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Amb. Dan Shapiro on the State of U.S.-Israel Ties · Israel Policy Pod

• 0:05
  Neri: Shalom and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod.
• 0:08
  Neri: I'm Neri Zilber, a journalist based in Tel Aviv and a policy advisor to Israel Policy Forum.
• 0:13
  Neri: We have a great episode for you this week with Dan Shapiro back with us to discuss the Gaza ceasefire deal, US Israel ties in the age of babysitting, my term, not necessarily Dan's term, and what next on the Iran front, and much, much more.
• 0:29
  Neri: Dan was, of course, U.S.
• 0:30
  Neri: Ambassador to Israel for most of the Obama administration, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East in the recent Biden administration, and in general has held a slew of senior policy positions at the State Department, the National Security Council, and the U.S.
• 0:46
  Neri: Congress over the past three decades.
• 0:48
  Neri: Dan is currently a distinguished fellow at the Atlanta Council in the Scullcroft Middle East Security Initiative.
• 0:55
  Neri: Some of our listeners and viewers, remember, we're now a video podcast available on YouTube.
• 1:01
  Neri: But you all may recall that Dan was on this past June, literally on the eve of the outbreak of the 12-day war between Israel and Iran.
• 1:10
  Neri: Like everything else during the next two weeks, that episode, which was terrific, trust me, kind of got lost in the shuffle.
• 1:17
  Neri: But it's still super relevant in terms of Biden administration policy throughout the Gaza war after October 7th.
• 1:23
  Neri: Barack Obama's eulogy for Shimon Paris, way back when.
• 1:32
  Neri: There was a lot in that episode from June 12th, so do check it out.
• 1:36
  Neri: After you finish this episode, of course.
• 1:38
  Neri: One other programming note, I'll be traveling over the next few weeks, so podcast production may be a bit different while I'm away.
• 1:46
  Neri: Even journalists deserve time off, especially journalists.
• 1:50
  Neri: No, I wouldn't go that far, but even journalists need some time away.
• 1:53
  Neri: So just FYI on that.
• 1:56
  Neri: And also, just by way of context, we recorded this episode around midday Tel Aviv time on Wednesday.
• 2:03
  Neri: Despite the ceasefire, we just had another escalation in Gaza yesterday, on Tuesday, when one IDF reservist was uh tragically killed by Hamas fire in the southern Gaza Strip.
• 2:14
  Neri: And this came after Hamas staged the recovery of a deceased hostage's body, which later turned out to be the remains of Ofil Zalfati.
• 2:22
  Neri: Ofil Zalfati was abducted from the Nova Music Festival during the October 7th attack.
• 2:28
  Neri: He was killed in captivity by Hamas, and his body was officially recovered by the IDF way back in November 2023 and brought back home to Israel for burial.
• 2:38
  Neri: It's a terrible story that we don't need to get into now, but Israel responded with fairly wide-scale airstrikes overnight.
• 2:45
  Neri: But as of now, and with Donald Trump's prodding, the ceasefire is back on, and more hostages will hopefully be released soon.
• 2:54
  Neri: But can the deal hold?
• 2:56
  Neri: For an answer to that question, amongst many other questions, let's get to Dan Shapiro.
• 3:01
  Neri: Hi Dan.
• 3:06
  Neri: Welcome back to the podcast.
• 3:07
  Dan: Thanks, Neri.
• 3:08
  Dan: Good to be back, good to be with you again.
• 3:10
  Neri: It's great to have you back, Dan.
• 3:11
  Neri: Uh especially after last time you were on right before the 12-day war, back in June.
• 3:17
  Neri: So this should be, uh, if all goes according to plan, what we call here in Israel a Khawayamata Kenet, a corrective experience to uh to the last episode you were on, uh, which by the way was terrific.
• 3:28
  Neri: And I will urge all our listeners and viewers to go back and check that out.
• 3:32
  Neri: Uh but you also, I thought, would be the exact right guest for this week as well, uh, to discuss all things Gaza, US-Israel relations, uh, Iran, and more.
• 3:42
  Neri: Uh so thank you again for for agreeing to come on.
• 3:44
  Neri: Hopefully, this time there will not be a full-blown uh war in the Middle East, um, fingers crossed, especially since I'm getting on a on another flight uh tomorrow.
• 3:52
  Neri: That's a different story.
• 3:53
  Neri: Um so, Dan, the first and most obvious question uh to you and probably to most of our listeners, um, what did you make of the Gaza ceasefire deal uh brokered by Donald Trump and his team?
• 4:04
  Neri: Uh came into effect on October 10th, um, especially as someone like yourself who was intimately involved in the diplomacy during the Biden administration, uh looking to halt, if not end, uh the Gaza war.
• 4:16
  Neri: Uh yourselves?
• 4:17
  Dan: Thanks again, uh Neri for having me.
• 4:19
  Dan: Yeah, look, this uh ceasefire and hostage deal uh that uh President Trump was able to announce and then see executed uh during his visit uh was uh a very significant accomplishment.
• 4:30
  Dan: Obviously, the return of the 20 living hostages was uh essential and uh a major, major event for all of Israeli society uh and uh something that needed to happen.
• 4:45
  Dan: Uh and so an unalloyed good uh that that was achieved.
• 4:49
  Dan: Uh the other elements of the deal, the end of the fighting, the pullback of Israeli forces to uh what's called now the yellow line, the 53% of Gaza, uh the uh inflow of uh significantly increased uh amount of humanitarian assistance, the return of Palestinian prisoners, some of them, of course, uh very uh uh bloody-handed terrorists.
• 5:13
  Dan: Uh these were all the other elements of that deal that sort of had to happen.
• 5:18
  Dan: Now, in his typical style, President Trump oversold it.
• 5:21
  Dan: It's not Middle East peace, it's not going to be everlasting, it's not you know uh the end of a 3,000-year conflict, uh, but it's really important.
• 5:29
  Dan: And uh all credit due to him and uh his team, Steve Whitkoff and uh Jared Kushner.
• 5:35
  Dan: I think actually Kushner's involvement was really critical because his uh relationships and experience in this field, I think, are sort of uh uh some things that Whitkoff was in some way struggling with, but uh Kushner sort of helped help land.
• 5:48
  Dan: In terms of the elements of it, but you know, Middle East wars tend to end messy.
• 5:53
  Dan: Uh there's not often a clear victory or surrender.
• 5:57
  Dan: Uh everybody uh has to sort of accept terms that are less than their optimal terms or their maximal terms they had set.
• 6:05
  Dan: Uh and often the terms are set by the United States and they're less than Israel wants, but sort of meet Israel's basic needs.
• 6:11
  Dan: In this case, I think there was an exhaustion that had set in.
• 6:15
  Dan: I mean, a lot of people have asked me, well, why didn't it happen uh during the Biden administration?
• 6:19
  Dan: And you know, there are a whole range of reasons for that.
• 6:21
  Dan: One is simply time, you know, exhaustion.
• 6:24
  Dan: Uh Hamas, of course, uh was under renewed military pressure because of the Israeli operation uh in Gaza City that was advancing, although slowly because the IDF was very concerned about losing hostages, losing soldiers, uh, etc.
• 6:41
  Dan: Uh but there was real pressure there.
• 6:43
  Dan: Uh Iran, uh Hamas was further pressured by how much Iran and the other uh members of the Axis of Resistance had been weakened uh over the course of the war, and at some point was looking to just to survive, which is really Hamas's main goal in these types of wars, to be able to crawl out from the rubble when it's over.
• 7:03
  Dan: Um Israel though was also exhausted.
• 7:06
  Dan: We know how uh I was in Israel for much of uh September uh before Rosh Hashanah, and you know, at that time, you know, the the the impatience and the bitterness even of many Israelis about you know that it was taking so long to get hostages out uh was really, really profound.
• 7:23
  Dan: We know how stressed the reserve force was.
• 7:26
  Dan: Uh, we know that Israel was facing uh a kind of a wave of international isolation, uh, of course, the recognition of Palestinian state by numerous countries, and even, as we've seen, you know, blows to Israel's support in the United States uh and in both parties to some degree.
