June 25, 2025 • 57 mins
On this week’s episode, Israel Policy Forum Policy Advisor and Tel Aviv-based journalist Neri Zilber hosts Haaretz Military Correspondent Amos Harel to discuss the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, the role of President Trump, Israel's success in the 12-day campaign, the murky state of Iran's nuclear program, Iran's lackluster performance during the war, the role of diplomacy and military action moving forward, what impact the conflict with Iran may have on Israel's war in Gaza, and more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Neri (00:05):
Shalom and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod.
I'm Nery Zilber, a journalistbased in Tel Aviv and a policy
advisor to Israel Policy Forum.
We're back and there's a reasonwhy we were away last week
after the outbreak of theIsrael-Iran war, which I'll get
into in just a minute, trust me.
But we have a big episode foryou this week with our good
(00:26):
friend Amos Harrell, the defenseanalyst and correspondent at
Haaretz, who will break down thehistoric 12-day war trademark.
Donald Trump.
We all just went throughIsrael's performance in the war,
iran's performance in the warand the big question on
everyone's mind Iran'sperformance in the war and the
big question on everyone's mindwhat now, and especially what
now for Gaza?
(00:47):
Before we start, it's nolaughing matter to say this was
unlike anything Israel has evergone through.
The country definitely hasknown rocket and missile fire on
its home front for nearly fivedecades, ever since the days of
the PLO back in southern Lebanonand their fire on northern
Israel.
Since then, israeli citizentowns have come under fire from
(01:08):
Hezbollah in Lebanon, saddamHussein, hamas, of course, the
Houthis in Yemen of late.
But we've never seen the levelof damage and devastation and
fatalities caused by Iran'sballistic missiles 28 people
were killed and over 1 athousand injured over the past
12 days, and 15,000 Israeliswere left homeless.
(01:29):
All you have to do is look atthe destruction at the impact
sites, whether in Be'er Shevaearlier today, bat Yam, rishon,
hatzion, tamra, ramat Gan, telAviv and many other locations
who sadly were hit, tounderstand why the devastation
was so big.
The images are just shocking.
(01:51):
It wasn't a joke, even with theterrific work of the Israeli
and American air defense systems.
Not a joke at all thesemissiles.
But everyone here, I dare say,is very glad that it's over, and
I'm also glad it's over.
More than anything, I'm glad tobe here in Israel.
So what happened?
(02:11):
Well, greece happened.
I flew out on Thursday June12th to what I thought would be
a wonderful and relaxing weddingweekend Don't worry, not my own
wedding On the beautiful islandof Hydra in Greece, and, by the
way, locals and Euros pronounceit Hydra, not Hydra, but Hydra
(02:33):
is Leonard Cohen's island forcontext, and also for good
reason.
It's just a beautiful,beautiful place.
So, long story short, I wake upon June 13th to learn that Bibi
Netanyahu finally did it.
He attacked Iran.
And I woke up that morning andalso realized I was stuck, since
the airspace was immediatelyshut down over Israel.
(02:55):
So there I was in one of themost beautiful places I've ever
been to, attending a beautifulwedding of two beautiful friends
and generally just peoplebeautiful wedding of two
beautiful friends and generallyjust people All the while I'm on
my phone following and coveringa war back home.
By the way, I wasn't alone inthis.
An estimated 150,000 Israelisalso got stuck outside the
(03:21):
country when the war broke outand we're looking for a way
anyway to get back in.
We shouldn't make getting backin any easier, let me tell you,
but eventually I, along with mygood friend Daniel Estrin of NPR
, who was also at this weddingon Idra, found a way to get back
.
It took one ferry, twosuccessful flights, two other
flights not successful threetaxis across various landmasses
(03:46):
and 29 hours to get back home.
Basically Idra, athens, cairo,sharm el-Sheikh, taba, eilat,
tel Aviv.
I got back to my apartment inJaffa on Tuesday, last Tuesday
afternoon, turned the key andimmediately I got alerts for
incoming missiles on my phone.
I was overjoyed, let me tellyou, to get that message and
(04:11):
also resolved that I'm not goingback to Hydra anytime soon.
It's way too traumatic.
With that, let's get to AmosHarrell Hi Amos, welcome back to
the podcast.
Amos (04:23):
Hi, neri, thanks for having me.
Neri (04:26):
It's really my pleasure, as always, amos, but especially
today, on this auspicious day ofthe Iran-Israel ceasefire that
came in early Tuesday morning.
When we set this up Amosyesterday, I didn't know what to
expect.
I was sure I was going to tellour listeners and viewers that
we may have to stop for incomingballistic missile fire and
(04:49):
sirens, but, uh, we now have aceasefire.
It's been a hell of a two weeks, I think, for for everyone, uh,
especially those of us, uh,caught up in all of it here on
the ground.
Um, we'll get into all of it injust a second almost, but I
think we'll start here with aquestion on everyone's mind.
Really, after the past 12historic and crazy days, why now
(05:12):
?
Why did the ceasefire come inearly this morning and why was
the ceasefire reached?
Why did Israel agree?
Why did Trump push for it?
Amos (05:22):
I think, more than anything else.
I think that we now live inTrump's world.
The world behaves according toTrump rules.
It's him above anything else,and it's his own interests, his
own motives, that are leading tomost decision making.
If you go back to the actualIsraeli attack against Iran, it
(05:47):
wouldn't have happened, probablyunder any other American
president.
We've seen Biden, we've seenObama, we've seen even Bush Jr
the second George Bush alldisapproving of an Israeli
attack.
It was only once Trump cameback into power after winning
(06:09):
the elections last November thatit became clear that there is a
possibility that America wouldgive Israel the green light
Later on, Trump's decision tostrike again a very personal way
to dealwith things, it's all about him.
And then, once he decided tostrike, once he decided that
(06:31):
America would join by attackingFaudot, it was quite clear that
that was over from his view.
We all knew in advance that hewould portray this as the best
in the world, the biggest, thegreatest, the highest, the
deepest, the tallest, whateverattack in world history like the
world has never seen before.
(06:52):
And then he would rush as fastas possible, as quickly as
possible, to an agreement.
So he couldn't reach anagreement, but he could force a
ceasefire.
So he couldn't reach anagreement, but he could force a
ceasefire, both on the Iranianswho were, I think, naturally
seeking a ceasefire, seeking arelief after all they've been
(07:12):
through, and also he would forcehis good friend Netanyahu to do
the same.
And then quite a strange 24hours.
If you'd like to get into thatlater.
That's quite a story, but thisis all.
It's like a reality show.
It's very real.
In the end, people die.
It's lethal, there's a lot ofpain and suffering and yet some
(07:35):
of it is almost comical becauseevents are so different than
what we've been used to beforewhen we talked about
international relations ormatters of war and peace,
strategic affairs and so on.
This is the 2025 version,directed by Donald J Trump.
Neri (08:00):
Directed by Donald J Trump , and all of it revolving around
Donald J Trump Of course,starring, leading the star, he's
the main character.
Yeah, yeah, Someone made thepoint earlier today, on Tuesday,
when all of this was going downI think you're referring to him
almost in real time negotiatingwhether Israeli fighter jets
(08:21):
would actually bomb Iran or not.
I mean really, you know in realtime.
He was negotiating this socialmedia and then actually with
Netanyahu himself.
But someone mentioned thatthere's no staff work in terms
of the US president.
It's him following events inreal time and then reacting in
real time to those events.
Amos (08:42):
Some of that's done on Twitter, yeah.
Yeah so it's quite remarkable,but if we go back to the events,
then he forces a ceasefireduring the late hours of Monday
night.
Netanyahu was holding a cabinetmeeting, but I think Trump
(09:03):
called him at one point oranother and more or less ordered
him to stop strikes againstIran.
Then he tweeted sometime in themorning I think it was 3am our
Israeli time when he tweeted along tweet saying that both
sides came to him at the sametime Israel and Iran.
And guess what?
They both wanted peace.
(09:24):
And now a new era begins inwhich came to him at the same
time Israel and Iran.
And guess what?
They both wanted peace.
And now a new era begins inwhich love and peace and
prosperity for all.
He sees all that in our futureand our collective futures and
so on.
So it seemed quite well.
He already announced that theceasefire would be implemented
by 7 am our time, and yet bothof us woke up at around 5 am
(09:50):
once the Iranians beganlaunching missiles against
Israel.
One of those was very, verylethal.
It was an incident in Beershebawhere four people were killed.
This went on until slightlyafter 7 am and it seemed to be
the end of it.
But then, at 10.30, iranlaunched two missiles again
(10:10):
Nobody knows why exactly.
Iran is not a terroristorganization.
It's different than Hezbollahor Hamas.
Once an order is given, it'ssupposed to be obeyed, but this
is not what happened.
And then, while Trump wassleeping, israel announced that
it was going to attack and noless than 20 fighter jets were
(10:31):
sent to Iran in order to bombthe hell out of Tehran again.
And yet, once again, I can't be.
I wouldn't envy the I don'tknow what official it was, but
the man who was supposed to wakeup the president and tell him
that things were not going onexactly as he assumed.
I guess he probably encounteredquite a shouting, but that's
(10:53):
nothing when compared to what hedid while speaking to Netanyahu
.
Of course, netanyahu was deniedthat by now, but you could see
how angry the president was.
Later, he was actually usingthe F word on camera while
talking to reporters, and thatwas the end of it.
By then, the Israelis made aspectacular U-turn Instead of
(11:16):
bombing Tehran, the fighter jetsbombed the radar somewhere in
northern Iran, and that was theend of it.
Since then, we have a ceasefirein Iran, and that was the end
of it.
Since then, we have a ceasefire.
I doubted whether anybody woulddare again to act differently
now, once the president has madehis point.
Neri (11:36):
No, definitely not, and especially a president with
apparently very little sleep,and also I was told it was very
hot and muggy day in Washington,so I think he was displeased
anyway.
And then he was obviouslypushing back against both Iran
and Israel, which came as a bigshock to everyone here in Israel
, that he was just as angry withIsrael and claimed the
(11:57):
violations.
And we should also mention, Ithink, that Trump contradicted
his own original tweetannouncing the ceasefire when he
said that Iran would stopfiring at 7 am, whatever time,
and that Israel would only stopfiring 12 hours later.
Amos (12:11):
And again quite strange.
I've never heard of a ceasefirebeing implemented like that
yeah.
Neri (12:19):
So you also wonder who put that together.
But nevertheless he demandedthe fighting stop.
The fighting eventually didstop.
I'm curious Trump aside, amos,from the Israeli point of view,
we've been hearing murmurs sincethe weekend definitely Sunday
and government itself, ie theprime minister, that actually
(12:47):
were also amenable to finishingthe campaign that pretty much
all the objectives had beenreached and that the mechanism
would essentially be what Trumpcame up with, which was both of
you just stop firing and we'llcall it a ceasefire and move
into the next phase.
Is that your understanding aswell that Israel was also pretty
ready for this 12-day war to beover?
Amos (13:09):
Yeah, that's quite clear.
I think Israel has achievedmost of its goals.
It was only Defense MinisterIsrael Kaz quite a strange
persona to begin with, whoinsisted on talking about regime
change all the way and who,also this morning, threatened
Iran again with Israel's mightyresponse after the last two
(13:34):
missiles were launched at theHaifa area.
