Lawfare Daily: What Israel's Gaza City Offensive and Airstrikes in Qatar Mean for the Region

[Intro]

Joel Braunold: One of the consequences of Israel's actions and rhetoric is that Hamas has no reason to believe if Israel signs a deal, that it will stick to a deal unless it's forced to stick to a deal that it agrees to.

Scott Anderson: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson with Dan Byman, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic International Studies, Joel Braunold, managing director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East and Natan Sachs, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Daniel Byman: By setting back Iran's nuclear program and by Iran being hurt, its proxies being hurt, its reputation being hurt, the imperatives driving the Gulf States and Israel together are, are actually diminished, which means the domestic political cost to the Gulf States whose populations are very anti-Israel is much higher. Why, why pay it if you are dealing with an enemy like Iran, that's diminished?

Scott Anderson: Today we're talking about recent developments in the Gaza conflict and the ripple effects they're producing across the region.

[Main Podcast]

So I think it's worth saying upfront 'cause this is a fast moving topic. We're recording on September 16th, Tuesday around 11:00 AM on the East Coast here in Washington, D.C. As we're recording right now, if you look at the front page of most major newspapers, their Middle East section, their world section, there are reports coming about the latest phase of the Israeli military operation in Gaza which is a renewed ground offensive focused around Gaza City.

Large scale displacement, purportedly justified on a strategic basis by the Israelis as an effort to keep Hamas from regrouping aimed at you know, undermining what li-, what additional or limited continuing support and logistics they have in Gaza City, but also having pretty dramatic humanitarian displacement effects, looks like there's about 350,000 people from reports. I've seen people displaced from Gaza City, not just from Gaza and a whole about a half million remaining in Gaza City during the military operation.

This is from the Times that I'm pulling this number. Dan, talk to us about this military operation. What is it the Israelis are doing? What is it they say they want to do, and where does it fit into the bigger strategic arc of this conflict?

Daniel Byman: Ostensibly, Israel is trying to assert its control over Gaza to the point where Hamas cannot renew itself. And what we've seen for really, you know, almost since after October 7th itself several months after that was when Israel, Israeli troops would leave part of Gaza, Hamas forces would pop back up, and this might be in a small way doing an ambush on any Israelis passing through. But it was a form of Hamas asserting its continued control and presence in Gaza and Israel's war aim is the very vague Hamas must be destroyed.

And so this has been a constant challenge, and I suspect we'll discuss that there are a lot of other alternatives to Hamas in terms of government structures in Gaza. But Israel's against them all, or at least against them all rhetorically. So you end up with Israeli troops having to displace Hamas. And to do so, this requires a pretty massive troop presence.

There are U.S. estimates for what are often called stability operations of the number of troops you need for the population. And it often varies between one soldier to 20 in the population, it versus one to 50. There's debate about that, but whatever the number is, it's really, really big. And Israel finds itself again and again having to go into parts of Gaza where it's been before and displace both Hamas, but also the population.

And as you said, there are hundreds of thousands of people who have left and even more likely to leave. Those who don't are going to be in the line of fire. And we're gonna see, you know, even more casualties in a place that's already seen horrific casualties and this sort of operation, in theory politically, could drive Hamas to the negotiating table.

But I think we've seen the failure of that again and again, where if Israel's demand is simply Hamas give up completely. Hamas is more than willing to sacrifice another 5,000 other 10,000 Palestinians, some of its fighters, but a lot of civilians to defy Israel. And so seems like a movie we've seen again and again, even though each particular operation is different.

Scott Anderson: This military operation is coming at the same time as I think two other big movements developments in the Gaza conflict. One is the increasingly dire humanitarian situation. We had a formal famine declared, but a few weeks ago in Gaza. Something that because of the trajectory in momentum that comes of famine and the availability of resource, humanitarian relief, something that's hard to reverse.

We know we've had a real struggle for months to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza, in part as a deliberate product of Israeli policy. That changed a little bit a few weeks ago, at least in some superficial measures, but there are still challenges there. So that's kind of one angle. The other big intersection is that we were seeing last week another push by the Trump administration essentially saying, hey look, we've gotta come to the table using the threat of a major offensive like this in part to try and bring Hamas to the table.

That was before, of course, something we're gonna talk about in a little bit, a little bit more detail, Israel's very dramatic strike on Hamas leadership in Qatar which you know, I needless to say was a little disruptive in negotiations. But nonetheless, we still have Secretary of State Rubio today releasing statements, or I think probably made yesterday in the media today saying we are really down to put the last possible minute for a negotiated solution in Gaza. So obviously a real focus on some sort of negotiations there.

Joel, talk to us about that broader Gaza picture. How does this military operation intersect both with the humanitarian piece, the much more immediate one and the somewhat longer term, but if you listen to the Trump administration, at least framed very immediately need for a negotiated settlement and progress in that regard?

Joel Braunold: Let's start backwards. The government of Israel's position vis-a-vis this is that Hamas needs to be defeated, not transformed. So Hamas needs to be killed and destroyed. How we go back to, again, many conversations we've had, Scott, how do you kill a political movement? I think this is a challenge that everyone has been asking, but that is the current modus operandi.

And by the way, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his min, his main minister, Ron Dermer, have seemingly successfully convinced President Trump himself that this is also should be his modus operandi. If you look at even on his critical comments vis-à-vis the Israelis in terms of the location of the strike, he agrees that Hamas should be destroyed everywhere. And so both the Americans and the Israelis belief is that the war will end when Hamas is destroyed and waves a white flag, and that white flag is waved through its destruction, okay?

The region and the rest of the world–really led by the Saudis and the French and their diplomatic initiative that we'll get into later–think that you need to offer a political horizon, and then the entire region rejects Hamas as a governing entity in Gaza, that it must leave Gaza and it needs to disarm and go away, and DDR, and all these other things. And in order for that to happen, you need guarantors that will guarantee Israeli actions that if they commit to exile the, the exile.

And so far the Americans haven't been willing to give that guarantee because they share the Israeli current perception that Hamas can be destroyed. So is this a pressure tactic to try and get Hamas back into the table? Well, if it is at the table, Hamas will require guarantees that should it surrender that or go into exile and give up its guns, that they're not just allowing for permanent occupation of Gaza and that they're not going to sign their own death warrants. And until they feel that's the case, they're not going to surrender.

So, if it is a pressure tactic, the the down ramp also needs to be clear. So you've got sort of competing objectives that you can claim this as a pressure to force Hamas to come back to the table. But if at that table there's no guarantee that will restrain Israeli action, should Hamas agree to something, it's hard because one of the consequences of Israel's actions in rhetoric is that Hamas has no reason to believe if Israel signs a deal, then it will stick to a deal unless it's forced to stick to a deal that it agrees to. So that's one.