• 7:43
  Dan: Um so there were those those factors.
• 7:45
  Dan: And you know, Trump then, of course, had leverage uh for his goals and and used it.
• 7:52
  Dan: I must say I think he had that leverage all along.
• 7:55
  Dan: You know, he came into office with a ceasefire in place, uh, and I think he could have acted as he did uh only after you know uh the strike in Doha, which I'll get to in a second, uh, much earlier in the year.
• 8:07
  Dan: And I wrote about it you know several times, um, and even took decisions that kind of set back the uh eventual uh achievement of this ceasefire and hostage deal with his Gaza Riviera plan and not objecting to the Gaza City project, etc.
• 8:23
  Dan: But uh what did clearly flip the script was the Doha strike uh by Israel against Hamas leaders.
• 8:31
  Dan: It wasn't very successful, of course.
• 8:33
  Dan: It really raised the alarm, uh, both for the Cutteries but others in the Gulf as well, and for Trump, uh, who had said he wanted to end the war or he wanted to get the hostages out.
• 8:42
  Dan: Again, I think he'd made some decisions earlier in the year that were not in concert with those goals.
• 8:47
  Dan: But once that risk of the war coming to the Gulf uh presented itself, uh it really uh I think caused him to change his approach.
• 8:58
  Dan: And then he really began to exercise very quickly the leverage he always had on uh Netanyahu.
• 9:04
  Dan: But very importantly, it wasn't just U.S.
• 9:06
  Dan: pressure on Israel uh to agree to terms it had not agreed to, which it did.
• 9:11
  Dan: Uh it agreed ultimately to end the fighting without the full disarmament uh and removal from power of Hamas from all of Gaza.
• 9:19
  Neri: But he also no uh no total victory like had been promised.
• 9:23
  Neri: Correct.
• 9:24
  Dan: Correct.
• 9:24
  Dan: So he had to he had to accept terms that he had said he would not.
• 9:27
  Dan: But he also very importantly then got uh Qatar and Turkey particularly.
• 9:32
  Dan: I think Turkey was really a critical element here, not one sufficiently exercised during the Biden administration uh because of their connection with Hamas.
• 9:39
  Dan: He got those two countries to use their leverage on Hamas uh to pressure them uh to agree to terms that they had not agreed to previously, which was the return of all the hostages, which they haven't fully fulfilled yet on the other among deceased hostages, but to agree to those terms uh without Israel's full uh departure from Gaza or even a guarantee that the end of the war was permanent.
• 10:04
  Dan: Although I think he Trump strongly implied that that would be the case.
• 10:07
  Dan: And he did that with some of the transactional kind of deals that he does, uh, which seemed to be effective in this case.
• 10:13
  Dan: Turkey got at least a soft approval of the F-35 aircraft that they've been seeking.
• 10:18
  Dan: Cutter got a security guarantee and an executive order.
• 10:23
  Dan: Uh so you know, he used all of those tools and and and got you know both sides then to agree to less than their total victory uh demands.
• 10:30
  Dan: Now, there again, back to the question of you know why Trump did it, Biden didn't do it, why now, not earlier.
• 10:37
  Dan: There are clearly some unique political factors uh here.
• 10:41
  Dan: Uh Netanyahu, because of the way he has tied himself and his political identity to Trump, uh, really does not have the ability, uh, or not at without very high political cost uh to say no.
• 10:53
  Dan: If Trump says, I need you to do this, I'm insisting you do this.
• 10:57
  Dan: Uh, he doesn't really have the ability to say no.
• 10:58
  Dan: We know that Netanyahu's history, and this was true in the Obama administration, actually it's true all the way back in the Clinton administration, uh, and it was true in periods of the Biden administration, found that he could sort of gain political benefits in some ways by resisting uh the demands of uh Democratic presidents.
• 11:17
  Dan: Didn't work that way uh for him with Trump.
• 11:19
  Dan: And then in the U.S.
• 11:21
  Dan: side, uh Trump faced no domestic political pushback at all uh for kind of leaning in uh with the the pressure that he he did on the leverage he did he did exert.
• 11:30
  Dan: Uh it's hard to imagine, you know, that there wouldn't have been some very strong reaction uh had President Biden you know called publicly for ceasefires the way Trump has now twice, once in Iran and once in with Gaza.
• 11:44
  Dan: Uh if he had engaged in direct talks with Hamas, as at one point Kushner and and Whitkoff did, if he had publicly said, I, you know, uh red line for uh annexation of the West Bank.
• 11:55
  Dan: These are all things Trump has done.
• 11:57
  Dan: Not a whisper of criticism from his own party.
• 12:00
  Dan: The Republican Party basically doesn't criticize him on anything.
• 12:03
  Dan: And Democrats want the war to end.
• 12:05
  Dan: Uh, and so we're kind of encouraging uh of using these tools.
• 12:09
  Dan: Uh now that's not to say that everything, I'm not in the camp that says, you know, everything that was done during the Biden administration was perfect.
• 12:17
  Dan: It was not.
• 12:17
  Dan: There were mistakes made, things could have been done differently better.
• 12:19
  Dan: In the end, that ceasefire that Trump inherited and worked on together during the transition with Biden, I think, is meaningful and helped lead to this point.
• 12:28
  Dan: But uh clearly, you know, we wanted to achieve more uh than than we did.
• 12:33
  Dan: So this is not a defense of that.
• 12:35
  Dan: It's just saying that it's not apples to apples uh comparison about the political circumstances in either country uh that uh Biden that Biden faced.
• 12:43
  Dan: The last thing I'll just say is that uh Trump then, when he made that decision after Doha to uh really push, he he used uh, I think a very uh unconventional and improvisational style of diplomacy, but from which there's a lot to learn uh in order to get everyone to yes.
• 13:01
  Dan: Uh he met with a bunch of Arab leaders uh at the UN General Assembly, uh, kind of laid out what was what then became known as the 20-point plan to them and got their endorsement to it.
• 13:12
  Dan: And then he was going into a meeting uh the following Monday with Netanyahu at the White House where he was going to announce it, but over the weekend uh the Israelis came and said, Well, there are things we don't like about it.
• 13:21
  Dan: So they rewrote a big chunk of it.
• 13:23
  Dan: Uh and then what he announced with Netanyahu on that Monday was not exactly what he had presented to the Arab states.
• 13:29
  Dan: And they didn't, you know, really squeal publicly, although it was clear that there were changes.
• 13:34
  Dan: But then when Hamas responded to what he announced with Netanyahu with a very obvious yes but, where that he agreed to parts and didn't agree to other parts, uh, and Netanyahu clearly was uncomfortable with that because he wanted them, you know, to accept everything.
• 13:48
  Dan: Uh Trump just took the yes and ignored the but.
• 13:51
  Dan: And uh he dared everyone uh to say no to him once he was announcing things that even people hadn't fully agreed to yet.
• 13:58
  Dan: Um, and clearly, you know, making the decision that the most important thing was to get the ceasefire and the hostages home, uh, and that the phase two elements, which we'll talk about, you know, would have to you know be dealt with after the fact.
• 14:10
  Dan: I think that was that was a very good and correct decision and and facilitated by this sort of very improvisational style diplomacy.
• 14:17
  Dan: And again, I think there's there's lessons to be learned from that.
• 14:20
  Dan: Um, so meaningful accomplishment for sure, very meaningful, uh, and credit due to the president and his team.
• 14:26
  Dan: Um clearly we're seeing violations of the ceasefire to some degree.
• 14:30
  Dan: Hamas is shot at Israeli soldiers across the yellow line, most recently in Rafah.
• 14:35
  Dan: Uh Hamas has not returned, but I think it's still 13 uh of the deceased hostages and is you know playing kind of the cruel games it does to uh pretend it doesn't know where they are, or you know, maybe there are a few it doesn't, but probably most it does, uh, and try to hold on to that leverage and uh and the psychological warfare benefits.
• 14:54
  Dan: Uh and so Israel has to respond to some of these violations, but I think the the violations and the responses are sort of within the range of the usual testing of the limits of a of a of a ceasefire.
