is true with respect to the Attorney General. I actually believe the Prime Minister made a big mistake by allowing the situation with the Attorney General to get to where it is today. I think when Netanyahu formed his government, he should have demanded her resignation within 48 hours. The Attorney General is actually the strongest politician in Israel. She views her job as being the mommy puppet over the government and the one who determines what they are, and are not, allowed to do. She can block the Prime Minister on executive action. She can determine that legislation, or things that come up in parliamentary committee, are illegal.  She is essentially the chief of the opposition. The Prime Minister is being blocked, both in terms of domestic policy and in terms of his ability to conduct this war as he sees fit. Ronen Bar is complicit in this.

I do think the timing of Bar’s firing is a little bit confusing for Israelis, but these are actions the Prime Minister really had no choice but to take at some point, and we will just have to see how this plays out. We will have to wait and see how serious the protest movement gets, and if the Prime Minister can wiggle his way through yet another round of simultaneous crises.

Sarah: It does appear like there’s a basic misunderstanding of the powers of the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branch. It looks like the judicial branch is trying to overwhelm certainly, the executive and the legislative branch.

Alex: The Supreme Court and the judicial system have taken advantage of the fact that we do not have a constitution. They maintain that they are protecting the rights of the people in the absence of a constitution. The problem is that no one elected them to do that. The judicial branch is an unelected branch and they pick their own successors. They are a self-selecting homogenous group of individuals that have their own idea of what the state of Israel should look like. I don’t know if we want to get into it too deeply, but there is a major battle over the fabric of the state of Israel and over the balance of powers between the branches of the government.

I think the people are being hung out to dry because they do not really have rights codified in the Constitution. They might have privileges, but privileges can be suspended. They do not really get to vote for their Knesset members because the Knesset members are picked by their party heads. They do not pick the Prime Minister because the parliamentarians, picked by party heads, select the Prime Minister. This was how Naftali Bennett became Prime Minister when 95% of the country voted for somebody else. They also do not pick the justices. So, there’s a battle royal taking place domestically at the same time when Netanyahu is trying to fight the war with Hamas and others.

I think that the six-week ceasefire, extended to nine or ten weeks to get the hostages back, really took Israelis out of war mode.  The Israeli people are tired of war and they do not want to go back to it. The ceasefire gave this very insidious opposition, the opportunity to regroup and to say that Netanyahu and Ron Dermer, the Minister of Strategic Affairs, are abandoning the remaining hostages.

They have succeeded in bringing back 191 out of 250 hostages and that is an amazing feat. At the beginning of the war, people would have been elated about such a feat. Now that Netanyahu and Dermer have done it, they are being accused of abandoning the remaining hostages. They are not acknowledging that the party that refuses to release the hostages is Hamas and not Netanyahu.

Sarah: Many Americans do not understand why Israel has had to go back into Gaza and are faulting Israel for going back to war. Can you address this?

Alex: The number one reason for Israel’s return to war in Gaza is because there are still hostages being held by Hamas. That is number one. People also need to understand why the fighting in Gaza essentially stopped. Israel was fighting in Gaza, but Prime Minister Netanyahu was very hesitant about fighting on more than one front at the same time. We had reached a point where the northern border was heating up to an unacceptable level.

After October 8^th, the threat to Israeli lives from Gaza was significantly diminished.  At a certain point, Hamas also ran out of rockets. They were fired or destroyed by Israel and they were no longer able to pose a significant threat to the Israeli home front. Meanwhile, Hezbollah had a much more significant arsenal and was firing nonstop rockets, missiles, and drones at Israel.

The Iron Dome systems could not handle everything that Hezbollah was firing and Israel had no choice but to pivot and deal with Hezbollah. They felt that they had neutralized the immediate threat to Israel from Gaza, even though the war was not complete. They placed the war in the South on pause, and turned to the fighting in the North. That is why the fighting stopped in Gaza.

At some point, Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire in the North. Many people questioned why Netanyahu called for that ceasefire at that time. The answer is that there was war fatigue. The soldiers had been away from home for way too long. Netanyahu also wanted to do was turn his sights back towards the hostages and he wanted to run out the clock on the Biden administration.

He was very afraid that the Biden administration would engineer UN Security Council resolutions against Israel in its concluding weeks. He was also concerned they would withhold weapons from Israel and so he agreed to call a ceasefire in southern Lebanon. He knew this would reduce the temperature in the international community against Israel and he hoped Trump would come into office, and he could restart the war.

