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After Iran: What Now? · Israel Policy Pod

• 0:02
  Neri: Shalom and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod.
• 0:04
  Neri: I'm Nery Zilber, a journalist based in Tel Aviv and a policy advisor to Israel Policy Forum.
• 0:10
  Neri: So a lot to discuss this week, with our regular catch up with Israel Policy Forum's very own Chief Policy Officer, michael Koplow, and Shira Efron, the Diana and Guilford Glazer Foundation Senior Fellow and Director of Research.
• 0:20
  Neri: Ayan Gilford Glazer Foundation Senior Fellow and Director of Research.
• 0:24
  Neri: We looked back and summed up the recent Israel-Iran war after last week's ceasefire, and we also looked ahead to what may be in store for us on the Iran front post-war, both diplomatically and potentially militarily.
• 0:38
  Neri: And then we got into the whole complicated question of whether a grand bargain was in the works to end the Gaza war ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to the White House next week to meet with President Donald Trump.
• 0:52
  Neri: A very complicated question indeed, this grand bargain, but it was all part of a great conversation, as always.
• 0:58
  Neri: So let's get to Michael and Shira.
• 1:01
  Neri: Hi Michael, hi Shira.
• 1:02
  Neri: Welcome back to the podcast.
• 1:04
  Shira: Hi guys, Good to be here.
• 1:06
  Neri: Hi, it's good to see both your smiling faces.
• 1:09
  Neri: Fair to say, not too much has been going on over the past couple of weeks.
• 1:14
  Shira: Never, I'm kidding, never.
• 1:16
  Neri: I'm kidding, obviously Completely normal.
• 1:19
  Neri: Last couple of weeks I spoke about my own personal experiences during the recent Iran war.
• 1:25
  Neri: Last week with Amos Ha'arel as did.
• 1:28
  Neri: He Talked about it in some personal terms, but I'm curious to get a sense how the war was on your respective ends, shira.
• 1:39
  Shira: Oh, okay, I'll start Well.
• 1:42
  Shira: I Okay, I'll start Well.
• 2:00
  Shira: On Thursday morning, before it happened, right, the Israeli strike took place on the night between Thursday and Friday.
• 2:03
  Shira: I had a sense that this was coming that evening and I have evidence because I sent my husband to the supermarket to go shopping and he said why?
• 2:06
  Shira: And I was like I have a feeling it's happening tonight.
• 2:08
  Shira: And he's like what are you talking about?
• 2:09
  Shira: No way, it won't happen before Sunday, the wedding I was supposed to get married.
• 2:14
  Shira: I was like no, no, no, no, no.
• 2:15
  Shira: I'm telling you it's based on conversations with people who actually know it's going to happen.
• 2:22
  Shira: And I was rushing to find a flight out of here that Thursday but there were like kids stuff and my brother was visiting from the States and we made sure my brother departs at 11 PM.
• 2:32
  Shira: The strike started at 3 AM, right Four hours later, and I told him you have to go.
• 2:36
  Shira: He was going to wait for the morning to fly the day after.
• 2:38
  Shira: I was like just go, so sort of anticipating this.
• 2:42
  Shira: But then waking up at 3 am to crazy sound that Israeli FEMA equivalent created just to alert us that we attacked in Iran and we should be on alert in case they retaliate.
• 2:58
  Shira: It was still something that, even though I was sort of ready for it for a few hours, you can't think about it right.
• 3:07
  Shira: How long is we've been hearing about the threat of Israel sort of striking Iran?
• 3:11
  Shira: For many, many years now, so until many years, and so when it actually happened, we were surprised.
• 3:20
  Shira: There were many sleepless nights.
• 3:22
  Shira: I have children here.
• 3:23
  Shira: We spent a lot of time in the bomb shelter that fortunately, we have in our house, in our basement, so, unlike many Israelis, didn't have to look for one or go somewhere with the neighborhood, which is not awful, but I mean we could do it in the privilege of, you know, privacy of our own home and pajamas.
• 3:42
  Shira: But we live in close proximity to some military bases, so there was a lot of you know, there was a lot of noise, and you know and we do feel we do know personally people who their homes have been destroyed, ruined and had to be evacuated.
• 4:01
  Shira: I have someone who just gone through a surgery, a friend, because her apartment was struck and she's injured.
• 4:09
  Shira: So I mean this was, you know, you take the personal and you take the national and it was really scary and because I think and we can talk about it, sort of like it's successful or not successful, but we were, I think, as someone who knew sort of the threat scenarios and what could be coming right from Iran.
• 4:29
  Shira: There's this constant fear that this is going to go escalate and I think this dimension of also the uncertainty and how long this will continue and it is serious.
• 4:39
  Shira: This was, you know, something that I felt, in addition to obviously having to work, explain to the kids, and it was sort of a combination of war and COVID in a weird way, just everyone being stuck at home.
• 4:55
  Shira: But we've had a lot of practice, you know, in the last five, six years.
• 4:58
  Shira: So it's fine and, fortunately, on the personal level, totally fine, very lucky.
• 5:04
  Neri: Right and, by the way, Shira, I have proof that you knew Thursday morning as well, because you texted me as I was on a plane at Ben Gurion, not telling me what was going to happen.
• 5:14
  Neri: But you're like are you sure you're still going?
• 5:16
  Neri: And I was like, yeah, of course, we have a few more days, It'll be fine.
• 5:19
  Neri: Obviously, I wasn't going to get off the plane, but you tried to warn me and I didn't want to listen.
• 5:26
  Shira: I did, I did, anyway, yeah.
• 5:32
  Michael: Michael.
• 5:32
  Michael: So obviously because I'm here in the United States, nothing is romantic as Shira.
• 5:37
  Michael: But I did have a little bit of drama that weekend because Shabbat, june 14th, was my son's bar mitzvah, and so on Thursday night here, friday morning, israel time, when this started I was out on Thursday and Friday with bar mitzvah preparations and family and friends coming in and I had all of a sudden a flood of requests to do stuff and I told everybody no.
• 6:03
  Michael: And then Friday morning I had like a quiet hour and the Atlantic had asked me to write a piece.
• 6:10
  Michael: So I wrote a piece, for the Atlantic had my son's bar mitzvah, my brother-in-law, who made Aliyah 15 years ago.
• 6:20
  Michael: 16 years ago he was in for the bar mitzvah, as was my 14-year-old nephew, and so they were here and had no way of getting back.
• 6:31
  Michael: Unfortunately, my sister-in-law was not in the United States for the bar mitzvah, but she was in the United States for her father's 80th birthday and came to surprise him.
• 6:41
  Michael: So they were here and their two 18-year-old twins 16-year-old and nine-year-old were in Israel as this was going on, with their parents in the United States with no prospect of getting back.
• 6:55
  Michael: Thankfully they live in Beit Shemesh, which is relatively quiet.
• 7:00
  Michael: Nothing got hit.
• 7:02
  Michael: They didn't even really have that many, that many as a coat, that many sirens, but you know four out of the five kids were there, for it ended up being a week and a half, almost two weeks, without their parents and you know they managed, but obviously it was.
• 7:20
  Michael: It was it was a bit a bit hectic and nerve wracking.
• 7:24
  Michael: Obviously it was a bit hectic and nerve-wracking, and we have a joke here at IPF that every time I go on vacation something happens.
• 7:30
  Michael: And the bar mitzvah was, as I said, about June 14th and then on Wednesday, the 18th, we were leaving for a family vacation for a week and, as you both know, I joked on the office Slack before I left that because I'm going on vacation, the US is going to join the war, bibi's going to call elections and Abu Mazen is going to pass away.
• 7:53
  Michael: Two of those things did not happen, but one of them did, and I was out on family vacation, which means I'm really out.
• 7:58
  Michael: So I actually ended up missing the entirety of US involvement, which started while I was out and ended while I was out.
• 8:06
  Michael: So I had a strange experience for the Israel-Iran war and for the US involvement, but definitely memorable given everything that was going on in my personal life.
• 8:20
  Neri: Definitely memorable.
• 8:22
  Neri: I don't know whether you're a good luck or bad luck charm, michael, but uh, I think it depends, yeah, on your bingo card, though.
• 8:30
  Neri: 2025 is only halfway done, so there's still still time.
