Israel's Strategic Reset: Yaakov Katz

of our country, but of the entire Middle East for generations. I'm host Michael Allen with Beacon Global Strategies. Today I'm joined by Yakov Katz, former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post. He previously served as the paper's military reporter and defense analyst. He's also the author of Wild Israel's Slept.

How Hamas surprised the most powerful military in the Middle East.

Mr. Katz joins us today to discuss the Israeli perspective on the situation and Iran and the outlook for the region going forward. Stay with us as we speak with Yakov Katz. Yakov Katz, welcome back to NetSec matters. Great to be with you Michael.

Yakov, let's just start with the simple question. What is the view of the Iran war from Israel? For the most part, if we look at the numbers, just simple polling here is our overwhelmingly supportive of the war.

You have different polls, but the numbers are over 80% of Israelis who support this war.

“And I think it stems from a very simple reason is the fact that Iran and Israelis recognize”

this to some extent, that until now, we've been fighting a battle against the proxies, Hamas, his balah, and others. But Iran is the source of everything. And if this war can really change that reality, then Israelis are willing to, I guess the lack of a better term, suffer a bit of time, bomb shelters, irins, disruption to life,

kids being out of school, workplaces being closed for several weeks now already, because they understand that this is a unique moment in a unique historical opportunity to change really the trajectory of our country, but of the entire Middle East for generations. Yeah, however, the prospects of regime change seen in Israel. Here, people are skeptical, they can't, we can't see any signs of unrest, where is Israel

on this and is the intelligence community?

“For example, your intelligence community, do they have insights that we don't?”

Well, I mean, I'll split into two levels. On the one hand, Israelis, as a people, don't have the same, I say, baggage that the American people carry with them from the two wars of Iraq and Afghanistan and prior or previous regime change, if you could call it that attempts. And therefore, from a foreign policy perspective, from security perspective, Israelis, as

a people are just less hesitant or cautious about those types of objectives, because for us, it's not something that we are traumatized or scarred from, like let's say, the General American public. Internally, I think the war began with the belief, and I've heard this from people in

government that even like the head of the Mossad, David Barnet, on the first day of

the war that Saturday, almost now just three weeks ago, when the decapitation mission was launched, and how many he was taken out, a bunch of his latinants were taken out. There was a belief that this could lead to a toppling of the regime. We've seen that the decapitation efforts have continued by Israel, and it's actually interesting to look at Michael's, you know, you probably have insight into why this is, but America

is not killing people, right? In other words, it's not targeting and assassinating the top officials in the division of labor between the two militaries. It is Israel, each time that is the one that is killing Ali Lerjani, or killing the commander of the besie, or killing as it was just a couple of days ago, the intelligence minister.

It's not the United States. They're focused on other targets, and that probably has a lot to do with just legal issues in America, and what it means to have to go out and assassinate someone, but for Israel it's a long-standing doctrine, and policy, whether it's against terrorist leaders, we saw it definitely over the last two-and-a-half years during the war that broke out and erupted after October 7th, the killing of Hassan Astrala and other Hamas leaders.

That's a well-known Israeli tactic.

“I think that now, though, we're seeing a changing in the messaging that's coming out from the political echelon,”

if in the beginning of the war, Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke openly about the prospect for regime change. He's now being much more cautious. There's a recognition that it's not going to fall that quickly. It's not going to fall that simply, that even for all these people who are taken out,

still have the ability to launch rockets, still have some control over the military and their ballistic missile arsenal, so it's not that simple. It's not as if you kill a couple people, although it has to be said, and I've heard this from people within the military intelligence, is that some of these people who were killed, if you look at the Chief of Staff of the Iranian military who was killed in that opening operation,

“he had been in his job, I think, for about 15 years, right?”

If you look at some of these, I'm a common naive, of course, had been his role for, you know, the last, what is it, 37 years, right? But they're institutions, so it's not like, you know, I think the American armed forces and these really military are similar in that sense, that there's a constant change of command every few years in position, so God forbid,

this should never happen, but if in Israel or in America, the chairman of the Joint

Chiefs, the Chief of Staff, the commander of the Air Force, etc., were somehow taken out. Yeah. What would be people who could quickly fill those roles? Yeah. I think there, it's a little more difficult, but with that said, I wouldn't underestimate

their ability to keep fighting. Yeah. So, let's talk about the Israeli targeting. The courts, we just discussed the decapitation strikes and we expect those to continue. In the category of regime change, maybe you can confirm this, I've read as of last week.

