Lawfare Daily: Joel Braunold on West Bank Violence and Israel’s New Lebanon Offensive

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While everyone was focused on Gaza, after October 7th,

they were really significant by this really army actions in terms of cleaning at refugee camps in the West Bank, but also an ever-increasing amount of attacks on Palestinian civilians that have been going on. It's the warfare podcast.

I'm Senior Editor, Scott R. Anderson, joined by Joel Brunald, Managing Director of the Center Project for the latest on our regular series on development and it's really Palestinian and conflict. In the next administration, there's also going to be this desire

“saying, what are you for when it comes to the Palestinians?”

What do you for? We need to be able to explain it and to talk about it. And Netanyahu posed, you know, October 7th has not said anything about what they're for, and the only people have been able to say what they're for. And being smart to which Banger and their crowd, that are for,

that they're cleansing, right, for all the population to leave. Today we're discussing violence in the West Bank, the new offensive in Lebanon, and what it all may mean for Israeli elections later this year. So Joel, the past several weeks, the world,

and certainly here in the United States, people have been focused predominately on Iran. It's dominated the headlines. We have an ongoing armed conflict that the United States and Israel are actively involved in with huge regional ramifications.

But while that issue has been dominating the headlines, a lot has been happening elsewhere in the region, kind of beneath the water level, going largely overlooked, at least by kind of the mainstream top level media here in the United States,

and a lot of other corners of the world. And really on the top of that list,

“at least for the issue set that we cover”

in the series of conversations, it has to be West Bank violence. Folks with listen to our conversation, for listen to offer podcast before, know that the Biden administration thought before,

October 7th, that West Bank violence was going to be the big flashpoint. And it's really Palestinian affairs. They're worried about Gaza. It's kind of subsumed that,

but now the West Bank has come back.

It's kind of always been percolating a little bit

in the background. And now it's really come back in a big way. Talk to us about where we're seeing happen in the West Bank, and where it's leading this broader conversation about Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Thanks, Scott, and it's good to be with you again. Really the level of, you know, extremist violence. Some people say satellite violence. Some people say extremist violence.

Some people say state violence. And I can walk to why people use those different non-clitchers, but the reality is that the violence against Palestinian civilians

in the West Bank has really peaked.

“And really came to a head over this past weekend,”

and I can talk a little bit about what reactions have been from the Israeli government, which have been kind of interesting. But the violence and the West Bank has actually been going on for quite a while.

The journalist's assumption, at least in Israel, is that it's a lot more unsafe to be Jewish within Judea and Samar, which is how Israelis would call it or the West Bank as Palestinians

in the international community would call it. It's much more dangerous to be a Jewish civilian than a Palestinian civilian.

But the reality is that the numbers

just don't show that in any way, shape or form. The Palestinians have killed 378 Israelis in the West Bank since 2008, including 42 civilians from 2023, and those are according to UN figures.

Israelis, whether the Army or civilians, have killed 2,076 Palestinians in the West Bank, since 2008, and of those 840 Palestinian civilians have been killed since 2023, which is 20 times the number of Israeli civilians.

So while everyone was focused on Gaza, after October 7th, there were really significant both Israeli army actions in terms of cleaning out refugee camps in the West Bank, but also an ever-increasing amount of attacks

on Palestinian civilians that have been going on. And interestingly, if you remember, one of the big stories around October 7th is that there were army units that were moved to the northern Samariel or north-west Bank,

Tana-Hawara, because people wanted to celebrate so caught in that had been a huge flashpoint of settled communities rioting against Palestinian communities who were throwing stones and backwards and forwards, and this low-event communal violence was going by high,

and people said the reason there weren't soldiers on the borders of Gaza is because they'd been moved to protect settled communities in the northern part of the West Bank, which was really part of the incentive structure around it's my bank there,

sort of parties that make up at a key part of the coalition.

“And so basically since this government's been sworn in,”

you've got part of the coalition, whose desire is to collapse the Palestinian authority. Despite the fact that they're being a government resolution claiming that it is not the decision of the Israeli government to collapse the Palestinian authority,

all the time and especially since October 7th, we've seen this opportunistic piece from Smottrich and Benghvere, trying at every opportunity to try and collapse the PA, and thinking that this could be a historic moment

to try and finally kill the concept of Palestinian nationalism.

And when the Gaza peace still, the 20 point plan was put down, and it spoke about a pathway to Palestinian self-determination and everything else, even the right wing commentators feared

that they'd missed their opportunity. So every chance, Smottrich and Benghvere have been trying to find opportunities and really smothrich in this case, because he's far more strategic than Benghvere,

trying to push the Palestinian authority over. And part of that has been around financial issues, sort of restricting financial customs revenues and others to the PA, but part of it has been just this unleashing of violence

by what the right will say is a small minority of hilltop youth, 200 to 400 they claim of wayward youth, who are going on riots against Palestinian civilians, trying to push them off their lands.

Now, if you read tablet, which is a Jewish magazine here in America, one of that editors at large claimed to you that there's a whole mythology about the violence that's not really real,

there's really just a wild west, and there's not really laws being implied there, and that there's just land grabs going over areas and the Palestinian authorities, trying to land grab and place population centers,

the settlement communities are trying to land grab and try and place people there, and that this is all mythology.