• 8:34
  Neri: Uh, as we'll talk about, uh, in this episode, about what, what we may be looking at in the coming weeks and months.
• 8:41
  Neri: Um, so let's get into it.
• 8:44
  Neri: Obviously, the big news was the Israel-Iran war, the 12-day war, as Donald Trump called it.
• 8:51
  Neri: So, first of all, I wanted to get your opinions, analyses, looking back and summing up this conflict.
• 8:59
  Neri: You've had what a week now, exactly, I think, since the ceasefire.
• 9:03
  Neri: So a bit more breathing room, a bit more sleep, especially for for Shira and her, her family and everyone here in Israel.
• 9:10
  Neri: Uh, what did you think of the campaign?
• 9:12
  Neri: Uh, operation Rising Lion, uh, israel, as Michael and Shira you both had, or Shira, you said right, bb finally did it.
• 9:21
  Neri: He finally attacked Iran, after, I think, probably at least 15 years, of this is going to be the day, this is going to be the year.
• 9:29
  Neri: So I mean, michael, let's start with you Looking back.
• 9:34
  Neri: What do you think of this campaign, the fact that it happened and then, obviously, the damage inflicted on Iran by Israel?
• 9:45
  Michael: So the fact that it happened.
• 9:46
  Michael: I wasn't surprised that it happened eventually.
• 9:50
  Michael: I was surprised by the timing, as I think we've discussed on this podcast a bunch, and certainly, as I've written, I never expected Netanyahu to embark on a military campaign against Iran without a US green light and I didn't think that a US green light was coming so quickly.
• 10:08
  Michael: I thought that President Trump because he was in the middle of this on-again, off-again negotiating process with the Iranians and he very clearly wanted some sort of deal I expected that he was going to give it more time, so I was surprised by the timing of it.
• 10:28
  Michael: In terms of success, obviously we can't really judge until we have more information, but based on what we know, I think this was enormously successful, both from an Israeli perspective and from a US perspective.
• 10:44
  Michael: We have, of course, the dueling, conflicting reporting about how much damage was actually done there.
• 10:52
  Michael: It was the initial reporting about a low-confidence defense intelligence agency assessment that this barely set the Iranian nuclear program back, and now we have other reporting that it set it back more than the initial reports may have granted, and more reporting today about what the Iranians were up to around Fordow and activity around ventilation shafts and entrances and did they move the university uranium or not?
• 11:19
  Michael: Ultimately, Israel and the United States were able to strike all of the major sites with very big and lots of bombs.
• 11:32
  Michael: It clearly did lots of damage, even if it didn't obliterate any of these sites, as President Trump claimed.
• 11:38
  Michael: Managed to take caught caught the iranians so off guard that they killed most of the top military leadership.
• 11:50
  Michael: Um in the first few hours, got a huge number of important nuclear scientists in their first few hours.
• 11:56
  Michael: Managed to do all of this with the support of almost the entire world, including countries that have been condemning Israel's war in Gaza left and right and with increasing vehemence.
• 12:14
  Neri: As we've discussed in previous weeks.
• 12:17
  Michael: Right.
• 12:17
  Michael: And Israel got the US to join in, and the US joined in in a way that avoided pretty much every single worst case doomsday prophecy right.
• 12:28
  Michael: The idea that it was going to ignite a regional war, the idea that it was going to pull the US into another unending conflict akin to Iraq, that there was going to have to inevitably be a ground invasion.
• 12:41
  Michael: That was going to cost either, you know, either Israeli lives or US lives.
• 12:45
  Michael: I mean, you know these predictions were out there almost from the first second that President Trump announced that the US was joining in, and none of this came to pass, by the way, also the proxies.
• 13:00
  Neri: Iran's proxies in the region didn't get involved, as Shira alluded to, the damage on the Israeli home front, even by the IDF's kind of assessments, was a lot lower than they expected and they had very, very bad, worst-case scenarios about the damage from the Iranian ballistic missiles.
• 13:18
  Michael: Exactly and none of these worst-case scenarios came to pass.
• 13:22
  Michael: So we can and we will debate for months, if not years, how much damage was actually done to the Iranian nuclear program and, as I'm sure we'll discuss, I do think that, probably greater likelihood than not, that Iran's lesson from this is that they have to race to break out come hell or high water, because it's the only real failfe of guaranteeing regime survival, especially in the aftermath of something like this.
• 13:47
  Michael: But if we're sitting here recording on July 1st looking at this, you'll never convince me that enormous damage was not done to Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure.
• 13:59
  Michael: You'll never convince me that it didn't send a real message of deterrence around the region, both on Israel's part and on the US's part.
• 14:08
  Michael: And, as you pointed out, these worst case scenarios in terms of blowback to Israel or blowback to the United States did not materialize.
• 14:17
  Michael: So there's obviously huge numbers of future chapters of this yet to be written, but I think, sitting here where we are, this was a huge success and for me the question now isn't whether this was successful or not.
• 14:31
  Michael: It's whether Israel and the United States are going to be smart and savvy enough to follow up on this with some sort of political and diplomatic follow through, because if they don't, then I think we'll see problems develop down the road.
• 14:46
  Michael: But in terms of what's gone on, I think that this was almost the best case scenario.
• 14:51
  Neri: So hold that thought about future scenarios.
• 14:53
  Neri: But, Shira, I want to get your thoughts looking back, summing up what did you think of the 12 day war and do you subscribe to the general view that you hear here in Israel, which is the nuclear program was, if not obliterated, then taken back several years, that Israel succeeded in removing the existential threat of Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs?
• 15:17
  Neri: I mean, where do you land on both the debate here in Israel and your own sense of how successful the operation was?
• 15:39
  Shira: You know I haven't read the intelligence that Israelis say they have that Iran was too close to breaking into nuclear weapon, more so than just being this threshold, that we knew before, right, that the sort of what we call the weapons group made advancements and this was escalated to an existential threat level.
• 15:54
  Shira: And I want to believe that this was the intelligence here in Israel In terms of the ballistic missiles.
• 16:03
  Shira: I think this reflects an Israeli mindset.
• 16:04
  Shira: It is not so existential threat, but Israel is at a preemption mode after October 7, with just risk tolerance.
• 16:12
  Shira: That is completely different, right, israel wouldn't, you know, in the past I would say Israel would never like conduct a preemptive strike.
• 16:20
  Shira: I mean, we had, you know, 67 in Egypt and stuff.
• 16:22
  Shira: But in recent years, right, we wouldn't.
• 16:24
  Shira: I wouldn't think this would happen.
• 16:26
  Shira: When you would pile up a conventional threat with weapons for mass destruction, the same sentence.
• 16:32
  Shira: But I think Israel is in a different mindset after this.
• 16:35
  Neri: And Bibi Netanyahu is a different, bibi Netanyahu also.
• 16:41
  Shira: And Israel as a country.
• 16:42
  Shira: You know this is not a politically charged issue.
• 16:44
  Shira: I'm sure we'll get to Israel, but Israelis are all cheering for that.
• 16:48
  Shira: What I'm sure is not reading the intelligence is that I'm sure there was a great operational window here For a variety of reasons.
• 16:57
  Shira: Right, there was the long-term stuff, since Israel sort of really undermined Hezbollah Hezbollah is not gone, but really undermined Hezbollah, so you don't have this access.
• 17:07
  Shira: Right, hezbollah was sort of a second strike capability and if you attack Iran, hezbollah is going to retaliate.
• 17:13
  Shira: Iran's air defenses were down because of the previous strikes that Iran attacked Israel and convincing Trump that they can do it.
• 17:28
  Shira: What's also really interesting for me is that the thing I think, like you, neri, and like Michael, what's to me so surprising is that Iran itself was in their own.
• 17:39
  Shira: The word that we used on Israel was the conceptia.
• 17:42
  Shira: The conceptia they also right.
• 17:45
  Shira: They were like oh, it's Bibi, we've known him, he's been threatening, he's not doing anything and we have negotiations with the Americans and he has his son's wedding Again, not reading, but I'm sure, because otherwise how do you explain that they all, having known this could be coming right in a few days?
• 18:00
  Shira: They all slept in their homes.
