Lawfare Archive: Israel: Divided at Home and at War Yet Again

So, this is the end of the series, and the new Bundesliga series, as well as the follow-up, motifs, mental, sports directors.

“Because all of the games are there, it's even more of the kick-based side.”

And if there is now kick-based, what is that?

The kick-based is the four-hand fantasy "Fußball Manager", and that's the first one.

It's a very simple story. You can go back to your own rules, or then go back to the Bundesliga Provis in your card. So, as long as you have time, that you know "Fußball Business" and "The Count on Love", the Bundesliga Saison of tag, is the end of August.

Trommet-euro-Leutet is the biggest opponent in the league, and is the one with the one with the kick-based side, just download and let's go. Good kick, and what is it? "Fußball Manager", "Check", "Internet Anmelden", "Check", "New Adresse", "Check",

and then "Strowman Bitter".

“Between "Kisten", "Unmelding" and "Möbel" on "Bau Club",”

there's the "Strowman Bitter" on the left. Then you can download automatically in the "Grund Versorgung", which is often very clever. In "Octopus Energy", "Wexels" you are completely free to pay. Now, on "Octopus Energy" the E-Wexels, and with the Bundescode,

"Octopus 1-1-5", a 115 Euro-wexel-bonus decision. I'm Sarah Wilrich, "Internet Lawfare" with an episode from the Lawfare Archive for August 8, 2020. Last month, the Kinesi, Israel's legislative body, dissolved ahead of general elections in October. The elections are set to be the first major referendum on Prime Minister Netanyahu's leadership, since the October 7 attacks in 2023.

And early pulling indicates that it may be his most difficult elections since becoming Prime Minister. There is also increasing concern about election integrity in violence. For today's archive, I chose an episode from March 28, 2025, where Daniel Biman spoke with Anton Sacks, director of the Middle East program at the Brookings Institution,

about the state of Israeli domestic politics. They discussed Netanyahu's political tactics and controversies, responses to the conflicts and Gaza and Lebanon and Bourne. It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Daniel Biman, the foreign policy editor of Lawfare, and I'm speaking today with Neton Sacks. He is the director of the Middle East program

at the Brookings Institution. The context of this war for Israelis and not without reason is much, much broader than Gaza, and that's without diminishing in any sense neither the human suffering or the importance of both the Gaza question and the broader Palestinians. Today we're talking about Israel's tribulations at home,

and its wars in Gaza, Lebanon, and possibly Iran. There's a lot going on Israel right now. Much of the world is understandably focused on the renewed conflict in Gaza and bombings in Lebanon. But there is also a tremendous amount going on domestically. We have the budget with judicial independence questions and other very controversial issues.

Let's start domestically, but let me ask you, start with what you feel is the most important issue

that is shaping Israeli domestic politics today, and then we'll proceed from there. Great, thanks. I think you're right. There was a lot of attention, of course, on domestic issues in Israel before October 7th, the very dramatic time, then a shift of very understandably to everything that's been happening since, and now almost under the radar, the domestic upheaval has come back.

So I can't actually point to any single event because there's so much,

“and I think what's very important is that they're tied together.”

So the most recent events, number one, if the Nial is coalition managed to pass the state budget, that's been looming over them for a long time. It was due by the end of March, so this week, or the coalition, the government would have officially fallen by default. He avoids that. They passed it. Israel now has a budget for 2025, a few months late, and that is the main political hurdle he faced in staying in office.

This means that he is a very good chance of remaining in office throughout this term, which is set to expire in the fall of 2022. So the threats to his term, especially after October 7th, were significant, he seems probably to have managed to best to them, and now he'll probably be in office until then.

Never say never, of course, anything could happen, but this was the major hurdle.