In addition to just hitting the siege and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Israel has been hitting local police stations, and this week I've read, they're actually hitting

“checkpoints around at least a run, probably other places to do I have that right?”

This is true. There have been a number of strikes that Israel has even made public that you have aircraft,

whether it's drones or manned aircraft, we don't always know, but aircraft that have

been bombing besieged checkpoints in major cities, particularly to Iran itself. Look, you know, there's a question that we could ask, does it make sense for an aircraft to be used to take out three besieged guys standing at a checkpoint on a street in the middle at some intersection and downtown to Iran? Those attacks, as I understand them, are much more symbolic, there's been a recognition

I think since the beginning of this war, Operation Epic Fury and roaring line as is called in Israel, that there aren't going to be boots on the ground. This isn't another Iraq or another Afghanistan, and therefore as the President, as President Trump himself said in the beginning of all of this, and Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeated a number of times, it'll be up to the Iranian people to take advantage of this moment and

seize this opportunity so these strikes against three, four besieged guys standing at an intersection, Michael, you know, I heard in Israeli commander to talk to journalists and he was saying how we've killed, I don't know, 4,000 people, security personnel, so I just went into Google and looked up, you know, how big is the Iranian military, how big is the IRGC, how big is the besieged?

We're talking about 6 north of 600,000, so you know, 3,000 is not going to make a dent in that, but symbolically to the people of Iran, when they see that they have people who are covering them from the air, are taking out three, four guys at a checkpoint, maybe that will give them the motivation to go out to the streets and to try to really move something, no guarantee, but that is with the thinking behind those types of operations.

The same Israel, maybe unlike the United States, which has a different target, so you're going to run all the plays that you can and hope to create the conditions where they can come back out. Yeah, I mean, look, Israel's focus in, I would say, phase one of the war was the ballistic

“missiles, was the ability of Iran to attack us, right?”

That had very much was the focus in the phase one, the nuclear installations as well. We hear a little less about that, because I think to some extent, in while June, the 12 day war was not the success that Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump had made it out to be, but the nuclear sites had been significantly damaged then. There were still some follow-up attacks, what we've seen over the last weeks.

The second stage of the operation from these really perspective has been to start to go

after the facilities themselves, the targets that you can say are part of the repressive apparatus of the regime. So IRGC headquarters, besieged headquarters, commander of the besieged, these checkpoints

And this is really to give the Iranian people that opportunity, if we make it to stage three

“of the war, I think stage three will look something along the lines of the Iranian people”

are on the streets and they have air cover. They have the defense and they have Israeli planes and maybe American planes that are providing them with air cover and air support to be able to fight to take down the regime. It sounds good, but you know Michael, this isn't anything but easier simple. Well that's fascinating.

I'm not quite heard it put that way. I've heard people describe the Iranian people could possibly be our ground force, but I like the idea that we're there air force as well. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about recent targeting by Israel and this controversy of hitting Iran's South Park's gas field.

There's a seemingly at least a spat in the public about whether the White House knew about this, whether they signed off in the circumstances in which Israel decided to hit it.

“And because, and that's of course all the more important because the retaliation apparently”

if you believe this 17% of Qatar's gas will now be off the market for two to three years while they rebuild. Can you shed any light on this?

Well, I mean, you know, first of all, I just, there's something that we need to remember

and this is important because before, and I emphasize again, before these really strike on South Powers on that gas area, our refinery, whatever it was, Iran had already attacked the Ruslophane LNG complex and Qatar. It had already attacked the Rushtan rural oil refinery in Saudi. There had been hundreds of drone attacks against a variety of Saudi oil fields.

There were attacks against the Ruiz, refinery in Abu Dhabi, the Shah gas field in Abu Dhabi, the Porta Fujera in the UAE, and others. So this was all before.

“Now South Powers is being seen as an escalation in these really targeting, but it is important”

to point out that it comes after weeks of Iranian attacks against Gulf energy infrastructure. So that's just one thing just to give it context.