“And I think that including the Israeli government”

as of this week thinks that that's garbage, and that there really is a problem. What we've seen over the past sort of a few weeks is that these violent attacks by settler, communities or wayward youths or hilltop youths,

or whatever are getting far more common and almost a daily occurrence where people are being killed, attacked, burned, beaten to a bloody pulp on a daily basis. And it was happening at such a rate, we've seen Palestinians with US citizenship murdered,

we've seen a constant push and when it had been US citizens, we had seen some sort of reaction from this Trump administration, and it seems like settler violence was something they even though the Trump administration took away the Biden settler sanctions that were there

to try and prevent this violence, though one could argue about the efficacy of those sanctions. If you're interested, we can go into why they were and why they weren't effective. Taking it away was definitely a signal

that you can do what you want and there won't be a consequence. And so we saw a massive peak in this and a massive outrage. And that also coincide with a CNN Jeremy Diamond

“went to sort of review what was going on”

and while he was there, a battalion from the idea

basically beat up one of his journalists,

arrested them and basically said on camera, you know, from an idea perspective, we agree with what's going on. So this concept that this is all just a small minority fringe that, you know, it's a small amount

and it's not reflective of the wider community, there were huge questions of like, why isn't the Esher Council speaking out where are the rabbinical authorities? Why isn't the government constantly condemning

and if it's such a small fringe? And it's just 200 to 400 people. Why can't the state stop it? It's not like we're talking about tens of thousands of people. If it's 400 people, why can't you stop it?

So it's very clear that the police that are under the authority of Bangladesh are not incentivised to stop it and the army wants to blame the police and the police wants to blame the army

for saving each other and meanwhile, this is going on. And you've got this entire question that's going on while this is happening, which is why are these ways used even there? Why are they there?

And we've seen that there's been this move from the welfare ministry and from other ministries to tramper as much infrastructure into the settlements. And into that place that you've got this entire area where you've got people who encourage to go

and seize hilltops and these are not stable individuals. They're given ATVs, like little ATVs to drive around and they are armed. And they're going around and they are violently enforcing what they think of their property rights

by murdering or pushing people up with the aim of scaring the local population, the Palestinians enough to scare them off their land. And so this all reached ahead sort of after

the CNN report. And a few things happened in very quick succession that was actually very interesting.

So first we had key rabbis

who are by Yarkov Meden and others all sort of start criticizing it. You had the Israeli ambassador to the US sort of whale publicly like how can this continue to happen where's the Eshe Council?

Why aren't people condemning this? You know, he is the official government representative. So there was that that came out.

spokesperson of Netanyahu in the media.

“He's a right-wing journalist on Channel 12.”

And he even called it Jewish terror. So there's even within the right-wing pollinance, there was this concept that this is Jewish terror. And this is something that needs to really be dealt with. And the Prime Minister clearly got the message.

And he actually had a memo that he released entirely to try and create a few different sanctions on these groups. Even though there has been this push to try and establish new outposts in area B, which the West Bank has put into A, B, and C, the Israelis have civilian and security control

in B, the Palestinian authorities, the civilian control, even though the IDF has security control. So in this new memo that was leaked to New York, you're a news, the Prime Minister said that it is banned to establish any new outposts in B.

And that there will be fiscal sanctions on any Southern community that actually establishes that. There's also a push by a met Segel and others to re-institute administrative detention on those who perpetrate violence, even if they're Jewish.

And that's something that the current is ready to fence minister had taken away.

“And now they want to sort of place back in.”

So there's been like sort of these shifts and what's going on. At the same time, you've had this huge push by the IDF chief of staff, Ayles Amir, who last week in the cabinet meeting, part of what he said was 10 red flags.

And three of those red flags were, look, every time you establish one of these new illegal outposts and the government, by the way, later on that meeting, established another 10 or 10, 20, 30 of them, is like you stretch our capacity

when we don't have a lot of capacity. You guys, in addition, the violence that we have to deal with because of it is dragging troops from where we need them in the north and on the Iran file to deal with them here. And also said, we need the local communities to push back against this

because we don't have enough capacity. And he then took the battalion that had attacked the CNN reporter and he dismissed the entire battalion saying that you all need to go back for retraining. So this seemingly was a reaction by the Israeli establishment

to start pushing back. But for many people, they say, look, this is too little too late

as long as you've got a police minister who basically backs the rioters

and you've got institutional support for them. And we saw that. The IDF Chief of Staff was criticized by the chairman of the Foreign and Defense Committee in the Kinesia for dismissing the battalion. It's a well-being of the police back, the battalion fighters again, CNN,

saying we should not be punishing them for showing some strength. And so the institution is fighting back against itself again, demonstrating institutional support for this. And so the violence in the West Bank has been a massive problem even bigger since October 7th.

