October 21, 2025 • 56 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 how the Trump-brokered ceasefire came into being, the mood in Israel last week after the living hostages were finally released from Gaza, the state of play of the deal's first phase, the heavier diplomatic and security challenge awaiting in the second phase, the prospects for renewed conflict with Iran, a reflection on the past two years of war, 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 Neri Zilber, a journalistbased in Tel Aviv and a policy
advisor to Israel Policy Forum.
We're back to regularprogramming after the holidays,
as it were, as it's called herein Israel.
And a bit of news happened overthe past couple of weeks during
the holidays.
Not sure if any of you heard,but I'm kidding, of course.
(00:28):
All the living hostages arethankfully, thankfully back home
as of last week.
The Gaza War has been stopped,if not ended altogether, and
we're now looking at anambitious, US-led post-war
project for Gaza.
Our good friend Amos Harel, thedefense analyst and
correspondent at Haaretz, isback with us to help us make
(00:51):
sense of what just happened andwhat may yet happen on the Gaza
front.
Ceasefire and all.
This was as always a terrificconversation with Amos.
Uh, but if you want to catch upon how exactly we got here, do
check out the webinars Irecorded with my IPF colleagues
in recent weeks, available onboth YouTube and on this podcast
(01:12):
feed.
Finally, just for awareness,we're recording this episode on
Monday evening Tel Aviv time,October 20th, just in case
anything crazy happens betweennow and when this episode goes
up.
But just to give you a frame ofreference of how quickly things
here have unfolded, and thatbrought us to this place that
we're currently at, uh talkingabout a ceasefire, talking about
(01:34):
the hostages, at least theliving ones, all being back
home.
Uh, but of course, there arestill uh deceased hostages still
in captivity in Gaza, andeveryone is waiting for them to
be returned as well.
But really, uh a remarkablechange of fortune uh in a very
short period of time.
And just as a reminder for thisframe of reference, uh we had
(01:55):
the strike in Qatar againstHamas political leadership uh in
early September.
Uh and then we had the launchof the IDF's ground offensive
into Gaza City on September16th.
So just over a month ago,things seemed, if anything, like
they were just escalating, andthe prospect of a deal, well,
extremely remote, to say theleast.
(02:16):
Uh but then September 29th,Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is invited to theWhite House.
Uh, by the way, right after theUN meetings in New York, those
happened too, uh, in case weforgot.
But Netanyahu is invited to theWhite House on September 29th,
where President Donald Trumpunveils his 20-point plan to end
the Gaza War.
Ten days later, October 9th,the deal is finalized in Shar
(02:41):
al-Sheikh, Egypt.
And then a day later, just aday later, the ceasefire goes
into effect.
Uh, where we got to a situationlast Monday, October 13th, the
hostages all came home.
Well, at least the living ones,but they all walked out of
Gaza.
All that happened last Monday.
(03:01):
Wow.
So a real roller coaster ofemotion, two years of war
concluded, for now at least, ina positive way for everyone, in
basically two weeks or so.
Unreal.
Truly unreal.
So forgive me if I don't haveany grand statements or sweeping
conclusions to make sense ofall of this just yet.
(03:22):
It's all a bit surreal and alla bit sudden, as I got into it
with Amos.
But for many of us here inIsrael, uh, I'm sure definitely
for everyone in Gaza as well,and all across the Middle East,
there's a real sense of reliefthat hopefully tomorrow will be
better than yesterday.
For much of the past two years,it was very, very difficult to
(03:43):
believe that would be the case.
So, with all that said, let'sget to Amos Harel.
Hi, Amos, welcome back to thepodcast.
Hi, Neri.
Uh, it's really great to seeyou, Amos.
Uh, a lot to discuss this weekin this episode.
Really, I think it's fair tosay, momentous days here in
(04:04):
Israel.
Uh, finally, happy days here inIsrael, uh, after last week and
the return of all the livinghostages to Israel and back home
to their families.
Uh, we'll get into all thedetails of the Trump-brokered
Gaza ceasefire plan and itsprospects for success.
Trust me, we'll get into allthe details uh in just a second.
But almost I wanted to start ona more personal note.
(04:26):
Uh, we've been in touch now uhthroughout the course of the
war, uh, whether on the podcastor offline.
Uh so really two years ofconstant communications through
this very difficult period uh inIsraeli history.
So I'm curious, how did youfeel last Monday as both an
Israeli and shall we say,especially uh a media
professional, uh a militaryanalyst professional?
(04:48):
What was going through yourmind uh last week when the
hostage came home and andseemingly the war came to an
end?
Amos (04:55):
Well, I would assume just like almost any other Israeli,
happy, elated, almost euphoric.
Uh this didn't seem to be inthe cards uh during the last few
months.
I did write constantly thatonce uh President Trump got
involved, uh this could happen,but I didn't believe it would
actually happen until uh verymuch uh into the the current uh
(05:17):
negotiations.
Of course, the point where itall changed uh had to do with
the Israeli attack on in Qataragainst uh the Hamas uh
negotiation team on uh uhSeptember 9th.
Uh once that happened, uhthings uh moved uh quite
quickly.
It was very, very clear thatPresident Trump um made it his
(05:38):
um top um issue on the agendaand that he wanted this uh to be
over with.
We now know more after that uh60 minutes uh program with uh
Kushner and Whitkoff, but it'sit was I think it was evident
for quite a few weeks thatthings are going to improve.
But the fact that they havebeen able to both bring back all
20 live hostages and uh put anend to the war for the meantime
(06:02):
is is quite impressive.
Then on a personal level, youfeel a lot of relief.
I was worried about a lot of uhpeople I care about who were
still uh uh in either fightingin Gaza or troubled by the Gaza
events.
And then there's somethingalmost instrumental, which is
I'm writing a book uh about thewar, and I I needed uh a place
(06:22):
to end this.
And since this happened almoston the second anniversary of the
war, it seems quite fitting towhen I finally get to to to
finish my book uh to put this asum as a possible ending.
And it's um, I wouldn't say ona happy or light note, but it's
of course much better uh thanthe uh other alternatives.
And as you know, I was uh likemany others, I was quite
(06:45):
depressed with the situation fora long time.
Neri (06:47):
Yes, uh I know that personally, and also on this
podcast.
Uh you didn't mince any wordsuh during your many appearances
over the past two weeks.
Uh and especially, you know,reading your columns really uh
since the summer.
Uh you said A, that this warwas just grinding on to no uh
apparent real end state that waspositive for Israel, clearly,
(07:09):
and especially for the hostagesand all those uh fighting still
in Gaza.
Uh and then two, you you keptsaying uh if Trump wants to, he
could end it tomorrow.
Which he which he almostliterally did.
He almost ended it uh I don'twant to say overnight, but it
took him about two weeks to toend this entire two-year
campaign.
Um almost instrumentally, uh II feel I feel what you're
(07:31):
saying.
Uh last week was a very busyday professionally uh when the
hostages came out, but um it wasuh it was well it was all worth
it.
Uh and to be in Hostage Squareand and with all the Israelis,
it was uh it was a very um verymoving, very moving day, and uh
like I said, some some good newsfor a change.
Uh by the way, Amos, um, do youbelieve, as Kushner and Witkoff
(07:54):
said in the 60 Minutesinterview that aired yesterday,
that they didn't have any uhidea that Israel was going to
strike in Qatar?
Do you believe them when theysay that?
Amos (08:03):
When it comes to Kushner and Witkoff, yes.
Trump knew something.
There was some kind of aconversation earlier on between
Trump and Netanyahu.
Um Netanyahu uh uh did updatehim uh somewhat vaguely about
the possibility of attack.
But the way Whitkoff uhdescribed it uh on uh the Mead
uh conference in in Washingtonabout a month ago, um that was
(08:27):
at the last minute.
And while they were trying tocheck what has happened, and
they talked uh to the Qataris,uh the Israeli strike already um
uh happened.
So they didn't have enough timeuh to to stop it the way they
did with the last strike in Iranuh this June.
Uh and I think it changed thecourse of events because finally
(08:49):
uh uh I think the president wasfed up uh with the prime
minister.
Uh Whitkoff and and uh and uhKushnary alluded to a sense of
uh even betrayal um theAmericans uh felt after that.
They felt that this wasn't evenserving the Israeli interest,
and this is when finally uhTrump got involved.
And of course, as we said inthe past, Trump is a force of
(09:11):
nature.
The same kind of energy wasalso used to apply pressure on
the other side in his name.
And it worked.
The Qataris were on board, theTurks were on board, the
Egyptians.
Not that everything would besmooth from now on, but it is
going to change the region.
And then again, on that uhpersonal, emotional note, even
yesterday, I was driving throughfrom Jerusalem back to the Tel
(09:33):
Aviv area uh yesterdayafternoon, and somehow uh the um
Waze navigation program took methrough App, took me through
Mefacelezion, and I had no ideawhat was going on there.
Mefacel Zion is a suburb ofJerusalem.
There were thousands of peopleon the streets celebrating with
Israeli flags and so on, becauseAl-Khanabukut, one of the
hostages, was coming home fromthe hospital.
(09:55):
And that was amazing to see.
It was a sort of uh finalpersonal note uh regarding the
the last two years' events.
Of course, uh we know alreadybecause of the incident uh um on
Sunday that things could govery wrong very quickly.
This is not necessarily the endof the Gaza story or the end.
(10:15):
Um we're still not sure if thisis in fact the end of the Gaza
war.
And yet the possibility isthere, and it seems even a
likely scenario.
And the longer this ceasefireholds, there's a better chance
that things would uh remain calmfor a bit, although as as as
you mentioned, you know, thingsare quite volatile still.
Neri (10:36):
So uh it's a good transition.
I want to get into the detailsof uh the ceasefire and its
prospects for holding and thefirst stage of the ceasefire,
second stage of the ceasefire.
Uh, but just as an aside, uhyesterday I I had a meeting in
the Kiria, uh IDF militaryheadquarters in Tel Aviv.
And for the past two years,you've had these massive banners
on uh Menachim Beggin Roadoutside the Kiria entrance.
(10:59):
Uh, you know, bring back thehostages, bring them home, all
the pictures, all the images.
Uh, and they were nowhere to befound anymore, thankfully.
Uh, most of them.
And uh the ones that were stillup, uh, a lot of them were old
ones.
So the uh the individual.
Amos (11:13):
We shouldn't mention, of course, Neri, uh not like uh um
uh what happened in the Knessetuh during uh Trump's uh speech,
that there are still hostages,uh dead hostages, bodies uh that
remain there.
16 uh um Israeli hostages arestill kept.
Those bodies are kept in Gazaas we speak, and that remains uh
(11:36):
quite uh a thorny issue.
And yet there's a differencebetween that and uh the fear,
the concern for the livehostages.
The fact that there are no liveIsraelis currently in Gaza is
uh is quite a big deal.
Neri (11:48):
Yeah, quite a big deal.
And uh as you as you mentionedearlier, it's it's almost a
weird feeling after two yearsnot to have any live hostages in
in the Gaza Strip uh thatyou're either personally worried
about or nationally worriedabout uh and and their families
protesting on the streets.
Um so without uh further ado,and by the way, we'll definitely
get into um the deceasedhostages still being held
(12:09):
hostage and captive in in Gaza,um, but the ceasefire.
So uh the first phase wasagreed about 10 days ago uh in
Shal Masheikh, Egypt.
Uh just for our listeners, I'msure they all know, but uh it
called for the release of all 48remaining hostages, 20 living,
uh 28 uh no longer living, uh,and like you said, almost 16 uh
(12:33):
remain, although uh we'rerecording this Monday evening
Tel Aviv time, so there may beum a another body coming out uh
tonight, so our listeners willbe a bit smarter.
Uh and in return, Israel had torelease uh almost 2,000
Palestinian prisoners, uh 250 ofwhich uh were convicted
terrorists uh and some very uhnot nice individuals.
(12:55):
Um also a partial Israeliwithdrawal from uh population
centers, so Israel pulled back alittle bit to the so-called
yellow line.
Um Amos uh we're now just overa week in.
And like you said, we had a amini escalation yesterday,
Sunday.
Uh two Israeli soldiers werekilled in Rafah in southern
Gaza.
Israel launched uh uh waves ofairstrikes uh across Gaza Strip.
(13:19):
Um but overall before thisweekend it seemed like things
were fairly uh working.
Uh is that fair to say?
Amos (13:26):
Uh yes, I think so.
Neri (13:28):
Okay.
And uh you know, after thisweekend, would do you think the
prospects of the ceasefire, atleast a first age holding, is uh
is better or worse?
Amos (13:37):
So it it's interesting.