And it tied in a second crisis that was looming. And that is the conscription of ultrother oxmen, Jewish ultrother oxmen, into the military. They have been exempt, especially since 1977, to agree even before that, and that has always been a politically divisive explosive issue,

but now, in the context of a war that is really stretching the manpower of the patients,

it's become even more politically explosive, especially since there is no legal basis, proper legal basis, according to the courts, for their exemption. And therefore, the courts have demanded that the knessity is really parliament, past legal legislation that would allow this exemption to happen. This was something that the ultrother oxparties have been demanding of Netanyahu and exchange

for passing this budget. They have stepped back from that. They have passed the budget without

“clear legislation on that yet. But I'd add to that two more very important developments.”

We just saw the Israeli knesset this week, passed in final calling, so a third vote,

which makes it final law, the politicization of the selection of judges in Israel, including Supreme Court justices. This changes the composition of the committee that selects judges and gives more weight to politicians. Now, in and of itself, of course, this is not far certainly to Americans, where politicians, governors, presidents do select justices, but it's in the context of a very different constitutional framework. If in the United States

any legislation by the House of Representatives, which is sort of the equivalent of these really knesset, has many, many hurdles before it comes, becomes law, has to pass the Senate, has to pass the presidential veto. It doesn't apply to states, which have a lot of leeway on many different things. It also then confronts courts with a written constitution. And each one of these steps has a different constituency. Well, in Israel, there is none. If the knesset passes a law, there is only one

check on that power, and that's the court, which is now more politicized, now going forward. And I'd add two more things. The government, the cabinet, is now in serious conversation about firing the head of the Shinbet, which is the equivalent of MI5 in Israel. So, sort of the FBI, although without the law enforcement aspect of it. And it's very influential, of course, also in the Palestinian territories. Brandful, influential in Gaza is part of the failure of

October 7th, and therefore politically very salient. And an attempt probably to fire the attorney general, who is a civil servant, and is the official legal interpreter for the cabinet, and therefore

one of the first checks on cabinet decisions on administrative law. All this, very long answer,

I'm sorry, put together means a turbocharging of what was the judicial revolution that at the Niao and his cabinet were trying to push before October 7th. It's come back and not all elements of it, certainly, but some elements. And now for the first time, one of the main elements is actual law. Just to drop the connection, I think you're drawing, but I want to make sure I'm right in that our listeners have it, that the passing of the budget required net Niao,

“politically, to go down the road of, if you want to call it judicial reform and firing some of”

the senior officials, or these somewhat independent sort of, one called the crises or issues, whatever term we want to use. Now, there's someone independent. For the past, the buzzard, what he really needed was to play Kate, the ultra-orthodox. And for that, they care, certainly, about the judicial, overhaul, but they care about that mostly in the context of, conscription, or non-conscription of ultra-orthodox men, and of the continued funding

by the state of religious institutions and the welfare aspects of the ultra-orthodox community, which is a very poor community in Israel, and very dependent on state funding. And what the courts had done was said that you cannot fund institutions that have these men that should be conscripted unless there is a legal foundation for it. So if the concept passes a law saying they are exempt, then that would be legal. But without that, they could not. And if Niao was in a bind,

he cannot pass that legislation, because even in his coalition, there are many elements, both secular, but also modern orthodox, who simply cannot politically do that when there are young men are serving and dying in a very active war, and absolutely politically exclusive.

“On the other hand, he cannot not do it because of the ultra-orthodox partners, which are essential.”

So managing to pass the budget for him was a major political coup, not completely unexpected. He's the magician of this, and then at many times the four, nonetheless, it's a major hurdle for him. And in recent months, if anyone asked me, isn't Niao going to fall? I said probably not, but if he is, this is the context. The context of needing to pass the budget, he had to, by law, pass it by the end of March, and to do so, he had to get the ultra-orthodox

and board in that context. The return of the judicial overhaul, the judicial revolution,

that is a second element, and that is much more in line with Nitaniao's own

proclivity, but also the Minister of Justice in particular, Ilyub Levine, a longstanding desire of theirs, turbocharges her degree by Trump, and by the rise of similar sentiments in the United States, a much more centralized conception of power, an unencumbered executive

coming to exercise its electoral power. On note, of course, Nitaniao in the polls is under water,

most of his rallies do not want these steps and many other steps that he's doing. But that's polls, and of course, the only poll that really counts as an election, which is probably managed to

“respond. So let me ask on Ronin Barthen. Why didn't Nianiao, why is he being dismissed?”

