October 16, 2023 • 40 mins
Unfiltered analysis of Israel's ongoing conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah. This episode promises to unravel the complexities of Israel's military response to Hamas' brutal attacks, the potential of a reoccupation of Gaza, the risks and challenges, and the possibility of this being Israel's very own Pearl Harbor moment. Hear from Jonathan Panikoff, a former US career intelligence officer, and military affairs correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai, as they dissect the heart of the crisis.
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Episode Transcript
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Jonathan Panikoff (00:00):
Do I think, in a case where Israel is
getting overwhelmed and needsadditional support, that you
could see standoff missiles fromthe carrier group being fired
by the group into Lebanonagainst Hezbollah-specific
targets?
If Israel needs that support, Ido actually think that that's
more possible.
Ron Ben-Yishai (00:19):
We cannot live side by side with Hamat, a
jihadist organization, an army.
It is either them or us.
Dana Lewis (00:35):
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of
Backstory.
I'm Dana Lewis.
On Backstory, theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict,
gaza under siege Israelis arenow saying there are close to
200 Israelis that were takenhostage when Hamas attacked
Israeli towns and villages andan outdoor concert.
We talked to Jonathan Panikoff,a former US career intelligence
(00:59):
officer, on how Israel wastaken by surprise and what may
be coming in this wideningconflict as hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians aredisplaced in Gaza, as the
Israeli bombing is relentlessand a ground war imminent.
But first military affairscorrespondent Ron Benesai from
Israel, who I've known since the90s.
(01:21):
Ron is tapped in Often.
He is embedded with Israelimilitary forces.
He's got awesome sources and heknows what he's talking about.
Ron Benesai is a militaryaffairs correspondent in Israel
and he joins me now.
Hello, ron, good to see you.
Ron Ben-Yishai (01:42):
Good to see you, dana.
Dana Lewis (01:44):
Ron, can you give me just a sense of what's
happening there in terms of theanger in the military?
You talked to a lot ofhigh-level people.
What are you hearing?
Ron Ben-Yishai (01:55):
The reason anger in the military is there is an
anger in all over Israel, amongall the people of Israel,
because there are very few thatare not angry, and it is because
of the brutality and thecruelness of the attack.
(02:20):
We have been attacked byterrorist organizations before,
and severely so.
Jonathan Panikoff (02:31):
And.
Ron Ben-Yishai (02:31):
Israel lost a lot of people, but this time it
was a terror army committingatrocities that we have seen
only in the pogroms in Europe orISIS in Iraq, which means it
(02:55):
was a military operation byHamas, well planned and well
executed, but it was huge.
The purpose was to commitatrocities and this is something
we have never seen before, andthis made every Israeli, whether
(03:16):
opposition or coalition, leftor right, come to the conclusion
that we cannot live side byside with Hamas, a jihadist
organization, an army.
It is either him either.
(03:42):
It is either them or us.
Dana Lewis (03:46):
What is Israel going to do?
I mean, I understand you, evenif you knew you were going to
tell me in an interview.
But okay, obviously there'sgoing to be a ground operation
and I don't need you to confirmthat.
Ron Ben-Yishai (03:57):
I don't know how grand it is going to be.
Israel will try to do it asswift and as less costly in
terms of casualty as possibleWith, because the window of
(04:17):
legitimization that the worldpublic opinion gives us and
world diplomacy gives us and theAmerican support gives us is
quite narrow and it will becomenarrower and narrower very
quickly when the operation, whenthey they encourage them into
(04:38):
Gaza, will start and the worldwill start to see children and
women running in the streets.
You know the pictures, but theidea wants to do it and we want
the idea to do it with thecitizens as less casualty as
(05:07):
possible.
And this needs to be done,therefore, in a very creative
way, based on very accurateintelligence and only enough.
The Israeli intelligence isquite good, at least in detail.
(05:32):
Sometimes they don't see thebig picture, but they are quite
good in the details.
Dana Lewis (05:42):
You see a quick operation?
I watched an interview byNathali Bennett, the former
prime minister, saying Israel isgoing to be there for months,
maybe years.
Do you see some disconnectthere in terms of what you don't
see it as a reoccupation goingon for years?
Ron Ben-Yishai (06:01):
Nath, I don't think that Israel wants to
occupy Gaza.
Why should we?
But Israel wants to make sure,first of all, that Hamas and the
Islamic Jihad and their othersmaller organizations, but even
more extreme than the other two,lost totally their
(06:27):
infrastructure, militaryinfrastructure, military
industrial infrastructure, andthat they are not in hell
between the Indoch rule, theGaza Strip, anymore.
Dana Lewis (06:44):
Who does, who do you hand the keys to Gaza?
If the army could even do this.
Ron Ben-Yishai (06:50):
No problem, no problem.
There are enough citizens inGaza that can take the
governance into their hand.
Not enough high rankingofficial, civilian official.
(07:17):
They got their salaries fromAbu Mazen, from the Palestinian
Authority that dwells inRamallah, but they can do it.
They can do it.
They rent the country, theyrent Gaza before.
Dana Lewis (07:34):
So could you see that the Israeli leadership
Anyway?
Ron Ben-Yishai (07:40):
they not.
Let me stop.
The problem is not, I'm notreally worried, who will run
Gaza after this.
What I'm worried is that Hamatand the Islamic Jihad and the
other terror organization willbe eliminated, and when I say
(08:02):
eliminated, preferably Hili, andafter that Allah Akbar, as you
know.
Dana Lewis (08:14):
What do you see as the hazards ahead?
I mean Gaza is, I've been thehazard is going into Gaza.
Ron Ben-Yishai (08:22):
It's a big hazard.
Gaza became a sort of terrorbase, a terror greenhouse, and
going into there means a lot oftrouble, but we have to do it.
(08:44):
There is no.
Dana Lewis (08:47):
There are little.
It's like a Fallujah multipliedby.
Ron Ben-Yishai (08:51):
Absolutely no, no, no, no.
Fallujah was not a, forinstance.
They didn't build in Fallujah.
The better comparison is aMosul, not Fallujah.
(09:12):
I've been to Fallujah and I'vebeen to Mosul.
The real place to compare to isMosul because also in Mosul,
they built an underground townto enable them to fight and move
for their troops, theirwarriors, from one point to
(09:35):
another and fight an incomingforce.
So Gaza is Mosul.
I know you have limited time.
Dana Lewis (09:47):
I know you have limited time.
Two quick questions.
One would be the intelligencefailure by Israel.
Some people have said this wasIsrael's Pearl Harbor.
Do you suspect that at the endof this, in fact, they will find
out in the inquiry that comesmonths and years from now, that
in fact there were signs thatthere was an operation and there
probably?
Ron Ben-Yishai (10:06):
were signs.
We know already that there weresigns.
The problem, like in many othercases, is the interpretation of
the sign.
