Inside Israel's War Room - Coleman Hughes and Elliot Kaufman

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Reading this dossier

This note covers the supplied interview from 0:00 to 100:49. It contains 24 question/clarification groups posed by Coleman Hughes, his extended casualty-framing discussion, and Kaufman’s closing regional assessment. Compound prompts—including the aid/famine exchange and the pager follow-up—are unpacked within their sections. Questions and answers below are faithful paraphrases, not quotation transcripts; the complete supplied text appears at the end.

Source identity: Coleman Hughes interviews Elliot Kaufman about In the War Room, coauthored with Yonah Jeremy Bob. The episode publisher’s indexed listing identifies 5 October 2026 and a duration of 101 minutes. The book’s official record confirms the authors and publication, but its full text and interview documentation were not available for this audit. S01 S02

Evidence boundary: A claim being made in the interview is verified by the supplied transcript. That does not independently verify the underlying event. Public records, institutional findings, journalism, participant recollections, counterfactuals and moral/legal arguments are labeled separately. Sources were checked on 5 October 2026; some were available only as indexed text or syndications. The source register records those limits. Reprints of one investigation count as one evidence chain.

Transcript handling: The pasted text has automatic-transcription errors in names and occasional unclear phrases. Analysis uses standard spellings where identity is clear, but preserves the original below. Timestamps are approximate locators from the supplied text. No verified YouTube watch URL was found, so none has been invented.

What this interview adds

It offers a detailed account of Hamas’s wider-war ambitions, the failure of deterrence assumptions, disagreement within Israel’s leadership, and the tension between defeating Hamas and recovering hostages. These help rebut accounts that erase Hamas’s agency or treat all Israeli wartime decisions as one undifferentiated motive. The strongest arguments remain useful when the uncertain private testimony and overbroad conclusions are removed.

Questions at a glance

Question-by-question analysis

Q01 — Method and interviews

1:58 · Coleman asks: How did you research the book, who did you interview, and how should readers understand this early account of the war?

Kaufman’s answer: He and Bob reported through the war and interviewed senior Israeli political, military and intelligence figures, together with American officials. He names Netanyahu, Gallant, Gantz and military leaders. Access to people who disagreed allows reconstruction of decision-making rather than a single official narrative.

Check and assessment: The publisher confirms a book built around this subject and access claim. It cannot independently establish the accuracy of every private recollection. Leaders have incentives to defend decisions, shift responsibility and shape their legacy. Rival testimony is useful triangulation only when the authors show where accounts agree, diverge or meet contemporaneous documents. Without the full book, recordings or source notes, this dossier cannot certify that triangulation. High confidence in source identity; limited independent access to private testimony. S02

Usable argument: Treat the interview as evidence about the authors’ reconstruction of competing strategies. Attribute private quotations to Kaufman, and seek a contemporaneous record before presenting them as settled facts. Claim family C01.

Q02 — Why October 7, and why then?

3:38 · Coleman asks: What was Hamas trying to accomplish, and what explains its timing?

Kaufman’s answer: Sinwar believed a Hamas attack could ignite the surrounding Iranian-supported fronts and ultimately destroy Israel. Israel’s domestic divisions, reserve protests and earlier communal violence appeared to create vulnerability. Saudi–Israeli normalization was another strategic threat to Hamas. Sinwar acted without securing the full coordinated assault he hoped to trigger.

Check and assessment: Reporting on captured Hamas leadership minutes supports extended planning, efforts to recruit Iran and Hezbollah, and concern about normalization. Those records reached journalists through Israeli custody; reported authentication checks increase their value, but the complete archive was not inspected here. Neither sponsorship nor attempted coordination proves Iranian authorization of the specific October 7 operation or knowledge of its exact date. Internal planning can have several motives, including Palestinian grievances, religious-national aims, organizational power and disruption of regional diplomacy. Supported strategic interpretation, with documentary-access and attribution limits. S03 S04

Usable argument: Hamas was a strategic actor pursuing its own objectives. An explanation of the war that presents it only as an automatic response to Israeli policy misses planning, ideology and regional ambitions. Acknowledging those does not remove Israel’s responsibility for its own policies. C02–C03.

Q03 — The Haaretz warning and gas-deal story

7:35 · Coleman asks: What about reporting that Netanyahu received a warning from the UAE’s president and that an economic/natural-gas negotiation helped precipitate the attack?

Kaufman’s answer: The broad warning story may contain truth, but he distinguishes generic concern from actionable knowledge of the impending operation. The deeper failure was how intelligence was interpreted: warning indicators were absorbed into the belief that Hamas was deterred. Overnight SIM-card activity did not produce an adequate defensive response.

Check and assessment: Contemporary coverage identifies a Haaretz allegation involving Mohammed bin Zayed and economic negotiations; Netanyahu publicly denied the specific warning account. The original investigation’s full text was unavailable. This is therefore an allegation and denial, not a resolved warning chronology. Netanyahu’s denial is not independent UAE confirmation. Institutional inquiry reporting does support substantial assessment and warning failures. Kaufman does not directly resolve the gas-deal causal claim in this exchange. Long-term attack planning limits a simple impulsive explanation, but planning and negotiations can coexist. S05 S06 S07 S08 S09

Usable argument: Distinguish a warning’s existence, specificity, recipient, interpretation and operational response. Evidence of negligence or a failed strategic conception is consequential without being proof of deliberate complicity. C04–C06.

Q04 — Why did Sinwar think Israel could be destroyed?

11:07 · Coleman asks: Given the power imbalance, why did Sinwar believe this was realistic?

Kaufman’s answer: He expected overlapping fronts to overwhelm defenses. Kaufman describes the actual breakthrough and hostage-taking, speculates about attackers reaching farther had the Nova festival not diverted them, and describes Israeli fears of devastating Hezbollah fire against northern cities and infrastructure.

Check and assessment: Hezbollah’s large arsenal makes the feared second front a serious security problem; CSIS describes an estimated arsenal exceeding 150,000 standoff weapons. That is an estimate, not an inspected inventory. The interview’s hypothetical 5,000 Israeli deaths, infrastructure losses and alternative attacker routes were not independently verified. A leader can sincerely expect victory and still misjudge allies, adversaries and operational capacity. October 7’s success in breaching defenses does not establish that destroying Israel was feasible. S11 S31

Usable argument: The threat was not merely rhetorical, even though Sinwar’s ultimate expectation was mistaken. Describe possible outcomes as feared scenarios rather than events that certainly would have occurred. C07a–C07b.

Q05 — Why did Hezbollah stop short of full-scale war?

14:04 · Coleman asks: Why did the anticipated northern onslaught not happen?

Kaufman’s answer: Nasrallah had not committed to Sinwar’s unilateral timetable. He expected coordination through Iran and feared Israeli penetration. Sinwar apparently mistook sympathetic discussions for agreement. Kaufman acknowledges this is one of the war’s large unresolved questions.

Check and assessment: UNIFIL contemporaneously recorded cross-border fire on October 8. This independently establishes opening hostilities, not Nasrallah’s private reasoning. Captured planning documents support attempted coordination, but a precise account of what each leader privately promised remains less secure. Lebanese domestic costs, readiness, deterrence and American intervention are alternative or additional explanations. High confidence in the observed opening; uncertain internal causal hierarchy. S12 S03

Usable argument: An axis is not a single mind. Partners can share hostility to Israel while disagreeing over timing and acceptable risk. C08–C09.

Q06 — Would Iran have directed the coordinated assault?

15:21 · Coleman clarifies: Is the point that Iran would direct a properly coordinated regional attack rather than Hamas setting the date alone?

Kaufman’s answer: Yes; Sinwar’s unilateral opening departed from the coordination the other actors expected.

Check and assessment: This is Kaufman’s interpretation of the intended command relationship. Material support, strategic influence, consultation, operational orders and advance knowledge are distinct propositions. The located planning-report chain supports contacts and attempts to enlist allies, not proof of Iranian orders for October 7. S03

Usable argument: Say “Iran supported the network and Hamas sought wider participation.” Reserve “Iran ordered October 7” for evidence of that specific decision. C02/C09, clarification coverage.

Q07 — Intelligence success elsewhere and the stand-down theory

16:32 · Coleman asks: How can Israel achieve extraordinary intelligence successes against Hezbollah and Iran yet fail so badly in Gaza? Does this disparity support the deliberate-allowance argument, illustrated by Charlie Kirk’s commentary?

Kaufman’s answer: Different agencies, collection environments and strategic assumptions were involved. Mossad’s foreign work and Shin Bet’s Gaza responsibilities should not be treated as one omniscient institution. Reliance on signals intelligence, insufficient human sources and the conviction that Hamas preferred governing helped produce the failure. He also cites Netanyahu’s prewar reluctance to undertake a costly Gaza invasion.

Check and assessment: Institutional inquiry and analysis support severe intelligence/command failure. The account needs military intelligence/Aman, Unit 8200, field surveillance and command responsibility alongside Mossad and Shin Bet; the two-agency contrast alone is incomplete. The Be’eri inquiry documents failure to protect civilians. Neither technical capability nor missed warnings supplies evidence of an intentional order to let the attack happen. Conversely, explaining the failure does not exonerate those responsible for preventable errors. Kirk’s exact referenced clip was not located. S08 S09 S10 S16

Usable argument: A conspiracy claim must explain affirmative evidence of intention or coordination. “They were capable elsewhere, so they must have allowed it” is an invalid inference from capacity to universal situational knowledge. C10–C11.

Q08 — Did Netanyahu fund Hamas, and what were the alternatives?

21:35 · Coleman asks: How should we understand Qatari cash, the Palestinian Authority’s salary cuts, criticism of Netanyahu’s policy, and the available alternatives?

Kaufman’s answer: These were Qatari transfers permitted by Israel, with humanitarian and security-stabilization purposes, not simply Israeli payments to Hamas. Officials hoped governing responsibilities and economic benefits would deter conflict. The policy continued under other governments. He says only the right opposed it and interprets the Palestinian-division rationale as political salesmanship rather than the policy’s real cause.

Check and assessment: Contemporaneous Reuters reporting supports Qatari salary funding and Israeli approval. AP documents continuation under Bennett through a UN-based mechanism with altered controls. That supports continuity of a policy problem, not identical implementation. A March 2019 Jerusalem Post report records both a Palestinian-division rationale attributed to Netanyahu and centrist Blue and White opposition. It relies on an unnamed meeting source, not a recording. It nevertheless contradicts “only the right opposed” and prevents dismissing the division rationale as proven insincere. Aid can be fungible and strengthen a ruling organization without proving that a specific transfer paid for a specific attack. S13 S14 S15

Usable argument: “Netanyahu directly paid for October 7” outruns the evidence located here. “Israel enabled Qatari funding partly intended to stabilize Gaza, while critics warned it strengthened Hamas and preserved Palestinian division” is defensible. Alternatives included stronger oversight, targeted civilian mechanisms and political arrangements; the choice was not simply unrestricted cash or starving civilians. C12–C15.

Q09 — Gallant and the choice of the first front

28:55 · Coleman asks: Who was Gallant, and why did leaders disagree about attacking Hezbollah before fighting Hamas?

Kaufman’s answer: Gallant, a former senior military commander and defense minister, feared a northern attack while Israel was committed in Gaza. He favored a major preemptive strike. Netanyahu, with Gantz and Eisenkot helping restrain escalation, chose to avoid that immediate northern war.

Check and assessment: Gallant’s later public interview confirms the October 11 dispute, although his preferred counterfactual is self-interested testimony. The emergency war cabinet was formally agreed on October 11, so its later composition should not be projected back onto October 8. The disagreement is well supported; which alternative would have produced the least harm and best security is not experimentally recoverable. S17 S18

Usable argument: Israeli leadership made competing strategic judgments. This supports a model of disputed priorities rather than a single predetermined escalation plan. It does not establish the legal validity of every subsequent action. C16.

Q10 — Why not targeted raids instead of a large invasion?

32:41 · Coleman asks: Was a narrower campaign—kill/capture leaders, raid targets, then negotiate—seriously available, and why was it rejected?

Kaufman’s answer: Yes. He describes Israeli and American advocates of narrower operations, Eisenkot’s openness to ending the war after the November hostage exchange, and fears about urban fighting, tunnels and hospitals. Netanyahu’s response was that repeated limited campaigns had failed to remove Hamas’s military and governing threat. Kaufman says the IDF lacked a ready usable plan for the full task and recounts private pessimistic American assessments.

Check and assessment: Public reporting establishes US urban-warfare advice and strategic disagreement. It does not validate every private prediction attributed to American generals or the broad assertion that there was no usable IDF plan. A plan’s existence, readiness, political approval and adequacy are different questions. The interval before the ground campaign permits several explanations, including mobilization, hostage negotiations and operational preparation. S19 S20

Usable argument: Assess a proposed alternative against its specified goal: leadership attrition, civilian protection, hostage recovery, prevention of a repeat assault, or removal of governing capacity. Demonstrating a real threat does not prove every form of invasion was necessary. C17–C18.

Q11 — What does a raid-based strategy actually mean?

37:37 · Coleman clarifies: Enter to kill or capture leaders and withdraw, rather than stationing formations to control Gaza?

Kaufman’s answer: That is the basic distinction; he doubts such operations alone could deliver the political and security transformation demanded after October 7.

Check and assessment: This is a strategic assessment. Persistent territorial control can deny reconstitution but carries occupation, civilian-harm and governance costs. Raids can reduce those costs but may leave a ruling organization able to recruit and rebuild. Neither mechanism guarantees success. Evaluate intelligence availability, civilian risks, replacement governance and the enemy’s adaptation. S19

Usable argument: A proposal must explain what happens between raids and who prevents rearmament. The same test applies to an invasion: who governs after military operations? C17/C19, clarification coverage.

Q12 — Political necessity or security necessity?

38:51 · Coleman asks: Was the invasion necessary for Netanyahu’s survival, Israeli security, or both?

Kaufman’s answer: Both political accountability and security demanded a decisive response. Leaving an armed organization able to repeat a cross-border massacre was unacceptable after defenses had failed.

Check and assessment: A strong security rationale exists independently of Netanyahu’s political incentives. The further claim that only one campaign design could secure Israel is an unproved counterfactual. Democratic pressure, military feasibility, legal obligations and the leader’s interest in remaining in office should be analyzed separately. The legitimacy of pursuing Hamas does not exempt particular means from IHL. S31 S32

Usable argument: Ask critics of a campaign to specify a credible security alternative, while asking defenders to show why the chosen scale, timing and means were justified. C19.

Q13 — Why not repair the defenses and contain Hamas?

40:04 · Coleman asks: Could stronger defenses achieve the security objective without overthrowing Hamas?

Kaufman’s answer: He suggests that may effectively be where policy ends up, despite Hamas having been weakened. He doubts disarmament will occur without pressure and emphasizes the loss of the Rafah/Egypt supply route. He also gives estimates of Hamas’s remaining territory and influence over Gaza’s population.

Check and assessment: Reuters’s July 2026 roadmap account shows unresolved sequencing and incompatible disarmament conditions. A proposal is not completed disarmament. The interview’s 40% territorial-control figure and “all two million” population claim were not independently verified for October 2026. Administrative reach, coercive influence and physical territorial control differ. Rafah is strategically relevant, but tunnels, the crossing, commercial traffic and drone smuggling are distinct routes; one cannot infer that all weapons traveled through one monitored crossing. S22

Usable argument: Territorial setbacks do not equal the disappearance of Hamas or completed disarmament. Demand dated, mapped evidence for control claims and a concrete mechanism for containment. C20–C21.

Q14 — The aid cutoff, diversion, GHF and famine

41:48 · Coleman asks: Was stopping aid after the ceasefire an avoidable mistake, even if supplies had accumulated? What did leaders think they were accomplishing? The exchange later develops into a famine discussion.

Kaufman’s answer: He agrees it was a serious error. He describes officials angry about Hamas capturing or taxing supplies, sustaining fighters and using resources in tunnels. They believed restricting replenishment after stockpiling might pressure Hamas into releasing hostages. He cites Biden’s earlier warning about diverted aid and says GHF should have operated before supplies became critically scarce. He blames Hamas for accelerating deprivation.

Chronology and rationale: OCHA records limited re-entry on May 19, 2025 after an 11-week complete blockade, more than the informal “two months.” GHF announced an opening in late May; reporting distinguishes its May 26 announcement from the May 27 public distribution-hub events. Biden’s October 18, 2023 speech did contain a diversion warning, but announcing an aid agreement was not the same as trucks entering that day. A political warning cannot waive civilian-relief duties. S23 S25 S61

Diversion check: The sweeping allegation that Hamas systematically stole/taxed all supplies exceeds the evidence inspected. Reuters reports a USAID review of 156 reported incidents concerning US-funded aid that found no evidence of systematic Hamas theft in that dataset. That is a meaningful limit on a blanket claim, not proof that no diversion ever occurred. Other perpetrators, unknown incidents, commercial goods and supplies outside the dataset must be distinguished. Hunger’s causal attribution requires evidence on entry restrictions, distribution, insecurity, destruction, prices and actors’ conduct—not an assumed single culprit. S26

Famine check: Coleman’s preface questions strict famine criteria and cites photographs of children with underlying illnesses. Individual images cannot establish or disprove population-level famine. The June 2024 review did not find evidence of then-current famine; the August 2025 IPC review classified Gaza Governorate as in famine with reasonable evidence as of August 15, distinguishing other areas and projections. “Reasonable evidence” involves uncertainty, including mortality assessment; it is still a formal classification. December improvement after the ceasefire does not erase an earlier time-bounded finding. S58 S27 S28 S29 S59

Legal and operational assessment: Counter-diversion controls are legitimate subjects of policy, but civilians retain protection and relief obligations. A legal starvation analysis does not require an IPC famine declaration. UN objections to the replacement aid system concerned access and humanitarian principles as well as urgency, so “it merely started too late” is incomplete. S24 S34 S55

Usable argument: Acknowledge the aid cutoff error and insist on evidence for diversion. A defensible rebuttal separates Hamas’s potential appropriation from Israel’s independently binding duties and the actual famine record. See the dedicated famine interview audit. C22–C25/C53.