• 18:02
  Shira: They all convened in the same places and I think that if you look at the Israeli, the major successes which there were many, but what made this an operational success and for the Israeli Air Force to go and roam Tehran skies as if it's Gaza really was the fact that those assassinations, quickly, of the top brass of you know.
• 18:22
  Shira: So we're talking about the military and the IRGC and Haji Zadeh, which is the head of the Air Force, and all of their commands, because we know now to say that the Iranians did aim hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel but there was no one to press the button and the outcomes could have looked much worse.
• 18:39
  Shira: There's also centrifuges that were taking out and Israel did damage, and the scientists also, and there are a lot of other, I think, operational achievements In addition to that.
• 18:52
  Shira: It's the fact that you got the Americans to put in the final nail, and I know there's going to be intelligence the leaked report, that's low confidence, that only looked at what the American attack did right, which is really not comprehensive, not looking what Israel did, and sort of the war games that I know.
• 19:09
  Shira: This is a lot of those mops right that were dropped to make sure there's an actual weapon.
• 19:16
  Neri: The bunker busters.
• 19:17
  Shira: The bunker busters.
• 19:18
  Shira: I mean, I knew of different numbers that were meant for this type of operation, that were meant for this type of operation, so this was almost double the numbers that I knew.
• 19:26
  Shira: And you say that this was aimed to deliver a message and in addition to, I'll get to the second.
• 19:33
  Shira: I think it's too early to judge exactly to the extent of the damage, but I'm of the view that I think there is a damage here that's operational definitely ballistic missiles, definitely with the nuclear program.
• 19:44
  Shira: There is a damage.
• 19:45
  Shira: It's hard to assess at the moment, but there's also, you know, showing the penetration that Israel has in Iran.
• 19:53
  Shira: I think there's an intelligence achievement and there's also a diplomatic achievement.
• 19:58
  Shira: Right, it wasn't just the US, you had the Europeans coming and supporting Israel and the whole language changed.
• 20:03
  Shira: Right, when we spoke a few months ago or a few weeks ago, we said, oh, this is such a ludicrous requirement, asking the Iranians to give up on enrichment.
• 20:12
  Shira: Well, all of a sudden, it's a legitimate request and we can get to if this is something that the Iranians are going to do.
• 20:18
  Shira: And how do you find a way?
• 20:19
  Shira: But so I think there are many achievements for Israel.
• 20:24
  Shira: And what I alluded to earlier, I think, neri, because we live here and we see the incredible juxtaposition with the war in Gaza.
• 20:34
  Shira: Right, we fear not only the scenarios that Tel Aviv skyline will be down right and that many civilians will be damaged, we also I think there was also a fear that this would be dragged on and on and on.
• 20:46
  Shira: I mean, there was a scenario that this could turn into an attrition war, that you'd see lower marginal gains right as we continue and more risk as we go forward with this.
• 21:01
  Shira: And I think this shows you sort of like Israel knew how to when to start right a war or when to strike, how to do it and when to end it.
• 21:13
  Shira: If it was Israel's choosing or not when to end it, then I think this to me, is all a success.
• 21:19
  Shira: The question that Michael brings is sort of what comes next?
• 21:22
  Shira: And before we get even to an agreement, not agreement, I think there's this very unique style of Trump right where he announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel without them maybe knowing that it was agreed.
• 21:34
  Shira: The terms are not very clear to me.
• 21:36
  Shira: And what's the enforcement?
• 21:40
  Shira: And what do we even enforce?
• 21:42
  Shira: And I think these are like questions that, short of an agreement, we have to discuss them.
• 21:49
  Neri: It's a good summation.
• 21:50
  Neri: Look, in terms of the ceasefire, I think he declared it, but I think Israel was already ready for it to be over.
• 21:57
  Neri: So I think he was on firm ground on that end.
• 21:59
  Neri: And on the Iranian side, it came right after the choreographed and very how do they say here in Israel, Dardaleh the Dardaleh response of Iran against the US military base in Qatar.
• 22:12
  Neri: So I think he was probably also on firmer ground, or firm ground with the Iranians.
• 22:19
  Neri: There were also back channels during the war that we know of with the Iranian foreign minister.
• 22:24
  Neri: So, yeah, a very unique Trump style just to declare a ceasefire.
• 22:29
  Neri: I mean, we talked about it with Amos last week.
• 22:31
  Neri: I think he confused himself and he confused both sides with what he put out there, and then he kind of reaffirmed the ceasefire.
• 22:39
  Neri: But, anyway, that's neither here nor there.
• 22:41
  Neri: He, he got it done.
• 22:42
  Neri: Uh, look, let's look ahead.
• 22:45
  Neri: Uh, get into some of the issues that you both raised.
• 22:48
  Neri: Um, first, I think it's very clear that post-war uh, for the us and the international community, but also for israel, that diplomacy is going to be an emphasis that they actually want to get a new deal with Iran, obviously a deal that's hopefully tougher and more expansive.
• 23:09
  Neri: Michael, you talked about this in your Kaplow column last week, basically diplomacy being the best option out of the available options coming out of this war.
• 23:21
  Neri: So my question to you both and, by the way, I asked this question not just on the podcast, but to other people how realistic is it now that Iran, after all this, caves on its long held pre-existing demands and red lines and actually concedes, if not everything, then a lot in terms of its nuclear program?
• 23:42
  Neri: Michaelael, let's start with you.
• 23:44
  Neri: What do you think the prospects of actually getting a deal with iran are?
• 23:48
  Neri: Uh, obviously you're.
• 23:50
  Neri: You're in favor of it now, post-war yes, I, I am.
• 23:55
  Michael: but the signals right now are are kind of strange right because trump?
• 24:02
  Michael: Who who?
• 24:02
  Michael: Right Because Trump, who, even during the fighting and in the immediate aftermath, was posting on Truth Social and by the way, I know, I do this all the time.
• 24:11
  Michael: I still don't know what the verb is for that, because I refuse to call it a truth.
• 24:16
  Michael: Right, trump, truth we got to come up with something else.
• 24:22
  Neri: That's how they get you.
• 24:23
  Neri: I I you know, I still call x twitter and I still call them yeah, me too, me too.
• 24:28
  Michael: But you know, I feel like I can't say he tweeted when he's not even on the platform.
• 24:31
  Michael: In any event, whatever, whatever we're going to call it, he was talking about a deal and then, a couple of days ago, he flipped and, you know, is now saying that that there, there are no talks, there are no negotiations, there isn't even any need to have a deal.
• 24:48
  Michael: I don't know if that's because he's claiming that the nuclear program was obliterated, whether, in the future, it will even be possible to get a trump administration to follow up militarily, because I worry that this issue is going to be like the 2020 election, where, um, it's, it's a, it's a political and ideological, a political and ideological principle that the program was obliterated.
• 25:26
  Michael: And so, you know, if there's intelligence saying otherwise, well, that can't possibly be, because we all know the program was obliterated.
• 25:31
  Michael: I think that's actually going to be a thing, maybe, maybe not to discuss for this podcast, but, you know, keep, keep your eye on it.
• 25:37
  Michael: Um, so you know to, to, to put that tangent aside, unclear to me if Trump is now saying no talks because his position is there's nothing to talk about, the program is gone, or if it's because he's angry at the Iranian messaging, or if because he's angry that Democratic senators are warning that he, president Trump, is now about to sign a deal that's going to look like the JCPOA again.
• 26:04
  Michael: Trump is now about to sign a deal that's going to look like the JCPOA again, and it may be, it's all three.
• 26:08
  Michael: But I think that you know from the US side, right now it's not entirely clear what the status is of talks or even an effort at talks From the Iranian side.
• 26:18
  Michael: I don't think that we should reasonably expect them to say, all right, you won, we lost, you know we're, we're going to enter talks and basically total surrender mode.
• 26:31
  Michael: Right, this is.
• 26:31
  Michael: This is not like, despite, again, president Trump's messaging.
• 26:36
  Michael: This is not like the US dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, nagasaki in 1945.
• 26:42
  Michael: On Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
• 26:44
  Michael: And the Japanese say, oh my God, we can't believe what just happened.
• 26:46
  Michael: You know we need to basically concede everything, or else we're going to be destroyed.
• 26:49
  Michael: I don't think the Iranians are quite there.