• 15:05
  Dan: And I I do think there's a pretty high likelihood this the fundamental ceasefire is going to hold for uh for the foreseeable future because Trump really doesn't want it to resume again.
• 15:14
  Dan: He wants to say, you know, this was a big accomplishment, have the war flare back up again would be uh would be a blow to that.
• 15:20
  Dan: Uh Hamas had mentioned was exhausted and under pressure from from its supporters uh and and their partners that uh uh it not uh resume major fighting.
• 15:29
  Dan: So I I think it it it's a good uh opportunity to to keep that those benefits in place while trying, and we'll talk about it now, to to get on to phase two.
• 15:38
  Dan: But phase two is much, much harder and much, much more complicated.
• 15:42
  Neri: So that's a great uh laying out of um, well, not only your opinion, but basically what just transpired uh in recent weeks and and recent months.
• 15:51
  Neri: Um and we'll dive into various issues that you raised, Dan.
• 15:54
  Neri: Yeah, I I also um was struck by Trump's method, by his uh, like you said, improvisational style.
• 16:01
  Neri: Uh some would say taking constructive ambiguity to its um nth degree, uh like essentially ignoring what Hamas did or did not agree to.
• 16:10
  Neri: So the Trump people keep saying, well, Hamas agreed to disarm.
• 16:13
  Neri: Uh and Hamas uh I'm not it's not at all clear to me whether Hamas uh agreed to disarm at all.
• 16:19
  Neri: Uh and that will have to be um That was in the butt, right?
• 16:23
  Dan: They they said yes to phase one and they did not say yes to disarmament, which is phase two, and they didn't sign for that.
• 16:29
  Dan: That's not what was signed, and now they're now we're still working on phase two.
• 16:34
  Neri: Yeah, but he uh he took uh the win, he took phase one.
• 16:37
  Neri: Um I'm curious, just in terms of the Biden administration and the history of the negotiations when you guys were in power versus the deal we got just a few weeks ago.
• 16:49
  Neri: I'm sure you're aware there's obviously a debate, definitely here in Israel, maybe even in the United States, about well, this deal was on the table uh a year ago uh under the Biden administration.
• 16:59
  Neri: Um I'm curious to get your sense.
• 17:01
  Neri: You know, you laid out the issues of why uh the deal didn't happen, but in terms of the actual details that we eventually got, do you think uh they are comparable to what could have been or at least was on the table a year ago?
• 17:13
  Neri: Um, or was it strictly a case that a year ago Israel was only willing to negotiate a partial deal uh and not a full deal like Trump essentially forced Netanyahu into?
• 17:24
  Dan: I think uh again, I think at that time uh there were numerous occasions.
• 17:30
  Dan: I wasn't a direct uh participant in those negotiations, although I was obviously largely aware of what was happening.
• 17:36
  Dan: Uh, there were numerous occasions in which Hamas uh made clear it was not talking about or willing to discuss uh the release of all hostages and intended to hold on to some, uh, even in a hostage deal.
• 17:50
  Dan: And and in all those negotiations, it would take to the very, very last stage uh before they would even put names on the table, before they would actually start to talk about who might be eligible uh to be released.
• 18:01
  Dan: And so that was not, I think, something Hamas was really prepared to do.
• 18:06
  Dan: Uh, in the end, the deal that was struck during that transition uh involved uh a two-phase element, which I think 30 hostages came out in that first phase, and then second phase never really happened, but it all still need that second phase still needed to be negotiated.
• 18:19
  Dan: But it was also true during most of that period that uh you know Netanyahu also didn't want to uh go to uh an end, uh permanent end of the war uh without achieving those more maximal goals, and at various times added conditions uh to ceasefires.
• 18:35
  Dan: I think most famously last summer uh 24 uh was the Philadelphia Corridor, uh, which at the time Minister of Defense Gallant, who was our main counter counterpart when I was working in the Pentagon, was saying was not uh a security requirement.
• 18:50
  Dan: He considered it would be a political uh additional condition to those negotiations.
• 18:55
  Dan: So, you know, I mean they you know really were not sufficiently exhausted, I guess you could say, either side to you know ultimately start to climb down from some of those conditions.
• 19:05
  Dan: By the time you get to the fall of 24, you know, then the US political calendar becomes a factor uh when you know nobody's gonna make a decision because before they see what the outcome of the election is, thinking that they might get you know better terms or you know, a different team or when when you say when you say no one, you mean the the Israeli government.
• 19:26
  Dan: I think the Israeli government, but I'm not sure it was any different for Hamas, to be honest.
• 19:30
  Dan: I mean, you know, I don't know that they had an opinion yet.
• 19:33
  Dan: I think at a certain point, once Trump was elected and and took office, you know, there's a certain fear factor because of you know his his style, uh somewhat blustery style, sometimes he makes sort of threats that he doesn't really have uh an ability to back up, but uh they clearly didn't want to cross with him.
• 19:50
  Dan: Uh they you know maybe didn't fully assess his uh relationship and influence with the Cutteries.
• 19:56
  Dan: Uh but I I think at a certain point the negotiations just sort of you know go into a uh a freeze uh freeze zone, uh, which was really what was happening in September, October of 24.
• 20:08
  Dan: And then even after an election, it takes a while to figure out what's going on.
• 20:12
  Dan: Then it got serious in December, January during the transition.
• 20:15
  Neri: Okay.
• 20:15
  Neri: Uh I think that's a that's a fair answer.
• 20:17
  Neri: Um and uh just finally on the issue of phase one and the flare-up that we saw yesterday on Tuesday, uh also uh escalation uh over a week ago after two additional IDF soldiers were killed in southern Gaza and Israel launched airstrikes um back then as well across the strip.
• 20:37
  Neri: Um you're fair to say, you know, optimistic that this will still hold uh that Trump and his team can apply enough pressure on both Israel and Hamas to uh uh to keep it contained, uh to get back on track, to keep releasing uh the hostages.
• 20:51
  Dan: I'm I'm fairly optimistic that the the core of the ceasefire can hold uh and that neither side you know really wants to get back into sort of full-scale fighting.
• 21:01
  Dan: Uh there may be these skirmishes and exchanges.
• 21:04
  Dan: I'm you know, I'd say uh less optimistic that Hamas is gonna fulfill its obligation on the remaining 13 uh deceased hostages.
• 21:13
  Dan: I think it will do ones and twos uh and delay and claim they don't you know know the whereabouts or can't reach uh all these kinds of things.
• 21:22
  Dan: And and I certainly worry that uh you know the final well, there's not really gonna be a final, but we're that it'll be hard to get to zero, right?
• 21:32
  Dan: There will always be two or three or four that you know either will be some you know dispute about their whereabouts or there'll be a generally a known, or they will you know have an incentive to keep that wound open.
• 21:43
  Dan: And of course that includes uh in all and every one of these cases, it's it's tragic, of course.
• 21:48
  Dan: But it includes two American uh hostages, uh and uh and Itai Khan.
• 21:54
  Dan: Uh and it includes uh Hadar Golden, uh whose uh remains were were taken in 2014 uh during uh Suke Tan.
• 22:03
  Dan: So uh you know there's a lot of pain, uh psychological pain that Hamas can generate and sees that it maybe benefits from in a sick way uh by dragging this out and holding on to what it can hold on to.
• 22:18
  Neri: Yeah, um and then it becomes a question uh how does Israel respond if uh the the number doesn't go to zero, how the Trump administration responds, what what's the fate of the deal and in stage two?
• 22:29
  Dan: Right, and and Trump Trump just said a few days ago, 48 hours, you know, Hamas had to release the you know all of them.
• 22:36
  Dan: Well, they didn't uh I don't know what the so what of that is.
• 22:39
  Dan: Uh I d he but he does not want Israel to go back into full-scale fighting.
• 22:43
  Dan: I don't think most Israelis want to go back to full scale fighting uh for you know the remains of thirteen hostages as much as they need to come home and as are the terms of the deal.