President Trump wanted to see hostages come out, and so Netanyahu accepted the terms of a deal that had already been proposed by the Biden administration in May of the prior year. It called for another six weeks of ceasefire in exchange for the release of some hostages. We saw a few dozen hostages get released and also the return of some dead bodies. Phase Two of the deal called for a permanent ceasefire. It was obvious that Hamas was still running the Gaza Strip. They consolidated their ranks and they reorganized. The accessed the weapons stored in different tunnels and buildings. They basically regrouped and re-armed and continued to hold hostages. Prime Minister Netanyahu understands, and has stated, that the only way the negotiations are going to be conducted from this point forward is under force.

So, we re-entered Gaza. This time the IDF was allowed to use air power to hit top terrorists. This is something that the Biden administration did not allow which why the IDF had to go building by building and use dynamite to blow them up. We are basically at the point where it is clear that Hamas is not incentivized to return hostages, and we are returning to war.

Sarah: All right. Beginning October 19^th, 2023, the Houthis began striking ships in the Red Sea. They have struck US warships over 170 times. They have recently launched missiles at Israel. Under President Trump, the United States decided to strike back with overwhelming force. President Trump posted on Truth Social, “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon from this point forward as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of Iran, and Iran will be held responsible and suffer consequences, and those consequences will be dire.” What is America’s role in this war? What role do you believe America might play in an attack on Iran?

Alex: Iran is responsible for this entire war and not just the Houthi attacks. They are responsible for Hezbollah and for destabilizing the entire region. Trump would like to somehow thread the needle and destroy Iran’s nuclear program without a major war. He is trying to avoid war, but in order to succeed, he has to create a very credible military threat.

He is tying the Houthis attacks directly to Iran and saying that he will hold Iran responsible for their actions. Iran is watching. They are witnessing very heavy shelling from US airstrikes deep inside Yemen. They understand that this administration is different from the previous one. Trump is not Joe Biden who cannot put a sentence together and can only come up with a weak, “don’t” to deter Iran. The Trump administration is signaling that we will not accept the Houthis’ belligerence. The Houthis are guilty of more than just attacking Israel with ballistic weapons, which Israel has been able to neutralize overwhelmingly. The Houthis have significantly interrupted global shipping.

The entire globe has experienced mass inflation over the past few years. The Houthis have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest commercial shipping ways. They have been forced to sail all the way around the Horn of Africa instead. This has driven up the prices of many all kind of manufactured goods, particularly those from China and Southeast Asia. Trump wants to reduce the cost of living. He wants to bring down inflation, and he wants stabilize the Middle East at the same time.

As you mentioned, in addition to attacking commercial vessels, the Houthis have attacked U.S. vessels. There needs to be a penalty for that. The United States is now flexing the muscles that they should have flexed already early on in the war. Israel is not responsible for defending the world’s international commercial shipping lanes. Israel needs to defend itself.

I can understand why Israel does not want the United States or anyone else helping them fight directly against Hamas. Hamas attacked Israel inside its own territory. The Houthis, on the other hand, are interrupting international shipping and harming the entire region and disrupting the entire world.

It is a good thing that the United States is acting as the international policemen in this case. They are taking care of this threat from the Houthis while sending a very powerful message to Iran that they had better negotiate. The US is demonstrating they are not afraid to seek military solutions. They are signaling that if individuals are not permitted to come in and dismantle Iran’s nuclear program in a non-military way, the next step will a military strike. By striking the Houthis, they are establishing a credible military threat for Iran.

Sarah: Do you think the United States would help Israel in the event of a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities?

Alex: It is hard to predict the future. It is also somewhat difficult, to understand how much help Israel would need to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities successfully. I think the Trump administration would be happy to support Israel doing it alone as long as they believe Israel could do it successfully. We have already seen that this Trump administration is willing to provide Israel with the munitions necessary but it would obviously be a lot easier for the United States to do it. The US could do it faster and more furiously than Israel could.

Iran has destabilized the entire Middle East and not just Israel. There is a good argument to be made that it is not just Israel’s responsibility to restore order to the entire region. That said, Israel is the emerging regional military and economic superpower there and I think maintaining order is likely to be the Israel’s future role, if it isn’t already.

There was an interview with Senator John Fetterman from Pennsylvania here in Israel last week. Fetterman said he would fully support Israel and the US forming a partnership to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, and he emphasized they should be thoroughly wiped out.

Sarah: Amazing. We discussed the threats from Shiite Iran. The Sunnis have a huge presence in Syria and they are supported by Turkey. How much of a threat do Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkey pose to Israel and the region?

Alex: I think Turkey poses a large threat to Israel and the region. Iran’s influence has been greatly weakened across the entire region. Their main proxy, Hezbollah has been incapacitated to a significant extent and can no longer be a relied upon as a force to maintain Iran’s influence in Syria. The Houthis have been weakened. Hamas has been weakened. Even Iran’s own missile defenses have been eliminated by Israel’s retaliatory strikes, conducted in response to the ballistic missiles Iran fired at Israel.