The second thing to, to keep in mind here, and I don't know for certain, but what I do

know is that after it was attacked, Israel was very quick to clarify that it was done in complete coordination with the United States. And what leads me to believe that that is true, are two things. Number one, this operation, or this war, is really being fought in the most intimate way possible, imaginable between the Israeli military and the US and SENTCOM.

You have, for example, the United States in the Air Force bases there. You have Israeli officers, Israeli Air Force officers who are sitting together, going over targets. You have that going on here in Israel, in the underground command centers in Tel Aviv, and at Air Force bases.

It's very hard to imagine how Israel could just decide to do something without that being first coordinated. Number one, number two, Prime Minister Netanyahu from a communications policy and strategy for this war has been very, very quiet. He occasionally speaks mostly recorded videos, barely has held press conferences, nothing

at the scale of what you're seeing in every day in the United States, whether it's Secretary of War, HECSEF, or the president himself who's taking questions and talking to the public. It's being very careful, and Netanyahu's been very careful, and his ministers don't talk a lot, also, to not do anything that would be out of line and would upset the president and would get him to change his policy.

Therefore, I don't see why Israel would want to do and would escalate this in that way. Now, I know there are people who are going to say, well, Israel wanted to escalate to the Iranians would escalate in the war would potentially continue, because that fits the narrative definitely of those, especially whether it's on the left or on the far right, who want to push this narrative that it's Israel that's ragged the United States into this war,

and this further feeds that idea. But it just doesn't, it goes up against the hard evidence. Israel would not have said this was coordinated if it wasn't coordinated. Now, of course, the president has said, I've asked Israel not to do it. All right.

That should all be part of this game that they are playing, that Israel is kind of the mad dog or the rot-wilder or whatever you want to call it, and the president reigns Israel

That they would either agree to some sort of ceasefire conditions, or to what seems to

be the focus right now, which is getting the straight of her mues open and getting it out of Iranian control. Yeah. General Tamir Hayman said it a Washington think tank event recently that Israel isn't worried about the price of oil or gas, you're in it to win it, and I wonder if you agree

with that, and if you can, because that sort of speaks to you all already to hit economic targets, whereas we're at least ambivalent about it.

“You know, look, Israelis, no one here talks about the price of gas, right?”

It's not, it's not an issue. We're any helping a lot of money to begin with, and if we got to pay a little more, that's not what people are going to be upset about. I know that in the US and in Europe, gas prices are up, 20, 30% in certain places, and that's hurting people in their pocket, and that definitely impacts the popularity of this

war and whether politicians will want to continue it, but that's not a concern for Israel. In the same vein, Michael, you see that the US and the divving up of the targets, what was

one of America's first targets was the Iranian navy, right?

They took the southwest of Iran because they want to, they're focused on the straight. It doesn't interest Israel, right? Israel is not, doesn't really care too much.

“I mean, it's an, it's an important issue.”

It's a global issue, but what we're fighting for here is something that's a little different, right? Israel, from its perspective, is fighting to really take out the regime ideally, but at the very least it's capabilities to develop a nuclear weapon and to provide its proxies, primarily his beloved weapons that could also threaten us.

So to grade their nuclear and ballistic missile and stop their supply and support of proxies, straight of her moves is maybe for Israel, number four, the priorities of targets here. I'd say. Let's talk a little bit now about one of the other ostensible objectives of this campaign and that's to finish off the residual parts of Iran's nuclear program.

“I think, I'm just assessing here, that when President Trump made Israel stop after 12 days”

in June, Israel still had other targets to prosecute. And since then, and I'm wondering if you can confirm this, it feels like the missing highly enriched uranium at 60% that if upblended to 90% would yield to, I think I heard 11 nuclear bombs is now instead of being hopelessly buried in rubble, the New York Times is reported there might be a narrow corridor for a way to get it.