So Ronin Barthen is the head of the Shinbetta, as I said, is the only name we know from the Shinbetta, otherwise, that the clean manager classified. And as I said, that's in my five, the Mossad, which is more famous, that's the MI6 external security service. Internal security service Shinbetta is a very consequential one. It's extremely consequential for Palestinians, it says a major role in military rule

on the West Bank, and aspects previously of dealing with the Gaza Strip, and now even more so,

of course, he is clearly one of the men responsible for the failure on October 7th, and I say clearly also because he is himself taken responsibility, but he has not yet resigned. So the chief of the military and the head of the Shinbetta were the two civil servants, and I call him that that were clearly implicated, and they both said very early on, we failed, and we will resign, or suggested they would resign.

“But it's clear that Ronin Barthen also does not mean to resign necessarily before Nitaniao does,”

because Nitaniao was also in charge on October 7th, in fact, he was in charge of everyone. And Ronin Barthen and others have been calling for a national committee of inquiry, which is a well-established tradition and legal construct in Israel, that would inquire as one suggests, as the name suggests, into all the different aspects of what went into this. 1973, the other historic example of a major intelligence and security failure, the surprise attack by Egypt and Syria in October, October 6th,

1973, that was followed by a national committee of inquiry, which was designed, pre-designed to exempt actually the political echelon, but that was not enough, and eventually the Prime Minister Minister of Defense called Amir, and was sure they hadn't had to resign because of public pressure. Now, Nitaniao was withstood very widespread calls and a very popular demand, very popular in that,

“for a national committee of inquiry, and people like Ronin Barthen have sort of been in the standoff”

with Nitaniao. So Nitaniao's problem with an embossed, multifold, first, there is this implicit

criticism when embossed and said it publicly. I should say, when embossed reports directly to the Prime Minister, his boss is personally the Prime Minister himself, and so he has not made anything public like that. However, Schenbett is investigating a case of very close advisors, young advisors to Nitaniao himself, who were involved in an influence campaign to make Qatar the state of Qatar look better, and Qatar is seen in Israel as a major -- well, it is, in fact, not just seen so -- major

funder of Hamas at hosts, Hamas leadership abroad, and funded Hamas with Nitaniao's explicit acquiescence, allowing Qatar a funding to come into the Gaza Strip, ostensibly, and to certain degree truthfully to support civil aspects of the Gaza Strip, but not solely so, and as we saw, Hamas was able to build an enormous defensive and eventually offensive capacity in the Gaza Strip. And so that is explosive in Israel, and that is something that Schenbett is investigating. It has

responsibility for counterintelligence. This is, in many people's eyes, a background for the desire to fire him. But for nothing now, it is very convenient to say the deep state, and the Schenbett is part of it, our responsible for October 7th, I, by extension, not, and sort of the tagline of that is they didn't wake me, which is the night between October 6th and October 7th, 2023. There were intelligence science signals coming in, the Schenbett and the IDF, the intelligence chief, but also

the chief of the staff of the military, were on the phone with about 3 a.m., and they did not wake the minister to fence or the Prime Minister, and that isn't any hours ultimate defenses. I'm not responsible for anything. I wasn't even welcome, and the people who didn't wake me were exactly what I'm about who reports to me and the chief and staff. However, I'll just note that if within Yahweh points his own kind of person to the Schenbett, that has immense powers, especially in

a country that's officially legally, in a state of emergency since 1948, where an agency that is not above the law, but operates in a very different context of the law, like the Schenbett. If he adds a real loyalist there, much like the police is now extremely loyal to we tomorrow been veal the minister to charge of them, it'll be a very different environment, and one that is very scary for demonstrators against something now, there are many of them in the

street right now, and for anyone who's interested in a state not identifying enemies of the state where they aren't. So that's pretty depressing. So I'm hoping you go to cheer me up with your answer

No, I will not cheer you up. I think these are very, very troubling times. It's overshadowed