Q15 — Were fighters well fed while civilians and hostages suffered?

46:11 · Coleman asks: Did Hamas fighters generally remain fed despite the restrictions?

Kaufman’s answer: Generally yes, with exceptions for isolated or surrounded fighters.

Check and assessment: Deprivation and abuse in captivity are independently documented. That does not provide a representative nutrition survey of Hamas fighters. Selected testimony about unequal food access can establish an incident or pattern in captivity, but “all fighters remained well fed” requires broader evidence and is weakened by Kaufman’s own exceptions. Plausible unequal allocation; force-wide nutritional claim unverified. S37

Usable argument: Attribute a described inequality to its evidence and population. Do not use anecdotal fighter access to infer that civilian hunger was fabricated. C26.

Q16 — Sinwar’s strategy, public pressure and the genocide narrative

46:48–49:35 · Coleman asks: Once the wider war failed to materialize, how did Sinwar adapt, and what do his messages reveal? His lead-in includes the famine claims audited in Q14.

Kaufman’s answer: Hamas shifted from defending positions to survival, reconstitution and ambushes. Sinwar expected international criticism, American pressure and Israeli hostage protests to improve negotiating terms. Kaufman argues that criticism often omits Hamas’s forces, tunnels and military use of civilian settings. He treats serious war-cabinet arguments over military objectives and hostages as contrary to a story of indiscriminate killing as the sole goal.

Messages and causal claim: WSJ-origin reporting describes messages in which Sinwar welcomed the political effect of civilian losses. This is important reported evidence about his calculations, but summaries of that investigation are not independent authentication. The raw complete messages were unavailable. Knowing that he sought to exploit pressure does not show that every critic helped prolong the war; pressure could also restrain harm or promote exchanges. Establishing net prolongation would require a counterfactual causal analysis. S30

Military facts and legal inference: Reported US intelligence supports military/hostage use at al-Shifa, with public-detail limits. It cannot validate every hospital allegation or justify every attack. Tunnels and armed formations are relevant to operational analysis; a specific total tunnel-mileage estimate was not verified. Military objectives and internal deliberations are relevant evidence of intent, but they do not logically exclude concurrent prohibited intent. Genocide does not require maximizing the number killed; its Convention test concerns prohibited acts and an intent to destroy a protected group in whole or part. ICJ provisional proceedings are not a final merits verdict. S54 S33 S51 S50

Usable argument: Demand that an account include Hamas’s agency, tactical adaptation and armed presence. Assess Israeli actions separately under the applicable law. See Human Shields for the distinction between military presence and the specific act of shielding. C27–C28/C31–C32.

Q17 — Coleman’s extended civilian/combatant argument

55:24 · Host exposition, not a new question: Coleman argues that undifferentiated casualty reporting obscures combatants and reflects a jihadist worldview that collapses civilians into an enemy collective. He gives examples involving relatives, children and settlers. Kaufman agrees, then broadens the discussion to Hamas’s ideological objectives and rejection of political offers.

What holds up: A total death count is not automatically a civilian death count. A responsible account should disclose what it does and does not know about combatant status. This can coexist with using a total as a measure of human loss.

What does not follow: Missing combatant fields do not establish ideological complicity, and a Hamas-run ministry’s institutional context does not prove every reported death fictitious. No systematic review supports the host’s sweeping claim about every New York Times article. Civilian status is not lost through family relationship, political sympathy, residence or settler identity. Direct participation and armed-group membership require the applicable legal analysis; children retain specific protections. S32

Ideology and recognition: Hamas’s 2017 document distinguishes conditional acceptance of a 1967-borders state from recognition of Israel. Its reproduced text should be separated from the Israeli-affiliated host’s analysis. The interview’s broad caliphate characterization needs a specific doctrinal source. PLO recognition of Israel in 1993 is a direct counterexample to treating every Palestinian political organization as having one unchanged rejectionist policy. S47 S46

Usable argument: Require transparent casualty categories without inventing a civilian percentage, and criticize an organization’s explicit positions without assigning them to all Palestinians. C29–C30/C33.

Q18 — How many attackers, and was it an invasion?

60:53 · Coleman asks: How many people crossed into Israel, and how should the scale of the operation be described?

Kaufman’s answer: Thousands crossed; he calls it an invasion rather than a small isolated terrorist incident.

Check and assessment: An updated estimate reported through a Channel 12/IDF chain gives about 6,000 entrants, separating roughly 3,800 Nukhba personnel from other militants and looters. The underlying counting file was not inspected. Do not convert every entrant into an identified Hamas fighter. The UN inquiry independently documents organized attacks on civilians and hostage-taking by multiple participants. “Invasion” is a defensible description of an organized armed cross-border incursion; it does not confer statehood or lawful-combatant privileges on Hamas. S57 S31

Usable argument: Describe scale and organized military character while retaining the categories and source uncertainty. Terrorist attacks and an armed incursion can describe different aspects of the same operation. C34.

Q19 — Hostage recovery versus defeating Hamas

61:36 · Coleman asks: Were Israel’s two stated goals compatible? Did later military pressure vindicate continuing the war despite warnings about hostage deaths?

Kaufman’s answer: He recounts heated warnings that offensives could kill hostages, Gallant’s preference for a deal in 2024, and Netanyahu’s belief that weakening the northern enemy would improve bargaining leverage. He argues later successes and pressure helped secure the final return, giving an “over 180” figure in describing people brought back.

Check and assessment: The tension is real: pressure can improve bargaining leverage while operations can endanger captives. Private arguments remain attributed recollections. Kaufman says more than 180 were brought home without defining the counting category; this is ambiguous, not automatically a false total if deceased returns are included. OHCHR’s report records 168 hostages released alive as of October 31, 2025, including rescues and pre-October-7 captives; bodies are counted separately. Reuters reports the return of Ran Gvili’s remains on January 26, 2026. “All returned” therefore does not mean all survived. Do not promote the interview’s undefined figure into an audited live-release count. S37 S38

Causal assessment: Later releases demonstrate an outcome, not that every earlier military decision was necessary or that a different deal could not have saved more lives sooner. Negotiations, mediator pressure, ceasefires, military attrition and the captors’ choices interact. Evaluating the strategy requires both recovered captives and deaths, timing and foregone agreements.

Usable argument: “Negotiation alone versus pressure alone” is often a false binary. Examine which pressure, at what time, with what hostage risk and bargaining channel. C35–C36.

Q20 — Was Netanyahu right and Gallant wrong?

67:42 · Coleman asks: Do later outcomes settle the leaders’ disputes? The discussion includes American assistance and constraints, Iran and a North Korean artillery analogy.

Kaufman’s answer: Netanyahu was right on some questions, particularly initial northern restraint and later persistence; Gallant was more decisive on others, including the early Gaza campaign. Kaufman credits American defensive support but criticizes restrictions that he thinks delayed strategic gains. He connects Hezbollah’s weakening, strikes on Iranian defenses and later nuclear-site attacks.

Check and assessment: Gallant’s public retrospective confirms disagreement, but does not settle the alternatives. US support and policy constraints coexisted: a Pentagon briefing documented a paused bomb shipment alongside continuing assistance. “All arms were cut off” would be false. Sequence is not proof that every link was necessary. The September 2026 IAEA report documents extensive damage alongside gaps in material and enrichment verification, so strategic success cannot be equated with verified nuclear elimination. S18 S52 S42

North Korea analogy: Conventional retaliation against Seoul illustrates deterrence and the cost of preventive action. RAND provides modeled scenarios, not an observed “100,000 deaths in one day”; deaths and all casualties must not be conflated. The analogy does not establish a single explanation for North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. S48

Usable argument: Assess decisions with the information and risks available at the time, then measure the outcomes and costs. Later success supports a strategy’s plausibility without proving it was uniquely optimal. C37–C40.

Q21 — Gantz, the cabinet and political judgment

73:26 · Coleman asks: What role did Gantz play, and why did his political position deteriorate?

Kaufman’s answer: He describes a former chief of staff who joined emergency leadership despite broken trust over an earlier rotation arrangement. Gantz offered legitimacy and restraint, but Netanyahu’s political skill and leaks weakened him. Kaufman contrasts Gantz’s public reserve with his private conversations and comments on Eisenkot’s standing. Coleman adds a Ned Stark analogy.

Check and assessment: Reuters confirms Gantz’s role in the emergency arrangement and his June 2024 exit. That is firmer than the guest’s interpretation of leaks, missed opportunities or personality. The episode’s current polling claims were not independently checked, and should not be used as an October 2026 polling record. The television-fiction analogy explains the speakers’ interpretation; it supplies no political evidence. S17 S21

Usable argument: The cabinet included adversaries and disagreement, which matters when reconstructing responsibility. Do not convert a sympathetic interview impression into proof of character or political causation. C41.

Q22 — Was Netanyahu forced into the far-right coalition?

78:10 · Coleman asks: Did centrist refusals leave Netanyahu no option but Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and how much did they control war/hostage policy?

Kaufman’s answer: He agrees coalition alternatives narrowed, while noting Netanyahu helped create mistrust. He argues emergency centrist participation and later partners reduced the far right’s leverage, and that threats to leave were not always credible. Netanyahu also used possible government collapse to resist ending the war.

Check and assessment: Netanyahu actively brokered the far-right joint electoral list in 2022; this limits a wholly passive “forced” account. Remaining in office under a particular arrangement is itself a political choice. Reuters records a 64-seat majority after Gantz’s June 2024 departure. Coalition arithmetic must be dated and distinguish current partners, outside parliamentary support, a threat, and actual withdrawal. The absence of a far-right minister from operational command does not prove the absence of policy influence. S45 S21

Usable argument: Avoid both “Netanyahu had no agency” and “the far right dictated every operation.” Specify the decision, ministerial authority, seat arithmetic and evidence of influence. C42–C43.

Q23 — Two states and the historical-nationalism argument

83:27 · Coleman asks: What happened to the two-state prospect after October 7? Could it recover, and what historical lessons matter?

Kaufman’s answer: He is pessimistic, but notes past Israeli willingness to negotiate after violence. His core objection is security: institutions and political culture must prevent another armed rejectionist enclave. He then describes a recurring history of Palestinian celebration of violence followed by forgetting responsibility, invoking Shany Mor, and makes claims about glorification in schools.

Check and assessment: Security capacity, enforceable commitments and public incentives are legitimate tests of a settlement. The sweeping historical generalization outruns a differentiated record. The PLO’s 1993 recognition is a concrete counterexample; formal recognition does not establish perfect compliance, but cannot be erased. Each conflict requires its own actors and chronology; Israel struck first in the June 1967 war, so one recurring slogan cannot substitute for historical analysis. School-content claims require actual textbooks, issuing authority, date and context; these were not supplied or independently established here. Mor’s argument is commentary, not a universal finding. S46 S49 S62

Offers: Distinguish proposals, reservations, negotiations, nonacceptance and rejection. The existing Peace Offers note preserves those distinctions for Camp David, the Clinton Parameters, Taba and Olmert. This interview supplies no new primary dossier settling them.

Usable argument: A credible settlement must protect Israeli security and Palestinian political rights with workable institutions. Criticize specific rejectionist actors without assigning collective permanent incapacity to a people. C44–C45.

Q24 — American attitudes and the pager operation

88:33 · Coleman asks: How badly has the war damaged US–Israeli relations? At about 89:35 he adds: if pagers were more targeted than alternatives, why did they still produce a reputational backlash?

Kaufman’s answer: He sees a large reputational loss from a long war and media accounts that omit the threat. He criticizes parts of the Democratic coalition and the emerging Republican anti-Israel tendency, including Tucker Carlson. On pagers, he praises specificity and reports private praise from David Petraeus.

Opinion check: Pew’s March 2026 survey reports 60% unfavorable views of Israel, compared with 53% in 2025. This supports worsening attitudes, not Kaufman’s proposed shares of responsibility for media, policy, partisan change or antisemitism. His characterization of Carlson is an interpretive accusation; the exact cited material was not supplied and this audit does not establish a verdict on an entire body of broadcasting. S39

Pager check: Procurement aimed at a particular organization may be more selective than area bombardment. That does not establish that every bearer was targetable, that all civilian effects were foreseeable and proportionate, or that the weapon itself complied with applicable rules. CCW Amended Protocol II Article 7 raises a separate issue concerning apparently harmless portable objects manufactured to contain explosives. OHCHR reported civilian deaths, including children, and raised legal concerns; that is an institutional position, not a final court finding. Petraeus’s private praise was not independently verified and would not settle legality. S35 S36 S56

Usable argument: Compare plausible operations on target discrimination, expected civilian harm and lawful means. “More targeted than a bomb” alone is not a legal conclusion or an explanation of all public reaction. C46–C48.

Q25 — Abraham Accords, Saudi Arabia and prospects for peace

94:14 · Coleman asks: Have the Abraham Accords survived? What happens to Saudi normalization and a wider peace?

Kaufman’s answer: The existing relationships endured and some deepened because shared interests remained. Saudi normalization was delayed by the Palestinian issue, but not necessarily abandoned. He cites a recent diplomatic upgrade involving Morocco, travel connections and continued regional interest in countering Iran.

Check and assessment: Contemporary reporting supports an announced Israel–Morocco embassy upgrade. The transcript’s apparent “US and Morocco” phrasing is likely a spoken/transcription slip; preserve it in the raw text and explain the probable referent. A diplomatic announcement is not proof every implementation step or route was completed. Saudi Arabia’s February 2024 official statement makes Palestinian statehood and Gaza conditions explicit; that negotiating position cannot be reduced to mere television optics. Shared security and economic interests can coexist with substantive Palestinian conditions. S41 S40

Usable argument: Bilateral normalization and Israeli–Palestinian settlement are related but distinct processes. Resilient state interests help explain surviving agreements; they do not establish that Palestinian rights are irrelevant. C49–C50.

Q26 — Kaufman’s closing regional domino argument

97:27 · Guest closing, not another Coleman question: Kaufman argues that Hamas’s losses, Hezbollah’s weakening, Assad’s fall and damage to Iran created a major strategic reversal, even if Israel’s reputation suffered. He discusses nuclear facilities, industrial capacity, missiles and the US blockade, then weighs the durability of military gains against reputational loss.

Check and assessment: Reuters’s contemporaneous account of Assad’s ouster identifies weakened allies as one contribution alongside a demoralized Syrian army, Russia’s position, rebel initiative and Turkey’s role. Israel did not single-handedly cause a 13-year civil war’s outcome. The IAEA’s September report documents affected and intact facilities and major verification gaps; the extent of remaining material and capabilities remains unresolved. “Nuclear program in rubble” is not equivalent to verified elimination. CENTCOM announced Iranian-port blockade operations from April 13 and later reported enforcement milestones. These are primary statements by a belligerent, not independent audits or a fresh confirmation of October continuation. S60 S42 S43 S44

Usable argument: Distinguish observed losses, plausible mechanisms, attribution and durability. Future reconstitution, residual nuclear material, replacement leadership and diplomacy can change the long-term balance. Which matters more—military gains or reputational costs—is a forecast, not a resolved fact. C51–C52.

Arguments worth using, with their limits

The strongest countercase this interview must answer

The best criticism is not that Hamas lacked agency or that Israel faced no threat. It is that Israeli policy may have mismanaged that threat before October 7, prolonged the conflict afterward for political reasons, exposed hostages to avoidable risks, and inflicted civilian harm beyond lawful or strategically necessary bounds. The aid cutoff and humanitarian record are material evidence, not distractions. Internal military reasoning is relevant but cannot by itself answer whether specific operations, relief restrictions or policies violated international law.

This countercase is compatible with condemning Hamas’s attacks, hostage-taking and exploitation of civilian suffering. A rigorous debate evaluates each actor’s decisions and duties, rather than treating one actor’s crimes as a defense to every allegation against another.

What could strengthen or overturn these assessments?

1. Full authenticated Hamas planning records and messages could clarify which allies agreed to what, and when.
2. Contemporaneous warning logs, recipients and orders could resolve the MBZ allegation and sharpen responsibility for the failure.
3. Transfer records and financial tracing could distinguish stabilization spending, fungibility and direct military financing.
4. Complete aid-diversion datasets, routes and perpetrators could establish the scope of theft without assuming it.
5. Hostage negotiation texts, decision logs and dated intelligence could test whether specific rejected deals or operations altered survival and release prospects.
6. Site-specific evidence and operational files could support or refute particular hospital, civilian-protection and pager claims.
7. IAEA access, inventories and sampling could resolve residual nuclear-material questions.
8. Dated territory maps, force assessments and agreement implementation could test claims of lasting strategic transformation.

Named references and access inventory

Books and investigations: In the War Room (Bob/Kaufman), publisher record only; Netanyahu’s 2022 memoir invoked as a retrospective rationale, exact edition/page not inspected; Haaretz’s September 2026 warning/economic-negotiation investigation, original unavailable; NYT captured Hamas planning investigations, inspected through reprint/indexed archive; WSJ Sinwar-message investigation, inspected through dependent reporting. Kaufman’s book/interview and WSJ-derived messages are not automatically independent evidence chains.

Political, military and intelligence actors: Netanyahu, Yoav Gallant, Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, Herzi Halevi, Eyal Zamir, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Naftali Bennett, Gideon Sa’ar; Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leadership, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah and Iran; Mohammed bin Zayed, Mahmoud Abbas, Qatar and Saudi leadership; Biden, Trump and US advisers; Mossad, Shin Bet and military intelligence. Public roles are distinguishable from the private quotations attributed to them. Not every person mentioned was independently interviewed for this dossier.

Media/commentators and illustrative references: Coleman Hughes, Elliot Kaufman, Yonah Jeremy Bob, Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, David Petraeus and Shany Mor; the prior critic’s name rendered unclearly in the supplied transcript is left unidentified. Haaretz, WSJ, NYT, CNN and Al Jazeera are mentioned in arguments about reporting; no exhaustive content analysis was performed. The LeBron James and Ned Stark comparisons are rhetorical analogies. North Korea/Seoul is a deterrence analogy, not evidence that two military situations are identical.

