Iran’s Ring of Fire Surrounds Israel

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. 

Laurie: Welcome, everyone, to EMET’’s weekly webinar. This week’s webinar features Dr. Gadi Taub. Gadi is a senior lecturer at the Fetterman School of Public Policy, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a brilliant historian, scholar, and thought leader, and a prolific writer of insightful columns and bestselling books. Gadi co-hosts Tablet’s Israel Update podcast with Michael Duran. Please take a look at the invitation to this webinar to read Gadi’s bio.

Today’s webinar will be recorded and available for viewing at a later date. I urge you all to share the link far and wide as the issues that we are going to discuss require urgent attention. If you have any questions, you can place them in the Q&A function at the bottom of your screen, and will try to get to as many as possible later in the program. Please do limit your submissions to a brief question only as we do have a lot to cover today.

Welcome, Gadi. Today, I want to focus on Israel’s philosophy regarding national security. I want to talk about how Israel is dealing with the Ring of Fire Iran has built around it. I also want to discuss how October 7^th changed the way Israel views its enemies. In that context, I want to start with the recent assassinations of the senior IRGC commander in Damascus, senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and senior Hamas commander Mohamed Dief. These actions took unbelievable intelligence. Can you spend a few minutes discussing these assassinations? We know Israeli intelligence failures led to October 7^th. Can we make a leap and assume the Israeli intelligence community has woken up and is now as strong as it ever was?

Dr. Gadi: The single most important thing Israel has done in recent months has been to defy American restraint. The United States administration has continually attempted to restrain Israel in its responses to Iran and its proxies. This has led Iran to become bolder and bolder. It has led Iran to assume the US would place a harness on our heads and we would not be able to respond to their attacks. Israel has now given an important signal that the wall of American restraint is not going to keep Iran safe. I do want to note that we have not taken responsibility for the assassination of Hania. They think it was us and they have attributed it to us. This assumption reflects their frame of mind. They believe we have reached into their holy of holies. We have reminded them that we can be fierce.

In my view, the problem that began on October 7^th, is first and foremost a problem of deterrence. We were defeated militarily by a ragtag band of terrorists using low-tech technology and we lost deterrence. In our podcast, Israel Update, my colleague, Mike Doran, and his colleague, John Kasapoğlu, referred to October 7^th as a “Mad Max battlefield defeating the Star Wars battlefield.” We relied too much on technology.

I think you asked how we did not see October 7^th coming. There are several parts to the response to that question and intelligence is just one of them. As regards intelligence, Israel relied on signal intelligence and electronic surveillance, rather than human sources. Our approach was arrogant or even cocky. We neglected human sources and we did not know what was actually happening in Gaza.

We were able to pinpoint an Iranian commander in the Revolutionary Guard in Damascus. Apparently, we were able to find a Hamas persona in Tehran. However, we failed to see what was going on under our noses before October 7^th. People within the southern theater intelligence sector, or intelligence headquarters, had actually received an almost complete plan of what transpired on October 7^th. They dismissed this information under the assumption there was no chance Hamas would challenge us. Herzi Halevi, the current Chief of Staff of the IDF, was the commander of the southern theater. Halevi wrote a very arrogant document about our multilayered defense apparatus and how it was impossible to defeat it. It looks very foolish in retrospect. The mistake was not just an Israeli one. The entire West has operated under the assumption that superior technology defeats and deters everything else.

We have now learned the lesson that low-tech can pass under the radar, so to speak. This is something the American military should have learned from its war games during the Vietnam era. On October 7^th, we got Mad Max with low technology defeating our sophisticated wall comprising many layers of technological surveillance. Our arrogance contributed to our defeat.

We have been preparing for the wrong war for many years. We misunderstood Iran’s plan. We focused on their nuclear technology and failed to understand their overall strategy. We reduced our own army in size under this retrospectively silly slogan, “a small smart army.” We have been reducing our armor, our artillery and our ground forces, in favor of technological gadgets and F-35 planes. The Iranians have been preparing something completely different from what we anticipated.

Iran attacked Israel directly on April 13^th. At that time, we were joyful about intercepting almost all of their rockets and the drones. These interceptions cost Israel $1.5 billion. The $1.5 billion excludes costs to the coalition. The technology they threw at us was very cheap. They can do it night after night for months on end. The state of Israel cannot possibly afford $1.5 billion on a nightly basis.