There are legitimate security worries in terms of what was going on in some refugee camps with sort of Hamas and Islamic jihad. But what we're seeing across the West Bank is really a land grab and trying to prevent that ever being an established, contiguous Palestinian state. And part of that strategy is terrifying and scaring the Bedroom communities

and the local Palestinian communities off their land. And this is, if it's not directed direct by the state, it is encouraged by the state and we can see that through the different institutional backings from ATVs and others, and whereas this week there has been some pushback between 200 and 400,

it will be interesting to see how many people are arrested and convicted for what's been going on. So that's sort of the mess of what's been going on and I think there has reached to ahead, but whether it actually calms down or speeds up

is really a decision about how much the government wants to want to push back against this. So far they're saying the right things, but the question will be whether they do the right things. At the same time, we've seen a pretty controversial measure

passed by the condessate, the legislature, just yesterday, about the death penalty, which hangs over, to some extent, a lot of these military operations in the West Bank in terms of a potential application or consequence there for a lot of the Palestinians involved,

although in theory also potential applicable to Israelis. Talk to us a little bit about that and where that situation in the broader discourse around the approach to the West Bank. So yesterday the Israeli Kinesi passed by 62-48, one opposition party joined in one coalition party,

the Ashkenazi ultra-orthodox rejected. It's in my bank there's hanging law.

“Why do I call it a hang law rather than a death penalty?”

So it's always had a death penalty since it's establishment

that judges can use, they've really used it twice, once with a spy back in sort of the early days of the state that they find spying against the idea, and the other was, of course, for out of the argument, famously, in sort of an argument shroud that Hannah Aaron sort of documented

in the New Yorker. And there was a feeling like that judges were not applying the death penalty for acts of genocide and so they wanted to force what they thought was the left-wing judicial system to do it. So the doctor's association is always used

to ever take part in death penalty. So they said in the law that passed that for those tried in military courts, which basically means only Palestinians in the West Bank who are convicted of murder, that the judge must, unless there's a special circumstance

that they can give life and imprisonment, they don't say what the special practice circumstance is,

This must be applied within 90 days, which is 90 days short, and then the Geneva Convention dictates it must. This doesn't need to be a unanimous decision. It can only be by a majority of judges,

and there's basically no real leeway.

And so it's forcing them to sort of hang Palestinians convicted in military courts of murder. Now, military court convictions are around 96%. So it's basically if you've been charged with murder, 96% of the time you're going to be convicted of murder,

and now you're going to be hung. In addition, the law can be applied to Israeli citizens. If the crime was done in order to deny the existence of the Jewish state of Israel. No one really knows what that means, but it's very clear,

according to most legal commentators, that this is basically to exempt Jewish extremist violence against Arabs, and to have Arab extremist violence against Jews. Could you twist yourself into a pretzel and say that someone who denies the existence of the state

and wants to take the state into its own hands, like one of these hilltop youth, could be convicted under such a thing? I very much doubt it, right?

“That's why it's seen very much as a law that only covers Palestinians.”

And, you know, for the proponents of the law, they'll say, "Look, this takes away the incentive to kidnap people because if they know that all of the security prisoners who are in there, the murder, who are serving the longest sentences,

are dead, then there's no incentive. The shinbat and the security force and the energy had pushed back against this, saying, "Look, this is going to create more revenge attacks against Israeli Jews." And so, there's no real dispute.

This is really just a populist piece of legislation. A few other interesting things. This is not retroactive, so it doesn't apply to the people who committed October 7 who are currently Israeli jails,

and there is a different piece of legislation that is going through these really connected to apply to them. That hasn't come up for a vote. When this passed Lieberman, who came from the opposition

to join with this, said that he'd vote for this, and they needed his votes because UTJ wasn't going to vote for this on the condition that Netanyahu and Dary, they had a shath personally voted for this, saying that they had to personally vote for it.

So, you had the Israeli Prime Minister personally vote for this piece of legislation. So, what happens next? Most people assume that the Supreme Court will strike this down because they say it's not equal.

It takes away very critical things

around the right to life and liberty and dignity, which are parts of the Israeli basic law structure, by some of the lack of unity and liberty about the judges, the inability to appeal, by the way, once this has happened,

there is no appeal, the speed of which this has to happen. So, the assumption is the Supreme Court will strike this down. But of course, that, again, adds to the exacerbation of the divide and Israeli society between the courts

and the legislature, and doesn't really exacerbate the situation about that it's a secret lettering thing against the will of the people. I mean, you saw these images of being there, the Minister of Police with nooses on their lapels,

that was the image of this, popping champagne bottles in the secure room that they were voting because they can't vote in the concessive given the war with Iran. And, you know, this whole concept that Jews celebrate life

rather than celebrate death, it was really sort of seen as abusive. So, many preserve commentators and others say, once again, as well as acting as the same West enemy, you know, for something that the court's going to strike down,

and you even if you've got different views on the death penalty, you know, this isn't the way to do it, whatever, whatever,

“but I think that was very interesting as it really shows that”

in the lead-up to the Israeli election who's driving the bus. Bang Vig got the support of Dilikud for this. He did, so to claim that the Lekud is state-ist and sensible

and smart and puts the state interest first,

that they're clearly agreeing to bang Vig's idea about a 90-day, no appeal, majoritarian, military court conviction that leads to hangings, right? It's just very clear. And, you know, that's a reality that people are going to have

to sort of start to comprehend about who's driving the bus and the lead-up to the Israeli election, and when we look at what is the political space to maneuver, where will be be given, where will he not? It can be claimed that BB knows that the court's going to, you know,

take this out and it also adds to his own, you know, critics of the court, so he gets to have a two-for-one, but it just demonstrates that they really don't. There is really no concern in terms of what the public image might be, and that's concerning for people who think that international pressure

has any semblance of this. I'll just lastly say it's got, you know, proponents of the law point to the US, use of the death penalty, saying, well, we're not any different from the US.