Other than that, I thinkNetanyahu was quite cautious
about acting for regime change.
He was flirting with the idea.
It was never really discussed,it was never really planned for.
I think Israel has done morethan it intended to do in the
(13:58):
beginning.
It was more successful than itbelieved before the strikes
began.
It turned out that Iran was notas strong as probably the
Israelis have assumed.
Iran was infiltrated from somany different angles that they
could.
You know that the Mossad andAmman, the Israeli military
(14:21):
intelligence, knew almosteverything that needed to be
known about Iran's plans, aboutIran's points of weakness, about
its infrastructure and so on.
So this was extremelysuccessful.
And yet I assume Netanyahubeing he's in a different stage
right now.
It's not the old Netanyahu whowas always considered extremely
(14:42):
calculated and cautious when itcame to applying military force.
It's a different man sinceOctober 7th and everything that
has happened since, and yet Idon't think that he's looking.
Unlike the situation in Gaza,which we've discussed a lot on
the pod in the past, when itcame to Iran, he was very
focused.
What he wanted to do wasdestroy as much as possible off
(15:05):
the nuclear plan.
He wanted to drag Trump intothis.
He understood that it was aone-off kind of thing.
There was one mission that hecould persuade Trump to agree to
, and that has already happenedand once this has happened,
there was no time to waste.
He couldn't seem to be, in theeyes of his supporters, to be
(15:29):
too much of a pacifist aboutthis, and yet anybody who was
following this could assume thatNetanyahu was already searching
for the way out.
It's not exactly an exitstrategy.
It's not that calculated.
I'm not sure there was such aplan, but once Trump got himself
involved in this, thenNetanyahu played along.
His problem right now is thehumiliating see already attacks.
(15:50):
Some of his opponents from theopposition are now attacking him
from the right.
Even centrists, lieberman orothers, are now saying that
(16:12):
they're disappointed becauseactually, more should have been
done, but and yet, I think mostof the people following this
think that Israel has achieved alot, perhaps much more than we
assumed we could, and that,under these circumstances, the
best thing to do is to call it aday and look for the next stage
.
Neri (16:31):
And especially given the real damage here on the Israeli
home front, the issue of the airdefenses and the interceptors,
whether a war of attrition withIran going on for days more or
weeks more, was really inIsrael's interest.
That was also a question in theether, even last week, amos, on
(16:53):
the issue of Israel'sperformance and taking a step
back and trying to sum up thishistoric campaign I mean now who
uses that word, but I think inthis context it's fair the two
main goals, the nuclear programin Iran and the missile program
in Iran, damaged, heavilydamaged.
(17:14):
That was obviously the mainobjective.
But also taking out themilitary chain of command,
especially at the start, nuclearscientists, air defenses, other
military installations.
I mean how would you sum upIsrael's military performance
over the past 12 days?
I mean how would you assess thedamage also inflicted on Iran
(17:37):
really at this point?
Amos (17:39):
Nery.
Look, this is massive.
This is more than anybody wouldhave expected.
I've been covering this issuefrom on and off, I think more
than 20 years, and I hardlybelieve that there would ever
come the day when actually thiswould be implemented, when
Israel would actually strikeIran, and by now we're used to
(18:00):
it.
It's at the pace of events, youknow.
A few days later you say, okay,what else is new?
And yet this is extremelydramatic and it's also very,
very successful.
And Netanyahu succeeded twice.
First he succeeded inpersuading Trump to give him the
green light, and then hesucceeded, when a lot of people
felt that this couldn't be done,in persuading Trump to join in,
(18:22):
because there's nothing moresuccessful than success and
Trump being at the center ofevents.
There were two issues here theTACO, the Trump Always Chicken
Us Out acronym, and also theFOMO Fear of Missing Out, and
the combination of the two meantthat he needed to show
everybody that he was brave andcourageous enough to do that and
(18:42):
to join in.
But going back to the Israelisuccess, it's quite clear Again
Israel was never able to destroycompletely the Iranian nuclear
plan on its own.
When matters came to Fodou, itwas very clear that 90 meters
underground was impossible topenetrate from an Israeli
(19:06):
perspective, and this is wherewe needed their help.
But other than that, we wereextremely successful.
We were aggressive, we took theinitiative, we surprised the
other side.
They were exposed.
Israeli intelligence turned outto know everything about their
plans.
Also, we succeeded inassassinating a massive number
(19:29):
of their top nuclear scientists,and so on.
So this is huge, as thepresident would say, but on the
other hand, it wasn't the end ofthis.
You needed the United States onboard in order to finalize the
mission.
And still, even today, therewere reports in the last few
(19:54):
hours in the Israeli media thatthere is no longer an Iranian
nuclear project.
Now I somehow suspect that thiscomes from either Netanyahu or
Dermer, and you would allow meto maintain a slight suspicion
that there's some sort ofexaggeration regarding this
(20:18):
conclusion, but there are otherpeople who I would trust, for
instance the nuclear analystDavid Albright, who are still
saying that this is devastating,that the Iranians have no way
of enriching uranium again to 60or 90 percent any time in the
near future, and that thedestruction is, if not complete,
(20:40):
is, extremely massive, and thatit would take the Iranians
years to recover from this, evenif they do there's always a
possibility of Israel strikingback again or perhaps the
Americans joining in.
So this is really, reallymassive.
If we're trying to summarizeeverything that has happened
since October 7th, here is whereI take a different point than
(21:03):
Netanyahu and his followers andhis trumpets and so on, because
there what Netanyahu was tryingto do, of course, is to define,
to invent a new narrative.
You saw I don't know if you sawthat piece David Remnick, the
editor in chief of the NewYorker, interviewed some Israeli
journalists, including myself,amit Segal, alouf Ben and others
(21:24):
, anshul Pfeffer and all theusual suspects about the latest
events, and what Amit said therewas that somehow being given
the historic examples I wouldassume that this comes straight
from Netanyahu's mouth, but thehistorical comparison was to
(21:49):
Pearl Harbor.
October 7th was Pearl Harborand yet Netanyahu was somehow
Roosevelt and he now achieved afinal victory over Iran, which
was behind the plans to beginwith on October 7th, and now the
(22:10):
turning point has been reached,and so on, and I think a lot of
this was improvised.
I think that it wasn't a plan,and I was now trying to portray
this as if, on October 9th, healready told people that the
Middle East would be differentand that he would defeat the
radical axis, and so on.
I think he improvised.
I think a lot of this.
(22:30):
He was in shock in thebeginning.
It took some time to recover.
We were not too successfulfacing Hamas.
We're still unable to bringback 50 of our hostages from
Gaza.
We were much more successfulagainst Hezbollah, and somehow
Khamenei in Iran repeated someof Nasrallah's mistakes in
Lebanon last year.
And now, of course, the radicalaxis has been hit.
(22:53):
Some of this is probably almostby accident.
The collapse of the Assadregime doesn't have a lot to do
with us.
We somehow contributed to this,but it's not because of us.
It happened because ofdifferent reasons.
It's a chain of events that Ithink that most people could not
have figured in advance.
It's true that Netanyahu, formany, many years, talked about
(23:14):
defeating the Axis and that itfinally happened.
If we haven't defeated themcompletely, we did manage to
destroy most of the nuclearproject, and that's extremely
important.
And yet, in my view, I thinkthat the original sin of October
7th and we've discussed thattime and time again on your pod.
That was big to be forgotten.
(23:34):
So many Israelis killed thatday and since All of those
hostages 251, 50 now remainingin captivity, 20 of them
hopefully still alive this ismassive and it will not be
forgotten.
But Netanyahu, who neverclaimed responsibility for the
(23:55):
fiasco that allowed this tohappen, of course is now
claiming full credit for theattack now in Iran.
And I think it's not a Hollywoodkind of story, you know, first
facing loss and then reachingredemption.
It's much more complicated thanthat.
Again, I wouldn't count onpolitical polls too much, but
(24:18):
you probably noticed the Channel12 political poll this evening
and the Netanyahu coalitionstill has a support of 49
mandates out of 120, and theopposition still has 51.
The Arab parties have the other10 seats, according to the poll
.
That's quite amazing.
This is supposed to beNetanyahu's biggest achievement
(24:39):
ever, one of the biggeststrategic victories for Israel
in recent memory, if not inIsraeli history, and yet the
public has hardly moved.
Perhaps that would change.
Perhaps people would be if thehostages are back.
Perhaps people would bepersuaded that this is in fact,
that it shows that Netanyahu isthe greatest leader and that
(25:00):
Netanyahu has recovered, and soon the magician, as some people
call him.
And yet I think others are notgoing to forgive him so easily,
in spite of this greatachievement.
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Neri (26:11):
So I won't put you on the spot because you're not here to
talk politics.
Almost You're here to talkabout military and security
affairs.
But yes, I also noted before westarted recording that the
polls really haven't moved interms of the past 12 days and
the great historic achievementthat Netanyahu led and
orchestrated I mean, he is theprime minister, so we'll give
(26:33):
him credit for that.
Camp here is already puttingforward this new narrative that
Aryeh Deri, the head of theAltru Orthodox Shas party, said,
I think earlier today oryesterday yesterday that October
7th actually saved thousands,if not millions, of Israeli
(26:55):
lives, because it set in motionexactly the sequence of events
that you laid out that Hamas asort of folk tale, a Hasidic
tale about God stopped caringfor us and then he came back to
save us through his MessiahNetanyahu or messenger, or
whatever.
Right, god averted his eyes fora few terrible hours in the
(27:19):
morning on.
October 7th 2023.
But then he came back and nowis leading the nation of Israel
to success after success.
As you said, amos Netanyahu onOctober 9th could not have known
that Nasrallah and Khameneiwould make all the strategic
errors and mistakes that theyeventually did, leading up to,
(27:39):
well, their demise and then thepast 12 days.
It could have gone verydifferently if they had made
different decisions in the wakeof Hamas's decision on October
7th.
But luckily, we're still hereand, well, netanyahu is still
here as well.
Just to wrap up, the issue ofthe nuclear program, amos and
the damage done or not done.
(28:00):
Obviously people here want tosay that it's completely
destroyed.
Other people are talking about,well, perhaps a covert program
400 kilograms of highly enricheduranium 60% that has been taken
somewhere inside Iran, advancedcentrifuges to enrich that
(28:20):
uranium taken somewhere insideIran.
Are you worried about thataspect of it, that some remnants
of the program, some kind ofadvanced elements, will lead
Iran to, perhaps the capabilityof a covert program with an eye
to break out?
Is that something you'reworried about?
The people that you talk to areworried about with an eye to
(28:41):
break out?
Is that something you'reworried?
Amos (28:42):
about the people that you talk to are worried about.
Yeah, to some extent.
Yes, it's too much of a weightto somehow be lost somewhere in
Iran without Israel beingworried about that.
I think the program, theproject has been pushed back
(29:02):
quite significantly.
And yet you cannot rule outcompletely a scenario in which
the leader, khamenei, who's 86years old, the Iranian supreme
leader, makes a decisionsometime in the near future,
saying, look, we were that closeto reaching our goal of
producing a nuclear bomb.