“someone by Turkey, and of course, by many things, in my view, they're having the United States,”

but it is of the same family. It's about consolidation of power within the executive, and especially around one personality, one individual. In the United States and Turkey and Israel, the name of the top executive is central to absolutely everything we say. You cannot speak of Turkish politics today without starting and ending with a name or a delay, the same is true elsewhere, and that's happening in Israel. So the attorney general is unlike the United States,

not a politician, and appointed by the cabinet, but she in this case had to be approved by a committee that vetted her qualifications as civil servant qualified for it. So it cannot be the brother of the president, the younger brother of the president, as the United States has had, or the his favorite attorney general from one of the states, although perhaps she has qualified in this context, but it is traditionally been a very distinguished jurist, and the level of qualification

“has been defined as someone who could serve on the Supreme Court. So it needs to be someone who”

would be qualified to be appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court, and many of them, in fact, have gone on to serve as justices, and even presidents of the Supreme Court. The most famous president of the Supreme Court, Harun Barak, who served the bookie man of the judicial overhaul, the man behind judicial activism, very controversial also, legal circles, and that context, but they're widely considered a brilliant kind of jurist, whether you agree with them or not,

Harun Barakie had previously been the attorney general. He was the attorney general, for example, drafting the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, or helping in the early stages of that, well, with another future attorney general, also present there, Iliaki Mubinstein, went on to the Supreme Court as well. The current attorney general was appointed by the Nephtali Bennett headed government. The minister of justice at the time was actually Gidon Sal,

who has flipped, and now is now joined with the Nial, joining the Lekudin fact,

after swearing, he was never supported at the Nial, was now very much firmly in the Nial's camp,

that has helped with Nial past the budget that I mentioned before, and made his coalition much safer. They are now turning on the attorney general. She represents the deep state. She is unelected, although appointed by the cabinet. She is also the one who has to say no. Her job is to say, these are the limits that the law applies to any specific case. She is the interpreter, the legal interpreter for the cabinet. There have been many people, sometimes with reasonable

calls, saying that her job is too complicated. It is both prosecutor general. There is someone under her call, the prosecutor general, but she is the head of the prosecution. And she is also the legal advisor to the cabinet, and she is also the legal interpreter for the cabinet, therefore, both defending the cabinet in court, but also limiting it. There can be a serious conversation about that. Should that be broken up in the context of a wider judicial or legal overhaul,

but that is not the context we are in. The context we are in is that she represents the limits, the incumbents, to executive power, and therefore she is a target. And therefore, she is also become a hero for many of the demonstrators, those who oppose Nial Warren, the streets, as we record this right now, people are in the streets of Tel Aviv, and we will be going up to Jerusalem already today, but especially tomorrow. And Sunday, she is very central to the story. Again,

if the cabinet appoints someone much more favorable to their point of view, then the first and major

legal hindrance to their actions will be removed. It will then rely almost completely on the Supreme Court to intervene, but in a very different context than before. Let me just ask you very briefly about the demonstrators. Does it matter? I mean, obviously Nanyahu is a controversial figure, there are demonstrations, there were demonstrations before. Is this simply people who are politically not very important expressing their opinions and politically life will go on for Nanyahu in the

government? And you know, whatever is causing Nanyahu to stay in power or for that matter to fall, the demonstrators aren't going to matter much, or is it much more consequential? That's a bit of a philosophical question, right? So let me answer in the most immediate sense. It matters a lot less than it did one once upon a time. I mentioned 1973 and 1973, Golden Meal, and I'll show the young leading cabinet, appointed a national commission of inquiry.