• 22:52
  Dan: But that's so that's a challenge, and you know, Hamas is is is is adept at playing uh playing those games when it has that uh that that kind of leverage, right?
• 23:01
  Neri: It most certainly is, uh not just over the past two years, but uh in in years uh well past that.
• 23:07
  Neri: Um and the the issue of Hadar Golden, too, uh the soldier who uh who fell during the 2014 Israel Hamas war, um it belies any uh any realistic kind of understanding that Hamas, who had been holding his remains for over a decade, uh doesn't know where they are.
• 23:27
  Dan: Not plausible.
• 23:29
  Neri: Yeah, it's not plausible.
• 23:30
  Neri: Um out of anybody, he should he should have been the first uh to be returned.
• 23:33
  Neri: And and the fact that Hamas didn't, uh, like you said, it's probably playing games because um they they certainly knew where his remains were for over a decade.
• 23:42
  Neri: Um yeah.
• 23:44
  Neri: Uh Dan, um in terms of the first phase, uh we've also seen what uh can only be called a major diplomatic push uh uh by the Trump administration uh you know, first to begin implementation of the deal and then to continue implementation of the deal.
• 23:59
  Neri: Um but last week I think uh reached a new peak where we saw this kind of uh it's not even shuttle diplomacy.
• 24:06
  Neri: It's called uh here in Israel they called it like uh uh air trade from uh DC to Ben Gurion Airport.
• 24:13
  Neri: Uh Jared Kirschner and Steve Woodkoff were here, uh Vice President J.D.
• 24:16
  Neri: Vance was here, and then Secretary of State Marco Rubio just left this past weekend.
• 24:21
  Neri: Um so as a as a veteran of of these visits and these diplomatic efforts, uh give us some perspective.
• 24:28
  Neri: Um is it really that unprecedented?
• 24:30
  Neri: Uh is it really uh as it's come to be known, uh bb sitting to make sure Netanyahu you know adheres to the ceasefire and and fulfills his end?
• 24:39
  Neri: Uh or uh had this kind of thing happened before?
• 24:42
  Dan: There's uh some precedent.
• 24:44
  Dan: I'll sort of say what I think maybe the closest precedent I'm aware of is uh from from my time.
• 24:49
  Dan: But I look, first thing to say is uh it demonstrates uh a serious and high-level commitment to seeing this ceasefire hold and to trying to get uh phase two uh underway.
• 25:01
  Dan: And again, we'll get into more details about that.
• 25:03
  Dan: Um and importantly, uh they have set up this civil military uh coordination center with uh a group of 200 or so U.S.
• 25:13
  Dan: service members from uh CENCOM, U.S.
• 25:15
  Dan: Central Command, led uh by uh their chairman, uh the commander of Central Command, Admiral uh Brad Cooper, who I know very well, um, who I'm not sure he's on the ground constantly, but but has been on the ground a significant amount of time to help manage a lot of the phase one implementation aspects and the preparation for uh what they hope will be phase two.
• 25:36
  Dan: So there's a kind of an operational piece of it.
• 25:38
  Dan: But on the political side, obviously, the president coming in with a very successful visit, warm visit, speech in the Knesset, uh the day of the 20 uh living hostages returning home, uh, followed by uh all those other uh visits you mentioned, uh is clearly a sign that you know this has high level attention and uh and and and that's important, right?
• 26:02
  Dan: I mean, I think one of the concerns some have, I have, is that over time President Trump's attention uh will uh move elsewhere.
• 26:11
  Dan: And you know, he's the president of the United States, he has a lot on his plate.
• 26:13
  Dan: Um, and demonstrating that uh you know the the political level of this administration, and since so much is uh handled top down in this administration, that's really important, uh, is focused and committed is a way of getting all sides to stay focused and committed to uh to keeping it going.
• 26:34
  Dan: Now, they can't sustain that, right?
• 26:36
  Dan: You can't have the vice president and the secretary of state there uh every day, every week.
• 26:41
  Dan: Uh so we'll see how that how that you know continues over the time.
• 26:45
  Dan: But uh certainly in those early days and and first couple of weeks to try to make sure that you know violations and skirmishes which are happening on the margins of the ceasefire don't uh escalate into some more full-blown conflict, uh, that's an important way of doing that.
• 27:01
  Dan: And uh yeah, the the term BB sitting isn't one I'm using, but uh there's clearly an element of that, right?
• 27:08
  Dan: There's clearly an element of concern that based on the fact that Hamas is in some violation, based on the fact that this was a hard deal to swallow, based on the fact that there are still elements of Netanyahu's coalition and government who oppose the original deal and uh want to respond more strongly to the fighting, uh, that making sure that that political level touch is uh keeping him focused on staying in the deal and moving forward, probably there's an element to that.
• 27:34
  Dan: You know, I think it was 2012, which was sort of, you know, still in my first year as ambassador.
• 27:41
  Dan: Uh I got there in the summer of 2011.
• 27:43
  Dan: So, but probably late spring, early summer of 2012 was a period when you know we had some significant concerns that Israel was uh actively considering a military strike in Iran.
• 27:56
  Dan: Uh they were.
• 27:57
  Dan: That was known, it became more known later, but it was something we were obviously uh able to assess somewhat from things they told us, some somewhat from uh you know things that leaked out or other information.
• 28:08
  Dan: And uh there was a period when every it wasn't back-to-back kind of relay race style, but every week to two weeks, uh for a good two to three months, uh, we had uh cabinet-level visits, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, uh Director of the CIA, uh senior special envoys, national security advisor coming to Israel to continue that conversation specifically, uh, because we were still in a very uh sensitive phase where we and Israel had agreed uh much earlier in Obama's first term that we were going to try uh sanctions and uh holding out the prospect of diplomacy uh to get Iran to come to the table on uh negotiating uh significant limits on its nuclear program.
• 28:58
  Dan: The sanctions were having an effect, uh, even some military options were being put in place in case they didn't work, but the diplomacy had not yet begun, the Iranians had not yet come to the table, and uh the Israelis were worried that they were going to lose their window when their military option would still be viable.
• 29:16
  Dan: Uh, and so you know there was a real risk that they would take that action.
• 29:20
  Dan: So uh, you know, it it didn't uh escape our uh, you know, uh kind of analysis that uh if you have every week or two a you know cabinet level US official, the preparation for the visit, the visit itself, the immediate aftermath of the visit, that's probably buys you a week or two when it's not a very likely window uh that you know that decision on uh uh on a military strike that we you know wanted them to wait on uh you know wouldn't be taken because you know they wouldn't want us to be as implicated in it and that we might be able to persuade them.
• 29:53
  Dan: So uh there was some kind of precedent for that, but again, you can't sustain that for months.
• 29:59
  Dan: uh at some point uh you have to get some more durable and and more stable set of understandings in place.
• 30:06
  Dan: Uh but I you know I I I think that was a that's a legitimate tool uh for uh the United States to use in any relationship and and particularly with the unique uh closeness of the US Israel relationship.
• 30:18
  Neri: For sure.
• 30:18
  Neri: And I don't think people should forget that uh in the early months of the of this current war or you know the October 7th war uh after the Hamas attack uh it wasn't like they didn't see Biden and Patient officials at the highest levels coming to Israel I don't want to say on a daily basis, but you know almost every week there was someone here uh even sometimes sitting in on on cabinet meetings uh and deliberations so uh that's right and you know that in that point it was more about supporting Israel in the crisis but obviously there were also tough decisions being made on whether to attack Israel in Lebanon on how to deal with the humanitarian aid needs of Gaza and so there was both support and uh you know the ability to express U.S.
• 31:03
  Dan: views that you know mean leverage or pressure if if uh if we felt we needed to so that's that's something we've seen before Israel Policy Forum is a policy organization rooted in the Jewish community.