(29:24):
We didn't do that in the end,we hesitated, and look what
happened.
And now their fear of beingreally disliked by, I think, the
majority of the Iranian public.
They're without an insurancepolicy.
It's true that they're besiegedwithout an insurance policy.
It's true that they're besieged.
They are IRGC corps.
The army and so on are quiteaggressive and have you know,
(29:54):
have had quite enough experienceat fighting protests and quite
viciously in the past they haveseen you know just the hijab
revolt two years ago or theunsuccessful Green revolution in
2009.
There were many cases in whichthe Iranian public or parts of
it were trying to overthrow theregime and failed, but I think,
the regime.
There's a possibility that theregime could come to a
(30:16):
conclusion that what they needis, in fact, the insurance
policy meaning a bomb need is,in fact, the insurance policy
meaning a bomb.
And if you look at recenthistory, ukraine has given up
its nuclear arsenal after thecollapse of the Soviet Union,
and that's not a good thing.
If you look at Ukraine in thelast three years, they probably
would have had a better chanceof fighting the Russians if they
(30:41):
maintained the nuclearcapability.
Now, the same goes for Libya,of course.
Gaddafi 2002, once the UnitedStates was getting ready to the
Second Gulf War against Iraq.
Gaddafi gave up the beginningof a nuclear plan and then it
was lynched on the street in2011, once the Arab Spring began
in Libya.
(31:01):
In 2011, once the Arab Springbegan in Libya.
So I'm sure the Iranians arethinking of these historic
examples and trying to avoidthat.
And yet, first of all, there'sthe problems with the actual
getting, the actual outcome.
Is it in fact possible underthe new circumstances?
(31:24):
Do they have the scientists todo that?
Do they have the knowledge?
Are they capable of doing thatwithout being struck by the
Israelis again?
And yet, that's one issue.
And the second is isn't that toodangerous?
Wouldn't that mean the end ofthe regime?
And yet I think there's apossibility at least that this
is what he'll tell them to do toperhaps an experiment, some
(31:50):
kind of a blow up, some kind ofa primitive bomb to show that
they have the capability to gowhat is known as the North
Korean path.
That's a possibility, and Ican't rule it out completely.
We'll have to wait and seeagain.
In my view, with my limitedunderstanding of what has
happened and without having allthe intelligence or the
information about what wasreally discovered on Iran's
(32:13):
intentions, I think, if there'sa you know, there's a
possibility that this couldhappen, and yet I think it was
the, as far as I can tell rightnow.
I think that Israel wasjustified in the decision to
strike.
I have said that for the last12 days.
I think that both things can betrue at the same time that
(32:33):
Israel had the right to do thisand that it was the right thing
to do, and, on the other hand,that the man making the decision
, netanyahu, did not have thelegitimacy to decide.
He may have been supported inretrospect by most of the
Israelis, and yet I doubt hisintentions.
There was always the.
It's more than a suspicion.
(32:54):
I think that most of us knowthat he had personal motives
when he decided on that and look, it hasn't played out
beautifully for him yetpolitically.
And yet there's an assumptionthat the trial will be delayed.
And think of his criminal trial.
It's the part where there's across-examination.
Is he going to be called backas a witness in a week's time?
(33:18):
How would that seem?
The man who bombed Iran wouldnow discuss the cigars and the
jewelry and whatever.
I can write already hisarguments and I'm not a
Netanyahu supporter, as you maysuspect he would use that.
It's part of the issue.
His claim to fame, hisnarrative from now on would be I
(33:42):
saved you from an Iranian bomb.
This is the way this is, youknow.
The slogan almost writes itselfwhen you think of the next
campaign.
Neri (33:52):
It's literally what he said in a pre-recorded televised
address right before we startedrecording.
He literally said I saved youfrom another.
Holocaust, another Holocaust.
Amos (34:04):
Essentially, that's what he's saying he's promised to do
that for 40 years and heactually fulfilled the promise
by now.
It's no wonder that he's actinga little bit messianic by now.
Neri (34:18):
Very messianic.
But to your earlier point, Amos.
I think it speaks to theparadox of the current moment,
where the vast majority of theIsraeli public was in favor of
this campaign, was in favor andsupportive of this war, and yet
they're still highly suspiciousof the motives, both personal
and otherwise, of the manactually leading the campaign,
(34:40):
which I think is bearing out nowin the polls.
So it's very, very interesting,amos, in terms of the tales of
the tape, the Iranian side ofthe equation.
Obviously Iran was the big bossat the end of the Middle East,
kind of orchestrating all theseproxies, Hamas, hezbollah, the
(35:01):
Houthis.
To a certain extent, it wasalways viewed as a formidable
foe.
How would you assess theirresponse, or lack thereof, over
the past 12 days, aside fromlobbing ballistic missiles at
Israeli cities?
What do you think?
By the way, I'd love to getyour thoughts what happened to
the proxies?
Hezbollah didn't get involved.
Amos (35:26):
The Houthis fired maybe one missile over the past week
and a half.
So there is a temptation,already after the victory over
Hezbollah last year, to say inretrospect that we
underestimated Hamas and weoverestimated Hezbollah, and
perhaps Iran as well.
That's not exactly true.
I think what these events showus is how much depends on your
(35:46):
preparation and on taking theinitiative first.
This is June 13th.
Without comparing this, exactlyis Iran's October 7th.
Again, we underestimated Hamas.
Iran underestimated ourcapability and perhaps believed
too much in its own capabilities, and this is what happened.
(36:07):
Iran, in the end, prepared foryears and years and years the
nuclear plan, the missile plan,proliferation of weapons, the
building, the Shia militias, theproxies that you mentioned,
what Qasem Soleimani, who wasassassinated by the Americans in
2020, what he described as aring of fire around Israel.
(36:29):
The big plan was there.
There was even another plan,which is even more frightening
what we call the annihilationplan, the destruction plan.
It turns out that they wereserious.
This clock that has beendescribed in the Palestine
Square in Tehran, it's actuallya real thing.
They did have a clock countingthe hours until the demise of
(36:51):
Israel that the leader thatKhamenei promised in 2040, 15
years left on that clock andIsrael struck yesterday and
apparently a missed the clockhas not been heard.
This is at least the story fromTehran right now.
But there was a plan there andit turns out that they spent
(37:11):
hundreds.
According to the Israeliintelligence, they spent
hundreds of millions of dollars,hundreds of billions of dollars
on these plans and it allcollapsed within 12 days, which
is quite amazing.
It turns out that it's notenough to spend money.
It's not enough to be a crazyideological radical.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Islamist.
Amos (37:35):
You still need something more than that.
You need better preparations,perhaps better thinking, perhaps
people who are more free toexpress their professional
opinions and do not fear aleader that can execute them if
they don't do as they're told,and so on.
It's different.
Israel, in spite of all of itsflaws and weaknesses, is still a
(38:01):
democracy, a western kind ofstrange western kind of liberal
democracy, and it had the upperhand because it was about our
survival and because we preparedfor that, because Mossad and
Aman and the Air Force and so onwere preparing for so many
years to do that.
And this is, in a way, quitesimilar to what happened with
(38:22):
Hezbollah.
And again, hezbollah.
We now tend to forget aboutthat, but Hezbollah was our
mightiest opponent.
For many, many years.
People didn't believe that Iranwould get itself involved, but
we did fear a Hezbollah attackfor many, many years, and
Hezbollah was destroyed within afew.
Most of its capabilities weredestroyed within a few weeks.
(38:45):
Now, getting back to yoursecond question not only
Hezbollah, but the other proxies.
So Hezbollah was taken out ofthe equation.
Last September and October,naim Qasem, the deputy the
longtime deputy leader ofHezbollah, who was never ready
for prime time, suddenly foundhimself in trying to fill
(39:08):
Nasrallah's big shoes, and he'snot very good at that and even
now he's trying to avoidconflict with Israel.
It could change in the future.
Right now he doesn't want toend up like Nasrallah and the
situation in Lebanon has changedquite a lot.
The government, the newpresident, the chief of staff of
the army are not on Hezbollah'sside anymore and there there's
(39:32):
much more American involvementright now in trying to push
Hezbollah into a corner.
So Hezbollah was not rootingfor another round with Israel.
At the moment Same goes forothers, I would assume tonight.
We talked about that earlier.
I wouldn't be surprised ifyou'd be woken up later on
tonight by a missile from theHouthis in Yemen.
(39:53):
I don't know if you'll bothergoing to the bomb shelter.
We've stopped going for Houthimissiles.
Bomb shelter We've stoppedgoing for Houthi missiles.
It doesn't have the same kindof it doesn't bring you the same
kind of emotional response asIranian missiles, which have
another kind of alarm at yourphone and so on.
So a lot of people you know ifyou live in a five-story
(40:18):
building, you may go to thestair steps two floors under you
and not go all the way into thebomb shelter, and nobody does
that kind of calculation with anIranian missile attack, but
that's the way it goes, soprobably the Houthis would get
themselves involved soon.
And yet they didn't launch onesingle missile, I think, since
(40:42):
the beginning.
The same goes for the IraqiShia militias and so on.
All of those proxy forces thatIran was spending so much money
on for years and years chose tostay out of this realm, and I
think they realized what hashappened.
What was the real equation ofpower?
Again, israel should not be toovain about that.
(41:02):
There's this Quite constantdanger of Hibblis, of being too
sure of yourself and feelingthat you know everything and
that you can beat anybody.
That's not the case.
This is what led us to October7th, and yet I think that our
performance, whether it's themilitary, or Mossad, or Shin Bet
(41:23):
or so on, ever since not onOctober 7th, not in Gaza, but on
other fronts is quiteimpressive when it comes down to
it.
But as I said before, I cannotjust clap for Netanyahu while he
(41:44):
avoids assuming responsibilityfor what has happened on October
7th.
It doesn't just go away thememory, the taint you know that
Eretz Ne'eret, the satiricalprogram on Channel 12, has him
with a sort of chomanketem taint.
Neri (42:00):
A stain on his forehead.
Amos (42:02):
On his forehead.
Neri (42:04):
It doesn't go away.
Amos (42:05):
This blood.
Yeah, it doesn't go away, andthis blood is on me, and I think
that's quite a powerfulmetaphor for what has happened,
and I think he knows that.
This is the reason why heavoids discussing it completely.
This is the reason why hehasn't visited Niroz on the Gaza
border yet, while he went toBat Yam and other places that
(42:25):
were hit by Iranian missiles inthe last few days.
Neri (42:30):
By the way, it's like Israel's version of Saturday
Night Live.
Amos (42:35):
Somewhat funnier in my view, but that's.
It's a lot funnier, yeah.
Neri (42:39):
A lot funnier, a lot more biting, pretty much a genius
show.
And they actually had a wartimeepisode last week, which was
quite remarkable.
Amos (42:49):
And, yes, he still had the stain on his forehead, but this
is Israel, nery no need toexplain that to you because you
live here but the fact that theresilience remains, that people
are willing to discuss, the factthat both of us we're
professionals, we're journalists, we were at the wrong place at
(43:10):
the wrong time and we needed todo anything to get back to our
place in Israel and to cover thestory.
And yet the fact that we hadsuch a hard time returning part
of this had to do with that thatso many Israelis wanted to come
back as well.
