Civilization vs. Barbarism

Welcome to Shield of Republic. Secret Podcast sponsored by the Bulwark and the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and dedicated to the proposition articulated by Walter Lipman during World War two. That a strong and balanced foreign policy is the shield of our Democratic Republic. Eric Edelman, Councilor at the Center for Strategic and budgetary assessments of Bulwark contributor and a non resident fellow at the Miller center. Joined beaming in from the United Kingdom by My partner in this enterprise, Elliot Cohen, the Robert Eisgood professor of strategy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Harley Burke Chair and Strategy at center for strategic and international studies.

Elliot, how is your foray to the United Kingdom?

Well, you know, it’s a, it’s an odd thing, Eric. This is a trip that my wife and I had planned for a long time. We’re on a walking holiday in the cotswolds, which is, lovely and has all the charm you would expect. We’re reading we were reading Jane Austin, but then, of course, this these extraordinary events happened in the Middle East, and it’s, you know, it’s different from other crises because and I’m I’m I suspect this prove you as well. You know, this is coming very close to home.

We have, very dear friends over there who’s, Nephew was killed in one of the very first, at days of this of the Hamas attack. We have, you know, we have family there, including some very close family. Everybody know we know who has, men of military age, reserve is being called up. And, of course, we they’re men and young men and women in the military, and it’s, You know, not to put my heart too much my sleeve, but the fact is that, you know, as a Jew, you you look at this. And you just say, my god, it never ends.

Yeah. No. It’s, and, of course, both of us have former students who are either serving or have had relatives killed or taken hostage in some cases. So, yes, this is very, this is very personal, I think, for both of us. Yeah.

So let’s start, with a piece that you, published in the Atlantic the other day. Which I think is very important, which is to recall that the Israelis is when it comes to dealing with war, and particularly with failures in war are relentlessly and ruthlessly self critical. And Yeah. And that, there is a resilience that comes from that ability to be self critical. We we know, for instance, that there have been a lot of comparison to the seventy three war and the strategic and tactical surprise, that took place then, that put the state in the first couple of days of that word, some very real peril to two front row war both with Egypt and Syria.

Then afterwards, there was a, commission, the AGronaut Commission, which looked very deeply at the pathologies, of, Israeli intelligence and why they had missed this and and also the policy making pathologies. And it shook the nation. I mean, it it in some sense, you know, created a political earthquake I mean, there was a in the immediate aftermath at Unity government as we are having formed now in Israel, but the long term consequence four years later was the end of Labour Party dominance and the arrival of the, Bacon led and Likud government and essentially an Israeli, a permanent, I would say, turn to the right in Israeli politics. So talk a little bit about your piece, and then let’s talk about what the impacts of this are likely to be.

Sure. So, I mean, I guess the the first thing to stipulate is you know, having said at the outset that both of us feel, you know, we’re one or two degrees of separation from people who are really suffering in this. You know, it’s our obligation to be analytic as well. So the one of the things I said in the piece is I Actually, I recalled a conversation. I’d I’d I didn’t quite frame it this way, but it was a conversation with secretary Rice during the, North Korean nuclear reactor, crisis were nice.

You and I both know well there was a North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria that the Israelis eventually destroyed. And the the question that she had was would the Israelis be willing to risk a larger Middle East war? And she was doubtful and I understood why because she had been I think really quite scarred by the two thousand six Lebanon War, where, actually, in some ways, the Israelis had done quite well against certain kinds of targets, long range, Hezbollah missiles, and that sort of thing. But the ground war was a botch. And I, you know, I remember saying to her, madam secretary, that the history of the IDF is a history of failure, which she kinda looked at me, But the truth is that that’s what it is.

If you look through the history, even going back to the pre state period, it’s a history where you have failure and then very rapid recovery following some pretty brutal self criticism. So even smaller things of nineteen fifty six, for example, the Israeli tank corps did not do particularly well. And, you know, immediately after they look into that, they’ve put in some new military, a new general in particular There’s during

the sinai crisis in nineteen fifty six. When they go into Fifty slips.

And, you know, by the early sixties, they actually have an extremely fine armored core. You know, nineteen eighty two. You look at their performance against surface to air missiles, which had given them real challenges in nineteen seventy three. They had really fixed that. And move beyond.

So I think it’s it’s a culture. Israeli military culture is a culture of continual adaptation, but I think superimposed on that is a sort of strategic culture of really ruthless inquiry. I mean, the Aubronaut Commission was brutal not to the guys lower down, but it was brutal to the senior political and military leaders who lost their jobs. There was a similar sort of thing, the Vinnigrad Commission, which you made.

Right. After two thousand six.

After two thousand six, there were similar kinds that will be different, but after nineteen eighty two as well where the performance of Israeli ground forces came in for a lot of criticism. So I think it’s it’s quite fair to expect really two things. First, then at the tactical level, these rules are gonna recover extremely quickly. I mean, they they have the most profound motivations you can imagine to do well, and this was gonna be, I think, a very ferocious campaign in Gaza, not just payback, but the desire to, you know, remove this threat for good, whether or not that’s doable, we can, you and I can discuss. But I think then at the kind of higher political level, I to me, this means, BB is doomed.