Laurie: Yeah, excellent, very important points, Gadi. Let’s talk more about Iran. In your recent interview with Colette, you stated, “This war is just chapter one of what is going to be a very long struggle.” You recognize that the Biden-Harris administration is trying to isolate this war by framing it as an Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, it is actually the first Iranian-Israeli war with Iran. Iran is the head of the snake. Hamas and Hezbollah are two of its proxies, and war with Hezbollah appears to be next.

Hezbollah’s Nasrallah stated at Shukr’s funeral, “We are facing a major battle that has gone beyond the issue of support fronts. The battlefields include Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and the Gaza Strip. I say to the enemy, laugh a little now, but you will soon be crying a lot because you do not know what lines you have crossed. We have entered a new phase, different from the previous phase, and the escalation depends on the behavior and reactions of the enemy. Today, they are the ones who have to await the revenge of the honorable people of the Ummah, which is the Islamic nation.”

Is this just bluster, Gadi? How should Israel interpret Nasrallah’s reference to the new phase in the war?

Dr. Gadi: First of all, I do not think they are aiming for a regional war at this juncture. I think it is not the right time for them. However, I would not discount Nasrallah’s words completely because they have to respond after what Israel did. If they do not, they risk losing their own deterrence. I am not talking just about Nasrallah, but about Khamenei, and Iran in general. They cannot decide not to respond. I do not think they want their response to escalate into a full-blown regional war, but I do think Israel will ultimately have to fight this war. I have been saying this since the beginning of the Swords of Iron War.

We should consider the juncture we are at right now as a kind of replay of the 1956 Suez War and not just as a replay of the 1948 War of Independence. In 1956, we initiated the Suez War along with England and France. The excuse was the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Abdel Nasser was the Egyptian dictator who presumed he would lead the whole Arab world and eventually consolidate the whole Arab region into one state. The real reason for initiating the war was the fear that Egypt was tying a noose around our neck.

A year prior to the war, Egypt struck a deal with the Soviets. It was misleadingly called the Czech arms deal. Under the terms of this deal, the Soviet Union would supply Egypt with superior weapons in great quantities. Israel felt that the balance of power was tipping. We felt Nasser was tying a noose around our neck and we believed we would not be able to escape it without taking pre-emptive action. So, in 1956, we went to war to loosen Egypt’s noose. Let me remind you that it took a quarter of a century to dismantle that noose.

A political sea change led Anwar El-Sadat to finally agree to peace. Before that, we fought the Suez War, the Six Day War, the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War. People are now saying that Sadat sought peace before the war but current research reveals that to be untrue. Irrespective, he was ready to switch sides after the Yom Kippur War. A very smart American administration led by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, figured out the complicated play. They persuaded Egypt it would be in its interest to switch allegiances from the Soviet bloc to the American-led Western bloc. That said, it took 25 years for us to remove the noose that Egypt was attempting to tighten around our neck.

We woke up on October 7^th realizing the Iranian noose is real. We considered Iran’s proxies to be ragtag terror organizations which we could wipe out as and when we chose to do so. It turned out that the reality is not that simple. Look how long it is taking to root out Hamas. The American administration is not exactly helping Israel. A recent article in the Tablet Magazine discussed how the United States is the only thing standing between Israel and the crushing of Hamas.

Hamas is the smallest of our enemies. We are going to have to dismantle the whole ring of Iranian proxies surrounding us. Hezbollah is 10 times stronger and more sophisticated than Hamas. There is no Philadelphi corridor cutting Hezbollah off from the outside world. Hezbollah has territorial continuity all the way to Tehran. They have about 150,000 projectiles, some of which are precision guided. We cannot live with this Nazi monster on our border. I am using the term Nazi because they are Nazis. I use the term Nazi very rarely and I am not one who thinks we should use this term to describe our political enemies on a regular basis.