Uh first of all, the theevents, uh the event itself, the
incident.
Uh it happened on the Israeliuh side, so to speak, of Gaza
Strip, inside Gaza Strip, ofcourse, but it's part of the uh
territories that Israel stillholds on to uh according to the
agreement, which is uh more orless 53% uh of the region.
(14:00):
And apparently um a Hamas unitor Hamas cell was left behind in
one of those uh undergroundcompounds in one of those
tunnels.
Uh an Israeli uh unit was therewith bulldozers trying to
locate a tunnel and destroy it.
And a few uh Hamas fighterscame out, uh launched uh RPG uh
rockets and uh uh used uh opensniper fire on the Israeli
(14:25):
soldiers.
Uh two died, one of them amajor, a company commander,
another of them a soldier, bothof them from the same city of uh
Modiin, and uh three otherswere uh injured.
So this is significant, but onthe other hand, it doesn't
really um uh uh prove uh thatthere was a chain of command
working there.
That actually Hamasheadquarters told those people
(14:46):
uh to fight the Israelis.
There could be one explanationis that they were stuck.
They knew that Israel was thatthe IDF was about to destroy
that tunnel, and they uhprepared to come out fighting
them to die there.
Uh the other possibility isthat they are actually
disconnected from their chain ofcommand and that they didn't
even know um that ceasefire uhhad been approved.
(15:08):
Uh, think of the stories aboutJapanese soldiers comparing the
situation, but fighting in thejungles uh in Southeast Asia
after World War II uh was over.
It could happen.
Even in Gaza, uh which is ofcourse much more uh densely
populated and so on, but we doknow that some of those Hamas uh
cells or terrorists are are notuh in direct contact with their
(15:32):
uh commanders anymore.
So when Trump is saying on AirForce One that he's uh still
looking for explanations, but itdoesn't seem as if they were
acting um according to Hamasleadership orders, he he may be
right.
Um some people would tell youthis is an illusion, this is all
Hamas's plans and so on.
I'm not so sure.
So this is the reality on theground as far as we can
(15:55):
understand it.
The second stage um of thisissue is uh uh what the Israeli
response is, and for perhapsmore importantly, what the
Americans are saying.
Now Israel responded, it was,you know, it seemed to be a
breach of the agreement.
Uh, the agreement is alreadyunpopular among some people on
the right wing, and and some uhNetanyahu is uh receiving some
(16:18):
criticism from the right wing ofhis government regarding that,
so he needed to appear tough.
Um and uh there was, I wouldassume there was public support
for some kind of uh reaction.
And Israel bombed uh all kindsof uh Hamas sites, and there
were uh quite a few casualtieson the Palestinian side and so
on.
But when Israel threatened toclose uh the border crossings,
(16:40):
uh this is when Trump said no.
And we know that uh VicePresident uh Vance is coming in
here and Whitkoff is coming hereas well.
Apparently, uh the Americansare trying to babysit Netanyahu
through this.
They're trying to force Israeluh to implement the agreement,
however vague uh it seems to be.
And for the time being, Trumpis not letting uh Netanyahu off
(17:02):
so easily.
He's he's trying to pushforward the agreement that's
more important to him than asingular incident.
So we'll have to see how thisevolves.
If there are more incidents,one more casualties on the
Israeli side, more criticism uhfrom the right wing, then things
could um uh break down.
But for the time being, the theagreement, as vague as it is,
(17:23):
uh still holds, and this iswhere we are right now as we
speak.
Neri (17:27):
This is why I love having you on Amos, because you cut
right to the chase, and I'vebeen asked for two straight days
uh what happened in Rafah andwhether Hamas orchestrated the
attack or not.
Uh, and I think you youexplained it very well.
Should we be surprised oralarmed that a year and a half
after the IDF entered Rafah andreally what we thought cleared
(17:48):
out most of the area, that thereare still Hamas fighters there,
Hamas tunnels?
Amos (17:52):
No, not really, because uh first of all, this is the type
of guerrilla warfare that'sgoing on.
You don't need an army for thePalestinian side to fight it.
As long as there are cells orunits acting uh underground, and
this could be five teenagerswith uh some weapons, uh, then
the war uh continues uh to someextent.
And then specifically regardingRafah, it's true that uh the
(18:17):
area has been um uh searchedover and over again, but we do
know that there are stillremaining underground compounds
there.
So uh every now and then therewere incidents.
About a month ago, um uh anIsraeli uh Jeep exploded when uh
um the um it it's uh um the thePalestinians operated uh IED,
(18:39):
uh which led to the death of uhfour Israeli officers.
So it's not the first time.
Not constant fighting going on,but we will see similar
isolated incidents um around theGaza Strip and especially um
east of the so-called yellowline, meaning in the areas that
the IDF controls.
Because as I've mentioned,there are still some Hamas
(19:01):
terrorists uh stuck there.
And um, I would assume thatthis isn't finally over yet.
The real question, of course,is how Israel is going to deal
with that and how strict theUnited States is going to be
regarding Israeli reaction.
Uh, for the time being, itseems that uh the president is
invested in moving forward withthe deal.
That's the most important thingto him.
I haven't seen him, we haven'tseen him clash with Netanyahu
(19:24):
over this, but the words arevery, very clear.
This is what Trump has beensaying since his visit to
Israel.
Last week, what he saidessentially in the speech, never
mind the the the his uh thefact that he asked uh President
Herzog for pardon for Netanyahuand the fact that he praised
himself as usual and so on.
The important message was thewar is over, Israel won this,
(19:45):
get over it.
That was more or less uh themessage.
I think he remains on message,which is uh sometimes uh not
that clear with Trump.
Uh for the time being, this isuh where we are, and it's very,
very clear that it's Trumpcalling the shots.
It's nobody else.
Uh, you know, there are allkinds of attempts uh to
rearrange the narrative.
We see Ron Delmer in uhinvested in that, we see Amit
(20:08):
Segal's uh reporting.
Uh, Amit is always very, veryclose to what Netanyahu and
Dermer are thinking.
That's the best way tounderstand their line of thought
regarding that.
But they're the way they'rephrasing it is as if that the
Israeli influence brought oneverything, as if the uh Qatari
strike was a sort of a minorincident, and it is as if um uh
(20:31):
Jerusalem and Washington werealways very, very close.
That's only true to a point.
I think the president got angryat the Prime Minister after uh
the Qatari attack, and I thinksince then the hierarchy was
pretty uh clear.
It was Trump uh saying whatwill happen, and it was
Netanyahu, in spite of what he'ssaying domestically, actually
obeying orders from Netanyahu.
Neri (20:53):
From Trump from Trump, yes.
Um that's very, very clear.
Uh especially Amos, the otherum major point and also a point
of difference between the US andIsrael with regard to this
first phase of the ceasefire ishow quickly Hamas is actually
returning the deceased hostages,their bodies to Israel.
And so last week uh there waskind of this drip-drip by Hamas
(21:18):
of um uh deceased hostagescoming back, and Israel uh was
not happy with the pace, andeither privately or publicly
said that Hamas could be doingmore.
Uh, and yet Trump's uh advisorsuh made it very clear that they
were okay with the pace andthat Hamas was making what they
said was a good faith effort touh return to find first and then
(21:39):
return all the deceasedhostages.
Uh what do you think from yourvantage point?
Uh is Hamas doing enough?
Could it be doing more?
Amos (21:46):
The truth was probably somewhere uh in the middle.
In the beginning, it was quiteevident that Hamas was uh back
to its old tricks, playing allkinds of psychological games
against the Israeli uh public,announcing that it didn't have
information of more bodies andso on.
And that was clear that thiswasn't the reality.
Uh so we're now down to 16.
(22:08):
I would assume uh in a positivescenario, we could um bring
that number down to somewherearound somewhere between four
and eight bodies, and then itgets uh difficult because look,
uh the um uh strip has beenthrough an earthquake for the
last, a constant earthquake forthe last two years.
(22:29):
And it's it's pretty evidentthat some bodies got lost in the
rubble.
Uh that's true for many, many,uh probably quite a few thousand
Palestinians, both uh civiliansand uh Hamas terrorists, and it
could be true for some of thebodies of our hostages.
It's true that that was apriority for Hamas because Hamas
saw them as assets and knewthat they were assets, uh,
(22:49):
bargaining chips in thenegotiations.
Um, and yet in some cases, theactual Hamas militants who
buried the bodies were killedthemselves.
So uh there could be aquestion, or um, and there could
be some incidents in whichHamas doesn't have whom to ask
about the whereabouts of thebodies, and that could be uh
(23:12):
where all as Israelis were allfamiliar with the Ron Alad uh
tragedy, a navigator who's uh umuh uh who was caught by uh Amal
and then Kizbalah in uh 86 uhin uh Lebanon, his body was
lost, he's presumed to have diedsomewhere in the late 80s or
early 90s, and his body wasnever discovered in spite of
(23:34):
efforts by the Iranians andKizbalah and so on.
So there could be some few uhRonalad cases in the long run.
And if we go back to history,Israeli history, mostly with
Egypt, uh wars in the Sinai warsand uh the war uh after the 73
war uh in the west side of theSuez Canal and so on, there are
still missing Israelis missingin action uh there.
(23:56):
Not as much as Americans afterVietnam, but there are cases
that haven't been solved.
I'm afraid that this would bethe case uh here as well, but
the numbers could uh the numberof 16 could be cut by uh half,
more or less, and this is whatIsrael is expecting uh to do.
Nobody here trusts Hamascompletely, but it seems that
there is an effort right nowbecause Hamas is invested in
(24:18):
this.
They want um uh more, they wantthe borders to be open, they
want more uh aid uh coming in,they need Israel to withdraw.
They assume that once theydeliver most of the bodies, the
Americans would apply pressureon Netanyahu to withdraw from
some of the IDF's positions.
So this is where it's heading.
I should also note I mentioneduh earlier, um, according to the
(24:41):
um to the agreement, Israelcontrols 53% of the of the
strip.
In reality, it um I wouldassume that it's around 40
percent.
Because in fact, uh what theIDF did was uh withdraw to
positions which were uh more tothe east uh than was agreed upon
because of the uh geo geographyof the region.
(25:04):
There's uh the the Gaza Stripis quite flat, but there's uh um
you may remember that there'sum um uh a sort of uh um um a
group of uh small hilltops, uhwhich is somewhere between
Sderoth on one side andBetchanun on on the other.
It's called uh uh theim, thethe the 70 hilltops because it's
(25:26):
uh 70 meters uh above uh sealevel.
The highest point in Gaza Stripis Ali Muntal, which is uh 90
uh meters.
That's it.
So the the idea prefers to bearound that area also because
there's a less um um uhbuildings or destroyed buildings
in that area, so there's lessfriction with the civilian
(25:47):
population now coming back totheir original homes.
Uh so what they do is they theyum withdrawn, they have
withdrawn a little bit and theycontrol the area with fire and
observation posts and uh so on.
But it's quite clear that uhfrom the Trump administration's
perspective, uh, they expectmore uh withdrawals from the the
(26:08):
IDF pretty soon, and that'sgoing to be uh difficult, I
think, for Netanyahu to sell uhfor to his uh voters, especially
if uh some kind of fightingcontinues.
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Neri (27:17):
So we'll get into uh now the second phase of the deal and
potential future IDFwithdrawals.
Uh, but almost um what you justsaid, I'm sure the Prime
Minister's office is not goingto be happy because he for him
it was very important to tellthe public here that the IDF
remained in the majority of theGaza Strip.
Yes, we're still in most of theGaza Strip.
That's what he wanted to say.
(27:37):
Uh but you're saying in inactuality it might be numbers
are flexible, as you know.
Amos (27:42):
In uh in our current reality, numbers are always
flexible, but that's a realityas far as I know from uh
military sources, and theyshould know.
Neri (27:51):
They should know, and uh, I mean, not just numbers are uh
open to interpretation here.
I think the reality of uh well,everything, but especially over
the past two years, is open toto interpretation.
Uh, as we're we're finding outin real time here, they want to
uh rename the war.
Uh the war of well, theyactually did officially rename
the war, I think, today in thecabinet.
(28:11):
The war of redemption, uh asopposed to Is it redemption?
Amos (28:16):
Is that the translation?
So the official translation?
So I've spent redemption isgeolah, no, no?
Neri (28:21):
So Amos, I've spent more time than I care to admit uh try
asking many people about whatthe exact translation is, and
you're right.
Amos (28:29):
Uh it should be redemption is more of a religious term, I
think.
Neri (28:32):
Yeah.
So that's exactly it.
So officially, uh I mean,literally, it should be the war
of revival or the war ofrebirth, because in Hebrew it's
the war of t kuma.