On the first part, the humanitarian situation is dire. The IPC came out with its famine report. Israel's response was to do a massive public campaign to undercut the methodology of the IPC report. Israel claims that it's using specific determinations that it hasn't used elsewhere. The IPC pushes back and says it's not. You can go online and on social media and see the backwards and forwards and you can believe who you want to believe. But again, it's sort of Israel by itself against pretty much every international institution.

Israel will claim well, that's the bias it faces. And the prime minister yesterday said, you are facing a flood of Qatari, and Chinese now, money to try and sort of set up these narratives. Also today, or I think actually, yeah, it was overnight you had the UN independent fact finding mission that declared that Israel is committing four of the five acts of genocide according to the Genocide Convention. Israel again rolls its eyes and says more of the same, but you've got that.

But I will point out, Scott, that when we had that interesting meeting at the White House a few weeks ago where you were gonna have a policy meeting on the future of Gaza, A) Tony Blair was there, interesting. B) Ron Dermer flew in emergency and didn't meet with Cindy McCain in Israel, which was something that we knew that he was coming up. So this was an urgent meeting.

And three, President Trump had indicated that he was gonna get the humanitarian situation sorted. So regardless what happened, it would be expanded. And I'd argue on that file, we've seen no progress. At one point we were told that the GHF would expand to 14 sites. That hasn't happened. We have seen that Israel has now instituted a new NGO registration for INGOs that now need to go through an inter-ministerial committee. So many of the traditional humanitarian actors in Gaza have been deregistered or lack registration, and you're seeing new actors, evangelical actors like Samaritan's Purse.

So Samaritan's Purse has started working with the GHF publicly. And that's the first public real major NGO. They're not a traditional NGO in Gaza who is working with the GHF. And we haven't seen any surge of humanitarian assistance. You know, one of, I think one of the major reticence or resistances that we've heard from leaks of the Israeli cabinet meeting from the IDF chief of staff is, you know, if we take over Gaza City, we're gonna have to be in charge of the residents there. And we're not humanitarianly prepared to do such a thing.

So far we haven't seen a surge in humanitarian points of access or anything else. So I think there is a, the, the situation is you are adding onto already a desperate situation, 800, you know, 1.1 million people, more internally displaced. That puts more stress on the very limited aid infrastructure that exists in terms of distribution hubs.

And again, the question therefore becomes is this a byproduct of a necessary military maneuver? Or is this the plan to push Palestinians into unlivable inhabitation and then say you can leave or you can stay inhabitable accommodations forever? And again, this goes back to the crux of what is the purpose of all of this. And the inability of anyone to trust what anyone is saying that the purpose of this is.

Scott Anderson: So a big motivator that we often see attributed, particularly those critical of the Israeli government and what they're doing here, is that a big part of this is domestic politics. This is Bibi, trying to keep his political fates alive, trying to keep his coalition together, or is otherwise perhaps hemmed in by his coalition that need to a much more hard line approach to Gaza.

And while that may be a narrative that people may or may not believe in, that has been problems or may have some ring of truth to it, it's certainly true that domestic politics weigh really heavily in the government's calculus and how it's approaching this conflict as it always has, kind of from the beginning.

So Natan talk to us about that. This government is in some ways, at a very delicate moment, but Bibi Netanyahu has lived his life in delicate moments and that's not nothing new for him. So talk to us about where his coalition is at the moment and how that's intersecting with Gaza.

Natan Sachs: You know, I've had quite a few conversations on just this question, and there's an interesting tension here. On the one hand, if you look at Netanyahu’s coalition considerations, they're clear. They're on the right, and I would say far, far right. Bezalel Smotrich to a greater degree, much lesser degree to Itamar Ben-Gvir feel, have really managed to push a lot of the line. It's not the full line that Smotrich wants, and he will claim that Netanyahu is incapable of doing what needs to be done. But the line has been of very severe force.

And to Joel's first point in the Israeli psyche, there are have been two declared and very important goals from the very, very beginning. And I think all of us have ridden on the tension, I remember Dan and I talking about this, the very early days of this war. On the one hand destroying Hamas and on the second releasing the hostages. And there was a tension from the very beginning. It's become a contradiction now with the remaining living hostages.

But what's changed is that Netanyahu and his officials and his family have made very clear that they've made a choice. If they were obfuscating in the past, you know, no, we mean to do both, of course. But it seemed like they were preferring by far to destroy Hamas militarily as long as it takes. Now, they're very explicitly saying it. The attack in Doha is also actions over words, but they've also said that very clearly.

They want to destroy Hamas. If that means the fate of the hostages is in dire, dire danger as it is right now, so be it. From a domestic political perspective, that's very important, much more than internationally, because that is an extremely emotive cause an issue for Israelis. Israelis know the names of the hostages. They know who is likely alive and who is not. They care about this tremendously.

And I say this because if the coalition pushes Netanyahu far to the right in favor of not just destroying Hamas, but in Smotrich and Ben-Gvrir's vision, clearing Gaza, ethnic cleansing, and from their perspective one day settlements even. Not sure Netanya was there, but he's certainly going that direction right now.

The Israeli public is not there. The Israeli public is in favor of a deal, even one that would end the war, even one that would currently guarantee Hamas remains after all this remains somehow on its feet, although greatly diminished if it would free the hostages, allow Israel to breathe for a moment after the longest war in its history by far now, and regroup. And of course the, the Long War with Hamas would not end, obviously, but that's where the Israeli public is.

And that's important politically for the obvious reasons, but also because we are about 13 or 14 months away from elections in Israel, even if the coalition does not fall. So Netanyahu has political considerations in both directions. I would suggest what we're seeing now is a clear choice of one over the other. It's not, he's not wavering. It means that he still is preferring his coalition and wants to keep that until the last day.

But it implies more than this, which is that not everything is politics. Kissinger famously said, Israel has no domestic politics. He probably didn't exactly say that, but it has no foreign policy, only domestic politics. But that's not completely true. And I think what we're seeing is the Netanyahu, from the moment he regrouped after a, a blow to his psyche on October 7th, and by all reports he was really shaken.

Once he regrouped, I think he viewed this war as an opportunity to rewrite many of what he views as the mistakes of the past 30 years, including Oslo. And so this vision, it's not identical to Smotrich’s in terms of settlements, et cetera, but it's not that far. And this very damaging, very robust brutal approach strategy, I think is Netanyahu's strategy not only as politics.

Scott Anderson: So there's another big part of the calculus has begun to come to the fore here. Obviously we've been talking about Gaza, the status of Gaza as part of this conflict the last several years. Behind that was the issue that before October 7th, in a lot of ways had risen to be the biggest point of tension between Israel and the international community, even with the United States under certain governments, that is the status of the West Bank, but we know that that is back to the fore this week.