“I think it's very important to show the differences, right?”

You know, in the US, if you have a death penalty, it's normally a unanimous decision, there's multiple appeals that can go all the way up to sort of a Supreme Court level. None of that is in this. And so you've taken away every single one of those potential outcomes

of what is a final criminal penalty. So it's really a populist move that really demonstrates who's driving the bus right now.

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“which is obviously important part of the calculus.”

But if we're going to talk about Israel and its position in the world, and its security, we have to talk about at least one other military offensive. And I'm not talking about Iran, I've just talked about a lot of things. He's hanging over all of this, although obviously that's going to intersect a bunch of places. That's Lebanon.

We have seen it the last few weeks since the beginning of the Iran offensive,

Israel faces second front, not for the first time.

We saw something similar happen multiple times. We've talked about the first two years of the war. We've talked about the first two years of the war. We've talked about the first two years of the war. We've talked about the first two years of the war.

We've talked about the first two years of the war. We've talked about the first two years of the war. We've talked about the first two years of the war. We've talked about the first two years of the war. We've talked about the first two years of the war.

We're seeing strikes in Beirut and other parts of the country as well, hitting different parts of infrastructure. Talk to about where this offensive is fitting into this broader picture. How Israel is trying to play the politics of it with Lebanon, with the government in Beirut and where it looks like it might lead.

So let's get back to the page-up sort of war, as well as remarkably, truly remarkably in the military tactic. Took out his ballerim one phenomenal intelligence from an intelligence perspective, sort of attack the sort of crippled the reponent. They killed Nasseraila and took out what they thought was the real news.

Going back to the previous conversation around that neck, that the Iranians could pull whenever they want. And so for the Israelis,

“I think many of them thought that his baller had been decimated”

and their ability to really fire tens of thousands of rockets as well had really been ridges. And before this current war with Iran, there was a sense that could you work with the Lebanese state, and the French and the Americans,

we're trying to monitor the ceasefire, that could they work with the Lebanese state to sort of disarm his ballerim. And they're doing so replace his ballerim with the L.A.F. and you could have more peace on the southern border. When the Iran war kicked off,

the ceasefire wasn't in a great place, but it was still there, and there was still this understanding and desire to have the Lebanese state take that role. The Iran war kicked off,

there was the Israelis were waiting to see if his ballerim took part.

“And they knew that if his ballerim shot one rocket,”

that the Israelis were basically used as a breach of the ceasefire,

to then go in and take over and create a new buffer zone, basically all the way up to the Lebanese river. As a ballerim shot a rocket, and there's reports, whether his ballerim was an Iranian IRGse commander,

regardless, the rocket was shot, and as well started, a ground maneuver to take over the whole of southern Lebanon. And the aim being to try and basically give enough security buffer for the northern communities to go back to normal life. Now, from an Israeli POV, right, from an Israeli point of view,

if you're in the north of Israel, life has been completely miserable since October. Whereas everyone, like 2023, whereas everyone spoke about the refugees and the war victims from the Gaza envelope on the south,

there were also entire northern communities who were evacuated. And it took a hell of a lot to try and get them to go back to the north. But every time you try to get them back to the north, after you evacuated them, they wanted a sense of security that what happened on October 7th

with Hamas wasn't going to happen with his ballerim. Well, they would run across the border and start maskering people up there. And so there was a sense that they needed to be a physical buffer, a barrier to enable them to go back.

And so the Israeli government finally got them to go back,

and now we've got this that's going on where the Israelis therefore moved into southern Lebanon during this war. And it turns out that his ballerim still does have capacity. And his ballerim has been raining rockets on the north.

If you've got his ballerim rockets sort of raining on the north,

“that is making the north completely unlevel.”

You know, economic activity, people living there. You know, so there hasn't been an official evacuation because when you evacuate people, it's very difficult to get them to go back home.

But you've basically got ghost herems across Israel as well as North.

And there were TV interviews and others sort of last week with mirrors and city managers at the north just crying on television, being like pick one thing or another. You know, either completely finished this off or make a peace deal. But either way, what we're experiencing is intolerable.

And this is sort of the challenge that both the Israelis want no long-want deterrence but want destruction of their enemies, given after October 7th. And they want sort of a 10 to 15 year peace and quiet. This has been going on for three years.

It's straining everyone, no one's sleeping. Like, you know, we can hold on a bit longer if at the end of this, it's over. But if you're telling me that this is the new normal, I can't deal with that.

And this is of course against the shadow and Israel of elections where people are going to go for elections.

“And this goes back to Netanyahu as promised”

in each of these military operations. Absolute victory. We got absolute victory in guys. We're going to absolute victory with Lebanon. We're going to have absolute victory with the Iranians.

We'll be a new regime in Iran. There's going to, you know, his bullet will be gone. Kramas will be gone. And yet after all these military activities, if at the end, he's degraded them, but they're still there.