They wrote the terms of that commission very explicitly to investigate what the military got

“and the intelligence got wrong, not the cabinet. And underpricing Nanyahu, that's what the commission”

found. The commission found that the military and especially the intelligence had better wrong. But then one reservist, his name is Moti Ashkenazi, he commanded the one outpost in the very north of, it was known as the "Buglev Line". So that was the line that Israel held on the Suez Canal, facing the Egyptian military and the Egyptians overrun that line. Only one station of the very north

one-man demonstration holding a sign and demanding a serious inquiry. And because of the

gravitas of, here's a man coming from the front line and lost many of his friends, the unit my father served in, I should say, although he was not in Israel at the time, that held a lot of weight and it led to much bigger demonstrations and it led to Golden Meal, and Moti Ashkenazi. We are very far from those days. If Nanyahu was no intention of appointing any commission of inquiry, and he has simply discovered that the demonstrations

walled very bad, he can even order them or he thinks he can ignore them. So in the immediate sense, it will not bring down the cabinet, it will not change the minds of anyone in the coalition.

“I think I've said this on one of these podcasts before, but in 2019, someone me wrote an article titled”

"The End is Nye for Netemyal", and that foolishly titled article, and I have to take

responsibility actually suggested a very similar title to the editors. I got it completely wrong, and what I got wrong there, that the context then was that Nanyahu was about to be indicted, it was announced that he will be indicted with spinal charges. And I thought that Nanyahu won't resign on his own accord, but that people around him, this crosses enough lines with enough precedent, including Nanyahu's immediate predecessor, that they will force him to resign.

In other words, that shame and this sense of this is not done, whether he's guilty or not, whether he believes his guilty or not, that a prime minister cannot serve while being on trial for criminal charges, and that people around him will force him to resign therefore. I was completely wrong, and I was wrong the core reason I think is because that sense of shame, that sense of sort of norms,

“is just very different these days, and I think that's true not only in Israel. It's a very soft”

element of democracy, you know, functioning state, but it actually is an extremely consequential one, and that applies here too, so that administrations, they're not going to cause Nanyahu or anyone in his coalition to change their mind. However, they do demonstrate to Israelis, to the demonstrators themselves, and to anyone still serving in the civil service, that the public is at the very least extremely and deeply divided over this, and then if Nanyahu

does not have some overwhelming support, and in fact, he is underwater in the polls, as I said, in most people oppose many of these steps. They are unpopular, certainly anything to do with conscription, and so I do think in the long term, they are very important, and they would lay the groundwork for any future government to understand that the public room is in a very different place, and it is a warning sign to anyone interested, and there are many people interested, including

in the government and public service, of understanding just how damaging this is, where the very deep sense of commonwealth of mutual assurance in Israel is being broken, it's being undermined by its own government, and the consequences of that are very deep. It's not the demise of Israel, I think there are many who think that Israel's about to disappear because of this, that's not the case,

“but it can be very deeply damaging, and the demonstrations I think are very important as a major”

warning sign about this, that even if they don't bring down this coalition, we'll be very consequential in the slightly longer term. Let's shift gears or least directions a little bit, and talk of course about what is dominating U.S. headlines, which is the return of conflict in Gaza, return of conflict in Lebanon, and is there any connection between what's going on domestically, and if we want to say renewable war, there are different terms we can use, but the

fact that Israel is again in military operations, especially Gaza, but also in Lebanon. So the short answer is yes, although it's a slightly convoluted answer, but I think it's very

important. I'll just distinguish first between Lebanon and Gaza, so in Lebanon, there is certainly

fighting, but it is very different. They're official Lebanon, the government of Lebanon, and the government of Israel and the United States are not as at all as it might seem. Much of these really operations there, of course Lebanon is unhappy about them, but they are still within the context of the ceasefire, which is not completely public, and which allowed Israel a lot of leeway for any remnants of his ballad and any attempts, not remnants, as well as to exist, but of existing forces

of his ballad to try and return south and to re-establish their capacity to attack Israel. That is sort of longstanding and includes a quite a bit of leeway for Israel, and with a very different government in Lebanon, which is certainly not provisently in any regards, and would like Israel out of there, but is also not beholden to his ballad as previous governments are. It's a very different context, and in the Israeli public, which relates to your question, not controversial. So in the context

of Lebanon is really, there's not much debate on whether Israel should be doing this or not. There's a sense that Israel has to be extremely vigilant, a canal allow his ballad to build itself up again, and so that's not very controversial. The Gaza context is very different. At the very

objectives for its war. You've written about this two-down to remove Hamas as the governing force