Secretary of State Rubio is meeting with or has met with Prime Minister Netanyahu just in the last 24 hours, or is a meeting in the shortly thereafter. I can't remember exactly when their meeting is scheduled. We know that West Bank annexation is on the agenda. The reporting from Axios, who I think tend has pretty good sourcing on this is that the Netanyahu government hasn't decided to move forward with annexation yet, but it's kind of testing the waters to see whether the Trump administration would be accepting of that as a possibility.

Joel, lemme come to you on this. Talk to us about how annexation is fitting into this potential strategic picture and where it fits into this timeline and relates to the Gaza conflict. I mean, it is another front that's about to emerge that's kind of been simmering in the background among what is a very, very multi-front picture right now if you take into account Iran. Qatar, everything that's been happening last few weeks.

And West Bank's a big new one, very close to the home front for Israel that has a lot of global ramifications. So talk to us about why this is coming up now and, and where we think it might fit into the broader picture.

Joel Braunold: I think to give this question the fullest answer, I need to go back to actually the beginning of this particular Israeli government. A lot of people have in their minds that the Bennett-Lapid government was better towards the PA than the, this Netanyahu far right government. The irony is that the Bennett Lapid government was terrified about meeting with the PA and never really did it right?

Despite some pushes during, at the beginning with the change government, the self-contradictory between Bennett and his other coalition partners never gave the confidence to do so. And the PA also, you know, rejecting COVID vaccines at the beginning, it, it didn't start off well and it got worse from that.

You know, the irony is that Netanyahu comes in and has no fear about having a formal process with the PA. And they actually do the Akaba Sharm process where Netanyahu send Tzachi Hanegbi his national security advisor to meet with Hussein al-Sheikh, who has subsequently become the vice president of the Palestinian Authority to sit and agree, you know, what a process could look like. And Brett McGurk there.

And the problem is, is that Tzachi comes home. And the Cabinet says, we never agreed to this. And you had a complete disconnect between Bezalel Smotrich at the finance ministry, which is critical with Israel's relationships with the PA. And he's also a minister in the defense ministry where he has a specific plan to utilize his ministries to de facto annex to West Bank. Okay. That his entire vision is, how much can I get away with.

Now during the Biden administration, he was always worried even after October 7th and even after the fact that the P-, there was security cooperation and everything else, that at what point when Biden was a lame duck, he would screw them. And so there were opportunities and the U.S. managed to maneuver some like release of customs revenues and everything else.

But the general review is that despite there being a formal process through Akaba Sharm, it was never put in practice. And what was happening was a constant undermining of the PA through Jerusalem. And basically through Bezalel Smotrich’s ministry, where everything that was normal was pulling teeth from inter banking relationships to cash surplus to you name the issue of the technical stuff.

And meanwhile, more and more settlements were legalized. The process for legalizing settlements advanced. It was moved far quicker away from MOD and towards traditional civilian apparatus, which would make the entire planning process go quicker and just to, to, to formalize settlements as a normal part of Israel.

Okay, October 7th happens, the Israeli population claims that Abbas doesn't condemn October 7^th, prisoner payment issues come back on the forefront. Are you now gonna pay the perpetrators? And, you know, Abbas misses the opportunity to, to vocally condemn it in a way that the Israeli population can hear. And so then you hear Netanyahu saying, I'm not giving Gaza back to either the PA or Hamas. And the PA can't be a future of this. The Americans disagree, but it doesn't seem to matter. Let move forward, move forward, move forward. Okay.

While this nightmare in Gaza is unfolding post-October 7th, the PA gets sort of a rebirth in the region. Even critiques of the PA, like the UAE are willing to meet with Hussein al-Sheikh, after he's appointed with Mahmoud Abbas, he goes to Saudi Arabia. Places that have traditionally been very critical as they realized (the region) that the only future to move forward with an integrated as well is that if the PA eventually post reforms, everything else can move forward and take back Gaza. Whether that's post trusteeship, whatever.

And that the PA needs to reform, and that if Abbas is gonna be malleable and show that he could appoint a successor and that they can do reforms on prisoner payments, which they've committed to and publicly announced, then they're investible. Okay. So that's sort of ongoing.

So as the Israelis continue to be unable to talk about what a day after could look like, Trump puts, you know, ethnic cleansing on the table. Voluntary ethnic cleansing as he would say beause they just wanna leave. And the Israelis adopt that position. The region reacts incredibly terribly and basically Macron and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman push this, ‘look, we're gonna be against maximalists.’

If Hamas' vision of the Middle East is one without Israel, we're gonna lock in two states. And in doing so, push out the maximalist. The problem is that for everyone in Israel, you can't have Palestinian Independence Day being October 7th. And this looks like a reward for Hamas, especially if it comes as unconditional recognition during a war, right? And the Hamas thanking it and everything else.

But in Ramallah, you know, Ramallah, President Abbas felt that there's no one to talk to on the Israeli side. Akaba Sharm never was, was implemented. And so I'm not gonna try and make deals with the Israelis. I'm gonna make, try and create what he says is irreversible steps towards a Palestinian state. And for him, that's international recognition.

So he basically tells everyone what I need to get on board with whatever you want to do on, on the Palestinians and Gaza is recognize us as a state because if we're locked in, in law in all of your countries and at the UN, then no matter what the Israelis do, even if they try and annex, which I'm gonna get to, we exist in everyone's own legal system. Okay?

So Israel will have to deal with the consequences of annexing what other people recognize, not as disputed territory, but as another sovereign state that those countries recognize. And he wins over the French, he wins over the Saudis. They put pressure and you've got this whole rolling mechanism that's coming up at the UN on the 22nd on Rosh Hashanah–not by accident, by the way, so the Israelis can't respond–to Palestinian recognition.

And this document they put together we can get into later. It also has, you know that Hamas can't be part of it. They need to disarm, but this is all part of a package deal. The Israelis are apoplectic. Not only does the entire, I shouldn't say entire, it's an 80% position in Israel that you shouldn't declare unilaterally a Palestinian state absent of lots and lots and lots of other things.

And so the Netanyahu government says like, what can we do to respond? We've had recognition from Sweden and others before. Well, what can we do to respond? And for them, they're like, fine. You declare, we'll annex, right? So the, the aim in that Dermer said, apparently it leaked that to the French. Like, if you do this, we'll annex parts of the West Bank. Now, which parts, where?

It would seem from leaks, reports analysis, the most likely response to French recognition could be annexation of the Jordan Valley. Which, you know, Israelis will tell you that whatever two state solution, they would keep control of the Jordan Valley for their own security, for Jordanian security. So we'll just annex it and put to bed, you know, this mythology that the entire of the West Bank is gonna be there and going outside the framework of bilateral negotiations has significant consequences.

The UAE very worried about this. MBZ basically sends his ministers out and says, if you do that, that's a red line. And will fatally hate the Abraham Accords, hurt the Abraham Accords. Does that mean that the UAE is gonna cancel the accords? Does it mean if they annex 83% of the West Bank, which is what Bezalel put out, Smotrich? Does that mean that they'll do that if they annex just the Jordan Valley? will they do that if they build an E1? Will they do that if they do de facto rather than de jura?