But uh according, and I'vechecked according to the Prime
Minister's office, uh, officialtranslation and the government
press office, uh, the officialtranslation is the war of
redemption.
Amos (28:51):
So Bob Marley must be turning in his grave listening
to that, but okay.
Neri (28:56):
Yes.
Uh Bob Bob Marley, and also,you know, um, who is being
redeemed here?
Is it uh the the nation ofIsrael or is it Bibi Netanyahu?
Amos (29:05):
Mostly Netanyahu, I think.
He's doing better than thenation of Israel currently, but
that's another matter.
Neri (29:10):
Yes, more uh yes.
Um we won't get into politicsjust yet.
Amos (29:14):
Seems more lively, yeah.
Neri (29:16):
Yeah, uh as someone told me uh last week after the deal
and the Hashes came back, uhNetanyahu is is on a roll.
Literally, the he's on he's onthe wave.
Amos (29:26):
And and when you talk to people from the center left in
Israel, I'm sure you had thesame experience in the last
week.
Almost everybody's sure thatNetanyahu is going to win the
new the next election.
So it's done with, he's doneand dusted, he's won this all
over again.
But we've heard that uh beingsaid after the Iran uh war,
which seemed to have ended in avictory, and it turned out that
it was a slight uh bump, andthen things got back to to where
(29:51):
they were before.
And I I think the the outcome,the judgment is not, the verdict
is not out yet.
We'll have to see what theactual outcome is before.
Or we understand what thepublic uh reaction, the the
electorate's uh reaction to thewar is.
Neri (30:05):
Yes, uh there's still plenty of time, uh, and still
many new actors, I think, thatwill enter the fray uh that
could change the electoral map.
But almost this is supposed tobe a positive uh episode, so we
don't want to dwell on domesticpolitics and future elections.
Uh I want to dwell on uh thesecond phase of the Gaza
ceasefire deal as uh brokered byTrump.
(30:27):
Um the first phase arguably wasthe easier part, kind of
putting a stop or a halt to thewar, uh convincing Hamas to
release the hostages, you know,convincing Netanyahu to withdraw
partially and all of that thatwe just discussed.
But uh phase two has prettymuch everything else uh in terms
of post-war Gaza, um security,Hamas's disarmament, uh, you
(30:50):
know, if not full IDFwithdrawal, then nearly full IDF
withdrawal back to the bufferzone, uh, a new international
Palestinian governance systemfor the strip.
Uh and there's more, trust me,there's more.
Um each each thing is uh is aworld in its own right, but I
wanted to focus with you on uhthe security issue, which I
think is A the most important,and B, I think will be the most
(31:12):
immediate issue, uh, and theprospects of this what they call
the International StabilizationForce, the ISF, uh actually
deploying to the Gaza Strip.
So, first, what can you tell usabout the ISF so far, who will
take part, and what you imaginetheir mandate will be, because
from what I understand it'sstill uh unclear.
Amos (31:33):
It's very uh improvised for the time being.
And as usual in this region,and as usual with the Trump
administration, uh there's a gapbetween the intentions and the
promises and what actually uhoccurs in reality, at least for
the for the time being.
And things uh, you know, Rabinsaid at the time uh that there
(31:54):
are no holy uh dates in theMiddle East, and nothing is
sacred about the uh dates in theMiddle East, and that's true
here as well.
Things take uh time.
Uh, you know, that old jokeabout what is bukkha uh tomorrow
in Arabic.
It's like manyana, only notthat urgent.
So this is uh this is true foruh for uh Israelis as well.
(32:14):
Things take their time, andit's hard to analyze in advance
and to assume what the timelinewould actually be.
The problem, of course, is uhif it doesn't succeed, things
could uh collapse quite quickly.
So we're not we don't have allthe time in the world.
But I'm not sure that the uhTrump team has this figured out
(32:36):
yet.
There are all kinds of uh umvague commitments made by Arab
states, made by the Turks, madeby the Qataris, made by Egypt,
the Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and soon.
But who's actually going toprovide boots on the ground?
The most serious are actuallythe Americans.
Uh, we've seen uh hundreds ofAmerican soldiers and all kinds
of uh subcontractors arrivingalready at Bengurion Airport,
(32:59):
then going to an Israeli base inthe south and so on.
But I don't think that thesewould actually be soldiers uh
maintaining the peace, so tospeak, or uh I'm not sure there
will be American boots on theground physically in Gaza.
They are going to be thecoordinators, people who would
work the same thing that'shappening to an extent in
Lebanon after the war with uhGizbalah there.
(33:21):
We still need the footsoldiers.
Uh is Indonesia going tovolunteer?
There have been hints regardingthat.
Uh will there the you know thethe the biggest workforce and
the most available, of course,are the Egyptians who are close
by, millions of them.
It it's not uh too uh risky, Ithink, or not too um costly for
(33:41):
a Sisi to decide to send some afew thousand uh soldiers or
policemen or even in uh civilianclothes to Gaza.
And yet it's risky from astrategic perspective.
Does he want them in the lineof fire if Israel's there?
Uh what happens if Israeldiscovers uh uh somebody
producing rockets inside Gazaand there are Egyptian soldiers
(34:01):
nearby?
So there are there's a lot thatcould go wrong, even if
everybody has good intentions,and that's that's this part
isn't isn't even uh completelytrue.
So we'll have to see.
I'm told that although theyhope that it would take weeks,
it's more likely uh to take uhmonths.
And again, these are for thetime being, these are ideas put
(34:24):
on paper.
Uh this is not about facts onthe ground uh yet.
And the problem remains, ofcourse, uh the fact that there's
no vacuum, that Hamas isalready working.
And something that I probablyshould have mentioned earlier:
the fact that Hamas is regainingcontrol all through the Gaza
Strip.
It's not about civilian controlanymore.
They hardly deal with that.
(34:45):
You see already contractorsfrom Turkey, from Egypt, and so
on already working in the stripuh to find bodies under the
rubble and so on.
Uh, but when it comes to sheermilitary force or police force,
Hamas is there already.
And we've seen executions,we've seen bloodshed, we've seen
public executions with familiesand kids uh watching.
(35:05):
We've seen them fighting and uhand killing, murdering uh clan
members uh in the southern GazaStrip and Gaza City as well, the
Dulmush family, the Abu Shabclan, and so on.
So Hamas is already, I don'tknow if it's stage three or
stage four, but Hamas is alreadyuh moving forward with its own
plans.
And it will be uh interestinguh to see whether this could be
(35:29):
the plan could be implemented,considering where Hamas is right
now.
Neri (35:33):
Yes, uh they came out very quickly after the ceasefire and
reasserted control uh on thestreets and felt quite secure
doing that.
Felt quite secure.
Um and uh I think uh your yourcolleague uh Yanev uh from
Haaretz had uh a veryinteresting report last week
where he said, you know, heinterviewed IDF forces uh still
(35:55):
inside the Gaza Strip, you know,manning the the yellow line,
and like just a few kilometersaway, we're actually watching
Hamas fighters running aroundexecuting people, and we can't
do anything.
Amos (36:05):
Uh there were some uh old Sabal Shatila vibes around uh to
some of us who are old enoughto remember events from uh
Lebanon uh one.
Yeah, this could uh a lot couldgo wrong here.
Neri (36:17):
And um, I mean, I don't want to say a lot could go wrong
in in this regard, in thisquestion almost, but from the
Israeli point of view, uh thereis concern that a foreign armed
force inside the Gaza Strip willconstrain IDF future freedom of
action, no?
I mean, it's the first timethat I know of that Israel has
(36:38):
allowed a foreign armed forceinto the Palestinian
territories.
Amos (36:41):
It has allowed on principle, we haven't seen that
uh happen yet.
Correct.
Um again, a lot of people,mostly uh the the anti-uh
Netanyahu crowd, were saying fora long time, all we need to do
is get this deal done with, uh,we get the hostages back, and
then we can deal with Hamasanytime we want.
That's not the reality.
(37:02):
The reality is that once we'reuh once we sign the deal, we're
committed to it, and there's theTrump agenda which defeats uh
Trumps everything else.
Uh pardon my pun.
But uh this is where uh whereit's uh where it's going.
It's Trump making thedecisions, his goal or targets
are quite clear, and Netanyahuis trying to stay out of the
(37:24):
way.
Uh, there could be uh some kindof friction uh later on, but
for the time being, they're beensignaling the link uh quite
clearly where they want thingsuh to develop.
And we'll we'll see what uh uhevolves during uh Vice President
uh Vance's uh visit.
But it's a it's a big deal.
(37:45):
It's a big deal.
I I don't think Netanyahu, andNetanyahu again in his speech at
the Knesset today, he said thatthe personal relationship
between him and Trump was thebest ever between an Israeli uh
prime minister and an Americanpresident.
That's true, I think, but it'strue to a point.
There comes a point where Trumpcould act differently.
And Netanyahu, I I think uhNetanyahu is a keen observer of
(38:07):
uh Trump.
He he knows exactly where he'sat with the president, and he'll
be uh sure not to cross his uhpath, not to make him too angry
uh over this.
In spite of all this uh look atthe difference.
There are two forgive me for uhfor uh uh charging in with
this, but uh two to um twoissues uh there.
(38:29):
One, that the gap, the huge gapbetween what Netanyahu said
would be in the agreement andactually what happened, what
Netanyahu defined as Israeligoals in Gaza two months ago and
what actually transpired.
And the second is the absolutecynicism.
We're used to Netanyahu being acynic regarding these matters,
but the absolute cynicism of hisuh ultra-right wing uh
(38:51):
messianic partners, Benkvilleand Smolvic, look, I assume
that's right for you, that'scorrect about you as well.
But for a year I've beenwriting that the main reason for
Netanyahu not signing a finaldeal regarding the release of
all the hostages was his fearthat Benkvir and Smolvich would
leave the government and thathis coalition would collapse.
That was more important thanthe ideological matters for
(39:12):
Netanyahu.
And then an agreement wassigned, and poof, nothing
happens about these guys.
They're in, but they're out.
They're not part, they didn'tvote, they voted against the
deal, and yet they don't feelany kind of responsibility,
neither for the deal or towardstheir voters.
They did not leave office,which is absolutely amazing.
I couldn't have imaginedsomething like this even a month
(39:33):
ago.
I assumed that he would signthe deal, that um he would get
some support of the Knesset votefrom uh uh Lapido Gans, and
that would be it.
But uh, you know, Small Twitchand Bankfield don't even bother
to pretend that they care aboutthis.
Neri (39:48):
No, uh they don't bother to pretend, at least for not
right now.
And and yes, all of us uhbecause it was it was accurate
that Netanyahu didn't want toquote unquote end the war
because he was afraid he wouldlose his government because Ben
Virginia was a very good thing.
Amos (40:02):
But maybe maybe it wasn't that accurate.
Maybe he knew all along that wewouldn't that they he just
didn't want the deal at thattime, and he assumed that it
would could it could, you know,that he could actually achieve
more on the battlefield than heactually did until Netanyahu,
until Trump forced his hand.
It's also a possibility, Ithink, in retrospect, not that I
saw it uh in real uh time.
Neri (40:22):
It's it's a it's a very good question, Amos.
Um it's like the the age-oldquestion with regard to
Netanyahu.
Um, does he not want to moveforward on X or Y diplomatic
path because of his domesticpolitics, or he's using the
domestic politics as an excusenot to move forward on a certain
diplomatic path?
Um we've known him to do thatin the past.
Amos (40:43):
I've I've wasted I've wasted uh inches of newspaper
and hours of debates, mostlywith Aluf Ben uh Ha'arit's
editor-in-chief, uh who alwaysbelieves that Netanyahu has a
long-term plan.
Well, my sense is that in manycases uh the prime minister is
improvising.
I I think survival is is moreimportant than anything else.
Neri (41:03):
Yeah, I think uh I agree with you, Amos, and um I won't
get into the whole story, butsomeone uh uh close to Netanyahu
told me uh last month that uhwhat really changed was um the
battlefield successes that hefelt he accrued, say over the
past year, whether in Lebanon,um he takes credit for Syria,
obviously Iran this past summer.
Amos (41:22):
But what about Gaza?
Is Gaza success?
That's another matter.
Neri (41:26):
Look, uh I what we just said, they they're changing the
war, the name of the war, to theto the war of redemption.
It should be the war of October7th.
I don't know.
Amos (41:33):
And it cannot be a war of redemption with the redemption
if it's not a success.
So the proof is there already.
Neri (41:39):
Of course.
But uh you know, look, uh brasstax in terms of Bengal and
Smojic, they're probably bidingtheir time.