“and fighting force of Gaza, and to release all the hostages. And from the very start, it was”

clear to all of us that there's a deep tension between the two objectives, because for Hamas, their main card that they held, their main leverage that they had was the hostages. So long as they held them, Israel was ostensibly limited to a certain degree, or had to be careful to a certain degree. Much less so than Hamas thought, Israel was willing to go much more forcefully than Hamas thought, it would with the hostages. But that remains in Israel too, extremely controversial,

which is the paramount objective. Now to be clear, Israelis, by and large, are very supportive of both objectives. They believe Israel cannot live with Hamas governing a state lit alongside it as it did on October 6, and therefore preparing for October 7. But for many of them, and I would say most

of them, they prioritized first returning the hostages even if that includes enormously painful

concessions and concessions too Hamas. But with the belief that the war is not over with Hamas in the long term. There's a paradox here. Of course, Hamas knows this, right? So Hamas will not accept something less than allowing it to continue, damage to God's will be damned, and if then yeah, it was interested in continuing the war to take down Hamas and deprioratizing the hostages in the remaining hostages, 59 now, including deceased ones, much more than many Israelis do. So if you look

at Israeli polls, there's a strong majority in favor of continuing the ceasefire in the context of bringing back the hostages, which is what is really truly care about deeply. Of course, there are also those who disagree, and there are many who would like to ban also try to remove Hamas. So this is very controversial, and it's been tied into a certain degree. It's become almost determinist with anti-nethanial demonstrations. I'm not sure it's helpful necessarily to the cause of

the hostages, but it has become correlated with it. We're in a tenial, is the one less inclined to continue the ceasefire and get a deal, and others pushing more for it. I'll just note, of course, it's not only up to Nathaniel, it's up very much to Hamas as well, and so that often looks, let's move off the hook, which it has in many times in the past. But this is deeply controversial in Israel, and so the hostages, hostages, families, have become very prominent public figures,

and treated in ways that you would, a proposed shame, would never have seen an Israeli society before,

kicked out violently sometimes from the Knesset, in demonstrations, treated in ways that bereaved families, families of hostages would never have been treated in these really ethos, and now they are seen as oppositionary forces when their real crime is that their family members were murdered and abducted on October 7th under the watch of this cover. Talk me through the logic, then, of Nathaniel who renewing war in Gaza, when hostages were being

released, right, and it was supposed to move to face to. The hope was that as part of face to we would see continued hostage releases, that may come back, of course, but for now at least it's you know, we're not going to see hostage releases, so how do you get from strong public demand for hostage release to the government, I don't know if it's fair to say undermining it, but certainly setting back that goal while pursuing going after Hamas, what's the political

logic of that? So it's twofold giving full credit, which is not deserve, but giving full credit

“to the sort of calculation that Nathaniel has here, you could say they're the best way to get”

to a reasonable, even interim deal that would extend phase one, which is sort of the immediate goal that also be American negotiator, Steve Whitcliffe, is put forward. For that, Hamas has to believe that there is real genuine damage in pressure coming its way. If it thinks the ceasefire is just an ending and Israel is not interested in ever going back, then it will toughen its stance and it won't release hostage. So there's that argument. Added to that, there's a new chief of staff,

I mentioned the chief of staff from October 7th, Hiltia Levy resigned, the new chief of staff, El Zamir was not implicated on October 7th, he was in civilian clothing then, and he is taking a tougher stance, this often would be the case of the chief of staff, and believing that a much more forceful approach will succeed, allowed to that that the Biden administration, which was overall extremely supportive of Israel throughout this war, was also very concerned about

humanitarian aspects and what trying to limit some aspects of Israel, the Israelis are hearing none of that from the Trump administration. So there's a complete free hand in that regard. So for Nathaniel,

“there is the argument that even if you want a shorter agreement, the best way to do that is to apply”

pressure, and then come to terms if you can. But there's also a deeper sort of strategic question. You and I have both written about this since October 7th, I think at the macro level one of

any clearly articulated strategy for the vaunted day after, or for what is the political aim in

the Gaza Strip that follows from a military victory, and he's constantly speaking about total victory, but besides killing every last homeau's operative, which is technically impossible anyway, what actually is the strategic goal? You can't bring down homeau, so you don't have to kill every last homeau's operative. But you can't bring down homeau's, but only if you're putting some kind of structure in its place, and he has not spelled out what that structure is in any realistic terms.