It's unclear, but from the Israeli mentality, they haven't moved forward on it because they want to try and still preserve space that maybe there'll be a deux ex machina moment before the UN that you know, they delay recognition in return for something, and then they'll take annexation off the table, but they have loaded the gun and put it on the table that should uncontrolled recognition move forward then they've got this that they can play with.

Now, does that mean that if Trump gives them a red light, they'll move forward? Probably not, but they could do things that functionally are the same as annexation. As Natan said, they can build completely up E1. They can flip areas from A to B to B to C, so they get more security control and they'll negotiate with Trump something absent that is formal annexation. And Trump will sell that into the region saying, well, they didn't annex, now what do you want?

And so for the Israelis, this is a reaction to the Palestinians and for the Palestinians, they're like, the only way we can lock in a political horizon is to get the rest of the world to agree to it 'cause the Israelis aren't. We'll get into, I think later the actual specifics of the UN move. But I do wanna say, Scott, there are differences between, for example, what the French said and what Belgium said.

Belgium said that they'd recognize a Palestinian state and they commit to it once the hostages are released and that the war is over. That is very different to saying, regardless, we're recognizing a Palestinian state today, right? The Brits is a very confusing one. The Canadians seem to be on and off. So each one has their own variance, but there might be, might be a middle path that, could you say that we're not gonna make this a reward for Hamas. We'll do it only if hostages are released and the war has ended. Maybe that's the way to do it.

Or could that elongate the war? Because Netanya knows that if he ends the war, then all these recognitions happen. So these are complicated pieces, but annexation itself from the Israeli parliament is a reaction to unilateral steps to recognize a Palestinian state. And the Palestinian push to recognize a Palestinian state is a war-ending maneuver to sort of move Hamas out. So they're completely talking past each other.

Scott Anderson: I mean, that's a great illustration of the intersection of domestic and regional political forces happening at the international level and the domestic level. And you know, integration between these two and the fact that they're hard to desegregate.

And I think that really came to the fore this past week. We saw a very visual regionalization of the Gaza conflict in the form of a unprecedented is really military maneuver hitting a residential complex in Qatar that has been housing the Hamas negotiating team and Hamas kind of political leadership and their families and assorted other people killing several people. Although most members of the national, negotiating team appeared to have survived the strike contrary to initial reporting.

And notably this took place obviously in Qatar, a country that is a, you know, also home to U.S. military forces, a traditional ally and it has its own tensions with the other Gulf countries, but not quite as big a separation of what as was a few years ago when they were kind of boycotting Qatar. So, Dan, talk to us about this. What do we know about what drove the Israelis to this big step and what do the ramifications appear to be? How is it echoing out regionally and frankly domestically back in home?

Daniel Byman: So this strike to me is particularly perplexing. It's perplexing in part because if you will, the payoff of killing the target had it succeeded in my view, was, was a low, to the point of really not being worth serious consideration. These weren't operational figures who were gonna shape military operations in Gaza.

The kind of justification Israel has used in the past when it's done these very high risk operations on the territory of especially U.S. allies, but also really def facto Israeli allies, like its attack in Dubai and its attack in the 1990s in Jordan has been, you know, this is a huge target. But in this case, the, the targets were, were much more minor and obviously didn't even work.

In some ways the target to me was the negotiation that this was really a way of saying, you know, look, we're always gonna take the shot at Hamas people, wherever they are. And sure, it derails negotiations. We do not care, right. That this was very much a message perhaps to the international community, but, but especially to Israel's own people by the Netanyahu government, that they are gonna always be driving, going after Hamas, wherever they can.

But this is an incredibly consequential strike in my view. Qatar, of course, is a U.S. ally and very important U.S. ally. It houses a huge U.S. military base that is vital for the U.S. presence in the region. It has served as an important partner in negotiations from U.S. point of view. And I think even more importantly. This went against the wishes of Donald Trump, who very much personalizes his foreign policy.

He looks like an Israeli stooge right? Either Israel gave him warning and he wasn't able to stop a strike on a close ally or Israel really almost dismissed U.S. concerns and either and barely gave a warning, in which case it shows a certain amount of contempt for Trump on the Israeli side. And there's no real way around that.

And he feels personally close to Qatar and to the Gulf States. This is in some ways his happy place that Qatar government, of course gave him a new airplane among many other things. And so this relationship is a very personal one as well as one that is strategically important to the United States. And there is, I think, going to be, you know, even more caution by the Gulf States with regard to Israel.

Now part of this, ironically, to me at least, is because of Israel's success against Iran by setting back Iran's nuclear program and by Iran being hurt, its proxies being hurt, its reputation being hurt. The imperatives driving the Gulf States and Israel together are actually diminished, which means the domestic political cost to the Gulf States whose populations are very anti-Israel is much higher. Why, why pay it if you are dealing with an enemy like Iran, that's diminished?

That doesn't mean to me that they're gonna abrogate the Abraham Accords or anything dramatic, but you can be more critical. You can not do cooperation. You can otherwise really not be there for the United States as well as for Israel when there is pushing on this particular door.

Scott Anderson: So I wanna come to Natan and ask a little about what Israel may be thinking, how this fits into that strategic vision that he described of Bibi's. Before I do though, Dan, two other military actions we should pull in here that have been happening recently. Well, one military action, one kind of ongoing state of tension.

One, Qatar is not the only Gulf country or country in the Gulf area that we've seen get hit by Israeli airstrikes in the last week. We've seen now two waves of airstrikes against targets Houthi targets in Yemen. One I think a day or two after the Qatar attack last week. One ongoing today as far as I tell, kind of as we're recording.

And then we also have a challenging situation that has flared up over and over again over the last few months. I don't think recently in the last week or two, but as recently as within the last month or two in Syria where we've seen Israel take pretty targeted military action, particularly against usually armed groups that are associated with the governing regime, although not clearly, like a branch of the governing armed forces of the new interim government app operating out of Damascus.

In part because they are engaging in some degree of sectarian conflict, with Druze populations in Syria with who the Israelis have a relationship with. Talk to us a little bit about what Israel is doing in both of these cases and how they fit into this kind of broader picture as well. What's driving that?

Daniel Byman: Sure. Well, let's start with Yemen. I think this is kind of a no-win situation for Israel. Houthis have been launching a series of attacks on Israel. Most get shot down, but a few get through and, and cause real, real harm. But the United States has tried to go after the Houthis and failed. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have tried to go after the Houthis without much success.

And this is difficult because Yemen has been engaged in a massive civil war for many years, and so the addition of a few more dead Houthi leaders or Houthi fighters from Israeli strikes or, or the U.S. for that matter, isn't really shaping Houthi risk calculations. They've lost so much that this is just not a, a serious risk to them.