Events and locations: the October 7 attack, Nova festival, Be’eri, Gaza City, Khan Younis, Rafah/Philadelphi corridor, al-Shifa, Israeli hostage exchanges, the October 11 northern-strike dispute, Hezbollah pager explosions, Iranian nuclear strikes, Assad’s fall, Hormuz shipping/blockade, Abraham Accords and Morocco’s announced diplomatic upgrade. The 1929/1948/1967 historical sweep and education claims require separate source dossiers; this interview is not adequate documentation for all of them.

Research and legal records used independently: IDF and Shin Bet inquiry accounts, UNIFIL, UN Commission of Inquiry/OHCHR, OCHA/Humanitarian Country Team, IPC/Famine Review Committee, ICRC legal explanations and treaty database, ICJ docket, Genocide Convention, IAEA, Pew, RAND, CSIS, Saudi foreign ministry, Pentagon and CENTCOM. Institutional records have distinct standards: operational report, internal inquiry, survey, scenario model, safeguards report, treaty text, investigative finding and court proceeding should not be flattened into one type of proof.

Audit method and remaining limits

This was a sequential coordinating-agent audit. The research skill requires separately enforced read-only permissions for specialists, which this session could not provide. No specialist agents were run, and there is no independent-agent audit or claimed independent PASS. The intake, claim mapping, primary-source search, countercase review and final checks were performed by the coordinator.

The transcript is complete as supplied, but was not compared word for word to an original recording. Some apparent speaker transitions and timestamps depend on the pasted formatting. The full book, raw private interviews, original Haaretz investigation, complete captured-document/message archives and several underlying institutional datasets were unavailable. Unverified claims remain explicitly attributed rather than silently promoted into facts.

Claim audit

The intake ledger contains 53 claim families. Mixed propositions are separated into 68 individually assessed rows; suffixes preserve the parent ID. Unverified does not mean disproved. Confidence concerns the stated assessment, rather than confidence in the guest.

Source register

Each ID points to its original or identified host. Access notes describe this session. Retellings of one investigation do not create independent corroboration. The transcript supplies what the speakers said; these sources supply the factual and legal checks.

S01

Episode identity

Publisher episode listing, indexed text inspected; full page unavailable. Lists Coleman Hughes, Elliot Kaufman, 5 October 2026 and 101 minutes. Same interview as supplied transcript; no independent corroboration.

S02

In the War Room — official book metadata

Publisher record; inspected indexed product text. Yonah Jeremy Bob and Elliot Kaufman; Wicked Son, 8 September 2026, 352 pages, ISBN 9798895654804. Promotional description confirms scope, not the truth of private-source claims. Full book not inspected or located in the filename search of the NAS library.

S03

Captured Hamas planning minutes — NYT reporting in reprint

Secondary reporting, accessible reprint of Bergman, Rasgon and Kingsley’s October 2024 NYT investigation. Documents supplied through Israeli custody; journalists describe authentication checks. Supports long planning, attempts to enlist allies and concern over normalization. Reprints and ToI summaries are one evidence chain; raw complete document collection not inspected.

S04

Sinwar memo and intercepted communications — NYT archive

Secondary reporting; indexed archive text inspected. Reports handwriting comparison and wider-war planning. Partial access in this run; not independent of the Israeli-custody document chain. Does not validate every operational prediction in the interview.

S05

Haaretz warning investigation

Identity located through contemporary reporting; original full text not retrievable. Exact gas-deal causal argument, full source basis and qualifications therefore not adjudicated from the original.

S06

Contemporary report of MBZ warning and Gaza negotiations

Secondary reporting, 8 September 2026; indexed text inspected. Reports Haaretz’s allegation and negotiations involving economic measures and natural gas. Dependent on that investigation; not independently verified call records.

S07

Netanyahu denial of UAE-warning report

Secondary report of an official denial, 9 September 2026. Establishes disputed status, not that either version is proven. Do not substitute Netanyahu’s denial for independent UAE confirmation.

S08

Shin Bet internal inquiry — reported findings

Secondary reporting of an institutional self-investigation, March 2025; indexed account inspected. Records assessment and warning failures and policy criticism. Underlying internal intelligence remains inaccessible; self-investigation is not a final independent commission.

S09

Early Warning Revisited — Itai Shapira

Institutionally published analytical study, July 2025, full browser text available. Discusses intelligence and command assumptions, not only collection gaps. Author’s analysis is not a court finding or proof of intentional stand-down.

S10

IDF Be’eri inquiry

Primary institutional inquiry, July 2024; indexed findings inspected. Documents grave failure to protect Be’eri. Local inquiry with institutional limitations, not a complete accounting of every October 7 incident.

S11

Hezbollah arsenal and escalation — CSIS

Independent analytical synthesis, October 2024; indexed text inspected. Describes more than 150,000 standoff weapons and displacement on both sides. Arsenal estimates are partly derived from external/Israeli reporting; not verification of 5,000 hypothetical deaths.

S12

UNIFIL observation, 8 October 2023

Primary contemporaneous observation. Records launches from southeast Lebanon and Israeli return fire. Independent of Kaufman’s private-source explanation of Nasrallah’s motives.

S13

Qatar salary payment, November 2018 — Reuters

Contemporaneous secondary reporting, Reuters syndication; indexed text inspected. Documents $15 million disbursement, salaries and Israeli approval. Verifies humanitarian/stabilization context, not every downstream diversion or the exclusive motive of each policymaker.

S14

Bennett-era Qatari aid mechanism — AP

Contemporaneous AP reporting in Euronews, 20 August 2021; indexed text inspected. Gantz announced UN transfers to families and Israeli recipient oversight. Related policy continued across governments, with changed safeguards; not identical suitcase-cash implementation.

S15

Contemporaneous Netanyahu rationale and cross-party criticism

Lahav Harkov, Jerusalem Post, 12 March 2019. Indexed article text inspected; direct page returns only title/metadata. Unnamed meeting source reports/paraphrases Netanyahu; not an audio transcript. Also records centrist Blue and White opposition, materially limiting the interview’s ‘only right-wingers’ claim.

S16

Netanyahu’s TIME interview transcript

Primary public interview, 8 August 2024; indexed excerpt inspected. Netanyahu explains lack of prewar legitimacy for a full invasion and disputes criticism. His own retrospective defense is testimony, not independent validation of motives.

S17

Formation of emergency war cabinet — Reuters

Contemporaneous Reuters reporting, 11 October 2023. Supports multiple political decision-makers and the cabinet’s formation date. Do not project the later formal war cabinet backward onto October 8.

S18

Gallant retrospective interview on northern strike

Secondary account of Gallant’s Channel 12 interview, February 2025. Supports existence of the October 11 dispute and his preferred strategy. Interested participant’s counterfactual; not proof his alternative would have succeeded.

S19

US urban-warfare advice — AP/PBS

Contemporaneous secondary reporting. Confirms Glynn and US advice drawing on Mosul/Fallujah and civilian-protection concerns. Does not independently establish every quoted private prediction in Kaufman’s account.

S20

Biden strategy and invasion delay — Axios

Partial indexed reporting, 25 October 2023. Corroborates a policy dispute, not a blanket US prediction that Israel would certainly lose Gaza City. Brief use only; original private instructions not available.

S21

Gantz departure and coalition arithmetic — Reuters

Reuters, 9 June 2024; indexed text inspected. Netanyahu retained a 64-seat majority after Gantz left. Date-specific arithmetic, not a verdict on why every hostage deal failed.

S22

Gaza disarmament sequencing — Reuters

Reuters factbox, 31 July 2026; indexed full text inspected. Distinguishes Trump’s roadmap, Israel’s demands and Hamas’s conditional weapons-storage position. A proposal is not verified disarmament; July account is not an October territorial census.

S23

Aid re-entry after 11-week blockade — OCHA

Primary humanitarian-agency statement, 19 May 2025. Records limited re-entry after 11 weeks of complete blockade. Operational observation and agency assessment, not a judicial finding of each policymaker’s intent.

S24

UN objections to proposed aid system

Primary Humanitarian Country Team statement, 4 May 2025. Records humanitarian-principle and access objections. Independent rationale for opposition to GHF, not merely a claim that it launched too late.

S25

Biden’s October 18 remarks

Primary public-speech transcript hosted by Factba.se/Roll Call. Confirms conditional warning about diverted aid and commitment to civilian relief. Speech announced agreement; first trucks entered later. A political warning is not an IHL exemption.

S26

USAID diversion review — Reuters reporting

Reuters syndication, 25 July 2025; extensive indexed text inspected, direct page blocked. Describes review of 156 reported incidents involving US-funded supplies and no evidence of systematic Hamas theft in that dataset. Internal slides not directly obtained. Coverage gaps and unknown perpetrators prevent a universal ‘no diversion ever’ conclusion; Israeli authorities contested the implication.

S27

IPC August 2025 classification

Primary classification record, 22 August 2025; full page inspected. Famine with reasonable evidence in Gaza Governorate as of 15 August; projections elsewhere distinct. Neither all-Gaza/all-war classification nor exact famine death count.

S28

Famine Review Committee, August 2025

Primary methodology/report; indexed report text inspected; browser could not fetch the whole 14 MB file. Distinguishes food deprivation/malnutrition evidence from inferred mortality in a reasonable-evidence finding. Not a directly measured population-wide starvation-death rate.

S29

IPC December 2025 update

Primary subsequent classification. Records improved conditions after the October ceasefire and famine conditions offset. Later recovery does not retract an earlier time-bounded finding.

S30

Sinwar’s messages — WSJ-origin reporting

Secondary account, 11 June 2024, of messages reviewed by WSJ. Originating report, interview and later summaries are not three independent confirmations. Raw complete message collection/authentication unavailable here.

S31

UN Commission of Inquiry, October 7 findings

Primary investigative findings, reasonable-grounds standard, May 2024. Attributes deliberate attacks on civilians and hostage-taking to Hamas and other participating actors; report also addresses Israeli violations. Investigative finding, not criminal conviction.

S32

ICRC rules-of-war FAQ

Primary institutional legal explanation. Distinction, protection and conditional hospital rules. Legal framework, not proof a particular attack met the requirements.

S33

ICRC hospital protection

Primary institutional legal explanation, 2023. Military misuse can affect protection; warning, military-objective status, proportionality and precautions still matter. Treating wounded fighters is not itself disqualifying misuse.

S34

ICRC starvation, hunger and famine briefing

Primary institutional legal resource, 2022, with later relevant guidance linked in ICRC casebook. Publication landing-page scope inspected; supplement through the separately inspected ICRC humanitarian-action casebook. Formal famine declaration and the legal prohibition on starvation are different tests.

S35

CCW Amended Protocol II, Article 7

Primary treaty provision; indexed text inspected (English direct browser page requires JavaScript). Portable objects manufactured to contain explosives raise a distinct prohibition. Application to the operation remains contested and requires treaty/weapon analysis.

S36

OHCHR comment on pager explosions

Primary institutional statement, 18 September 2024. Reports civilians including children killed and raises protection concerns. Not a court ruling on every device or target.

S37

OHCHR report A/HRC/61/26, paragraph 30

Primary report text inspected. As of 31 October 2025 records 168 hostages released alive, including eight rescued; separately counts bodies and remaining deceased captives. Also describes deprivation and abuse. Cohort includes pre-October-7 captives; not ‘180-plus alive.‘

S38

Last hostage remains returned — Reuters primary scene reporting

Reuters scene/transcript, 26 January 2026. Supports return of Ran Gvili’s remains and the distinction between bodies returned and captives released alive. Not a causal study of pressure versus negotiation.

S39

Pew US opinion, March 2026

Primary survey analysis, 7 April 2026, March 23–29 fieldwork. 60% unfavorable toward Israel versus 53% in 2025; 3,507 US adults. Measures attitudes, not the proportion caused by misinformation, war conduct or individual commentators.

S40

Saudi normalization conditions — foreign ministry

Primary official statement, 7 February 2024. Conditions diplomatic relations on Palestinian statehood and other Gaza conditions. Dated public negotiating position, not proof that every private opportunity later met those terms.

S41

Morocco diplomatic upgrade, September 2026

Secondary contemporary reporting, indexed text inspected. Reports Israel–Morocco embassy upgrade announcement. Announces intended implementation; confirms likely referent of transcript’s apparent ‘US and Morocco’ slip.

S42

IAEA GOV/2026/50, paragraphs 24–28 and 43–46

Primary technical safeguards report, 1 September 2026, derestricted 9 September; full browser text inspected. Documents affected facilities, intact facilities and inability to verify current enrichment/material status. Supports major damage plus major uncertainty, not complete elimination of nuclear capability.

S43

CENTCOM blockade announcement

Primary belligerent announcement, 12 April 2026, commencement April 13. Covers Iranian-port traffic while exempting non-Iranian-port transit. Establishes announced operation, not its legal validity, perfect enforcement or October continuation.

S44

CENTCOM blockade operational report

Primary belligerent report, 23 May 2026. Claims 100 ships redirected. Dependent US operational chain; not independent audit or fresh October verification.

S45

Netanyahu brokered far-right alliance

Contemporaneous reporting, August 2022, including public campaign appeal. Shows Netanyahu’s active participation in creating the alliance; limits passive ‘forced into it’ framing.

S46

Israel–PLO mutual-recognition letters

Primary letters, 9 September 1993, UN-hosted. PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace and security and renounced terrorism. Formal commitment is a counterexample to uniform rejectionism; implementation and later violations require separate evidence.

S47

Hamas 2017 policy document — reproduced text and analysis

Primary document reproduced within Israeli intelligence-affiliated analysis, 8 May 2017. Text distinguishes conditional 1967-state acceptance from recognition of Israel. Host institution’s interpretation is commentary, not neutral authentication of all Hamas motives.

S48

RAND conventional-artillery scenarios

Original scenario-modeling study. Supports severe risk to Seoul, with explicit assumptions and separate casualty/fatality definitions. Does not verify ‘100,000 deaths in one day’ or a single-cause history of North Korea’s nuclear program.

S49

Shany Mor — ecstasy and amnesia argument

Commentary interview located; indexed text inspected. Likely thematic referent, not certain exact item invoked by Kaufman. A comparative interpretive thesis to test against individual wars, not universal Palestinian intent.

S50

ICJ South Africa v. Israel case docket

Primary legal docket; indexed posture inspected. Provisional orders concern protection pending merits. Do not infer a final genocide verdict or exoneration from provisional measures; fresh case documents should be checked for future debate use.

S51

Genocide Convention, Article II — UN text

Primary legal instrument, indexed UN text inspected; direct page unavailable. Specifies protected-group destruction intent and prohibited acts. Application to particular facts requires separate evidence.

S52

Pentagon briefing, 9 May 2024

Primary public briefing. A paused bomb shipment existed alongside continuing support. Do not describe it as suspension of all military aid.

S53

Syria’s weakening allies — Reuters/Hochstein

Reuters, December 2024; contemporaneous attributed assessment. Supports weakening allies as a contributing mechanism; Syrian domestic collapse and Russia’s position also matter.

S54

US assessment of al-Shifa — reported declassified intelligence

Secondary reporting, 3 January 2024. US assessment supports military/hostage use; underlying intelligence not fully public. Not proof of every initial Israeli architectural claim, every hospital’s use or the lawfulness of every strike.

S55

ICRC humanitarian action and IHL

Primary institutional legal explanation inspected via indexed text. Relief access and the prohibition on starvation remain binding; security control must be distinguished from denying civilian subsistence.

S56

ICRC proportionality assessment

Institutional expert/legal analysis inspected in indexed text. Proportionality is assessed before attack, including reasonably foreseeable civilian effects. Target specificity alone does not settle lawfulness.

S57

Reported updated October 7 attacker estimate

Hebrew secondary report of Channel 12/IDF estimates, 31 August 2024; indexed text inspected. Around 6,000 entrants, 3,800 identified as Nukhba and 2,200 other militants/looters; cannot be flattened to 6,000 proven Hamas fighters. Institutional underlying counting file not inspected.

S58

Famine Review Committee, June 2024

Primary time-bounded review, indexed text inspected. Available evidence did not indicate then-current famine; high risk remained. Not a verdict on August 2025.

S59

IPC famine classification and evidence standards

Primary methodological explanation, indexed text inspected. Distinguishes reasonable-evidence classifications from counts of individually certified deaths.

S60

Assad’s ouster — Reuters multicausal reporting

Reuters, 8 December 2024; page and indexed text inspected. Weakened allies, domestic military collapse, Russian distraction and Turkish/rebel decisions interact. Not sole Israeli causation.

S61

GHF announces initial operations — AP

AP, 26 May 2025; indexed text inspected. Foundation announced deliveries/opening; later public hub events dated May 27. Reporting an announcement is not independent verification of recipients.

S62

1967 decision to launch operations — Israeli Defense Ministry archive

Primary institutional archive, indexed exhibit text inspected. Records June 4 approval and June 5 opening attack; does not settle the surrounding responsibility or preventive-war debate.

Complete supplied transcript

The supplied text is unchanged except for Markdown callout prefixes. Original timestamps, errors and unclear wording are retained; analysis is separately authored.

Full interview transcript — 0:00 to 100:49

Title: Inside Israel’s War Room: What Really Happened After October 7

(0:00) Welcome to another episode of

(0:01) Conversations with Coleman. My guest

(0:03) today is Elliot Kaufman. Elliot is an

(0:06) editorial writer and member of the Wall

(0:08) Street Journal editorial board where he

(0:10) focuses primarily on Israel and Iran. He

(0:13) joined the journal in 2018 after

(0:15) graduating from Stanford University. He

(0:18) is also the co-author with Yona Jeremy

(0:20) Bob of the 2026 book in the war room,

(0:24) the inside story of Israel’s fight

(0:26) against Hamas and the Iranian axis,

(0:28) which is the subject of today’s

(0:30) conversation. In this episode, we talk

(0:33) about why Hamas invaded Israel in

(0:35) October 2023. We talk about the recent

(0:38) Hararitz article alleging that Prime

(0:40) Minister Netanyahu ignored warnings of

(0:43) an attack, including from Muhammad bid

(0:45) Zed, better known as MBZ. We talk about

(0:48) why Israeli intel agencies have been

(0:50) much more competent at fighting

(0:52) Hezbollah and Iran and less competent at

(0:55) fighting Hamas in Gaza. We talk about

(0:57) how Israeli decision makers, including

(1:00) but not limited to Netanyahu, made

(1:02) decisions at crucial turning points

(1:04) during the war. And finally, we talk

(1:07) about how October 7th has changed the

(1:09) balance of power in the Middle East for

(1:12) good. So without further ado, Elliot

(1:15) Kaufman.