And the the country’s politics are gonna be transformed. And and and I suspect for the better. I mean, I I do think people, like, what’s the name, Lisa Martinvere, and, smokedridge and these real right wing crazies that Bibi Netanyahu cut deals with, they’ve been saying crazy things, which have infuriated some of their fellow ministers. We’ve actually told them one case telling Ben Vier to shut up. Ben Vier said, you know, if people listened to me, this wouldn’t have happened, which is nonsense.

So I think you’re gonna see a political earthquake. I I do think, though, I mean, and and we should kind of parse all that I have to say, and I’m really curious to hear your views in this. The intelligence failure is astounding. Now there’s It it looks to me as if there was probably an operational failure as well in terms of having adequate ready forces just in case because you never predict anything and all that. And the same way, seventy three was partly an intelligence failure.

It was also an operational failure in some ways. The magnitude of this intelligence failure is I think in some ways, it goes beyond seventy three because in seventy three, the Israelis actually monitored the buildup on their borders. They just almost willfully misinterpreted it. In this case, you know, you just have the feeling that the that Hamas I suspect through the Iranians, but I, again, I’d be curious to know what you think, had a really good idea of how the Israelis collect on them. And and somehow we’re able to devise a complex sophisticated operation without, you know, it being detected.

And that’s that’s worrisome, and it’s, and it’s puzzling. What what are you saying?

So I think there is no such thing in in a sense as a pure. Well, that let me let me let me take that back. There there are pure intelligence failures, but more often than not, when we describe intelligence failures, They are not purely intelligence failures. They are both intelligence and policy failures, and they are made up moreover of different kinds of problems. So there’s collection problems, and you’ve pointed to one of them, which is I think, there is a very good Reuters’ lengthy piece on the Hamasas effort here to protect the buildup from, you know, prying, Israeli ears and eyes.

And they clearly maintained a a a high degree of operational security, which, the Israelis is, you know, you know, therefore missed what was what was going on. But but there’s also an analytic failure,

you

know, and and the analytic failure goes beyond the intelligence it goes to the political level. So, you know, we have these stories and we’ll have to, again, the commission will have to sort all of this out and, you know, figure out what is true and what is not, as you and I both know from our government service, first reports are, you know, frequently, if not always wrong. And so, you know, I everything I say, I I say with, you know, a high degree of tentativeness, but it appears that the Egyptian intelligence folks reached out to the Israelis and said something something’s brewing in Gaza, and, essentially, the Israeli leadership, including BB Netanyahu kinda brushed it off and and said, you know, you know, now some of the defense is a defense you and I know about from personal experience, which is you know, the intelligence wasn’t, you know, specific and it wasn’t actionable, you know, and therefore, there was nothing I seamaker could really do about it. But it’s clear, I think, and this Reuters piece is very good on that subject. That there was a conscious act effort at denial and deception by Hamas, and that they were counting on having sold the Israelis on a narrative that Hamasas was not interested in another round of warfare, after the two thousand seven, eight cast lead operation after the twenty fourteen, twenty twenty one, you know, kind of mini wars with Hamas that they they took advantage of the fact that the Israelis had concluded that the way to deal with this was mowing the grass and going kind of back, you know, to bomb Hamas and, you know, damage their infrastructure, and that Hamas had gotten the Israelis convinced that they were not ready for another round.

They really wanted to, you know, you know, do something to improve the economic situation in Gaza, you know, get more permits for, Gaza, workers to enter the West Bank and or Israel proper to work and then go home. Through the Ares crossing, in fact, which they, you know, which they disabled, and that as a result of of that predisposition, and as you and I know, Very easy for policy makers when confronted with terrible bad problems to believe what they wanna believe rather than, you know, hard, harder realities. And as a common mentor of ours, once taught taught us, You know, if you think what you wanna believe and what you do believe are the same thing, you should probably think again. But I don’t think that happened in Israel. I think that they I think there was a widespread sort of group think that, yeah, you know, Hamas is not a problem.

Yeah. We got problems on the West Bank. But Hamas is not a problem right now. Pige is a problem.

Yeah. And I think they were I I think that’s absolutely right. And, you know, it is It’s a fundamental principle of, deception operations that you you can’t convince people of things they don’t wanna believe. But so what you do is you If you can figure out what they do believe or they’re inclined to believe, you reinforce what they’re inclined to believe. And that, you know, it’s interesting.

That may be one of the things that’ll be most important to pay attention to is, not so much how did hamas hide stuff, but how did they reinforce the Israeli government’s preferred views, which, after all, would not have been that hard to discover. So I think that’s I think that’s right. I mean, I also think there is an operational part of it. You know, I think about the classic case and all this, of course, Pearl Harbor. And, which I remember once looking at quite closely.

And, you know, the thing that struck me is I I figure it was a week, ten days before the actual attacks. The naval and military commanders at Pearl Harbor got a message that began this is a war warning. And and yet, you know, the airplanes were still lined up wing tip to wing tip. The ammunition lockers were all locked. So, you know, the, sailors had to go looking for bolt cutters so they could begin, anti aircraft.