When you are living with theconcept that Hamah is a moderate
(10:30):
Islamic religious operation,organization or party and all
what it cared for is thewell-being of the people of Gaza
.
When you are living in thisstate of mind, when you see them
(10:54):
training, you say okay, theywant to show that they are real
Mukawama, which means resistanceorganization, and they have to
show the people to make noisesand shows as if they are.
But they are really agovernment, a civilian
government.
That was our mistake.
Dana Lewis (11:17):
Fast underestimation of their capability Not
underestimating?
Ron Ben-Yishai (11:22):
On the contrary, no, no, their capability were
not underestimated.
Their intentions were wronglyestimated.
Dana Lewis (11:33):
Last question, as I promised, and that is that the
Israeli defense minister juststood next to the American
defense minister at a newsconference.
He was asked about Iran.
He spoke of this triangle ofevil of Hezbollah, hamas and
Iran and he said he's not goingto talk about what will happen
(11:53):
to Iran later, but clearly hegave the smoke signal that
Israel will deal with Iran atsome point, because there's no
doubt that Iran had its hand inthis.
Whether it pressed the launchbutton or not, it doesn't matter
.
It was the enabler for Hamas.
Is that how you read this?
Ron Ben-Yishai (12:13):
The Hamas.
No, I think that Israel willdeal with Iran only if Iran
breaks to the nuclear weapon.
That's the only time whenIsrael will seriously deal with
Iran.
As of other possibilities,israel, if we shall be attacked,
(12:39):
or if Iran will try to armHezbollah, as they do all the
time, as they did to the Hamasagain, the modern equipment that
the Hamas had and we knew thatthey have they got it all from
Iran, but this is not a Casusbelly for Israel.
(13:04):
What will make Israel confront?
As a matter of fact, we areconfronting them directly in
Syria.
We are confronting themdirectly in Lebanon to some
extent, but not in Iran.
And also, yes, we are alsoconfronting them in Iran, but
(13:29):
this is a small war.
The big war will go only, onlywill break out because of the
nuclear issue.
Dana Lewis (13:41):
Bron Benesha.
I thank you.
Ron Ben-Yishai (13:43):
My pleasure, my pleasure.
Dana Lewis (13:52):
The North American Star program onVideo.
One of the first wire as aformer U S to host the.
(14:15):
How do you think Israel justdidn't see this coming?
Jonathan Panikoff (14:28):
Look, dana, you're 100% right.
They didn't.
This was obviously intelligencefailure.
This was a security failure.
This was a political failure.
I think distinguishing thosethreads in the coming months is
certainly going to be important.
There'll be, I'm sure, afull-scale review on exactly
what happened.
That's obviously gonna have towait until after the conflict.
(14:51):
You are already hearing rumorsand articles about maybe the
Egyptians had highlightedsomething big was happening.
Was there concern about troopsbeing moved from areas around
Gaza to the West Bank?
I think there's obviously.
Usually, when you have anintelligence failure like this,
it's rare that it's just onething, that there was some sort
(15:11):
of smoking gun that was missed.
Usually it's a combination ofpieces not having been put
together.
But look, the Israeliintelligence community has
phenomenal professionals andthey will take on whatever
lessons come from this.
They will be hard lessons andthey will improve.
Dana Lewis (15:35):
Probably, if, coincidentally, they are
comparing this just not only to9-11 but also to Pearl Harbor.
There may be a lot of parallelswith Pearl Harbor, because
there were warnings and therewas intelligence, and I don't
doubt that Israel probably hadintelligence.
It was the way it was analyzedor it was the way it was not
acted on, and that's probablywhere we're going to go at the
(15:56):
end of it.
But look, let's move on,because you have written with
great concern, and I share youranalysis, that there is a very
good chance of this spreadingand it is not just going to be
limited to Gaza.
If it does spread and it couldspread very quickly.
(16:17):
Can you just speak to that?
Jonathan Panikoff (16:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's kind of acouple of different rings of
spread that we're concernedabout.
So there's the most immediatering around Israel the potential
that Hezbollah decides to enterthe conflict from the north,
the potential that Palestinianmilitants in the West Bank
decide to get involved as well.
(16:40):
If Palestinian militants in theWest Bank enter the conflict,
it will be not dissimilar tothose in Gaza.
What Hamas has done, giventheir capabilities are similar.
If Hezbollah enters the war, itcompletely changes the dynamic
of the conflict.
Hezbollah has precision guidedmissiles.
(17:01):
Hezbollah will most certainlyseek to take out Ben-Gurion
Airport, many of the seaports,the Israeli gas fields.
That will completely change thenature of the conflict in a way
that the Israelis reallyhaven't fought before.
And I think it's also one ofthe reasons that you've seen the
United States move the USSJadal-Ford carrier group into
(17:24):
the Mediterranean.
And that is not about Iran, forexample.
That is about a threat gestureand trying to deter Hezbollah
from striking Israel andbecoming involved in the
conflict.
And look, there's reasons onboth sides to believe that they
may not actually want to.
But if Hamas is really introuble, if the Israeli ground
operation that's going to comesoon goes better than expected
(17:47):
and Hamas is really struggling.
It's not inconceivable thatHezbollah will enter the
conflict to try and save Hamas alittle bit.
It's also not inconceivablethat they have their own
calculations that if Israel isreally bogged down, they will
say it is too good of anopportunity to pass up, that we
don't know when we're going toget it again.
(18:10):
If Hezbollah enters, then youhave the potential of greater
spread to a third ring, a ringthat's further afield, that not
only potentially implicatesIsrael but US allies in the Gulf
.
What will the Houthis, of whomthe Iranians have much less
(18:30):
control than any other proxy?
What will the Houthis decide todo?
This is a group that hasbattled and wants full control
of Yemen, and it's been battlingfor a number of years now.
Will it decide this is anopportune time to strike Saudi
Arabia, to strike the Emirates?
Will we see contagion, frankly,from a conflict that started
(18:54):
from a fairly localized Hamasattack?
Dana Lewis (18:58):
Let's talk about the North and Hezbollah, because
you've talked a lot about it andthank you for leading us in
that direction, because that'sobviously the biggest concern of
Israel's right now.
There have been artilleryexchanges from the Israelis
outgoing and rocket attackscoming into Israel very limited
(19:20):
amounts so far, but across theNorth there have been a number
of them.
Are they fired by Hezbollah?
Right now we don't know.
Are they fired by Palestinianfactions within Lebanon?
And there are many of those.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austinwas asked if the US would
intervene if the Hezbollahattacked Israel from the North.
He wouldn't commit.
How do you read that?
(19:41):
And do you really see thisaircraft carrier group?
It's a group of ships, just notone carrier.
Do you see America interveningwith the Hezbollah or Lebanon?
I mean, I find that a realstretch.
Jonathan Panikoff (19:59):
I'm not so sure I hold that level of
skepticism in this case.
I think the President's beenquite clear actually about US
willingness to defend Israel.