Especially when there are significant political benefits to the Houthis. It benefits them to be able to say, look, we are the ones standing up to Israel. That's a very popular cause in Yemen. The Houthis have been recruiting on this. They, before all this began, they have been losing much of their appeal and so they're willing to play this domestically. Even if it means losses of civilian infrastructure, losses of some of their fighters, some of their leaders, that's a risk they're willing to take.

And I honestly, I don't see a good way around this either way for Israel. It's understandable. They respond when they're being attacked. That's to me, perfectly reasonable. But there isn't a particularly effective response.

I'm less sympathetic on the Syrian side. To me this is very reflective of the new Israeli policy, which is just an utter lack of trust in any form of deterrent and an unwillingness to take risks. So they look at Syria and they say this was a hostile regime in the past. It has a new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has, you know, quite real ties to jihadist groups in his past and, you know, more than ties leadership.

And so this is someone they say, well, how could anyone possibly trust this person if he's on your border? And so they've been doing attacks in southern Syria in particular, expanding their military presence in the demili-, formerly demilitarized area, doing some strikes on Damascus. And part of this is to help the Druze population maintain a degree of independence from the Syrian government. And part of it is also simply to keep the Syrian government week, especially in the areas near the Israeli border.

This goes against the wishes of the United States and of the Gulf States that have been trying to work with a new government. The U.S. view, which I share is that al-Sharaa, surprisingly, given his past, is actually quite a pragmatic figure. He's, he's authoritarian. I wouldn't, don't think he's doing a good regime within Syria. But he seems eager to have, you know, peace on his borders. And because the situation in Syria is so dire.

The Gulf States are also eager to try to have some degree of stability in Syria. And I, I think it's against Israel's own interest to have a weak regime where there's a lot of chaos on its border. I think that's harmful for Israeli security interests as well as for the broader region.

Scott Anderson: Yeah, and you could not get a more visual sense of the disparity between the U.S. position on this, which I think tracked with most of the international community in Israel than this past week when we saw CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper in full dress whites visit Damascus with Tom Barrack, the president's special envoy for Syria, and also U.S. ambassador to Lebanon and have a series of high level meetings.

Really, really striking visual moment for people who have been following the trajectory of Syria for the last decade and a half. And I mean, what a strong signal of a desire to engage by the United States, the exact opposite of what the Bibi government is, is sending.

Daniel Byman: And we're seeing this divergence between the Trump administration and Israel on lots of issues. We saw that not only in Syria, but we've seen this in Yemen. And I think really on both sides, the idea that of course you coordinate, of course your joined at the hip and that you, you know, the others preferences restrict you, that's diminishing. And I think the Trump administration is in general pretty supportive of Israeli policy and it's not gonna condemn Israel, but they've shown they're not gonna restrict their regional role based on Israel's preferences.

Scott Anderson: So Natan, I think that brings us back to this question of what Bibi and his government and those around him are envisioning. You know, we've seen an aggressive, aggressive lean in the last year and a half, you know, expanding the conflict that started in Gaza, me and Gaza at a period to, to Lebanon, then more recently to Iran. Syria collapsing kind of in between the two as a kind of a incidence or consequence to some extent of the Lebanon military operation, at least, certainly was perceived that way. At least I perceived it that way.

You know, we've seen a deliberate kind of restructuring of the, of the regional status quo before October 7th. Talk to us about that, where that vision ends and how much of it is Bibi's vision and how much of it in is Israeli vision that's gonna exist beyond the Bibi government.

Natan Sachs: So I think it's a great question. And actually I'll start in Syria 'cause I have a slightly different take. So I think in Syria there's a combination of exactly some things that Dan mentioned and they're illustrative of a much broader approach. So here's where I completely agree.

So first, one of the big lessons that Israel learned on October 7th or from October 7th, and I agree with Dan, although he didn't say it this way, overlearned is sort of to zero trust in deterrence or containing almost no margin for risk. And in some ways that's understandable of course, but there's always a danger that you overlearn it. And I think Israel, in certain instances, Gaza most notably, has certainly overlearned it.

And in that regard, the Syria, the operations in Syria have have a lot to do with that. I think where I somewhat disagree on Syria and then I'll, I'll go back to your, your excellent question is that I think the Israelis. Are curious at least about al-Sharaa. And although initially there was a very strong kind of reluctance to deal with anyone who used to be a, a member of extreme jihadist groups, they are very curious about the things he said.

And we've seen Minister Dermer who's as close as you can be, the Neto at, at least at present, as long as he remains in government meet officially in fact, and, and, and semi openly with the Syrian foreign minister and which is very remarkable from the Syrian side. But also very notable from the Israeli side.

Where the Israelis are very skeptical is a, is on al-Sharaa’s ability to control his, his own people and Jihadists that have helped him come to power and especially how they relate to minorities in Syria. The Israelis care about the Kurds, but they care tremendously about the Druzes. The Druzes are a large minority in Israel, not large, but they are a prominent minority in Israel.

They serve in the military and rise to very high ranks, including the general staff currently and previously. And there's sort of this sense of a, a covenant forged in blood between the Druzes minority and the general Israeli population. So the support for the Druze in Southern Syria, I think is genuine and is not likely to abate, but it does not necessarily contradict constructive and, and maybe even far reaching conversations with the Syrian president.

The big unknown here is how, what degree of control al-Sharaa would have over his own people, assuming he means well. And of course we may in 10 years look back and say, oh my God, al-Sharaa was playing everyone. And I think it wouldn't be playing anyone where it's, it's rather clear that there is that risk, but it's a risk worth taking at the moment, at least.

But it does fit into your question, which is the broader approach. So when the Israelis looked at this as one very low margin for error, very low willingness to take any risk. Two, it's distrust, distrust, distrust, and then also verify. Three, a very quick finger on the trigger if there's a threat or an opportunity, go for it. And sort of consequences be damned sometimes and I think Qatar is an example of that.

But four, and this is the more strategic question, is an unwillingness to live with the regional order as it was before as part of this kind of containment and deterrence, and that is especially true about the Iranian axis. So when Netanyahu and others, but especially Netanyahu are faced with the world after October 7th, he starts talking about this as the Israel's second war of independence and an opportunity from his perspective to rewrite a whole set of things that have happened, as I said in the last few decades.

That includes the Oslo Accords and hence his complete unwillingness to bring the Palestinian Authority into the Gaza Strip. To undo, of course, the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, hence his desire for full Israeli military occupation the Gaza Strip, at least on the military side, but most likely, at least initially, on the civilian side as well. Construction in E1, the very important area for settlement construction just east of Jerusalem, that would essentially carve a potential Palestinian state in two, et cetera, et cetera.