Operations, they, you know, they didn’t do the kind of things that you would do even in the absence of ex was it warning about what was going to happen. And I suspect that there’s something like that here. Part of what may have happened on that front just and then I’m I wanna go back to the at a higher political level. You know, the Israelis have put a lot of effort into building walls. Around Gaza.

And, part of this also include very sensitive, sensor systems because the They they knew that what Hamas wanted to do was attack these settlements. And the way they were originally gonna do is with tunnels. And so they developed very exquisite sensors to detect tunneling activity, and, you know, they came up with a very sophisticated thing. It was not a sophisticated enough network to defeat, you know, a really large scale attack, which included some pretty innovative stuff, drones dropping, bombs, people coming in by paraglider, and so on. And and it is puzzling that the Israelis had such minimal reserves in the area so that some of these, you know, the Keepots him were went for almost a whole day before IDF troops show up to try to rescue them.

And that’s that’s gonna have to be looked at, as well. So it is sort of a systemic failure. I I to go back to the political level, I, you know, the I think they’re obviously preoccupied by the West Bank where you know, to be brutal about it. They were inflaming the situation a lot, and they were beginning to reap what they said. The settlers of

who are and the right wing elements of the government, you know?

Right. The right wing elements of the government are cheering them sharing them on. But I think the other thing that they’ve been obsessed with for a long time as Hezbollah. You know, and I I remember talking to an Israeli general who was quite concerned that we were using some of the ammunition, which we had stock piled in Israel and shavering it to Ukraine. I said, well, you know, it is our ammunition.

He said, yeah. But we if there’s ever a war with his wallet, we’re really gonna need that. And he was very, very focused on, the Hezbollah threat. And I I do think that they had somehow convinced themselves they had put Hamas us in a in a in a box, and clearly they they hadn’t.

Yeah. There clearly was I think I agree with you. There was an over evaluation of the physical, and technological barrier that they created. Not, you know, not just the, the sensors, I mean, the sensors, the observation, the automated machine guns, the drone presence, that they had for,

a lot of it AI driven, apparently.

Yes. Well, and I talked to

my very senior is really general who said, look, he was talking about the last round of fighting. He said, a lot of this is kinda like post modern. He said, we’re this is the first time we’ve had AI driven targeting. So, you know, you’re generating targets in very, very short periods of time.

Well, yeah, for the the very

or individuals and so on. Yeah.

It’s a very, very sophisticated surveillance and reconnaissance. And to the your point about the tunnels, deep underground walls to to to block the tunnels. But it turned out that the fence in the wall could be very easily taken down by by bulldozers. And I mean, as you say, I think, you know, in this again, it’s early days. I don’t wanna make definitive conclusions, but there does seem to be a bit of the sort of Majino, line kind of a psychology here that they had built this technological physical barrier, you know, problem solved.

And obviously the problem, you know, was was not solved.

I think, you know, it’s, so in some ways, military affairs are always new, and some ways they’re very old. I mean, people have long thought that by building sophisticated wall systems, you could keep out the picts if you’re the Romans here in Britain or keep out the, step nomads if you’re, in China or you know,

are the spartans, if you build the long walls down to Pireis, if you’re the athenians. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it it’s it’s a natural I think it’s a natural human tendency to think if I just do it right. And and the truth is These kinds of systems do work to some extent. It’s not the fir the Germans went around the Magineau line. In this case, what Hezbollah did was to some extent go to to some extent to bypass it.

Could we talk a little bit about the I I mean, at some point, I’ll I think we really need to talk about what’s gonna come next, but I I do given that you and I take turns bashing the Biden administration and particularly the president for not, on on on matters Ukraine related for not delivering the big speech. I have to say I thought his speech was fantastic. It was it was eloquent. It was unequivocal. Heartfelt.

It was absolutely heartfelt. You know, I know it was a tonic for the Israelis, and when I’ve heard from Israeli friends who just Some of them were tend to be quite cynical. And, you know, clearly deeply moved, it’s absolutely what they needed at this at this moment in time. So I just wanna pause for a moment too. You know, and say he really they did what a leader ought to do.

Now, you know, as you and I were discussing a little bit before, I think the one of the things the administration’s gonna have to face up to is that in this respect as in several others, it’s, you know, a desire to switch everything to focus on China. Is being thwarted by events. And, again, I’ll to try to be fair. You know, the Trump administration tried to do the same thing, and I think failed. And I think the Obama administration was even beginning to think about it.

They failed too. Right. And, you know, in this case, the way they failed is they thought, okay, we can out of Iraq. We can sort of buy off the Iranians and no. You can’t.

Yeah. I look, I agree with that. First of all, you know, I like you think the president, was at his very best, in the speech. And you know, I think it gives the lie to the argument that he shouldn’t have done something similar on Ukraine because he lacks the you know, rhetorical ability to do it or or the perform the ability to perform at his age. He he clearly can.