(1:24) >> Okay, Elliot Kaufman, thanks so much for

(1:26) coming on the show.

(1:27) >> Thanks for having me.

(1:28) >> Um, I’ve known you for quite a while.

(1:30) You are, um, one of the best editors in

(1:33) the game. I know I’ve told you this

(1:34) privately before, but you should teach a

(1:36) course on it at some point in your life

(1:38) because you have a true gift, but we’re

(1:40) not here to talk about that today. Uh,

(1:42) we’re talking about the book you’ve

(1:44) written called In the War Room. And what

(1:46) you’ve done here is essentially write

(1:48) the first draft of the history of the

(1:52) October 7th war. And that’s an

(1:55) incredibly ambitious project. It’s a

(1:57) difficult project. And and the first

(1:58) thing I want to ask you is uh how did

(2:01) you do this? How did you uh who did you

(2:04) interview? What was your method as as a

(2:08) first draft historian essentially?

(2:11) >> It’s a great question and uh my

(2:13) co-author and I um we saw that there

(2:17) were already a few books coming out and

(2:20) we knew even uh before there were

(2:23) already a few books about the October

(2:25) 7th massacre itself. Mhm.

(2:27) >> And what we said is let’s tell the the

(2:30) story of what happens after of the war

(2:33) that followed. And uh so I work the Wall

(2:36) Street Journal editorial page, my

(2:38) co-author, Jerusalem Post, military

(2:41) correspondent. Between the two of us,

(2:44) our daily work was essentially focused

(2:47) on one story for two full years. And now

(2:51) with this Iran war, you could say almost

(2:53) three full years. Uh, and so building

(2:56) off of that,

(2:58) we realized together we could tell

(3:03) the inside story based on behind the

(3:06) scenes m uh m material from all of

(3:10) Israel’s top leaders. And I really mean

(3:12) that. Uh, political military

(3:15) intelligence plus senior US officials,

(3:18) uh, Biden and Trump officials. Uh but in

(3:22) Israel really it’s uh BB, Galant,

(3:25) Gansce, Halevi, Zamir. And if you don’t

(3:28) know those names, that’s what the book

(3:30) is for. So please don’t worry.

(3:32) >> Yeah. Okay. So let’s get right into it.

(3:36) Um

(3:38) why did Hamas invade Israel on October

(3:41) 7th? And and let me put a little more

(3:44) meat on the bones of that question.

(3:47) You know, initially what we heard is

(3:49) that Sinoir chose to attack on October

(3:52) 7th because Saudi Arabia and Israel were

(3:56) on the brink of a major normalization

(4:00) deal of bringing Saudi Arabia into the

(4:02) Abraham Accords, which would probably be

(4:06) the biggest piece of news coming out of

(4:07) the Middle East in in decades and and a

(4:10) major piece of good news. You know,

(4:12) obviously the background fact here is

(4:14) that Hamas wants to destroy the the

(4:18) nation of Israel. So, you know, in that

(4:20) sense, why did they attack Israel is an

(4:22) easy question to answer. The real

(4:24) question is why did they do it when they

(4:26) did it? Um, what is the answer that to

(4:30) that question that that you give in the

(4:32) book?

(4:33) >> I’m glad we’re starting there. Uh,

(4:36) Hamas invaded Israel and I think people

(4:39) really overlook this. Hamas invaded

(4:42) Israel because it thought it could

(4:45) destroy Israel.

(4:47) That sounds crazy.

(4:49) >> It sounds impossible. Certainly,

(4:51) Israelis thought it was crazy and

(4:52) impossible, which is why they weren’t

(4:54) ready for it

(4:55) >> at all. But based on the documents from

(4:58) Hamas that have been found in Gaza, we

(5:01) can piece together what was going on

(5:04) here. And what we have is in some ways a

(5:08) Hamas story and in some ways a larger

(5:11) Iranian story. Uh Iran has this

(5:15) multi-deade project making multi-billion

(5:19) dollar investments on multiple fronts to

(5:22) surround Israel with a ring of fire of

(5:26) proxy terrorist groups. Hamas, Hezbala,

(5:29) West Bank groups, uh the Houthis we’re

(5:32) seeing now in Yemen, militias in Iraq.

(5:36) Um

(5:37) and they thought that one day that ring

(5:39) of fire could all at once engulf Israel.

(5:44) Hamas’s innovation and really the uh

(5:47) innovation of its leader Yakya Sinoir

(5:50) was that

(5:52) it didn’t need to wait

(5:54) >> any longer. it could start this story

(5:58) even without the rest of the axis ready

(6:02) to go. Meaning it could break from that

(6:04) larger plan and by making that first

(6:07) strike bring in Hisbala, bring in Iran,

(6:10) bring in everybody else. And Hamas

(6:12) thought this was the time because when

(6:16) it looked at Israel and it looked at the

(6:19) regional situation,

(6:21) I think it was right. This was the time

(6:24) for a few reasons. Israel looked as

(6:28) divided as it had ever been. And we know

(6:31) this from Hamas’s own assessment. They

(6:34) heard Israelis saying,

(6:37) uh, we’re not going to serve in the

(6:39) military reserves, for instance, because

(6:42) we disagree so strongly with the

(6:44) government.

(6:45) >> Uh, they saw the massive protests,

(6:47) unrest in the streets. In the previous

(6:50) Gaza war, they saw for the first time

(6:52) really Israeli Arabs had in certain

(6:56) cities rioted during the war. And so if

(7:00) there could be another front inside of

(7:02) Israel, well, that is a tremendous

(7:05) opportunity. And then the Saudi story, I

(7:07) think, is part of it. Uh the Saudis

(7:10) certainly believe that it is. Um and we

(7:13) do have some documents from Sinoir

(7:16) seeing this larger ArabIsraeli

(7:20) uh normalization peace which is the

(7:23) exact opposite of what of what they

(7:26) want. And so Hamas figured this was the

(7:30) this was the time they couldn’t wait any

(7:32) longer to bring in that larger Iranian

(7:35) access. There was a recent article in

(7:37) Haritz which has gone as viral uh in in

(7:41) the west as a Hararts article can ever

(7:43) go which has has made I think two many

(7:48) claims but two that are relevant here.

(7:50) One is that

(7:53) Netanyahu ignored warnings from foreign

(7:57) leaders, most notably NBZ, but also

(8:00) ignored warnings

(8:03) which he might might have not ignored

(8:05) from his own intelligence officials. Um

(8:09) but but the second was that

(8:12) Sinmoir was attempting to make this big

(8:15) deal with Netanyahu that would involve

(8:17) gas pipelines flowing to Gaza and and

(8:20) would involve economic benefit

(8:22) essentially. But Netanyahu was dragging

(8:25) his feet. So Sinoir got impatient and

(8:28) launched October 7th. That’s basically

(8:31) the picture painted by the Haritz

(8:33) article. Is that true?

(8:37) I think parts of it are true. So let’s

(8:40) take the first part about this warning

(8:42) transmitted from the UAE. So this has

(8:45) been denied that it happened in the way

(8:48) that it was um reported. However,

(8:53) Israel’s sort of FBI equivalent, the

(8:56) Shinbett, uh had received some warnings

(9:00) like that. We know that for a fact. And

(9:03) so it wouldn’t be surprising if Prime

(9:06) Minister Netanyahu had also received

(9:09) that kind of warning saying that Hamas

(9:12) is up to something.

(9:14) >> We don’t know exactly what. We don’t

(9:15) know exactly when, but watch out for

(9:18) Hamas. And what people fail to

(9:22) appreciate is that October 7th happened

(9:25) not for a lack of warnings.

(9:28) >> Okay? uh in the week before, the month

(9:31) before, the year before, the day of. We

(9:33) detail this in the book. I mean, our

(9:36) real effort is to tell what happened

(9:37) after October 7th, but we do get into

(9:40) the weeds on that day. And you have

(9:42) Hamas activating Israeli SIM cards from

(9:46) inside of Gaza. Now, why would they need

(9:48) Israeli cell phones unless they wanted

(9:50) to use them in Israel? And even then,

(9:53) you have Israeli intelligence assessing,

(9:56) don’t worry, we’ve seen them do this

(9:59) before, and it was only a drill. Nothing

(10:02) happened. Well, maybe they were drilling

(10:04) for the attack. And what Israeli

(10:07) intelligence said at that uh time is we

(10:11) don’t want to reveal our sources and

(10:13) methods by overreacting

(10:16) >> to all of these warnings that came

(10:19) flashing red lights in hindsight. And so

(10:22) it really wasn’t a lack of warnings.

(10:25) >> It was a lack of understanding. M even

(10:28) when they knew Hamas was invading, still

(10:31) the Israeli military and uh intelligence

(10:35) couldn’t fathom anything more than a

(10:38) small incursion. Maybe they would attack

(10:40) one border town, try to kidnap a couple

(10:43) people. And so Israel’s military sent

(10:47) small elite squads, you know, 15 guys,

(10:50) top soldiers to take care of the issue

(10:53) when they should have been sending a

(10:55) division. Mhm.

(10:56) >> They just couldn’t imagine that Hamas

(10:59) would mount something so bold uh and

(11:03) truly believe that it could destroy

(11:06) Israel. So, can you take me can you try

(11:10) to bridge the gap between what you or I

(11:13) or someone listening to this thinks is

(11:16) possible and what Sinoir thought was

(11:19) possible? like why why did he sincerely

(11:21) believe that uh that

(11:26) this was like the first chapter in the

(11:29) end of Israel.

(11:31) He believed it

(11:34) because of I would say intentions and

(11:37) capabilities. Iran had made sure over a

(11:40) long period of time that that both were

(11:44) ready for that sort of operation.

(11:48) uh intentions destroying Israel, the

(11:51) full Iranian access was aligned on that

(11:53) question, including Iran itself,

(11:57) capabilities. Not only was Hamas

(11:59) stronger than anybody realized, and had

(12:02) a much more sophisticated plan than

(12:05) anybody realized, such that it got as

(12:07) far as it did, massacring nearly nearly

(12:11) 1,200 Israelis, taking more than 250

(12:14) hostages. And if it hadn’t stopped at

(12:17) the Nova Music Festival to uh you know

(12:21) uh commit the very worst of the mass

(12:24) slaughters, it could have gotten even

(12:26) further. And it was uh planning in fact

(12:30) to link up with the West Bank where it

(12:32) could uh where it could meet Hamas

(12:35) terrorists there, Islamic Jihad

(12:37) terrorists there and a much larger

(12:39) population that could also stream over

(12:41) from both fronts. Mhm.

(12:43) >> The second is Hisbala in the north in

(12:46) Lebanon. Um Hezbala had a mass in uh a

(12:52) missile arsenal

(12:54) 150,000 strong. And so you have Israeli

(12:58) estimates that if uh Hisbala had wanted

(13:02) to launch to its full capacity

(13:06) on say October 8th or 9th or 10th,

(13:10) Israel estimated 5,000 Israelis dead,

(13:14) dwarfing what uh Hamas was able to

(13:18) accomplish on October 7th. more than

(13:20) that you would have you would have Kyifa

(13:22) devastated uh uh the north a wreckage

(13:27) Bengurion airport badly damaged much of

(13:30) it taken out uh same with the national

(13:34) electric grid about a third of it taken

(13:36) out you would have uh a dozen towers you

(13:39) know massive towers toppling in Tel Aviv

(13:43) uh essentially Israel would never be the

(13:45) same and that’s only those two not even

(13:48) counting what happens when in their view

(13:51) Israeli Arabs rise up, Westbank

(13:54) Palestinians and then Iran itself can

(13:57) join with its ballistic missile and

(14:01) drone capability which we’ve seen so

(14:03) much lately.

(14:04) >> So in the book you say Sinoir had had

(14:07) some conversations with Nasra of

(14:09) Hezbollah and he understood that

(14:11) Hezbollah would come to his aid would

(14:14) launch a full-scale invasion after

(14:16) October 7th.

(14:18) Why did Sinir miscalculate with

(14:20) Hezbollah? What is it that he didn’t

(14:22) understand about Hezbollah which which

(14:24) led to the fact that they sort of they

(14:27) started shooting at Israel but at very

(14:29) low levels?

(14:31) That I would say remains the big

(14:34) question of the war because Israeli

(14:38) military and intelligence knows all too

(14:40) well just how disastrously this could

(14:42) have gone. which is to say October 7th

(14:46) could have been much much worse.

(14:49) But Hisbala blinked and it really goes

(14:52) to one man, its leader, its legendary uh

(14:56) terrorist kingpin, Hassan Nasallah,

(15:00) who it turned out, and this is the

(15:02) Israeli intelligence assessment here.

(15:06) Nasalla sticks to the plan. That’s how

(15:10) they ended up reading him. Mhm.

(15:11) >> Nasra was committed to the larger

(15:14) Iranian plan of let’s all agree on a

(15:17) date when we are all ready and let’s do

(15:20) this properly.

(15:21) >> Okay. Destroy Israel properly.

(15:23) >> And doing it properly would mean Iran

(15:25) would be directing the shots, not Hamas.

(15:28) >> That’s right. And October 7th, it wasn’t

(15:32) ready. It hadn’t been told the start

(15:34) date.

(15:36) Sinoir had thought that he had a tacit

(15:38) agreement that when he would start

(15:40) things, they would know that’s the time

(15:43) you should join in.

(15:44) >> But he hadn’t wanted to reveal that

(15:47) information. And from his point of view,

(15:49) he was probably right not to because

(15:51) given how thoroughly Israeli

(15:54) intelligence had penetrated Hisbala

(15:56) versus not much at all Hamas, Israel

(15:59) might well have found out about his

(16:02) October 7th attack. And so he was

(16:05) waiting that day and Hisbala’s support

(16:08) didn’t come. Instead, on October 8th,

(16:12) Hisbala launched several dozen mortar

(16:15) rounds, some anti-tank missiles. It

(16:19) joined the war in support of Hamas.

(16:21) That’s not nothing,

(16:22) >> but it wasn’t the 4,000 5,000 missiles

(16:27) it could have launched on day one if it

(16:29) wanted to,

(16:30) >> right? So,

(16:32) one of the big questions you tackle in

(16:35) the book is if Israel’s intelligence was

(16:38) so good when it came to Hezbollah, why

(16:40) was it so bad when it came to Hamas?

(16:44) um you know a that disparity has fueled

(16:49) or at least given some fake credibility

(16:53) to some of the conspiracy theories and

(16:55) and

(16:57) you know ironically enough it was

(16:58) Charlie Kirk who is a big Israel

(17:00) supporter for pretty much his entire

(17:02) career right after October 7th there is

(17:05) a now infamous clip of him you know

(17:09) saying you know I’ve been to Israel it’s

(17:11) a fortress there’s no way they couldn’t

(17:12) have known about this right? Like and um

(17:16) you know the first thing to say is just

(17:19) just because uh an intelligence agency

(17:22) is very competent, it doesn’t mean it is

(17:24) perfectly competent. Like that should be

(17:25) obvious. The analogy I make is LeBron

(17:28) James, he is my goat. He’s the greatest

(17:31) basketball player of all time. But I can

(17:32) show you a two-minute video of him on on

(17:35) YouTube just missing wide openen layups,

(17:37) right? And so uh that doesn’t negate the

(17:40) fact that he’s the best in the world.

(17:42) though you would expect even the best

(17:43) intel agency in the world to to miss

(17:46) things. Uh but you know what is the more

(17:49) granular explanation of why Israel was

(17:52) so good on Hezbollah and so bad on

(17:54) Hamas?

(17:56) >> You know you will hear that conspiracy

(17:59) theory from random Israelis on the

(18:03) street as well because they too simply

(18:05) cannot believe it

(18:07) >> that something like this happened. And

(18:08) I’ll tell you on October 7th, I was

(18:10) reading a book uh by my co-author, in

(18:14) fact, a great book called Target uh

(18:16) Thran about how the Mossad had Iran

(18:22) penetrated and was operating almost at

(18:24) will in Iran and continues to as we’ve

(18:27) seen in some ways. And so I too was

(18:29) stunned by this. But there are a few

(18:31) things that people don’t realize. One is

(18:35) the Mossad is not the Israeli

(18:38) intelligence agency responsible for

(18:41) Gaza. MSAD like the CIA has

(18:45) responsibilities abroad. And because

(18:48) Gaza used to be controlled by Israel,

(18:51) it’s still it’s still considered under

(18:54) the purview of the Shinbet, which is the

(18:58) more than the FBI, but the FBI

(19:02) equivalent. So, it’s not quite the same

(19:04) as the Mossad, not as fearsome, you

(19:07) might say, and not as capable. The

(19:10) Mossad’s theaters, Lebanon, Iran, you

(19:13) saw incredible intelligence penetration.

(19:17) Uh, and you saw Israel act rather

(19:20) impressively. I think most people would

(19:22) agree.

(19:23) >> Uh, [snorts] Gaza the opposite. The

(19:25) other more granular story is about the

(19:29) collapse of Israel’s human intelligence

(19:33) in Gaza. The Shinbet had lost most of

(19:37) its on the ground spies in Gaza and had

(19:41) come to believe that that was okay.

(19:46) Even though it was right next door and

(19:48) they could slip people in, you know,

(19:49) without that much trouble, it was risky.

(19:52) Of course, Hamas is running the place.

(19:56) They decided that they had such

(19:59) sophisticated signals, intelligence,

(20:02) electronic eavesdropping, and they were

(20:04) watching all the right things, which is

(20:06) why they knew when the, you know, Hamas

(20:09) commanders were called up, when uh Hamas

(20:12) activated those SIM cards, they were

(20:14) really on top of all of those things.