When there is a weakness or a vacuum, other players try to fill the vacuum. In this case, Turkey decided to take the opportunity to push into Syria, and this threatens Israel. I think that one of the more underrated and underappreciated moves prime Minister Netanyahu made was to take out the entirety of the Syrian military infrastructure immediately after Bashar Assad’s fell from power. He also created a sizeable buffer zone inside southern Syria to send a very strong message to al-Julani, the head of the HTS movement, formally associated with Al-Qaeda, and backed by Turkey and Erdoğan.

Netanyahu sent the message that they should not mess with Israel. Israel has intelligence, and is not afraid to strike. We have seen Israel offering to protect the Druze communities in southern Syria. Through these actions, Israel’s trying to establish an equilibrium to deter Turkey’s proxy, HTS from moving closer and closer to the Israeli border. That said, this is still a situation Israel is going to have to continue to watch. Hopefully, we will see a split in the Sunni-Shiite alliance, but such a split it does not mean that we there will no longer be forces seeking Israel’s destruction.

Sarah: This has been a very long war. Do you think that the morale among the members of the army and the reservists is the same as it was on October 7^th? How much exhaustion and fatigue has set in?

Alex: People are obviously tired, but I think that the resolve and the resiliency of the Israeli military is off the charts. I think that is one of the reasons we can bank on the future success of the state of Israel. We have a nation of individuals willing to take up arms for their country. They are willing to leave their families and put their lives on the line not only to defend the present, but to make a better future for their children. I believe those sentiments are still there.

I would say, however, that some of them believe their political leadership have not backed them and allowed them to go all the way to win the war completely and as fast as possible. Part of that had to do with the navigating the Biden administration, Western Europe, the UN, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. I do believe that if Israeli soldiers understand that they have a real green light to finish a job once and for all, they will race back into war to do the job.

Sarah: We have received many questions from the audience. An audience member asked if Israelis have begun to return to the North, and if they feel safe doing so?

Alex: Yes, a lot of Israelis have returned to the North. Last week, somebody decided to fire some rockets into Metula. Hezbollah denied responsibility for it but it set off a lot of what I would call PTSD with people wondering again whether it was safe to remain there. That said, people want to go back home. Not everybody has returned home yet but I believe the Israeli government is now announcing that they are not going to continue to pay for people to live in hotels or in temporary residences. The government is trying to encourage people to go back home, but we have to make sure that the situation is safe for them to return, not just for the next few weeks and months, but for the next several decades as well.

Sarah: What about in the Gaza envelope? Are people returning to their homes there?

Alex: Again, the situation around Gaza is less complicated. Certainly, there was a lot of damage, but a long time has passed since October 7^th. The threat to the Israeli home-front there has been neutralized. I think it would be almost impossible to see a second October 7^th from Gaza at this point because of all the lessons learned, the buffer zones, the security and the awareness that is there now. Hopefully, the situation for the people is now safe. People are returning to their homes and with any luck, they will rebuild what were their once very beautiful communities.

Sarah: One of our audience members noted that Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, while a great supporter of Israel, does not speak for the majority of Democratic Party’s lawmakers. Did Senator Fetterman give you any sense of whether Senator Schumer and others in the Democratic Party’s leadership would support a strike on Iran?

Alex: I do not think you should count on any support from the Democratic Party’s leadership. Fetterman expressed his supreme disappointment with the members of his party over Israel. This does not imply that Fetterman would feel more comfortable as a Republican. He actually said in the interview that he would be a terrible Republican. However, when it comes to Israel, he gets it and he had been very supportive of president Trump’s policies vis-a-vis Israel. He thought that Biden did care about Israel, but thought that he could have been better on Israel. I do not think the current Democratic Party would support anything Israel does right now, just as they will not support anything that President Trump does, good or bad. Israel is going to have to understand that is the situation.

Fortunately, the president of the United States, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense and Israel’s Ambassador to Israel are no longer antagonists. Our National Security Advisor is also a supporter of Israel who want to see Israel win the war and to see Israel expanding the circle of peace with moderate Muslim majority countries in the region. Israel needs to understand that there is a very limited window of opportunity to finish this war and to get everything that they want done in a very short period of time. I hope that Prime Minister Netanyahu feels the pressure of this window, and takes full advantage of what this opportunity offers.

Sarah: Alex, speaking of very limited windows of opportunity, we see how Rafael Grossi of the IAEA has said Iran has sufficient enrichment for six nuclear bombs. How long to we have to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities?

Alex: It is hard to know.  I think the general understanding is that Iran can break out to a nuclear weapon the moment that they decide to. They could potentially acquire several in a short period of time if that is what they decide to do. It only really takes one deliverable nuclear weapon to change the face of the region, the world and certainly the state of Israel. So, I think time is short.