Add to that, that far right members of his coalition are deeply invested in this work continuing, and some of them have very extreme and very expensive ideas for what would happen in the Gaza, delighted by the idea of ethnic cleansing that the President of the United States raised,

and our raise, and then sort of took back and said in voluntary, not voluntary, and of course,

some of them, not many, but some of them interested also in renewing his really Jewish elements in the Gaza Strip, most of the coalition is not for that. So Nathaniel, to my best reading, he's constantly objects of the idea of the Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, the secular Palestinian Authority, taking power or playing a major role in the Gaza Strip, and he therefore doesn't really see any, he doesn't offer any alternative. What's left is essentially return of his really

occupation as it existed before the Israeli withdrawal in 2005, and even more so before the Israeli partial withdrawal from the cities in 1994 and 85. And so we're talking about the resumption of direct Israeli occupation, that's kind of where it's leading at the moment. What's the mean one that's Israeli get there? A lot depends on the Trump administration, on the hostages. You ask about the public pressure. There is the public versus the coalition, but I'll also say, "Although Nathaniel

is an extremely political animal," and I tend to look at much of what he does within the context,

“he's not only that. He also does, I think, view this moment as a correctly as a momentous one”

in Israel's history, in the region's history. And from his own point of view, I think a moment to erase

Oslo to erase things that he always subjected to, the creation of the personnel authority

was a product of Oslo. Nathaniel was vehemently opposed to Oslo as head of the opposition, when he became Prime Minister before he was elected, he'd said he'd respect any international agreement Israel's sign, including Oslo, but he always subjected to it. And so if you're asking what is his goal here, I believe that is taking one with a Gaza Strip. That does not mean that's that's not the anniversary, that's not the final moment of what went up and next. And it doesn't

necessarily mean settlements, but that is at least where it leads at the moment. Let me ask you another kind of, I'll say a big framing question. As we go forward, one thing that Israeli leaders talked about for many months during the latter part of the recent wars, was that this isn't a Hamas versus Israel conflict. This is an Iran versus Israel conflict, and that Hamas, his Balab, various entities that Iran supports are being directed by Tehran,

and this is part of a much broader campaign. Is that framing still there? And what does this mean for possible Israel around confrontation in the coming months or longer?

“Yeah, I think this is a very important point. I think there are two very sort of”

vehemently held points of view. One is that the Palestinian question is the core issue of all Middle Eastern affairs, and the other, which some Israeli aspires, that it's completely marginal. It's not a major issue. It's actually about something else completely. I'll save you the suspense. I think both are true. The Palestinian issue is extremely important, and also motivating for many people in the Middle East. And of course, it is not remotely the only Asian in the Middle East.

Nor the sole question of Israel and its neighbors. Iran versus Israel is at least as consequential. And one way to see that is if you look at this war, it's often called, especially in Israel, the seven front wars. So besides Gaza, it's also Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, the Houthis and Yemen, Iran directly into a certain degree of the West Bank. And even in the West Bank, in all of these contexts, it is Iran related. So in the West Bank, it's Iranian money, literally something

like mine, operations from local organizations or gangs. In Syria, it's militia's Taijur Iran. So in Iraq, of course in Lebanon's Huzballah, in Yemen, it's the Houthis. In other words, everywhere Iran has a serious foothold. You saw active and sometimes extremely bloody war. And everywhere it did not. Jordan, Egypt, other places, you simply did not see the same thing.