(20:17) They thought that was enough. And then I

(20:20) think the larger point

(20:23) is just that they severely

(20:25) underestimated Hamas. And you can see

(20:27) this, by the way, looking at Prime

(20:29) Minister Netanyahu’s memoir, which was

(20:32) published in uh 2022, I believe. He

(20:35) writes about Gaza and takes on the

(20:38) question, why didn’t you overthrow Hamas

(20:41) in the past in some, you know, previous

(20:43) Gaza war? And he says very simply, um,

(20:48) well, that would be a disaster. We would

(20:52) be walking into all kinds of booby

(20:54) traps. We would lose thousands of

(20:56) Israeli troops. The way Hamas would

(20:59) fight, we would end up killing tens of

(21:01) thousands of Gazins. It would be a

(21:04) diplomatic disaster. And besides, we had

(21:07) bigger fish to fry. He actually writes

(21:10) that uh he says Iran and Syria as well.

(21:14) Interestingly,

(21:15) >> um he wasn’t wrong about any of that. He

(21:19) saw very clearly what a full invasion of

(21:22) Gaza would would uh mean and that’s why

(21:26) he never did it and that’s why nobody in

(21:29) Israel essentially nobody really ever

(21:32) took that possibility seriously.

(21:35) >> Okay, let’s talk about the charge of

(21:37) Netanyahu quote unquote propping up

(21:39) Hamas. uh the allegation uh well true

(21:44) but its interpretation I think is

(21:46) subject to debate

(21:48) >> that uh Netanyahu

(21:51) allowed bags of cash to flow from Qatar

(21:53) to Hamas in like 2017 18 and and after

(21:57) and after it was bags of cash it was you

(22:00) know money in in other ways and that

(22:02) this effectively empowered Hamas and

(22:05) that the strategy the intention behind

(22:07) this was to divide the Palestinians keep

(22:10) Hamas in power in Gaza so that Gaza and

(22:14) the West Bank are never ruled by the

(22:17) same faction of Palestinian politics. If

(22:19) they’re fighting each other and they are

(22:21) bitter rivals obviously the Palestinian

(22:23) Authority and Hamas, they’re fighting

(22:25) each other then they can never join

(22:26) forces and fight us at the same time was

(22:28) is the idea.

(22:30) And and then the further claim that that

(22:33) is in some measure responsible for the

(22:36) success of October 7th. Um the the one

(22:39) thing I’ll say before you answer is

(22:41) what’s never included in in this charge

(22:46) is that Gaza was experiencing as

(22:50) reported in in Reuters a genuine

(22:52) economic crisis where you had tens of

(22:54) thousands of civil service employees

(22:56) like cops and teachers that were saying

(22:59) I can’t feed my family right and this

(23:01) was because Abbas of the Palestinian

(23:04) Authority had basically abruptly stopped

(23:07) paying their salary. ies, right? That

(23:10) was the situation Netanyahu was

(23:12) responding to. And so part of my gripe

(23:16) with this is, okay, all the people

(23:19) talking about Netanyahu propping up

(23:21) Hamas, um, like, you know, the Dave

(23:24) Smiths of the world, like if you were in

(23:28) charge at that moment and you had

(23:29) Palestinians in Gaza, you know, a cop

(23:31) with nine kids saying, “My salary just

(23:34) randomly got cut in half and I can’t

(23:36) feed my kids.” What would you have done?

(23:39) Would you have said, “Nope, don’t help

(23:41) them at all. don’t let don’t let any

(23:43) money flow into Gaza because that

(23:45) implicitly is what you’re saying if

(23:47) you’re critiquing Netanyahu for the bags

(23:49) of cash thing. Right? So, um feel free

(23:52) to disagree with any of that if I’ve got

(23:54) anything wrong, but what’s how do you

(23:55) make sense of the Netanyahu propped up

(23:57) Hamas critique?

(24:00) >> So, the basic facts here are that it

(24:03) wasn’t that Israel was funding Hamas.

(24:06) Israel was allowing Qatari money, build

(24:10) as aid money to go into Gaza and pay for

(24:13) these government employees.

(24:15) >> Now, would they have been shocked to

(24:17) learn that that money was being diverted

(24:20) to Hamas military purposes? They would

(24:22) not have been shocked.

(24:24) >> They uh they uh knew that very well. I

(24:28) think what the criticisms of it miss

(24:32) is the entire Israeli political context,

(24:36) which is the only people who opposed

(24:40) that policy in Israel were the

(24:42) right-wingers

(24:45) >> on grounds of let’s not fund terrorism.

(24:48) >> Pretty straightforward right-wing

(24:52) grounds. Um, and so the just so story

(24:58) that had to be

(25:00) concocted to shut up these, you know,

(25:04) always short-sighted right-wingers was

(25:07) no, no, no, this is actually in your

(25:10) interest because it’s going to stop a

(25:12) Palestinian state.

(25:13) >> The truth is Israel didn’t have any

(25:16) control over who was governing Gaza.

(25:19) Hamas was in charge of Gaza. BB made

(25:22) very clear, as did the IDF and everybody

(25:26) else and the entire world. There was no

(25:28) appetite for a full invasion of Gaza to

(25:31) overthrow Hamas. I mean, Israel couldn’t

(25:34) really do it and the world hated it when

(25:37) Israel tried to even after October 7th.

(25:39) So, if Israel had tried that at any

(25:41) point before October 7th, you could only

(25:43) imagine. So, there was no option of

(25:46) getting the Palestinian Authority to

(25:48) run, you know, Gaza. Hamas was there.

(25:51) That was simply a fact.

(25:55) The real logic to allow that money in

(25:59) was a military logic and a humanitarian

(26:03) logic. The military logic was that

(26:06) Israel’s Israel’s assessment from a

(26:08) prior Gaza war was that when Mahmood

(26:11) Abbas from the West Bank had cut off

(26:15) that uh funding for the Gaza civil

(26:19) servants, Hamas was really struggling

(26:22) and went to war because of it.

(26:25) >> Uh because it needed attention. It

(26:27) needed the rush of the aid money that

(26:30) inevitably follows the Gaza wars. And so

(26:34) the military logic was if you don’t want

(26:36) war, grease the peace. It was an

(26:40) appeasement logic in short, but they

(26:42) thought that Hamas was relatively

(26:44) comfortable sitting on its throne in

(26:46) Gaza. It wouldn’t cause them problems so

(26:49) long as it didn’t have problems at home.

(26:51) And then there was that worldwide

(26:53) humanitarian logic. The whole world

(26:55) wanted Israel to let that money through,

(26:59) >> avoid problems in Gaza. And so funding,

(27:03) you know, allowing that money into Gaza

(27:05) wasn’t a Netanyahu project. It spanned a

(27:08) few governments. It was a centrist

(27:10) security establishment project. And the

(27:14) only people against it were the were the

(27:17) right-wingers most worried about

(27:20) Palestinian statehood. And so the

(27:23) crucial thing for people to understand

(27:24) there is when you see a quote on the

(27:27) internet, you know, from Netanyahu

(27:30) saying, you know, Netanyahu said at a

(27:33) right-wing meeting to his, you know,

(27:36) fellow ministers like this is divide and

(27:38) conquer. What he’s doing there is he’s

(27:40) coming up with a clever

(27:43) rationale why this left-wing policy,

(27:46) basically this humanitarian policy that

(27:48) they hate, actually might work out for

(27:50) them. He’s playing politics there.

(27:52) >> Exactly. Right. Exactly.

(27:54) >> And and the ultimate punchline is none

(27:57) of the people who love to circulate the

(27:59) Netanyahu propped up Hamas thing.

(28:04) None of them in 2017 or 2018 would have

(28:07) put up their hand and said, “No, let the

(28:10) Palestinian cop struggle to feed his

(28:13) family. That’s a terrible policy.” Yeah.

(28:14) Let just let them let them continue to

(28:16) suffer. In fact, they would have all

(28:18) been criticizing Israel had they made

(28:21) that decision not to prop up Hamas. They

(28:23) would they would have said, “This is

(28:24) exhibit Z in the long line of Israeli

(28:27) abuses of Gaza.” So, it’s it’s tennis

(28:31) without the net. It’s heads I win, tails

(28:33) you lose, and it’s a shallow analysis of

(28:36) the underlying trade-offs and the

(28:38) underlying um reasons for conflict.

(28:41) >> By the way, Coleman, this is why I love

(28:43) you. you can say in two sentences what

(28:46) it takes me like seven paragraphs. So,

(28:48) thank you.

(28:48) >> It’s a little more than two sentences. I

(28:50) I can do better. Um, okay. So, let’s

(28:55) let’s now go to the question of uh

(28:59) Hezbollah or Hamas first. And you know,

(29:02) I remember I I was totally unaware of

(29:05) this huge decision that was made uh in

(29:09) the Israeli well, you can tell me

(29:11) whether the war cabinet was technically

(29:12) a thing yet, but right after right after

(29:14) October 7th, there there’s this huge

(29:16) decision. Do we go Hezbollah first or

(29:18) Hamas first? And then I believe I heard

(29:20) an interview with Yov Galant a year or

(29:23) so into the war where he explained this.

(29:25) So, first tell me who Yo Galant is. Why

(29:30) is he important? Obviously, the only

(29:31) name any American knows is Netanyahu,

(29:36) but that uh that leads to a really

(29:39) shallow understanding of Israeli

(29:41) politics. And you know, most Americans

(29:43) didn’t even know that, you know, there

(29:45) was a war cabinet, a group of people

(29:47) making each war decision, not just BB.

(29:50) So tell me who Galant is and tell me

(29:53) about this huge decision to go for

(29:56) either Hamas or Hezbollah in the early

(29:58) days of the war.

(29:59) >> Absolutely. What I would just add is

(30:02) Americans think they know Netanyahu

(30:05) and often what they think they know is

(30:07) not correct. Meaning at the start of the

(30:10) war he was actually one of the more

(30:12) cautious in the war cabinet, one of the

(30:15) more dovish, which to a western audience

(30:18) is, you know, truly shocking. Um,

(30:22) Yoav Galant is a uh former Israeli Navy

(30:27) Seal

(30:29) uh a sort of uh gruff general uh retired

(30:33) general type um who had become Israel’s

(30:38) defense minister.

(30:40) Now he was part of Netanyahu’s party but

(30:44) he sort of joined it out of convenience

(30:48) and then Netanyahu had actually tried to

(30:50) fire him indeed had publicly announced

(30:53) his firing not that long before the war.

(30:57) Uh he uh Netanyahu then uh had to walk

(31:00) that back a few days later and uh

(31:03) pretend he had never even said it. So

(31:07) you can imagine relations between the

(31:09) two were not that great.

(31:12) >> But Galant was known as a very hawkish

(31:16) general, aggressive

(31:18) general, focused on two main things.

(31:21) Iran, of course, that’s where the whole

(31:23) Israeli military, that’s where their

(31:25) eyes were, but also Lebanon, Hisbala,

(31:29) that was really the um the war that

(31:31) Israel had prepared for for more than a

(31:35) decade. That’s the war that they saw

(31:38) coming.

(31:38) >> They saw 150,000 missiles to the north.

(31:42) And right after October 7th in the days

(31:46) following, Galant can’t sleep because

(31:50) he’s asking

(31:53) why hasn’t why hasn’t his attacked yet?

(31:57) And what he predicts in the war room in

(32:01) those early days, his answer to that

(32:03) question is Hisbala is just waiting for

(32:08) us to send our forces south to Gaza and

(32:14) that’s when they are going to unleash

(32:17) their full missile arsenal and their

(32:19) elite Radwan invasion force. And so what

(32:23) he said is uh in order to ward that off,

(32:27) Israel has to strike hard first or else

(32:30) October 11th, October 12th could be even

(32:33) worse than October 7th. That was his

(32:36) argument. M um so you know looking back

(32:41) on on the war in general

(32:46) you know one of the gu one of the

(32:48) questions I’ve always asked critics

(32:50) critics of the war is what would you

(32:52) have done if you were prime minister or

(32:54) in charge of war decisions in Israel I

(32:56) asked this to Roana

(32:59) and he said something like well maybe

(33:01) the I do like the first two months of

(33:03) what they did and then and then stop and

(33:05) then negot negotiate for a Hamas free

(33:07) Gaza, which I thought was um rather

(33:11) empty because Ham Hamas would never

(33:13) negotiate for its own evaporation from

(33:16) Gaza. By definition, that’s something

(33:18) you would need force to accomplish. So,

(33:20) it’s um it’s just wishful thinking, you

(33:23) know. But the the legitimate question

(33:26) is, was there a version of the war in in

(33:31) your opinion that was a targeted

(33:36) um a targeted pursuit of the individuals

(33:40) responsible for the violence on October

(33:42) 7th rather than uh a war within the

(33:46) territory of Gaza that involved tons of

(33:49) civilian casualties. Um was that a

(33:51) realistic prospect? Was that um would

(33:56) that have worked? Would it have been

(33:57) wiser in the sense that the world would

(34:00) have been more on Israel’s side? Was it

(34:03) actually proposed by anyone? Um

(34:05) >> the answer is yes.

(34:06) >> Yeah. Go ahead.

(34:07) >> The answer is yes. Uh it was a live

(34:10) argument in those first weeks, not so

(34:13) much between Israelis, but between

(34:16) Israel’s war cabinet and the Biden

(34:19) administration.

(34:21) Also just note quickly um Gadi Eisenot

(34:25) who is uh the leading challenger now to

(34:28) Netanyahu he was a non- voting member of

(34:31) the war cabinet

(34:32) >> and he did advocate ending the war after

(34:36) that first hostage deal in November

(34:39) 2023.

(34:41) >> So he didn’t think that you could get

(34:43) rid of Hamas that way as Roana did but

(34:46) there was something of an option there.

(34:48) But um so maybe I’ll frame it this way.

(34:52) Uh Hamas attacks October 7th. Israeli

(34:56) ground troops enter Gaza October 27th.

(35:00) That’s a long gap.

(35:02) >> And I would argue that it was within

(35:05) that time frame that the whole

(35:06) international media already turned on

(35:09) Israel. So those were crucial lost days

(35:12) and lost weeks. So what was Israel doing

(35:16) at that time? What was it thinking? You

(35:19) get to a few points here. One of them,

(35:22) and I think this is one of the most

(35:23) shocking things, and we show this in

(35:25) detail in the book in the war room, is

(35:28) that the IDF had no plan for a full

(35:34) invasion of Gaza. There was nothing on

(35:37) the shelf which they could pull off on

(35:40) October 7th and say, “Let’s do this.”

(35:43) When Prime Minister Netanyahu found that

(35:46) out, he was a gasast, truly stunned. And

(35:50) therefore, the question of, “Can we do a

(35:53) full invasion of Gaza?” Well, that

(35:56) became a much more difficult question.

(35:59) And President Biden sent the top

(36:02) American generals to Israel to meet with

(36:05) Netanyahu, to meet with Galant, and tell

(36:08) them, “Don’t do it. don’t mount a full

(36:13) invasion of Gaza.

(36:16) They said

(36:18) you’re going to fail. And not only in a

(36:21) larger uh strategic sense, not only in a

(36:25) you’re going to lose the PR battle,

(36:28) diplomatic battle, but in a very

(36:31) definite sense of you’re going to lose

(36:34) the battle on the ground in Gaza City.

(36:37) Hamas has spent 17 years preparing this

(36:40) territory. more than 400 miles of

(36:42) tunnels, headquarters under hospitals,

(36:45) every second home booby trapped. You’re

(36:48) going to lose. They’re going to bleed

(36:49) you so badly you won’t be able to even

(36:53) take Gaza City, Hamas’s capital.

(36:57) And Prime Minister Netanyahu, hearing

(36:59) that from the leading American military

(37:01) minds, had to take that seriously. There

(37:04) were also some sort of alienated Israeli

(37:08) former generals

(37:11) sort of breaking the chain of command

(37:14) coming to Netanyahu directly and telling

(37:16) him the same thing, saying the same IDF

(37:19) that failed so miserably on October 7th

(37:22) isn’t even up to it. And so what Biden

(37:25) recommended and his generals recommended

(37:27) was air strikes and special forces

(37:30) raids. Okay? And with that combination,

(37:33) they said you can defeat Hamas. So

(37:37) special forces raise raid would mean

(37:38) like to get sinir to get top commanders

(37:41) targeted targeted raids

(37:43) >> targeted raids like that in the

(37:45) territory and then withdraw from the

(37:47) territory afterward not maneuvering a

(37:50) division in Gaza

(37:51) >> holding territory

(37:52) >> right and uh Prime Minister Netanyahu

(37:55) responded to President Biden by saying

(38:00) air strikes raids

(38:02) we’ve already tried that four times in

(38:05) every previous Gaza war and that’s what

(38:09) brought us here.

(38:10) >> That’s what brought us to October 7th.

(38:13) That clearly didn’t solve the um the

(38:17) problem. And so though it took weeks of

(38:21) uh convincing Netanyahu by the IDF,

(38:24) chief of staff, Halevi, Galant, others,

(38:28) in the end once they had the plan

(38:30) updated, once they had Israeli troops

(38:33) trained on the plan, I think there

(38:36) really was no alternative

(38:39) but to say, “We are going to do whatever

(38:43) we can to overthrow Hamas.” after the

(38:47) October 7th attack. I can’t really see

(38:50) an alternative to that.

(38:51) >> So when you say you can’t really see an

(38:52) alternative, you mean politically

(38:54) because because in a you know in a

(38:56) democracy if we you know you’ve had four

(39:00) gorounds with Hamas in recent history

(39:03) and you’ve hit them with this hammer and

(39:06) and the result of that is something just

(39:08) much worse for you. You can’t

(39:10) politically get up and say I’m going to

(39:11) reach for the same hammer, hit him one

(39:12) more time just like we’ve been doing

(39:14) because then you get the definition of

(39:16) insanity thing. So is is that what you

(39:18) mean by it was sort of inconceivable?

(39:20) >> I do mean that but I also mean

(39:22) politically in the other sense as in you

(39:26) are responsible for your country’s

(39:28) national security as its leader. Mhm.

(39:30) >> Uh you have to take care of this threat.

(39:34) And the main lesson from October 7th, it

(39:37) seemed clear right away, is we can’t

(39:40) have a jihadist group controlling

(39:43) territory right on our border. Israelis

(39:46) said that unanimously because even if

(39:49) we’re so confident that they can’t harm

(39:52) us and we have the most sophisticated

(39:54) air defenses and we have a fantastic

(39:56) fence, a fantastic army, they still

(39:59) found a way.