And they're gonna wait to seewhat happens with the first
phase of the deal.
And if there's movement towardthe second phase, and we're
really entering an electionyear, they may use it as an
excuse to differentiatethemselves from that.
Yeah, but almost this isn'tthis is not why we wanted you
(42:02):
on.
We can talk politics with withliterally everyone else in this
country.
We want you on to talk militaryaffairs.
Um the the real question oneveryone's mind, and the last
question with regard to thesecond phase of the deal, okay,
given the uncertainty withregard to both the international
peacekeeping force, and also,by the way, we didn't even talk
(42:23):
about the potential futurePalestinian force, maybe.
Uh, and given the uncertaintywith regard to IDF future
operations and presentation.
How do you define it?
Um, how will you actuallydisarm Hamas?
Right?
Who will actually go ahead anddo it?
Is it diplomatic pressure,political pressure, armed force
that will get them to disarm?
Amos (42:42):
Well, this is this is still the fog of war.
We don't know how this is goingto transpire.
Um it's interesting to notethat during the discussions they
tried to make the uhdistinction between offensive
weapons and weapons for uhdefense or uh self-protection or
whatever.
Uh now, how much of its uhso-called strategic weapons does
(43:05):
Hamas have left?
We know they have all kinds ofbombs, explosives, and so on.
They have some uh anti-tank uhrelatively primitive anti-tank
weapons such as uhrocket-propelled uh grenades,
what we call RPGs, some sniperuh uh rifles, and so on.
But what about rockets?
You remember in the beginningof the war, rockets were uh
(43:27):
launched towards Sel Aviv almoston a daily basis.
Later on, still shot atBeersheba, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and
so on.
Uh just recently, during thethe latest operations just
before the war ended, uh therewere a couple of times where
they launched uh Qassam rockets,which are the primitive um
short-range rockets towards theOTEF, the Gaza envelope uh
(43:52):
communities.
But that's more or less it.
So, how much of the actualoffensive weapons do they have?
Probably they have some hidden,but uh it may be less of an
issue if the Trumpadministration decides to limit
the discussion to offensiveweapons and not weapons of uh
self-protection.
On the other hand, we see thatthe fact that they have uh their
(44:15):
fighters around and thatthey're willing to use weapons
is enough.
They're you know the the thesheer numbers are higher than
anybody else, and the clanshave, and so on.
And we've seen them executingtheir enemies by the dozens, if
not the hundreds, already.
So they still remain a danger,perhaps not that much for
Israel.
There's a lot of discussion inIsrael.
If we withdraw, is there animminent danger of another
(44:38):
October 7th?
I think not.
I think that right now it's notuh a clear and present danger,
not in the present time.
It could happen again if weneglect again to watch what is
happening there and to prepareourselves.
But it will probably take yearsbefore they actually regain
their offensive uh uhcapabilities.
(44:59):
So it's a matter of definitionand how much uh Trump is going
to go forward with that.
Of course, it's it's quiteclear that the president wants a
big deal, a bigger deal, havingto do with the Gulf states, uh
possible uh business deals,technology, weapons, perhaps
normalization between Israel andsome of these states, and so
on.
Um and there's a possibilitythat he won't let facts get in
(45:23):
the way.
We've seen him do that in Iran,on Iran as well.
Think of Trump announcing timeand time again that the Iranian
nuclear plan has beenobliterated.
That's not the real truth.
It's it's more as usual, thereality is more complicated than
that.
Uh, there has been significantdamage.
It probably pushed the Iraniansback, but you can't say that
the nuclear project is over.
(45:45):
And yet Trump says that becausehe's Trump.
He's allowed to say whatever hewants.
And I fear that this could bethe reality regarding Hamas as
well, that he could be uhignoring the facts happening on
the ground completely, and thatcould be problematic for Israel.
Neri (46:00):
Oh, good points.
Amos.
Um in our remaining time, Iwanted to shift slightly away
from Gaza.
Uh, last two questions, uh if Imay.
You mentioned Iran.
Uh and last time we spoke, bythe way, literally, I think it
was the day or the day after the12-day war ended in June.
So four months ago, uh, itseems like a lifetime ago, but
it was just four months ago.
(46:22):
Uh you probably get the samequestions that I do, walking
around uh Tel Aviv and otherparts of Israel.
People ask me about Iran,whether there's going to be
another round with Iran uh soon,i.e., imminently.
Uh that's the the mood music incertain quarters here, at least
publicly.
Uh do you think that's a realthreat?
(46:44):
Do you think that's credible?
Not immediately.
Amos (46:47):
I think the main reason for that becoming an issue
discussed by Israelis or fearedby Israelis is, of course, the
statements uh made by anopposition leader, a Viktor
Libelman, who is a formerdefense minister, who kept
warning on this in the lastmonth or so.
It wasn't really clear what hewas warning about, but people
are remain in fear of thisbecause by the end of the war it
(47:08):
was quite clear that thepossible damage could be much
more significant.
That although we succeeded inthe beginning, we were having
problems with our uh um uhweapons intercepting systems,
uh, we needed American help andso on.
And some of the damage in thelast uh Iranian attacks uh
became quite devastating in TelAviv, in Belshiva, and uh and
(47:30):
and so on.
Uh that was uh people fear thatmore than they feared a lot of
uh the other stuff that uh wenton.
Uh I'm not sure, I don't Idon't think that the as far as
we know right now, I I have noknowledge of Iran trying to
reignite the nuclear uh plan umin a significant way right now.
(47:52):
Uh the problems are uh thereare other problems.
One is the attitude, the factthat we're not really
negotiating the promises ofrevenge in the long run.
It's quite clear that theywould seek some kind of
retaliation against Israel.
And there's also the ballisticmissile program.
Because remember, one of thearguments Netanyahu used uh
regarding his decision to strikewas not only the nuclear plan,
(48:13):
it was the fact that they weremoving forward very, very
quickly with the ballisticmissile plan, that they were uh
attempting to produce 8,000 uhmissiles that could uh that have
long enough range to reachIsrael within three years, and
therefore we needed to take outthose capabilities.
How successful were we on that?
We never received information.
And since the Iranians found away around our defensive system
(48:37):
in the end, not much, but therewas some kind of penetration and
some kind of damage.
In the long run, how worryinguh is that?
So these are the issues that Ithink could be bothering.
It's perhaps not immediate, butit could be there could be a
frightening scenario in whichthings uh uh suddenly escalate.
Having said all that, I thinkIsrael had the upper hand and
(48:58):
the Iranians are very uhalthough Khamenae said the exact
opposite uh today, right?
The Iranians are very anybodywho's who knows something in
Tehran knows exactly what hashappened.
Uh so that's uh uh that's uh umuh a possibility, that's uh uh
uh uh a bigger issue.
And in the long run, therecould be um uh some some kind of
(49:21):
um escalation, whether it'sabout their relationship with
the West, whether it's about thethe future of their nuclear
project and so on.
I don't think it's immediate,uh, but it could it could turn
after October 7th, we can't ruleout any uh any uh worst case uh
scenario and things are it'snot done.
It's not done yet.
And uh one thing I I I shouldmention as well is all that talk
(49:45):
about regime change, or nothingnothing happened uh with that,
and Israel still sometimesthreatens a Iran with that.
I think it was an absolutefailure, the discussion
regarding that nevermaterialized into something also
an issue in the long run.
Neri (49:59):
So uh yes, I I agree with uh that assessment.
I I try to calm people down andsay, you know, if there's
another round, it won't beimmediate because uh I think
Iran, like you said, alsounderstands that they took a
major hit.
Um and you know, Trump's showedthis past summer that he's
willing to get involveddirectly.
Amos (50:19):
Yeah, the last time the Trump next time is the Trump
next time is anybody's guess.
Neri (50:24):
Yes.
Uh well, Trump tomorrow isanybody's guess.
Um Amos, uh final question toyou, and more of a retrospective
question looking back at thelast two years, uh, and let's
leave aside the terrible,terrible day of October 7th.
But was there one event ormission or operation undertaken
by by Israel that uh trulysurprised even even you, even
(50:46):
Amos Khalil?
Uh where you said to yourself,voila, I I didn't actually know
that we we could pull that offover the past two years?
Amos (50:53):
Uh there were two.
First of all, I was uh the uhum quite a terrible surprise was
October 7th itself.
Uh we were caught off guard andwe talked about that
constantly.
Uh the uh the the the result ofthat was of course uh horrific.
There were two operations whichwere impressive in my view.
One of it one of it the thefirst one, I can't say it's just
(51:15):
PR, just a gimmick or a toy, assome uh people have uh uh
defined it, but the pageroperation, a joint operation by
Mossad and the IDF was quiteimpressive.
The fact that people have beenplanning that uh uh for for
years, for more than a decade,and the fact that it was in the
end it was implemented sosuccessfully, and the fact that
(51:36):
it actually depressed uhNasrala.
Nasrallah's son spoke after hisdeath and said that his father
was in deep depression in thelast 10 days of his life, which
are the days between uh theattack, the Pager operation, and
his uh death.
And this is apparently becausehe actually saw people being
injured and perhaps killedaround him from those Israeli
(51:58):
beepers.
So that's that's impressive.
The fact that we could plansomething like this, that we
could mislead them in such a wayis is is uh is is quite uh
amazing.
Although had they watched morecarefully uh the wire, for
instance, on American TV,perhaps uh uh the Iranians at
Khizbal could have been morecareful about that.
It's all about the beavers,yeah.
(52:19):
I'm somehow um uh encouraged ifI when I assume that perhaps
some Israeli um uh agents gottheir ideas from American TV.
It gives me, I don't know, aparticular joy to think about
that.
But I I suspect that this hasto do uh with reality as well.
Uh and the second thing, ofcourse, is uh the the Iranian
(52:40):
strike, not the strike itself,but the fact that they've
reached uh air superiority inIran.
And this was something thatthey've struggled with for more
than a decade.
And they had all kinds ofideas, but it was never tested,
of course, and it seemed quitefar-fetched uh when I talked to
people before.
And then I was, I think I toldyou that last time I was caught
(53:01):
off guard and outside of thecountry uh as the war started.
So uh the Israeli attack uhstarted the first day evening, I
was still in Oslo, and then Iflew to Milano and was uh stuck
in Milan uh uh for a few daysbefore finally arriving home uh
through Cyprus.
Uh but when on Saturday morningI was walking the streets and
(53:24):
the Italian streets whilelistening on my airports to uh
um um uh a briefing by a seniorAir Force general telling us how
they managed to uh what hecalled pave the way to Tehran
and control the Tehran skies,that was quite amazing.
To realize that our guys hadthe actual knowledge and the
(53:45):
brains and then the the thecapability to actually uh um to
to implement such a plan wasquite amazing.
It's you know it doesn't itdoesn't wipe out the memories,
the terrible memories of October7th, uh, but it is impressive.
And I think that if you're uh aforeign um uh intelligence
analyst, whether you're inWashington or in Tehran, you
(54:08):
take note of all that.
You say, okay, the Israelismessed very, very badly.
They messed up on October 7th,they shouldn't have uh um um,
you know, they should have uhunderestimated the yeah, yeah,
they should have uh treatedHamas differently, they should
have realized how uh Hamas howdangerous Hamas was, and yet
that's not uh when you see thatuh there's again, it it doesn't
(54:31):
it doesn't wipe out thememories, but it's it's good to
know that we have the ability aswell.
And we'll we'll probably needunfortunately we'll need those
abilities again.
So the fact that there arethinking people who have or
planning such uh and capable ofactually doing such stuff, uh
for me as an Israeli, it's uhit's an impressive uh it's it's
it's it's not only interesting,it's important and impressive.
Neri (54:53):
It absolutely is.
Uh Amos, we'll have to leave itthere.
Uh till next time.
By the way, we'll read allabout these these events and
even more events uh in yourupcoming book once you finish
it, I'm sure.
Amos (55:04):
Thanks for the plug-in.
Neri (55:06):
We'll we'll plug it again, don't worry.
And you know, we we spent anhour together.
We didn't even talk about thefootball match yesterday,
Liverpool versus ManchesterUnited.
Amos (55:14):
Try not to mention that.
Neri (55:15):
I wanted to keep this uh a positive uh podcast for you as
well.
Um but I'll I'll uh I'llcelebrate uh inside off offline.
Uh Amos, talk to you soon.
Thank you again.
Thank you.
Okay, thanks again to AmosHarel as always for his generous
time and insights.
Also, special thanks to ourproducers, Jacob Gilman and Eden
Jesselson, and to all of youwho support Israel Policy
(55:37):
Forum's work.