“And in that context, it is, I think, obvious and correct to say that, at least toologically,”

this is in Iran, Israel, or although, of course, this really tells you an aspect as major.

but see Iran's fingerprints, and almost anything in the Middle East regarding them, and not

“without cause, I should say. And therefore, view this war in that context, Iranian October 8th,”

Huzballah joined the fight, had synwar the leader of Hamas and Gaza, been more strategic about this. He may have been able to orchestrate it truly, multi-front war, where Huzballah is actually invested in fighting it full-on, and it would have been a very, very different reality for Israel. But as it turned out, Huzballah was far better prepared for Huzballah, not only than it was for Hamas, of course, but also than most of us understood. Israel had actually been

extremely well prepared. The pages are sort of the most famous aspect of it, but it's only one aspect. Israel had been able to infiltrate from an intelligence and operation perspective. Huzballah operations, and Iranian, was able to, devastating blows at Huzballah, decapitate, not just Nasrallah, it's head, but it's whole upper echelon, and in Iran, strike in Iran twice

“overtly over Iranian airspace, taking out much of its air defenses. Since then, the fall,”

the Assad regime has dealt another blow to the Iranian access, and that is tied to the weakening of Huzballah, it is not unrelated. And subsequently, Israel almost immediately taking out the Russian and advanced air defenses that the Syrian military had. As a result, Iranian airspace and Iranian facilities are far more vulnerable than they were in the past, both because Israel can fly over Syria with much more ease on their way, but also because Iranian defenses themselves have been

deeply damaged by Israel, and imagine they're trying to rebuild them, but particularly the radars of the air defenses in Iran. All this to say that the context of this war for Israelis and not without reason is much, much broader than Gaza, and that's without diminishing in any sense, neither the human suffering or the importance of, but the Gaza question and the broader Palestinian question. From the Israeli perspective, this clear win so far against the Iran access,

much more complicated in Gaza, since there is no alternative, but to Hamas. But in the Iran case, a clear victory, a very different position than Israel was prior to this war, especially with the destruction that Israel brought on Huzballah, is extremely consequential and really changes its position regionally. But it of course is no guarantee for the future. Huzballah will try to rebuild, Iran obviously will try to rebuild its capacity. It also still has a not only active nuclear

program, but also is much closer to constructing a bomb if it shows to do so than it was in the past, in terms of missile material and other elements that is extremely close. It's almost a threshold state essentially. So the temptation and the logic of trying to strike the military facilities is there. I would not be surprised if there's an Israeli strike. Much less surprised that I would have been in the past, partly because the deterrent that Iran had, mostly in the form of Huzballah

and secondarily in the form of the second assaults from Iran itself, both of those have been

damaged dramatically by Israel and also proven to be ineffective in actual, as a natural deterrent. Big questions remain first of all, what it happened? It depends also in the United States, of course, will it be given by Washington? It's quite likely, but it depends on whether Trump manages to get a deal with Iran, which is also interested in. And the second question, would Trump let America join in the fight? And if a deal is not forthcoming between the United

States and Iran on a nuclear question, which Trump explicitly is after, he's also suggested that

“is in the cards as well. So the stakes are very high and I think it's quite possible. In one”

respect, the Iranian deterrence, as well as the deterrence, they are not as high as they used to be. You could see a strike where the Iran less capable to strike back in the short term, and therefore less devastating war from these rarely perspective, what they do in terms of the nuclear program after in the day after a strike there is a second question in a much more complicated. The tonne. Thank you so much as has been a fantastic, I'll say, overview of everything going on

for Israel. Unfortunately for the world, I think we may have to have you back soon to do an update because I know that a lot's going to change in the next few months that if the past is any guy, probably not for the better, but thank you very much for joining us. Then thank you very much

for having me. It's very rarely good news, but I'm always very happy to speak to you nonetheless.

The law fair podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. You can get ad-free versions of this and other law fair podcast by becoming a law fair material support to our website, law fairmedia.org/support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available probably to our supporters. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.

Our latest law fair presents podcast series on the government's response to January 6.

“Check out our written work at law fairmedia.org. This podcast is added by Jet Pacha and”

the audio engineer of this episode was Cara Schillen of Goat Rodeo. Our theme song is from Alabama

Music. As always, thank you for listening.