(40:00) >> And so nothing short of overthrowing

(40:02) Hamas will do.

(40:04) >> So the lesson some people say that

(40:08) should have been taken is okay, we made

(40:10) we made a defensive error here. let’s

(40:12) just shore up our defense and and batten

(40:16) the hatches and make sure it doesn’t

(40:18) happen again. Um, why do you think

(40:21) that’s not a wasn’t a viable strategy?

(40:24) >> I think Israel may end up trying to do

(40:27) just that ultimately because though it

(40:30) has kicked Hamas off of its border,

(40:32) Hamas still does control some 40% of

(40:36) Gaza. Uh currently it controls all two

(40:40) million people of Gaza and so Israel is

(40:43) going to have to commit to better

(40:46) defenses ultimately though it does have

(40:50) in agreement President Trump’s Gaza

(40:53) peace plan in which Hamas supposedly

(40:55) agreed to disarm.

(40:57) >> And so Israel has that political pledge.

(41:00) If it can disarm Hamas, fantastic. It

(41:03) won’t have to be in that situation. But

(41:05) if you and I are looking at this

(41:07) realistically, is Hamas going to disarm

(41:10) postwar when it’s not under that

(41:12) military pressure?

(41:14) >> Probably not.

(41:17) >> And so what Israel ended up doing was

(41:19) severely weakening Hamas. Hamas is a

(41:21) shell of its former self.

(41:23) >> Uh and I think most importantly, Hamas

(41:26) lost that border crossing with Egypt.

(41:30) That’s what Rafa was. And so that makes

(41:32) it much more difficult for Hamas to

(41:34) smuggle in arms. Although it does have

(41:37) some other ways using drones for

(41:40) instance, other things like that, but it

(41:42) can’t just run them in trucks over the

(41:44) border anymore. And that is a huge step

(41:47) forward.

(41:48) >> So let’s talk about what you think were

(41:51) the biggest unforced errors in in the

(41:54) Gaza war. Um for for me the primary one

(41:58) would be uh the two months of uh cutting

(42:02) off food uh and and and other aid after

(42:07) stockpiling it and mistakenly

(42:10) believing that those stockpiles would be

(42:12) rationed. Um and so first of all what

(42:16) happened here? Why was this policy

(42:19) enacted? What was the logic behind it?

(42:22) And what was the result? I think you’re

(42:24) right. That was one of the greatest

(42:27) mistakes of the war. Um, the logic

(42:32) actually isn’t that hard to understand,

(42:34) but I would go all the way back to the

(42:37) beginning of Israeli facilitation of aid

(42:40) into Gaza. Happens on October 18th,

(42:44) 2023.

(42:45) And President Biden announces it making

(42:49) a statement. What he says is

(42:52) now allowing the aid in. We’re going to

(42:55) get lots of aid. The people are going to

(42:57) be taken care of. But he says if Hamas

(43:02) steals this aid, it will stop.

(43:06) >> And then he says just as a matter of

(43:08) necessity, it’s going to have to stop.

(43:11) And that made sense then. Uh you don’t

(43:14) want to supply your military adversary.

(43:17) You don’t want to supply a terrorist

(43:19) group in wartime. Um

(43:23) yeah. Uh if they if they steal the aid,

(43:27) the aid stops and that’s how you get and

(43:29) and that’s how you get them to not steal

(43:32) the aid. But that doesn’t work for a

(43:35) group like Hamas,

(43:38) >> which would be more than happy and as we

(43:40) saw was more than happy seeing food

(43:44) insecurity get worse. seeing a

(43:47) humanitarian crisis get worse in Gaza,

(43:50) knowing that Israel would pay the price

(43:53) and not them. And so over the course of

(43:57) the war, what the Biden administration

(43:59) ends up saying isn’t the aid has to stop

(44:03) now, but Hamas is stealing the aid.

(44:06) Therefore, you have to send more aid

(44:09) and more gas, which Hamas was using to

(44:13) allow itself to operate in the tunnels

(44:16) underground. And Hamas was taxing all

(44:20) the um all the food aid, allowing it to

(44:23) continue paying salaries to all of its

(44:26) soldiers, um police officers, all the

(44:29) people it needed to stay in charge of

(44:32) Gaza. This is driving Israel’s war room

(44:35) crazy, knowing that they [snorts] are

(44:38) sending in all the materials its enemies

(44:42) need to continue killing its own

(44:45) soldiers, driving them absolutely crazy.

(44:48) And so once you have the Israeli war

(44:50) room narrow and really become

(44:52) Netanyahu’s show, you have more openness

(44:56) to some harder ideas of let’s do

(45:00) something. And so after

(45:03) uh the second hostage deal in which uh

(45:07) Gaza had been flooded with aid, the plan

(45:10) was now let’s stop the aid and squeeze

(45:14) Hamas in that way in order to get all

(45:17) the rest of the hostages

(45:20) um released. It made some sense in

(45:24) theory. I think they underestimated

(45:27) um just how much Hamas would be willing

(45:30) to do in order to bring about that near

(45:35) starvation, that food insecurity crisis

(45:38) as soon as possible. And I think they

(45:40) were way too slow to launch an

(45:42) alternative to the old aid mechanism

(45:45) which uh Hamas had been exploiting. They

(45:48) launched this Gaza Humanitarian

(45:50) Foundation, right? Um, but they did it

(45:54) after a couple months of drawing down

(45:57) supplies. So basically it had to get off

(46:01) the ground in a very difficult

(46:03) situation. They should have launched

(46:05) that when Gaza was flush with aid, give

(46:08) it that running room, which it never got

(46:11) to succeed. M and and obviously you know

(46:14) when we saw videos of Israeli hostages

(46:18) starving uh the soldiers were quite

(46:21) wellfed and to to uh to my knowledge the

(46:25) sold the Hamas fighters have been

(46:27) wellfed throughout the entirety of the

(46:29) fighting effort. Is that your

(46:30) understanding too? There was never any

(46:33) problem with that other than for some

(46:36) small pockets of fighters that uh Israel

(46:39) would cut off on the battlefield and

(46:41) then just surround until they would have

(46:44) to surrender because they had no um

(46:47) supplies.

(46:48) >> So we’ve we’ve covered it in the free

(46:50) press, but it’s worth again reminding

(46:53) people

(46:54) that you know the allegation of famine

(46:57) was widespread and mainstream as a

(47:00) result of this. And when I say this was

(47:02) an unforced error on Israel’s part, I’m

(47:04) not saying it was a famine, right? Those

(47:06) are two very different things. Famine

(47:08) has a strict definition. Uh it’s an

(47:11) important word because there actually

(47:12) are famines in the world, including

(47:14) today. Um, and the the failure of

(47:19) mainstream American journalism to

(47:21) properly draw that distinction, to ask

(47:23) skeptical questions of sources within

(47:26) Gaza, to analyze properly images coming

(47:31) out of Gaza of children that had

(47:34) pre-existing conditions, tragic

(47:36) conditions, conditions that looked to

(47:39) the naked eye like they could be

(47:40) starvation, but actually were not

(47:42) because, you know, the brother that is

(47:45) sitting next to this brother uh you know

(47:47) this this child is is uh wellfed right

(47:52) and and so this ended up being a a

(47:56) massive propaganda victory for Hamas

(48:00) there’s a infamous Sinir quote that you

(48:02) reproduce in the book before the famine

(48:05) allegation of of Sinir saying we have

(48:08) them right where we want them and this

(48:10) was at the point when according to Hamas

(48:13) like 30,000 and people had been killed

(48:17) for the leader of their war effort to

(48:22) say we have them right where we want

(48:25) them. We have them where we want them

(48:27) after we’ve suffered losses probably 30

(48:30) to1 compared to the losses they’ve

(48:32) suffered maybe 15 to1

(48:35) um suggests an underlying strategy that

(48:39) some people have called the human

(48:40) sacrifice strategy. I think I’m taking

(48:42) that from um my my friend John um

(48:45) >> John Spencer.

(48:46) >> John Spencer. Thank you. All of this is

(48:48) to ask what is Hamas’s actual strategy,

(48:51) you know, once they realize Hezbollah is

(48:52) not going to join in that Iran that you

(48:55) know the the whole octopus isn’t going

(48:58) to attack Israel. What is the strategy?

(49:01) What is the thinking at that point? Is

(49:03) it that the propaganda victories that we

(49:07) are experiencing

(49:09) uh are are outweighing the the the loss

(49:12) of life? Is it that just the loss of

(49:14) life isn’t that important to begin with?

(49:16) Because there is a jihadist ideology

(49:18) which equates any death to martyrdom,

(49:23) right? Like as as far as Hamas is

(49:25) concerned, a kid who dies goes straight

(49:27) to heaven, right? Because they died in

(49:28) the fight against infidels, right? So

(49:31) what is the actual calculus like in the

(49:33) middle of the war?

(49:35) >> Hamas goes through stages here in

(49:38) northern uh in in northern Gaza at the

(49:42) start of the war. Hamas actually stood

(49:45) and fought. They really did think they

(49:48) could beat Israel in northern Gaza where

(49:50) they were uh where they were most ready.

(49:53) It didn’t happen. They got blitzed by

(49:56) Israel. Um when you get down to south

(50:00) central Gaza Kunis

(50:03) um Hamas is is uh is uh no longer

(50:07) fighting that way. Uh it’s trying to

(50:10) escape. It’s trying to move back to

(50:14) other areas where Israeli troops have

(50:17) left. It’s trying to do hitandrun

(50:20) attacks and that’s it. booby trap

(50:22) Israeli soldiers, pick them off one by

(50:25) one. And uh we actually have documents

(50:29) from Sinoir about his read of the

(50:32) situation, messages he would send to his

(50:35) hostage negotiators telling them, “Do

(50:39) not make a deal yet.” Why not? Because

(50:43) Israel is going to be forced to stop

(50:47) even before we give up those hostages

(50:51) for a few main reasons.

(50:54) One is American political pressure. The

(50:58) Biden administration feeling that heat

(51:01) from its left. There’s no question. And

(51:04) u you know Israeli officials felt this.

(51:07) I would hear um the joke from sort of

(51:10) very senior Israeli officials was Biden

(51:13) started out supporting us. Now he

(51:16) supports the two-state solution,

(51:19) Michigan and Nevada, the two states. Uh

(51:22) and things, you know, like that. Uh when

(51:25) he would cut off arms to Israel, Biden

(51:27) would say, “My support of Israel is

(51:30) ironclad.” Israelis uh Israeli officials

(51:34) would joke, “Yeah, except without the

(51:36) iron.” Um and so he was seeing that

(51:41) pressure and relying on Americans. That

(51:44) is that is to say, relying on the

(51:48) American left to not realize what he was

(51:51) up to. He felt

(51:54) Hamas Gaza was doing great. Had Israel

(51:57) exactly where it wanted it. But he knew

(52:00) that Americans would feel Gaza was

(52:04) devastated as it was and therefore he

(52:07) needed their urgent relief. He also

(52:11) looked into Israel in which he saw this

(52:14) massive protest movement for the

(52:16) hostages

(52:18) >> and he saw divisions uh among Israel’s

(52:22) war leaders and looked at that and took

(52:26) encouragement that Israel is going to

(52:28) have to settle for worse terms because

(52:31) of uh pressure internally and also

(52:34) pressure externally. And when I look at

(52:37) the at the international propaganda

(52:41) campaign and the hardline anti-Israel

(52:45) critique, there’s no question in my mind

(52:48) that it prolonged the war.

(52:52) That it gave Hamas encouragement. You

(52:55) don’t have to make the deal. You don’t

(52:57) have to release as many hostages in each

(53:00) deal. Keep fighting. You’re going to get

(53:03) even more. And the way that hardline

(53:07) critique functioned

(53:09) is very simple actually. It just ignored

(53:13) Hamas. It just pretended Hamas was never

(53:16) there and spoke about the war as if it

(53:20) wasn’t Israel versus a terror army of

(53:24) tens of thousands with, as I said, more

(53:26) than 400 miles of tunnels, the booby

(53:29) traps, uh, hospital headquarters,

(53:33) operating under and out of mosques and

(53:36) schools,

(53:37) stealing aid, diverting aid, taxing aid.

(53:41) What if you didn’t mention any of that

(53:44) at all and just spoke of it as Israel

(53:47) versus civilians? And if every video

(53:51) coming out of Gaza portrayed Israel

(53:55) versus civilians, and you spoke about

(53:58) hospitals without mentioning that Hamas

(54:01) was fighting from there.

(54:02) >> You spoke about schools without

(54:04) mentioning that. You spoke about aid

(54:06) without mentioning Hamas stealing aid.

(54:09) You spoke about a casualty toll without

(54:11) ever mentioning that some thousands of

(54:14) those were Hamas fighters.

(54:17) We don’t speak about any other war that

(54:19) way. But if you want to make it out like

(54:22) it was a genocide, like it was all about

(54:25) Israel versus Palestinian civilians,

(54:29) that’s the way you talk. And what I

(54:32) would just tell people is that while

(54:34) that critique was immensely successful

(54:37) on social media, in world capitals,

(54:42) it cannot survive scrutiny. It crumbles

(54:46) at first contact with specificity, with

(54:49) deep reporting into Israel’s war room.

(54:52) all the arguments about whether to

(54:55) invade Gaza, whether to carry on to

(54:58) Kanun Rafa, whether to invade Lebanon

(55:01) first, Hisbala, and leave Gaza to the

(55:04) side. None of that makes sense if your

(55:07) view of it all is Israel’s mission all

(55:10) along was let’s kill as many

(55:13) Palestinians as possible. That view

(55:16) doesn’t survive scrutiny. And I think

(55:18) that’s one of the biggest contributions

(55:20) this book in the war room can make.

(55:24) >> One of the things that most puzzles me

(55:28) is why we have let the jihadist

(55:33) set of concepts like the the jihadist

(55:35) way of looking at the world into our

(55:38) western modern secular democracies. What

(55:42) do I mean by that? What do I mean? What

(55:44) I mean is exactly what you just said,

(55:47) that actually is the jihadist worldview.

(55:49) It makes sense to them. There is no

(55:52) difference between a civilian and a

(55:54) combatant if you’re a jihadist, right?

(55:57) There’s a reason that when Hamas

(55:59) publishes death tolls, not just Hamas,

(56:01) but also the Palestinian Authority, they

(56:04) just give you one number. They don’t

(56:05) divide soldiers from non-soldiers.

(56:09) Why? Because, actually, get this through

(56:11) your head. Soldiers versus non-soldiers

(56:14) is not a human universal concept. That

(56:17) is a concept that exists in some

(56:20) societies. It exists to us. It’s very

(56:22) natural to us. It’s not inherent in

(56:26) every philosophy, religion or worldview.

(56:30) So if you if you actually believe a

(56:33) jihadist worldview which says the world

(56:36) essentially it’s not divided into races

(56:39) or nations really it’s divided into

(56:42) Muslims and non-Muslims right and you

(56:45) know the wrong kind of Muslims are also

(56:48) considered non-Muslims right if that’s

(56:50) your worldview the distinction between

(56:53) civilian and combatant you know notice I

(56:56) didn’t mention it at all right there’s

(56:58) just us Muslims against the non-Muslims.

(57:01) So, we’re all fighters effectively,

(57:03) whether that fighting is with a

(57:06) kalashnikov or by, you know, being a

(57:09) 12-year-old lookout for Hamas that is to

(57:12) whatever degree coerced or not to to do

(57:14) that task or whether you’re that

(57:17) 12-year-old’s grandma that is simply

(57:19) cooking a meal for the family. All of it

(57:21) to us is a part of the war effort. We’re

(57:24) all and again, crucially, they reflect

(57:26) that lens onto their enemies as well.

(57:29) Right? There’s no difference to them

(57:31) between like we obsess over these

(57:33) differences. Oh, are you an Israeli

(57:35) within the green line or are you settler

(57:38) in the West Bank? Well, to Hamas, they

(57:40) are all equally settlers. We we assume

(57:43) that they care about these distinctions

(57:45) which which which they do not. Yet, we

(57:49) allow them to smuggle in their concept,

(57:53) conceptual mapping of the world into our

(57:55) language and into our articles. So,

(57:58) like, you know, you just if you read a

(58:00) New York Times article at any point in

(58:02) the war, they don’t give you the

(58:04) breakdown of Hamas soldiers killed

(58:07) versus Palestinian civilians killed.

(58:09) Now, obviously the New York Times

(58:12) journalist writing that sentence is not

(58:13) a jihadist,

(58:15) but they have inad inadvertently

(58:18) co-signed and enabled the jihadist

(58:21) strategy of like getting rid of those

(58:24) concepts

(58:25) just in the way that they’ve written the

(58:27) sentence. They’ve allowed you not to

(58:29) think about the distinction between

(58:30) soldiers and civilians. And you know,

(58:32) the the just throughout the entire war,

(58:34) we’re just we were all monitoring this

(58:36) death count. Okay, it’s 10,000 now. it’s

(58:38) 15,000. Now it’s 45,000. And we’re

(58:41) debating the number, but the number is

(58:43) an undifferentiated mass that implicitly

(58:46) gets rid of the concept of of soldier,

(58:48) civilian, combatant, which is the

(58:50) jihadist worldview. So, I’m belaboring

(58:52) the point now, but I think it’s just

(58:53) it’s really important to read the news

(58:56) critically and understand what is being

(58:59) omitted and and what conceptual mapping

(59:02) this article or this way of phrasing it

(59:05) is is uh co-signing. It is a fantastic

(59:08) point and um I can’t tell you how

(59:12) frustrating it would be of someone

(59:14) reporting on this war to read other

(59:18) reporting that systematically at every

(59:21) stage of the process leaves out the

(59:24) necessary

(59:26) context. So you have the immediate

(59:28) context like you uh like you said 20,000

(59:32) dead without saying how many of them

(59:34) were terrorists.