Do I think that it would be apreemptive move or that the
moment Hezbollah attacks Israel,if that happened, us response?
Absolutely not.
Do I think, in a case whereIsrael is getting overwhelmed
(20:21):
and needs additional support,that you could see standoff
missiles from the carrier groupbeing fired by the group into
Lebanon againstHezbollah-specific targets, if
Israel needs that support?
I do actually think that that'smore possible, in part because
I fear that we are thinking toonarrowly about what Hezbollah, a
(20:45):
war with Hezbollah, will belike.
In 2006, hezbollah's capacitywas not actually that much
greater than what Hamas is today.
They couldn't barely hit TelAviv.
They could certainly not hitany of the major infrastructure
that Israel has, disrupt energyflows.
Today that's completelydifferent.
(21:05):
Hezbollah has the capability tohit almost anywhere in Israel.
The precision-guided missileswill not only hit the ports and
the airport and the Leviathangas field, but it will almost
certainly hit strategic targetsin Tel Aviv.
It could easily hit the carrier, the IDF headquarters, the
(21:28):
defense ministry headquarters,and so I think in that case we
were talking about Israel thatis really struggling in a way
that they've never struggledbefore.
Because of the amount ofincoming, you could see the US
come in.
Is that a guarantee that theywon't?
No, but I don't think that it'sas remote a possibility as it
(21:49):
would have been, say, even adecade ago.
Dana Lewis (21:52):
That's really interesting.
The ground war looks like it'sgoing to kick off in Gaza.
Israel's trying to move some ofthe civilian population by
dropping leaflets.
Some of them will go.
Hamas has told them to stay.
What do you think are theobvious hazards of a ground war
(22:16):
that former Prime MinisterNaftali Bennett today said could
go months or years?
I mean that's a reoccupation.
Others have said and I talkedto an Israeli military analyst
who I know quite well and isvery well connected that he says
no, it's got to be quick.
Israel feels the pressure, theexternal pressure is building.
They've got the moral highground right now.
(22:38):
They don't want this to go onfor a long time.
They want to get in there anddo it quickly.
But the goals remain to disarmHamas, to make sure that they're
not a military threat to Israelanymore and to remove Hamas
from its leadership of Gaza.
Those are lofty goals.
Jonathan Panikoff (22:58):
So I think what you, as you described it,
is absolutely perfect, becausewhat you're essentially saying
is there are inherent tensionsin the goals versus the timeline
that are being discussed.
I think one of the reasons thatPrime Minister Bennett made the
comments is because to achievethose goals, to truly decapitate
Hamas in a way that Israelhasn't actually in the 2006 war
(23:22):
and the 2014 war, we could takemonths to years.
The flip side is, theinternational community may have
more patience this time becauseof the how heinous the Hamas
attacks were and how destructiveand how high the death toll was
, but that patience is not goingto last the same amount of
(23:44):
months.
I think it would be shocking ifit did, especially as we say
death tolls rise in Gaza,destruction rise in Gaza.
Those images will come out andbegin to inflame the Arab world.
Dana Lewis (23:56):
And they are now.
Jonathan Panikoff (23:57):
There's this inherent tension on these two
goals of wanting to go quick butwanting to accomplish the
objective, because these reallypeople, I think, are irate in a
way that I have not seen, andthey're irate with Hamas.
They're also irate with theirown government.
Everybody is putting it asideright now, but there's been
(24:18):
multiple times of saying we'regoing to take care of Hamas.
We're going to take care ofHamas.
There was a strategy thatIsrael's Kulakar referred to as
mowing the grass, that they werekind of decimating Hamas's
infrastructure and capabilities,knowing that it would grow back
.
I think Israelis, even on theleft, are not comfortable that
that is a reasonable strategyanymore.
(24:40):
They want Hamas to be takencare of.
But, as you alluded to, that'sgoing to take months and I think
the problem is not just theinternational pressure but the
hostages.
And the hostage situation issomething that even today is
still not getting enoughattention, because 150 or so
hostages completely changes thecomplexity of the mission that
(25:05):
the Israelis have to achieve.
Tactically on the battlegroundit is harder to move around.
You have the intelligence toknow where the hostages are.
Hamas has a tendency toco-locate hostages with its
leadership to try to use that asleverage to have Israel not
strike them, to co-locate themin tunnels, to prevent Israel
(25:28):
from striking and collapsingtunnels.
Those are all challenges thatare playing in, that indicate a
longer timeline, but one thatIsrael may not actually have.
Dana Lewis (25:39):
You can imagine the spectacle.
I think everybody in the backof their minds has this.
Imagine if Hamas startsexecuting those hostages and
putting out the video.
Look, I've covered thisconflict for a long time as a
reporter.
You've covered it from anintelligence point of view.
(26:01):
Hamas wanted this.
Hamas understood.
They may not have understoodhow far they could get and how
many they would kill and howmany hostages they would take,
but they knew that they wouldanger Israel and that there
would likely be a groundinvasion.
Why did they want it?
(26:23):
There's a good article thatappeared in the Atlantic, I
think, just today.
By taking the battle directlyinto Israel, claiming to be
defending Muslim holy places inJerusalem, hamas seeks to
belittle Fatah and demonstratethe primacy of in its policy of
(26:44):
unrestrained armed struggle overthe PLO's careful diplomacy.
Moreover, hamas and its Iranianpatrons want to block the
diplomatic normalizationagreement that the United States
has been brokering betweenIsrael and Saudi Arabia.
They may achieve underminingFatah, which is the more secular
(27:09):
, the more reasonable PLOfaction that I mean.
Eventually, israel needs totalk to somebody and maybe hand
the keys of Gaza to if theyremove Hamas.
In larger geopolitical terms,iran may have switched all this
on because they want to torpedothat deal with Saudi Arabia and
(27:31):
normalizations of relations withIsrael.
Jonathan Panikoff (27:35):
I think okay, I think that's absolutely right
and everything you're saying ispart of this.
I would also encourage yourreaders.
There is a article in ForeignAffairs as well, by Matt Levite,
who I should note as a friendand colleague at a different
think tank the war Hamas hasalways wanted which addresses
some of these issues as well.
(27:56):
I think anybody that subscribesto the idea that Hamas had a
singular reason for doing this,I think is going to be
disappointed.
I think there's multiple thingsthat are true here at once.
I think undermining FACTA isabsolutely true.
I think concern aboutnormalization is absolutely true
.
I am more skeptical than someof my colleagues that this is
about Saudi normalizationspecifically.
(28:16):
I think it's aboutnormalization as a whole, and
the reason I'm skeptical is theplanning for this attack had to
take place at least a yearbefore it was so complex and so
intense, and more likely therewas a Hamas official who came
out and said, no, no, planning'sbeen in the work for two years.
That's a long beforeSaudi-Israeli normalization was
(28:37):
on the table, but it's part of abroader normalization
discussion.