The core of these people’s ideological view is the genocide of the Jewish people. They have found an effective way to achieve their goal and we must fight a war to prevent it. There are those who are yearning for all this to somehow wind down. They support an agreement to conclude it all and dream of peace and a two-state solution. It is pie in the sky. We should not only be thinking about intentions and certainly not only about signed contracts and peace deals. We should be thinking about capabilities. We cannot tolerate Hezbollah’s capabilities on our border and as a result we will have to fight a war against them. Eventually, we have to block Iran’s drive for regional hegemony. I do not see that happening without more wars. This is a message people do not like to hear. However, if we do not wake up, the noose that they have been tying around our necks is going to tighten, and can eventually bring about Israel’s downfall.

Laurie: You mentioned that Hezbollah does not want a full-blown war with Israel right now. I am hearing that about Iran as well. Israel has not yet preemptively attacked Hezbollah.

After October 7^th, I was in the camp that was very much in favor of attacking Hezbollah and I believe you were as well. We understand the Biden administration held Israel back from a pre-emptive strike on Hezbollah after October 7th, and they continue to do so until today. I am also hearing that Israel is not ready for a war with Hezbollah. The reservists are exhausted after almost 11 months of war with Hamas. Their weaponry and the ammunition have not been replenished to the extent needed for a war in the North. How do you see this playing out? Given the circumstances I described, is there a chance Israel would preemptively attack Hezbollah? I know that you do not want to give out too much information on this topic. However, please share whatever insights you can about this.

Dr. Gadi: First of all, I am glad that the Israeli government is not sharing much information in this regard. There are a lot of bluffs in this game. If we are going to preempt an attack, we should not telegraph our punches weeks in advance. We need to preserve the element of surprise.

Israel has been doing a lot of rethinking and replanning. One of the sad conclusions we reached is that we cannot rely on the American supply of ammunition and we should strive to achieve what John Kasapoğlu and Mike Doran called tactical sovereignty. Tactical sovereignty will not allow us to achieve complete independence. However, it will allow us to manufacture our own simple bombs and shells. We are a nation that manufactures the most cutting-edge state-of-the-art high-tech and we should be able manufacture our own bombs and shells as well. We have to change the plan completely in that respect. We have to go back to fighting low-tech and to relying on low-tech. Not all problems are solvable with technological gadgets. Sometimes what is needed is a lot of armor.

This is the way the Iranian tacticians, and strategists planned their war against us. Mike and I started our Israel Update podcast around 10 days after the war began. One of the first clips we showed included a drone with four propellers that can be bought off the shelf at Walmart. This drone is capable of carrying an RPG over a tank. The clip we showed was a demonstration film by Hezbollah and showed how the drone could be used to drop an RPG over a tank. This drone would cost you $200 at Walmart, and the RPG would cost an additional $300. An Israeli Merkava tank, on the other hand, costs around five or $6 million. Tanks are not built to receive an RPG vertically from above and a lot of Walmart drones and simple RPGs can defeat the whole IDF. As such, we need to adjust to a Mad Max battlefield. We also need to take into account that the next war, the war with Hezbollah, is going to be more devastating in terms of casualties, and especially civilian casualties, than any war in Israel’s history.

I think the Israeli public is now worried and tense, but far from hysterical. I have been pleasantly surprised by the spirit of the young generation. They follow a moving slogan that roughly translates to, not falling short of the generation of 1948. My father lost his hand in the War of Independence in 1948 and I know a lot about that generation. They came from the burning furnaces of Europe. My father was a refugee but not a Holocaust survivor since he escaped Europe in time. We were ready to die in those wars. We were ready to die to protect the ideal of Jewish sovereignty and the core of Zionism, which is, never again.

I will say a few words about what I mean by never again. It does not mean our people will not die violent deaths ever again. It means we will not die on our knees with a bullet in the back of our heads ever again. That is what it means. If you are going to die, you are going to die fighting. This, I think, revolutionized the Jewish psyche and is something that is deeply ingrained in Israeli society.

I just came back from a vacation abroad. I have cats and I have a cat sitter. Upon my return, I realized my sitter had amassed water bottles in preparation for an attack. This illustrated to me how people are preparing here. They are doing it quietly, stubbornly and with resolve. If they need to face disaster and mayhem, they will do it in a calm and determined fashion.