(59:36) uh says the Gaza Health Ministry without

(59:40) saying that that’s the Hamasrun Gaza

(59:43) Health Ministry. Uh fighting at this

(59:47) school without saying that Hamas has a

(59:50) massively documented practice of

(59:52) fighting out of schools uh and so on and

(59:55) so forth. Even some I mean even

(59:58) something as basic as you know the

(60:01) portrayals of this is that they want a

(60:04) Palestinian state. Mhm.

(60:06) >> Actually, Hamas wants a caliphate.

(60:08) >> Okay. And is clear about this publicly,

(60:11) but that will never be mentioned in a

(60:13) New York Times article. Or that

(60:15) >> Israel has offered Palestinian state

(60:18) multiple times in this century, 21st

(60:20) century even, and it was turned down by

(60:23) the Palestinians. So something like this

(60:25) isn’t launched out of desperation for a

(60:29) for, you know, a state. But all of that

(60:32) context in the present and also

(60:34) historical is suppressed. And so you are

(60:38) left with a completely different

(60:40) understanding that I would say

(60:42) systematically hides that this was a

(60:45) war.

(60:46) >> A war between two forces, one of which

(60:49) broke every rule, one of which is a

(60:52) terrorist group.

(60:53) >> Yeah. I mean, another one is the the the

(60:56) failure to call October 7th an invasion.

(60:59) So, how many how many actual Hamas

(61:01) fighters crossed the border on October

(61:04) 7th? It’s

(61:04) >> Oh, thousands of them.

(61:06) >> Several. Yeah. So, several thousand into

(61:08) a territory the size of New Jersey,

(61:11) that’s an invasion, I would say, right?

(61:13) That’s not like a raid. And uh and and

(61:19) so even that reframe, the idea that

(61:22) Hamas is is an army. you know, obviously

(61:24) the territory is very small, but in

(61:26) relative terms, it it merits merits the

(61:29) term an army and that this was a war. Um

(61:34) that that’s a an underrated framing as

(61:36) well. Um I want to ask you about the

(61:40) huge controversy within Israel during

(61:42) the war about the two conflicting war

(61:44) aims. One war aim was to get back the

(61:49) hostages and one war aim was to to

(61:53) uproot Hamas.

(61:56) And

(61:57) many people pointed out at the time that

(62:00) these two things were fundamentally at

(62:03) odds because from Hamas’s point of view,

(62:07) the only point of having the hostages

(62:10) was to restrain Israel, right? precisely

(62:13) so that they could retain control, use

(62:16) the host hostages as as leverage. Um, so

(62:20) the idea is like how are you going to

(62:22) accomplish both of these things, right?

(62:24) Because if you actually you corner the

(62:27) the last Hamas battalion that’s holding

(62:29) on to the hostages, they’re going to

(62:31) murder all the hostages if they know

(62:33) that you’ve got them that that it’s

(62:35) checkmate. Right? So fundamentally these

(62:38) were intention.

(62:41) it was sort of not it was pointed out at

(62:44) the time and it just became clearer and

(62:46) clearer and clearer that this was going

(62:47) to defide the country and and it

(62:49) ultimately did. What was the

(62:51) conversation like behind closed doors

(62:53) when that came to a head?

(62:56) Well, at at a certain point the others

(63:00) in the war room were telling Prime

(63:02) Minister Netanyahu that he was going to

(63:05) get all the hostages killed.

(63:08) And again, at a certain point,

(63:12) especially after the 12-day war with

(63:14) Iran, so after June 2025,

(63:18) when Israel was um

(63:22) preparing another Gaza offensive,

(63:26) uh the very top of the IDF was

(63:30) um assessing

(63:32) this is going to endanger the hostages.

(63:36) um we need to take whatever we can get

(63:39) now and not keep fighting.

(63:42) And so it got I mean yelling at each

(63:46) other, banging banging on the table in

(63:50) the um in the war room over this issue.

(63:52) There’s no question. Um,

(63:56) one of the first times where I think it

(63:57) really the real moment was summer 20 uh

(64:02) summer 2024

(64:04) in which many Israelis thought I would

(64:06) say the greater Israeli defense

(64:08) establishment thought we have to end

(64:11) this Gaza war

(64:14) um and therefore that’ll end the

(64:16) fighting in the north with um Hezbollah

(64:20) and we can get our hostages back and and

(64:24) uh this was also Yoav Galant’s view and

(64:28) the argument he made at the time is this

(64:31) is going to spiral out of control. We’re

(64:34) going to get that Lebanon war not when

(64:37) we wanted it when we had the element of

(64:39) surprise but when it’s guaranteed to be

(64:42) a disaster for us. We’re going to be

(64:45) endangering the hostages lives. We need

(64:49) to wrap this up. One thing he said was

(64:52) a war in Lebanon, you’re not gonna I

(64:56) mean, in the end, you’re gonna have to

(64:57) come to some sort of deal, a ceasefire.

(65:00) You’re not going to take over all of

(65:01) Lebanon. You’re just going to fight in

(65:03) the south of Lebanon and then make a

(65:05) deal. So he said, “Why not make the deal

(65:09) before the war and skip the war itself

(65:12) if you’re going to make a deal anyways

(65:14) at the end?” And Prime Minister

(65:16) Netanyahu replied to him and uh we have

(65:19) this in the book in the war room. He he

(65:22) said um it makes all the difference in

(65:25) the world if we make that deal before

(65:30) the war before Hisbala has been cut down

(65:33) to size, has been devastated, or if we

(65:36) make it after Hisbala uh is a shell of

(65:41) itself. arguing that the balance of

(65:43) forces would ultimately dictate the

(65:45) worth of whatever they agreed to on

(65:49) paper. And what you’ll what you’ll note

(65:52) is that even though at that time the

(65:55) summer of 2024, Israelis were I would

(65:59) say most Israelis were furious and had

(66:03) thought that Netanyahu was carrying this

(66:05) on for his own reasons and there was

(66:08) nothing further that could be gained and

(66:10) maybe we could, you know, we just need

(66:11) this deal now, get the hostages, end it

(66:14) all. What we actually saw over the

(66:17) course of this war is that almost all of

(66:20) Israel’s key achievements came after

(66:23) that point when Israel really took the

(66:26) fight to Lebanon when Israel had that

(66:30) incredibly successful 12-day war with

(66:33) Iran leaving the nuclear program in

(66:36) rubble and even Israel’s final Gaza

(66:41) offensive which the entire IDF high

(66:44) command opposed saying there’s nothing

(66:47) more that we can do here with pressure.

(66:50) It turned out Hamas was pressured by

(66:53) that and very quickly made new

(66:56) concessions that ended up returning all

(67:00) the hostages at the end which the IDF

(67:03) until the very end thought was going to

(67:05) be impossible. Mhm.

(67:07) >> The high command thought that Hamas,

(67:09) even if it would make a deal, it would

(67:11) always hang on to a dozen or two dozen

(67:14) hostages just as,

(67:16) you know, life insurance almost uh you

(67:19) know um to protect its senior uh its

(67:23) senior leaders. So even though there was

(67:25) all of that anger within Israel about

(67:28) Netanyahu is going to get all the

(67:30) hostages killed,

(67:33) most Israelis right now are surprised by

(67:35) just how many of the hostages they could

(67:38) bring home. Uh more than 180 in the end.

(67:42) So it seems like the implication of what

(67:47) you’re saying is that between Netanyahu

(67:50) and Galant their basic strategic

(67:53) disagreements over the war which started

(67:57) on on October 8th about is it Hamas

(68:00) first or is it Hezbollah first and

(68:02) Galant says you attack the stronger

(68:04) enemy first. Everyone knows that in a

(68:06) fight

(68:07) and Netanyahu says no. And then a year

(68:11) later or almost a year later, Galant

(68:14) says, “Okay, it’s time. We got to wrap

(68:16) this up.” Netanyahu says, “No.” It seems

(68:19) like the implication of what you’re

(68:20) saying is that Netanyahu was essentially

(68:21) correct and Galant was wrong in his in

(68:25) his key assessments. Is that is that

(68:27) what you’re saying?

(68:29) on certain things.

(68:32) Galant wanted to be Galant wanted to

(68:34) move quicker in Gaza at the um at the uh

(68:38) at the very start of the war once

(68:42) striking north had been ruled out. I

(68:46) think Galant was right about that and

(68:48) Netanyahu was wrong. Israel needed those

(68:51) crucial three weeks in which you could

(68:53) have accomplished things that were so

(68:56) much harder to accomplish. a year later,

(69:00) even a month later, when the entire

(69:03) world’s perception of the conflict had

(69:06) changed. And so I think, and by the way,

(69:08) there was time in between those two in

(69:11) which Gallant was saying, “Let’s strike

(69:13) north. Let’s still do it.” And BB

(69:16) Netanyao was saying, “Let’s um let’s not

(69:19) do it.” So in a sense, Gallant was for

(69:21) it before he was against it. Um, but I

(69:25) think at those two junctures, yes, I do

(69:29) think Netanyahu was right. And part of

(69:32) that story had to do with President

(69:35) Biden.

(69:37) President Biden, though he did help

(69:39) Israel substantially at the start of the

(69:42) war and sent aircraft carriers in order

(69:44) to deter a um Hezbollah invasion, that

(69:48) was essential. All the same at every

(69:52) stage of the war and in every way he was

(69:56) telling Israel,

(69:58) “Do less. Tone it down. Restrain

(70:03) yourself. Shift to another phase. Use

(70:07) fewer troops.” I think that was

(70:10) counterproductive,

(70:12) but it couldn’t help but influence

(70:14) Israeli war room assessments. And so,

(70:18) Prime Minister Netanyahu at the start

(70:20) was able to use that American opposition

(70:23) in order to win the argument about why

(70:25) they shouldn’t strike Lebanon. Later on,

(70:29) Galant would say, uh, the Americans are

(70:33) going to be furious, and they were, by

(70:35) the way, even after 10 11 months of

(70:38) everyday Hezbollah rocket fire into

(70:41) Israel, which caused Israel to evacuate

(70:43) and depopulate its entire north. Even

(70:47) still, the Biden answer was, “Israel,

(70:50) don’t escalate in the north. Don’t do

(70:52) anything that could actually address

(70:55) that problem.” And that’s what they said

(70:57) about Iran as well. Uh the US helped

(71:01) Israel significantly in shooting down

(71:04) Iranian missiles fired um directly at

(71:08) Israel in April 20 in April 2024 and

(71:11) also October 2024.

(71:14) But then President Biden’s advice was,

(71:18) “Take the win.” Meaning, you got lucky.

(71:22) We shot it all down together. Don’t

(71:25) shoot back. And for Israel, what that

(71:29) looked like was having to accommodate

(71:31) itself to a massively deteriorating

(71:35) strategic situation. Iran can fire a 100

(71:37) ballistic missiles at us directly and we

(71:40) do nothing. Crazy talk. Um what Israel

(71:43) ended up doing with these various

(71:47) decisions done against Biden

(71:49) administration advice was pave the way

(71:53) to handling Iran’s nuclear program. So

(71:57) the first one was knocking out Hisbala’s

(72:00) missile arsenal which was supposed to

(72:04) overwhelm Israel if it ever did anything

(72:06) about Iran. That was taken out. But

(72:09) people should people would be good to

(72:11) note that this effectively is why North

(72:13) Korea has a nuclear program is because

(72:16) before they sprinted towards an

(72:18) effective nuclear program, they had

(72:22) however many thousands of missiles

(72:24) pointed at Seoul, the capital of South

(72:26) Korea, that could not be stopped. In

(72:30) other words, once you have that as

(72:32) blackmail, you can sprint towards the

(72:34) nuke. And if America were to do anything

(72:36) about North Korea, they would say,

(72:38) “Okay, we can kill a 100,000 people in

(72:40) Seoul in a day and that becomes

(72:42) unacceptable.” So they have the

(72:43) blackmail they need to go for the nuke.

(72:46) This is an established strategy. It’s

(72:48) just basic uh you know basic logic. So

(72:53) this Hezbollah was going to be that

(72:55) equivalent and that is the perfect

(72:57) example. Iran was using Hezbollah to

(73:00) make Tel Aviv into Seoul, right?

(73:03) Essentially. And so Israel took that out

(73:06) in uh September and late 2024. And then

(73:11) um October 2024, it takes out crucial

(73:16) Iranian air defenses protecting the

(73:19) nuclear program, leaving that undefended

(73:23) for later on.

(73:25) >> Yeah.

(73:26) Tell me who Benny Gansce is and what his

(73:29) role in general was in the Israeli war

(73:33) cabinet and strategically in Israeli

(73:35) politics.

(73:36) >> Benny Gansce is in my view a tragic

(73:40) figure because um he was on top. you

(73:46) know, he had in agreement with Netanyahu

(73:50) at one point before the war promising

(73:52) him that he would rotate into the prime

(73:55) minister’s chair. He would become prime

(73:58) minister. Netanyao broke uh broke from

(74:02) that agreement. Uh [snorts] and then in

(74:05) this war, he rallies from the opposition

(74:09) to patriotically, I would say, join a

(74:12) unity government. uh Netanyahu had been

(74:15) leading this, you know, right-wing

(74:18) coalition that had lost the trust of

(74:21) half of Israel before the war. That’s no

(74:25) that’s no kind of government to lead a

(74:27) war like this. And so Benny Gance

(74:30) joining along with his at the time

(74:32) junior partner Gaid Eisenkot allowed

(74:35) Netanyahu to say I’m leading a true

(74:38) unity government, national government.

(74:42) Netanyahu though immediately was using

(74:46) Gansce. He used Gansce at the start

(74:49) knowing that Gance and Eisenot are more

(74:52) cautious than Galant to help him win

(74:56) that argument over Lebanon in the very

(74:59) first days of the in the uh very first

(75:02) days of the war. later on in the um in

(75:05) the war whenever Israel was stalled

(75:08) whether it had to do with Rafa in Gaza

(75:10) or Lebanon in the north he could

(75:13) Netanyahu could always leak out it’s

(75:16) Gansce he won’t let me do it

(75:18) >> he won’t let us go ahead and sometimes

(75:21) Gansce was more cautious but it was

(75:23) always more complicated than that Gans

(75:25) is a former IDF chief he actually beat

(75:29) Galant out for that role once previously

(75:33) and there were some underhanded tactics

(75:34) there and so there was bad blood. Uh

(75:37) what I what um I try to tell people is

(75:40) that all three of that Israeli war room

(75:44) triumvirvirate in every possible

(75:47) permutation

(75:48) had a reason to detest one another and

(75:52) did detest one another in this war.

(75:55) >> So this was no

(75:57) >> even team of rivals. Okay, these were

(75:59) bitter enemies having to work with each

(76:01) other.

(76:02) uh which they did while you know

(76:05) refusing each other’s phone calls and

(76:07) banning each other’s aids from meeting

(76:08) rooms and that’s a big part of the story

(76:11) of in the war room but the last thing I

(76:13) would say about GU because for much of

(76:16) the war he was leading all the polls set

(76:18) to be the next prime minister of Israel

(76:21) and now he’s at next to nothing he might

(76:23) not even make it into the parliament the

(76:26) Knesset his junior partner Eisenot has

(76:28) since become the guy the leading

(76:31) Netanyahu rival. Let me tell you what uh

(76:35) what happened like this. Benny Gce once

(76:38) told me um

(76:41) Netanyahu is a better politician than I

(76:44) am.

(76:46) He meant that as an insult.

(76:48) >> Okay, he’s a politician.

(76:51) But when I heard that, I thought there’s

(76:55) just one problem. you’re in politics

(77:00) and he is your political opponent. And I

(77:04) think what happened is that Benigans was

(77:06) right.

(77:08) And Israeli liberals, the Israeli center

(77:13) left, came to believe that as well. that

(77:17) Benig Gansce, though admirable in his

(77:20) character in wanting to do what was

(77:22) right with Israel and just put the

(77:24) country first and it was never entirely

(77:26) clear what that meant, but they liked

(77:28) that message. Um, at a certain point

(77:31) they, you know, realized you have to

(77:34) beat Netanyahu in politics.

(77:36) >> And if you won’t be that guy, if you

(77:38) don’t have what it takes, then you’re

(77:41) useless to us. And that in the end is

(77:44) what Israeli liberals have said. And so

(77:46) the right vilified him, the left, the

(77:49) liberals, the centrists came to think he

(77:52) uh he didn’t he didn’t have what it

(77:54) took.

(77:55) >> So he’s the Ned Stark of Israeli

(77:58) politics [laughter] to make a Game of

(77:59) Thrones reference. Um the the leader you

(78:03) wish you had but who wasn’t willing to

(78:05) do what it took to actually unseat the

(78:07) those somewhat worse leaders. Talk to me

(78:10) about the role of the far right in the

(78:12) war. And I think it’s important context

(78:15) for people. Something that never gets

(78:18) said here, and correct me if I’m wrong,

(78:20) the reason Netanyahu had to partner with

(78:23) the vile characters on the far right,

(78:26) Benvier and Smootrich,

(78:29) is because he was backed into it. He was

(78:31) forced into it effectively. He wanted to

(78:34) partner with the centrist parties, but

(78:36) they said, “No, we we find you so

(78:40) disgusting and detestable

(78:42) and god forbid we could ever serve in a

(78:45) government with you that on principle,

(78:47) we’re not going to serve in your

(78:48) government.” And so he who’s forced to

(78:52) partner with a much worse. So they

(78:55) basically said, “We’d rather see you

(78:57) govern with the far right than get our

(78:59) hands dirty being in the same room with

(79:01) you.” Right? And then October 7th

(79:02) happens and now who is governing as a

(79:05) result of that choice by the centrists

(79:07) who never in in any conversation I’ve

(79:10) heard get called or held accountable for

(79:13) that decision. Is that fair of me um as

(79:16) a source of why Netanyahu is even is

(79:18) even with the far right to begin with?

(79:21) And then secondly, what has been the

(79:23) legacy of that that partnership?

(79:27) >> It is fair and I think you’re right.

(79:30) What they would say though is that they

(79:32) didn’t boycott Netanyahu for no reason.