But we saw it even on the Syrian border, entering into territory that Israel is withdrawn from in 1974 under the disengagement agreements brokered by Kissinger and, and on and on. And most importantly, the dramatic degradation of Hezbollah, really a transformation of Hezbollah's position in Syria and vis-a-vis Israel, the consequently of the fall of the Assad regime, not only because of course, of the fall of Assa, of Hezbollah.

But also because of that then the strikes in Iran that proved Israel's ability to, to operate in Iranian aerospace. One can like Netanya or not like Netanya. One can also be vociferously critical of what Israel's doing in Gaza, and I am, but his success against Iran and the Iranian axis is very real and has transformed not only Israel's position, but the position of many others, sometimes in ironic ways that, that Dan mentioned before.

So all of this fits into this very robust kind of view of what's happening now, not only as a terrible war between Israel and Hamas, but as a truly transformational moment in the Middle East. And they're not wrong in that regard and in this context, they are also losing sight of what would be smart restraints.

For example, the, the strike in Doha from their perspective one more strike against leaders of Hamas. These people are very senior. One of them in fact is the de facto really leader of Hamas and others that might have been there. I think that Israel thought might have been there are the sort of de jure leaders of Hamas.

And from the Israeli perspective, these are dead men walking. The main, the main target knew about October 7th. He was a, the very close associate of Sinwar the, the leader, the mastermind behind October 7th. He left Gaza just before because of the attacks, to coordinate Qatar things. This is a major kind of name. He's not a valuable target, I think, as Dan said, because he was not much in hiding and it would not be hard to hit at any point in time.

But in that regard, the Israelis see him as sort of a, a valid target and disregarding all the ramifications of striking in Doha, both in the context of the U.S.-Qatari relationship, but also of negotiations and where that sits for other Gulf countries, not withstanding their tensions with Qatar. This is a Sister Gulf Nation. It's an image that investors do not like to see of smoke over a Gulf City. That's not something that, that the Emiratis or the Saudis would like despite their very real differences with the Qataris, obviously.

One last point on this, I think that on the negotiations, I think Dan, made a very good point, which is that this is a very strong signal to Israelis. When I first saw it, I was on the phone with someone in Israel and their, the first reaction was negotiations are dead. Now, negotiations may or may not be dead. We shouldn't be too fast to, to jump to conclusions. I'm not sure from the Qatari or Hamas side, they're necessarily dead.

And the Israeli argument has been made, I've heard it made in person that in fact these were the, some of the most extreme voices in negotiations. If they were out of the negotiations, maybe negotiations could move forward. But this is a very convoluted kind of argument and logic to follow. This was, by and large, a preference over striking Hamas, consequences be damned, and especially consequences for the hostages from the Israeli perspective.

Joel Braunold: Scott, I, I just wanna add two fingers on, on what Natan just said. In terms of the conseque, the, the massive consequential strike vis-a-vis the Iranian axis. And I, I agree in terms of it's game changing and we've spoken before, can you take advantage of these military strikes?

But one of the biggest challenges, and it's actually something that Yossi Cohen, the former head of Mossad, who is getting involved in politics, speaks about in his latest book, is that the government of Israel and Netanyahu is not very good at communicating in the region. And that's even more so today. I wouldn't just argue it's around public relations to the populations, but to the elites.

Is Israel doing this to get rid of the ring of fire? Which you could argue how it's being done, why it's being done, there’s consensus you know that Iran has been a malignant actor, right? And, you know, regionally, people generally feel like that. Or is it trying to be the new Iran? And the irony is, if you go to let's say to, let's say Ankara and Jerusalem, you'll hear the identical conversations just in inverse.

Israel will say, look, Turkey's trying to use the al-Sharaa government to surround us with hostile militias and, you know, Ankara is the new Tehran and they have new advantages and we need to think about that. And Ankara just thinks that Jerusalem try to be the new Iran playing around with minorities, be they Druzes, be they Kurds to try and sort of upset other countries regional balances. Sovereignty means nothing.

And so for Israel to take advantage, even if they don't want to move forward on deeply domestically challenging questions around Palestinian statehood and others, even their ability to communicate in the region, what is motivating them and where are their restraints and their inability to communicate those is having dire consequences.

The Egyptians are now talking about creating an Arab NATO against Israel, not against Iran. And you could dismiss all of that as rhetoric of the moment. But these things have a way of settling themselves in the minds, not just of the populations, but the elites as well. And so it's not just the inability to politically trust international institutions you haven't trusted before. It's the inability to communicate that we have common goals.

And rather that Israel says, this is the language the Middle East understands, and the rest of the Gulf saying, we're trying to move beyond this and you are dragging us back to this. There are better ways to deal with Jihadists, and the Israelis are like, no. And that's a fundamental tension point now, I would argue in Israeli golf relations and could be though not right now in Israeli-U.S. relations, though I don't think there's, we're, we're in a, in anything but a small spat between the parties between D.C. and Jerusalem at the moment.

Scott Anderson: Well, let's open the aperture wider than beyond the regional picture. Because we have seen this week again, as we're meeting some pretty dramatic developments happening at the international level with the United Nations. A few days ago we saw the General Assembly adopt a, I believe, French and Saudi backed resolution that kind of lays the framework that you mentioned earlier, Joel, that kind of intersects in various ways with the recognition positions taken by different European governments and by Canada and a few other governments, really underscoring the desire to use recognition to lock in a two state solution.

This resolution similarly endorses a two state solution, even as it does also condemn the October 7th attacks and condemn a lot of Israeli military actions in Gaza, particularly those affecting civilians.

Then today we had the return of an independent commission of inquiry led by the United Nations, where they said what Israelis doing or has done in parts of Gaza does amount to genocide, not an unprecedented position. We saw the International Criminal Court take that position before the g-word has hovered around the Gaza conflict almost from the beginning. But this is for many in the international community will be taken as a more serious finding.

I know Israelis and others probably won't see it that way, but let me start with you a little bit on that first Joel. Talk to us about these international actions, how significant they are, and where they fit in the broader trajectory of how the international community is beginning to respond to these things.

Joel Braunold: You know, I, I don't wanna reopen sort of the genocide conversation. I think it's, you know, the Israelis deny it, international, and the Americans deny it. The international institutions are coming to these conclusions. The ICJ has laid out provisional things, they haven't made a determination. They've laid out provisional steps, and it, it's an ongoing international legal debate that isn't gonna stop.

On the international moves with the UN. I think that, you know, I, I laid out earlier what they are and why they're going on in the Israeli responses. I think moving forward, the question is, will this move at the UN be a war ending maneuver or a day after plan? Okay, so if it's a war ending maneuver, a again, like Hamas has to exile. You know, we've heard at different points, exile, give up weapons, you know, what does surrender look like?

Okay. But who's guaranteeing that Israel isn't gonna continue to go after them? So Israel has to agree otherwise the war doesn't end right. And the hostages have to be released, right. And recognition that happens before that might be part of a day after plan. But again, it, it, it's incongruent with where the Israeli approach is.