Not too many escaped thecountry.
Tens of thousands wanted to gohome.
(43:30):
Under these circumstances, thesame thing happened on October
7th, and you have people makingjokes about that on the one hand
, and seriously discussing thesituation on the other, and
behaving like it's absolutelynormal for you, for us, to go to
the bomb shelter five times aday and to discuss what protects
you better the safe room atyour home or the bomb shelter
(43:53):
underneath your apartmentbuilding.
This is the kind of realitythat we live in for quite some
time.
Neri (44:00):
Yeah, quite some time, and well, now almost 21 months of
just one thing leading to thenext one.
I think on this podcast we gofrom one week to the next thing
unprecedented and historic andand dramatic and so on.
Amos (44:17):
Yeah, yeah, which which all of them usually are.
Neri (44:19):
Uh, for 20, we're all again we're all little trumps by
now, little little trumps anduh, we could do with some some
more, uh rest some more boringdays, um, not going to happen,
not soon, not soon.
Uh, on that point, I'm almostjust looking ahead.
Uh, and what we can expect, uh,we'll see it's a more boring
days.
Not going to happen, not soon,not soon.
On that point, amos, justlooking ahead and what we can
expect, at least on theIsrael-Iran front.
Now many people are discussingdiplomacy, so we'll start with
(44:44):
the diplomatic path.
It looks like the Trumpadministration and the various
world powers will try tore-engage Iran with regard to
its nuclear program, try to getTehran back to the negotiating
table, to, I suppose, get abetter deal, a stronger deal.
Hoping Tehran capitulates,caves, softens its position.
Do you really think youpersonally, do you really think
(45:07):
Iran, once it gets back to thenegotiating table, will be more
amenable after 12 days ofgetting hammered by the Israeli
and American air forces?
Amos (45:15):
This is the general line of thinking right now, the
common wisdom or whatever.
I assume that this is the waythings are going to go for a
little bit at least Under thispressure.
the Iranian leadership knowswhat happened.
I'm sure the Iranian leadershipknows what happened.
It's true that Iranian TVyesterday described this or this
morning, that because of thisgreat, successful attack in
(45:35):
Qatar on the American base, nowit's the Americans who
capitulated and are willing toforce Israel into reaching a
ceasefire, which is, of course,absolute nonsense.
It's, you know, israel and theUnited States had the upper hand
and it's Iran that's beenforced to renegotiate.
Is that enough to reach a deal?
I'm not so sure, becausethere's always that there is a
(45:56):
sort of a double jeopardy ordanger.
Here One has to do with Trump'scharacter or mood.
He may lose interest.
This is what happened on theGaza situation.
He was pushing for a hostagedeal.
He got many hostages back inJanuary out alive.
Then he, as a gesture, he gotIdan Alexander, the Israeli
(46:21):
soldier, with Americancitizenship, and then he more or
less lost interest.
This could happen on Iran aswell, although it's a much
bigger deal for him.
The second problem has to dowith his administration.
There's nobody around him.
As usual, when administrationschange from Republican to
Democrat or vice versa, peopleleave the experts leave the
(46:45):
officials leave because this isthe tradition Under Trump,
especially with Elon Musk beingaround for a bit.
It's much worse than that.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
And.
Amos (46:54):
I'm told by Israelis that they hardly have any
counterparts on the Pentagon, atState or at the NSC.
There are hardly any expertsleft.
So who's going to figure outwhat a deal should be like?
Who's the nuclear expert todiscuss these issues?
Not many of them left.
Witkoff cannot deal witheverything.
Steve Witkoff is Trump's envoyto the rest of the world.
(47:17):
He deals with Ukraine, he dealswith Gaza, the hostage deal and
now Iran.
I'm not sure about the level ofexpertise and this is where I'm
a bit worried about.
And yet the outcome could bedifferent because of everything
that has happened during thelast 12 days.
I think they're more willing tonegotiate.
I think the United States,because of what has happened,
(47:39):
has more leverage, more leewaywhile discussing it with the
Iranians.
We'll see how this evolves.
But, the fact that so much oftheir capabilities have been
destroyed of course puts us in abetter situation, and yet what
could be seen as a violation?
What if we actually discoverthis hidden enriched uranium?
(48:02):
What if they start enrichinguranium again?
What if they launch a missileor smuggle missiles to Yemen or
Hezbollah?
Should Israel punish them?
I already hear an Israeliofficial saying we can do what
we did in Lebanon.
That's different.
It's true that we were very,very good at obliterating their
(48:23):
anti-aircraft systems and wecontrolled the skies over Tehran
within 48 hours, which wasquite massive, and yet this is
1,500 kilometers away.
This is different than strikingLebanon, which is a two or
three minutes flight.
It's true that since Novemberlast year, after the ceasefire
(48:45):
was reached, every time whenthere's a violation, Israel
strikes targets and terroristsfrom Hezbollah's side and
Hezbollah does not respond.
It's not going to be exactlythe same with Iran.
I don't think we have the samelevel of leeway to do that, so
we'll have to wait and see.
For the time being, we talktough, but we'll have to see if
(49:07):
we have enough space to maneuverhere or whether Trump is going
to decide how this is treated.
Neri (49:20):
So you beat me to the follow-up question.
The natural follow-up question,which is diplomacy aside,
there's also the second path,the non-diplomacy side, from at
least the Israeli point of view,which is, like you said, taking
action if we see Iran trying torebuild either its nuclear
program, its air defenses, itsballistic missile program.
So, in terms of just talkingtough, okay, israel is going to
(49:44):
try to mow the grass, as it were, like it does in the West Bank
or Lebanon, now in Iran.
I mean, do you think that'scredible at all, given the fact
that if we hit Iran, we may beback in the bomb shelters once
again?
Amos (50:01):
Yeah, this is what I fear Again.
I never say never, consideringeverything that has happened
since October 7th andspecifically in the last few
weeks, because maybe I didn'temphasize that enough, but a lot
of these scenarios are not onlyimpressive, but very, very
surprising, according toeverything that we've read and
heard for many years.
(50:21):
But mowing the grass 1,500kilometers away, it's a slight
understatement.
It's a bigger issue and Iranhas more power than people are
ready to acknowledge.
It's true that the fact thatthe ceasefire was reached is not
only because of the mightyUnited States.
A lot of this has been achievedby the Israelis, and Trump
(50:44):
would never have joined if theIsraelis were not that
successful.
We would have left us to rot ifwe failed.
Trump loves winners.
He doesn't like losers.
Remember him talkingdisparagingly on Israel
immediately after the massacre.
He actually made fun of theAfghan, called him an idiot or a
(51:04):
fool or whatever.
Because of October 7th.
And then now things lookdifferent.
But a lot of this has beenachieved because of what Israel
was able to do.
Neri (51:16):
Right.
So it remains to be seen Talkaside, whether diplomatic or
military how this actually playsout, which is a big, not
concern, but a big thought ofmine.
Right that if the fighting isnow stopped, okay, what's going
to happen tomorrow and the nextday and next week and next month
remains to be seen.
Final question to you, Amos,and it's an important one in
(51:40):
terms of looking ahead after thepast 12 days Gaza, the previous
war, the original war, we'reback to now our regular
programming of the past 20months, which is really the Gaza
front.
Do you think the Iran-Israelwar of the past 12 days will
have a positive impact, or anyimpact at all, really, on the
(52:03):
prospects of getting a ceasefirefor hostage deal?
Amos (52:08):
in Gaza, there will be impacts.
It's a bit too soon to tellwhat kind of impact.
We've heard one of Trump'senvoys, the Palestinian-American
Bachbach, saying talking to Ithink it's Egyptian TV a few
hours ago and saying that therewas a window of opportunity here
, and this is what many Israelisbelieve as well that after
(52:28):
Netanyahu achieved his victoryover Iran, he would be more
willing to negotiate.
A lot of this has to do withour side of what our side of
this discussion thinks and howwe behave, because, as you know,
israel was an obstacle too.
It was not only about Hamas inrecent months.
(52:50):
It was Netanyahu, under extremepolitical circumstances, was
not really willing to compromise.
So there's a different situationright now and Israel could
persuade itself that, afterdestroying or dismantling the
Iranian axis, hamas is left withno support and perhaps we could
be slightly more generous inorder to get our boys back, in
(53:14):
order to get everybody back home.
So there's a possibility there.
On the other hand, there's alot of bloodshed there.
If you look at the recentevents, there's an ongoing it's
not so much fighting, there areall kinds of incidents, but we
also kill many and so on,without using Hamas, without
(53:55):
those convoys being controlledby Hamas, but this is
devastating.
If you look at the situation inthe last two months or so,
israel has become more and moreaggressive without reaching a
lot.
We haven't destroyed Hamascompletely.
Hamas is still holding thehostages.
It's not really willing tobecome more flexible about an
(54:18):
agreement and we're stuck inthis for quite some time.
So maybe this sense that we'vebecome more successful on the
bigger front, so to speak, onIran, maybe that would allow
more flexibility from theIsraeli side, because my view is
that this needs to end for along time now that going back to
fighting in March was the wrongdecision to make, that it had
(54:39):
devastating results for thePalestinian people in Gaza and
that it didn't work out too wellfor us as well.
That it actually hasn't led to abreakthrough, but just this
constant bleeding regarding Gaza, which is leading us nowhere.
So it's time to end this Now.
(54:59):
I doubt very much Netanyahu'smotives, and yet I think that,
for political reasons, he mayneed to end this as well.
If he identifies, in spite ofthe polls that we mentioned
earlier, if he identifies awindow of opportunity in which
he can finally claim anotherpolitical victory in elections,
then in order to do that, thefirst thing that he needs to do
(55:21):
is to finally solve the hostageproblem in Gaza.
Of course that means, for thetime being, a divorce from
Smoot-Oçan Begzi.
We're not going to allow him todo that.
But yet a collapse of thegovernment may be, something
that he will be interested inconsidering the alternatives
under these circumstances.
Neri (55:42):
Yeah, that's the optimistic path, the optimistic
option path, the optimisticoption.
You hear voices, even Netanyahuthe other day in his press
conference, saying you know well, now that we've taken apart
Iran and the rest of the Axis,then Hamas will clearly feel
more pressure and they'll caveand they'll give us what we want
on our terms namely thehostages, without us committing
(56:05):
to ending the war.
So that's the flip side of thepast 12 days on Gaza, combined
with, by the way, the IDF stilltaking casualties in Gaza, which
is also, you know, nobodyreally noticed, but at least
four soldiers have died in Gazaover the past week, week and a
half and 12 have died since thebeginning of June, right, right.
Amos (56:29):
So I think the focus will shift and 12 have died since the
beginning of June.
Neri (56:31):
Right, all right.
So I think the focus will shiftmost definitely back to Gaza
and we'll see how that'sresolved.
Amos, I know it's late.
Thank you so much for your timeand insights, as always.
Hopefully the Houthis do notwake us up in the middle of the
night.
We'll see about that.
We'll see about that.
We'll see about that, but tillnext time, thank you very much.
Amos (56:54):
Thank you.
Neri (56:55):
Okay, thanks again to Amos Harrell, as always, for his
generous time and insights.
Also, a special thanks to ourproducer, jacob Gilliband, and
to all of you who support IsraelPolicy Forum's work.