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• 31:58
  Neri: If you rely on Israel Policy Forum for credible and nuanced analysis, please make a tax-deductible gift today at IPF.li slash support the pod or at the support the show link in the show notes something that we may not have seen before Dan and it's something I've actually thought a lot about uh over the past two or three weeks the like you said the civil military coordination center sitting in Kiyat Gat in southern Israel uh 200 US service members there coordinating not only with the IDF but also uh many other partner nations the UK Canada Jordan um Egypt probably and and many others uh sitting there essentially um trying to figure out how to how to manage Gaza in the postwar environment and also obviously set up uh this kind of new multinational peacekeeping force this is really the internationalization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is it not I mean if you had told me uh I want to say three years ago that you'd have US service members you know sitting in Israel trying to uh figure out how to get a a multinational peacekeeping force into Gaza um I don't know I'm not sure Israel would have been too thrilled about that scenario and uh I I don't know if I'd have believed you.
• 33:11
  Neri: Uh so I think that is in and of itself unprecedented is is it not?
• 33:16
  Dan: That is unprecedented uh and it's uh it's not clear you know how successful it will be right because still there are all kinds of hurdles to clear to get that phase two portion of the 20-point plan implemented but uh this is a major investment uh by uh really you know some of the most talented parts of of the US system these uh military uh planners and uh civil military experts and they've got numerous features uh monitoring the ceasefire uh which I think includes monitoring whether both sides are abiding by the terms of the ceasefire bit intrusive actually from the point of view of the US Israel relationship but clearly something that uh Israel has has uh decided they can they can live with uh helping with the delivery of humanitarian assistance to help map the the routes and you know improve the flows uh and uh support the uh creation development training ultimate deployment of uh an international stabilization force uh these are all things the United States military is very good at I mean there are gonna be a lot of other things that are gonna be needed if if we get underway in phase two and I'm concerned that some of the Trump administration's earlier decisions on more or less disbanding USAID and a lot of our other experts in development and post-conflict transitions and things like that uh are gonna cost us because those are also skill sets and and expertise that we don't have as much in in in good supply uh because of that.
• 34:49
  Dan: But this yeah this is a major really important point.
• 34:52
  Neri: Right this is but this is a already even without that a major investment obviously a major footprint hard to think of any precedent for that or that it doesn't come without some discomfort uh from uh many Israelis that the US is so present that it will really have you know a veto or an ultimate say uh on certain decisions but uh even with that said uh many of the elements of phase two are still well ahead of us and very difficult uh I don't know if you want to switch to talk about those but uh but we should yeah yeah no that was my my next question uh especially like I said as someone who um was dealing with uh post-war scenarios and trying to rally support um especially around the Middle East amongst uh Arab governments for uh an active role in in post-war Gaza uh now that post-war Gaza is apparently upon us and discussions are are ongoing and yet you know to the best of my understanding nothing has been fully decided yet how uh optimistic are you that these kind of heavy lift security governance and other issues related to phase two of the ceasefire deal um will actually not only succeed but uh actually get off the ground?
• 36:05
  Dan: Right.
• 36:05
  Dan: I'm very concerned I I mean uh this isn't a criticism this is just an analysis that uh this is gonna be very very difficult um the key elements of phase two of course are the disarmament of Hamas and essentially its removal from from power uh the reconstruction of Gaza uh to be paid for by largely by Gulf uh Arab states uh there are various estimates from the World Bank and the UN and EU run in the range of 50 billion to 70 billion dollars uh to do a kind of a full reconstruction of Gaza so that the the population of Gaza can can live um the creation of this international board uh President Trump currently chairing that board maybe Tony Blair having some board uh some role but also the board the board of peace uh also having you know some kind of oversight internet of the the international uh governing uh or the sorry the interim transitional governance of Gaza uh and that's supported by an international stabilization force uh of probably Arab and Muslim states uh and facilitating the entry of more moderate Palestinian governance whether it's connected to the Palestinian Authority or not as it goes through a reform process a little bit gray a little bit murky but even you know at the end of that uh 20-point plan a diplomatic process between Israelis and Palestinians on a uh future and a political horizon which acknowledges the Palestinian desire for a credible pathway for a Palestinian state and that that should be part of this discussion.
• 37:43
  Dan: That's all in the two point plan uh 20-point plan.
• 37:47
  Dan: Now just to back up you mentioned that uh I had previously done some work on the day after planning.
• 37:53
  Dan: In fact I was still at the State Department on October 7th I was working on the regional immigration portfolio.
• 37:58
  Dan: Obviously that unfortunately got very much shelved uh in the immediate aftermath of the of the attacks and and the war starting and I was asked to kind of lead an effort on day after planning and I I insisted that our kind of our one of our core planning assumptions be that unless Hamas was actually defeated and actually removed from power and actually disarmed, we really wouldn't get to a day after uh and that's because I felt that no Israeli leader, not Danyo and not anybody else could with legitimacy say to the Israeli public after the horrific slaughters of uh slaughter of October 7th worst attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust that this Gaza war will end more or less as all the previous Gaza wars have ended with Hamas battered and bruised but clinging to power still holding onto weapons and ultimately trying to rebuild and and prepare for another round unacceptable outcome.
• 38:53
  Dan: And it certainly was in the fall of 2023 and it you know I think for most Israelis it's still sort of an unacceptable outcome the difference is two years have passed the exhaustion the cost the unacceptably high cost it would have been to actually continue this war for several more months in terms of more dead hostages, more dead soldiers, many more dead Palestinian civilians, further isolation of Israel, Israel getting stuck in a kind of a permanent occupation of all of Gaza um and so we're stuck still at the end of phase one with that exact scenario that I said wouldn't really allow us to get into a real day after Kamal is battered and bruised clinging to power in now 47% of Gaza but still potent enough.
• 39:41
  Dan: Right consolidating its control in that 47% absolutely using using yeah right and so whatever weapons it has to attack Israel it may still have you know some small store of rockets uh but it certainly has enough small arms to occasionally attack Israel across the uh and I think Kalashikovs and you know RPGs and the things like that to attack Israel across the line but really it's to consolidate control uh internally and it's 47% and to really carry out these just gruesome retribution killings of uh of Palestinians who they think have have opposed their rule.
• 40:14
  Dan: So that is disarming Hamas is really the the key that unlocks the ability to get to all those other elements of pay of phase two.
• 40:24
  Dan: If you can't get that done uh I'm not sure anything else moves.
• 40:29
  Dan: Uh I don't see uh Gulf states being willing to invest significant resources in reconstruction if Hamas is still in power because they expect there will be another war and Israel will end up destroying what is rebuilt.
• 40:44
  Dan: I know from my later responsibilities in the Pentagon talking to Arab governments and Muslim governments about their participation in an international stabilization force uh that they are very unlikely to agree to come in if the requirement is to fight Hamas or disarm Hamas.
• 41:02
  Dan: They're not going into the tunnels they're not uh taking away the weapons um and I don't see a pathway for the Palestinian Authority or some other you know more moderate Palestinian governing structure to kind of take hold if Hamas hasn't really been uh removed.
• 41:18
  Dan: Um and so you have a conflict kind of in suspended animation um but not a uh a very easy pathway to get all those other elements of phase two going if Hamas manages to uh to hold on to those weapons and and can't be disarmed.
• 41:34
  Dan: So how do we disarm Hamas?
• 41:36
  Dan: That's the you know the critical question and nobody has a good answer to it.
• 41:39
  Dan: I don't have a great answer to it.
• 41:41
  Dan: There are probably only two parties who would actually fight Hamas sort of to the last weapon which is Israel if it needed to and for all the reasons earlier stated I think even Israelis don't want to get back into that fight.
• 41:55
  Dan: Or it's Palestinians.
• 41:56
  Dan: It's Palestinians we've seen some of these clans or some of these other small groups that have done it on the margins but probably don't have the strength to really challenge Hamas uh you know for full control.
• 42:06
  Dan: The other alternative is the Palestinian Authority but they're not ready uh they're not sufficiently reformed there's of course not a full Israeli agreement on that but they would need training and time and and preparedness to put a force in that could actually do that.
• 42:19
  Dan: So you know all of those prospects are are way way in the future how would you get Hamas to disarm you know earlier look I think the tool that President Trump exercised to get Hamas to agree to what it had not previously agreed to which was releasing all those hostages which was to motivate Qatar and Turkey the two countries that have the most influence over Hamas Qatar because they're the political support the host of their leadership some financial support Turkey in a way again I think was not sufficiently exploited as a as a as an asset here in the Biden administration because of the ideological connection.
