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Tenuous Ceasefires and the Story Behind the Hostages Families Forum · Israel Policy Pod

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Shalom and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Neri Zilber, a journalist based in Tel Aviv and a policy advisor to Israel Policy Forum.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: We have a very special Thanksgiving week episode for you all today.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: In the first part, I'll be interviewing our dear friend and IPF's very own chief policy officer, Michael Koplow, about the latest news on the Israel and US Israel front, including the uptick in Israeli military action in Lebanon, including a high-profile assassination in Beirut this past weekend, the state of play of the Gaza ceasefire, and a post-mortem of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's trip last week to visit President Donald Trump at the White House.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's all in the first part of the show.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: In the second part of the show, my other colleague, Shami Reichman, the head of strategic initiatives at IPF and director of the Ateed Young Professionalist Network, will be interviewing Matan Civic, who is the co-founder of the Washington chapter of the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, which is, of course, the organization that represented the hostages and did so much tremendous work these past two years to raise awareness, to lobby, and to ultimately get them almost all back from captivity in Gaza.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that'll be in part two.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: With all that said, let's get into it and let's get to Michael Koplo.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, Michael.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the podcast.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Neri.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: When was the last time you and I did a podcast, the two of us, without She-Ra?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh never.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to venture to say never.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's nothing against Shira.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh an emergency Koplo enlistment.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yes, nothing against She-Ra or anyone else uh that was supposed to be on this week.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But uh it's great to see you and thank you for uh for coming in on such short notice.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: But uh you are also a useful guest because I wanted to talk about the fate, the faintest appraise?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's the highest appraise.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I wanted to talk about several um Kern Event issues right ahead of Thanksgiving, basically to check in on what's happening on the various uh still active fronts here in Israel and also gauge the mood uh back in your neck of the woods in Washington about everything happening uh there and here.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um so basically I wanted to start by talking about Lebanon, pretty much uh very in the news uh in recent days after Sunday's fairly dramatic uh assassination, an airstrike in Beirut, uh, that killed a top Hezbollah military commander, what Israel said was the group's chief of staff, uh Haitim Ali Tabatabai.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I hope I got that name right.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but obviously Israel uh has been striking all across Lebanon, uh especially southern Lebanon, eastern Lebanon, for the past year, uh ever since uh the U.S.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: brokered ceasefire came into effect, uh pretty much exactly almost a year ago.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to get your sense, Michael.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously the Israeli point of view uh about the strikes and especially the assassination is well, we want Hezbollah to disarm as per the terms of the ceasefire deal, uh, and we want to stop Hezbollah from reconstituting itself as a military force.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh fine.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But really, to your mind, Michael, uh, is a ceasefire vis-a-vis Israel and Lebanon uh failing, eroding, call it what you will, or uh is this what the ceasefire was always going to look like?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is what the ceasefire was always going to look like, and that makes it pretty tenuous.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've been describing the ceasefire in Lebanon and frankly the ceasefire in Gaza over the past couple of weeks as legal fictions.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Neither is an actual ceasefire, but everybody agrees to still call it a ceasefire.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, as long as as long as both sides agree to call it a ceasefire, then it's a ceasefire.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's hard to describe Lebanon in particular as a ceasefire, given, as you note, just the pace of Israeli strikes, the fact that Hezbollah seems to be doing everything they can to reconstitute themselves in southern Lebanon in areas they're not supposed to be, uh, seems to be doing everything they can to try and rearm.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: That shouldn't surprise anybody, and it shouldn't surprise anybody that Israel is continuing to strike at them.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the problem here is that we always had this mismatch of expectations where when Israel hears Hezbollah's going to disarm, the Israeli timeframe is much shorter than the Lebanese timeframe, and maybe even than the American timeframe was.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And Israel is simply willing to go in and strike uh whatever it deems necessary without real regard to any of the political dynamics.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that's not to say that Hezbollah is actually disarming or the Lebanese government and the LAF are doing a successful job.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, from um from everyone I talk to, it seems like they're trying.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there are certainly examples of the government and the LAF getting Hezbollah to lay down some arms, but you know, it's like negotiated.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously not fast enough for the Israelis.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, is the ceasefire gonna last another year?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be sitting here on the second anniversary talking about an actual ceasefire.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: The pace things are going, that would surprise me.