The UAE, bahrain, morocco hadall normalized.
That's why I do think it isabout impeding the normalization
that's happening there.
I also think one thing thatisn't getting enough attention
is part of.
It was probably about for Hamas.
(28:57):
I've been strugglingdomestically two different ways.
It's been struggling with alarge segment of the Palestinian
population in Gaza who hatesHamas and wants nothing to do
with them, and it was gettingfrustrated by the lack of
services, the lack of supplies,the lack of what Hamas was
delivering as a government.
And then, on the other side,you had extremists within the
(29:19):
Hamas camp who were frustratedwatching Palestinian Islamic
Jihad and some of the othersmaller militant groups in the
Gaza Strip undertake attacks,even if they weren't
particularly effective, andHamas sitting idly by and Hamas
saying it's finally time we'vebeen planning for this.
We need to go so that peopledon't actually go to more
extremist groups.
(29:39):
I think all of these things arepart of the factors that drove
Hamas to attack.
I don't think it's just onething.
I think it's the domestic side,I think it's the normalization,
I think it's FATA.
I think all of these things aretrue.
I also think, however, it'sgonna be really interesting in
the days to come.
Did Hamas actually expect to beas successful as they were?
(30:02):
There's a term calledcatastrophic success that we use
sometimes, meaning that Hamashad three, four different ways
to go into Gaza air, land, sea.
They had multiple entry points.
It's not unreasonable to thinkthat Hamas expected to be
stopped at many of these places,that it didn't actually expect
(30:23):
to get through in all the waysand all the entry points it did,
and by doing so the death tolland the hostage toll is actually
much higher than it expectedand that obviously can be used
for great leverage for Hamas.
But it does create morechallenges potentially as well,
because these realities aregonna be much more intense about
(30:45):
their reaction and the groundoperation to start and you.
Dana Lewis (30:50):
I don't want you to agree with me again because then
my ego's gonna get too big, butI'm joking.
Can I ask you one other thingthat has perplexed me for
several decades covering theMiddle East and being in Gaza
and being in the West Bank?
Why, and Netanyahu is at thetop of this pyramid to
(31:14):
constantly weaken the moremoderate, secular Palestinian
authority, which is someone thatoriginally, when Yasser Arafat
came and was based in Gaza Imean Fatah was ruling the show?
And why has Netanyahu not takenthe opportunity to strengthen
(31:34):
the PLO and Fatah, rather thansitting there watching Hamas
gets slowly more brutal, morebloody and more of a threat to
the state of Israel?
Jonathan Panikoff (31:47):
I think there's a couple of things going
on.
One was a strategic calculationthat clearly today is absolutely
wrong that Israel could containand handle Hamas, so there was
no great incentive to strengthenPalestinian moderates in the PA
, in Fatah, wherever.
(32:09):
I think the second part of thisis that, for a number of Israeli
leaders, not just Netanyahu butalso other, their view has been
frankly for a long time nowthat there isn't a reasonable
partner on the other side, that,no matter how far back you go,
negotiations always collapsed inon themselves for peace
agreements for two states ofillusion, whether it was
(32:32):
obviously most prominently wethink of Ehud Barak and Yasser
Arafat, but even much more,almost a decade after that, with
Ehud Olmert and negotiations hehad that there's just no person
to negotiate with.
The problem in that sense,though, and thinking that is
(32:53):
that what it's left is nobody toengage with, nobody to talk to,
it's left the extremist to risein the West Bank and in the
Gaza Strip, and so it's easy, aswe saw in 2007, when Hamas
violently kicked out thePalestinian authority, the
problem became the West.
(33:13):
I think, and I I think one ofthe political mistakes that was
made was in the West.
We have a tendency to viewelections as the be all and end
all that elections are going tobe how we demonstrate that we're
moving in the right directionas a society and for progress or
(33:34):
Western ideals.
Dana Lewis (33:36):
And Hamas won that election in 2007.
Jonathan Panikoff (33:40):
Yeah, exactly .
Dana Lewis (33:42):
In 2006, and then they kicked out Fata in a bloody
confrontation betweenPalestinians themselves in 2007.
You're right.
You're right.
Jonathan Panikoff (33:51):
And so that's the fundamental challenge.
So Hamas's view is we are thelegitimate power we want, and so
we're not going to be able totake the West Bank, but we are
going to take Gaza.
And so what would Israel sawfrom that, and what the US I
think a lot of folks saw fromthat understandably is we have
no interest in dealing with aterrorist organization in charge
(34:13):
, so we're just going to try tocontain it.
Obviously, the containmentstrategy worked for a while
until it didn't in the mostvicious and heinous of terrorist
attacks.
Dana Lewis (34:25):
Interesting statistic and then I'm going to
let you go.
I was reading that the electionin 2006 today in Gaza, more
than 50% of the people livingthere there was a new generation
never voted in that election.
Never even knew who Fata was inGaza.
(34:48):
They know who they are in theWest Bank, but never lived under
Fata in Gaza.
All they've known is Hamas andincredible right Incredible 100%
.
Jonathan Panikoff (34:58):
I think there was already a number of folks,
myself included, who wereincredibly concerned about the
demographics in both Gaza andthe West Bank.
It's not only some of them whoonly know Hamas, but most of the
folks who are young have nomemory of the first in Tafada,
let alone the second in Tafada,and you've got well over 50% of
(35:20):
the population under the age ofthird.
That creates a terrible dynamic.
If you have no historicalmemory, then it makes it very,
very easy to engage in the samesorts of actions again, to call
for violence, to seek violence,to say that is the only way
forward, especially if youhaven't seen any progress, not
(35:43):
only from Israel but, frankly,from the Palestinian Authority
themselves and from Hamas, bothof which are viewed as corrupt,
inefficient and unwilling toprovide the very basic provision
of services that thePalestinian people are looking
for.
Dana Lewis (35:57):
Yeah, what an interesting thing to say the
fact that a lot of people don'tremember that there were these
moments of violence in the, inTafadas, that the peace process
led to a lull in that andredeployment of Israeli forces
out of these big centers in theWest Bank Jericho, ramallah,
hebron, or partially anyway, andthe Gaza Strip, and that there
(36:18):
was real hope at one point.
Yeah, now you just have a newgeneration that just doesn't see
any of that.
But the calls for violence.
Jonathan Panikoff is thedirector of the Scowcroft Middle
East Security Initiative at theAtlantic Council's Middle East
program.
Jonathan, real privilege totalk to you and meet you.
Thank you so much, thank youfor having me.
(36:40):
And that's our back story thisweek Give in to haters.
There are many on both sides ofthe Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
People who oppose peace try towhip up hatred and dehumanize
each other and justify violenceagainst innocent civilians.
It's wrong.
I believe there are good peopleI mean I know them in this
conflict who have hoped for afuture where both peoples can
(37:02):
live in peace.
Let's hope the majority gettheir voices heard over the
extremists who try to torpedochances for peace.
