Daniel Davis Deep Dive

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I always look forward to this time. We couz get
to talk to Daniel Davis, retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis
doing the Daniel Davis Deep Dive. Welcome back, Daniel Davis,
my friend. It's good to have you on the show.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
There's always a pleasure to be here, Brian.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Okay, so you have two sides to an agreement. You're
in a ceasefire, Israel on one side, him As on
the other. Obviously, devil's always in the details. But if
you agree to a ceasefire and you declare that a
ceasefire is in place, if you start shooting at each
other and killing each other, doesn't that definitionally mean there
is not a ceasefire in place? Daniel. I'm struggling with

(00:33):
this because everyone keeps talking about keeping these ceasefire agreement together,
and we need to hold keep onto the hold onto
the ceasefire agreement. I seems to me both sides just
maybe capitulated. I don't know, Daniel, that's why we have you.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Welcome. Yeah, that that does seem to be what's happening,
because it's it's definitely not just one side or the other.
Even President Trump himself and he was acknowledging some of
this said, I don't think it was the Humas leadership
per se. It may have just been some rogue elements.
And if that's the case, and I actually don't doubt
that israelis I actually showed some video and it would
seem pretty clear there was some armed men in the

(01:07):
strip that were heading towards some of their troops. But
then their response was I think completely out of proportion
of anything. They bombed all kinds of other areas of
the strip, killed sixty people, not just the ones who
did the killing. And if someone fires in it in
a violation of the ceasefire, then by all means to
go after them because it's authorized according to the rules
of engagement, But you can't go after somebody else that's

(01:29):
not even related to that, because the prompt's probably right.
It probably wasn't the Hamas because the organization it self
has no motivation to do this because it can only
be bad for them. But there are some out of
control elements, as there were on ten to seven. By
the way, it was not all Hamas. It was some
out of control elements that killed a majority of the
non military people. So this has been an enduring problem

(01:51):
over there and one of the things that they're going
to have to get a handle on.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
So it's just reflective of the fact that Hamas is
not the cohesive, connected organization that they're presented to the
world as I mean, I joked about this, I think
last week when you and I talked. If you're familiar
with the movie Monty Python Life of Brian, they have
all these splitter organizations. Every single one of them doesn't
want the Romans, you know, this is in Jesus's times,

(02:14):
but they can't get along together. So we have various
elements who all hate Israel, let's say, but they're not
necessarily beneath the Hamas controlled umbrella, so they're free to
roam about and do whatever the hell they want.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Well, that's a good part of it, because there is
for sure widespread hatred of Israel inside the strip, and frankly,
it's not hard to understand why when the whole place
has been turned into a moonscape and everybody has lost
their home and their way of life, etc. And that's
just an you can't escape that kind of an outcome
when that's what happens for two years. But the problem

(02:50):
is that they're not, you know, this monolithic group. And
also you have inside this is also not surprising. You
have a lot of the Palestinian people absolutely in sense
and hate Hamas more than they hate Israel because they
realize that until this group agrees to stop and leave
the place, they are going to continue to be attacked.

(03:10):
And they can blame Israel for dropping the bombs, and
there's some credit or there's some credibility to that, but
it's also true and they recognize it that as long
as Hamas is resisting, they're the ones who are paying
the price. So they're frankly sick of all the combatants
and they want them all out.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
Well, recognizing that we have this you know, splitter for
this faction issue maybe going on. They also are having
a problem finding or delivering the deceased hostages, and Hamas
keeps saying, listen, we're trying. We just don't know where
all of them are. And I think you had made
the point last week, and it's an excellent one. You know,
since everything has been bombed, it is certainly possible that

(03:48):
some of these hostages are buried beneath rubble somewhere, and
Hamas doesn't necessarily know where they are. But even if
they do, how to get them.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Out right, and they apparently do know where most of them,
maybe even all of them are, because I know where
they were held, But there continues to be a very
difficult situation. And listen, there's again no motivation for Hamas
to hold off on this. They gained literally nothing from
this once they gave the last of the living hostages back,
that was the end of any kind of leverage that
they had. So there's no motivation to hold this back.

(04:17):
And even the International Committee of the Red Cross has
validated from within the Strip that these places where these
remaining hostages are are literally buried under buildings that the
Israeli defense forces have dropped over the two years, etc.
So they've got to bring in heavy equipment that they've
got to have a peaceful situation so that they can
come in and excavate these areas, and it's just going

(04:38):
to take some time.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
There's clearly going to need to be like a post
World War two rebuilding kind of thing going on. That's
going to require leadership and some sort of independent force
that can substitute itself in the place of the Hamas leadership.
If I can use that term loosely. Hamas has to
move out. Some acceptable force is going to have to
be there. What do you think is going to be

(05:02):
acceptable to the Palestinian people living in Gaza? Clearly Israel
running that is not going to work for them. They're
going to want some sort of maybe perhaps international body.
What do you think is going to come from this, Daniel?