I trust the Israeli public and I trust Israel soldiers but I cannot say the same about Israeli generals. They all belong to the Oslo generation and they will have to be replaced as our fight continues. They are already seeking a diplomatic out. However, unless this war is decisive, we are mortgaging our very existence. I am not being trigger-happy when I say that we are going to have to fight decades of war. I do not think it is going to be a walk in the park. It may be devastating on a scale that we have never seen before. However, to my mind, the state of Israel is the greatest achievement of the Jewish people in 2000 years. If we want to preserve the state of Israel and maintain political independence, then we will have to be bold and take the risk.

I said something very negative about our generals. I will explain what I said, if I may. As part of your first question, you asked what happened on October 7^th. Prior to October 7^th, we assumed a defensive posture. We hid behind a sophisticated wall separating us and Gaza. I am a historian. I am not a military historian but I am enough of a historian to tell you that walls do not work. They may work for immigration but they do not work for military defense. The China wall, the Maginot line, the Bar-Lev line, the Siegfried Line, Hitler’s Atlantic wall, and Israel’s wall on Gaza, all failed to provide military defense for the same reason. Those hiding behind walls, sink into a routine and into complacency. Eventually, the enemy is able to determine where the weakness in the wall is and they concentrate their power there. They are able to preserve the element of surprise prior to attacking. This is what happened on October 7^th.

We have to change our whole political outlook and replace our defensive posture with an offensive one. We should seek out our enemies. Israel’s approach to Iran’s nuclear program, illustrates where we need to make the switch. We kept talking about how we can destroy the weapon they are creating. That is defense. It is defense even though we would fly out there to destroy their weapons. We do not need to attack their weapons. We need to deter them. This is what Israel did in Yemen when it attacked the Hudaydah Port. This attack demonstrated that we are not going to stick to military targets. We are not just going to respond to threats from our enemies. We are going to initiate deterring actions.

Because of Hudaydah, the Iranians are now very much afraid of these types of actions. We achieved deterrence because we defied the Americans. The Iranian economy is vulnerable, and Israel has made it clear that if our population is attacked in a way that we find intolerable, we will destroy their economy. We are not talking about responding to a rocket here or a rocket there. We are referring to our response to an attack endangering our mass populations. This is how we threaten the Iranian regime and it is something we should have done a long, long time ago.

Laurie: Unfortunately, I think the US administration has also fallen far short of what it should have been doing. I am not just referring to their actions before October 7^th, but since then as well. I think that their approach poses a huge dilemma for Israeli leadership. I would be very worried about the upcoming election if I was an Israeli.

Israel’s war with Iran really began under Obama. Mike addressed the outcome of Obama’s plans to realign the region in the column he wrote with Tony Badran. I think you also recognized that Obama’s realignment policy lit the region on fire. You said that this war is the direct result of the appeasement policy of the Democratic administration. Israel’s enemies are watching the Biden-Harris administration’s obsession with ceasefire, humanitarian aid and with tying Israel’s hands.

You said a little while ago that a ceasefire would mean defeat for Israel. I have also heard you say in an interview that it would result in “Israeli blood left in the water.” What are Israelis facing strategically without the backing of the US? Do you think the Israeli leadership is strong enough to act in Israel’s best interest notwithstanding the various threats from the Biden-Harris administration? You did point out they did stand up to the administration with that Yemen attack. Are Israelis worried about the outcome of the upcoming US election? Can Israel do this alone?

Dr. Gadi: No, we cannot do it completely alone, but we do have levers. First of all, I hope for Israel’s sake that the Harris-Waltz ticket will lose this election. If anything, they are more radical than the Biden administration in their overall views and policy of appeasement. Kamala Harris just chose Ilan Goldenberg as liaison to the Jewish community in the United States. Ilan Goldenberg is the guy who pushed for sanctioning Israel. My colleague, Mike Doran recently pointed out in Tablet Magazine that this has never happened before in the history of America. Never before has a United States administration created a mechanism of sanctions looking for targets within the government of an ally. They have sometimes placed sanctions to prevent specific actions. However, this is a sanction mechanism designed to push Israel to replace its government. It is targeting the right and trying to convey to Israelis that they had better move to the left. Of course, the opposite happened after October 7^th. If you want, we can go into this more a little later because the Americans have seriously misunderstood what is going on here.