I mean, I think the speech was very well done. As you say, it was a very, important boon to Israeli morale. You know, as best I can tell from everybody I talk to and everything I see. And I think as well, this statement by, Corinne Jean Pierre, the administration spokesperson denouncing the either equivocal or, you know, borderline anti Israel statements of the squad, you know, particularly Corey Bush and and Rashita Tlaib and, Elon Omar. Yeah.

Elon Omar. You know, I I think that was, you know, also very, very necessary. I think for this administration, it was kind of like us, as as our Bulwark colleague, JBL has written, today. It was a kind of sister soldier moment. Which I think, it is, is very important.

But what I, you know, having, you know, having come to praise Biden let me just say that I wish there were the same spirit of introspection that the Israelis have that you and I have just been talking about on the part of the administration at its larger policy towards the region. And in particular towards Iran, so my view is that they came in with a strategy as you were saying, of attempting to limit, American strategic liabilities in the region. By, quote, deescalating with Iran and engaging with Iran. And the pieces of that policy in incorporated a effort to negotiate our way back into the joint comprehensive plan of action that was agreed to by Barack Obama, but withdrawn by, Donald Trump to end the policy of maximum pressure on on Iran, that the Trump administration had launched, which was, I think, wildly more successful than people anticipated. People said you can’t you know, really do these kinds of sanctions without multilateral support.

You know, they managed to get you know, Iranian oil revenues down to something like eight billion dollars by the end of the, Trump administration. But the Biden administration declared that it was a failure and abandoned, enforcement of the sanctions on on oil sales. They de designated the houthis in Yemen, as part of their outreach effort, which, by the way, led to you know, missile attacks and rocketing of the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Without very much response by by the US, government, if at all, which, you know, soured those relationships very badly. And, you know, the the result of all of this has been not to make Iran more pliable.

Iranians have shown no interest and actually getting back into the JCPOA, despite multiple offers by the administration that the Europeans thought were you know, reasonable offers. I mean, frankly, I think they were offering way too much, but, you know, the Iranians, I think saved us from ourselves here. So the entire effort to, you know, deescalate to quiet the region, in order to concentrate, you know, on the Indo Pacific, I think in it has ended up essentially enabling and emboldening Iran to the point that we now are potentially on the cusp of the very kind of regional war they were they were seeking you know, to avoid. Now we’ll, you know, maybe we will avoid it. We’ll see.

A lot will depend on how Iran and Hezbollah react in the next few days. Maybe they’re gonna stand aside, you know, as the Israelis go in, you know, on the ground into Gaza. I have my doubts, but, you know, but we’ll see. But but certainly Jake Sullivan’s comments two weeks ago that the region has never been more quiet, you know, in, you know, in a couple of years have not aged well. Yeah.

Yeah. That it’s particularly bad in the Middle East. You know, it seems to me it’s always falling to make that kind of statement because it just has way of blowing up when you, when you least expect it. How how large a role do you think Iran played in this?

You know, I we don’t know yet. The US government and the Israeli government have both said the same thing. That they have not seen, any evidence direct evidence of, you know, an Iranian direct role mean, obviously, both governments have said, you know, obviously Iran is complicit. They fund Hamas. They supply them with the components to build all these rockets and missiles that, you know, the over forty five hundred have been fired into Israel.

It’s an enormous number coming from Gaza. I mean, of course, in the north, Hezbollah has a hundred fifty thousand of these things, which is why your Israeli general friend was rightly concerned about, you know, a a northern a northern front. So You know, I I it it’s hard to know. I mean, the Wall Street Journal had an article, which was sourced to a couple of, Hamas sources saying, Iran helped them plan this and, gave them a green light to go. You know, I think we’re just gonna have to see it it, you know, Iran is denied that.

So is, Hezbollah, you know, we’ll have to we’ll have see. You can understand, you know, people have lots of motivations for saying yes or no, denying or claiming credit here. It doesn’t, I I don’t think it’s dispositive that the US intelligence services and the Israel intelligence services are saying, we don’t we don’t yet have any evidence of a direct handedness because, of course, they had no evidence of the whole operation to begin. Right.

That’s what I what I was about to say. And and the thing is the Iranians are the masters of the sort of surrogate and proxy warfare. I mean, it’s they’ve done it really at a level of genius when you look at it in Iraq and, Yemen and, Syria. I I guess I find it hard to believe that Hamas simply on its own could develop all the technical skills. That they needed for this.

I mean, the training paraglider isn’t it. It’s Now underneath it all, I mean, we’ve we haven’t talked really directly about the the horrors of this. And you know, violation of corpses, rape, beheading of babies, I have a another piece that’s coming out in the Atlantic in the next day or two. Which tries to deal with that. And and, the piece basically says Look, what you’re dealing with here is barbarism.

And so it is a mistake, which I think a number of people make. To think of try to think about this in purely kind of strategic terms where, you know, Hamas must have certain well defined political objectives, and whether it’s blowing up the Israel Saudi deal, which I’m sure they wanted to do And so I think, you know, some of this is just this is barbarism. They wanna kill Jews. They wanna And I I what I try to do is to talk about it because I think what we’re seeing now is the spread of barbarism. And, you know, we saw it with ISIS.