Do consider making a donationto Israel Policy Forum for being
a credible source of analysisand ideas on issues such as
these that we all care deeplyabout, including this podcast.
And, most importantly, thankyou for listening.
Shalom and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod.
I'm Nery Zilber, a journalistbased in Tel Aviv and a policy
advisor to Israel Policy Forum.
We're back and there's a reasonwhy we were away last week
after the outbreak of theIsrael-Iran war, which I'll get
into in just a minute, trust me.
But we have a big episode foryou this week with our good
(00:26):
friend Amos Harrell, the defenseanalyst and correspondent at
Haaretz, who will break down thehistoric 12-day war trademark.
Donald Trump.
We all just went throughIsrael's performance in the war,
iran's performance in the warand the big question on
everyone's mind Iran'sperformance in the war and the
big question on everyone's mindwhat now, and especially what
now for Gaza?
(00:47):
Before we start, it's nolaughing matter to say this was
unlike anything Israel has evergone through.
The country definitely hasknown rocket and missile fire on
its home front for nearly fivedecades, ever since the days of
the PLO back in southern Lebanonand their fire on northern
Israel.
Since then, israeli citizentowns have come under fire from
(01:08):
Hezbollah in Lebanon, saddamHussein, hamas, of course, the
Houthis in Yemen of late.
But we've never seen the levelof damage and devastation and
fatalities caused by Iran'sballistic missiles 28 people
were killed and over 1 athousand injured over the past
12 days, and 15,000 Israeliswere left homeless.
(01:29):
All you have to do is look atthe destruction at the impact
sites, whether in Be'er Shevaearlier today, bat Yam, rishon,
hatzion, tamra, ramat Gan, telAviv and many other locations
who sadly were hit, tounderstand why the devastation
was so big.
The images are just shocking.
(01:51):
It wasn't a joke, even with theterrific work of the Israeli
and American air defense systems.
Not a joke at all thesemissiles.
But everyone here, I dare say,is very glad that it's over, and
I'm also glad it's over.
More than anything, I'm glad tobe here in Israel.
So what happened?
(02:11):
Well, greece happened.
I flew out on Thursday June12th to what I thought would be
a wonderful and relaxing weddingweekend Don't worry, not my own
wedding On the beautiful islandof Hydra in Greece, and, by the
way, locals and Euros pronounceit Hydra, not Hydra, but Hydra
(02:33):
is Leonard Cohen's island forcontext, and also for good
reason.
It's just a beautiful,beautiful place.
So, long story short, I wake upon June 13th to learn that Bibi
Netanyahu finally did it.
He attacked Iran.
And I woke up that morning andalso realized I was stuck, since
the airspace was immediatelyshut down over Israel.
(02:55):
So there I was in one of themost beautiful places I've ever
been to, attending a beautifulwedding of two beautiful friends
and generally just peoplebeautiful wedding of two
beautiful friends and generallyjust people All the while I'm on
my phone following and coveringa war back home.
By the way, I wasn't alone inthis.
An estimated 150,000 Israelisalso got stuck outside the
(03:21):
country when the war broke outand we're looking for a way
anyway to get back in.
We shouldn't make getting backin any easier, let me tell you,
but eventually I, along with mygood friend Daniel Estrin of NPR
, who was also at this weddingon Idra, found a way to get back
.
It took one ferry, twosuccessful flights, two other
flights not successful threetaxis across various landmasses
(03:46):
and 29 hours to get back home.
Basically Idra, athens, cairo,sharm el-Sheikh, taba, eilat,
tel Aviv.
I got back to my apartment inJaffa on Tuesday, last Tuesday
afternoon, turned the key andimmediately I got alerts for
incoming missiles on my phone.
I was overjoyed, let me tellyou, to get that message and
(04:11):
also resolved that I'm not goingback to Hydra anytime soon.
It's way too traumatic.
With that, let's get to AmosHarrell Hi Amos, welcome back to
the podcast.
Amos (04:23):
Hi, neri, thanks for having me.
Neri (04:26):
It's really my pleasure, as always, amos, but especially
today, on this auspicious day ofthe Iran-Israel ceasefire that
came in early Tuesday morning.
When we set this up Amosyesterday, I didn't know what to
expect.
I was sure I was going to tellour listeners and viewers that
we may have to stop for incomingballistic missile fire and
(04:49):
sirens, but, uh, we now have aceasefire.
It's been a hell of a two weeks, I think, for for everyone, uh,
especially those of us, uh,caught up in all of it here on
the ground.
Um, we'll get into all of it injust a second almost, but I
think we'll start here with aquestion on everyone's mind.
Really, after the past 12historic and crazy days, why now
(05:12):
?
Why did the ceasefire come inearly this morning and why was
the ceasefire reached?
Why did Israel agree?
Why did Trump push for it?
Amos (05:22):
I think, more than anything else.
I think that we now live inTrump's world.
The world behaves according toTrump rules.
It's him above anything else,and it's his own interests, his
own motives, that are leading tomost decision making.
If you go back to the actualIsraeli attack against Iran, it
(05:47):
wouldn't have happened, probablyunder any other American
president.
We've seen Biden, we've seenObama, we've seen even Bush Jr
the second George Bush alldisapproving of an Israeli
attack.
It was only once Trump cameback into power after winning
(06:09):
the elections last November thatit became clear that there is a
possibility that America wouldgive Israel the green light
Later on, Trump's decision tostrike again a very personal way
to dealwith things, it's all about him.
And then, once he decided tostrike, once he decided that
(06:31):
America would join by attackingFaudot, it was quite clear that
that was over from his view.
We all knew in advance that hewould portray this as the best
in the world, the biggest, thegreatest, the highest, the
deepest, the tallest, whateverattack in world history like the
world has never seen before.
(06:52):
And then he would rush as fastas possible, as quickly as
possible, to an agreement.
So he couldn't reach anagreement, but he could force a
ceasefire.
So he couldn't reach anagreement, but he could force a
ceasefire, both on the Iranianswho were, I think, naturally
seeking a ceasefire, seeking arelief after all they've been
(07:12):
through, and also he would forcehis good friend Netanyahu to do
the same.
And then quite a strange 24hours.
If you'd like to get into thatlater.
That's quite a story, but thisis all.
It's like a reality show.
It's very real.
In the end, people die.
It's lethal, there's a lot ofpain and suffering and yet some
(07:35):
of it is almost comical becauseevents are so different than
what we've been used to beforewhen we talked about
international relations ormatters of war and peace,
strategic affairs and so on.
This is the 2025 version,directed by Donald J Trump.
Neri (08:00):
Directed by Donald J Trump , and all of it revolving around
Donald J Trump Of course,starring, leading the star, he's
the main character.
Yeah, yeah, Someone made thepoint earlier today, on Tuesday,
when all of this was going downI think you're referring to him
almost in real time negotiatingwhether Israeli fighter jets
(08:21):
would actually bomb Iran or not.
I mean really, you know in realtime.
He was negotiating this socialmedia and then actually with
Netanyahu himself.
But someone mentioned thatthere's no staff work in terms
of the US president.
It's him following events inreal time and then reacting in
real time to those events.
Amos (08:42):
Some of that's done on Twitter, yeah.
Yeah so it's quite remarkable,but if we go back to the events,
then he forces a ceasefireduring the late hours of Monday
night.
Netanyahu was holding a cabinetmeeting, but I think Trump
(09:03):
called him at one point oranother and more or less ordered
him to stop strikes againstIran.
Then he tweeted sometime in themorning I think it was 3am our
Israeli time when he tweeted along tweet saying that both
sides came to him at the sametime Israel and Iran.
And guess what?
They both wanted peace.
(09:24):
And now a new era begins inwhich came to him at the same
time Israel and Iran.
And guess what?
They both wanted peace.
And now a new era begins inwhich love and peace and
prosperity for all.
He sees all that in our futureand our collective futures and
so on.
So it seemed quite well.
He already announced that theceasefire would be implemented
by 7 am our time, and yet bothof us woke up at around 5 am
(09:50):
once the Iranians beganlaunching missiles against
Israel.
One of those was very, verylethal.
It was an incident in Beershebawhere four people were killed.
This went on until slightlyafter 7 am and it seemed to be
the end of it.
But then, at 10.30, iranlaunched two missiles again
(10:10):
Nobody knows why exactly.
Iran is not a terroristorganization.
It's different than Hezbollahor Hamas.
Once an order is given, it'ssupposed to be obeyed, but this
is not what happened.
And then, while Trump wassleeping, israel announced that
it was going to attack and noless than 20 fighter jets were
(10:31):
sent to Iran in order to bombthe hell out of Tehran again.
And yet, once again, I can't be.
I wouldn't envy the I don'tknow what official it was, but
the man who was supposed to wakeup the president and tell him
that things were not going onexactly as he assumed.
I guess he probably encounteredquite a shouting, but that's
(10:53):
nothing when compared to what hedid while speaking to Netanyahu
.
Of course, netanyahu was deniedthat by now, but you could see
how angry the president was.
Later, he was actually usingthe F word on camera while
talking to reporters, and thatwas the end of it.
By then, the Israelis made aspectacular U-turn Instead of
(11:16):
bombing Tehran, the fighter jetsbombed the radar somewhere in
northern Iran, and that was theend of it.
Since then, we have a ceasefirein Iran, and that was the end
of it.
Since then, we have a ceasefire.
I doubted whether anybody woulddare again to act differently
now, once the president has madehis point.
Neri (11:36):
No, definitely not, and especially a president with
apparently very little sleep,and also I was told it was very
hot and muggy day in Washington,so I think he was displeased
anyway.
And then he was obviouslypushing back against both Iran
and Israel, which came as a bigshock to everyone here in Israel
, that he was just as angry withIsrael and claimed the
(11:57):
violations.
And we should also mention, Ithink, that Trump contradicted
his own original tweetannouncing the ceasefire when he
said that Iran would stopfiring at 7 am, whatever time,
and that Israel would only stopfiring 12 hours later.
Amos (12:11):
And again quite strange.
I've never heard of a ceasefirebeing implemented like that
yeah.
Neri (12:19):
So you also wonder who put that together.
But nevertheless he demandedthe fighting stop.
The fighting eventually didstop.
I'm curious Trump aside, amos,from the Israeli point of view,
we've been hearing murmurs sincethe weekend definitely Sunday
and government itself, ie theprime minister, that actually
(12:47):
were also amenable to finishingthe campaign that pretty much
all the objectives had beenreached and that the mechanism
would essentially be what Trumpcame up with, which was both of
you just stop firing and we'llcall it a ceasefire and move
into the next phase.
Is that your understanding aswell that Israel was also pretty
ready for this 12-day war to beover?
Amos (13:09):
Yeah, that's quite clear.
I think Israel has achievedmost of its goals.
It was only Defense MinisterIsrael Kaz quite a strange
persona to begin with, whoinsisted on talking about regime
change all the way and who,also this morning, threatened
Iran again with Israel's mightyresponse after the last two
(13:34):
missiles were launched at theHaifa area.
Other than that, I thinkNetanyahu was quite cautious
about acting for regime change.
He was flirting with the idea.
It was never really discussed,it was never really planned for.