The whole appeasement of Iran policy is based on fraud. It is based on misleading the American public into thinking that this administration is uniquely friendly to Israel. They keep saying it and the Israeli left also buys it wholesale. They swallow the propaganda. They keep saying that an American president has never before traveled to Israel in the middle of a war. Well, he arrived here to save his appeasement policy. That is not to say the administration is seeking Israel’s destruction or that Joe Biden is inherently hostile to Israel. However, their policy runs contrary to our interests. Their policy is based on fraud and that is the saving grace for us.

I think Netanyahu was very wise when he released his impressive little video clip complaining about the administration withholding ammunition from Israel. He used the clip to deliver a stern warning using what we in Israel call the knock-on-roof technique.  Israel uses this technique to warn civilians to leave a building before attacking. The knock-on-roof is a tiny bomb that is used as a warning prior to a full-scale attack. Netanyahu’s video was a kind of knock-on-roof bomb calling out the administration for the anti-Israeli policy they were conducting under the table. He called them out for kicking us in the shins and he warned them he would take it over the table. It was a small warning because he called them out on withholding some munitions, an important but relatively small thing. However, if he starts calling them on their Iran policy, I think they would be in serious trouble, especially in the run-up to the election.

The attack on Yemen’s Hudaydah Port was also part of the same approach. As I said, Hudaydah defied American restraints and exposed the administration’s secret tactics of kicking us under the table. The attack on Hudaydah also exposed the lie that America has been trying to attack or restrain the Houthis. America’s responses to attacks from the Houthis have been cosmetic. They signal to Iran that the US wants to de-escalate. This is the opposite of deterrence. The US is signaling to Iran that they will not hurt their proxies but they must please stop shooting at US ships. In the case of Hudaydah, Israel exacted a price and it exposed the American charade for what it is.

If you take this logic to the absolute extreme, Israel can drag America into a regional and possibly larger war if it has its back to the wall. I hope we do not get there. I am not comparing Israel to the strongest superpower on earth. However, even a mosquito can cause damage to an elephant, and we are more than a mosquito. I do not want to use extreme language. However, if we are pushed to the brink of a second Holocaust, everything, and I mean everything, is on the table for us.

Laurie: You have brought up some really important points. You spoke about how the Israeli left fell for Biden when he arrived in Israel after October 7^th. I think the American Jewish left has not only fallen for Biden’s handling of October 7^th but they fell for much of what Obama did as well. The left was delighted about the signing of the 10-year MOU between the US and Israel during the Obama administration. That 10-year MOU actually tied Israel’s hands. I do not think American Jews really understand that was not such a wonderful thing.

The Biden administration has forced Israel into ceasefire negotiations once again and they begin tomorrow. What are your thoughts on what is going to transpire tomorrow? Hamas is saying that they are not going to show up, and Iran is saying if Israel agrees to a ceasefire, they will not attack. What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Gadi: It is a very worrying development. The administration is trying to offer Iran and Hezbollah a ladder so they can climb down from their tree of bluster and threats. They rightly believe that if they can deliver a ceasefire in Gaza, the Iranian axis will de-escalate under the cover of a good excuse and the war will be over. However, Israel cannot allow the war to be over. It is hard to tell people this because nobody wants war. However, we have evacuated the Western Negev and the North of our country. Our people cannot return to their homes. Since the Gush Etzion loss of territory in 1948, this is the first time we have given up territory to the enemy. It is the first time in Israel’s independent existence that we have lost territory and it happened without the enemy even having to enter our land.

We cannot afford for this whole thing to end in a ceasefire. We certainly cannot afford for this war to end with Hamas still on its feet in Gaza. Westerners may look at the devastation in Gaza and think Hamas already lost the war. Our enemies do not think that. They do not care about buildings. Buildings will be reconstructed and there will be plenty of international aid to help them rebuild. Building construction will provide employment for the Gazans. They do not care the way we do about human lives. They consider those who lost their lives in the war to be martyrs who will be rewarded in heaven.

The only way to exact a price from these people is to have them pay through territory. We cannot agree to the Biden plan for a hostage deal ceasefire. We cannot leave Yahya Sinwar on his feet. If he emerges from the tunnels with a Churchillian V sign, he will be Saladin for Muslims for the next thousand years. We cannot allow that. We are not joyful about wars. We are certainly not trigger-happy, but we cannot let this war wind down without victory.