The extremists have the wheelright now, but hopefully Hamas
will be removed and a newbeginning in Gaza is on the
horizon.
I'm Dana Lewis.
Thanks for listening and I'lltalk to you again soon.
Do I think, in a case where Israel is
getting overwhelmed and needsadditional support, that you
could see standoff missiles fromthe carrier group being fired
by the group into Lebanonagainst Hezbollah-specific
targets?
If Israel needs that support, Ido actually think that that's
more possible.
Ron Ben-Yishai (00:19):
We cannot live side by side with Hamat, a
jihadist organization, an army.
It is either them or us.
Dana Lewis (00:35):
Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of
Backstory.
I'm Dana Lewis.
On Backstory, theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict,
gaza under siege Israelis arenow saying there are close to
200 Israelis that were takenhostage when Hamas attacked
Israeli towns and villages andan outdoor concert.
We talked to Jonathan Panikoff,a former US career intelligence
(00:59):
officer, on how Israel wastaken by surprise and what may
be coming in this wideningconflict as hundreds of
thousands of Palestinians aredisplaced in Gaza, as the
Israeli bombing is relentlessand a ground war imminent.
But first military affairscorrespondent Ron Benesai from
Israel, who I've known since the90s.
(01:21):
Ron is tapped in Often.
He is embedded with Israelimilitary forces.
He's got awesome sources and heknows what he's talking about.
Ron Benesai is a militaryaffairs correspondent in Israel
and he joins me now.
Hello, ron, good to see you.
Ron Ben-Yishai (01:42):
Good to see you, dana.
Dana Lewis (01:44):
Ron, can you give me just a sense of what's
happening there in terms of theanger in the military?
You talked to a lot ofhigh-level people.
What are you hearing?
Ron Ben-Yishai (01:55):
The reason anger in the military is there is an
anger in all over Israel, amongall the people of Israel,
because there are very few thatare not angry, and it is because
of the brutality and thecruelness of the attack.
(02:20):
We have been attacked byterrorist organizations before,
and severely so.
Jonathan Panikoff (02:31):
And.
Ron Ben-Yishai (02:31):
Israel lost a lot of people, but this time it
was a terror army committingatrocities that we have seen
only in the pogroms in Europe orISIS in Iraq, which means it
(02:55):
was a military operation byHamas, well planned and well
executed, but it was huge.
The purpose was to commitatrocities and this is something
we have never seen before, andthis made every Israeli, whether
(03:16):
opposition or coalition, leftor right, come to the conclusion
that we cannot live side byside with Hamas, a jihadist
organization, an army.
It is either him either.
(03:42):
It is either them or us.
Dana Lewis (03:46):
What is Israel going to do?
I mean, I understand you, evenif you knew you were going to
tell me in an interview.
But okay, obviously there'sgoing to be a ground operation
and I don't need you to confirmthat.
Ron Ben-Yishai (03:57):
I don't know how grand it is going to be.
Israel will try to do it asswift and as less costly in
terms of casualty as possibleWith, because the window of
(04:17):
legitimization that the worldpublic opinion gives us and
world diplomacy gives us and theAmerican support gives us is
quite narrow and it will becomenarrower and narrower very
quickly when the operation, whenthey they encourage them into
(04:38):
Gaza, will start and the worldwill start to see children and
women running in the streets.
You know the pictures, but theidea wants to do it and we want
the idea to do it with thecitizens as less casualty as
(05:07):
possible.
And this needs to be done,therefore, in a very creative
way, based on very accurateintelligence and only enough.
The Israeli intelligence isquite good, at least in detail.
(05:32):
Sometimes they don't see thebig picture, but they are quite
good in the details.
Dana Lewis (05:42):
You see a quick operation?
I watched an interview byNathali Bennett, the former
prime minister, saying Israel isgoing to be there for months,
maybe years.
Do you see some disconnectthere in terms of what you don't
see it as a reoccupation goingon for years?
Ron Ben-Yishai (06:01):
Nath, I don't think that Israel wants to
occupy Gaza.
Why should we?
But Israel wants to make sure,first of all, that Hamas and the
Islamic Jihad and their othersmaller organizations, but even
more extreme than the other two,lost totally their
(06:27):
infrastructure, militaryinfrastructure, military
industrial infrastructure, andthat they are not in hell
between the Indoch rule, theGaza Strip, anymore.
Dana Lewis (06:44):
Who does, who do you hand the keys to Gaza?
If the army could even do this.
Ron Ben-Yishai (06:50):
No problem, no problem.
There are enough citizens inGaza that can take the
governance into their hand.
Not enough high rankingofficial, civilian official.
(07:17):
They got their salaries fromAbu Mazen, from the Palestinian
Authority that dwells inRamallah, but they can do it.
They can do it.
They rent the country, theyrent Gaza before.
Dana Lewis (07:34):
So could you see that the Israeli leadership
Anyway?
Ron Ben-Yishai (07:40):
they not.
Let me stop.
The problem is not, I'm notreally worried, who will run
Gaza after this.
What I'm worried is that Hamatand the Islamic Jihad and the
other terror organization willbe eliminated, and when I say
(08:02):
eliminated, preferably Hili, andafter that Allah Akbar, as you
know.
Dana Lewis (08:14):
What do you see as the hazards ahead?
I mean Gaza is, I've been thehazard is going into Gaza.
Ron Ben-Yishai (08:22):
It's a big hazard.
Gaza became a sort of terrorbase, a terror greenhouse, and
going into there means a lot oftrouble, but we have to do it.
(08:44):
There is no.
Dana Lewis (08:47):
There are little.
It's like a Fallujah multipliedby.
Ron Ben-Yishai (08:51):
Absolutely no, no, no, no.
Fallujah was not a, forinstance.
They didn't build in Fallujah.
The better comparison is aMosul, not Fallujah.
(09:12):
I've been to Fallujah and I'vebeen to Mosul.
The real place to compare to isMosul because also in Mosul,
they built an underground townto enable them to fight and move
for their troops, theirwarriors, from one point to
(09:35):
another and fight an incomingforce.
So Gaza is Mosul.
I know you have limited time.
Dana Lewis (09:47):
I know you have limited time.
Two quick questions.
One would be the intelligencefailure by Israel.
Some people have said this wasIsrael's Pearl Harbor.
Do you suspect that at the endof this, in fact, they will find
out in the inquiry that comesmonths and years from now, that
in fact there were signs thatthere was an operation and there
probably?
Ron Ben-Yishai (10:06):
were signs.
We know already that there weresigns.
The problem, like in many othercases, is the interpretation of
the sign.
When you are living with theconcept that Hamah is a moderate
(10:30):
Islamic religious operation,organization or party and all
what it cared for is thewell-being of the people of Gaza
.
When you are living in thisstate of mind, when you see them
(10:54):
training, you say okay, theywant to show that they are real
Mukawama, which means resistanceorganization, and they have to
show the people to make noisesand shows as if they are.