Do consider making a donationto Israel Policy Forum so it can
keep being a credible source ofanalysis and ideas on issues
such as these that we all caredeeply about, including this
podcast.
And most importantly, thank youfor listening.
Shalom, and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod.
I'm Neri Zilber, a journalistbased in Tel Aviv and a policy
advisor to Israel Policy Forum.
We're back to regularprogramming after the holidays,
as it were, as it's called herein Israel.
And a bit of news happened overthe past couple of weeks during
the holidays.
Not sure if any of you heard,but I'm kidding, of course.
(00:28):
All the living hostages arethankfully, thankfully back home
as of last week.
The Gaza War has been stopped,if not ended altogether, and
we're now looking at anambitious, US-led post-war
project for Gaza.
Our good friend Amos Harel, thedefense analyst and
correspondent at Haaretz, isback with us to help us make
(00:51):
sense of what just happened andwhat may yet happen on the Gaza
front.
Ceasefire and all.
This was as always a terrificconversation with Amos.
Uh, but if you want to catch upon how exactly we got here, do
check out the webinars Irecorded with my IPF colleagues
in recent weeks, available onboth YouTube and on this podcast
(01:12):
feed.
Finally, just for awareness,we're recording this episode on
Monday evening Tel Aviv time,October 20th, just in case
anything crazy happens betweennow and when this episode goes
up.
But just to give you a frame ofreference of how quickly things
here have unfolded, and thatbrought us to this place that
we're currently at, uh talkingabout a ceasefire, talking about
(01:34):
the hostages, at least theliving ones, all being back
home.
Uh, but of course, there arestill uh deceased hostages still
in captivity in Gaza, andeveryone is waiting for them to
be returned as well.
But really, uh a remarkablechange of fortune uh in a very
short period of time.
And just as a reminder for thisframe of reference, uh we had
(01:55):
the strike in Qatar againstHamas political leadership uh in
early September.
Uh and then we had the launchof the IDF's ground offensive
into Gaza City on September16th.
So just over a month ago,things seemed, if anything, like
they were just escalating, andthe prospect of a deal, well,
extremely remote, to say theleast.
(02:16):
Uh but then September 29th,Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu is invited to theWhite House.
Uh, by the way, right after theUN meetings in New York, those
happened too, uh, in case weforgot.
But Netanyahu is invited to theWhite House on September 29th,
where President Donald Trumpunveils his 20-point plan to end
the Gaza War.
Ten days later, October 9th,the deal is finalized in Shar
(02:41):
al-Sheikh, Egypt.
And then a day later, just aday later, the ceasefire goes
into effect.
Uh, where we got to a situationlast Monday, October 13th, the
hostages all came home.
Well, at least the living ones,but they all walked out of
Gaza.
All that happened last Monday.
(03:01):
Wow.
So a real roller coaster ofemotion, two years of war
concluded, for now at least, ina positive way for everyone, in
basically two weeks or so.
Unreal.
Truly unreal.
So forgive me if I don't haveany grand statements or sweeping
conclusions to make sense ofall of this just yet.
(03:22):
It's all a bit surreal and alla bit sudden, as I got into it
with Amos.
But for many of us here inIsrael, uh, I'm sure definitely
for everyone in Gaza as well,and all across the Middle East,
there's a real sense of reliefthat hopefully tomorrow will be
better than yesterday.
For much of the past two years,it was very, very difficult to
(03:43):
believe that would be the case.
So, with all that said, let'sget to Amos Harel.
Hi, Amos, welcome back to thepodcast.
Hi, Neri.
Uh, it's really great to seeyou, Amos.
Uh, a lot to discuss this weekin this episode.
Really, I think it's fair tosay, momentous days here in
(04:04):
Israel.
Uh, finally, happy days here inIsrael, uh, after last week and
the return of all the livinghostages to Israel and back home
to their families.
Uh, we'll get into all thedetails of the Trump-brokered
Gaza ceasefire plan and itsprospects for success.
Trust me, we'll get into allthe details uh in just a second.
But almost I wanted to start ona more personal note.
(04:26):
Uh, we've been in touch now uhthroughout the course of the
war, uh, whether on the podcastor offline.
Uh so really two years ofconstant communications through
this very difficult period uh inIsraeli history.
So I'm curious, how did youfeel last Monday as both an
Israeli and shall we say,especially uh a media
professional, uh a militaryanalyst professional?
(04:48):
What was going through yourmind uh last week when the
hostage came home and andseemingly the war came to an
end?
Amos (04:55):
Well, I would assume just like almost any other Israeli,
happy, elated, almost euphoric.
Uh this didn't seem to be inthe cards uh during the last few
months.
I did write constantly thatonce uh President Trump got
involved, uh this could happen,but I didn't believe it would
actually happen until uh verymuch uh into the the current uh
(05:17):
negotiations.
Of course, the point where itall changed uh had to do with
the Israeli attack on in Qataragainst uh the Hamas uh
negotiation team on uh uhSeptember 9th.
Uh once that happened, uhthings uh moved uh quite
quickly.
It was very, very clear thatPresident Trump um made it his
(05:38):
um top um issue on the agendaand that he wanted this uh to be
over with.
We now know more after that uh60 minutes uh program with uh
Kushner and Whitkoff, but it'sit was I think it was evident
for quite a few weeks thatthings are going to improve.
But the fact that they havebeen able to both bring back all
20 live hostages and uh put anend to the war for the meantime
(06:02):
is is quite impressive.
Then on a personal level, youfeel a lot of relief.
I was worried about a lot of uhpeople I care about who were
still uh uh in either fightingin Gaza or troubled by the Gaza
events.
And then there's somethingalmost instrumental, which is
I'm writing a book uh about thewar, and I I needed uh a place
(06:22):
to end this.
And since this happened almoston the second anniversary of the
war, it seems quite fitting towhen I finally get to to to
finish my book uh to put this asum as a possible ending.
And it's um, I wouldn't say ona happy or light note, but it's
of course much better uh thanthe uh other alternatives.
And as you know, I was uh likemany others, I was quite
(06:45):
depressed with the situation fora long time.
Neri (06:47):
Yes, uh I know that personally, and also on this
podcast.
Uh you didn't mince any wordsuh during your many appearances
over the past two weeks.
Uh and especially, you know,reading your columns really uh
since the summer.
Uh you said A, that this warwas just grinding on to no uh
apparent real end state that waspositive for Israel, clearly,
(07:09):
and especially for the hostagesand all those uh fighting still
in Gaza.
Uh and then two, you you keptsaying uh if Trump wants to, he
could end it tomorrow.
Which he which he almostliterally did.
He almost ended it uh I don'twant to say overnight, but it
took him about two weeks to toend this entire two-year
campaign.
Um almost instrumentally, uh II feel I feel what you're
(07:31):
saying.
Uh last week was a very busyday professionally uh when the
hostages came out, but um it wasuh it was well it was all worth
it.
Uh and to be in Hostage Squareand and with all the Israelis,
it was uh it was a very um verymoving, very moving day, and uh
like I said, some some good newsfor a change.
Uh by the way, Amos, um, do youbelieve, as Kushner and Witkoff
(07:54):
said in the 60 Minutesinterview that aired yesterday,
that they didn't have any uhidea that Israel was going to
strike in Qatar?
Do you believe them when theysay that?
Amos (08:03):
When it comes to Kushner and Witkoff, yes.
Trump knew something.
There was some kind of aconversation earlier on between
Trump and Netanyahu.
Um Netanyahu uh uh did updatehim uh somewhat vaguely about
the possibility of attack.
But the way Whitkoff uhdescribed it uh on uh the Mead
uh conference in in Washingtonabout a month ago, um that was
(08:27):
at the last minute.
And while they were trying tocheck what has happened, and
they talked uh to the Qataris,uh the Israeli strike already um
uh happened.
So they didn't have enough timeuh to to stop it the way they
did with the last strike in Iranuh this June.
Uh and I think it changed thecourse of events because finally
(08:49):
uh uh I think the president wasfed up uh with the prime
minister.
Uh Whitkoff and and uh and uhKushnary alluded to a sense of
uh even betrayal um theAmericans uh felt after that.
They felt that this wasn't evenserving the Israeli interest,
and this is when finally uhTrump got involved.
And of course, as we said inthe past, Trump is a force of
(09:11):
nature.
The same kind of energy wasalso used to apply pressure on
the other side in his name.
And it worked.
The Qataris were on board, theTurks were on board, the
Egyptians.
Not that everything would besmooth from now on, but it is
going to change the region.
And then again, on that uhpersonal, emotional note, even
yesterday, I was driving throughfrom Jerusalem back to the Tel
(09:33):
Aviv area uh yesterdayafternoon, and somehow uh the um
Waze navigation program took methrough App, took me through
Mefacelezion, and I had no ideawhat was going on there.
Mefacel Zion is a suburb ofJerusalem.
There were thousands of peopleon the streets celebrating with
Israeli flags and so on, becauseAl-Khanabukut, one of the
hostages, was coming home fromthe hospital.
(09:55):
And that was amazing to see.
It was a sort of uh finalpersonal note uh regarding the
the last two years' events.
Of course, uh we know alreadybecause of the incident uh um on
Sunday that things could govery wrong very quickly.
This is not necessarily the endof the Gaza story or the end.
(10:15):
Um we're still not sure if thisis in fact the end of the Gaza
war.
And yet the possibility isthere, and it seems even a
likely scenario.
And the longer this ceasefireholds, there's a better chance
that things would uh remain calmfor a bit, although as as as
you mentioned, you know, thingsare quite volatile still.
Neri (10:36):
So uh it's a good transition.
I want to get into the detailsof uh the ceasefire and its
prospects for holding and thefirst stage of the ceasefire,
second stage of the ceasefire.
Uh, but just as an aside, uhyesterday I I had a meeting in
the Kiria, uh IDF militaryheadquarters in Tel Aviv.
And for the past two years,you've had these massive banners
on uh Menachim Beggin Roadoutside the Kiria entrance.
(10:59):
Uh, you know, bring back thehostages, bring them home, all
the pictures, all the images.
Uh, and they were nowhere to befound anymore, thankfully.
Uh, most of them.
And uh the ones that were stillup, uh, a lot of them were old
ones.
So the uh the individual.
Amos (11:13):
We shouldn't mention, of course, Neri, uh not like uh um
uh what happened in the Knessetuh during uh Trump's uh speech,
that there are still hostages,uh dead hostages, bodies uh that
remain there.
16 uh um Israeli hostages arestill kept.
Those bodies are kept in Gazaas we speak, and that remains uh
(11:36):
quite uh a thorny issue.
And yet there's a differencebetween that and uh the fear,
the concern for the livehostages.
The fact that there are no liveIsraelis currently in Gaza is
uh is quite a big deal.
Neri (11:48):
Yeah, quite a big deal.
And uh as you as you mentionedearlier, it's it's almost a
weird feeling after two yearsnot to have any live hostages in
in the Gaza Strip uh thatyou're either personally worried
about or nationally worriedabout uh and and their families
protesting on the streets.
Um so without uh further ado,and by the way, we'll definitely
get into um the deceasedhostages still being held
(12:09):
hostage and captive in in Gaza,um, but the ceasefire.
So uh the first phase wasagreed about 10 days ago uh in
Shal Masheikh, Egypt.
Uh just for our listeners, I'msure they all know, but uh it
called for the release of all 48remaining hostages, 20 living,
uh 28 uh no longer living, uh,and like you said, almost 16 uh
(12:33):
remain, although uh we'rerecording this Monday evening
Tel Aviv time, so there may beum a another body coming out uh
tonight, so our listeners willbe a bit smarter.
Uh and in return, Israel had torelease uh almost 2,000
Palestinian prisoners, uh 250 ofwhich uh were convicted
terrorists uh and some very uhnot nice individuals.
(12:55):
Um also a partial Israeliwithdrawal from uh population
centers, so Israel pulled back alittle bit to the so-called
yellow line.
Um Amos uh we're now just overa week in.
And like you said, we had a amini escalation yesterday,
Sunday.
Uh two Israeli soldiers werekilled in Rafah in southern
Gaza.
Israel launched uh uh waves ofairstrikes uh across Gaza Strip.
(13:19):
Um but overall before thisweekend it seemed like things
were fairly uh working.
Uh is that fair to say?
Amos (13:26):
Uh yes, I think so.
Neri (13:28):
Okay.
And uh you know, after thisweekend, would do you think the
prospects of the ceasefire, atleast a first age holding, is uh
is better or worse?
Amos (13:37):
So it it's interesting.
Uh first of all, the theevents, uh the event itself, the
incident.