I think Israel has done morethan it intended to do in the
(13:58):
beginning.
It was more successful than itbelieved before the strikes
began.
It turned out that Iran was notas strong as probably the
Israelis have assumed.
Iran was infiltrated from somany different angles that they
could.
You know that the Mossad andAmman, the Israeli military
(14:21):
intelligence, knew almosteverything that needed to be
known about Iran's plans, aboutIran's points of weakness, about
its infrastructure and so on.
So this was extremelysuccessful.
And yet I assume Netanyahubeing he's in a different stage
right now.
It's not the old Netanyahu whowas always considered extremely
(14:42):
calculated and cautious when itcame to applying military force.
It's a different man sinceOctober 7th and everything that
has happened since, and yet Idon't think that he's looking.
Unlike the situation in Gaza,which we've discussed a lot on
the pod in the past, when itcame to Iran, he was very
focused.
What he wanted to do wasdestroy as much as possible off
(15:05):
the nuclear plan.
He wanted to drag Trump intothis.
He understood that it was aone-off kind of thing.
There was one mission that hecould persuade Trump to agree to
, and that has already happenedand once this has happened,
there was no time to waste.
He couldn't seem to be, in theeyes of his supporters, to be
(15:29):
too much of a pacifist aboutthis, and yet anybody who was
following this could assume thatNetanyahu was already searching
for the way out.
It's not exactly an exitstrategy.
It's not that calculated.
I'm not sure there was such aplan, but once Trump got himself
involved in this, thenNetanyahu played along.
His problem right now is thehumiliating see already attacks.
(15:50):
Some of his opponents from theopposition are now attacking him
from the right.
Even centrists, lieberman orothers, are now saying that
(16:12):
they're disappointed becauseactually, more should have been
done, but and yet, I think mostof the people following this
think that Israel has achieved alot, perhaps much more than we
assumed we could, and that,under these circumstances, the
best thing to do is to call it aday and look for the next stage
.
Neri (16:31):
And especially given the real damage here on the Israeli
home front, the issue of the airdefenses and the interceptors,
whether a war of attrition withIran going on for days more or
weeks more, was really inIsrael's interest.
That was also a question in theether, even last week, amos, on
(16:53):
the issue of Israel'sperformance and taking a step
back and trying to sum up thishistoric campaign I mean now who
uses that word, but I think inthis context it's fair the two
main goals, the nuclear programin Iran and the missile program
in Iran, damaged, heavilydamaged.
(17:14):
That was obviously the mainobjective.
But also taking out themilitary chain of command,
especially at the start, nuclearscientists, air defenses, other
military installations.
I mean how would you sum upIsrael's military performance
over the past 12 days?
I mean how would you assess thedamage also inflicted on Iran
(17:37):
really at this point?
Amos (17:39):
Nery.
Look, this is massive.
This is more than anybody wouldhave expected.
I've been covering this issuefrom on and off, I think more
than 20 years, and I hardlybelieve that there would ever
come the day when actually thiswould be implemented, when
Israel would actually strikeIran, and by now we're used to
(18:00):
it.
It's at the pace of events, youknow.
A few days later you say, okay,what else is new?
And yet this is extremelydramatic and it's also very,
very successful.
And Netanyahu succeeded twice.
First he succeeded inpersuading Trump to give him the
green light, and then hesucceeded, when a lot of people
felt that this couldn't be done,in persuading Trump to join in,
(18:22):
because there's nothing moresuccessful than success and
Trump being at the center ofevents.
There were two issues here theTACO, the Trump Always Chicken
Us Out acronym, and also theFOMO Fear of Missing Out, and
the combination of the two meantthat he needed to show
everybody that he was brave andcourageous enough to do that and
(18:42):
to join in.
But going back to the Israelisuccess, it's quite clear Again
Israel was never able to destroycompletely the Iranian nuclear
plan on its own.
When matters came to Fodou, itwas very clear that 90 meters
underground was impossible topenetrate from an Israeli
(19:06):
perspective, and this is wherewe needed their help.
But other than that, we wereextremely successful.
We were aggressive, we took theinitiative, we surprised the
other side.
They were exposed.
Israeli intelligence turned outto know everything about their
plans.
Also, we succeeded inassassinating a massive number
(19:29):
of their top nuclear scientists,and so on.
So this is huge, as thepresident would say, but on the
other hand, it wasn't the end ofthis.
You needed the United States onboard in order to finalize the
mission.
And still, even today, therewere reports in the last few
(19:54):
hours in the Israeli media thatthere is no longer an Iranian
nuclear project.
Now I somehow suspect that thiscomes from either Netanyahu or
Dermer, and you would allow meto maintain a slight suspicion
that there's some sort ofexaggeration regarding this
(20:18):
conclusion, but there are otherpeople who I would trust, for
instance the nuclear analystDavid Albright, who are still
saying that this is devastating,that the Iranians have no way
of enriching uranium again to 60or 90 percent any time in the
near future, and that thedestruction is, if not complete,
(20:40):
is, extremely massive, and thatit would take the Iranians
years to recover from this, evenif they do there's always a
possibility of Israel strikingback again or perhaps the
Americans joining in.
So this is really, reallymassive.
If we're trying to summarizeeverything that has happened
since October 7th, here is whereI take a different point than
(21:03):
Netanyahu and his followers andhis trumpets and so on, because
there what Netanyahu was tryingto do, of course, is to define,
to invent a new narrative.
You saw I don't know if you sawthat piece David Remnick, the
editor in chief of the NewYorker, interviewed some Israeli
journalists, including myself,amit Segal, alouf Ben and others
(21:24):
, anshul Pfeffer and all theusual suspects about the latest
events, and what Amit said therewas that somehow being given
the historic examples I wouldassume that this comes straight
from Netanyahu's mouth, but thehistorical comparison was to
(21:49):
Pearl Harbor.
October 7th was Pearl Harborand yet Netanyahu was somehow
Roosevelt and he now achieved afinal victory over Iran, which
was behind the plans to beginwith on October 7th, and now the
(22:10):
turning point has been reached,and so on, and I think a lot of
this was improvised.
I think that it wasn't a plan,and I was now trying to portray
this as if, on October 9th, healready told people that the
Middle East would be differentand that he would defeat the
radical axis, and so on.
I think he improvised.
I think a lot of this.
(22:30):
He was in shock in thebeginning.
It took some time to recover.
We were not too successfulfacing Hamas.
We're still unable to bringback 50 of our hostages from
Gaza.
We were much more successfulagainst Hezbollah, and somehow
Khamenei in Iran repeated someof Nasrallah's mistakes in
Lebanon last year.
And now, of course, the radicalaxis has been hit.
(22:53):
Some of this is probably almostby accident.
The collapse of the Assadregime doesn't have a lot to do
with us.
We somehow contributed to this,but it's not because of us.
It happened because ofdifferent reasons.
It's a chain of events that Ithink that most people could not
have figured in advance.
It's true that Netanyahu, formany, many years, talked about
(23:14):
defeating the Axis and that itfinally happened.
If we haven't defeated themcompletely, we did manage to
destroy most of the nuclearproject, and that's extremely
important.
And yet, in my view, I thinkthat the original sin of October
7th and we've discussed thattime and time again on your pod.
That was big to be forgotten.
(23:34):
So many Israelis killed thatday and since All of those
hostages 251, 50 now remainingin captivity, 20 of them
hopefully still alive this ismassive and it will not be
forgotten.
But Netanyahu, who neverclaimed responsibility for the
(23:55):
fiasco that allowed this tohappen, of course is now
claiming full credit for theattack now in Iran.
And I think it's not a Hollywoodkind of story, you know, first
facing loss and then reachingredemption.
It's much more complicated thanthat.
Again, I wouldn't count onpolitical polls too much, but
(24:18):
you probably noticed the Channel12 political poll this evening
and the Netanyahu coalitionstill has a support of 49
mandates out of 120, and theopposition still has 51.
The Arab parties have the other10 seats, according to the poll
.
That's quite amazing.
This is supposed to beNetanyahu's biggest achievement
(24:39):
ever, one of the biggeststrategic victories for Israel
in recent memory, if not inIsraeli history, and yet the
public has hardly moved.
Perhaps that would change.
Perhaps people would be if thehostages are back.
Perhaps people would bepersuaded that this is in fact,
that it shows that Netanyahu isthe greatest leader and that
(25:00):
Netanyahu has recovered, and soon the magician, as some people
call him.
And yet I think others are notgoing to forgive him so easily,
in spite of this greatachievement.
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Neri (26:11):
So I won't put you on the spot because you're not here to
talk politics.
Almost You're here to talkabout military and security
affairs.
But yes, I also noted before westarted recording that the
polls really haven't moved interms of the past 12 days and
the great historic achievementthat Netanyahu led and
orchestrated I mean, he is theprime minister, so we'll give
(26:33):
him credit for that.
Camp here is already puttingforward this new narrative that
Aryeh Deri, the head of theAltru Orthodox Shas party, said,
I think earlier today oryesterday yesterday that October
7th actually saved thousands,if not millions, of Israeli
(26:55):
lives, because it set in motionexactly the sequence of events
that you laid out that Hamas asort of folk tale, a Hasidic
tale about God stopped caringfor us and then he came back to
save us through his MessiahNetanyahu or messenger, or
whatever.
Right, god averted his eyes fora few terrible hours in the
(27:19):
morning on.
October 7th 2023.
But then he came back and nowis leading the nation of Israel
to success after success.
As you said, amos Netanyahu onOctober 9th could not have known
that Nasrallah and Khameneiwould make all the strategic
errors and mistakes that theyeventually did, leading up to,
(27:39):
well, their demise and then thepast 12 days.
It could have gone verydifferently if they had made
different decisions in the wakeof Hamas's decision on October
7th.
But luckily, we're still hereand, well, netanyahu is still
here as well.
Just to wrap up, the issue ofthe nuclear program, amos and
the damage done or not done.
(28:00):
Obviously people here want tosay that it's completely
destroyed.
Other people are talking about,well, perhaps a covert program
400 kilograms of highly enricheduranium 60% that has been taken
somewhere inside Iran, advancedcentrifuges to enrich that
(28:20):
uranium taken somewhere insideIran.
Are you worried about thataspect of it, that some remnants
of the program, some kind ofadvanced elements, will lead
Iran to, perhaps the capabilityof a covert program with an eye
to break out?
Is that something you'reworried about?
The people that you talk to areworried about with an eye to
(28:41):
break out?
Is that something you'reworried?
Amos (28:42):
about the people that you talk to are worried about.
Yeah, to some extent.
Yes, it's too much of a weightto somehow be lost somewhere in
Iran without Israel beingworried about that.
I think the program, theproject has been pushed back
(29:02):
quite significantly.
And yet you cannot rule outcompletely a scenario in which
the leader, khamenei, who's 86years old, the Iranian supreme
leader, makes a decisionsometime in the near future,
saying, look, we were that closeto reaching our goal of
producing a nuclear bomb.
(29:24):
We didn't do that in the end,we hesitated, and look what
happened.
And now their fear of beingreally disliked by, I think, the
majority of the Iranian public.
They're without an insurancepolicy.
It's true that they're besiegedwithout an insurance policy.
It's true that they're besieged.
They are IRGC corps.