But they are really agovernment, a civilian
government.
That was our mistake.
Dana Lewis (11:17):
Fast underestimation of their capability Not
underestimating?
Ron Ben-Yishai (11:22):
On the contrary, no, no, their capability were
not underestimated.
Their intentions were wronglyestimated.
Dana Lewis (11:33):
Last question, as I promised, and that is that the
Israeli defense minister juststood next to the American
defense minister at a newsconference.
He was asked about Iran.
He spoke of this triangle ofevil of Hezbollah, hamas and
Iran and he said he's not goingto talk about what will happen
(11:53):
to Iran later, but clearly hegave the smoke signal that
Israel will deal with Iran atsome point, because there's no
doubt that Iran had its hand inthis.
Whether it pressed the launchbutton or not, it doesn't matter
.
It was the enabler for Hamas.
Is that how you read this?
Ron Ben-Yishai (12:13):
The Hamas.
No, I think that Israel willdeal with Iran only if Iran
breaks to the nuclear weapon.
That's the only time whenIsrael will seriously deal with
Iran.
As of other possibilities,israel, if we shall be attacked,
(12:39):
or if Iran will try to armHezbollah, as they do all the
time, as they did to the Hamasagain, the modern equipment that
the Hamas had and we knew thatthey have they got it all from
Iran, but this is not a Casusbelly for Israel.
(13:04):
What will make Israel confront?
As a matter of fact, we areconfronting them directly in
Syria.
We are confronting themdirectly in Lebanon to some
extent, but not in Iran.
And also, yes, we are alsoconfronting them in Iran, but
(13:29):
this is a small war.
The big war will go only, onlywill break out because of the
nuclear issue.
Dana Lewis (13:41):
Bron Benesha.
I thank you.
Ron Ben-Yishai (13:43):
My pleasure, my pleasure.
Dana Lewis (13:52):
The North American Star program onVideo.
One of the first wire as aformer U S to host the.
(14:15):
How do you think Israel justdidn't see this coming?
Jonathan Panikoff (14:28):
Look, dana, you're 100% right.
They didn't.
This was obviously intelligencefailure.
This was a security failure.
This was a political failure.
I think distinguishing thosethreads in the coming months is
certainly going to be important.
There'll be, I'm sure, afull-scale review on exactly
what happened.
That's obviously gonna have towait until after the conflict.
(14:51):
You are already hearing rumorsand articles about maybe the
Egyptians had highlightedsomething big was happening.
Was there concern about troopsbeing moved from areas around
Gaza to the West Bank?
I think there's obviously.
Usually, when you have anintelligence failure like this,
it's rare that it's just onething, that there was some sort
(15:11):
of smoking gun that was missed.
Usually it's a combination ofpieces not having been put
together.
But look, the Israeliintelligence community has
phenomenal professionals andthey will take on whatever
lessons come from this.
They will be hard lessons andthey will improve.
Dana Lewis (15:35):
Probably, if, coincidentally, they are
comparing this just not only to9-11 but also to Pearl Harbor.
There may be a lot of parallelswith Pearl Harbor, because
there were warnings and therewas intelligence, and I don't
doubt that Israel probably hadintelligence.
It was the way it was analyzedor it was the way it was not
acted on, and that's probablywhere we're going to go at the
(15:56):
end of it.
But look, let's move on,because you have written with
great concern, and I share youranalysis, that there is a very
good chance of this spreadingand it is not just going to be
limited to Gaza.
If it does spread and it couldspread very quickly.
(16:17):
Can you just speak to that?
Jonathan Panikoff (16:19):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's kind of acouple of different rings of
spread that we're concernedabout.
So there's the most immediatering around Israel the potential
that Hezbollah decides to enterthe conflict from the north,
the potential that Palestinianmilitants in the West Bank
decide to get involved as well.
(16:40):
If Palestinian militants in theWest Bank enter the conflict,
it will be not dissimilar tothose in Gaza.
What Hamas has done, giventheir capabilities are similar.
If Hezbollah enters the war, itcompletely changes the dynamic
of the conflict.
Hezbollah has precision guidedmissiles.
(17:01):
Hezbollah will most certainlyseek to take out Ben-Gurion
Airport, many of the seaports,the Israeli gas fields.
That will completely change thenature of the conflict in a way
that the Israelis reallyhaven't fought before.
And I think it's also one ofthe reasons that you've seen the
United States move the USSJadal-Ford carrier group into
(17:24):
the Mediterranean.
And that is not about Iran, forexample.
That is about a threat gestureand trying to deter Hezbollah
from striking Israel andbecoming involved in the
conflict.
And look, there's reasons onboth sides to believe that they
may not actually want to.
But if Hamas is really introuble, if the Israeli ground
operation that's going to comesoon goes better than expected
(17:47):
and Hamas is really struggling.
It's not inconceivable thatHezbollah will enter the
conflict to try and save Hamas alittle bit.
It's also not inconceivablethat they have their own
calculations that if Israel isreally bogged down, they will
say it is too good of anopportunity to pass up, that we
don't know when we're going toget it again.
(18:10):
If Hezbollah enters, then youhave the potential of greater
spread to a third ring, a ringthat's further afield, that not
only potentially implicatesIsrael but US allies in the Gulf
.
What will the Houthis, of whomthe Iranians have much less
(18:30):
control than any other proxy?
What will the Houthis decide todo?
This is a group that hasbattled and wants full control
of Yemen, and it's been battlingfor a number of years now.
Will it decide this is anopportune time to strike Saudi
Arabia, to strike the Emirates?
Will we see contagion, frankly,from a conflict that started
(18:54):
from a fairly localized Hamasattack?
Dana Lewis (18:58):
Let's talk about the North and Hezbollah, because
you've talked a lot about it andthank you for leading us in
that direction, because that'sobviously the biggest concern of
Israel's right now.
There have been artilleryexchanges from the Israelis
outgoing and rocket attackscoming into Israel very limited
(19:20):
amounts so far, but across theNorth there have been a number
of them.
Are they fired by Hezbollah?
Right now we don't know.
Are they fired by Palestinianfactions within Lebanon?
And there are many of those.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austinwas asked if the US would
intervene if the Hezbollahattacked Israel from the North.
He wouldn't commit.
How do you read that?
(19:41):
And do you really see thisaircraft carrier group?
It's a group of ships, just notone carrier.
Do you see America interveningwith the Hezbollah or Lebanon?
I mean, I find that a realstretch.
Jonathan Panikoff (19:59):
I'm not so sure I hold that level of
skepticism in this case.
I think the President's beenquite clear actually about US
willingness to defend Israel.
Do I think that it would be apreemptive move or that the
moment Hezbollah attacks Israel,if that happened, us response?
Absolutely not.