Uh it happened on the Israeliuh side, so to speak, of Gaza
Strip, inside Gaza Strip, ofcourse, but it's part of the uh
territories that Israel stillholds on to uh according to the
agreement, which is uh more orless 53% uh of the region.
(14:00):
And apparently um a Hamas unitor Hamas cell was left behind in
one of those uh undergroundcompounds in one of those
tunnels.
Uh an Israeli uh unit was therewith bulldozers trying to
locate a tunnel and destroy it.
And a few uh Hamas fighterscame out, uh launched uh RPG uh
rockets and uh uh used uh opensniper fire on the Israeli
(14:25):
soldiers.
Uh two died, one of them amajor, a company commander,
another of them a soldier, bothof them from the same city of uh
Modiin, and uh three otherswere uh injured.
So this is significant, but onthe other hand, it doesn't
really um uh uh prove uh thatthere was a chain of command
working there.
That actually Hamasheadquarters told those people
(14:46):
uh to fight the Israelis.
There could be one explanationis that they were stuck.
They knew that Israel was thatthe IDF was about to destroy
that tunnel, and they uhprepared to come out fighting
them to die there.
Uh the other possibility isthat they are actually
disconnected from their chain ofcommand and that they didn't
even know um that ceasefire uhhad been approved.
(15:08):
Uh, think of the stories aboutJapanese soldiers comparing the
situation, but fighting in thejungles uh in Southeast Asia
after World War II uh was over.
It could happen.
Even in Gaza, uh which is ofcourse much more uh densely
populated and so on, but we doknow that some of those Hamas uh
cells or terrorists are are notuh in direct contact with their
(15:32):
uh commanders anymore.
So when Trump is saying on AirForce One that he's uh still
looking for explanations, but itdoesn't seem as if they were
acting um according to Hamasleadership orders, he he may be
right.
Um some people would tell youthis is an illusion, this is all
Hamas's plans and so on.
I'm not so sure.
So this is the reality on theground as far as we can
(15:55):
understand it.
The second stage um of thisissue is uh uh what the Israeli
response is, and for perhapsmore importantly, what the
Americans are saying.
Now Israel responded, it was,you know, it seemed to be a
breach of the agreement.
Uh, the agreement is alreadyunpopular among some people on
the right wing, and and some uhNetanyahu is uh receiving some
(16:18):
criticism from the right wing ofhis government regarding that,
so he needed to appear tough.
Um and uh there was, I wouldassume there was public support
for some kind of uh reaction.
And Israel bombed uh all kindsof uh Hamas sites, and there
were uh quite a few casualtieson the Palestinian side and so
on.
But when Israel threatened toclose uh the border crossings,
(16:40):
uh this is when Trump said no.
And we know that uh VicePresident uh Vance is coming in
here and Whitkoff is coming hereas well.
Apparently, uh the Americansare trying to babysit Netanyahu
through this.
They're trying to force Israeluh to implement the agreement,
however vague uh it seems to be.
And for the time being, Trumpis not letting uh Netanyahu off
(17:02):
so easily.
He's he's trying to pushforward the agreement that's
more important to him than asingular incident.
So we'll have to see how thisevolves.
If there are more incidents,one more casualties on the
Israeli side, more criticism uhfrom the right wing, then things
could um uh break down.
But for the time being, the theagreement, as vague as it is,
(17:23):
uh still holds, and this iswhere we are right now as we
speak.
Neri (17:27):
This is why I love having you on Amos, because you cut
right to the chase, and I'vebeen asked for two straight days
uh what happened in Rafah andwhether Hamas orchestrated the
attack or not.
Uh, and I think you youexplained it very well.
Should we be surprised oralarmed that a year and a half
after the IDF entered Rafah andreally what we thought cleared
(17:48):
out most of the area, that thereare still Hamas fighters there,
Hamas tunnels?
Amos (17:52):
No, not really, because uh first of all, this is the type
of guerrilla warfare that'sgoing on.
You don't need an army for thePalestinian side to fight it.
As long as there are cells orunits acting uh underground, and
this could be five teenagerswith uh some weapons, uh, then
the war uh continues uh to someextent.
And then specifically regardingRafah, it's true that uh the
(18:17):
area has been um uh searchedover and over again, but we do
know that there are stillremaining underground compounds
there.
So uh every now and then therewere incidents.
About a month ago, um uh anIsraeli uh Jeep exploded when uh
um the um it it's uh um the thePalestinians operated uh IED,
(18:39):
uh which led to the death of uhfour Israeli officers.
So it's not the first time.
Not constant fighting going on,but we will see similar
isolated incidents um around theGaza Strip and especially um
east of the so-called yellowline, meaning in the areas that
the IDF controls.
Because as I've mentioned,there are still some Hamas
(19:01):
terrorists uh stuck there.
And um, I would assume thatthis isn't finally over yet.
The real question, of course,is how Israel is going to deal
with that and how strict theUnited States is going to be
regarding Israeli reaction.
Uh, for the time being, itseems that uh the president is
invested in moving forward withthe deal.
That's the most important thingto him.
I haven't seen him, we haven'tseen him clash with Netanyahu
(19:24):
over this, but the words arevery, very clear.
This is what Trump has beensaying since his visit to
Israel.
Last week, what he saidessentially in the speech, never
mind the the the his uh thefact that he asked uh President
Herzog for pardon for Netanyahuand the fact that he praised
himself as usual and so on.
The important message was thewar is over, Israel won this,
(19:45):
get over it.
That was more or less uh themessage.
I think he remains on message,which is uh sometimes uh not
that clear with Trump.
Uh for the time being, this isuh where we are, and it's very,
very clear that it's Trumpcalling the shots.
It's nobody else.
Uh, you know, there are allkinds of attempts uh to
rearrange the narrative.
We see Ron Delmer in uhinvested in that, we see Amit
(20:08):
Segal's uh reporting.
Uh, Amit is always very, veryclose to what Netanyahu and
Dermer are thinking.
That's the best way tounderstand their line of thought
regarding that.
But they're the way they'rephrasing it is as if that the
Israeli influence brought oneverything, as if the uh Qatari
strike was a sort of a minorincident, and it is as if um uh
(20:31):
Jerusalem and Washington werealways very, very close.
That's only true to a point.
I think the president got angryat the Prime Minister after uh
the Qatari attack, and I thinksince then the hierarchy was
pretty uh clear.
It was Trump uh saying whatwill happen, and it was
Netanyahu, in spite of what he'ssaying domestically, actually
obeying orders from Netanyahu.
Neri (20:53):
From Trump from Trump, yes.
Um that's very, very clear.
Uh especially Amos, the otherum major point and also a point
of difference between the US andIsrael with regard to this
first phase of the ceasefire ishow quickly Hamas is actually
returning the deceased hostages,their bodies to Israel.
And so last week uh there waskind of this drip-drip by Hamas
(21:18):
of um uh deceased hostagescoming back, and Israel uh was
not happy with the pace, andeither privately or publicly
said that Hamas could be doingmore.
Uh, and yet Trump's uh advisorsuh made it very clear that they
were okay with the pace andthat Hamas was making what they
said was a good faith effort touh return to find first and then
(21:39):
return all the deceasedhostages.
Uh what do you think from yourvantage point?
Uh is Hamas doing enough?
Could it be doing more?
Amos (21:46):
The truth was probably somewhere uh in the middle.
In the beginning, it was quiteevident that Hamas was uh back
to its old tricks, playing allkinds of psychological games
against the Israeli uh public,announcing that it didn't have
information of more bodies andso on.
And that was clear that thiswasn't the reality.
Uh so we're now down to 16.
(22:08):
I would assume uh in a positivescenario, we could um bring
that number down to somewherearound somewhere between four
and eight bodies, and then itgets uh difficult because look,
uh the um uh strip has beenthrough an earthquake for the
last, a constant earthquake forthe last two years.
(22:29):
And it's it's pretty evidentthat some bodies got lost in the
rubble.
Uh that's true for many, many,uh probably quite a few thousand
Palestinians, both uh civiliansand uh Hamas terrorists, and it
could be true for some of thebodies of our hostages.
It's true that that was apriority for Hamas because Hamas
saw them as assets and knewthat they were assets, uh,
(22:49):
bargaining chips in thenegotiations.
Um, and yet in some cases, theactual Hamas militants who
buried the bodies were killedthemselves.
So uh there could be aquestion, or um, and there could
be some incidents in whichHamas doesn't have whom to ask
about the whereabouts of thebodies, and that could be uh
(23:12):
where all as Israelis were allfamiliar with the Ron Alad uh
tragedy, a navigator who's uh umuh uh who was caught by uh Amal
and then Kizbalah in uh 86 uhin uh Lebanon, his body was
lost, he's presumed to have diedsomewhere in the late 80s or
early 90s, and his body wasnever discovered in spite of
(23:34):
efforts by the Iranians andKizbalah and so on.
So there could be some few uhRonalad cases in the long run.
And if we go back to history,Israeli history, mostly with
Egypt, uh wars in the Sinai warsand uh the war uh after the 73
war uh in the west side of theSuez Canal and so on, there are
still missing Israelis missingin action uh there.
(23:56):
Not as much as Americans afterVietnam, but there are cases
that haven't been solved.
I'm afraid that this would bethe case uh here as well, but
the numbers could uh the numberof 16 could be cut by uh half,
more or less, and this is whatIsrael is expecting uh to do.
Nobody here trusts Hamascompletely, but it seems that
there is an effort right nowbecause Hamas is invested in
(24:18):
this.
They want um uh more, they wantthe borders to be open, they
want more uh aid uh coming in,they need Israel to withdraw.
They assume that once theydeliver most of the bodies, the
Americans would apply pressureon Netanyahu to withdraw from
some of the IDF's positions.
So this is where it's heading.
I should also note I mentioneduh earlier, um, according to the
(24:41):
um to the agreement, Israelcontrols 53% of the of the
strip.
In reality, it um I wouldassume that it's around 40
percent.
Because in fact, uh what theIDF did was uh withdraw to
positions which were uh more tothe east uh than was agreed upon
because of the uh geo geographyof the region.
(25:04):
There's uh the the Gaza Stripis quite flat, but there's uh um
you may remember that there'sum um uh a sort of uh um um a
group of uh small hilltops, uhwhich is somewhere between
Sderoth on one side andBetchanun on on the other.
It's called uh uh theim, thethe the 70 hilltops because it's
(25:26):
uh 70 meters uh above uh sealevel.
The highest point in Gaza Stripis Ali Muntal, which is uh 90
uh meters.
That's it.
So the the idea prefers to bearound that area also because
there's a less um um uhbuildings or destroyed buildings
in that area, so there's lessfriction with the civilian
(25:47):
population now coming back totheir original homes.
Uh so what they do is they theyum withdrawn, they have
withdrawn a little bit and theycontrol the area with fire and
observation posts and uh so on.
But it's quite clear that uhfrom the Trump administration's
perspective, uh, they expectmore uh withdrawals from the the
(26:08):
IDF pretty soon, and that'sgoing to be uh difficult, I
think, for Netanyahu to sell uhfor to his uh voters, especially
if uh some kind of fightingcontinues.
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Neri (27:17):
So we'll get into uh now the second phase of the deal and
potential future IDFwithdrawals.
Uh, but almost um what you justsaid, I'm sure the Prime
Minister's office is not goingto be happy because he for him
it was very important to tellthe public here that the IDF
remained in the majority of theGaza Strip.
Yes, we're still in most of theGaza Strip.
That's what he wanted to say.
(27:37):
Uh but you're saying in inactuality it might be numbers
are flexible, as you know.
Amos (27:42):
In uh in our current reality, numbers are always
flexible, but that's a realityas far as I know from uh
military sources, and theyshould know.
Neri (27:51):
They should know, and uh, I mean, not just numbers are uh
open to interpretation here.
I think the reality of uh well,everything, but especially over
the past two years, is open toto interpretation.
Uh, as we're we're finding outin real time here, they want to
uh rename the war.
Uh the war of well, theyactually did officially rename
the war, I think, today in thecabinet.
(28:11):
The war of redemption, uh asopposed to Is it redemption?
Amos (28:16):
Is that the translation?
So the official translation?
So I've spent redemption isgeolah, no, no?
Neri (28:21):
So Amos, I've spent more time than I care to admit uh try
asking many people about whatthe exact translation is, and
you're right.
Amos (28:29):
Uh it should be redemption is more of a religious term, I
think.
Neri (28:32):
Yeah.
So that's exactly it.
So officially, uh I mean,literally, it should be the war
of revival or the war ofrebirth, because in Hebrew it's
the war of t kuma.
But uh according, and I'vechecked according to the Prime
Minister's office, uh, officialtranslation and the government
press office, uh, the officialtranslation is the war of
redemption.