I think we see it in Russian behaviors. I mean, Russian behaviors are barbaric. They routinely torture rape murder. And, you know, this now amounts at some level to a civilizational kind of threat. And I remember right after nine eleven, those of us who thought that this heralded that kind of broader threat were accused of being hysterical and overflowing it that this is just a something that requires a somewhat more vigorous kind of police response but I continue to think that that’s a that’s actually a bit of a misdiagnosis.

That there is there is rationality in some of this, and there’s purposeiveness in some of it. But what there really is behind this is, you know, deep sense of grievance at some sense, it, you know, some of this is it’s driven by feeling that you’re a loser in some ways. It’s, you know, having objectives which are not rational. You know, our religion is going to extirpate every other religion on earth or we are going to wipe other states or peoples completely off the face of the map. And So, therefore, you cannot simply respond in a kind of meta Nickian way of saying, okay, well, we’re gonna use force, but very precise limited ways so that, you know, it’s bargaining except, you know, you’re just using, bullets.

It’s it’s it’s something qualitatively different, and and the one last thing I’ll I’ll say and then be curious to hear what you have to say. The thing that should trouble us is these people are talking to each other, and working with each other to some extent. And, you know, the Iranians and Hamas. If you look at the Russians and the Iranians, it is very striking on this one. You know, after the all the effort that the that BBi in particular sank into developing relationships with the Russians.

Basically, Lavrov has given him a sort of brush off the Russians of it have demonstrated no sympathy whatsoever for the Israelis.

Putin hasn’t spoken about it yet. He has yet to say a word. There’s been no statement from the Russian government. Nothing. After all of BB’s trips to Moscow, by the way.

I mean, BB went to Moscow over the last few years more than they came to Washington. And, you know, Yep.

Well, that and and, by the way, I think we should also stipulate. We, you know, in my view, is, Bibi was a disaster for his release. It’s been a disaster for a long time. And, you know, all the bets that they placed that he placed personally fell off. That’s what and it’s one of the reasons why I think he’s doing.

But I, but in any case, I I do think that you’re seeing a kind of routinization of this and, a spread of barbarism that we need to call out and we need to understand that, you know, in this case, Ukraine, and in some others, this is It’s not it’s not clausewitz in the usual sense of, you know, state on state operating for interests. It’s civilization and barbarism.

Yeah. So a couple of thoughts about that. First, I look forward to reading the piece, of course. You know, our friend and Applebaum had a piece the other day in the Atlantic, as well about the, you know, the end of rules and I mean, she pointed out quite aptly that, you know, you know, some of this started, not started, but the Russians certainly, when they went into Syria in twenty fifteen, you know, colluded in and directed and participated in some incredibly barbaric assaults on civilians, direct assaults, You know, there’s a reason why, generals for a vegan, former chief of the Russian Air Force got the, you know, moniker of, you know, you know, general armageddon, you know, there was a reason for that. I mean, I do think there’s some distinctions to be made here.

One is that the Russians at least still seem to, you know, despite all the insane rhetoric you see on television. Have some sense of shame because they try and deny that they did all these things. Right? They deny that, you know, there were atrocities in Bucha. They they claim that those things were you know, things that were staged by the Ukrainians.

So, you know, that they deny that they were engaged in rape and pillage and ear pin, etcetera. Whereas the Hamas guys were literally videoing this. And

I I’m I’m not sure I I mean, on the Russians, I’m not sure I really agree that there’s a sense of shame. I think they they lie, you know, as the saying goes, partly because it’s in their nature to why. Partly to

yeah.

We know the reference there. Partly to spread disinformation and to kind of divide and confuse their opponents. But, you know, I think I it’s it’s not just kinda ghoulishly interesting to watch. A lot of me are, Salovyov, and is, Margarita Semoyan on Russian TV, but I think it’s instructive because what what You see that I’m advocating for is genocide.

Yeah. Absolutely. It’s murder. Yeah.

Well, and and I think that’s

You’re you’re talking you’re talking me out of my own original position here. I mean, because I also, you know, when you think about the, Progyny videos of the, you know, executions by sledgehammer and whatnot which were videoed and uploaded. You know, I may be giving the Russians too much credit. You know, that’ll be like one of the first times I’ve ever been accused of that. But but, but, you know, fair.

Fair enough. You know, look, you’re right that that these people are all talking to each other. And that’s really from our point of view, the strategic point we have to take away, I think. You know, people have asked a question of not only is there an Iranian hand in this, is there a Russian hand in this? As you point out, there were two Hamas delegations that, you know, in the last six months that have met in Moscow with Leviroff and have been talking with the Russians.

I don’t I obviously, there I have no evidence there’s a direct Russian hand in this. I would actually be a bit surprised if there were, but having said that, you know, there’s also the question of you know, Kuibono here, you know, and there, the Russians clearly benefit. You know, James forestall, said back in nineteen forty seven to George Marshall after Marshall came back from the London Foreign Minister conference where he was trying to sell the Marshall plan to the Soviets, which they rejected, of course, that the only thing he said that Russia can export really is chaos and anarchy. And sadly, that remains the case today. You know?