• 26:52
  Michael: So they're going to have to have something, even if it's something symbolic, and if they enter into a deal.
• 27:00
  Michael: I also, you know, as I alluded to before, I expect their lesson from this is that they need to have a nuclear weapon, even if it's a crude one, so that they can prevent an attack like this.
• 27:12
  Michael: Going forward, the lessons from the last 20 years are pretty clear.
• 27:16
  Michael: If you look at North Korea, if you look at Libya, if you look at Ukraine, right, countries that either had nuclear weapons and gave them up or were working towards them and decided not to by the way, even Bashar al-Assad.
• 27:28
  Michael: If we go back to the Israeli strike on that nuclear reactor, the lesson is you know that nuclear weapons gives you immunity, and everybody knew that theoretically, but I think we now have many examples.
• 27:37
  Michael: So, and North Korea, iranians has been left untouched for decades, exactly, exactly, and there's really nothing anybody can do about it.
• 27:44
  Michael: So you know, even if you are the Iranians and you go into negotiations, I expect that they will do everything they can to to cheat and preserve uh, preserve some sort of pathway.
• 27:56
  Michael: And so if there's a deal, it's going to have to be just far more ironclad, with no sunsets, unlike the JCPOA, and this is going to be difficult.
• 28:05
  Michael: So, yeah, I think that, without question, the best path, and really the only sustainable path, is getting them into a deal, but I think it's going to be difficult.
• 28:17
  Michael: And that's before we even get to the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu is basically on record now for, you know, at least a decade, if not more, as saying that there really is no good deal.
• 28:29
  Michael: So you know, I think that ultimately, the Israelis are going to be an obstacle to this too.
• 28:36
  Michael: So I think it's important to try and get it done, but I think it's going to be an obstacle to this too.
• 28:41
  Neri: So I think it's important to try and get it done, but I think it's going to be hard.
• 28:47
  Neri: It's going to be hard certainly, especially with well less leverage than you would have had, say in the middle of a military conflict, which is obviously not an ideal time to negotiate a very complicated non-proliferation agreement.
• 28:54
  Neri: But now that the bombing has stopped you, obviously we all see the messaging from Iran.
• 29:00
  Neri: Not only that we've won, but we're still going to remain defiant, which it's a very silly position to take, but not a surprising one now in this post-war era.
• 29:17
  Neri: But also, if diplomacy is not going to work, do you believe that Israel probably not the states, the United States, but Israel will continue in theory striking Iran if they see Iran moving to rebuild capabilities like its nuclear program, like the ballistic missile program, do you think that mowing the grass is a feasible Israeli position?
• 29:39
  Neri: You know, not next week, but in the coming months and years?
• 29:45
  Shira: So I mean, I agree with Michael.
• 29:48
  Shira: I think you know, I'm sure there's a lot of like negotiation theories in terms of stuff.
• 29:53
  Shira: It's Iran can choose now, right, and I don't know that it made the choice.
• 29:57
  Shira: It is a choice that is.
• 29:59
  Shira: There is this chess Everyone is talking about Iranians playing chess, right?
• 30:07
  Shira: So there's this chess metaphor that that they invented chess.
• 30:12
  Shira: They didn't.
• 30:13
  Shira: It's the Indians.
• 30:14
  Shira: Yeah, they didn't invent chess, it's the Indians, but they invented the Begumon, I think right.
• 30:21
  Michael: Backgammon I don't know, that was the best pronunciation of Backgammon I've ever heard in my life.
• 30:26
  Michael: I mean, of course you know you call it Cheshbash.
• 30:28
  Michael: They invented something, Anyway.
• 30:30
  Shira: But anyway, but not chess.
• 30:31
  Shira: But there's this sort of like if is the queen, will you sacrifice, right, the nuclear program to save the regime?
• 30:43
  Shira: And this is sort of the calculation are they better off with a nuclear agreement or they're better off with some sort of face saving measure, right?
• 30:53
  Shira: Uh, that that does.
• 30:55
  Shira: They don't have a nuclear weapons, but they have a nuclear program.
• 30:59
  Shira: And you know if you're Iranian, right, if you think how much money they put into this and how many years of experience, and really, if they're really interested just in civilian nuclear program, it hasn't delivered much in terms of their energy needs.
• 31:10
  Shira: So there's probably, there's probably a way to make them come to the negotiation table.
• 31:16
  Shira: I'm just not sure.
• 31:17
  Shira: It's probably not by humiliating them completely, right, which is what we are hearing now from Trump.
• 31:24
  Shira: And also something's got to give.
• 31:26
  Shira: They want enrichment, some basic level of enrichment to which they're entitled under the NPT, and they want it on their territory.
• 31:36
  Shira: But you can find this like remote Quiche Island, right, there are ways to do that.
• 31:39
  Shira: The technical solutions could be there if there's a will.
• 31:43
  Shira: I think in Israel the views are divided of professionals.
• 31:49
  Shira: You do hear officials in the military people saying that an agreement would be needed.
• 31:55
  Shira: So I don't know that Israel necessarily has to be an obstacle.
• 31:56
  Shira: There is also other voices, right?
• 31:57
  Shira: What can the Iranians give us now in an agreement?
• 31:58
  Shira: And we want more agreement would be needed.
• 31:58
  Shira: So I don't know that Israel necessarily has to be an obstacle.
• 31:59
  Shira: There is also other voices, right?
• 32:00
  Shira: What can the Iranians give us now in an agreement?
• 32:02
  Shira: And we want more.
• 32:03
  Shira: But you do hear some Israelis talking about the need for an agreement, but you know Israel is not going to be a party to the agreement.
• 32:10
  Shira: Right, israel can be sort of derailing an agreement or being a side.
• 32:13
  Shira: This has to be a US-led effort and this depends on how the president wakes up in the morning and what he sees.
• 32:22
  Shira: And you know, I hope there's room for diplomacy.
• 32:27
  Shira: And then there's the other question If there's no diplomacy, israelis are invoking the example of Lebanon, where Israel, just like, continues to operate in Lebanon freely, right, mowing the grass pretty much, when they see a threat by Hezbollah.
• 32:43
  Shira: But there are many reasons why it's going to be very difficult to do in Iran.
• 32:46
  Shira: First of all, it's much farther.
• 32:47
  Shira: There are a lot of other countries' airspace to go through which you do need to maybe coordinate.
• 32:52
  Shira: I know Syria and stuff, but like I don't know that it's necessarily going to be easy.
• 32:57
  Shira: If it's something that's marketed in perpetuity, there's also risks to pilots, it's expensive.
• 33:04
  Shira: Munitions are also.
• 33:05
  Shira: I mean, I know Trump just approved some packages, but I don't know.
• 33:09
  Shira: It's what you need to bomb in Iran.
• 33:10
  Shira: There could be retaliation from Iran, right?
• 33:13
  Shira: So we're going to put the Israeli home front under risk again.
• 33:18
  Shira: So we're going to put the Israeli home front under risk again, and then the question is what the US will do.
• 33:24
  Shira: Will they support it?
• 33:25
  Shira: I heard in one of the pressers the President Trump was asked if Iran resumes its activities, right, if he's going to strike again, and he said something like no question, of course.
• 33:37
  Neri: I will yeah.
• 33:37
  Neri: Sure, he said yeah, of course.
• 33:39
  Shira: Which might be the case, and there are some people saying that we could be on the verge of further escalation.
• 33:45
  Shira: You know there can be more escalation, so we're definitely not out of the danger zone.
• 33:49
  Shira: But I think determining the terms of enforcement and what are we enforcing is really really important now.
• 34:00
  Shira: And maybe this is where Israel comes to the US and says like that to me should be an incentive for diplomacy.
• 34:06
  Shira: Right, and you use the Europeans and you use the fact that the snapback, our right mechanisms, which are about October 2025, right, this is sort of literally the money time for getting Iran.
• 34:19
  Shira: But I don't think that I'm not necessarily sure the current approach is going to get them back to the negotiation table.
• 34:26
  Shira: And if they don't let the IAEA inspectors come in, right, because the Iranians are saying that mostly the head of the IAEA is collaborated with Israel on this and they don't have NPT, the NPT and other means, I mean we will have to rely mostly on intelligence to provide information, and that's also not, I mean, with all the intelligence penetration.