The progressive elites here are in cahoots with the Biden administration. They think that the worst problem in the world is the Israeli right and that we can deal with Hamas. They continue to try and pin the responsibility for October 7^th on Netanyahu. They have this slogan, “You’re at the helm, you’re guilty, you’re the head, you’re guilty.” They do not understand why public support for Netanyahu keeps growing.

If you dwell among the people and talk directly to them, you realize that most Israelis understand that we cannot emerge from this war without victory. Outside of Channel 14, the press is a choir in Israel and a PR organ of the left. If you ignore the megaphone-like noise belonging to a tiny fraction of Israeli society, most Israelis understand that we can emerge from this war without victory. From the beginning of the conflict, Netanyahu has said that we are going to win this war.

There is a hat distributed by the very popular right-wing host of the Patriots Show. This show is now a big hit in Israel. It is a funny, satirical political show which is actually very smart. The hat says total victory on it. People, including Gallant, have mocked this. Gallant is a sort of agent of the Biden administration. He is certainly an agent of the left within the government. Just recently, he said in the Knesset, “Total victory is just the pounding on the tum-tum drums. It is nonsense.” He had to course correct immediately because Israelis will have none of it. In brackets, I want to remind everybody that we did not achieve judicial reform because Gallant basically deserted. He worked with the left and with the refuseniks to defeat the people’s right to judicial reform.

So, Netanyahu has been emitting a single note from the beginning of this war, and gradually Israelis have flocked back around Likud. They understood he is the only leader who understands the reality of the strategic situation. Israelis, especially uneducated Israelis, are very politically savvy. They understand what is what. It is just the educated woke left that has confused itself with its own theories and it does not understand the seriousness of the situation.

It is hard to explain to outsiders what the chronic protesters have been saying every Saturday for years now. They say explicitly that Hamas is not the real enemy. The Israeli right is the real enemy. The real enemy is Bibi Netanyahu. They say this with actual words. This is a lunatic thought. These people may control the media. They may be very educated, but they do not understand the reality of our situation.

Laurie: I think we could find a parallel here in the United States as well, but that is not our topic for today. There are a lot of questions in the queue and I have many more of my own. What is the significance of Sinwar replacing Haniyeh? I read an article by Seth Frantzman. Franzman wrote that the death of Haniyeh was especially significant because he was being groomed to take over the Palestinian Authority in addition to Hamas. That would have launched Hamas from isolation in Gaza to controlling Ramallah and the West Bank. It would have united the two Palestinian fronts.

I read this morning that the IDF came minutes from getting Sinwar and that his coffee was still hot. Do you think that Israel is going to get Sinwar? If not, what is the significance of having him replace Haniyeh? Do you think that Sinwar can get out of Gaza given that Israel now controls the Philadelphi Corridor?

Dr. Gadi: I think if Sinwar is not yet out of Gaza, we probably have him trapped. We should not, at any cost, abandon the Philadelphi Corridor. There is a highway of smuggling tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor. These tunnels are wide enough for pickup trucks and Hummer Jeeps. We cannot afford to abandon the Philadelphi corridor, despite what Yoav Gallant, the Minister of Security, is now proposing.

I do not differentiate much between the personalities at the head of Hamas versus those at the head of the Palestinian Authority (PA). I am of the opinion that we should dismantle the PA. It is not that different from Hamas. The radicalism and fanaticism of Hamas fighters was taught to them in the schoolbooks manufactured by the PA. This is not just religious teaching. Their books teach and glorify the murder of Jews.

Lital Shemesh, a Channel 14 anchor, wrote a book called, How Much Is a Dead Jew Worth? Her book surveys the PA’s pay-for-slay program and also provides examples from their school books. The PA teaches children how to do Arab diacritics, like dotting your I’s and crossing your T’s. Jew-hatred is a deeply embedded part of this curriculum. As an example, they educate children to believe that what they term their occupiers, can never be human. Their children learn to dehumanize Jews from the moment they are born.

We have surveys from after October 7^th. We know that the Palestinian population in the territory celebrated the massacre of October 7^th. This includes PA officials. There are also Palestinian surveys done about opinion polls conducted in their institutions. The results indicate that a large majority of Palestinians support the Hamas massacre. We also know that many in the PA security forces, also moonlight as terrorists. Spokespersons for the Palestinian Authority brag that Fatah or PA people, kill more Jews in Judea and Samaria than Hamas. That is considered a badge of honor for them.