• 42:57
  Dan: Erdogan is a fellow traveler.
• 42:59
  Dan: He believes in the Muslim Brotherhood cause which is you know the Hamas cause and when he sufficiently motivated because of his relationship with Trump or whatever he was getting or just because he felt the moment had come was able to tell Hamas this is the moment you have to get these hostages you have to get this war over they made this terrible a terribly difficult decision to do things they had said they would not do.
• 43:20
  Dan: I think we've got to President Trump has to use the same tool uh and and use the same leverage with those parties and maybe more transactional deals with those parties to get them to put that kind of pressure on Hamas and then construct a a weapons you know relinquishment structure and even an exile plan for those uh Hamas fighters and and leaders that remain in Gaza.
• 43:46
  Dan: This is something I also felt we should have worked on much earlier.
• 43:49
  Dan: There's some history to this it's in the 20-point plan now the idea of safe passage out of Gaza but in 1982 U.S.
• 43:57
  Dan: diplomats arranged the exile and departure of about 14,000 PLO fighters from Beirut when the IDF had Beirut under siege went to camps all around the Middle East at some distance from Israel.
• 44:09
  Dan: This is not the same situation Hamas is not the PLO they're in what they consider their homeland they might be jihadists willing to die in the tunnels and yet properly pressured and properly incentivized by the the parties they rely on for any political or economic or freedom of movement oxygen which is Qatar and Turkey and to some degree Egypt I don't rule out that you could get those remaining Hamas fighters and leaders to say we're gonna you know live to fight another day from some other place.
• 44:42
  Dan: That's a terrible way to think about it.
• 44:44
  Dan: And we'll probably continue to pursue those people over time but that is the sort of necessary key to unlock the a pathway to getting the rest of phase two underway.
• 44:54
  Dan: So I I I think those are the the tools that have to be exercised and I'm concerned that absent that and I think everybody's concerned about this that you're gonna we're gonna have this kind of stasis and a drift and a kind of a low grade conflict you know the the freezing in place of Israel in control of roughly half of Gaza, Hamas in control of the remaining half, no real reconstruction happening, no entry of international forces and the seeds really being shown sown for the next round of of the conflict just as I feared you know would be the case and was and remains sort of an unacceptable outcome but maybe where we are.
• 45:32
  Dan: The the one caveat to this is that you hear talk about well maybe the reconstruction can start in the 53% that Israel holds some new new Gaza.
• 45:43
  Dan: New Gaza it's being called right I'm dubious uh I'm dubious that uh the Arab states will invest in reconstruction in an area that is essentially under Israeli occupation.
• 45:54
  Dan: I'm dubious that uh Palestinian civilians will move in any significant numbers into that space uh the idea that that's where they could live more peacefully and start schools that would teach de-radicalization and uh you know get you know better uh flow of humanitarian systems or something I just don't see significant numbers of Palestinians wanting to move uh inside Israeli lines.
• 46:19
  Dan: So you know it's a it's an idea uh it should be tested uh the notion that you could prove to Gazans that uh the better life is available when not under Hamas rule uh I suppose is something that we hope is true and uh Palestinians will want and then help uh help achieve but I think it's very hard to imagine either the investment or the or the movement of the population uh into that area at least in the near term right um and just on that point uh how Israel would vet those people I mean is it just women and children uh is it uh you know like we know from from other places you know uh uh boys under the age of 17 and and older men over the age of 55?
• 47:05
  Neri: I mean is that going to be the criteria um and how sustainable is is that really um but uh very uh very sobering but I I'd say very realistic uh overview you just gave Dan um and also uh the focus on security and and really Hamas's disarmament I think is critical and will likely be the main issue um if and when for the first phase kind of comes to uh comes to completion.
• 47:30
  Neri: I'm curious just to uh to bear down on this um on this issue uh so you're essentially arguing uh that Turkey, Qatar and others need to apply political and maybe economic pressure on Hamas to agree to things that it perhaps doesn't necessarily want to agree to uh like disarmament.
• 47:49
  Dan: Uh but then that disarmament okay you're talking maybe about the heavier weapons the tunnels that you know essentially they'll be like okay you know get rid of these and and then maybe we can uh we can move forward is that fair I think that's uh necessary uh obviously the tunnels are essentially used for a military purpose moving fighters around uh of course that's where hostages were held moving tunnels uh moving weapons even manufacturing weapons in those tunnels uh you know it's not gonna be easy for Hamas to kind of use them as they as they previously did especially Israel controls still all the crossing so it's harder to get you know materials in into Gaza but that's a that's part of the military infrastructure of Gaza and uh yeah so I think it's cutter in Turkish pressure on relinquishing the weapons and departing at least some critical mass of uh of Hamas fighters and and remaining leaders um and then you know then you could come up with a a mechanism and an agreed party uh might be some Israelis might be some Europeans might be some Arabs might be some others who could go in and sort of do the technical piece of of destroying uh or otherwise decommissioning tunnels and and things like that but you know not in a phase when Hamas could be shooting at them and and trying to fight them and prevent them from coming in.
• 49:08
  Neri: Okay.
• 49:08
  Neri: That's a good clarification.
• 49:10
  Neri: Um I'm trying to kind of play this out in my own mind.
• 49:13
  Neri: Uh it's hard.
• 49:14
  Neri: This is really hard it is hard.
• 49:17
  Dan: Yeah.
• 49:17
  Dan: No criticism I mean that's not criticism of of of President Trump and his team.
• 49:22
  Dan: You know I think what's laid out in the 20 point plan is are are the steps we want to see achieved but the key that unlocks most of the rest of it is disarmament.
• 49:32
  Dan: And the kind of proposal I just put out is the best one I can come up with.
• 49:37
  Dan: It's not great, but I don't know of a better one.
• 49:39
  Neri: Right.
• 49:40
  Neri: Um but this has been an issue vis-a-vis Gaza now for many years, even predating this war.
• 49:45
  Neri: How do you actually shift Hamas out, undermine its rule, bring in an alternative um it was always messy even before the last two years of war and the you know the the utter destruction of of physical Gaza too.
• 50:00
  Dan: And look let's let's be clear a critical element of this is what the citizens or the residents of Gaza decide.
• 50:07
  Dan: It's hugely risky to take on Hamas.
• 50:10
  Dan: We've seen that in terribly bloody fashion and just in the last couple of weeks and long before that.
• 50:15
  Dan: But you know at some point Palestinians saying we we we want to get this albatross off our necks we want to get this organization that has ruined our lives out of our lives is also a really critical element.
• 50:28
  Dan: Now they could be supported and inspired and you know maybe encouraged to take on that kind of risk and that kind of role by some of these outside actors.
• 50:40
  Dan: But I do think that's also a critical element also a very difficult one to generate with sufficient force.
• 50:45
  Dan: Right.
• 50:46
  Neri: And just to tie this up I think if I hear you correctly Dan but I happen to agree with the sentiment um this can't just be a military or kinetic action uh there has to be a kind of a political arm to it to to push Hamas in the direction we we all want them to go and that we want Gaza to go into as well.
• 51:05
  Dan: That's 100% true and especially to get the Arab states to really play the parts they're supposed to play reconstruction and and and uh international forces but also even on the disarmament piece the 20-point plan also contains elements that they needed right guarantees that we're Israel's not talking about uh expelling the population from Gaza or that anybody who leaves couldn't return uh that Israel's not planning to annex Gaza uh separately outside of the 20-point plan President Trump has said you know a red line is uh annexing the West Bank the UAE that said that's a red line but that President Trump said it's not going to happen.
• 51:39
  Dan: He's not gonna allow it to happen uh because he promised the Arab states it wouldn't.
• 51:43
  Dan: And they want to hear that there's some willingness to discuss a political horizon about you know a credible pathway to a Palestinian state.
• 51:52
  Dan: At the moment that's not high on any Israeli's agenda for perfectly understandable reasons.