• 34:51
  Shira: This is also not the best way to go forward on this.
• 34:54
  Shira: So I'm hoping we will get to diplomacy, but not sure.
• 35:00
  Neri: So NPT is the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran is a signatory to and requires and demands a certain level of inspections and access to nuclear sites.
• 35:13
  Neri: Yeah, I mean, look, I think even the Israeli government, I think, would go for the diplomatic path after this military path.
• 35:21
  Neri: But again, it depends what the terms of the deal are and obviously this Israeli government will hold American and European feet to the fire and they want, if not a complete capitulation by Iran, then something very close to it, something very close to it.
• 35:36
  Neri: And that's before we even get to the whole issue of maybe a small covert program that survived the 12-day war, the 400 kilos of highly enriched uranium to 60% that may have survived the war, advanced centrifuges sitting somewhere.
• 35:54
  Neri: It is remarkable that the Israelis I've spoken to don't seem all that concerned by this scenario, that there is a covert program that survived somewhere in Iran and that, as Michael alluded to earlier, this could be the seed of a breakout.
• 36:12
  Neri: The professionals here to have been maybe a bit more concerned about it.
• 36:20
  Neri: It's a huge debate in my circles right, in media circles and people who track the issues, but again it remains to be seen what happens with that and how much did survive.
• 36:29
  Neri: So we'll see.
• 36:32
  Neri: Okay, we'll be right back after this brief message.
• 36:36
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• 37:04
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• 37:32
  Michael: For what it's worth.
• 37:33
  Michael: My sense is that the the, that the seeming lack of alarm over that um is because it's it's even if they retained what they need to enrich it to weapons grade that the stuff that was destroyed is what would be needed to take it to the next step.
• 37:52
  Michael: Right, so you know, converting it back into a metal core, miniaturizing it, the warhead itself.
• 37:56
  Michael: You know all that stuff um's my sense, but obviously I am not a nuclear expert, so take that all with a grain of salt.
• 38:03
  Neri: No wait.
• 38:04
  Neri: I mean, we're all nuclear experts now, because this was the issue of the month and it's like the summer that everyone became an Afghan expert during the fall of Kabul and then obviously we all became epidemiologists during the COVID pandemic.
• 38:18
  Neri: You know, this never stopped anyone from hosting a podcast or writing an article.
• 38:24
  Neri: Fair enough, fair enough.
• 38:26
  Neri: Yeah, with all that said, let's shift gears, like we were talking about earlier.
• 38:33
  Neri: Never a dull moment.
• 38:34
  Neri: So, literally, as the Iran war ended I mean you know, literally we were getting increased chatter from the prime minister on down about new peace slash, normalization agreements with additional Arab and Muslim states.
• 38:51
  Neri: In Netanyahu's words, there's a window of opportunity now after the Iran war.
• 38:57
  Neri: And again in his words, we can't waste even a moment.
• 39:01
  Neri: So again, this kind of this new storyline to sell to the public here and not just here, this new sense of urgency, this new carrot to dangle in front of everyone.
• 39:12
  Neri: By the way, netanyahu is heading to Washington early next week to meet with President Trump in the White House.
• 39:20
  Neri: So again that will feed into the storyline and the narrative.
• 39:24
  Neri: The Trump-Netanyahu well just domination of all our lives and the 24-7 news cycle every day, all over the place, all over the place.
• 39:42
  Neri: But I'm really I wanted to bear down on this issue of, okay, the possibility of what probably President Trump is pushing for, but what we like to call the grand bargain.
• 39:47
  Neri: That would see basically a deal in Gaza, that would then unlock a deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and perhaps other Arab and Muslim states, which would then potentially destabilize the Netanyahu coalition.
• 40:05
  Neri: So that's why President Trump is tweeting every few days about Netanyahu's trial and demanding that the court system and the legal authorities here end the trial, because it's a witch hunt and it's a disgrace.
• 40:18
  Neri: And Netanyahu, the warrior and the wartime hero you know why is he dealing with cigars and Bugs Bunny dolls.
• 40:26
  Neri: I mean verbatim the lines and the rhetoric that you hear from Netanyahu mouthpieces here.
• 40:32
  Neri: So obviously it was given to him by someone.
• 40:34
  Neri: He didn't just get into the nitty-gritty of the Netanyahu corruption trials.
• 40:39
  Neri: But then obviously that would entail potentially a plea deal to get Netanyahu out of his legal troubles, all leading to early elections, maybe by the fall.
• 40:53
  Neri: How did I do?
• 40:54
  Neri: Is that the long and the short of this grand bargain?
• 40:58
  Neri: Obviously it's highly complicated.
• 41:02
  Neri: Basically Gaza, saudi, potentially Syria, the Netanyahu trial, elections, coalition politics, all of it tied together.
• 41:12
  Neri: I don't know.
• 41:12
  Neri: In this fever dream, shira, you and I have been talking about this for the last couple days.
• 41:19
  Neri: Uh, is there any real substance?
• 41:22
  Neri: Uh, to these comments coming out of both jerusalem and washington that you know, very, very close is the day that you know trump will force netanyahu to end the gaza war and then all this will unfold before our eyes.
• 41:37
  Neri: What do you think?
• 41:39
  Shira: So I think there are a few questions here.
• 41:40
  Shira: Okay, there is Just a few.
• 41:44
  Shira: No, no, I mean there are many.
• 41:46
  Shira: There are many questions here On the question on whether Trump will actually force Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza.
• 41:52
  Shira: I'm just getting those pushes now that President Trump is speaking again and he's saying that they do want to finish the war in Gaza.
• 42:02
  Shira: And my sense again, my sense is from conversations with IDF folks working on Gaza is that the impression is that the IDF can sort of like do one last thing in Gaza to wrap this up, so Israel can can, you know, find a ladder right, we're all very good here in the Middle East of like climbing trees and then finding ladders to climb down from.
• 42:31
  Shira: So Israel can, can, can declare its victory in Gaza and sign onto an agreement.
• 42:37
  Shira: So maybe it's wishful thinking We've been saying it for a long time but I think that you are right in your analysis that probably Trump I'm not talking about the fact that he can relate to Netanyahu being persecuted by the deep state, announcing his great leadership and the fact that he, if he ordered 52 Israeli air force to turn around and not respond to Iran violating, so he could just order the Israeli judges right To dismiss the case, or the president.
• 43:08
  Shira: I mean, it's just like what's the problem?
• 43:11
  Shira: He probably would have pardoned Netanyahu himself if he could.
• 43:13
  Shira: Maybe he doesn't understand why he can't, but I think there's what's.
• 43:17
  Shira: What's missing, is there?
• 43:19
  Shira: There's so many assumptions into this.
• 43:21
  Shira: So, first of all, there's a lot of chat, chatter in Israel that when we talk about this big peace, peace is coming and normalization is coming and they're putting in one bucket Syria and also Lebanon, but mostly Syria.
• 43:32
  Shira: And then the other is Saudi Arabia.
• 43:34
  Shira: On Syria, from the promise of you know, there's a Hebrew.
• 43:38
  Shira: It sounds better, but, like next week, we will eat hummus in Damascus, you know.
• 43:44
  Shira: Now we are realizing that this is a non-aggression pact, some sort of security arrangement that very much resembles the December 74, basically ceasefire terms agreement after the Yom Kippur War Between.
• 43:58
  Neri: Israel and Syria.
• 43:59
  Shira: Israel-Syria one which.
• 44:01
  Shira: Israel will withdraw from the parts that it, you know, entering the buffer zone that it occupied after the fall of the Assad regime, but it's very far from peace, which makes sense, I think.
• 44:15
  Shira: Still, it would be great, and especially if it's not just like going back to 74, right the same terms that actually build some collaboration agreements, maybe on some water sharing and other technical things, because if you judge where we were two months ago in terms of the Israeli policy that called the Shara right jihadists in a suit, we will stay in Syria forever.
• 44:35
  Shira: It's 180 degrees and it's really positive change, but it's not peace.