The Biden administration is working to revitalize them. They have an army. The Americans are training and financing them and their police force is now an army. We thought that we could outsource security. According to the Oslo Accords, we would have a Palestinian police-force which would deal with Hamas. Instead, they are cooperating with Hamas. They are also not a mere police force. They go to Pakistan with American money. There they train for two years in artillery, armor, parachuting, and heavy weaponry. This is more than a police force and they may well be preparing a huge October 7^th replica.

Let me remind you that the territory of Judea and Samaria is about 15 times that of Gaza. It is perched on the mountain ridge over a nine-mile strip of Israel’s coastal plain. This is where most of our strategic, economic, and population assets are concentrated. So, we cannot afford to have a huge October 7^th happening seven minutes by car from Tel Aviv. If the attack occurs during rush hour, maybe traffic in Tel Aviv can allow us defend ourselves for longer.

Laurie: The situation is very frightening. There are so many really good questions in the queue. I am going to turn to them. A couple of people are asking what a win would look like?

Dr. Gadi: My preferred vision for a win is one with realistic parameters. I do not think we can pull rabbits out of a hat. First of all, Yahya Sinwar should be dead. Secondly, we should annihilate the military and governing capabilities of Hamas and replace them completely. This means an occupation. Let us not fool ourselves. The IDF needs to fully occupy and run the Gaza Strip for at least a few years. We need to root out Hamas operatives and we need to destroy their ability to disseminate their ideology. We should eliminate the incitement in mosques and in schoolbooks. We should definitely dismantle UNRWA. We should also, in my opinion, annex the northern third of the Gaza Strip.

As I said, demolished buildings and lost lives will not deter them. It is time for us to take their theology seriously. We must stop imagining them in our image and stupidly thinking that everyone is like us. They are not the same as we are. They are serious about their theology. Jihad is a call to conquer the whole globe and especially the land of Israel. According to the theology of the Muslim Brotherhood, the risk of losing territory is the only valid reason for stopping jihad against Jews. As such, the price at the end of this war should be the loss of territory.

We should draw the same conclusions in the West Bank and dismantle the terrorist organization called the Palestinian Authority. We should implement similar solutions in the West Bank as in Gaza. If we are able to stop the incitement and indoctrination inherent in their Nazi philosophy, we may eventually create a generation that will seek peace. Children who are indoctrinated with Hamas and Palestinian Authority antisemitism will grow up to be terrorists unless we change their education.

Laurie: Very important points. What was the impact of the cyber-attack on Iran’s military capabilities?

Dr. Gadi: I don’t know, and the little I know, I don’t feel comfortable discussing.

Laurie: Perfectly fair. A lot of people are asking about a strike on Iran. Wouldn’t it be better to strike Iran pre-emptively than to wait for them to strike Israel?

Dr. Gadi: That is not a bad idea but I do not know if we can run the risk of losing any more international legitimacy. If we are attacked, the world will better understand why we need to defend ourselves. However, there is a flip side to that argument.  I had a very interesting interview with my friend Dan Schueftan on our Israel Update podcast. I can send you the link if you want it. Dan Schueftan maintains this is a test case to determine whether a civilized nation can defeat barbarians or whether barbarians can use our own moral values in order to undermine our ability to fight them. Dan believes it is extremely important that Israel defeats Iran even in the face of condemnation from woke elites. This goes back to the very first point I brought up. I think that defying American restraints was the most important strategic move we have made in this war. If we extend that approach and apply it to the whole scenario, maybe we should ignore a lot of the criticism and constraints we have received.

So, I do not have a yes or no answer to the question of whether we should attack Iran before they attack us. However, I will say something that people do not like to hear. I think we should do our utmost to prevent this crisis from dissolving before we attack Iran. Again, I am never trigger-happy, but Iran is going to bide its time. They want to climb off the tree because they do not want to sacrifice Hezbollah before they have completed their military nuclear program. Therefore, we should strive to bring this to a head before they have nuclear weapons. This is crucial.