• 51:57
  Dan: And it'd be very hard to have that discussion as Israel goes into an election campaign when you know the prime minister will probably be arguing to the Israeli public, which is all nearly across the board skeptical or hostile to the idea of a Palestinian state, you know, I'm the leader that knows how to resist that pressure and who do you trust to prevent that from coming into being Donald Trump's best friend or some rookies and some newbies and uh and he'll make that argument.
• 52:23
  Dan: And even the opposition will probably say yeah we're not for that either.
• 52:26
  Neri: So if that's the discourse uh in an election year in Israel that weighs heavily on getting the Arabs to feel that they're uh getting what they need to make the investments uh different kinds of investments that uh we need them to make right uh Ninyahu has been uh putting out that message for 30 years uh it's usually worked uh for him so I don't see him uh changing uh in the coming months as we likely look at uh elections here in Israel um by the way Dan given all that with regard to a political horizon for the Palestinians um you know future Palestinian statehood and and and that issue uh if all that is true do you then see the prospect of further normalization say between Israel and Saudi or Israel and other Arab or Muslim states very low uh despite the fact that the Gaza war has now seemingly ended?
• 53:15
  Dan: I think uh it's uh not immediate, but I think those opportunities are still very present and should be uh uh seized and exploited as much as possible.
• 53:25
  Dan: Uh first of all there's several layers to why they're present.
• 53:28
  Dan: Uh among them is the dramatic weakening of uh Iran and its access of uh of proxy terror groups uh because of US military power well first because of Israeli military power and US military power uh used over the last two years uh and so that's a huge opportunity to help that you know alternative coalition of Israel, modern Arab states, all US partners, all members of Central Command working with each other to defend each other.
• 53:55
  Dan: Frankly that integration process in the defense sector was still happening all throughout the war and something I really the opportunity to continue to work on at the Pentagon.
• 54:03
  Dan: But you know we know the Saudis uh continue to be open to uh some kind of discussion on on normalization.
• 54:12
  Dan: Of course watch carefully uh MBS the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia will be in uh Washington on November 18th meeting with President Trump an opportunity for uh them to describe you know that vision of what it looks like for Saudi Arabia to take that step uh President Trump may announce a security guarantee for Saudi Arabia in that meeting just as he has already announced one for Qatar these are done through executive order so it's not the same as the full mutual defense treaty we were negotiating which we wanted to be a an accompanying agreement to a normalization deal but I don't expect them to announce normalization but maybe there's a way of signaling that you know that that path is still open.
• 54:52
  Dan: You know other Arab partners have said they're uh fortunately the Abraham countries have remained but other countries have indicated they're open to this both within the region and and outside Indonesia most prominently seems to be very interested in in getting on that path but all this still has to be tested right and and what happens in Gaza uh and how you know Arab publics are absorbing uh that news it's not the same news as it was during the war with pictures of casualties and and and hungry kids necessarily but but the the lack of progress towards some better future could you know weigh heavily on on people making real decisions.
• 55:31
  Dan: Obviously what happens in the West Bank uh where we've seen a kind of a spike in in and some violence by uh Israeli extremists there uh could uh also weigh heavily and I mentioned the Israeli political factors and and frankly Netanyahu himself right he's uh a figure uh of significant controversy in uh the Arab world and so it's plausible that MBS or any other uh Arab or Muslim leader would say yeah I'm still open to do this but it sure would be easier to do it uh with a different Israeli leader or it sure isn't uh something a gift I want to give to Netanyahu during his election campaign.
• 56:06
  Dan: Why don't we wait until 2027 and see where we are?
• 56:10
  Neri: I hope uh Arab leaders are listening to this podcast.
• 56:13
  Neri: Uh I think I think they are uh but I hope they definitely take on board that message Dan because um uh in the past we've also seen I think the Arabs uh misread Israeli domestic politics and then they're surprised with the outcome even though that outcome was heavily influenced uh by certain decisions that they that they took in the past um and also you know leaving aside Netanyahu uh do you want to actually make this deal with this specific Israeli government right it's not just Nyahu right there's Banger and Smotrich are are part of that government too.
• 56:43
  Dan: So I I think that's difficult.
• 56:44
  Dan: Now of course I don't rule out that Trump has more transactional goodies in his pockets that you know he he did that was how part of how the Abraham Accords came about F-35s for the UAE which they never ultimately got but was sort of promised Western Sahara for Morocco Bahrain didn't really get much but I mean you know he's this is his style and he's proven that it it has some value and so maybe you know Arab states who otherwise would be reluctant to move before there's a better path than Gaza or during his reelection might find there's some other motivation that says yeah I'll at least signal or at least take a partial step maybe some exchanges with the Indonesians without full uh normalization and and opening of embassies.
• 57:21
  Dan: I mean you can imagine partial steps along the way even during this period and and I'm for all of it, right?
• 57:26
  Dan: I think we want to want to get on that path.
• 57:28
  Dan: So I'm I'm I still think those opportunities are there, but you know I also approach it with a certain degree of caution because of uh the the the challenges that I laid out.
• 57:37
  Dan: Right.
• 57:38
  Dan: Uh very important to be clear-eyed uh that this may not be happening uh tomorrow despite what so you know is sold in in various quarters both here and in other places um Dan uh last question for you before we finish up uh and it's a big one uh Iran uh to your credit uh before Netanyahu decided to uh launch airstrikes and missiles at Iran uh this past June uh you actually did take the threat of Israeli and US military action uh seriously and you said so uh during our our last conversation uh and a lot you took it a lot more seriously let's say than than many of us and I include myself in that group so uh now on the other side of uh the 12-day war uh with this perhaps new reality vis-a-vis Iran and its uh capabilities uh two part question for you first um how successful do you actually think the 12-day war was uh in degrading Iran's uh capabilities especially the nuclear program um and then second second part of the question stemming from that uh what do you expect will happen in the coming weeks and months uh on this front either in terms of diplomacy either in terms of potentially further military action or either in terms of just nothing uh so you're right in your previous prediction so what do you think will happen uh moving forward people should always be uh cautious about considering their abilities to predict uh to have improved just because they got one right but look I no but uh but uh people often forget uh the correct prognostications that people made um and then kind of say oh well that it was inevitable that that would happen yeah well thank you I look I I do think that it was inevitable and necessary to conduct military action against uh Iran's nuclear program and I thought it might take place later in the year maybe after the snapback sanctions that occurred around this time frankly so I was a little surprised by the timing uh as I probably you know indicated on the previous podcast but uh not by the need or by the ultimate decision and I supported it uh and I know very well the plan that President Trump uh ordered the US military to carry out uh uh at the end of that 12 days uh and it was you know dramatically facilitated by what Israel had accomplished in the first 11 days obviously Against the leaders, against various uh key sites, but especially against the air defenses of Iran.
• 1:00:05
  Dan: And uh there's no question uh that that campaign by the two militaries uh overall dealt a very significant blow to Iran's uh nuclear uh program.
• 1:00:16
  Dan: Uh there is no prospect of them using those facilities uh that that we struck and that Israel struck uh anytime soon to do enrichment uh or to do conversion or uh to do uh some of the research that was underway.
• 1:00:31
  Dan: Now that's those facilities.
• 1:00:32
  Dan: So uh very meaningful, probably buys, you know, it's hard to know the exact amount of time, right?
• 1:00:37
  Dan: Usually when we say, well, it set them back a year or two years, that assumes that the day after the bombing, they would immediately begin digging out and reconstructing what was what was destroyed.
• 1:00:45
  Dan: That's not realistic.
• 1:00:46
  Dan: And there are lots of ways you can add to that time through you know sanctions, through economic pressures, through political to dialogue, through, you know, maybe additional strikes if necessary.
• 1:00:56
  Dan: So I think there's a significant amount of time put on the clock uh when Iran is not anyway not going to be able to be as close to a nuclear uh weapon as they were.
• 1:01:05
  Dan: And they were much too close for comfort, both on the enrichment side and on the weaponization side.
• 1:01:10
  Dan: So that's to the good.