The army and so on are quiteaggressive and have you know,
(29:54):
have had quite enough experienceat fighting protests and quite
viciously in the past they haveseen you know just the hijab
revolt two years ago or theunsuccessful Green revolution in
2009.
There were many cases in whichthe Iranian public or parts of
it were trying to overthrow theregime and failed, but I think,
the regime.
There's a possibility that theregime could come to a
(30:16):
conclusion that what they needis, in fact, the insurance
policy meaning a bomb need is,in fact, the insurance policy
meaning a bomb.
And if you look at recenthistory, ukraine has given up
its nuclear arsenal after thecollapse of the Soviet Union,
and that's not a good thing.
If you look at Ukraine in thelast three years, they probably
would have had a better chanceof fighting the Russians if they
(30:41):
maintained the nuclearcapability.
Now, the same goes for Libya,of course.
Gaddafi 2002, once the UnitedStates was getting ready to the
Second Gulf War against Iraq.
Gaddafi gave up the beginningof a nuclear plan and then it
was lynched on the street in2011, once the Arab Spring began
in Libya.
(31:01):
In 2011, once the Arab Springbegan in Libya.
So I'm sure the Iranians arethinking of these historic
examples and trying to avoidthat.
And yet, first of all, there'sthe problems with the actual
getting, the actual outcome.
Is it in fact possible underthe new circumstances?
(31:24):
Do they have the scientists todo that?
Do they have the knowledge?
Are they capable of doing thatwithout being struck by the
Israelis again?
And yet, that's one issue.
And the second is isn't that toodangerous?
Wouldn't that mean the end ofthe regime?
And yet I think there's apossibility at least that this
is what he'll tell them to do toperhaps an experiment, some
(31:50):
kind of a blow up, some kind ofa primitive bomb to show that
they have the capability to gowhat is known as the North
Korean path.
That's a possibility, and Ican't rule it out completely.
We'll have to wait and seeagain.
In my view, with my limitedunderstanding of what has
happened and without having allthe intelligence or the
information about what wasreally discovered on Iran's
(32:13):
intentions, I think, if there'sa you know, there's a
possibility that this couldhappen, and yet I think it was
the, as far as I can tell rightnow.
I think that Israel wasjustified in the decision to
strike.
I have said that for the last12 days.
I think that both things can betrue at the same time that
(32:33):
Israel had the right to do thisand that it was the right thing
to do, and, on the other hand,that the man making the decision
, netanyahu, did not have thelegitimacy to decide.
He may have been supported inretrospect by most of the
Israelis, and yet I doubt hisintentions.
There was always the.
It's more than a suspicion.
(32:54):
I think that most of us knowthat he had personal motives
when he decided on that and look, it hasn't played out
beautifully for him yetpolitically.
And yet there's an assumptionthat the trial will be delayed.
And think of his criminal trial.
It's the part where there's across-examination.
Is he going to be called backas a witness in a week's time?
(33:18):
How would that seem?
The man who bombed Iran wouldnow discuss the cigars and the
jewelry and whatever.
I can write already hisarguments and I'm not a
Netanyahu supporter, as you maysuspect he would use that.
It's part of the issue.
His claim to fame, hisnarrative from now on would be I
(33:42):
saved you from an Iranian bomb.
This is the way this is, youknow.
The slogan almost writes itselfwhen you think of the next
campaign.
Neri (33:52):
It's literally what he said in a pre-recorded televised
address right before we startedrecording.
He literally said I saved youfrom another.
Holocaust, another Holocaust.
Amos (34:04):
Essentially, that's what he's saying he's promised to do
that for 40 years and heactually fulfilled the promise
by now.
It's no wonder that he's actinga little bit messianic by now.
Neri (34:18):
Very messianic.
But to your earlier point, Amos.
I think it speaks to theparadox of the current moment,
where the vast majority of theIsraeli public was in favor of
this campaign, was in favor andsupportive of this war, and yet
they're still highly suspiciousof the motives, both personal
and otherwise, of the manactually leading the campaign,
(34:40):
which I think is bearing out nowin the polls.
So it's very, very interesting,amos, in terms of the tales of
the tape, the Iranian side ofthe equation.
Obviously Iran was the big bossat the end of the Middle East,
kind of orchestrating all theseproxies, Hamas, hezbollah, the
(35:01):
Houthis.
To a certain extent, it wasalways viewed as a formidable
foe.
How would you assess theirresponse, or lack thereof, over
the past 12 days, aside fromlobbing ballistic missiles at
Israeli cities?
What do you think?
By the way, I'd love to getyour thoughts what happened to
the proxies?
Hezbollah didn't get involved.
Amos (35:26):
The Houthis fired maybe one missile over the past week
and a half.
So there is a temptation,already after the victory over
Hezbollah last year, to say inretrospect that we
underestimated Hamas and weoverestimated Hezbollah, and
perhaps Iran as well.
That's not exactly true.
I think what these events showus is how much depends on your
(35:46):
preparation and on taking theinitiative first.
This is June 13th.
Without comparing this, exactlyis Iran's October 7th.
Again, we underestimated Hamas.
Iran underestimated ourcapability and perhaps believed
too much in its own capabilities, and this is what happened.
(36:07):
Iran, in the end, prepared foryears and years and years the
nuclear plan, the missile plan,proliferation of weapons, the
building, the Shia militias, theproxies that you mentioned,
what Qasem Soleimani, who wasassassinated by the Americans in
2020, what he described as aring of fire around Israel.
(36:29):
The big plan was there.
There was even another plan,which is even more frightening
what we call the annihilationplan, the destruction plan.
It turns out that they wereserious.
This clock that has beendescribed in the Palestine
Square in Tehran, it's actuallya real thing.
They did have a clock countingthe hours until the demise of
(36:51):
Israel that the leader thatKhamenei promised in 2040, 15
years left on that clock andIsrael struck yesterday and
apparently a missed the clockhas not been heard.
This is at least the story fromTehran right now.
But there was a plan there andit turns out that they spent
(37:11):
hundreds.
According to the Israeliintelligence, they spent
hundreds of millions of dollars,hundreds of billions of dollars
on these plans and it allcollapsed within 12 days, which
is quite amazing.
It turns out that it's notenough to spend money.
It's not enough to be a crazyideological radical.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Islamist.
Amos (37:35):
You still need something more than that.
You need better preparations,perhaps better thinking, perhaps
people who are more free toexpress their professional
opinions and do not fear aleader that can execute them if
they don't do as they're told,and so on.
It's different.
Israel, in spite of all of itsflaws and weaknesses, is still a
(38:01):
democracy, a western kind ofstrange western kind of liberal
democracy, and it had the upperhand because it was about our
survival and because we preparedfor that, because Mossad and
Aman and the Air Force and so onwere preparing for so many
years to do that.
And this is, in a way, quitesimilar to what happened with
(38:22):
Hezbollah.
And again, hezbollah.
We now tend to forget aboutthat, but Hezbollah was our
mightiest opponent.
For many, many years.
People didn't believe that Iranwould get itself involved, but
we did fear a Hezbollah attackfor many, many years, and
Hezbollah was destroyed within afew.
Most of its capabilities weredestroyed within a few weeks.
(38:45):
Now, getting back to yoursecond question not only
Hezbollah, but the other proxies.
So Hezbollah was taken out ofthe equation.
Last September and October,naim Qasem, the deputy the
longtime deputy leader ofHezbollah, who was never ready
for prime time, suddenly foundhimself in trying to fill
(39:08):
Nasrallah's big shoes, and he'snot very good at that and even
now he's trying to avoidconflict with Israel.
It could change in the future.
Right now he doesn't want toend up like Nasrallah and the
situation in Lebanon has changedquite a lot.
The government, the newpresident, the chief of staff of
the army are not on Hezbollah'sside anymore and there there's
(39:32):
much more American involvementright now in trying to push
Hezbollah into a corner.
So Hezbollah was not rootingfor another round with Israel.
At the moment Same goes forothers, I would assume tonight.
We talked about that earlier.
I wouldn't be surprised ifyou'd be woken up later on
tonight by a missile from theHouthis in Yemen.
(39:53):
I don't know if you'll bothergoing to the bomb shelter.
We've stopped going for Houthimissiles.
Bomb shelter We've stoppedgoing for Houthi missiles.
It doesn't have the same kindof it doesn't bring you the same
kind of emotional response asIranian missiles, which have
another kind of alarm at yourphone and so on.
So a lot of people you know ifyou live in a five-story
(40:18):
building, you may go to thestair steps two floors under you
and not go all the way into thebomb shelter, and nobody does
that kind of calculation with anIranian missile attack, but
that's the way it goes, soprobably the Houthis would get
themselves involved soon.
And yet they didn't launch onesingle missile, I think, since
(40:42):
the beginning.
The same goes for the IraqiShia militias and so on.
All of those proxy forces thatIran was spending so much money
on for years and years chose tostay out of this realm, and I
think they realized what hashappened.
What was the real equation ofpower?
Again, israel should not be toovain about that.
(41:02):
There's this Quite constantdanger of Hibblis, of being too
sure of yourself and feelingthat you know everything and
that you can beat anybody.
That's not the case.
This is what led us to October7th, and yet I think that our
performance, whether it's themilitary, or Mossad, or Shin Bet
(41:23):
or so on, ever since not onOctober 7th, not in Gaza, but on
other fronts is quiteimpressive when it comes down to
it.
But as I said before, I cannotjust clap for Netanyahu while he
(41:44):
avoids assuming responsibilityfor what has happened on October
7th.
It doesn't just go away thememory, the taint you know that
Eretz Ne'eret, the satiricalprogram on Channel 12, has him
with a sort of chomanketem taint.
Neri (42:00):
A stain on his forehead.
Amos (42:02):
On his forehead.
Neri (42:04):
It doesn't go away.
Amos (42:05):
This blood.
Yeah, it doesn't go away, andthis blood is on me, and I think
that's quite a powerfulmetaphor for what has happened,
and I think he knows that.
This is the reason why heavoids discussing it completely.
This is the reason why hehasn't visited Niroz on the Gaza
border yet, while he went toBat Yam and other places that
(42:25):
were hit by Iranian missiles inthe last few days.
Neri (42:30):
By the way, it's like Israel's version of Saturday
Night Live.
Amos (42:35):
Somewhat funnier in my view, but that's.
It's a lot funnier, yeah.
Neri (42:39):
A lot funnier, a lot more biting, pretty much a genius
show.
And they actually had a wartimeepisode last week, which was
quite remarkable.
Amos (42:49):
And, yes, he still had the stain on his forehead, but this
is Israel, nery no need toexplain that to you because you
live here but the fact that theresilience remains, that people
are willing to discuss, the factthat both of us we're
professionals, we're journalists, we were at the wrong place at
(43:10):
the wrong time and we needed todo anything to get back to our
place in Israel and to cover thestory.
And yet the fact that we hadsuch a hard time returning part
of this had to do with that thatso many Israelis wanted to come
back as well.
Not too many escaped thecountry.
Tens of thousands wanted to gohome.
(43:30):
Under these circumstances, thesame thing happened on October
7th, and you have people makingjokes about that on the one hand
, and seriously discussing thesituation on the other, and
behaving like it's absolutelynormal for you, for us, to go to
the bomb shelter five times aday and to discuss what protects
you better the safe room atyour home or the bomb shelter
(43:53):
underneath your apartmentbuilding.