I mean, they benefit from global disorder. And, you know, when people talk about the rules based international order and they make fun of us, you know, policy wonks for talking about all this. When it gets undone, what you get is no rules and barbarism.

I think that, you know, there’s also, I can imagine indirect connections. The intelligence world is one big marketplace. And, you know, I I can you imagine the Iranian saying, okay, return for all these Shahheed drones that we’re gonna sell you? And maybe the factories that will help you set up to procure them. We want until we want we want what you have on how the Israelis do whatever they do.

And I would bet you the Russians are more likely to have the Israelis penetrated, than the Iranians are. And if that’s the case, I can imagine that it’s, you know, this was just a part of some sort of filthy deal that the, they’re willing to cut. But what about what comes next? I mean,

perfectly possible. Wouldn’t wouldn’t surprise me.

Yeah. Yeah.

Let me ask you something about that, Elliot. So, you know, we had a couple of weeks back. We had a couple of weeks back, Isabel Kushner on our show. And one of the things she talked about was the deep the deep divide between secular Israelis and the Haradim. And as this was all going on, I was really struck, you know, as the call up is going on.

And, you know, Israel is facing some manpower issues here. And one of the reasons there may not have been efficient manpower is that, you know, they can’t rely on everybody to be called up anymore because there’s a growing proportion of the population who don’t serve. And you wonder, I mean, I I think the this will be buried while the, you know, fight is going on in Gaza. And and maybe if it spreads, you know, into a broader, bigger war with, you know, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and maybe directly with Iran. You know, this could be a you know, four or five front war for Israel very quickly, if things go badly.

But at some point, after that you know, after we passed all that. I I, you know, I worry that Israelis are gonna be in those who’ve served, those who’ve been called up, those who went grab their, you know, their pistols and ran to the south to try and rescue people and are now, you know, reporting for their for, you know, their, reserve duty. Are gonna be infuriated by these people who refuse to serve and continued, you know, to act like you know, it was time to celebrate Simchatora, you know, even as their fellow countrymen were being slaughtered. And I just I, you know, I just don’t know how that works.

So I I guess, so at first, at the moment, I think you just have an incredible, my my senses. This is an incredible feeling of unity. I mean, everybody’s in it together. Everybody’s getting rocketed. And this will be this is such a serious I mean, one way to think about it was grim is the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

You know? And so that there will be that unity. Secondly, whatever, however, Israel comes out of this, It’s the it’ll be somewhat straightened, economic circumstances. They’ll have to spend a lot more money. I’m sure on military things, be drafting more people probably for longer periods of time.

All, BB, and his guys, I think, will be out. You’re more likely to get people like Lapid or, Benny Gantz in, and I think you’re more likely to get a coalition which does not depend on the Harry Dame or on the ultra right movements. If that were to happen, then I think simply on budgetary grounds alone, what’s gonna happen is the the ultra orthodox are just not gonna get the same kind of budget allotments that they’ve been getting. You know, and that that’s the biggest thing that’s gonna motivate people is you have very large families basically, they’re being paid for by the state. But that’s only possible when you have a, you know, an economy that’s doing very well.

And you can you can afford to do that. And they’re not gonna be able to afford to do that. So I think some of this is gonna get resolved is gonna get resolved that way. But whatever, whoever this ends, I mean, the Israel that’s coming out of this is a very, very different Israel. It’s it will be I believe in some ways, it’ll be more transformative than seventy three.

You know, seventy three, you could pin on a few people. There was this sort of You know, redeeming story of success, with the crossing of the Suez Canal and All that, I don’t think the story is gonna be quite as clear cut in this case. I mean, this is just gonna be much grimmer. You know, there could be way way. I mean, basically, seventy three, they didn’t really suffer destruction to civilian infrastructure.

And if god forbid, as well, it gets involved in this, they could really suffer massive damage to their civilian infrastructure. So it’s It’s got it’s, you know, Isabel Kirschner wrote a wonderful book. It’s not gonna be a reliable guide to, the Israel that exists a year after it was published. Mhmm. Just because of this transformative event, Can can I ask you?

Sure. You know, we haven’t really talked about what Israel does next. I mean, none the options look good, but it it does seem to me in any case no matter what we think. What you what we’re gonna see is the Israelis go into Gaza. In a big way.

What do you think about that? What do you think they will be able to accomplish? What do you think we should be saying to them? Yeah. What do you think we’re trying to do?

We actually should be asking your son, Rafi, this, because he’s actually written, you know, a monograph with some colleagues that ran about, you know, lessons that Israel has learned from its previous wars with Hamas. So, obviously, they’ve they’ve gone to school on what happened in both two thousand six when they were involved in, kind of urban fighting in in Lebanon, which didn’t as as you say go well, their performance in in o seven and o eight, in in Gaza was, I would say, better than than what they did in in Lebanon. And they, you know, you’ve been trying to figure out. They’ve been doing a lot of, you know, training on urban warfare, knowing that there was a prospect that they might have to go back into either Gaza or lebanon. Now having said that, this is like the worst kind of fighting, you know, imaginable.