So it sounds like we're really worried about that, and that's led to a discussion here in the United States of would we with you or us by ourselves, mount some sort of daring, it's more than a raid, it sounds like a 48-hour deployment to dig it out and fly it out. Do I have that right, and what's your assessment? Well, I mean, you know, when the war ended in June, there was the, what I like to call

the runaway, 440 or 450 kilograms of uranium that was enriched to 60% in, and you're right, that's a, assuming they have centrifuges somewhere, although from, from the understanding that I'm hearing from Israelis, all their centrifuges, all the cascades have pretty much been destroyed in Prime Minister Netanyahu did say that they no longer have any type of enrichment capability, they do still have, though, that stock pile of highly enriched uranium, and if they

were able to run that through centrifuges within days, maybe a week, they would have the military grade uranium that's needed, and even without, in the absence of a warhead, they could test some sort of, you know, crude, millet, nuclear weapon somewhere in the desert, make an explosion, and declare themselves a nuclear state, and that would have a significant repercussions. So the, the, the question of if this war ends without America, Israel, anyone in the West,

getting their hands on that stock pile raises questions of, so was it all worth it if, if, if you don't get your hands out of it? There, there's a couple of schools of thought that I here

within these really, you know, military and government. The first is, yes, there is the option

of some sort of military operation. Israel has operated with special forces on the ground already

the ground in Iran and special forces operations until now. As you said, Michael, this is a whole

different scale. This isn't, you just go in, you pick up a couple of canisters and you fly them away. This isn't picking up Nicholas Maduro in the middle of the night with Delta Force, throwing them on a helicopter with his wife and you're out, right? This is, it's buried under Esfahan, based on people who have analyzed the, the site, it requires digging and it requires heavy machinery to dig to get to it. It, it requires troops, not just to go in and extricate the actual canisters,

but also provide perimeter security, secure the facility, make sure no bad, no, no enemies are coming into the area. This is not just a couple of people who go in. This is a big operation. You said 48 hours. I've heard also, you know, 48, 72. We're talking about a few days. That's a big deal and that comes with a lot of risk, right? That's not a small thing. This is in the middle of Iran. This isn't, you know, somewhere on the coast or something like that. So that option does

exist. Now that could go sideways, a lot of different ways that we don't get imagined. And therefore,

“I think, legitimately, leaders are being cautious. There's another option, which is that the war ends”

in some sort of deal, that the Iranians give that up willingly and it is handed off to a third

party. Lots of people talk about Russia. As an example, we all remember 2013, Barack Obama, Syrian chemical weapons, Putin and a love-rove, broker, deal, and about 90% of the chemical weapons make their way to Russia from Syria. It's possible that Russia could again play that role here and they're one of the few countries that actually has ties and the ability to communicate with Tehran and Washington for that matter. There's a third option. And this I hear a little

more of a possibility, which is the war ends with that stockpile still buried under East Fahan, and you just watch it 24/7. All the time, everybody's watching it. I hate this idea. I feel like it's so easy and reliable. And if they move it, you attack it, you intercept it, whatever it is. It doesn't sound good. It doesn't sound like that's the plan that you want for all of what's just happened, but I wouldn't disregard it as a real strong option here if

“the other two are not possible. Yeah, I think the administration has raised expectations. They've”

said that part of this is to degrade the vestiges of the nuclear program. And if this part isn't taken care of somehow, I think it's a negative on the whole operation. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of our discussion with Yakov Katz. Beacon Global Strategies is the premier national security advisory firm. Beacon works side by side with leading companies to help them understand national security policy, geopolitical risk, global technology policy,

and federal procurement trends. Beacon's insight gives business leaders the decision advantage, founded in 2013, Beacon develops and supports the execution of bespoke strategies to mitigate business risk, drive growth, and navigate a complex geopolitical environment. With a bipartisan team in decades of experience, Beacon provides a global perspective to help clients tackle their toughest challenges. Yakov, talk a little bit about the Israeli view of the new supreme leader.