• 1:01:12
  Dan: Uh, but of course, this story is not over, right?
• 1:01:14
  Dan: They still have some capabilities and some materials.
• 1:01:17
  Dan: There's they still have the highly enriched uranium, whether they have access access to it or whether it's buried, we're not totally sure.
• 1:01:22
  Dan: Uh, we don't have inspectors in uh Iran right now to check that.
• 1:01:27
  Dan: Um there may always be facilities that uh we don't know about, and that's certainly a risk that they you know set up some undeclared site uh and retrieve that enriched material and then do uh enrichment to 90% somewhere we haven't uh haven't, we don't know about.
• 1:01:44
  Dan: Certainly that risk uh exists.
• 1:01:46
  Dan: And then of course there's the fact that even though they're weakened, badly weakened, uh, and not just Iran, but the toll access, you know, you have to say they're down but not out.
• 1:01:54
  Dan: Um and we've got to be vigilant that they uh, at least at the level of the Supreme Leader and you know the immediate circle, are still committed to the same ideology that's got them to this point.
• 1:02:04
  Dan: Uh that they have that has driven them to make just enormous sacrifices, really squandering of massive resources, probably approaching a trillion dollars worth over decades to build that nuclear infrastructure, to arm those proxies, all for the purpose of an ideological commitment to destroy Israel uh and to drive the United States out of the Middle East and dominate the Middle East.
• 1:02:28
  Dan: So there's probably a debate.
• 1:02:31
  Dan: In fact, people who know internal Iranian politics much better than I do are describing a very significant debate that's happening internally in the sort of closing chapter of the Supreme Leader's life and leadership.
• 1:02:42
  Dan: We don't know how much longer he'll he'll be in that role, of course.
• 1:02:45
  Dan: But you know, should they double and triple down despite the blows they've taken and you know commit to uh the same agenda uh and maybe even try to do it uh covertly on the nuclear side and try to sprint to a nuclear weapon uh in a way that uh you know, sort of following a North Korea model?
• 1:03:04
  Dan: Um or uh should they say, gosh, you know, look what this has wrought for our country.
• 1:03:11
  Dan: The country is in dramatic uh economic distress, water distress, power distress, societal distress.
• 1:03:19
  Dan: Um maybe we should think about a different path and a different approach.
• 1:03:23
  Dan: Uh, and maybe we could get some of the sanctions, the new sanctions reimposed under the SNAPEC uh lifted.
• 1:03:29
  Dan: Maybe we could get into some dialogue.
• 1:03:31
  Dan: I think that debate is probably happening inside Iran, but it's not settled yet.
• 1:03:34
  Dan: Uh what do we need?
• 1:03:36
  Dan: We need to try to continue to uh obviously enforce all those sanctions, the the old and the renewed.
• 1:03:42
  Dan: Uh we need to try to get the inspectors back in so we have some answers to those sort of technical questions about where the material is and if it's being uh used in any way.
• 1:03:51
  Dan: Uh we need to try to get a negotiation underway if they are willing, but driving toward you know a much harder bargain than Iran had ever agreed to.
• 1:04:00
  Dan: I think where the Trump was on the right, Trump administration on the right track in the earlier negotiations, zero enrichment, really an end to that uh capability at any time to produce nuclear weapons.
• 1:04:11
  Dan: Um of course we have to hold out the possibility that either the Israel or the United States might need to take additional strikes.
• 1:04:17
  Dan: That's a uh that's a real uh has to be a tool on the table uh if if it's needed.
• 1:04:23
  Dan: Um the last thing I'd just say on this is that I mentioned the you know, sort of transition Iran is heading toward, it is heading toward a leadership transition at some point.
• 1:04:32
  Dan: The Supreme Leader can't live forever.
• 1:04:34
  Dan: Um and I don't support or propose regime change as a policy to be executed by the United States and certainly not Israel, you know, from as an external factor.
• 1:04:47
  Dan: Um, but regime change is certainly possible, uh, and transition is certainly going to happen, but a regime and regime change is possible if the Iranian people take matters into their own hands and decide uh that they want a better life, and this is not the kind of leadership that can deliver it.
• 1:05:02
  Dan: And I do think we should already now be doing the planning to prepare for how the United States and a bunch of other uh uh partners in and out of the region would help support that transition and try to steer it to the safest possible outcome because there are a lot of different ways it could go.
• 1:05:17
  Dan: Um, but uh, you know, we we can even today be doing the things we probably are doing some, and I think we should do more to support the Iranian people in appropriate ways, their ability to communicate over the internet, uh, obviously calling out uh the abuses of uh Iranian leaders and officials against their people.
• 1:05:36
  Dan: That can and should be being done now.
• 1:05:38
  Dan: But uh you can prepare a plan again with some of those post-conflict uh or transition governance experts that we might have already dismissed from the US government.
• 1:05:48
  Dan: But that expertise exists to support a transition, uh, you know, think about how to help uh a transition government in Iran structure its institutions, reform its institutions and structure them, uh, what kind of assistance would be needed, how to try to help ensure that regional governments are able to uh reassure uh a transitional government in Iran that uh they would have support and could avoid conflict if they would take a certain set of uh steps and a certain path.
• 1:06:16
  Dan: So I think that preparation uh should be happening internally in the US government and and between the US uh and the allies now.
• 1:06:24
  Dan: Very hard to do because you don't really know when you're planning for.
• 1:06:28
  Dan: You don't really know what that transition is going to look like.
• 1:06:30
  Dan: As I said, it could go in multiple directions, some even more dangerous than the current, and some far, far better, and could involve a lot of internal combustion within Iran.
• 1:06:38
  Dan: But uh, you know, regime change planning or how to support that change when the Iranian people make that decision, so that we hopefully help steer it to one of the better paths it could go on is uh is a project we should be engaged in now.
• 1:06:53
  Neri: Absolutely.
• 1:06:53
  Neri: And uh just like planning for post-war Gaza, it should have been done uh yesterday, before the day after, um, and not two days after the day after, like we are in uh right now.
• 1:07:04
  Neri: Um couldn't couldn't agree more.
• 1:07:07
  Neri: Uh and it's interesting, you know, my my big takeaway from uh what you just said in terms of what the coming months and maybe years will will bring is that it really depends on what happens inside Iran, less than decisions necessarily taken in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or Washington.
• 1:07:22
  Neri: Um it's you know kind of developments on the ground inside Iran that will dictate where we go.
• 1:07:28
  Neri: Uh it will.
• 1:07:29
  Dan: And and I yeah, there's been some good writing on this, uh, particularly Kareem Sajadpur is a terrific piece in uh foreign affairs on different pathways that an Iranian transition could go.
• 1:07:40
  Dan: Uh and it's uh it's a huge challenge, most of all for the Iranian people uh to try to get their country on a path uh of a better future uh internally and and with its neighbors.
• 1:07:50
  Dan: Um and it could go a lot of different directions.
• 1:07:53
  Dan: Yep.
• 1:07:53
  Neri: Um Dan, we're out of time, but thank you so much for coming back on uh and laying everything out uh for us.
• 1:08:00
  Neri: And you know, I'm not even gonna say it, but uh, but yes, this this episode will have a a large longer shelf life uh than the last one when um you know uh a 12-day war uh broke out.
• 1:08:11
  Neri: So um we will see you uh hopefully sooner rather than later to discuss how uh all the things you laid out in terms of Gaza and the first stage and the second stage uh you know actually transpires on the ground.
• 1:08:23
  Neri: So thank you again.
• 1:08:24
  Neri: Thanks, Neri.
• 1:08:25
  Neri: Appreciate it.
• 1:08:26
  Neri: Okay, thanks again to Dan Shapiro for his generous time and insights.
• 1:08:29
  Neri: Also a special thanks to our producers, Jacob Gilman and Aidan Jettleton, and to all of you who support Israel Policy Forum's work.
• 1:08:37
  Neri: Do consider making a donation to Israel Policy Forum, so keep being a credible source of analysis and ideas on issues such as these that we all care deeply about, including this podcast, of course.
• 1:08:48
  Neri: And most importantly, thank you for listening.