I think, to take this in a new direction in terms of where it is. I've said a few times, Scott, when we've had our different podcasts, that Israel received the peace dividend for Oslo early. So between ‘92 and ‘99, the economy liberalized, you had 39 countries came to normalization agreements, China, India, others, right? Israel really benefited from them.

And what I warned at the time very strongly was that if Israel is responsible for foreclosing the political horizon for a Palestinian state, as we've heard the prime minister himself this past week in E1, there will never be a Palestinian state as he denounces new settlement building there. I said, you'll have a consequence where that peace dividend is removed.

And we heard yesterday, one of the most remarkable statements I would argue Prime Minister Netanyahu has ever made in his entire political career. He stands up in front of, with Marco Rubio and says, we need to prepare for more isolation. He blames the Chinese and he blames Qatar. And he says, an economic isolation that will make us more of an, I can never pronounce this word, an aurarky state, a state that basically is self reliant

Natan Sachs: Autarky state.

Joel Braunold: Autarky. Thank you. I know it's not autocratic, but I just can't, in my IR language say it. Right. This is lit-, and he says, I hate this. I don't want to be a nation of orange sellers. Right? And he tries to clean it up later saying, I'm just talking about end-to-end military because if Democrats come back in, we don't wanna be dependent on American, you know, weapons sales.

The entire state of Israel is dependent on foreign trade. Right? You, this concept that it can survive as an economic first world country detached from the Western world is absurd. And yet Netanyahu paints this as now the fate. It's not a choice, it's fate. We are not gonna allow a Palestinian state. We are gonna do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want. We are gonna rely on a small sliver of the Republican Party that's currently in power to be my backstop.

And whatever happens at the UN, whatever security council resolutions passed, whatever they say, it doesn't matter. And yeah, we're gonna get poor. And by the way, how you can be a self-reliant state when 20% of your population that's growing doesn't serve in the army, doesn't pay taxes. You know, that's also on the political domestic agenda.

But for Netanyahu to get to this point where he basically says, it is worth it for us to economically demolish ourselves with tech, which is the most portable industry in the world. Just re-register somewhere else, right, leave, right. To do that to, to the country because he says, this is the political choices we are going to make and this is the consequence. I mean, for the first time, it seems your position finally found its voice in as well and said, what you, you are now promising.

You know, this diplomatic tsunami is now gonna destroy the stock. And the stocks were down 2% today and everything else remarkable. So all of this internationalization, this diplomatic tsunami that it had promised, it never arrived, and it was belittled. It is now here, the Israelis are relying solely on dependency, more and more on a mercurial last term president, whose own party is riddled with conspiracy theorists.

And especially after the tragic, terrible assassination of Charlie Kirk, within part of that coalition says, was it because he was moving away from Israel? Was it not? That's the conspiratorial theory that is infecting parts of the MAGA movement. So you are relying deeper and deeper on this MAGA movement that doesn't really know how it feels about Israel anyway.

And he's blaming mass Islamic immigration in Europe for the consequence, saying there's nothing we can do. It's beyond our power. It's basically because the Muslims hate us. That's, that's literally what he is saying. And that that the governments, even if they like us, they don't have the diplomatic in democracies to push back against it. You're saying, this is now our new reality.

This is the new reality that I'm creating a reality of Israel alone and, and a reality of Israel that's poor. And the reality that goes against every free market ideal I've ever believed in. But if that's what it takes to survive in this new Middle East, I'll remake it and we'll come out the other side.

And so again, you are international actors and you are trying to help the parties out. All of this, I will say, Scott is part of an escalatory cycle that we are in where each side is trying to trump up to each other. I'm gonna go higher, I'm gonna go higher. And for those who say, well Israel, if you do this, you are not gonna economically be successful. The prime minister says, fine, I'm the father of free markets in Israel, and I'm saying I'll sacrifice that as well. It's all part of this one-upmanship.

And until we can start having a deescalation ladder, a way to like calm it down, it's just gonna keep escalating. And where that escalation stops, I don't think anyone knows. Because again if you listen to the French Foreign Minister and you listen to the Saudis and you listen to those, they are telling you day in, day out in op-eds, in Hebrew, in English, everywhere. We are doing this to try and help you be secure in the region. Your security is tied to a political horizon to the Palestinians.

If it is absent, you will always feel insecure. The region will never truly accept you, and this is your choice. And they're trying to make that choice as stark as possible to the Israeli population. Whether that is being heard, very unclear.

Scott Anderson: So Natan, I wanna come with to you for kind of our closing thoughts on this. Because I think Joel, what Joel's just described, captures so much of the trajectory of recent developments than we've seen in the international sphere. Israeli reactions, regional reactions, which does look more and more like a very vicious escalatory cycle on a lot of different fronts with the people of Gaza, potentially soon the West Bank bearing the brunt of it on a humanitarian level and Israeli, the varying the brunt of a military level 'cause of an ongoing military conflict and the state of security they live in as well.

So a big driver of this is the Netanyahu government's policy. They're increasingly intention with everyone: United States, the Trump administration to some extent, certainly the international community, that's a longstanding. And it is his approach to essentially say, we don't need any of these connections.

As Joel said, this isolationist vision that really did seem to come to fruition or at least become more clearly stated in the last 24 or 48 hours, potentially as a preface by the way, to the U.S. cutting security assistance to Israel, which seemed to me to be the subtext of what was actually, why Rubio was part of this conversation, why they were related.

So what does that mean for Israel as a country and how will that be received? Because the constraint on Bibi is domestic in the end, like the most direct one. And we've all been operating on this assumption that he has outer constraints on what he can do. We know we have elections in a little over a year. Is that the only check that's on him? And, and how big a check is that?

Like how is the rest of this gonna resonate with Israelis in a way that he and his coalition members will have to take into account? Or does it look like they've got the runway they need to execute these policies until that date and potentially beyond?

Natan Sachs: First, I think it's a very broad and difficult question. On the small side, I think it is a very big constraint. Of course, elections are the big one, and he is not doing very well in the polls. That's been true for years. So he could certainly come out either victorious or at least at at a draw, which he's done before, and then he continues as a caretaker or temporary. So I would certainly not recommend counting him out. I did that once before and I will never do it again.

But this is a very big check and the opposition is disunited and has lots and lots of different problems. But the polling suggests they, they at least have a chance if they, after the elections, unite in some form or another and agree to, to a different government. Far from a given, there are elements in the opposition that might go with Netanya, in fact. But nonetheless, it's certainly possible. And so as I mentioned before, there is this constraint. The constraint, there's a coalition constraint right now, but there is certainly the fear of what this does to the public.

His uttering yesterday he spoke about a super Sparta. And I think he misspoke in the sense of the, what, what he meant to convey. I think he tried to convey, like he explained, no, this is just about specific economic issues and of course the aid of the united from the United States. That may have to change given the mood in the United States.