• 44:42
  Shira: When it comes to Saudi Arabia and after Saudi Arabia, right, the Lebanese and the other many, many countries could fall the opportunity for sure is there, but I just don't see the assumption of like ending the war in Gaza or accepting some sort of Witkoff I, witkoff II model and we could talk about the sort of modalities for a ceasefire that's gonna bring the Arab world.
• 45:06
  Shira: It's not what they're saying.
• 45:07
  Shira: They are saying that at the very minimum, we need an end of war in Gaza, but it's an end of war that paves the way to addressing the Palestinian question, and I think they also realize the Palestinian state is maybe not around the corner, even though this is what they're saying, that they want, right that Saudi Arabia has been a big proponent of this and was supposed to.
• 45:30
  Shira: One of the things that this war ruined was a UN conference hosted by Saudi Arabia and the French and the French about maybe a recognition of a Palestinian state by multiple countries.
• 45:42
  Shira: But it requires making concessions or, you know, for Israel figuring out how it wants to address the Palestinian question at large, and so it's not just a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, it's also.
• 45:57
  Shira: It comes to the West Bank, it comes to Temple Mount right Haram al-Sharif, it comes to the core questions of Palestinians, and at the moment, netanyahu doesn't have a government for that.
• 46:11
  Shira: And the problem is that also the opposition in Israel doesn't speak in those terms they do.
• 46:18
  Shira: Everyone here assumes and I'll end with this that because everyone saw Israel's amazing achievements, right, the Mossad and Amman and the Israeli Air Force in Iran, everyone's knocking at the door.
• 46:28
  Shira: The Arabs are knocking at Israel's door just to normalize ties so they can be next to the strong side.
• 46:34
  Shira: What I'm hearing from folks in the Gulf is that actually you know now that this is over, all the pictures we see in the news are still from Gaza and we're seeing what's happening in the West, which we didn't get into, but some parts of it look like Gaza now and we are not sure if Israel is just a strong player or a bully.
• 46:56
  Shira: And we don't like the Iranians, but they're very, very cautious.
• 47:00
  Shira: You see their behavior, very, very cautious.
• 47:04
  Shira: And if you hear Israeli opposition leaders, naftali Bennett gave a big interview on Israeli press I think he's first one since he started his campaign and he basically posited there are two optional ways.
• 47:17
  Shira: He says we we should finish, we should end the war now and we can't defeat hamas this, we failed at this and we have to save the hostages and enough with sacrificing our soldiers.
• 47:27
  Shira: I'm paraphrasing, obviously.
• 47:28
  Shira: But um and um eliminating hamas, toppling hamas, would be left for the next government, or we stay in and full occupation and military rule.
• 47:38
  Shira: And there's, there's a third way, and this is the third way that the Arabs want, which is the way we spoke about many times transitional option which will unlock all these promises that Israeli leaders are telling us.
• 47:50
  Shira: But without it, I just I don't see the domino tiles falling into place as they, as they, as they say.
• 48:12
  Neri: Yeah, I mean we're talking about chess, backgammon dominoes.
• 48:17
  Neri: I mean this is what did they say about baby four four-dimensional chess?
• 48:22
  Neri: I mean this is like five-dimensional chess.
• 48:24
  Shira: Even for him and ron dermer it would be quite a lift, uh and, by the way we've been in this, normalization is imminent conversation for at least like two years.
• 48:34
  Neri: So yeah, and and look, this isn't new, right?
• 48:38
  Neri: The Biden administration a year ago, even over a year ago, was talking about the same thing that if Israel deigned Netanyahu deigned, to end the Gaza war and get the hostages out, that this would unlock all these other potential benefits, including normalization with Saudi Arabia, et cetera, et cetera.
• 48:58
  Neri: A year plus ago, netanyahu turned its back on that option.
• 49:04
  Neri: Who knows, after the successes on the battlefield of the past year, maybe his position has also changed, maybe his thinking has also changed, that's maybe the wager and also the US president has changed.
• 49:16
  Neri: It's a lot more dangerous to say no and spurn this US president than the previous one.
• 49:23
  Neri: But, michael, you know about these issues better than we do.
• 49:25
  Neri: What do you think the prospects are to get this off the ground?
• 49:30
  Neri: Obviously, as Shira mentioned, you have to start with Gaza first.
• 49:35
  Michael: I agree with Shira.
• 49:36
  Michael: I think it's a monumentally heavy lift.
• 49:39
  Michael: Now we've seen things that over the past couple of years that I don't think any of us ever expected, both in directions good and me.
• 49:50
  Michael: So the first is that when you hear Israeli government officials talk about the idea of a grand bargain and that it has to start with ending the Gaza war, they're still talking about it in the terms that have not worked up until now.
• 50:13
  Michael: They're still talking about it not as, oh, we're going to definitively end the war.
• 50:17
  Michael: It's, it's okay.
• 50:19
  Michael: We're now that we, now that we did this to Iran, now Hamas is going to accept the 60 day ceasefire where they give us half of the hostages, you know, up front, and the rest later, and we're not going to have to agree to end the war.
• 50:32
  Michael: Right, and I right the Wyckoff proposal.
• 50:35
  Michael: And you know, you see this messaging coming from Israeli government officials.
• 50:39
  Michael: You see this messaging coming from Trump administration officials.
• 50:42
  Michael: And you know, maybe, maybe you guys have seen something that I haven't, but I still see zero sign from Hamas that anything that's happened over the past couple of weeks has made them change their tune and say, yeah, you know what, that's fine, we don't, we don't need the end of the war tune and say, yeah, you know what, that's fine, we don't need the end of the war, we'll now accept the partial ceasefire.
• 51:04
  Michael: And so this conversation.
• 51:05
  Michael: You know in these reports that on Thursday the Israeli security cabinet is going to vote to.
• 51:12
  Michael: You know one of two options, right Either keep on pushing on in Gaza and expand the military operation, or vote for the Wyckoff proposal.
• 51:21
  Michael: Okay, great.
• 51:23
  Michael: Is there any guarantee that if they vote for the Wyckoff proposal, that Hamas is going to accept it?
• 51:28
  Michael: I haven't seen any indication that that's the case.
• 51:33
  Neri: So the fact that this is by the way, the Israeli government has already said it accepted the Wyckoff proposal because it's a temporary two-month ceasefire and they get half the hostages back.
• 51:42
  Neri: The Israelis have yeah the Israelis have.
• 51:44
  Michael: That's what I'm saying.
• 51:45
  Michael: Sure, right, hamas, but yeah, yeah, for any of this to happen, you need Hamas to accept the Witkoff proposal, and I haven't seen any indication that they have or that they will.
• 51:57
  Michael: Now again, I'll never say never, but it just seems to me that this conversation about step number one of this grand bargain is taking place in this world that doesn't necessarily exist.
• 52:09
  Michael: So you know, that's number one.
• 52:11
  Michael: Number two I think that all of this stems from a question, like a 30,000-foot question, of your view of the world.
• 52:23
  Michael: It has long been the Israeli view of the world that everything we see happening in the West Bank and Gaza and the Palestinian arena, it all stems from Iran.
• 52:34
  Michael: And you saw this over and over again, post, post October 7th right, this, this, the these, these statements that, um, this is, this is not, this is not.
• 52:44
  Michael: There is no Israeli Palestinian conflict.
• 52:46
  Michael: There isn't, there isn't an Israeli-Iran conflict, there's an Israeli-Iranian conflict.
• 52:51
  Michael: And once you solve the Iran problem, then the rest of this goes away.
• 52:55
  Michael: And it seems to me that the idea of this grand bargain now just unfolding over the next, you know, two weeks, four weeks, two months, whatever, whatever it is, it stems from that idea, so that you know, now Iran has been put in its place and therefore you can.
• 53:12
  Michael: You can just end the Gaza war on Israel's terms and you can get to.
• 53:17
  Michael: You can expand the Abraham Accords and you can have Saudi normalization.
• 53:21
  Michael: Because the only thing that was driving any of these developments was Iran, and I fundamentally disagree.
• 53:29
  Michael: I don't think it's right.
• 53:30
  Michael: And to Shira's point, I think that's if that were correct and we'll see, maybe I am wrong and Shira is wrong and lots of other people are wrong, although I don't think we are If that was correct, then, yeah, you would see the entire region, including the Saudis, saying, oh great, but the only reason we didn't want to normalize was because we were scared of what Iran would do.