This is the kind of realitythat we live in for quite some
time.
Neri (44:00):
Yeah, quite some time, and well, now almost 21 months of
just one thing leading to thenext one.
I think on this podcast we gofrom one week to the next thing
unprecedented and historic andand dramatic and so on.
Amos (44:17):
Yeah, yeah, which which all of them usually are.
Neri (44:19):
Uh, for 20, we're all again we're all little trumps by
now, little little trumps anduh, we could do with some some
more, uh rest some more boringdays, um, not going to happen,
not soon, not soon.
Uh, on that point, I'm almostjust looking ahead.
Uh, and what we can expect, uh,we'll see it's a more boring
days.
Not going to happen, not soon,not soon.
On that point, amos, justlooking ahead and what we can
expect, at least on theIsrael-Iran front.
Now many people are discussingdiplomacy, so we'll start with
(44:44):
the diplomatic path.
It looks like the Trumpadministration and the various
world powers will try tore-engage Iran with regard to
its nuclear program, try to getTehran back to the negotiating
table, to, I suppose, get abetter deal, a stronger deal.
Hoping Tehran capitulates,caves, softens its position.
Do you really think youpersonally, do you really think
(45:07):
Iran, once it gets back to thenegotiating table, will be more
amenable after 12 days ofgetting hammered by the Israeli
and American air forces?
Amos (45:15):
This is the general line of thinking right now, the
common wisdom or whatever.
I assume that this is the waythings are going to go for a
little bit at least Under thispressure.
the Iranian leadership knowswhat happened.
I'm sure the Iranian leadershipknows what happened.
It's true that Iranian TVyesterday described this or this
morning, that because of thisgreat, successful attack in
(45:35):
Qatar on the American base, nowit's the Americans who
capitulated and are willing toforce Israel into reaching a
ceasefire, which is, of course,absolute nonsense.
It's, you know, israel and theUnited States had the upper hand
and it's Iran that's beenforced to renegotiate.
Is that enough to reach a deal?
I'm not so sure, becausethere's always that there is a
(45:56):
sort of a double jeopardy ordanger.
Here One has to do with Trump'scharacter or mood.
He may lose interest.
This is what happened on theGaza situation.
He was pushing for a hostagedeal.
He got many hostages back inJanuary out alive.
Then he, as a gesture, he gotIdan Alexander, the Israeli
(46:21):
soldier, with Americancitizenship, and then he more or
less lost interest.
This could happen on Iran aswell, although it's a much
bigger deal for him.
The second problem has to dowith his administration.
There's nobody around him.
As usual, when administrationschange from Republican to
Democrat or vice versa, peopleleave the experts leave the
(46:45):
officials leave because this isthe tradition Under Trump,
especially with Elon Musk beingaround for a bit.
It's much worse than that.
Speaker 3 (46:54):
And.
Amos (46:54):
I'm told by Israelis that they hardly have any
counterparts on the Pentagon, atState or at the NSC.
There are hardly any expertsleft.
So who's going to figure outwhat a deal should be like?
Who's the nuclear expert todiscuss these issues?
Not many of them left.
Witkoff cannot deal witheverything.
Steve Witkoff is Trump's envoyto the rest of the world.
(47:17):
He deals with Ukraine, he dealswith Gaza, the hostage deal and
now Iran.
I'm not sure about the level ofexpertise and this is where I'm
a bit worried about.
And yet the outcome could bedifferent because of everything
that has happened during thelast 12 days.
I think they're more willing tonegotiate.
I think the United States,because of what has happened,
(47:39):
has more leverage, more leewaywhile discussing it with the
Iranians.
We'll see how this evolves.
But, the fact that so much oftheir capabilities have been
destroyed of course puts us in abetter situation, and yet what
could be seen as a violation?
What if we actually discoverthis hidden enriched uranium?
(48:02):
What if they start enrichinguranium again?
What if they launch a missileor smuggle missiles to Yemen or
Hezbollah?
Should Israel punish them?
I already hear an Israeliofficial saying we can do what
we did in Lebanon.
That's different.
It's true that we were very,very good at obliterating their
(48:23):
anti-aircraft systems and wecontrolled the skies over Tehran
within 48 hours, which wasquite massive, and yet this is
1,500 kilometers away.
This is different than strikingLebanon, which is a two or
three minutes flight.
It's true that since Novemberlast year, after the ceasefire
(48:45):
was reached, every time whenthere's a violation, Israel
strikes targets and terroristsfrom Hezbollah's side and
Hezbollah does not respond.
It's not going to be exactlythe same with Iran.
I don't think we have the samelevel of leeway to do that, so
we'll have to wait and see.
For the time being, we talktough, but we'll have to see if
(49:07):
we have enough space to maneuverhere or whether Trump is going
to decide how this is treated.
Neri (49:20):
So you beat me to the follow-up question.
The natural follow-up question,which is diplomacy aside,
there's also the second path,the non-diplomacy side, from at
least the Israeli point of view,which is, like you said, taking
action if we see Iran trying torebuild either its nuclear
program, its air defenses, itsballistic missile program.
So, in terms of just talkingtough, okay, israel is going to
(49:44):
try to mow the grass, as it were, like it does in the West Bank
or Lebanon, now in Iran.
I mean, do you think that'scredible at all, given the fact
that if we hit Iran, we may beback in the bomb shelters once
again?
Amos (50:01):
Yeah, this is what I fear Again.
I never say never, consideringeverything that has happened
since October 7th andspecifically in the last few
weeks, because maybe I didn'temphasize that enough, but a lot
of these scenarios are not onlyimpressive, but very, very
surprising, according toeverything that we've read and
heard for many years.
(50:21):
But mowing the grass 1,500kilometers away, it's a slight
understatement.
It's a bigger issue and Iranhas more power than people are
ready to acknowledge.
It's true that the fact thatthe ceasefire was reached is not
only because of the mightyUnited States.
A lot of this has been achievedby the Israelis, and Trump
(50:44):
would never have joined if theIsraelis were not that
successful.
We would have left us to rot ifwe failed.
Trump loves winners.
He doesn't like losers.
Remember him talkingdisparagingly on Israel
immediately after the massacre.
He actually made fun of theAfghan, called him an idiot or a
(51:04):
fool or whatever.
Because of October 7th.
And then now things lookdifferent.
But a lot of this has beenachieved because of what Israel
was able to do.
Neri (51:16):
Right.
So it remains to be seen Talkaside, whether diplomatic or
military how this actually playsout, which is a big, not
concern, but a big thought ofmine.
Right that if the fighting isnow stopped, okay, what's going
to happen tomorrow and the nextday and next week and next month
remains to be seen.
Final question to you, Amos,and it's an important one in
(51:40):
terms of looking ahead after thepast 12 days Gaza, the previous
war, the original war, we'reback to now our regular
programming of the past 20months, which is really the Gaza
front.
Do you think the Iran-Israelwar of the past 12 days will
have a positive impact, or anyimpact at all, really, on the
(52:03):
prospects of getting a ceasefirefor hostage deal?
Amos (52:08):
in Gaza, there will be impacts.
It's a bit too soon to tellwhat kind of impact.
We've heard one of Trump'senvoys, the Palestinian-American
Bachbach, saying talking to Ithink it's Egyptian TV a few
hours ago and saying that therewas a window of opportunity here
, and this is what many Israelisbelieve as well that after
(52:28):
Netanyahu achieved his victoryover Iran, he would be more
willing to negotiate.
A lot of this has to do withour side of what our side of
this discussion thinks and howwe behave, because, as you know,
israel was an obstacle too.
It was not only about Hamas inrecent months.
(52:50):
It was Netanyahu, under extremepolitical circumstances, was
not really willing to compromise.
So there's a different situationright now and Israel could
persuade itself that, afterdestroying or dismantling the
Iranian axis, hamas is left withno support and perhaps we could
be slightly more generous inorder to get our boys back, in
(53:14):
order to get everybody back home.
So there's a possibility there.
On the other hand, there's alot of bloodshed there.
If you look at the recentevents, there's an ongoing it's
not so much fighting, there areall kinds of incidents, but we
also kill many and so on,without using Hamas, without
(53:55):
those convoys being controlledby Hamas, but this is
devastating.
If you look at the situation inthe last two months or so,
israel has become more and moreaggressive without reaching a
lot.
We haven't destroyed Hamascompletely.
Hamas is still holding thehostages.
It's not really willing tobecome more flexible about an
(54:18):
agreement and we're stuck inthis for quite some time.
So maybe this sense that we'vebecome more successful on the
bigger front, so to speak, onIran, maybe that would allow
more flexibility from theIsraeli side, because my view is
that this needs to end for along time now that going back to
fighting in March was the wrongdecision to make, that it had
(54:39):
devastating results for thePalestinian people in Gaza and
that it didn't work out too wellfor us as well.
That it actually hasn't led to abreakthrough, but just this
constant bleeding regarding Gaza, which is leading us nowhere.
So it's time to end this Now.
(54:59):
I doubt very much Netanyahu'smotives, and yet I think that,
for political reasons, he mayneed to end this as well.
If he identifies, in spite ofthe polls that we mentioned
earlier, if he identifies awindow of opportunity in which
he can finally claim anotherpolitical victory in elections,
then in order to do that, thefirst thing that he needs to do
(55:21):
is to finally solve the hostageproblem in Gaza.
Of course that means, for thetime being, a divorce from
Smoot-Oçan Begzi.
We're not going to allow him todo that.
But yet a collapse of thegovernment may be, something
that he will be interested inconsidering the alternatives
under these circumstances.
Neri (55:42):
Yeah, that's the optimistic path, the optimistic
option path, the optimisticoption.
You hear voices, even Netanyahuthe other day in his press
conference, saying you know well, now that we've taken apart
Iran and the rest of the Axis,then Hamas will clearly feel
more pressure and they'll caveand they'll give us what we want
on our terms namely thehostages, without us committing
(56:05):
to ending the war.
So that's the flip side of thepast 12 days on Gaza, combined
with, by the way, the IDF stilltaking casualties in Gaza, which
is also, you know, nobodyreally noticed, but at least
four soldiers have died in Gazaover the past week, week and a
half and 12 have died since thebeginning of June, right, right.
Amos (56:29):
So I think the focus will shift and 12 have died since the
beginning of June.
Neri (56:31):
Right, all right.
So I think the focus will shiftmost definitely back to Gaza
and we'll see how that'sresolved.
Amos, I know it's late.
Thank you so much for your timeand insights, as always.
Hopefully the Houthis do notwake us up in the middle of the
night.
We'll see about that.
We'll see about that.
We'll see about that, but tillnext time, thank you very much.
Amos (56:54):
Thank you.
Neri (56:55):
Okay, thanks again to Amos Harrell, as always, for his
generous time and insights.
Also, a special thanks to ourproducer, jacob Gilliband, and
to all of you who support IsraelPolicy Forum's work.
Do consider making a donationto Israel Policy Forum for being
a credible source of analysisand ideas on issues such as
these that we all care deeplyabout, including this podcast.
And, most importantly, thankyou for listening.
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