Speaker 2 (05:13):
This is the absolute biggest issue that has to be
overcome now for there ever to be any peace here
at all. Everybody said Trump in fact, it was talking about,
you know, piece in the Middle East and all that,
and signed that Charmel shak Egypt, et cetera. But all
that was signed. There was phase one, which is basically
a ceasefire and an exchange of hostages on both sides.

(05:35):
That has been completed. All of the hard part that
Phase two and beyond, which is substantial, hasn't even been
negotiated yet. So none of those issues have been accepted
or resolved by the two sides. And it's not even
just what the Palastinian people will accept on their it's
what the Israeli forces will accept either, and they both
have to accept it. And that is really really hard

(05:57):
to imagine how both sides are going to find somebody
they can accept on a long term negotia leadership.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Well, is it possible that leaders from the countries who've
entered into the Abraham Accords or at least leaning toward
maybe entertaining that notion of let's work collectively. Let's have
our differences, but let's work collectively for our economic benefit.
That seems to me to you could get a draw
from various Arab countries in the region that could successfully
manage the situation. Might be a little there's.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Two separate things at place here, and you're one hundred
percent right on that. In fact, in the news just
this morning, Egypt has said that they would send a
contingent of up to four thousand along with Indonesia, and
I can't remember the other two countries. There's four countries.
Azerbaijan might have been one of the other ones, or
maybe it was Ourminia. Sorry to get those confused sometimes,
but those those countries have said, yes, we'll do the

(06:44):
interim stabilization force. What is going to bring initial peace
to the place, And that's completely separate from who's going
to govern the Gauza strip from the Palestine inside on
a go forward basis, and as you may know, that's
one of the big sticking points for the Israeli side
because many in the government don't want there to be
any kind of permanent residents of the Palacinian Enclave. They

(07:07):
still harbored the idea that we want to get them
all out, So having them agree to whoever's going to
be there is one of the most difficult things that
has to be negotiating, and I of course understand the
challenges that presents. But if you were if you found
this acceptable peacekeeping force that could stabilize the region, you
could maybe sometime down the road establish enough peace and
enough you know, stability to maybe have an election. Well, yeah,

(07:34):
and for sure that's going to end up happening. You
may recall that did happen in two thousand and five,
which is when Hamas was initially elected, and then everything
broke down after that, and we had, of course the
two thousand and six war in Lebanon, which then had
ramifications inside the strip, and then Hamas quit having elections
after that, right, people didn't get any more choices after that.
That will certainly happen in the future here, but there

(07:55):
is additional issues beyond those really hard ones, like what
about the region, Because Israel wants to expand the Abraham courts.
Trump wants to expand the Abraham Courts, but the regions,
the countries in the regions say for that to happen,
like Saudi Arabia, the kingpin of all this, they say,
there has to be some kind of Palestinian state, which
Israel still adamantly opposed to. So the region, the countries

(08:17):
in the region absolutely do want and they have been
emphatic about saying we want peace throughout the region with Israel,
but it has to be a mutual piece. And there
again is one of the big difficulties. Well, I think
we'll be living with this reality for a while. Daniel
Davis ain't going to solve itself between now and next Tuesday.
I'm sure about that. I don't thank you so, Daniel Davis,
we cannot have a conversation without addressing the current status

(08:39):
Russia and Ukraine. I thought I had seen earlier in
this week or very recently that Trump basically told Zelunski, dude,
you're gonna have to give up some land to negotiate
a peace on this. I know Zelunski doesn't want to
do that, but it sounded also like the idea of
US giving them Tomahawk missile is something that you and
I both agree on. Bad idea. That's not going to happen.
So where are we with Russia and Ukraine? Daniel Davis, Yeah,

(09:02):
that's definitely not gonna happen. Trump unambiguously said that. I
don't know why he ever entertained it, because in the
first of last week, even before you and I visited
last Tuesday, he said I might, I might just give
them up, and then on Wednesday he said, yeah, I'm
not going to do that, So that was pretty clear
to his Zelensky. I guess he was just posturing. But
the bottom line is now Zelensky's going back and he's

(09:22):
still trying to get with his European friends to find
other things to give him, etcetera. While they're looking for
ways to increase a nineteenth sanctions package. Don't know why
they didn't recognize the first eighteen failed, but somehow they
think maybe this one will. But in terms of the
bigger meeting that was agreed to by Trump with Putin,
there's supposed to be a ministerial meeting between serogate Lavrov
and Rocker Rubio and then Legy was going to be

(09:45):
a Trump a Putin meeting in Hungary if they come about.
And as of this morning, there was some contentious conversation
reported between Rubio and Lavrov because they're still pretty far
apart on what the two sides we'll both agree to.
So this is not looking like it's going to be
solved anytime soon. By next Tuesday either, we'll.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Be talking about it next Tuesday. Then Daniel Davis Deep
Dived wherever you get your podcast, find Daniel Davis doing
what he does throughout the week. And I you know,
I can't thank you enough. I love the time you
get to spend an other day together, Daniel. It's truly informative,
and obviously you're pretty good at explaining some complex stuff
in a very easy to understand manner, and I truly
appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Until next week, sir, have a wonderful week.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
My friend.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Blame to you, my friend. See you next Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Forty right now fifty five KRCD Talks