Laurie: Yeah, it is too bad it was not done years ago, but here we are. You mentioned the two-state solution while responding to one of my previous questions. To me, it is insane that anybody is entertaining a two-state solution post-October 7^th. However, the Biden-Harris administration continues to discuss it. Somebody asked if you think that there are any Arab states ready to accept that there cannot be a Palestinian state. Do you think that the Arab states, or at least the Abraham Accord states, recognize the two-state solution is not feasible?

Dr. Gadi: I think many of them have recognized that a Palestinian state is not feasible. I interviewed Secretary Mike Pompeo on my Hebrew podcast. I interviewed him in English but added Hebrew subtitles. I asked him what the difference was between Trump and the preceding Obama administrations regarding Middle Eastern policy. He said three things. One, Iran is the problem, not the solution. Second, we need to bypass the Palestinian veto. And third, we need a credible military force in the region, posing a credible threat. The second point is what’s crucial here. Many Arab countries are sick and tired of the recalcitrant Palestinians behind whom they must always rally. That was the secret of the Abraham Accords. Many Arab Sunni states do not believe their problem is the occupation of the West Bank. They know their real problem is the rise of Iran to regional hegemony. In that war, Israel is their partner and the Palestinians are an obstacle.

The Biden administration brought back the Palestinian issue to dissolve the threat to Iran imposed by an Israeli-Sunni coalition. Let me remind you that the minute they came to power, they forbade the State Department from using the name Abraham Accords. One of their chief but unstated goals was to dismantle the Abraham Accords. The way to do it was to reinsert the Palestinians into the equation. Of course, reinserting the Palestinian issue ruined the whole strategy because Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are allies of Iran.

I think many Arab states see the benefits of an alliance with Israel. Israeli defiance of the United States is what I think convinced the Sunni states that Israel was a valuable ally. You may remember that Netanyahu gave a speech against the Obama administration’s Iran policy. He gave this speech before a joint session of the two houses of Congress and in spite of Obama’s vehement protestations. Our neighbors took from that speech that the Israelis have guts. They understood the Israelis were ready to even defy the great United States and this implied to them that they could trust us.

I cannot blame the Arab states if they fail to trust the United States. There are questions as to whether a second Trump administration would continue to be friendly to Israel given that there was friction between Trump and Netanyahu. The important thing about the next American administration is not its Israel policy. Its Iran policy is what is most important. I do not foresee a world in which someone with Trump’s character and business background will be led to believe that appeasement will placate the Iranians. When he was president, Trump instinctively behaved very differently from Obama towards Iran. His administration brought Iran to its knees. During the Trump administration, Iran’s ability to influence the region was at its lowest point.

The Biden administration loosened the sanction regime against Iran the minute they took office. They allowed about $100 billion flow to Iran, mostly in oil sales to China. These funds were supposed to have been sanctioned. Look at the Middle East four years after Trump left office; it is on fire. It was the calmest ever when they thought that Trump is a bully nutcase who was going to assassinate their generals. They were rightly afraid of him. Regardless of what you think of internal American policy, this is an existential question for Israel.

I do not know what will happen if we have a Harris-Waltz administration with ties to Ilhan Omar, Ilhan Goldenberg, Mahdi Taher and all the rest of the Obama people connected to the Iranian lobbies. We all know about the Rob Malley affair involving his nefarious ties to Iran. If they continue the policy of appeasement towards Iran, we are heading into a very dark future. Israel’s existence will be in question, as will world peace. As Netanyahu said, Israel is at the forefront of the clash between civilization and barbarism. This barbarism is now backed by Russians and the Chinese. This is an extremely explosive situation and has the potential to spiral into a world war. These people who believe in appeasing the greatest state sponsor of terrorism in history, are driving all of us into an abyss.

Laurie: Yeah, the Obama-Biden team has empowered and enriched Iran, and it is frightening. Gadi, I cannot thank you enough for speaking with us today. I am already seeing how much the audience appreciated this webinar on text messages and in the Q&A’s. I am not surprised. You are always brilliant. We will definitely have you back sometime in the future. Thank you to all who listened this afternoon. Gadi, thank you for all you are doing.

Dr. Gadi: Thank you, Laurie. It was a pleasure.

Laurie: Have a wonderful afternoon.

Dr. Gadi: Thank you

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