“Come an age junior, if you want to call him that, you know, there he's, I think there's also”

here two schools of thought for the most part. On the one hand, and as you know Michael, when you are targeting a head of an organization or a supreme leader for that matter, you ask yourselves a number of questions, and this is how the Israeli targeted killing policy

has long worked. The first question you ask yourself is that person, a legitimate target,

right, and you're not, you don't look at what they did, you look at that, you take that into consideration, but mostly you look at what they are still going to do, and is this something that has the potential to be seen as an act of self-defense, that's Israel's targeted killing policy. The second question, you ask yourself is what will the impact be, right, and does this really have a significant impact that it can do something to that organization? But the third question you have to ask yourself

is who will replace them? And you know, I've heard this over the years, so many times, about Hassan Nasrallah's, an example, the late leader of his beloved, that he came to power 1992, because Israel took out a boss Musawe, who was his predecessor in southern Lebanon, and no one imagined that a guy like Nasrallah would take over, and would turn his

sharpened the idea, you always got to ask yourself who's coming next, is that person going to

be worse? Are they going to be better? Are they going to be the same? So to the specific question, how many people who say look, how many he was bad, evil, terrible, right? No, no questions asked. However, 37 years in the job, and he never took the decision to actually build the bomb when he could have. He came down preceding and taking small and crawled and small steps towards the threshold, but never crossed it. And there was a reason why, potentially, he understood that it would really

be all a war that he never wanted to do that. And therefore, having him in that job,

was actually some sort of guarantee that you weren't going to get any crazy surprises because the

“devil you know sometimes is better than the devil you don't know. I think that the the other school”

thought now that you you hear a lot is that this newly the newly the leader Machabba who the the son has the is is just his ideological is just his die hard is just his radical is just his hateful of the West, but also could be more extreme and radical in his decision now to pursue a nuclear capability. And yeah, I would say though and I don't know each of the potential I atola is or clerics that could that could fill that role, but if I'm in the Iranian leader who's filling

now in for Ali Common A. I mean, I make one simple decision, Michael. I'm going to get a nuclear weapon

because if I had a nuclear weapon, this never would have happened. Right. So I think that assumption

has to be the case for no matter who's going to be in that role as long as they're coming from

“that kind of same pool of people who have been ruling the regime for the last 47 years.”

So part of the way people are handicapping it over here in the United States is similar to what you said a real hard liner may be more extreme than his father less capable, but what this is sort of leading to is that they're going to be the IRGC will be in much more control of the country than they were and that maybe the relative power of the clerics goes down in favor of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, does that ring true and what's the view from there? I hear that it does ring true and for that

reason Israel took out Ali Larajani, right, who was the kind of the de facto in the IRGC guy, who was in the in the council, but then you read and I don't know enough about these different characters themselves, but then I read a profile of his potential successor, who also everyone says

“is more extreme and more radical and could be even worse. I think that at the end, there's value here”

if the objective and like it started was getting the Iranian people to seize this moment, they had to see that the men who had repress them and persecuted them for so long and so many decades, the real symbols of the regime, Hamanahe, Larajani, the head commander of the IRGC commander of the besieged, the chief of staff, they had to see that they can be killed, that they don't, they're not omnipresent, they don't have the immunity, that is part of, I think, the effort to get the

Iranian people to rise up because if all those people were still alive, in the eyes of the average Iranian, it would be maybe a harder leap of faith to believe that they can change something, but to know that somebody is there, Israel, America together or on their own, independently taking these people out, and that is the, that's part of the calculation here, is with the risk that it entails, it could be that the sun is going to be more extreme than the

father, but it is, how many was such a symbol that the Iranian people needed to see that he could be removed and maybe that can help push and motivate the change that we need from within. Interesting, okay, let's, I want to run some regime scenarios by you and then I want to get to the invasion of Lebanon and then maybe we wind up with a little update from you on the elections, and then I'd love to hear what the view is of cause of these days, but let's talk about regime

scenarios, so let me just postulate a few here bear with me, Iranian surrender, very, very low confidence, no negotiated settlement, you know, very low confidence in the near term, some regime collapse, that's not going to happen, Trump sort of declares victory with or without a quote unquote deal,

spot here, or those about the right war-ending scenarios and how do you see this going?