And they still have an ability to make life intolerable. If you're trying to crush them only military militarily without a diplomatic solution, then the entire toolkit post up to the seventh is challenged. If you actually do also need diplomacy alongside military might,

if power projection alone doesn't actually create the peace and calm that your population requires, then it changes the math that Netanyahu has been selling six sub-type of seventh. Netanyahu is message since sub-type of seventh is that

if we use enough strength and might, and especially when we do it alongside the U.S., we can create an environment where the region will respect us and no one will threaten us. And that we don't need to have diplomatic arrangements.

It would be great if the Lebanese state could come in. And it could be great if our Shara was no longer an Islamist. And it would be great if there would be a deal with the Iranians. But none of that's going to happen. And so we are basically going to bomb our way and power project

to know that people are so scared of us about what we would do. That's going to terrified them.

If we create internal displacement of a million people in Lebanon,

that's going to put so much pressure on the Lebanese government, that they're going to have to do what they haven't done before. And that's the operating logic of what's going on behind the current moves in Israel. The challenge is if it doesn't work,

then you're going to have to go back to diplomacy. And for the northern Israelis, like the ones who are living north of Khaife, which has been living was just constant rockets right now through this war. They're like, look, one way or the other, this has to finish.

So either go back to diplomacy and figure it out or finish it off. But to have this buffer, sure we need, but it has but it can still fire for north of the Latini. It didn't work, right? And so this idea that you can put enough military pressure on the Lebanese state,

that they're going to have to do what they haven't done. Well, did they have enough capacity to do so? Also, if you create that many internally displaced people, destroy all of their property, of course, with no compensation. The Israelis are interested in compensating the Lebanese.

Or anything else for that? You are the best recruiting sergeant for his brother, who says, look, L.A.F. isn't defending you. No one's defending against the Israelis. We'll defend you. So yes, they can be furious, that says, "Bella pulled them in."

But again, in many ways, and a lot of Israelis are worried about this. This is a trap. Like, we've pulled back and the trap is that you've now stepped into it. And, you know, today there were four Israeli soldiers who were killed in South Lebanon, as well as very used to soldiers being killed in South Lebanon. This is why he had brought pulled his out of South Lebanon.

And, you know, this is also, you know, potential invasion of South Lebanon is a game that's been happening since the early 80s, right?

And it's never gone particularly well.

So why is this time going to be different? And that's a huge question in terms of how this is going to go.

“So that's what's been going on the Lebanese folk.”

Interestingly, if you listen to sort of the rumors and the leaks from the Iranian U.S. potential talks that might be happening might not be happening. Seems like the Iranians are very keen that anything that creates a ceasefire on their home front should also cover the Lebanon. Now, the Israelis will not want to comply with that

for a strategic reason and a tactical reason. The strategic reason is that Post-October 7th, they don't want to have a unity of France anywhere. They don't want to see the Lebanese front linked to the Iranian front. Just like they didn't want to have a Lebanese front linked to the Gaza front

during, you know, the active parts of the war in Gaza. They want to see each front separately and because if there's a unity of France, they see it as like a fire belt around them. So part of their strategy is to deal with these things. So they don't want to see these things as linked because that basically creates

strength and justification for proxies being able to act on behalf of states, which is one of the big things they're pushing back on.

how can they promise it's not going to start again?

“What's the diplomacy that's going to be needed in order to try and keep that level of calm?”

And how can they live with that, especially in the election year? So that sort of what's going on in the North, you know, the Israeli state somewhat trolling the Lebanese, you know, they have been very happy with what the Lebanese state has been saying, sort of banning the Iranian ambassador who doesn't seem to want to go anywhere.

Sort of the statements, the banning of his brother, all these things they see as very positive, but now that like does the state have the capacity to actually do that. And again, if the state needs support, who's supporting them? Is it the Gulf allies?

Well, the Gulf is kind of very obsessed with themselves right now.

They've got their own problems that they're dealing with.

You know, is it the Turks? That would be disastrous for the Israelis who worry that the Turks are going to go into the space that Iran is pulled back on and then they'll be a new fireball with a new different country that can somewhat run them. And this one's a member of NATO.

“So in each case, the Israeli structure of how does it project all these arenas or somewhat tied in?”

But I think that what you're seeing in the North of Israel and what you saw in Al Zimir's comments about the ten red flags, there is a capacity issue in Israel of the exhaustion of the population. They're not exhausted yet, they're not giving up, they're not demanding an end to the war. That's not where it is, you know, you still got, though you've had support for the war drop. And the support for the war drops far more if you don't have access to your own personal bomb shelter,

once if you do, you've got higher support. There's a feeling like we can do this if this is it. If I asked a lot of other two, three months, four months, whatever, if at the end of this were done, it's great. But if we're not done, that's a whole different kettle of fish.

And so I'll conclude this by saying, this is a real test case for the new operating philosophy that's going on. If you have an operating philosophy, pre 2009, I'm trying to make peace deals. You know, that ended up with an apple, that didn't work.

You then had Netanyard coming in no nine, that basically said, we're not going to do anything.

We're going to freeze things as in place and just sort of, you know, divide conquer grind, votes into dust, try not for enough to keep going on with it and try and push regional deals. That sort of concluded with the Abraham Accords. But that operating philosophy sort of collapsed on October 7th, where, you know, Hamasal have imploded the idea that you could just wait this out.