Amos (28:51):
So Bob Marley must be turning in his grave listening
to that, but okay.
Neri (28:56):
Yes.
Uh Bob Bob Marley, and also,you know, um, who is being
redeemed here?
Is it uh the the nation ofIsrael or is it Bibi Netanyahu?
Amos (29:05):
Mostly Netanyahu, I think.
He's doing better than thenation of Israel currently, but
that's another matter.
Neri (29:10):
Yes, more uh yes.
Um we won't get into politicsjust yet.
Amos (29:14):
Seems more lively, yeah.
Neri (29:16):
Yeah, uh as someone told me uh last week after the deal
and the Hashes came back, uhNetanyahu is is on a roll.
Literally, the he's on he's onthe wave.
Amos (29:26):
And and when you talk to people from the center left in
Israel, I'm sure you had thesame experience in the last
week.
Almost everybody's sure thatNetanyahu is going to win the
new the next election.
So it's done with, he's doneand dusted, he's won this all
over again.
But we've heard that uh beingsaid after the Iran uh war,
which seemed to have ended in avictory, and it turned out that
it was a slight uh bump, andthen things got back to to where
(29:51):
they were before.
And I I think the the outcome,the judgment is not, the verdict
is not out yet.
We'll have to see what theactual outcome is before.
Or we understand what thepublic uh reaction, the the
electorate's uh reaction to thewar is.
Neri (30:05):
Yes, uh there's still plenty of time, uh, and still
many new actors, I think, thatwill enter the fray uh that
could change the electoral map.
But almost this is supposed tobe a positive uh episode, so we
don't want to dwell on domesticpolitics and future elections.
Uh I want to dwell on uh thesecond phase of the Gaza
ceasefire deal as uh brokered byTrump.
(30:27):
Um the first phase arguably wasthe easier part, kind of
putting a stop or a halt to thewar, uh convincing Hamas to
release the hostages, you know,convincing Netanyahu to withdraw
partially and all of that thatwe just discussed.
But uh phase two has prettymuch everything else uh in terms
of post-war Gaza, um security,Hamas's disarmament, uh, you
(30:50):
know, if not full IDFwithdrawal, then nearly full IDF
withdrawal back to the bufferzone, uh, a new international
Palestinian governance systemfor the strip.
Uh and there's more, trust me,there's more.
Um each each thing is uh is aworld in its own right, but I
wanted to focus with you on uhthe security issue, which I
think is A the most important,and B, I think will be the most
(31:12):
immediate issue, uh, and theprospects of this what they call
the International StabilizationForce, the ISF, uh actually
deploying to the Gaza Strip.
So, first, what can you tell usabout the ISF so far, who will
take part, and what you imaginetheir mandate will be, because
from what I understand it'sstill uh unclear.
Amos (31:33):
It's very uh improvised for the time being.
And as usual in this region,and as usual with the Trump
administration, uh there's a gapbetween the intentions and the
promises and what actually uhoccurs in reality, at least for
the for the time being.
And things uh, you know, Rabinsaid at the time uh that there
(31:54):
are no holy uh dates in theMiddle East, and nothing is
sacred about the uh dates in theMiddle East, and that's true
here as well.
Things take uh time.
Uh, you know, that old jokeabout what is bukkha uh tomorrow
in Arabic.
It's like manyana, only notthat urgent.
So this is uh this is true foruh for uh Israelis as well.
(32:14):
Things take their time, andit's hard to analyze in advance
and to assume what the timelinewould actually be.
The problem, of course, is uhif it doesn't succeed, things
could uh collapse quite quickly.
So we're not we don't have allthe time in the world.
But I'm not sure that the uhTrump team has this figured out
(32:36):
yet.
There are all kinds of uh umvague commitments made by Arab
states, made by the Turks, madeby the Qataris, made by Egypt,
the Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and soon.
But who's actually going toprovide boots on the ground?
The most serious are actuallythe Americans.
Uh, we've seen uh hundreds ofAmerican soldiers and all kinds
of uh subcontractors arrivingalready at Bengurion Airport,
(32:59):
then going to an Israeli base inthe south and so on.
But I don't think that thesewould actually be soldiers uh
maintaining the peace, so tospeak, or uh I'm not sure there
will be American boots on theground physically in Gaza.
They are going to be thecoordinators, people who would
work the same thing that'shappening to an extent in
Lebanon after the war with uhGizbalah there.
(33:21):
We still need the footsoldiers.
Uh is Indonesia going tovolunteer?
There have been hints regardingthat.
Uh will there the you know thethe the biggest workforce and
the most available, of course,are the Egyptians who are close
by, millions of them.
It it's not uh too uh risky, Ithink, or not too um costly for
(33:41):
a Sisi to decide to send some afew thousand uh soldiers or
policemen or even in uh civilianclothes to Gaza.
And yet it's risky from astrategic perspective.
Does he want them in the lineof fire if Israel's there?
Uh what happens if Israeldiscovers uh uh somebody
producing rockets inside Gazaand there are Egyptian soldiers
(34:01):
nearby?
So there are there's a lot thatcould go wrong, even if
everybody has good intentions,and that's that's this part
isn't isn't even uh completelytrue.
So we'll have to see.
I'm told that although theyhope that it would take weeks,
it's more likely uh to take uhmonths.
And again, these are for thetime being, these are ideas put
(34:24):
on paper.
Uh this is not about facts onthe ground uh yet.
And the problem remains, ofcourse, uh the fact that there's
no vacuum, that Hamas isalready working.
And something that I probablyshould have mentioned earlier:
the fact that Hamas is regainingcontrol all through the Gaza
Strip.
It's not about civilian controlanymore.
They hardly deal with that.
(34:45):
You see already contractorsfrom Turkey, from Egypt, and so
on already working in the stripuh to find bodies under the
rubble and so on.
Uh, but when it comes to sheermilitary force or police force,
Hamas is there already.
And we've seen executions,we've seen bloodshed, we've seen
public executions with familiesand kids uh watching.
(35:05):
We've seen them fighting and uhand killing, murdering uh clan
members uh in the southern GazaStrip and Gaza City as well, the
Dulmush family, the Abu Shabclan, and so on.
So Hamas is already, I don'tknow if it's stage three or
stage four, but Hamas is alreadyuh moving forward with its own
plans.
And it will be uh interestinguh to see whether this could be
(35:29):
the plan could be implemented,considering where Hamas is right
now.
Neri (35:33):
Yes, uh they came out very quickly after the ceasefire and
reasserted control uh on thestreets and felt quite secure
doing that.
Felt quite secure.
Um and uh I think uh your yourcolleague uh Yanev uh from
Haaretz had uh a veryinteresting report last week
where he said, you know, heinterviewed IDF forces uh still
(35:55):
inside the Gaza Strip, you know,manning the the yellow line,
and like just a few kilometersaway, we're actually watching
Hamas fighters running aroundexecuting people, and we can't
do anything.
Amos (36:05):
Uh there were some uh old Sabal Shatila vibes around uh to
some of us who are old enoughto remember events from uh
Lebanon uh one.
Yeah, this could uh a lot couldgo wrong here.
Neri (36:17):
And um, I mean, I don't want to say a lot could go wrong
in in this regard, in thisquestion almost, but from the
Israeli point of view, uh thereis concern that a foreign armed
force inside the Gaza Strip willconstrain IDF future freedom of
action, no?
I mean, it's the first timethat I know of that Israel has
(36:38):
allowed a foreign armed forceinto the Palestinian
territories.
Amos (36:41):
It has allowed on principle, we haven't seen that
uh happen yet.
Correct.
Um again, a lot of people,mostly uh the the anti-uh
Netanyahu crowd, were saying fora long time, all we need to do
is get this deal done with, uh,we get the hostages back, and
then we can deal with Hamasanytime we want.
That's not the reality.
(37:02):
The reality is that once we'reuh once we sign the deal, we're
committed to it, and there's theTrump agenda which defeats uh
Trumps everything else.
Uh pardon my pun.
But uh this is where uh whereit's uh where it's going.
It's Trump making thedecisions, his goal or targets
are quite clear, and Netanyahuis trying to stay out of the
(37:24):
way.
Uh, there could be uh some kindof friction uh later on, but
for the time being, they're beensignaling the link uh quite
clearly where they want thingsuh to develop.
And we'll we'll see what uh uhevolves during uh Vice President
uh Vance's uh visit.
But it's a it's a big deal.
(37:45):
It's a big deal.
I I don't think Netanyahu, andNetanyahu again in his speech at
the Knesset today, he said thatthe personal relationship
between him and Trump was thebest ever between an Israeli uh
prime minister and an Americanpresident.
That's true, I think, but it'strue to a point.
There comes a point where Trumpcould act differently.
And Netanyahu, I I think uhNetanyahu is a keen observer of
(38:07):
uh Trump.
He he knows exactly where he'sat with the president, and he'll
be uh sure not to cross his uhpath, not to make him too angry
uh over this.
In spite of all this uh look atthe difference.
There are two forgive me for uhfor uh uh charging in with
this, but uh two to um twoissues uh there.
(38:29):
One, that the gap, the huge gapbetween what Netanyahu said
would be in the agreement andactually what happened, what
Netanyahu defined as Israeligoals in Gaza two months ago and
what actually transpired.
And the second is the absolutecynicism.
We're used to Netanyahu being acynic regarding these matters,
but the absolute cynicism of hisuh ultra-right wing uh
(38:51):
messianic partners, Benkvilleand Smolvic, look, I assume
that's right for you, that'scorrect about you as well.
But for a year I've beenwriting that the main reason for
Netanyahu not signing a finaldeal regarding the release of
all the hostages was his fearthat Benkvir and Smolvich would
leave the government and thathis coalition would collapse.
That was more important thanthe ideological matters for
(39:12):
Netanyahu.
And then an agreement wassigned, and poof, nothing
happens about these guys.
They're in, but they're out.
They're not part, they didn'tvote, they voted against the
deal, and yet they don't feelany kind of responsibility,
neither for the deal or towardstheir voters.
They did not leave office,which is absolutely amazing.
I couldn't have imaginedsomething like this even a month
(39:33):
ago.
I assumed that he would signthe deal, that um he would get
some support of the Knesset votefrom uh uh Lapido Gans, and
that would be it.
But uh, you know, Small Twitchand Bankfield don't even bother
to pretend that they care aboutthis.
Neri (39:48):
No, uh they don't bother to pretend, at least for not
right now.
And and yes, all of us uhbecause it was it was accurate
that Netanyahu didn't want toquote unquote end the war
because he was afraid he wouldlose his government because Ben
Virginia was a very good thing.
Amos (40:02):
But maybe maybe it wasn't that accurate.
Maybe he knew all along that wewouldn't that they he just
didn't want the deal at thattime, and he assumed that it
would could it could, you know,that he could actually achieve
more on the battlefield than heactually did until Netanyahu,
until Trump forced his hand.
It's also a possibility, Ithink, in retrospect, not that I
saw it uh in real uh time.
Neri (40:22):
It's it's a it's a very good question, Amos.
Um it's like the the age-oldquestion with regard to
Netanyahu.
Um, does he not want to moveforward on X or Y diplomatic
path because of his domesticpolitics, or he's using the
domestic politics as an excusenot to move forward on a certain
diplomatic path?
Um we've known him to do thatin the past.
Amos (40:43):
I've I've wasted I've wasted uh inches of newspaper
and hours of debates, mostlywith Aluf Ben uh Ha'arit's
editor-in-chief, uh who alwaysbelieves that Netanyahu has a
long-term plan.
Well, my sense is that in manycases uh the prime minister is
improvising.
I I think survival is is moreimportant than anything else.
Neri (41:03):
Yeah, I think uh I agree with you, Amos, and um I won't
get into the whole story, butsomeone uh uh close to Netanyahu
told me uh last month that uhwhat really changed was um the
battlefield successes that hefelt he accrued, say over the
past year, whether in Lebanon,um he takes credit for Syria,
obviously Iran this past summer.
Amos (41:22):
But what about Gaza?
Is Gaza success?
That's another matter.
Neri (41:26):
Look, uh I what we just said, they they're changing the
war, the name of the war, to theto the war of redemption.
It should be the war of October7th.
I don't know.
Amos (41:33):
And it cannot be a war of redemption with the redemption
if it's not a success.
So the proof is there already.
Neri (41:39):
Of course.
But uh you know, look, uh brasstax in terms of Bengal and
Smojic, they're probably bidingtheir time.
And they're gonna wait to seewhat happens with the first
phase of the deal.
And if there's movement towardthe second phase, and we're
really entering an electionyear, they may use it as an
excuse to differentiatethemselves from that.