Do I think, in a case whereIsrael is getting overwhelmed
(20:21):
and needs additional support,that you could see standoff
missiles from the carrier groupbeing fired by the group into
Lebanon againstHezbollah-specific targets, if
Israel needs that support?
I do actually think that that'smore possible, in part because
I fear that we are thinking toonarrowly about what Hezbollah, a
(20:45):
war with Hezbollah, will belike.
In 2006, hezbollah's capacitywas not actually that much
greater than what Hamas is today.
They couldn't barely hit TelAviv.
They could certainly not hitany of the major infrastructure
that Israel has, disrupt energyflows.
Today that's completelydifferent.
(21:05):
Hezbollah has the capability tohit almost anywhere in Israel.
The precision-guided missileswill not only hit the ports and
the airport and the Leviathangas field, but it will almost
certainly hit strategic targetsin Tel Aviv.
It could easily hit the carrier, the IDF headquarters, the
(21:28):
defense ministry headquarters,and so I think in that case we
were talking about Israel thatis really struggling in a way
that they've never struggledbefore.
Because of the amount ofincoming, you could see the US
come in.
Is that a guarantee that theywon't?
No, but I don't think that it'sas remote a possibility as it
(21:49):
would have been, say, even adecade ago.
Dana Lewis (21:52):
That's really interesting.
The ground war looks like it'sgoing to kick off in Gaza.
Israel's trying to move some ofthe civilian population by
dropping leaflets.
Some of them will go.
Hamas has told them to stay.
What do you think are theobvious hazards of a ground war
(22:16):
that former Prime MinisterNaftali Bennett today said could
go months or years?
I mean that's a reoccupation.
Others have said and I talkedto an Israeli military analyst
who I know quite well and isvery well connected that he says
no, it's got to be quick.
Israel feels the pressure, theexternal pressure is building.
They've got the moral highground right now.
(22:38):
They don't want this to go onfor a long time.
They want to get in there anddo it quickly.
But the goals remain to disarmHamas, to make sure that they're
not a military threat to Israelanymore and to remove Hamas
from its leadership of Gaza.
Those are lofty goals.
Jonathan Panikoff (22:58):
So I think what you, as you described it,
is absolutely perfect, becausewhat you're essentially saying
is there are inherent tensionsin the goals versus the timeline
that are being discussed.
I think one of the reasons thatPrime Minister Bennett made the
comments is because to achievethose goals, to truly decapitate
Hamas in a way that Israelhasn't actually in the 2006 war
(23:22):
and the 2014 war, we could takemonths to years.
The flip side is, theinternational community may have
more patience this time becauseof the how heinous the Hamas
attacks were and how destructiveand how high the death toll was
, but that patience is not goingto last the same amount of
(23:44):
months.
I think it would be shocking ifit did, especially as we say
death tolls rise in Gaza,destruction rise in Gaza.
Those images will come out andbegin to inflame the Arab world.
Dana Lewis (23:56):
And they are now.
Jonathan Panikoff (23:57):
There's this inherent tension on these two
goals of wanting to go quick butwanting to accomplish the
objective, because these reallypeople, I think, are irate in a
way that I have not seen, andthey're irate with Hamas.
They're also irate with theirown government.
Everybody is putting it asideright now, but there's been
(24:18):
multiple times of saying we'regoing to take care of Hamas.
We're going to take care ofHamas.
There was a strategy thatIsrael's Kulakar referred to as
mowing the grass, that they werekind of decimating Hamas's
infrastructure and capabilities,knowing that it would grow back
.
I think Israelis, even on theleft, are not comfortable that
that is a reasonable strategyanymore.
(24:40):
They want Hamas to be takencare of.
But, as you alluded to, that'sgoing to take months and I think
the problem is not just theinternational pressure but the
hostages.
And the hostage situation issomething that even today is
still not getting enoughattention, because 150 or so
hostages completely changes thecomplexity of the mission that
(25:05):
the Israelis have to achieve.
Tactically on the battlegroundit is harder to move around.
You have the intelligence toknow where the hostages are.
Hamas has a tendency toco-locate hostages with its
leadership to try to use that asleverage to have Israel not
strike them, to co-locate themin tunnels, to prevent Israel
(25:28):
from striking and collapsingtunnels.
Those are all challenges thatare playing in, that indicate a
longer timeline, but one thatIsrael may not actually have.
Dana Lewis (25:39):
You can imagine the spectacle.
I think everybody in the backof their minds has this.
Imagine if Hamas startsexecuting those hostages and
putting out the video.
Look, I've covered thisconflict for a long time as a
reporter.
You've covered it from anintelligence point of view.
(26:01):
Hamas wanted this.
Hamas understood.
They may not have understoodhow far they could get and how
many they would kill and howmany hostages they would take,
but they knew that they wouldanger Israel and that there
would likely be a groundinvasion.
Why did they want it?
(26:23):
There's a good article thatappeared in the Atlantic, I
think, just today.
By taking the battle directlyinto Israel, claiming to be
defending Muslim holy places inJerusalem, hamas seeks to
belittle Fatah and demonstratethe primacy of in its policy of
(26:44):
unrestrained armed struggle overthe PLO's careful diplomacy.
Moreover, hamas and its Iranianpatrons want to block the
diplomatic normalizationagreement that the United States
has been brokering betweenIsrael and Saudi Arabia.
They may achieve underminingFatah, which is the more secular
(27:09):
, the more reasonable PLOfaction that I mean.
Eventually, israel needs totalk to somebody and maybe hand
the keys of Gaza to if theyremove Hamas.
In larger geopolitical terms,iran may have switched all this
on because they want to torpedothat deal with Saudi Arabia and
(27:31):
normalizations of relations withIsrael.
Jonathan Panikoff (27:35):
I think okay, I think that's absolutely right
and everything you're saying ispart of this.
I would also encourage yourreaders.
There is a article in ForeignAffairs as well, by Matt Levite,
who I should note as a friendand colleague at a different
think tank the war Hamas hasalways wanted which addresses
some of these issues as well.
(27:56):
I think anybody that subscribesto the idea that Hamas had a
singular reason for doing this,I think is going to be
disappointed.
I think there's multiple thingsthat are true here at once.
I think undermining FACTA isabsolutely true.
I think concern aboutnormalization is absolutely true
.
I am more skeptical than someof my colleagues that this is
about Saudi normalizationspecifically.
(28:16):
I think it's aboutnormalization as a whole, and
the reason I'm skeptical is theplanning for this attack had to
take place at least a yearbefore it was so complex and so
intense, and more likely therewas a Hamas official who came
out and said, no, no, planning'sbeen in the work for two years.
That's a long beforeSaudi-Israeli normalization was
(28:37):
on the table, but it's part of abroader normalization
discussion.
The UAE, bahrain, morocco hadall normalized.
That's why I do think it isabout impeding the normalization
that's happening there.
I also think one thing thatisn't getting enough attention
is part of.
It was probably about for Hamas.
(28:57):
I've been strugglingdomestically two different ways.