And so now the operating philosophy is that we can just power project region in, even as a world power is Netanyard said. And that can change the operating environment that can give us peace and quiet. If that fails, then we're going to have to shift into something. So there's one last home front for Israel.

We need to talk about that's the one that was the focus for, has been the dramatic focus for the last several years, up until we were on conflict as an example of their last Lebanon complex, backed up. Not if, of course, Gaza, we still have a formal ceasefire in Gaza.

There are, have been routine allegations of violations on both sides, by both sides, really since it started. But so far, it seems to be holding, we've got some negotiations happening in Cairo about implementing the next step or some of the next steps in the broader 20 point peace plan.

Talk to us about the state of Gaza, bring us up to date there as an area that, frankly, has not been in the news very much for the last few weeks, given everything else happening in the region. So the latest is that Niclim Alazanov, who's the high representative of Gaza, he, apparently, gave it a take a lever offer to Hamas around a DDR proposal for them

to give up their weapons and sort of surrender their weapons, at least starting off with tunnels and weapons factories and heavy weapons, and then later on, it could be personal weapons, and that they need to give those up, and then there could be a political process. So, you know, some sort of a DDR thing,

and Hamas's take a lever actually technically expires tomorrow. The question is, what happens if they say no? So the argument was that if they say no, that the Israelis were doing military maneuvering northern Gaza and sort of take them out. To the Israelis, when they're operating in South Lebanon, now they're operating in the West Bank,

it's trying to prevent South environments, and you've got the Iran more going on, that they have enough capacity to do all of these things at once. I don't know, and I don't know if they know, but it's definitely stretching them them. But the aim is that Hamas will probably, in my estimation, if you others will say yes, but they say sure, but then have a thousand sort of things they've learned from the Israelis,

and that regards, in a way to try and move this on, then the Trump administration can use momentum to get momentum, try and move something, you know, forward. I'll say Scott, you know, it seems very much that the Palestinian issue is very much in the background, rather than the foreground, given the war with Iran, what's going on in Lebanon, and everything else.

“In many ways, I think the Palestinian issue can be the unlocking maneuver and the off ramp for the Iran war,”

because for the Trump administration, they need to demonstrate that the Iran war, you know, they've got their list of objectives, their changes, depending on when truth social is operating, sort of what the particular things are, but alongside degrading Iran's capacity, part of it is about reshaping a new face of the Middle East, that if you've taken out the Iranian threat

and sort of to reshap the Middle East in a different way, Prime Minister Netanyahu today, spoke about building pipelines through the Gulf, to Israel, and exporting that ways to take pressure off the streets for the moves, all of these different things. But in order to get all of those, you still have the Palestinian issue, and I can't imagine the Saudis moving forward with formalization, that's something there.

And so the ability to move the Gaza 20 point plan into the third stage, which is points 19 and 20,

which basically is a political talk between it as well in the Palestinians, that can lead to some level of self-determination, is a necessary component to move forward on a new face of the region, and the war in Iran hasn't changed that, in many ways it just makes it even more explicitly necessary. And so how do you do that?

“So one side on Gaza, and you need to come out with the Iranian patron gone and the Turks and the Qataris and the Egyptians being stronger patrons,”

or at least ally, or at least talking to come out, you need them to sort of move that up.

And so you've got that side, but on the PA side, the PA has made this pledge that they have to do these series of reforms.

So my assumption is that there's going to be some sort of agreement on what these reforms will look like. Saudis, main proxy in the region, I'd argue, is the Palestinian authority at this point, and so they'll want to see if their proxy can actually do that. You know, they've been funding them, they've been guaranteeing some of the education reforms and other things. And so if you can work out what a reform package can look like, and that enables them to potentially have a role going back into Gaza,

then you can potentially de-escalate between the PA and Jerusalem. And in doing so, maybe sound another deal of the century or whatever else to begin a political process.

There's enough to start a regional mobilization, they can conclude sort of the conclusion of all of this activity in the Middle East,

leads to a new face of the Middle East. So even if you didn't like parts of the process of how you got that, the Angola is something that everyone can support. And so in order for that to be a narrative offer-amp, my expectation is that the Palestinian issue is going to come back into the forefront. And that requires an agreement on Palestinian reform, the PA is going to have to do some reforms, and actually be verified that they have done their reforms, and that leads in some level of de-escalation.

I can't see that before in Israeli election, I think it's very difficult to imagine in the fits of an election they'll do that. But my expectation is very soon after the election that there's going to be some sort of, again, deal of a century type thing. That might not be a conclusion point, but the beginning point of a conversation of how the parties can start talking to one another about what does that look like as a way to draw in, not just Saudi, but potentially other Gulf nations who understand for their own self-interest need to have some sort of relation with Israel in order to balance their relationships with the Iranians.

And also others in the region, because without that, it's very clear that the Israelis won't take their interests into account if they decide to do additional military maneuvers. And it's very clear that the U.S. after this isn't consulting with their Gulf allies before they start something, even if they start consulting afterwards. And so, you know, the Gaza envelope, what happens in Gaza, the ability to smash that into a place where it creates an opening for regional integration is an important part of an angle for this Iranian construct, because in the Israelis heads, and I'd even argue somewhat in the American heads.