Let us be clear, the aid from the United States is not a major, it's very important. It's a lot of money, but it is not something that underwrites Israeli security, what rule under rights Israeli security is the ability to purchase American arms. So if Israel allowed to pay for it themselves, but could still purchase whatever they want, they could live with that. What they cannot live is if they were cut off from the, from the supply at all.

In terms of our ordinary Israelis, I think Joel made a very good point. Israel is, is an island to a large degree. It has relations with Jordan and Egypt, but they're very limited in the economic sphere. They had more relations with Turkey, which is not a neighbor of Israel. It's a second order neighbor. And those relations actually in the economic realm, finally now for the first time of actually soured in the last two years dramatically.

And so Israel is very heavily dependent, not only on trade, but on trade as an island. So trade, not with its immediate neighbors and in that regard this kind of thing would be huge in the, also moves in the EU, in the United Nations, but more so in the EU, which is a giant trading partner because of geography, these things are major and you cannot simply decide, I'm not gonna be situated close to the EU anymore. Now I wanna be situated in Asia, close to India. It doesn't work that way. Geography doesn't ask you. So this could be very major.

I'll qualify however, first Netanyahu was a very, very smart person. Politically, he's smarter than I am at this, and he understands what he's saying. Secondly, Netanyahu has not promised a garden of roses, as we say, he's promised blood, sweat, and tears. And it is Churchill that he is emulating in many, many different ways. And Israelis have heard that promise and they do not think it's Netanyahu, or I should say fans of Netanyahu do not think it's Netanyahu who delivered the blood, sweat and tears. They, and most Israelis in fact would say, this is Hamas. This is the region we live in. This is the reality. Even those who don't like Netanyahu don't think he's the father of these problems.

And lastly, the last two years, you know, when people abroad talk about what's happened in the last two years, they are seeing the images in Gaza. When Israelis think of what's happened in the last two years, they are still thinking of October 7th. It's really hard to overstate the difference here. They are still thinking about the hostages. They're still thinking about the stories that they're reading every single day about October 7th, they're learning new details.

And what's happened since then in Gaza in the last two years is a side story to that and something that they sort of are, are genuine. Some of them genuinely be bewildered as to why is the world so angry and they understand it. Therefore, of course it's because of bigotry, antisemitism, or something else. And so I would not underestimate Israel's, Israeli's ability to rationalize even enormous international pressure. And I'll say a lot of the international pressure is helping Israel a lot because there's an enormous amount of bigotry also feeding into this.

And the result is that this kind of damage to Israel's liv-, Israeli's livelihood would have enormous long-term consequences. But whether that translates into short-term political consequences, I'm not so sure. We could see Netanyahu lose certainly, we could see and lose much worse if the opposition manages, as Israel said, to use this properly and to say, look what you've brought us to.

But don't underestimate Israeli's sense of siege against them, against themselves, and of unfair treatment, unfair understanding from the world, some of it merited and a lot of it not merited and simply misunderstood by Israelis.

Joel Braunold: And Scott, going back to the original point of when we said like, who's the new Iran and stuff? I mean, when you listen to Iranian domestic consumption about do you drink from the poison chalice of international pressure, we're getting to similar conversations here and it's absurd.

But I, I agree with Natan. I would never count out Prime Minister Netanyahu's political abilities. I think that his statement yesterday surprised me so much because it demonstrates that there is nothing he's not willing to do to go on the escalatory ladder. He's like, don't you threaten me with this, I'll tell the population it's happening and blame you about why it's happened. You think you can aggregate against me? I'll aggregate against you.

And for everyone, and I, I say to my friends who read the Israeli polling really closely, Netanyahu hasn't started to campaign yet. I mean, everyone else has. He hasn't. And so, you know, the infamous poison machine, everything else. I think all of this is to say we're in a very, very difficult moment. And I think that to Naans point about bigotry and other points, there are people who are like, I don't want to, I want to morally feel refreshed by being unapologetically a pressure driven strategy.

And I will pressure, and pressure and pressure and pressure and pressure and I don't care how it's received. This is the morally correct thing to do. The challenge is Israel is an undeclared nuclear state that is homogenicly pretty homogenous, right? In terms of how it society acts and reacts in other parts.

And it can survive as a super Sparta. All right? It might, you know, Sparta eventually collapse, but will it, will it not? I'm not sure. And so a pressure alone thesis with a already nuclearized state is a, is a very dangerous strategy to go down. You could impoverish it. You can push it away. But what then happens. And by the way, I think at, you know, at the highest levels of the Elise, in the palaces, in Riyadh, depending on the mood in Washington D.C. I think this is the challenge that people are struggling over. It's like, okay, let, we've pushed them to the, and then what, what do, are we gonna invade? No.

Like, we're not gonna Art, we're not gonna have troops marching on a nuclear state that that's not real. Right. So, and I think that's always been the disconnect between all this, like, pressure will eventually work and people want to now test that thesis. They really do. They want to now they're like, no commercial flights, no Eurovision, no cultural events, no nothing, no university ties, no high tech, no investments.

You know, when you speak to the Gulf, they'll tell you, we haven't even begun to pressurize Israel. Well, yeah, we're talking about, you know, you know, a Palestinian state, like what happens if we tell all of our sovereign wealth funds that we will not invest in any company that also does business in Israel. So then the U.S. will say, well, we've got laws on the books that protect U.S. companies.

Okay, well, Trump hasn't enforced a TikTok ban and he's relying on a lot of Gulf money in the re you know, coming into America. Is he really, is he really gonna turn down the trillions just because of this, of actions that he said, well this was Netanyahu's choice. So you've got that on one side.

And on the other you've got an inability for the Israelis to at all communicate what it is they're trying to achieve. And the loudest voices that are heard us, we're doing this because we're foreclosing the horizon on the Palestinians forever because that's really the lesson of October 7th and, and that is a very depressing place to leave it. But I, I think that's where we're up to with, what is it, 10 days to go to the UN General Assembly, which is supposed to be historic. And we'll see if something happens in the next 10 days that shifts the map. But I'm not optimistic.

Scott Anderson: Something tells me we will have lots of reason to revisit this topic in the future, but for now, we are out of time. Joel, Dan, Natan, thank you for joining us here today on the Lawfare Podcast.

Natan Sachs: Thank you.

Joel Braunold: Thanks.

Scott Anderson: The Lawfare podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. You can get an ad free versions of this and other Lawfare podcast by becoming a Lawfare material supporter at our website, lawfaremedia.org/support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters.

Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, and look out for other podcasts, including Rational Security, Allies, the Aftermath, and Escalation, our latest Lawfare Presents podcast series about the war in Ukraine. In addition, check out our written work at lawfaremedia.org. The podcast is edited by Jen Patja. Our theme song is from ALIBI music. As always, thank you for listening.