It's been struggling with alarge segment of the Palestinian
population in Gaza who hatesHamas and wants nothing to do
with them, and it was gettingfrustrated by the lack of
services, the lack of supplies,the lack of what Hamas was
delivering as a government.
And then, on the other side,you had extremists within the
(29:19):
Hamas camp who were frustratedwatching Palestinian Islamic
Jihad and some of the othersmaller militant groups in the
Gaza Strip undertake attacks,even if they weren't
particularly effective, andHamas sitting idly by and Hamas
saying it's finally time we'vebeen planning for this.
We need to go so that peopledon't actually go to more
extremist groups.
(29:39):
I think all of these things arepart of the factors that drove
Hamas to attack.
I don't think it's just onething.
I think it's the domestic side,I think it's the normalization,
I think it's FATA.
I think all of these things aretrue.
I also think, however, it'sgonna be really interesting in
the days to come.
Did Hamas actually expect to beas successful as they were?
(30:02):
There's a term calledcatastrophic success that we use
sometimes, meaning that Hamashad three, four different ways
to go into Gaza air, land, sea.
They had multiple entry points.
It's not unreasonable to thinkthat Hamas expected to be
stopped at many of these places,that it didn't actually expect
(30:23):
to get through in all the waysand all the entry points it did,
and by doing so the death tolland the hostage toll is actually
much higher than it expectedand that obviously can be used
for great leverage for Hamas.
But it does create morechallenges potentially as well,
because these realities aregonna be much more intense about
(30:45):
their reaction and the groundoperation to start and you.
Dana Lewis (30:50):
I don't want you to agree with me again because then
my ego's gonna get too big, butI'm joking.
Can I ask you one other thingthat has perplexed me for
several decades covering theMiddle East and being in Gaza
and being in the West Bank?
Why, and Netanyahu is at thetop of this pyramid to
(31:14):
constantly weaken the moremoderate, secular Palestinian
authority, which is someone thatoriginally, when Yasser Arafat
came and was based in Gaza Imean Fatah was ruling the show?
And why has Netanyahu not takenthe opportunity to strengthen
(31:34):
the PLO and Fatah, rather thansitting there watching Hamas
gets slowly more brutal, morebloody and more of a threat to
the state of Israel?
Jonathan Panikoff (31:47):
I think there's a couple of things going
on.
One was a strategic calculationthat clearly today is absolutely
wrong that Israel could containand handle Hamas, so there was
no great incentive to strengthenPalestinian moderates in the PA
, in Fatah, wherever.
(32:09):
I think the second part of thisis that, for a number of Israeli
leaders, not just Netanyahu butalso other, their view has been
frankly for a long time nowthat there isn't a reasonable
partner on the other side, that,no matter how far back you go,
negotiations always collapsed inon themselves for peace
agreements for two states ofillusion, whether it was
(32:32):
obviously most prominently wethink of Ehud Barak and Yasser
Arafat, but even much more,almost a decade after that, with
Ehud Olmert and negotiations hehad that there's just no person
to negotiate with.
The problem in that sense,though, and thinking that is
(32:53):
that what it's left is nobody toengage with, nobody to talk to,
it's left the extremist to risein the West Bank and in the
Gaza Strip, and so it's easy, aswe saw in 2007, when Hamas
violently kicked out thePalestinian authority, the
problem became the West.
(33:13):
I think, and I I think one ofthe political mistakes that was
made was in the West.
We have a tendency to viewelections as the be all and end
all that elections are going tobe how we demonstrate that we're
moving in the right directionas a society and for progress or
(33:34):
Western ideals.
Dana Lewis (33:36):
And Hamas won that election in 2007.
Jonathan Panikoff (33:40):
Yeah, exactly .
Dana Lewis (33:42):
In 2006, and then they kicked out Fata in a bloody
confrontation betweenPalestinians themselves in 2007.
You're right.
You're right.
Jonathan Panikoff (33:51):
And so that's the fundamental challenge.
So Hamas's view is we are thelegitimate power we want, and so
we're not going to be able totake the West Bank, but we are
going to take Gaza.
And so what would Israel sawfrom that, and what the US I
think a lot of folks saw fromthat understandably is we have
no interest in dealing with aterrorist organization in charge
(34:13):
, so we're just going to try tocontain it.
Obviously, the containmentstrategy worked for a while
until it didn't in the mostvicious and heinous of terrorist
attacks.
Dana Lewis (34:25):
Interesting statistic and then I'm going to
let you go.
I was reading that the electionin 2006 today in Gaza, more
than 50% of the people livingthere there was a new generation
never voted in that election.
Never even knew who Fata was inGaza.
(34:48):
They know who they are in theWest Bank, but never lived under
Fata in Gaza.
All they've known is Hamas andincredible right Incredible 100%
.
Jonathan Panikoff (34:58):
I think there was already a number of folks,
myself included, who wereincredibly concerned about the
demographics in both Gaza andthe West Bank.
It's not only some of them whoonly know Hamas, but most of the
folks who are young have nomemory of the first in Tafada,
let alone the second in Tafada,and you've got well over 50% of
(35:20):
the population under the age ofthird.
That creates a terrible dynamic.
If you have no historicalmemory, then it makes it very,
very easy to engage in the samesorts of actions again, to call
for violence, to seek violence,to say that is the only way
forward, especially if youhaven't seen any progress, not
(35:43):
only from Israel but, frankly,from the Palestinian Authority
themselves and from Hamas, bothof which are viewed as corrupt,
inefficient and unwilling toprovide the very basic provision
of services that thePalestinian people are looking
for.
Dana Lewis (35:57):
Yeah, what an interesting thing to say the
fact that a lot of people don'tremember that there were these
moments of violence in the, inTafadas, that the peace process
led to a lull in that andredeployment of Israeli forces
out of these big centers in theWest Bank Jericho, ramallah,
hebron, or partially anyway, andthe Gaza Strip, and that there
(36:18):
was real hope at one point.
Yeah, now you just have a newgeneration that just doesn't see
any of that.
But the calls for violence.
Jonathan Panikoff is thedirector of the Scowcroft Middle
East Security Initiative at theAtlantic Council's Middle East
program.
Jonathan, real privilege totalk to you and meet you.
Thank you so much, thank youfor having me.
(36:40):
And that's our back story thisweek Give in to haters.
There are many on both sides ofthe Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
People who oppose peace try towhip up hatred and dehumanize
each other and justify violenceagainst innocent civilians.
It's wrong.
I believe there are good peopleI mean I know them in this
conflict who have hoped for afuture where both peoples can
(37:02):
live in peace.
Let's hope the majority gettheir voices heard over the
extremists who try to torpedochances for peace.
The extremists have the wheelright now, but hopefully Hamas
will be removed and a newbeginning in Gaza is on the
horizon.
I'm Dana Lewis.
Thanks for listening and I'lltalk to you again soon.
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