“You know, Iran was really behind the real puppet master behind October 7, and that that's the last sort of figure that you need to get rid of, and then you can sort of adjust in terms of what everyone's been doing.”

And despite, I think Gulf reticents at the beginning of this war, given what the Iranians have done to them, there is now clearly, and if not just leads now, there's like interviews and everything else. The Gulf won't, and you can't leave an Iran that can threaten everyone. So if the regime doesn't collapse, they're going to re-examine their security sort of arrangements. And the Israelis, I'm sure, will be part of that in terms of how does that look like? But all of that in order for the street in the political situations for that to happen, you need to settle in some way the Palestinian issue.

And so the roads lead back to Ramallah, and to Daraballah, and Gaza, and everything else, and had as that also adjust in shape. So despite it being on the back burner now, in many ways, this is the off-ramp, and at least narratively and politically as we move forward on this. And even if that is restrained currently by the fact that Israel might not move before October, in terms of its own politics, there's much that can be done between now and October, about getting the PA in a steady state, about getting Hamas Dediah in a steady state,

that you can actually therefore operationalize that once the Israeli election has happened.

“So let's talk about that Israeli election then, because obviously Israeli domestic politics is sometimes, I think, overstated.”

I be curious by the way, that as a driver of all of this, necessarily, we have a lot of talks about a net Yahoo pursuing things for strict domestic political gain, or to address his personal criminal woes, I think that can sometimes be overstated, but they obviously are part of the milieu in which these decisions are being made, as are the elections and the difficult political position net Yahoo has been since the October 7th massacre.

I think there's been a clear kind of rally around the flag effect of particularly the Iran conflict, to some extent, from my rough reading of public polling,

some of the earlier steps to a Lebanon and elsewhere.

“What does that seem poised to translate into in this coming election, at least six months out, October, I think, and October is what it's scheduled.”

A little less than a little more than six months out, talked about what his political fortunes are, and not just for him, before the coalition behind him, we've seen that Yahoo who's set on top of a bunch of all right governments, but slightly different structures of right governments, what coalition seems likely to follow behind him if he does succeed at getting across that threshold and remaining prime minister. We haven't seen a rally to the flag effect, even though most has raised trust, Prime Minister Netanyahu on the Iran file, we're seeing high levels of support, many for the IDF more than him, but the concept that he's being the guy pushing the Iran thing, since time and memorial, it's very clear.

You're not seeing a move in the polls. The coalition that has currently set hasn't pulled in order to be able to get 60 seats in a long time, and they still haven't got there. The opposition sort of float some flats with potentially getting enough seats, but don't forget, the opposition is a heterogeneous group of people. And the big question is, well, they rely on Arab votes, and not just the Arab votes that they had before when it came to the Southern Islamic movement. And Manso Rabas, who through Iran, was the critical part of the Bennett government last time, but when you look at the joint list, which includes Palestinian nationalistic figures, that it's very difficult to imagine them forming a part of a coalition, you know, the numbers aren't there in order to do that, and so what will then happen.

So, could you see a national unity government, potentially, then it depends who's the largest party, you know, to potentially be the Prime Minister, for some of the members be able to go and join with Netanyahu, you'd have to see some level of pardon.

“I think this is why you've seen President Trump really push a pardon, you know, could I imagine, you know, if part of the pardon agreement is that there's also sort of no more judicial reform, you need to have more than people's just promises.”

So, could you imagine that a pardon could happen during the coalition negotiations, and as part of that, within the coalition agreement, there's also a agreement to pause all judicial reform, you know, maybe, maybe that's what people are holding out for, so you've got sort of a two for, like, you know, they've tried to convict Netanyahu, it's not there. It would be deeply unpopular amongst the anti-Nethanyahu camp for him to, for Netanyahu to get a pardon at this point. But for some or say, look, we need national unity, we can't have bangven, smudge, hold the balance of power.

Smudge, it isn't passing threshold at this point, so you're seeing him, you know, bangven is very comfortably, so smudge, it's just trying to again, get himself in the news and do other things. But so far, it hasn't been translating for passing threshold, you need to get more than 3.25% of the vote, the past threshold, as well as a single constituency with a proportional representation across the district. So you need to get a certain percentage to pass threshold, then you get a percentage of the seats.

In terms of opposition, Netanyahu is the former prime minister, his sort of flag is somewhat waning and guadi rising court.

“He is now being seen in head to head with Netanyahu as the closest compared to Netanyahu.”

He's still not winning those fights, you know, it still pulls around 7 points lower, as well doesn't, at least in this round, elected prime minister separately.

There were previous elections when it did, but it's not right now, so right now, we're basically headed towards a hunt, can I say, if you look at opposition and coalition.

So some people think they'll be national unity, some people think they'll not. In order for that to be national unity, you don't need all the opposition to agree with all the coalition. You just need enough to get to 61 seats. So at the moment it's a mess, right, it really is a mess. And so we'll Netanyahu manage to survive and come on top of the system.

I mean, I wouldn't count it out. The election has not really started yet. Now that the budget passed yesterday, we now know the day to the election. Should the budget have not passed the election would have been sooner. But now we know it's in October, people can start really ramping up for that.