Regardless of the nuclear deadline, Iran has done tremendous damage to the region and the world, even without a nuclear weapon, and they need to be punished. Also, everyone needs to understand the damage and the danger that would be caused if they Iran does acquire a deliverable nuclear weapon. I do not think the timeline makes a difference. It could be two weeks, two months, or two years. If Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program and they are racing towards nuclear breakout, we have to stop them now. We have to stop playing Russian roulette. It is a very dangerous strategy to continue trying to gauge the time remaining until they acquire a deliverable weapon and hitting them only at the very last second.

Sarah: Exactly. When did you produce and direct the movie Iranium?

Alex: It came out at the beginning of 2011. It discussed the threat of a nuclear Iran to Israel, to the West, and to the entire Middle East and it predicted a nuclear arms race. We were ahead of our time, but unfortunately neither the American, nor the Israeli, governments really heeded the warning.  Western governments, led by Barack Obama, actually worked to enrich Iran. They did not hold the Iranians accountable at all for developing nuclear weapons. I think we are now seeing the folly of those policies reflected in the complete destabilization of the Middle East. Israel has been fighting the ‘ring of fire’ Iran created around it in a war which has been raging for over 16 months already.

Sarah: We mentioned that Steve Witkoff gave a very enlightening interview with Tucker Carlson. During the interview, he called the Qataris “Good, decent people” and said he was duped by Hamas. What do you make of those statements, and do you think that Steve Witkoff is qualified to negotiate with the Qataris?

Alex: I think people do have to ask the question as to whether Steve Witkoff is qualified to lead the negotiations. He has been selected to try and negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war and to try to bring back all of the hostages. Aside from being a successful businessman and Trump’s golfing partner, it is hard to understand what qualifies him to be in charge We are also seeing people like Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, seemingly sidelined. I think, Israel would have hoped that Marco Rubio would have been responsible for leading the negotiations.

When Netanyahu visited the Oval Office, I heard the president say he sees the Qataris as part of the solution. It is possible he made that statement on the advice of Steve Witkoff and I do think that they are trying to give the Qataris a ladder to climb down from right now. They see that the Qataris have been hedging their bets and playing a double game for many years. On the one hand, the Qataris are trying to present themselves as moderates in the region and peacemakers, and on the other, they infect American universities, fund Hamas and host Hamas terror leaders. They have been doing it for a long time.

America has a large military base in Qatar, and I think that Trump and Witkoff are delivering a message here. They are giving the Qataris a choice. If they play along and do exactly what the US wants them to do, the US will play along with maintaining their moderate image. If not, the US might hold them responsible for what happens. It is likely that “playing along” implies helping fund the rebuilding of Gaza, or making Hamas release all the hostages.

So, I think that some of the statements that you’re hearing in public from Witkoff and others are designed to encourage Qatar. It is likely there is a carrot and a stick, and we are probably not seeing the stick. That said, Israelis are certainly wondering about the things Witkoff is saying. These include the idea that Hamas is not necessarily an ideological movement, that Hamas does not need to necessarily leave the Gaza Strip, and that they might have some role politically, in Gaza in the future. These are inherently troubling statements.

We have already seen Israel call out Witkoff and the U.S. administration when they feel that they are going off-track. As an example, Adam Boehler, who was up for an appointment as a special envoy for hostage negotiations, started negotiating directly with Hamas without Israel’s knowledge. Israel complained and sure enough Boehler was taken off the case.

We do not know how the negotiations are going to play out, whether we are going to see a full-scale return to hostilities in Gaza or if there is going to be a war against Iran. We also do not know if the United States will hold Qatar responsible for its actions in the Middle East.

Sarah: Thank you, Alex.

I want to ask our audience to join us on April 27th and 28th in Jerusalem for JNS’s International Policy summit. Also, please support the excellent work of JNS at https://giving.jns.org/ . Please note that my staff is taking Ambassador Yoram Ettinger around Capitol Hill as we speak. Our policymakers have grown to rely on us and trust us for valid, up-to-the-minute information. We at EMET also need your support. So, please support us by going to www.emetonline.org.

Alex, we have been friends for many years and we value your insightful and important information and insights. Many people rely on jns.org for news on Israel and the Middle East and I think JNS is the fastest growing syndicate for Middle East news. So, thank you so much, Alex.

Alex: Thank you, Sarah. As I have said many times, I really think that the work that you are doing for the Jewish people in the state of Israel, and for America and its people, is indispensable. You are a small, nimble, and very effective team, and you punch way above your weight. I definitely urge all the people that are on this webinar to support EMET, Sarah, your work, and your whole team. You guys are doing a great job.

Sarah: Thank you so much, Alex. You as well.

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