• 53:52
  Michael: And now you've shown that you can do whatever you want to the Iranians.
• 53:55
  Michael: So you know Israel normalization.
• 53:57
  Michael: Here we are, sign us up, doesn't matter what else is going on.
• 54:01
  Michael: I don't think we're going to see that they do care about what happens in Gaza.
• 54:04
  Michael: They do care about what happens in the West Bank.
• 54:07
  Michael: It doesn't all stem from Iran, even if there is Iranian involvement in all of these arenas.
• 54:12
  Michael: So I think that all of this is proceeding based on a fundamentally flawed view that Iran is the root of everything, not just attempts to get rid of Israel as a Jewish state, as the Iranians say, but that it's also the root of everything going on in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.
• 54:34
  Michael: I just do not think that that's the case.
• 54:36
  Michael: I don't think that Hamas thinks that's the case.
• 54:37
  Michael: I don't think that Hamas thinks that's the case.
• 54:39
  Michael: I don't think that the PA thinks that's the case.
• 54:41
  Michael: I don't think ordinary Palestinians think that's the case, and I don't think the region thinks that's the case.
• 54:45
  Michael: So you know again, we'll see how this unfolds and obviously Iran is a big part of it, but until, in my view, the Israeli government and the Trump administration grant that not every single thing that happens is related to Iran, I think we're still going to be stuck.
• 55:04
  Shira: Narian, can I add something to this?
• 55:05
  Shira: Because I do think, even if you subscribe to the view that Iran was sort of the root of all evil in this region which I don't disagree with, right, I'm putting, the Palestinian question is a different question and it predates the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• 55:19
  Shira: So let's say there was an issue also when Israel and Iran were best friends.
• 55:22
  Shira: But I'm putting this aside.
• 55:25
  Shira: If there was leadership that wanted to use the fact that Iran is on its back now in a very meaningful way right, just in all parts, and maybe this can turn very wrong could argue that this might be a way to really undermine hamas's rules.
• 55:43
  Shira: Right, we spoke about it many times.
• 55:44
  Shira: Right, this was iran, sort of the head of the snake, the head of the octopus, the head of the cat was a different animal.
• 55:50
  Shira: Right, this could make hamas compromise, but also it removes right israelis saying to the point that michael raised, that there's israel saying like no, what if Iran penetrates to the West Bank and undermines it?
• 56:03
  Shira: What if the West Bank becomes?
• 56:05
  Shira: This is like, this is an opportunity in the sense of use the fact that Iran is on its back to strengthen not just kinetically, militarily this diplomatic network around it and I think it is useful to hear how albumazen of the pa was has been speaking about the palestinian, about iran, in the last few years and the last couple of years, especially since october 7.
• 56:29
  Michael: Right, there's no and, by the way, shira also also just in the last two weeks, right, I mean the messaging from the pa about the israel-iran war was remarkable right and also before that right, like if we only dare to hear, and I'm not saying, but they are also scared of Iranian sponsored terrorism in their territories.
• 56:54
  Shira: Like we're trying to poo-poo this whole idea.
• 56:56
  Shira: The door is open, but Israel has to take a leap of faith, like it did in other parts, and go ahead with what might offer a better path forward on Gaza.
• 57:12
  Shira: And then there's no separate Gaza question or it's a Palestinian question, and my hope is is if we're talking about the Arabs on this, you know there's a whole lot of talk to the Israelis explaining your thing.
• 57:23
  Shira: That's one thing, but I think that one of the things that Israel clings on to Israeli officials are clinging on to Trump's vision of voluntary migration of Gaza and the Gaza-Rivera idea In some official documents.
• 57:41
  Shira: Right, we have.
• 57:41
  Shira: One of the war aims is to fulfill President Trump's vision.
• 57:46
  Shira: There is a directorate in the Ministry of Defense.
• 57:51
  Shira: I don't know if Trump is still on this.
• 57:52
  Shira: I haven't heard him talk about it.
• 57:54
  Neri: He hasn't mentioned it in months.
• 57:56
  Shira: In months.
• 57:56
  Shira: But I think if there's one role for the Arabs now, or whoever or someone listens and talks to the administration, and just, I don't expect Trump to say that his idea was a bad one, but maybe he says you know, I put this in because this was my negotiation card and the Arabs have convinced me that they're willing to put money and help the Palestinians.
• 58:18
  Shira: And that's what Arabs should do.
• 58:19
  Shira: They should help them, not us.
• 58:21
  Shira: Da da, da something, just say something and remove this idea from the table, because I think, as long as Israelis are like, wait, but we have that thing that we can cling on to.
• 58:30
  Shira: It lifts off the pressure to actually discuss other sensible and less sensible ideas, and this is the president has to do this.
• 58:42
  Neri: The Trump-Riviera plan caused a lot of damage because it gave a broader vision to the hardliners in Israel about the war aims and the extent of the war.
• 58:55
  Neri: And when the US president puts it out, it's very difficult for people in Israel to say well, who are you to disagree with the US president?
• 59:03
  Neri: He's just basically told us you can do whatever you want in Gaza and to Gaza.
• 59:08
  Neri: So why should we not?
• 59:09
  Neri: And obviously there are reasons why not, but from the Israeli mindset there are a lot less questions.
• 59:17
  Neri: So I think that would be hugely beneficial.
• 59:20
  Neri: And, shira, you talked about Israel needing to take a leap of faith.
• 59:23
  Neri: I think Israel needs to start considering the option of maybe making concessions vis-a-vis Gaza, vis-a-vis the West Bank, to unlock all these broader things that Trump and many others want to see done.
• 59:42
  Neri: And it's not far-reaching concessions we're not talking about the Oslo Accords being signed on the White House lawn in September of 2025, but it would be things like allowing the PA to have a role back in Gaza in order to get Arab state buy-in to a post-war order.
• 1:00:04
  Neri: It would necessitate saying well, like Naftali Bennett and others are saying, okay, we don't need to destroy every last Hamas guy with a green bandana and an AK-47 to reach total victory and that the hostages, getting them back, is the first order of priority.
• 1:00:23
  Neri: And, by the way, you see signs of this amongst right-wing I don't want to call them journalists, but mouthpieces.
• 1:00:30
  Neri: In recent days it's like well, the threat from Hamas out of Gaza is a lot less than it was Now.
• 1:00:36
  Neri: What changed between now and a month ago on the ground?
• 1:00:40
  Neri: Nothing in military terms, but what changed is the broader political and diplomatic context coming out of the Iran war, which is what we've been talking about for months now that the idea that if you end the war now, that Israel would suffer another October 7th and it'd be only a matter of time, is ridiculous in just pure military terms.
• 1:01:00
  Neri: But you're hearing more of that from the Israeli right and I don't think that's a coincidence.
• 1:01:04
  Neri: So, again, israel needs to start considering the option of that and also giving some horizon to a Palestinian state if they want Saudi or other normalization.
• 1:01:16
  Neri: Again, remains to be seen, and it really remains to be seen what the prime minister here wants to do.
• 1:01:21
  Neri: Going back to Michael's point, I think the likeliest option is that Netanyahu and Trump and Woodcuff and Ron Dermer try to convince Hamas that this time Washington is really serious and they're going to not allow Israel to restart the war after two or three months that they try to get Hamas to agree to this kind of Woodcock proposal.
• 1:01:44
  Neri: Two or three months ceasefire, get half the hostages back, and then Netanyahu will make his decisions sometime in September, october.
• 1:01:51
  Neri: By the way not a coincidence the Knesset is going on recess at the end of this month, at the end of July, until mid to late October.
• 1:02:00
  Neri: So again buying time and all the while dangling the prospect of more peace deals and more total victories or not, and potentially an election on the other side of it.
• 1:02:12
  Neri: That's my best guess.
• 1:02:13
  Neri: But again, who knows, who knows?
• 1:02:17
  Michael: Right and this, really this would be a great time to break the Israeli cycle of you know saying, when you're in a weak position, you can't possibly negotiate, because you know it'll send the wrong message to the other side.
• 1:02:28
  Michael: And when you're in a strong position, why should you negotiate?