And we're going to see a real, I'm sure poisonous campaign again from various different quarters trying to push this. And we're going to see more and more populace pieces of legislation pushed in the meantime to try and get as many potential votes. I'm sure we're going to see accusations of foreign interference left right in center. For everyone, I'm sure there will be massive amounts of money spent by everyone to try and get there. And in the end, we're going to have to see. But for many in the anti-Netanyahu camp.

And especially after like the hanging law and a few other things, there's a real sense that someone said. The other, of course, the biggest motivator has nothing to do with what was talked about today. It's about, already, enlistment about the ultra-orthodox enlistment. So you've had people who have done 450 days of military service over the past three years.

At the same time, you've got ultra-orthodox, just got another 250 million dollars in sort of benefits from the state coffers.

So, you know, there's a lot of people like the many of Israel, including a lot of liquid votes.

We can't continue with the parade and not participating in their service. And this isn't viable. And so the divisions that were happening before October 7th are still very much there. In terms of the parade, in terms of judicial reform and others. And so, in many ways, it's reflective of things like the US elections, where everything feels like life and death.

In terms of who wins the presidency, here it's going to have a real life and death feel like,

“Is there a future of the country if this government after October 7th after the parade enlistment after everything else?”

If they still get in, and they still win, you know, who's really in charge?

And on the flip side, this is feeling like, you know, if they know how it loses, then he could end up in prison. Right? And so, he's very much like a bandit down the system type. You know, I don't want to end up in that situation. And of course, the stakes are very high because of all of the regional dynamics that we've gone through today in terms of the huge decisions. Whoever's in charge is going to have to deal with the Trump administration who's going to want to try and move forward with regional integration,

which will require whoever's in charge to be able to say what they are for when it comes to the Palestinians.

Everyone's very aware what Israelis are against.

There's a poll done in March that asked Israelis, what do they felt that the war in Iran had vis-a-vis their relationships with America? So despite criticism in American media, 81% of the Israeli Jewish public thinks that the war will strengthen times with Washington, well, only 7% disagree. So while I'll agree on like a military level, I just, you know, read a poll here, and it's very clear that there's very different media environments and sort of, they're very much misleading the mood here in America.

You know, in addition, 70% believe that the war will increase the likelihood that the Abraham Accords will spread to additional Arab states. So they think that this is going to lead to greater regional integration. Yeah, at the same time on the Palestinian issue, only 23% believe that the war will improve the security reality in a way that enables negotiations involving territorial concessions. And only 22% believe that it will help renew the peace process with the Palestinians. So the Israeli population believes this is going to strengthen times with America and also believes that this is going to lead to regional integration, absent of the Palestinians that they think nothing's going to happen with the Palestinians.

And everything that I've just said goes completely against that. So either the Israeli population is correct and the whole region is going to bend and Washington is going to bend to what they believe or they're out of step with Washington and the region.

“Who's right? Well, find out, but I think that it's a real challenge, therefore if you're in Israeli elected official, how do you square that circle?”

How do you square a circle where an administration comes to you and says, what are you for when it comes to the Palestinians? And you've got a population where, you know, under a quarter is willing to even think that this is going to have a positive relationship on them. How are you going to do that when the Israeli leaders are going to say, you know, guys, this is really damaged our relationships with the Americans if we can't share away forward when 70% of Israel thinks this is strength in their relationships with the Americans.

So you're going to have a disconnect between the population and the leadership and you've got to have a leadership who's going to have to explain to their population, they need to make difficult decisions to maintain their relationships. And that's only while Trump's there. In the next administration, there's also going to be this desire saying, what are you for when it comes to the Palestinians? What are you for? We need to be able to explain it and to talk about it. And Netanyahu post, you know, October 7th has not said anything about what they're for and the only people have been able to say what they're for.

And he's been smart to which Bangre and their crowd that are for ethnic cleansing, right, for all the population to leave. It's very clear. And as we've said at the beginning of this podcast between the settled violence and all the other things, there's a clear direction and travel up that. And so, you know, being able to define what you're for is going to be a real challenge for the next government, but one that they're going to need to do for regional reasons for their relationship with America for their relationship with the Trump administration and frankly it's got for their ability to operate in the world at large.

For as well, this sort of America matters, the region matters and then, you know, everyone else somewhat matters. Well, everyone else is going to somewhat matter even more when people like all of our energy bills have got up. You know, we don't, you know, it's really destroyed lots of our economic growth. What are you trying to do? What are you trying to, you know, your ability to operate in those spaces is essential that people understand you. And I would argue that fewer and fewer and fewer people understand this all today.

And I think that that's a critical problem for them when people are designing strategies for American administrations for European, for, you know, Asian, whatever to be able to understand what is well once.

“Because if they don't understand it, they'll listen to where the populist messaging is and they'll assume that's what it is.”

They'll see the Michelle patches on Israeli soldiers and said they've all become religious radicals. And if that's not the case, and I didn't think it is the case, but if that's not the case, it requires a leader who can define what they're for. And we haven't heard that in years, and that's going to be a real challenge to make them include.

Thank you for joining us here today on the Loffer podcast.

Thanks so much, Scott. The Loffer podcast is produced by the Loffer Institute.

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