Yeah, but almost this isn'tthis is not why we wanted you
(42:02):
on.
We can talk politics with withliterally everyone else in this
country.
We want you on to talk militaryaffairs.
Um the the real question oneveryone's mind, and the last
question with regard to thesecond phase of the deal, okay,
given the uncertainty withregard to both the international
peacekeeping force, and also,by the way, we didn't even talk
(42:23):
about the potential futurePalestinian force, maybe.
Uh, and given the uncertaintywith regard to IDF future
operations and presentation.
How do you define it?
Um, how will you actuallydisarm Hamas?
Right?
Who will actually go ahead anddo it?
Is it diplomatic pressure,political pressure, armed force
that will get them to disarm?
Amos (42:42):
Well, this is this is still the fog of war.
We don't know how this is goingto transpire.
Um it's interesting to notethat during the discussions they
tried to make the uhdistinction between offensive
weapons and weapons for uhdefense or uh self-protection or
whatever.
Uh now, how much of its uhso-called strategic weapons does
(43:05):
Hamas have left?
We know they have all kinds ofbombs, explosives, and so on.
They have some uh anti-tank uhrelatively primitive anti-tank
weapons such as uhrocket-propelled uh grenades,
what we call RPGs, some sniperuh uh rifles, and so on.
But what about rockets?
You remember in the beginningof the war, rockets were uh
(43:27):
launched towards Sel Aviv almoston a daily basis.
Later on, still shot atBeersheba, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and
so on.
Uh just recently, during thethe latest operations just
before the war ended, uh therewere a couple of times where
they launched uh Qassam rockets,which are the primitive um
short-range rockets towards theOTEF, the Gaza envelope uh
(43:52):
communities.
But that's more or less it.
So, how much of the actualoffensive weapons do they have?
Probably they have some hidden,but uh it may be less of an
issue if the Trumpadministration decides to limit
the discussion to offensiveweapons and not weapons of uh
self-protection.
On the other hand, we see thatthe fact that they have uh their
(44:15):
fighters around and thatthey're willing to use weapons
is enough.
They're you know the the thesheer numbers are higher than
anybody else, and the clanshave, and so on.
And we've seen them executingtheir enemies by the dozens, if
not the hundreds, already.
So they still remain a danger,perhaps not that much for
Israel.
There's a lot of discussion inIsrael.
If we withdraw, is there animminent danger of another
(44:38):
October 7th?
I think not.
I think that right now it's notuh a clear and present danger,
not in the present time.
It could happen again if weneglect again to watch what is
happening there and to prepareourselves.
But it will probably take yearsbefore they actually regain
their offensive uh uhcapabilities.
(44:59):
So it's a matter of definitionand how much uh Trump is going
to go forward with that.
Of course, it's it's quiteclear that the president wants a
big deal, a bigger deal, havingto do with the Gulf states, uh
possible uh business deals,technology, weapons, perhaps
normalization between Israel andsome of these states, and so
on.
Um and there's a possibilitythat he won't let facts get in
(45:23):
the way.
We've seen him do that in Iran,on Iran as well.
Think of Trump announcing timeand time again that the Iranian
nuclear plan has beenobliterated.
That's not the real truth.
It's it's more as usual, thereality is more complicated than
that.
Uh, there has been significantdamage.
It probably pushed the Iraniansback, but you can't say that
the nuclear project is over.
(45:45):
And yet Trump says that becausehe's Trump.
He's allowed to say whatever hewants.
And I fear that this could bethe reality regarding Hamas as
well, that he could be uhignoring the facts happening on
the ground completely, and thatcould be problematic for Israel.
Neri (46:00):
Oh, good points.
Amos.
Um in our remaining time, Iwanted to shift slightly away
from Gaza.
Uh, last two questions, uh if Imay.
You mentioned Iran.
Uh and last time we spoke, bythe way, literally, I think it
was the day or the day after the12-day war ended in June.
So four months ago, uh, itseems like a lifetime ago, but
it was just four months ago.
(46:22):
Uh you probably get the samequestions that I do, walking
around uh Tel Aviv and otherparts of Israel.
People ask me about Iran,whether there's going to be
another round with Iran uh soon,i.e., imminently.
Uh that's the the mood music incertain quarters here, at least
publicly.
Uh do you think that's a realthreat?
(46:44):
Do you think that's credible?
Not immediately.
Amos (46:47):
I think the main reason for that becoming an issue
discussed by Israelis or fearedby Israelis is, of course, the
statements uh made by anopposition leader, a Viktor
Libelman, who is a formerdefense minister, who kept
warning on this in the lastmonth or so.
It wasn't really clear what hewas warning about, but people
are remain in fear of thisbecause by the end of the war it
(47:08):
was quite clear that thepossible damage could be much
more significant.
That although we succeeded inthe beginning, we were having
problems with our uh um uhweapons intercepting systems,
uh, we needed American help andso on.
And some of the damage in thelast uh Iranian attacks uh
became quite devastating in TelAviv, in Belshiva, and uh and
(47:30):
and so on.
Uh that was uh people fear thatmore than they feared a lot of
uh the other stuff that uh wenton.
Uh I'm not sure, I don't Idon't think that the as far as
we know right now, I I have noknowledge of Iran trying to
reignite the nuclear uh plan umin a significant way right now.
(47:52):
Uh the problems are uh thereare other problems.
One is the attitude, the factthat we're not really
negotiating the promises ofrevenge in the long run.
It's quite clear that theywould seek some kind of
retaliation against Israel.
And there's also the ballisticmissile program.
Because remember, one of thearguments Netanyahu used uh
regarding his decision to strikewas not only the nuclear plan,
(48:13):
it was the fact that they weremoving forward very, very
quickly with the ballisticmissile plan, that they were uh
attempting to produce 8,000 uhmissiles that could uh that have
long enough range to reachIsrael within three years, and
therefore we needed to take outthose capabilities.
How successful were we on that?
We never received information.
And since the Iranians found away around our defensive system
(48:37):
in the end, not much, but therewas some kind of penetration and
some kind of damage.
In the long run, how worryinguh is that?
So these are the issues that Ithink could be bothering.
It's perhaps not immediate, butit could be there could be a
frightening scenario in whichthings uh uh suddenly escalate.
Having said all that, I thinkIsrael had the upper hand and
(48:58):
the Iranians are very uhalthough Khamenae said the exact
opposite uh today, right?
The Iranians are very anybodywho's who knows something in
Tehran knows exactly what hashappened.
Uh so that's uh uh that's uh umuh a possibility, that's uh uh
uh uh a bigger issue.
And in the long run, therecould be um uh some some kind of
(49:21):
um escalation, whether it'sabout their relationship with
the West, whether it's about thethe future of their nuclear
project and so on.
I don't think it's immediate,uh, but it could it could turn
after October 7th, we can't ruleout any uh any uh worst case uh
scenario and things are it'snot done.
It's not done yet.
And uh one thing I I I shouldmention as well is all that talk
(49:45):
about regime change, or nothingnothing happened uh with that,
and Israel still sometimesthreatens a Iran with that.
I think it was an absolutefailure, the discussion
regarding that nevermaterialized into something also
an issue in the long run.
Neri (49:59):
So uh yes, I I agree with uh that assessment.
I I try to calm people down andsay, you know, if there's
another round, it won't beimmediate because uh I think
Iran, like you said, alsounderstands that they took a
major hit.
Um and you know, Trump's showedthis past summer that he's
willing to get involveddirectly.
Amos (50:19):
Yeah, the last time the Trump next time is the Trump
next time is anybody's guess.
Neri (50:24):
Yes.
Uh well, Trump tomorrow isanybody's guess.
Um Amos, uh final question toyou, and more of a retrospective
question looking back at thelast two years, uh, and let's
leave aside the terrible,terrible day of October 7th.
But was there one event ormission or operation undertaken
by by Israel that uh trulysurprised even even you, even
(50:46):
Amos Khalil?
Uh where you said to yourself,voila, I I didn't actually know
that we we could pull that offover the past two years?
Amos (50:53):
Uh there were two.
First of all, I was uh the uhum quite a terrible surprise was
October 7th itself.
Uh we were caught off guard andwe talked about that
constantly.
Uh the uh the the the result ofthat was of course uh horrific.
There were two operations whichwere impressive in my view.
One of it one of it the thefirst one, I can't say it's just
(51:15):
PR, just a gimmick or a toy, assome uh people have uh uh
defined it, but the pageroperation, a joint operation by
Mossad and the IDF was quiteimpressive.
The fact that people have beenplanning that uh uh for for
years, for more than a decade,and the fact that it was in the
end it was implemented sosuccessfully, and the fact that
(51:36):
it actually depressed uhNasrala.
Nasrallah's son spoke after hisdeath and said that his father
was in deep depression in thelast 10 days of his life, which
are the days between uh theattack, the Pager operation, and
his uh death.
And this is apparently becausehe actually saw people being
injured and perhaps killedaround him from those Israeli
(51:58):
beepers.
So that's that's impressive.
The fact that we could plansomething like this, that we
could mislead them in such a wayis is is uh is is quite uh
amazing.
Although had they watched morecarefully uh the wire, for
instance, on American TV,perhaps uh uh the Iranians at
Khizbal could have been morecareful about that.
It's all about the beavers,yeah.
(52:19):
I'm somehow um uh encouraged ifI when I assume that perhaps
some Israeli um uh agents gottheir ideas from American TV.
It gives me, I don't know, aparticular joy to think about
that.
But I I suspect that this hasto do uh with reality as well.
Uh and the second thing, ofcourse, is uh the the Iranian
(52:40):
strike, not the strike itself,but the fact that they've
reached uh air superiority inIran.
And this was something thatthey've struggled with for more
than a decade.
And they had all kinds ofideas, but it was never tested,
of course, and it seemed quitefar-fetched uh when I talked to
people before.
And then I was, I think I toldyou that last time I was caught
(53:01):
off guard and outside of thecountry uh as the war started.
So uh the Israeli attack uhstarted the first day evening, I
was still in Oslo, and then Iflew to Milano and was uh stuck
in Milan uh uh for a few daysbefore finally arriving home uh
through Cyprus.
Uh but when on Saturday morningI was walking the streets and
(53:24):
the Italian streets whilelistening on my airports to uh
um um uh a briefing by a seniorAir Force general telling us how
they managed to uh what hecalled pave the way to Tehran
and control the Tehran skies,that was quite amazing.
To realize that our guys hadthe actual knowledge and the
(53:45):
brains and then the the thecapability to actually uh um to
to implement such a plan wasquite amazing.
It's you know it doesn't itdoesn't wipe out the memories,
the terrible memories of October7th, uh, but it is impressive.
And I think that if you're uh aforeign um uh intelligence
analyst, whether you're inWashington or in Tehran, you
(54:08):
take note of all that.
You say, okay, the Israelismessed very, very badly.
They messed up on October 7th,they shouldn't have uh um um,
you know, they should have uhunderestimated the yeah, yeah,
they should have uh treatedHamas differently, they should
have realized how uh Hamas howdangerous Hamas was, and yet
that's not uh when you see thatuh there's again, it it doesn't
(54:31):
it doesn't wipe out thememories, but it's it's good to
know that we have the ability aswell.
And we'll we'll probably needunfortunately we'll need those
abilities again.
So the fact that there arethinking people who have or
planning such uh and capable ofactually doing such stuff, uh
for me as an Israeli, it's uhit's an impressive uh it's it's
it's it's not only interesting,it's important and impressive.
Neri (54:53):
It absolutely is.
Uh Amos, we'll have to leave itthere.
Uh till next time.
By the way, we'll read allabout these these events and
even more events uh in yourupcoming book once you finish
it, I'm sure.
Amos (55:04):
Thanks for the plug-in.
Neri (55:06):
We'll we'll plug it again, don't worry.
And you know, we we spent anhour together.
We didn't even talk about thefootball match yesterday,
Liverpool versus ManchesterUnited.
Amos (55:14):
Try not to mention that.
Neri (55:15):
I wanted to keep this uh a positive uh podcast for you as
well.
Um but I'll I'll uh I'llcelebrate uh inside off offline.
Uh Amos, talk to you soon.
Thank you again.
Thank you.
Okay, thanks again to AmosHarel as always for his generous
time and insights.
Also, special thanks to ourproducers, Jacob Gilman and Eden
Jesselson, and to all of youwho support Israel Policy
(55:37):
Forum's work.
Do consider making a donationto Israel Policy Forum so it can
keep being a credible source ofanalysis and ideas on issues
such as these that we all caredeeply about, including this
podcast.
And most importantly, thank youfor listening.
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