(79:36) That he betrayed them in this previous

(79:39) agreement he had with them. And so it’s

(79:41) a bit rich for him to then come and say

(79:45) work with me once again. But in terms of

(79:48) practical consequences, I don’t see um

(79:51) how they can argue with you there. Uh so

(79:54) Netanyahu who previously had always

(79:56) worked and always wanted to work with

(79:57) these more centrist parties had to take

(80:00) on far-right partners. Now he might have

(80:02) worked anyway with the National

(80:05) Religious Party which had become

(80:07) religious Zionism um led by Smoterich.

(80:12) uh that faction had become more radical

(80:15) in a way because its old leader Naftali

(80:18) Bennett had left it to join with the

(80:21) center left and previously become a

(80:23) center-left leader. He took a lot of the

(80:25) moderates out of that out of that

(80:28) movement and so what was left was Smurch

(80:31) um that changed that faction. Netanyao

(80:34) might have worked with them anyway, but

(80:36) Benir he would not have and had always

(80:39) marginalized him. And in that even in

(80:43) that election campaign when he had to

(80:45) work with him, he had to okay had to in

(80:48) order to win. Um he wouldn’t let himself

(80:51) be photographed with him. He didn’t want

(80:53) to be seen shaking his hand. So it was

(80:55) that kind of of uh relationship. Now

(81:00) during the war, the two of them and

(81:04) their two factions were consistent

(81:07) advocates for keeping the fighting

(81:10) going. Um, and in a way for not making

(81:17) hostage deals. Sometimes in certain ways

(81:20) they would come around, but they thought

(81:22) it’s wrong to make this deal with Hamas.

(81:26) Hamas is only making the deal because it

(81:29) helps Hamas and there are arguments

(81:31) there, real arguments. Um, but that was

(81:35) a view that was unpalatable to the vast

(81:38) majority of is of um Israelis who wanted

(81:42) the hostages back more than anything.

(81:45) >> Uh, and so Netanyahu would at various

(81:48) points be able to use these parties as a

(81:51) kind of ex um excuse. He could say, “I

(81:56) really can’t do it.” Because then the

(81:58) government is going to fall. They’re

(81:59) going to leave and then the whole thing

(82:02) is done. Uh the other side will take

(82:05) over and we’ll, you know, capitulate

(82:08) immediately. That’s how he would put it.

(82:10) Um

(82:12) in the end, Trump would call those

(82:16) parties bluff at the very end when Trump

(82:19) when Trump would say, “Here’s the Gaza

(82:22) deal. we’re moving forward with it and

(82:25) you’re all on board. None of those

(82:27) parties left Netanyahu’s government in

(82:30) the end. They went along with it under

(82:32) that kind of pressure. So, it could be

(82:35) that insufficient pressure was put on

(82:37) them. It could be. But what I would what

(82:40) I would remind people is that for much

(82:42) of the war, Benir did not have the power

(82:46) to bring down Israel’s government by

(82:49) himself. Okay? because Benny Gansce was

(82:53) there, because Gaddy Eisenkot was there.

(82:56) So they provided that safety blanket so

(82:59) as to deny Bengir that power. And then

(83:04) even later in the war, another Israeli

(83:08) politician with a small party, Gidonsar,

(83:11) would end up rejoining the government

(83:14) for the specific reason as to deny Beng

(83:18) that power. Although Benvir with

(83:20) Smoterich together could endanger

(83:23) Israel’s government at certain points in

(83:26) the war.

(83:27) >> Okay. So let’s zoom out and talk about

(83:31) the core legacy of the October 7th war,

(83:34) including the war against Hezbollah, uh

(83:37) the war on Iran. There’s the whole

(83:40) domino effect of things that have

(83:41) happened since October 7th. And I’m

(83:43) going to ask you the effect of that war

(83:47) on various particular situations. So

(83:50) first one is the effect of the war

(83:52) overall on the prospect of a two-state

(83:55) solution.

(83:58) It has had a strongly negative effect.

(84:03) But people who rule it out entirely are

(84:06) wrong and depending on where they come

(84:09) from are sometimes engaging in wish in

(84:12) uh wishful thinking. So you will you

(84:15) will come across a certain kind of

(84:18) Israeli or American rightwinger who says

(84:22) Israelis will never agree to it from

(84:25) here from here on out. They want that to

(84:29) be

(84:31) true. However,

(84:33) um, Israelis have come back from

(84:36) gruesome Palestinian terrorism in the

(84:38) past to make offers of Palestinian

(84:41) statehood. And I think there is a real

(84:44) eagerness. That’s right. I think there

(84:45) is a real eagerness to move past this

(84:48) that if Israelis hear the right words,

(84:51) you could once again see a peace

(84:53) government in the future. But to their

(84:57) point, um,

(85:00) Israelis know what they saw on October

(85:02) 7th. I try to tell people this. And what

(85:05) they saw was actually existing

(85:08) Palestinian nationalism.

(85:11) You know in the cold war there was this

(85:14) term there had to be this term actually

(85:17) existing socialism because when when

(85:19) whenever you would try to say there was

(85:22) communis you know communism is this or

(85:25) socialism is this some guy would come up

(85:28) and say no no no that isn’t real

(85:30) communism that isn’t real socialism

(85:32) that’s kind of um deformed in you know

(85:35) Cambodia or in you know Cuba

(85:38) >> um

(85:38) >> but in its pure form Mark says it should

(85:40) look when we do real socialism, it’s

(85:42) it’s going to be fantastic. And so, you

(85:44) had to speak about actually existing

(85:47) socialism,

(85:48) >> not socialism on the blackboard

(85:50) somewhere.

(85:51) >> I think with Palestinian nationalism, in

(85:53) some ways, it’s, you know, precisely the

(85:56) same. Um,

(85:59) I could easily imagine for you and many

(86:02) people in the West speak about a version

(86:04) of Palestinian nationalism that could

(86:07) resolve this conflict, that could make

(86:09) peace with Israel, that wants a state

(86:13) side by side with the Jewish state and

(86:16) will live with it in peace. That kind of

(86:20) Palestinian nationalism, there would

(86:21) have been peace decades ago. The problem

(86:25) is that whether we start this clock in

(86:28) 1929,

(86:30) 1936,

(86:32) 1948,

(86:34) 1967,

(86:36) 2000, or right now that isn’t the

(86:39) Palestinian nationalism as it actually

(86:43) exists. What actually exists is carrying

(86:47) out an invasion and massacre such as

(86:52) October 7th

(86:54) and an act like that being celebrated

(86:58) widespread celebrations in Gaza in the

(87:02) West Bank even by the moderate

(87:04) Palestinian Authority which which uh

(87:08) glorified the massacre and the martyrs

(87:12) for school ch for school children in

(87:15) Palestinian authorityrun schools in the

(87:18) West Bank.

(87:20) The Israeli writer Shaimi Moore is, I

(87:25) think, excellent on this point, looking

(87:28) not just at this war, but seeing it as a

(87:30) pattern in ArabIsraeli

(87:34) wars that they are launched with the

(87:37) great anticipation

(87:39) of we are going to exterminate the

(87:42) Jewish state, annihilate its people.

(87:46) Sometimes they’ll say what’ll happen to

(87:48) them. Sometimes they won’t, but nothing

(87:51) good is going to happen to them. And it

(87:54) starts with this real jubilation.

(87:57) >> And then very, very quickly when the war

(88:00) doesn’t go that way, all of that

(88:03) excitement, that ecstasy

(88:06) is forgotten, is memory hold. And the

(88:09) war, whether in 1948 or 1967 or 2023, is

(88:15) re-imagined

(88:17) as a war of Israeli aggression and pure

(88:21) Palestinian victimization. And so, as

(88:24) long as that’s what Palestinian

(88:26) nationalism is, the chances for a

(88:29) two-state solution remain low.

(88:33) >> What has been the effect of the war on

(88:35) the USIsrael relationship?

(88:38) It has hurt the USIsrael relationship

(88:42) as all such wars do. And I’ll say I’ll

(88:46) actually add to that that this latest US

(88:49) Iran war has hurt the USIsrael

(88:53) relationship even though we’ve seen the

(88:55) greatest USIsrael military cooperation

(88:59) ever and really unprecedented what these

(89:02) two countries can do with each other

(89:04) when they work uh uh together. Um but uh

(89:13) two reasons here. The first is whenever

(89:16) Israel has to fight the Palestinians,

(89:19) Israel loses the battle of public

(89:22) opinion. It simply does. What’s on CNN

(89:25) is the wreckage in Gaza and not the

(89:29) security threat for Israel. Hamas is

(89:31) left out of the picture. Like I said,

(89:34) systematically,

(89:35) >> I think the purest example of this was

(89:36) the Hezbollah pager operation where um I

(89:40) you’ll you’ll maybe remember the numbers

(89:42) more specifically than I do, but it was

(89:44) about as targeted an operation as could

(89:46) exist because the pagers belong to the

(89:48) terrorist on their persons. So not

(89:51) you’re not dropping bombs. Uh you’re not

(89:53) saying there’s one terrorist in this

(89:55) house surrounded by a family. Uh you’re

(89:58) not shooting at terrorists knowing that

(90:00) some civilians could get caught in the

(90:01) crossfire.

(90:03) crossfire, you’re literally blowing up

(90:05) their pager that’s on their person,

(90:07) right? And obviously there were some uh

(90:09) casualties that were not fighters,

(90:12) right? Because if I’m standing right

(90:13) next to you and the pager goes off, but

(90:16) it was as targeted as you could

(90:18) reasonably hope any military strike to

(90:20) be. Literally more targeted, I would

(90:22) argue, than than bullets, right? And

(90:26) even from my eye, Israel lost the PR

(90:30) battle on that. So to me, that’s the

(90:32) purest case.

(90:35) All of which is to say the only time

(90:37) Israel wins PR battles is like an

(90:40) October 7th situation where Jews are

(90:43) killed and zero zero Palestinians are

(90:46) killed.

(90:48) >> So

(90:48) >> I I think there’s a lot of truth to

(90:50) that. And uh General Petraeus told me

(90:54) that uh the pager operation was the most

(90:58) targeted and the most impressive

(91:01) sabotage operation in all of

(91:04) intelligence history.

(91:06) >> And this is the former head of the CIA.

(91:09) Um,

(91:11) so when Israel is fighting a 2-year war

(91:15) like this

(91:17) at the top of every newspaper on CNN,

(91:20) flooding all of our social media feeds,

(91:23) um, having that be the be the high

(91:27) salience question for that long is

(91:31) simply destructive of the relationship.

(91:34) >> Yeah. It also brought Israel into

(91:37) conflict with um the Democratic Party.

(91:40) At a certain point, President Biden went

(91:42) on CNN in prime time and said, “I’m not

(91:45) giving you the uh the weapons.” And so,

(91:49) is it any surprise that Democrats now

(91:52) have run with that policy, not just at

(91:54) that moment, but as a policy writ large?

(91:57) I mean if the you know moderate wing of

(91:59) the Democratic party was saying that I

(92:01) think uh it ended up seating the field

(92:05) of Israel policy to the left wing of the

(92:08) party which used this two years of war

(92:11) high salience to win the battle in the

(92:15) Democratic party and then on the other

(92:17) side the Republican party um you know uh

(92:22) conservatives young conservatives use

(92:24) social media too and our subject object

(92:26) to many of the same pressures. And what

(92:29) I think happened is that a cast of

(92:33) opportunists and ideologues arose to

(92:37) give these young Republicans permission

(92:41) to go with the cultural flow to adopt

(92:45) the left-wing narrative on Israel and

(92:48) tell them that that’s actually even

(92:51) harder right that’s even more rightwing

(92:54) taking the left-wing narrative on Israel

(92:58) if you join it to more or less paranoia

(93:03) about Jewish subversion.

(93:06) >> And so when I look at something like the

(93:07) Tucker Carlson show,

(93:10) what I have written is that it’s not

(93:13) that Tucker

(93:15) and that the message of that show is

(93:18) that um all Jews are evil. The message

(93:22) and the subtext is that all evil is

(93:26) Jewish. And that’s what they get to over

(93:29) and over again. And that’s what’s been

(93:31) flooding young right-wingers social uh

(93:35) social media feeds in the way that Gaza

(93:39) and and uh related conspiracy theories

(93:42) have been flooding left-wingers social

(93:46) um media feeds. And so a big question

(93:49) now is how much of this was just because

(93:53) this was also high salience

(93:56) uh and maybe will fade away or moderate

(93:59) over time as it did after the the uh

(94:01) second inifatada for instance. Um and

(94:05) how much of this is now locked in and

(94:08) will there be a ratchet effect in terms

(94:11) of anti-Israel

(94:12) uh agitation?

(94:14) >> Okay, final question. What has been the

(94:16) effect of the war on the Abraham

(94:19) Accords, the possibility of expanding

(94:21) that to Saudi Arabia and other

(94:22) countries, and the future of peace in

(94:26) the Middle East, if you will.

(94:30) I think the Abraham Accords are not

(94:32) dead. they were delayed and put off

(94:36) because Israel and Saudi Arabia with US

(94:40) mediation were actually coming quite

(94:41) close to some sort of deal before this

(94:45) war. Um, and there were even

(94:48) opportunities during the war, uh,

(94:50) potentially could Israel, um, end the

(94:55) war, get the hostages, give some pathway

(94:58) for a Palestinian state, leave Hamas in

(95:02) charge, but move toward a Saudi deal. It

(95:05) wasn’t guaranteed, but there were

(95:07) opportunities. And at a certain point,

(95:10) Gance, Gallant, Eisenkot thought that

(95:13) Israel should take those opportunities.

(95:15) Um, but even now what I would say is the

(95:19) Abraham Accords are still being

(95:21) deepened.

(95:23) And what’s most

(95:25) interesting, I think, isn’t that other

(95:27) Arab states like like uh Saudi Arabia

(95:31) have been, you know, more cautious. Of

(95:33) course, they have after, you know, what

(95:36) Al Jazzer just aired for three years

(95:39) now. Um, what’s most interesting is that

(95:42) the Abraham Accords survived

(95:45) and are still deepening. In fact,

(95:48) relations between the US, sorry, uh

(95:52) relations between Israel and the UAE are

(95:56) deepening. the US and Morocco um just

(96:00) announced the resumption of flights back

(96:04) and forth from each country, expanded

(96:07) trade, um appointing ambassadors, making

(96:11) their consulates into full diplomatic

(96:14) missions. So that beach head of

(96:16) ArabIsraeli

(96:18) peace and normalization and a different

(96:21) way of looking at the Middle East

(96:23) conflict

(96:25) that has survived. And that different

(96:28) way is it doesn’t all have to come down

(96:33) to Israel versus the Palestinians. There

(96:37) are 20 Arab states. There are 50 Muslim

(96:41) states. there’s one tiny Jewish state.

(96:45) Maybe there are interests other than

(96:47) this one conflict in the region.

(96:51) Uh maybe working against Iran, as we see

(96:54) now, is more important to each of these

(96:57) countries than waiting for the

(97:00) Palestinians to finally say yes. Maybe

(97:03) they won’t be held back. Hamas was able

(97:06) to some extent re-establish that

(97:09) Palestinian veto. Saudi Arabia because

(97:11) of what was said on Al Jazzer and so

(97:14) forth doesn’t want to move forward until

(97:17) they can satisfy themselves that they

(97:18) have enough on the Palestinian front.

(97:21) But I think the larger case for it, the

(97:23) interestbased case still makes sense.

(97:27) And if I can just do one last thing,

(97:31) >> which is look at the broad sweep of this

(97:33) war from the vantage point of October

(97:36) 7th.

(97:38) When Yakya Sinoir Hamas launched this,

(97:42) he had no idea all of the dominoes that

(97:46) were going to fall.

(97:48) Maybe he saw that Hamas itself was going

(97:51) to be crushed, lose more than half its

(97:54) territory, its leaders, his own life.

(97:57) uh it’s you know missile arsenal arm

(98:00) smuggling route on the border. Okay,

(98:02) maybe he saw that [snorts]

(98:05) in Lebanon seeing Iran’s strongest

(98:08) proxy, the beating heart of that ring of

(98:12) fire, of that axis of resistance as they

(98:15) call it. Hezbollah get devastated, lose

(98:19) territory, have its arsenal no longer be

(98:22) an existential threat to Israel, lose

(98:25) its leaders and commanders, uh lose its

(98:28) elite Radwan invasion force, incredible

(98:32) damage. And then because Hisbala was

(98:35) taken out of the fight, Syria’s Assad

(98:38) regime crumbles very rapidly. And so

(98:42) Iran loses the um critical transit hub

(98:47) for that entire proxy network and you

(98:50) now have a regime that maybe we should

(98:54) worry about. But the one thing we do

(98:55) know is that it’s anti-Iran.

(98:58) And then you have Iran itself, which has

(99:01) scored victories in this latest most

(99:04) recent Iran war. And yet its nuclear

(99:08) program, the single greatest threat to

(99:11) Israel, to America and the world, is in

(99:15) rubble right now. Its industrial base,

(99:18) defense industrial base smashed. Its

(99:22) missiles have been reduced. They’re

(99:24) still a problem. It’s lost leaders and

(99:27) commanders economically uh crushed and

(99:30) is now under a US naval blockade. Who

(99:33) could have seen that? Okay. on October

(99:37) 6th, let’s say, 2023.

(99:40) And so from the vantage point of Iran’s

(99:43) regime, even though it’s been able to

(99:45) gain back some of it lately, although

(99:49) we’ll see if it can hang on to that

(99:51) straight of Hormuz, it seems to be

(99:53) losing control some of it. But from

(99:56) Iran’s perspective on every front, it

(100:00) has taken huge losses and lost

(100:03) multi-deade, multi-billion dollar

(100:06) investments. And so when Israelis look

(100:09) out, they have they know how much their

(100:15) public image has suffered in the world.

(100:17) Okay? They don’t kid themselves about

(100:19) that, but they also know how much has

(100:22) been accomplished on the ground. And

(100:26) what they don’t know is which of those

(100:28) two will last and which of those two

(100:32) will prove ephemeral. My guess is what

(100:36) they do in the coming years and what

(100:38) America does in the coming years is

(100:41) going to answer that question.

(100:43) >> Okay. Elliot Kaufman, the book is in the

(100:45) war room. I can’t recommend it enough.

(100:47) Thank you so much for coming on the

(100:48) show.

(100:49) >> Thank you, Coleman.