When I was first serving in the US Embassy in Tel Aviv in nineteen, eighty and eighty one. You know, I went to Gaza, and I was saying it was so incredibly crammed and crowded. You know, it’s a small area of land about half the size of the five boroughs of New York combined. And when I was there, the population was four hundred and twenty thousand. And I thought it was the, you know, most densely populated place I’d ever seen in my life, and I grew up in New York City.

And Now it’s a population of two point two million. I mean, this is going to be a brutal, ugly block by block fight. The Israelis will do their best, you know, to avoid casualties. They’ll do roof knocking, and they’ll do they’ll drop leaflets and they’ll, be broadcasting, you know, messages to people to get out as they approach different areas that they’re going to Part of the problem is there’s nowhere for these people to go. The Egyptians won’t open the the Raffa crossing to let you know, let them into the sinai to let them into Egypt.

You know, the electricity has already been off now for some number of hours. So the only electricity being generated in the place is by generators that people have. At some point, you know, they won’t have the gas to run those generators. You know, predictably, there will be civilian already have been civilian cash leaves. There’ll be others.

There’ll be collateral damage despite the fact that I think it’s the case that no military tries harder to avoid civilian casualties in the Israelis. But, you know, I think it’s just inevitable that as much support as they have now, you’re gonna start to see people peel off when it gets really, really ugly. You know? And the Israelis, I think, are kinda caught between a rock and a hard place. Right?

Because the previous strategy of going in and mowing the lawn bombing, you know, for a couple of days that they did in two thousand fourteen, two thousand twenty one, has been shown to be ineffective. They need to do, you know, root out, Hamas, military capability, more root and branch. But, you know, this is there’s the danger here of being, you know, sticking your finger in the Chinese finger trap because they don’t wanna reoccupy Gaza. That would be horrific. You know, so how, you know, the the the question is, how far do you go and where do you stop?

And where when do you define victory as having accomplished your end of destroying the military capability of Hamas. And I, you know, I don’t know where that point is, and I don’t know that the Israelis do either.

Yeah. I think you’re right. Although I would, I guess I would modify it a little bit. First, I think they have historically been extremely sensitive on civilian casualties. I don’t think they’re gonna continue to be.

I I mean, or they will pay some attention to that. But I think for the most part, they are going to prioritize killing the leadership of Hamas. And if they think that, you know, the roof knocks get in the way of that, they won’t do the roof knocks. I mean, I I just think I just think this is they’ve now moved to a different place. So I think there’s that.

I I am not sure that they are unwilling to reoccupy Gaza for some short period of time. I I think that their their priority is going to be first and foremost to kill the entire leadership of Hamas. And secondarily to kill as many of its foot soldiers as possible.

Yeah. I agree with that.

And and and thirdly, you know, so bludgeoned the place that nobody’s gonna think it was a good idea to try this again. And because they You know, the and then Israeli generals are already saying this that, you know, this is because of what’s happened, they feel that it’s an us or them kind of, set of circumstances. So I don’t expect to see the same kind of restraint. That the Israelis have shown in the past. And I don’t and at this point, I think they will care as much about the civilian population of Gaza as, you know, the Brits did about the civilian population of Berlin or Hamburg.

Namely, they won’t.

Yeah. So let me ask you.

Let me ask you. Let me get when now? Well, can they get away with that? I don’t know. I mean, you know, it’s obviously a different set of circumstances.

And, I agree with you some of the support will peel off. But but to the extent I can see inside their heads now, the, you know, the conversation that we’re having would seem just beside the point.

So let me let me raise a question or two for you. If they reoccupy Gaza You said for some limited time, isn’t there a danger that if they occupy Gaza completely? And then leave, that it actually ends up undermining, you know, Israeli deterrence. Because it allows the, legend to grow that the resistance, you know, led to Israeli withdrawal. And second, even if they kill all the leaders and kill a bunch of the foot soldiers, given the sort of draconian you know, sort of picture you painted.

Do they end up among the, you know, survivors creating just a new you know, a new recruiting pool for Hamas.

They may. I’m it’s not a good option. I’m You know, I’m and I’m not I’m trying not to say what I think they ought to do. Just trying to think through what I think they will do. I I think their reaction would be, look, if if despite the fact that all these people say, you know, you love life.

We love death. They don’t wanna die either. And if you, you know, you really show people that the consequence of this is you’re all dead. And not only are dead, you know, your families don’t have homes. You’ve probably lost children and wives and all that that there’s some sort of deterrent.

I is that the case? I’m not, I’m not sure. But I also think, you know, that what they may think is you know, if you really eliminate Hamas and Pige, yes, new organizations may grow up, but they will be different organizations. And, hopefully, with different objectives and above all with the understanding that if this happened once, it can happen again. And so I think that’s how they will think about it.