• 1:02:31
  Michael: You know you're in a position of strength and right now, in pretty much every imaginable way, israel is in the ultimate position of strength with regard to what they've done to Iran, with regards to what they've done to Iranian proxies, with regard to everything that President Trump appears willing and ready to support.
• 1:02:49
  Michael: This would be a perfect time to break that cycle, and I'm always pessimistic it'll happen, but I sincerely hope I'm wrong.
• 1:03:00
  Neri: And look, this is the classic Netanyahu and Dermer to just create a massive problem of their own making and then look for people to bail them out of the problem and to cash in.
• 1:03:11
  Neri: This would be the ultimate way to cash in very, very high.
• 1:03:14
  Neri: But there will be a price, and the price will likely be Netanyahu's coalition and potentially an election.
• 1:03:21
  Neri: And the shift now and I wrote about this over the weekend is maybe for the first time in at least 21 months, netanyahu is willing to take that risk and either is gearing up to run again or God help me seriously considering resigning.
• 1:03:42
  Neri: Benny Gantz Taryn, what about Benny Gantz?
• 1:03:47
  Shira: Look, I have no idea.
• 1:03:48
  Shira: I just a political analyst that I respect a lot because, you know, my least favorite topic is Israeli elections.
• 1:03:55
  Shira: But he assesses and he was right until now, that we're not going to be seeing and it's now breaking to elections in the next few months that we're still on the sort of one year time horizon.
• 1:04:08
  Shira: I don't know if it's true or not, but as we were speaking, gadi Eisenkot, former chief of Staff, betty Gantz's partner or number two in his party right announced today that he's retiring.
• 1:04:24
  Shira: He's leaving.
• 1:04:25
  Neri: Not retiring.
• 1:04:26
  Neri: He resigned from the party, resigned from the Knesset, but wants to come back in a different format.
• 1:04:34
  Shira: Anyway, and my understanding is that he's not joining anyone in particular, that he's actually going to go roam the country, work on sort of creating a block of votes and stuff.
• 1:04:44
  Shira: But if you think there's, I don't know that Benny Gantz will actually join Netanyahu again, but Netanyahu can have a safety net for making he can have an alternative government even now.
• 1:04:56
  Shira: If you want to do these things and, by the way, I think that this was also my hope was that being so strong after the iranian strike?
• 1:05:04
  Shira: It's, it's crazy.
• 1:05:04
  Shira: We're just a week in, but had he done it like the day after, when he's the war hero, right?
• 1:05:09
  Shira: I don't know that.
• 1:05:10
  Shira: There's like ben vir, smotrich threats day after um if he would go for some sort of.
• 1:05:19
  Shira: It falls short of what the Saudi demands are, but showing more inclination to do something constructive in Gaza.
• 1:05:27
  Shira: I don't know how fragile his coalition is.
• 1:05:30
  Shira: We're looking at all polling and this coalition doesn't score well.
• 1:05:34
  Shira: They are not going to be in the next.
• 1:05:35
  Shira: I mean, if things continue as they are, this coalition doesn't have public support.
• 1:05:46
  Shira: The Haredi blocs in the coalition.
• 1:05:46
  Shira: They also want the war to end.
• 1:05:47
  Shira: I don't know if they're very concerned for the welfare of the Gazans or the IDF soldiers, but they don't want to be pressured to send to get enlisted also, right.
• 1:05:56
  Shira: So that's, there's a cynical consideration there.
• 1:06:00
  Shira: So I don't know, know, I I mean, maybe I'm hoping, but I I think this whole, like bb, can't do it politically and maybe, maybe, maybe trump does remove the, the, the threat of the trial, and then he can do whatever he wants, all right yeah, I didn't want to get into the weeds of israeli politics, we you know, for for a person who doesn't like Israeli politics, you brought it up, Shira.
• 1:06:20
  Neri: I was going to end it early because we're already over time, but you raise a good point right.
• 1:06:24
  Neri: There are other permutations.
• 1:06:26
  Neri: No, no, this is great, this is good podcasting off the cuff.
• 1:06:30
  Neri: But there are other permutations where, yes, you know, Lapid and Gantz and other opposition parties give him a safety net to get a hostage ceasefire deal over the line in Gaza, like they've been promising now for a year, and that buys him time.
• 1:06:47
  Neri: But again, if he makes it to the end of July, then the Knesset is in recess, he's not really in any risk of being toppled, and then he can come back in October, November, December and make his own decisions either keep some new configuration going or likely it won't last for that long Elections in early the first quarter of 2026, like most people believe, but it's probably the likeliest option.
• 1:07:14
  Neri: But again, he has a space now that he didn't.
• 1:07:17
  Neri: He probably didn't think he had a year ago to do this because he just, as someone who knows him well told me over the weekend, you know, he just he just completed his, his life's mission and ultimate dream of bombing Iran.
• 1:07:32
  Neri: What else is left?
• 1:07:34
  Neri: It's a very good question.
• 1:07:36
  Shira: Saudi Arabia.
• 1:07:38
  Michael: Yeah, right, and, and of course, as you know, elections are getting closer, whether it's in the next three months or, you know, next, next spring, of course.
• 1:07:45
  Michael: The Israeli opposition is, as usual, can't get out of its own way.
• 1:07:50
  Michael: Right With Right, you know God.
• 1:07:52
  Michael: I mean probably should have split from Gantz a while ago, but of course he didn't.
• 1:07:57
  Michael: And now is when he's doing it.
• 1:07:58
  Michael: And you know, lapid and Golan at each other's throats, it's just things.
• 1:08:04
  Michael: The amount of Netanyahu is probably the most talented politician walking the face of the earth.
• 1:08:11
  Michael: I don't know how you can conclude otherwise, but the amount of luck he has been handed throughout his entire career with just feckless opposition after feckless opposition politically is not to be believed.
• 1:08:26
  Neri: Yeah, Probably the most talented and the luckiest by far.
• 1:08:31
  Neri: Obviously, you make your own luck, but you can't make your own feckless opposition leaders, yeah, yeah, but we'll see what happens on the Israeli political front.
• 1:08:43
  Neri: We'll see what happens on the diplomatic front, next week in Washington.
• 1:08:46
  Neri: We'll see what happens on the battlefields of Gaza and also, farther east, what happens with the Iran, diplomacy or not.
• 1:08:56
  Neri: All things to keep in mind in the dog days of summer.
• 1:09:01
  Neri: But to be continued, shira, Michael, thank you very much for your time.
• 1:09:06
  Neri: Hopefully nothing too dramatic like an Israeli-Iran war happens before the next time we talk.
• 1:09:16
  Neri: And, shira, if it does potentially happen, I want like a proper notice so I don't get on any fights.
• 1:09:22
  Shira: I know and I really hope it doesn't happen.
• 1:09:25
  Michael: Well, I'm off again.
• 1:09:26
  Michael: I'm off again in two weeks, so you know, put that on the calendar for the next big event.
• 1:09:30
  Neri: So something terrible will happen.
• 1:09:33
  Shira: Yeah, maybe we'll have you know.
• 1:09:35
  Shira: If flights resume, we will be safe it.
• 1:09:37
  Shira: Maybe we'll have you know if flights resume, we will be safe it's.
• 1:09:40
  Shira: Yeah, anyway, life in Israel Never a dull moment.
• 1:09:44
  Neri: No, never a dull moment.
• 1:09:45
  Neri: It's very difficult to make plans in Israel these days.
• 1:09:49
  Michael: Yeah, I was supposed to be with you guys in person this week, but I'm glad we were able to do this virtually instead.
• 1:09:54
  Neri: Virtually, Hopefully soon.
• 1:09:55
  Neri: Take care guys.
• 1:09:57
  Michael: Bye guys, bye-bye said virtually, uh, hopefully soon.
• 1:09:59
  Neri: Take care, guys.
• 1:10:00
  Neri: Bye, guys, bye, bye.
• 1:10:00
  Neri: Okay, thanks again to michael coppola and shira efron, as always, for the generous time and insights.
• 1:10:04
  Neri: Also, special thanks to our producer, jacob gilman, and to all of you who support israel policy forums work.
• 1:10:10
  Neri: Do consider making a donation to israel policy forums to keep being a credible source of analysis and ideas on issues such as these that we all care deeply about, including this podcast and, most importantly, thank you for listening.