I think they're definitely right, and I think if we look at how definitely how the 12-day war ended, it just ended, right? There was no real mechanism, there was no guarantee or safeguard that they

“wouldn't rebuild, and they wouldn't reconstitute, and clearly they did, and that's why this war”

had to be launched as it did at the end of February, but the idea that it just ends one day, like this suddenly is after noon, and President Trump says, "Okay, we're done," and his rail, Israel stopped attacking, would sound out of context after how long this is going on for it. Right, we need, because otherwise what we're setting ourselves up for is another war at some point. Now, maybe it'll be longer this time, it won't be within eight months, it will be within 18 months,

but you have to have something in place that's going to prevent, at the very least, the re-constitution of the nuclear program, right? The ballistic missiles is definitely a very serious concern for Israel, updated numbers on that Michael, talk about how about 60% of the launchers have been destroyed, how he reigns when and Iran wins this with about 450 of them,

which means that they still have about 200 or so that are still left, and I always take those

numbers anyhow with the grain of salt, because that's assuming we know how many they began with, and it's assuming we know exactly how many we destroyed, and how many might just be buried somewhere and once they dig them out, they'll be available once again. So I really take all those

“numbers with the grain of salt, but it's not enough, and at the very least, you have to have”

something in place that's going to stop the regime from rebuilding if you haven't brought down that regime. Now it could be though, and I think this is another option, is that we find ourselves kind of somewhere in the middle, right? The large kinetic offensive ends, and the focus moves to the straight of her moves, and the straight of her moves becomes the so-called battleground, or what the war is about, and one of the ways that Trump declares victory is by saying,

you know, I've nationalized the straight of her moves, or I've taken it away from Iran. It's now America and it belongs to the UAE in Saudi Arabia, let's say. We now control it, and together we will secure it and safe and protect it and escort ships.

“If that's what the war then becomes about, that has value, and that will help with the price of”

oil and gas, but it's not going to stop the regime from rebuilding their capabilities. You might see, you might no longer have the big kinetic operations, but the regime could still try to cross trouble at sea, and it could still try to hit a vessel every once in a while. So there will be some type of low intensity conflict that will remain, and you still haven't dealt with the real problems with the nuclear and the ballistic missile capabilities. You just kick the can down

the road. So I think what you're describing is, is probably what's going to happen in the absence of a toppling of the regime, but I do want to hold down for a hope that there will be something a little more at the very least in safeguards that prevents them from that reconstitution. Part of the discussion in Washington is Trump going to stay the course, the military told him four weeks after the beginning of hostilities to substantially degrade

drones and ballistic missiles and the rest. Or now that the straits of war moves has gotten complicated, is he going to bolt and sort of the clear victory or get out of this as soon as possible. Maybe my view is sort of like yours. I think he's got a hang in here for a little while longer. And I think Israel's view is got a hope he does because you made his stop in the 12-day war, and we have a bunch of targets we need to get to before this is over. Does that sound right?

Yeah, no, exactly. I think in by the way, what what supports what you just said, it's how careful Israel is really politicians and leaders are in their communication strategy. They're not saying much. They're not trying to take credit. They're letting the president lead and Israel, you know,

if you think about for a second, Michael, this is Netanyahu's dream. This is what he's wanted forever

for 30 plus years is to see Iran taken on and who would have imagined it would be in this joint Israeli-American operation. I mean, Israel's is playing the role of what the United Kingdom played

this is his dream come true. On the other hand, he's not really in the, he's not in the cockpit,

per se, right? It's the person making the decisions and calling the shots here is actually president Donald Trump. And if Trump says we keep going, then we keep going. But if Trump decides tomorrow, it's going to end. And I hear some Israeli pundits and commentary that says, no, you know, we, we might be able to continue. I say, then you really don't understand how this is going to play out. If Trump calls it done, it's done. Right. Israel's hands, you saw that what happened

in the 12th of the war. We had 50 jets in the air on their way to Iran. And they turned the media, they did a U-turn in the middle of the air and came back to Israel and didn't drop their bombs on their targets because Trump said, you better, you better come back. So even more so in this case. Right. Okay. So among the other issues that Israel is confronting now is the reemergence of his Bola, entirely predictable. And I think everyone in Israel knew something like this would

happen. But describe for us, are we in a situation where there's going to be a sustained ground offensive by these railies all the way up to the Latani river and then are you going to sit

“there? So look, you remember that when the ceasefire went into effect in November of 24,”

Israel kept five inside Lebanon positions forward positions inside Lebanon a few kilometers over the border, mostly for the purpose of keeping the high ground and preventing his Bola from ever trying to carry out some sort of incursion across the border. Division the 91st division, which is one of the IDF's more elite standing infantry divisions has crossed into Lebanon and has started to take up to beef up those five positions and to take up some of the southern