You know, one of these I said in the in the Atlantic piece is the way the Israelis have framed this, and you’ll you’ll remember this from the, the nuclear reactor crisis, they are they’re always talking about restoring their deterrent. You know, because that’s basically how they have to live. I mean, they’ve once they’ve decided that they can’t actually simply dictate terms from Arab capitals. They what they’ve had to do is say, well, okay, we’ve gotta convince everybody, don’t mess with us otherwise it’s a disaster. So now and I’m not sure that that’s necessarily the best way for them to think about strategy.

But again, my my view doesn’t matter. What matters is their view. And I think their view is that that’s how you have to think about it. So that’s that is what their mindset is going to be going into this. That they need to do something, which will restore the deterrent.

And I think the way they will try to do that is by inflicting the utmost devastation on Hamas. And if part of that is leveling all of Gaza and tens of thousands of civilian casualties. I think they’ll do it.

Let me ask, a one final question, and and and we can wrap up this necessarily gloomy and dark, you know, episode of shield of the Republic necessarily. So If this actually triggers a bigger war, a regional war, a, you know, a five front war with his Bola reigning you know, rockets and missiles from Lebanon with Xi militias in Syria striking into into Israel with, turmoil on the West Bank, that requires the attention of the Israeli military as well. And then presumably, you know, if that happens, these rallies are gonna carry the fight to to Iran directly somehow. Figuring that, you know, if they don’t take care of the nuclear program themselves now, you know, god knows what will happen in light of, you know, what what you said earlier about Barbarism versus civilization. Where does where does it end?

How how does it? How does it conclude?

Well, I think in I mean, that is grim. I think if that were to happen, that it would essentially be a two for war, it would essentially be the Hezbollah and Hamas. They have been thinking very hard about how to do it. I think it would be very similar to what you’re seeing here. Or in what you’re already seeing in Gaza, then go that level of destruction.

I think they would deal with Iran Later, I think the West Bank they can keep under control. And similarly, I think Syrian militias The Golan Heights, you know, those are, those are limited, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up cooperating a little bit with them behind the scenes to enable them to neutralize that. But I think if it’s that level of conflict. I mean, then you’re talking about a war which, you know, will have to be an order of magnitude greater in terms of Israeli casualties and several orders of magnitude greater in terms of Arab, both military and civilian casualties. But but I think and I mean, as you say, it’s necessarily grim.

You know, the last time you had a real existential conflict between civilized state and barbarian state, Look at what happened to Humberger in Berlin. And I think I I wouldn’t I wouldn’t rule that out. I mean, this is, you know, for the Israelis, I think part of the shock to them is not just the failure, and it’s not the not just the atrocities. As horrible as those are. And, you know, I think it’s you know, if you don’t know people there, you haven’t visited there, it’s a little bit hard to imagine just how close this cuts for every single.

Israeli, it’s it’s that I think the Israelis really felt that the existential question had been dealt with. That, you know, they that sense, which was palpable before sixty seven, and to some extent on first couple of days of the nineteen seventy three war, that, you know, the state itself could be destroyed. And, you know, whole populations massacre and a hideous repeat of what happened during world war two. That that question was off the table. Well

It’s back.

Fifty years later, it’s back on the table. Yeah. And and and I think we need, you know, friends of Israel, need to understand the enemies of Israel too for that matter. Need to understand, you know, when people really think that their existence is on the table and not just the existence of a state, but the existence of their families, of their kids, of their grandchildren. They really will do whatever it takes.

Yes. To to try and find something more upbeat and uplifting to end on. I would note that in Iran, in the aftermath of the attacks on Saturday at a, sock soccer game. Some Hamas sympathizers. I tried to, you know, fly Palestinian flags during the the soccer game and the overwhelming chance from the fans were take those flags and stick them where the sun don’t shine.

And and, I guess the one, you know, glimmer of hope one can try and grasp here is that, you know, if you go back to seventy three, if you go back fifty years and you know, the it was a moment of great peril for for Israel, but the outcome ultimately was the beginning of the first, treaties of peace between Israel and its neighbors first with the Egyptians then later with the jordanians, now there were even more. Before this all happened, there was a prospect of maybe, you know, more normalization between Arab states and Israel, maybe after some delay, I don’t think it’s gonna happen immediately, but it’s maybe at some delay we could get back to that. So, you know, maybe there are some at least hints of scintillas of glimmerings of silver lining in this otherwise, you know, overwhelming cloud.

I think that’s right, but I and I also think Look, there’s in in the middle of all the horrors. There’s some stories of transcendent heroism, you know.

Yeah. Absolutely.

There are these two, retired generals in their sixties who this happens and they grab their and these are all these are both left wing guys. Hated the netanyahu government, by the way. You know, they rushed down south and rescued their families. Right. At gunpoint, I mean, it’s and and there’s sort of societal resilience and commitment.

You know, everybody’s everybody’s pitching in. So it’s You know, it’s a dark, very dark scene, but it’s not a completely dark scene, by a long shot.

Well, on that, slightly more uplifting note. We probably need to wrap up and let you and Judy get back to your walking tour of the cotswolds. We look forward to having you back. Stay sides. Stay safe, in your travels.

Yeah. And we’ll we’ll see you soon.

Great. Thanks, Eric. Take care.