Lebanese villages. And there is talk of they will start to move slowly through southern Lebanon clear out the villages and make their way up to the Latani river, which is anywhere from about, I know, let's say 2025 miles away from Israel. It's something that Israel is definitely considering and is starting to implement. With that said, I don't see, I don't feel, and I could be wrong, but I don't feel or sense an appetite here for this really to go ahead. I think it's a lot of

posturing, and why do I say that? Because I think that Israel recognizes that there's a unique shift that's taking place right now. And there's two things that Israel keeps in mind. One is,

“you don't want to spread yourself to thin. With the Iran War continuing, you have to be cautious”

of fighting on two fronts at the same time and a war, a big takeover of southern Lebanon and more will drain resources even in a bigger way. And there have already been reports of

depleting interceptors and stockpiles, etc. So you always got to be cognizant of that. But I think

also Israeli see what's happened in the shift inside Lebanon itself. I mean, there is a government there that is openly saying and calling out America and calling on Israel. Help us get rid of his Bala. Stand down from this large scale offensive and let's move towards negotiations with Israel and potential normalization with Israel. So Israel doesn't want to do anything that on the one hand undermines that option, but it also has to defend itself. And finally take down his Bala,

because I mean, people are talking about, remember, there was the first Lebanon War in '82, there was the second Lebanon War in '06, there was the third Lebanon War that was in '24, are we now in the fourth Lebanon War? What I said to people is it's really one Lebanon War, if you think about it. Right? And it's got to come to an end at some point. It's got to come to an end for the people of the north of Israel who are really suffering. It's got to come to an end for the

“people of Lebanon War held hostage by his Bala. But I think that if Iran is dramatically weakened,”

and definitely if the regime is toppled and you have this government by led by President Oun and and no off the Prime Minister and you have this opportunity to really for the Lebanese to take action together with Israeli help and American help and French help, whoever it is, maybe this can change without the need for the large scale military offensive. But if that doesn't happen, I think Israel is extremely dedicated to the fact that it will have to do something

militarily to change the reality of Lebanon. So right now, these railies are making incursions

beyond, but not you wouldn't call it a full scale grounded. It's no, it's so far, first of all,

it's one division so far. I was like, you know, put things into perspective. We had in the Gaza

Gaza is much smaller. Right? So if you're going to be doing a massive ground offensive in Lebanon, you're going to be calling up all reservists, you're going to have hundreds of thousands of people who are going to be joining the military and you're going to have literally tens of thousands of

“soldiers inside Lebanon. We're not yet there. I think that it's their saber rattling. There's,”

you know, there's action that is proving a determination, but it's not yet to the scale of what

a massive invasion of Lebanon would look like. Okay. Two more issues and then we'll wrap up. First,

what's the view? Give us an update on Gaza. We don't hear about it as much. I think it's one forgotten about Gaza. Yeah. Is Gaza still an issue? Is there still something going on there? Well, I was just thinking of the Board of Peace, but I haven't heard much since that big meeting. So, you know, it's true. The Gaza has kind of fallen to the side. It was the big issue and not much has happened there. I mean, I've actually heard from Israelis and Americans alike

in the administration that lots of different processes that were in place when the focus of everyone was on Gaza have also slowed down. Nothing really is moving forward. We still have a

genuine problem with Gaza. And by the way, the reason nothing's moving forward is everyone is just

distracted right now. They're preoccupied. I mean, all those joint command centers you had the the one that was built down south and Kiriat Gat where you had all these militaries that were there, led by the Americans and these were these together. It's all shifted. I mean, no one's really

“thinking about that right now. But it will come back and I think we still face the main challenge”

and Nicolai Maladinov who is the kind of the executive chairman of the Gaza Council on the Board of Peace and is in charge of of of the Gaza file. He's a Bulgarian diplomat, former Foreign Minister, former Defense Minister and he is services the head of the Onward Gargash diplomatic academy. He just tweeted the other day that we are trying to move forward still with Gaza, but we have the still the same impediment. And that is the Hamas is not disarming. And it's just an important

thing to keep in mind. Israel has about 53% of Gaza under its control. Hamas has 47% of Gaza. It's just about 50, 50. Hamas has replenished its ranks. It's back up to about 30,000 foot soldiers if you could call them that. They don't have the same capabilities that they did before. It's interesting to point out Michael. They haven't fired rockets right in this current war. And it's probably because they just don't have, but I also think they even if they did have

why would they want to get involved and focus any attention on them. Better to sit this one out. There's nothing to gain. But they don't have the same sophistication of weapons, but they still do have weapons. And with that said, how can we imagine a different possibility in Gaza as long as they still have their weapons? The fact, though, that militant of and others who are working on this on behalf of the Board of Peace continued to insist on the disarmament,

“that gives me some comfort because the last thing I think any of us would want to see is”

we're skipping over that stage. And if we were to skip over disarming Hamas, then I think you and I could write out what happens next. I mean, it's just a matter of time. So that insistence is extremely important, but I wouldn't expect anything dramatic to happen until the North and definitely Iran are settled first. Okay, we'll have to do another episode. Last question, and you wrote a terrific book called "Wild Israel Slap" and it was how Hamas surprised the most

powerful military in the Middle East. And inevitably, when people discuss this, some of the blame is put on Netanyahu. And if the elections were held the day after October 7, I'm sure he would have lost, but he's hung on. He's arguably made Israel much safer. How much is he improved his electoral politics? First of all, remind us when the elections might be. And what are the chances Netanyahu

comes out of this as the Prime Minister? So first of all, I think you're 100 percent right. I mean,

you know, Netanyahu deserves the blame as the Prime Minister for pretty much the 15 years uninterrupted, up leading up to October 7, his policies, his strategies, his decisions. But the changes that have taken place here, I would say objectively have made this country safer in more secure than we ever were. And therefore, when we're going to have to go vote, you'll have to evaluate both sides of that coin and of Netanyahu's service now over the last

Now, in Israel, because we're a parliamentary system, so it's not a set date, the parliament decides

“and when that date will be held. The officially, the budget has to be passed by the end of this month”

by the end of March. And if the budget does not pass, it automatically triggers a new election. The current predictions that I hear is that even if the budget does pass, Netanyahu's going to want to go to an early election. So he'll pass the budget and at the same time, they will vote

potentially to disperse the knesset, so the top of the parliament. And then within three months,

we go to a new election. Elections, in that case, could be held as early as June. The reason he would want to do that is because he would want to capitalize to the greatest

“extent possible on the successes of this war. And let's just remember that Netanyahu's going to”

have the best campaign manager now working for him. And that his name is Donald Trump, because

no matter where Trump goes, Trump is going to say, we won. This was a major victory, whether

it's true or not. And whether people like you or I say, well, what about the 450 kilos? And what about this? It doesn't make a difference. Trump will declare victory, Netanyahu will declare victory. And when Israeli see Trump and Netanyahu standing together in the aftermath of really the greatest illustration of Israeli U.S. military alliance, that will help him in the polls. With all of what I just said though, the current polls, just ones that we're taking yesterday, show

that still neither block, neither the right wing, the current coalition, the one led by Netanyahu, gets to the needed 61 seats out of the 120 to have a majority. And neither does the opposition. But where you are seeing a significant shift is in his favorable ratings or his approval ratings. He's now up nearing back to 50%, which is dramatic. The people after him are in the 30s and in the 20s. So enough to let Bennett, former prime minister, is in the 20s. God, he hasn't caught a former

chief of staff who tragically lost his son in this war in the war in Gaza. He's now up to the 30s. But Netanyahu is far ahead of everybody. So it's not yet translating into seeing the voters that left him and moved over to the center left. I know coming back home to hit to Lee Koo,

“to his party or to the right block. But I think that could happen when a campaign really starts to pick”

up steam. So to make it really simple, if I was a betting man, I would put my money on him right now to be honest. Yeah, interesting. Yakov Katz. Thank you so much for joining NetSec matters. Thank you, Michael. That was Yakov Katz. I'm Michael Allen. Please join us next week for another episode of NetSec Matters. NetSec matters is produced by Steve Dorsey with a distance from Ashley Barry. NetSec matters is a production of beacon global strategies.