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So just for our listeners and viewers, uh the LAF is the Lebanese Armed Forces, obviously, the should be the operational arm of the Lebanese government to go and uh disarm Hezbollah.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, as you mentioned, uh I think definitely in recent months, uh their actions vis-a-vis Hezbollah are a lot less than definitely what Israel would like to see, and and arguably less than what the US side would would also want to see.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there's obviously this um well, at least a tripartite kind of commission that was set up by the ceasefire deal to monitor the ceasefire and to ensure Hezbollah disarms.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh I think uh I think it's fair to say that uh the US at least gave Israel a yellow light uh for the targeted strike in Beirut on Sunday.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, um like with these things uh as we've talked about before, hard to believe Bibi Netanyahu would would go and and do this uh in the face of Donald Trump's opposition to it.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, uh you know, legal fiction, it's a nice uh it's a nice turn of phrase.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know the fighting is definitely less than what it uh was uh before these deals, and we'll get to Gaza in a second, uh trust me.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but definitely uh the firing has not ceased.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the question is, I think, and you and you kind of alluded to it, uh can the Lebanese government, can the Lebanese military actually go and disarm Hezbollah?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because Hezbollah has threatened civil war effectively if they try to go and take their arms by force.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this is this is a basic wager of the deal, is it not?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: It is a basic wager of the deal.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that you know, we're we're seeing here, and pretty much in every other arena, Israel has military solutions to everything.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And in many of these arenas, they're good ones, right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen that demonstrated now, you know, over the course of the last two and a half years uh in all sorts of impressive and and unbelievable ways.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: But but ultimately, the you know, the the wager with Lebanon was that there could be a political process because that's really the only way to disarm Hezbollah.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you know anybody would have claimed on the day of the ceasefire a year ago that the Lebanese government and the Lebanese army had the capability to go in there and well, capability slash willingness to go in there and completely disarm Hezbollah by force.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, in some ways I think Israel was accepting the basic premise that there'd have to be some time and some political process.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, maybe they were willing to let that play out for, I don't know, one month, three months, six months, whatever it was.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: The pace of Israeli strike certainly has stepped up.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think the question is well, really two questions.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: One question is whether Israel has decided that its calculus has changed, that it's going to give up on the prospect of any political process doing this, and and and they're gonna now really double down on a military solution, basically until Hezbollah is forced to say that the ceasefire no longer exists because they can't maintain maintain the legal fiction any longer in the face of continuing Israeli strikes.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's question one.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And question two is to what extent Israel is identifying Hezbollah's current capabilities as uh a proximate threat?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because certainly Hezbollah is trying to disarm.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think the question is whether or trying to rearm.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Rearm, yeah.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to rearm.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think the question is whether that that effort has been in Israel's eyes so successful that it necessitates the stepped up military action to the point where maybe it's even uh worth risking the end of the ceasefire in in Israeli eyes.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't I don't have definitive answers to either of those two questions, but it seems to me that the answers to those two questions should dictate what we're gonna see next.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: So uh you beat me to the punch because uh well, there are a few uh a few threads to to pull on here.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for now at least, and really over the past year, the uh the continued Israeli uh well military strikes have been cost-free.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because Hezbollah, say for I think one instance, way back I think December, January uh of this past year, uh has not responded at all.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they have yet to respond to this, like I said, fairly dramatic strike in the in the heart of the Dahia district in southern Beirut, the stronghold of Hezbollah, take out the senior commander, they haven't responded.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Which uh again, you know, two like you said, two and a half years ago, this would have been science fiction.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: This strike alone, let alone every other strike on a near-daily basis, would have been probably a full-scale war, um, given what we believed uh Hezbollah was capable of prior to, well, October 7th.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Also, by the way, uh, you know, I read yesterday, which is just fascinating, um, that the guy who was who was just assassinated refused to give up his his uh cell phone or using his cell phone.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um his attitude was like, oh, the Israelis aren't gonna the Israelis aren't gonna aren't gonna make me change my behavior, which seems to have been a mistake.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Well, uh it's hard to believe, but I suppose uh you know it is believable, given given the decision-making uh you know, uh at the top of the Hezbollah uh organization, um definitely since October 7, 2023.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I think my point is um for Israel it's been cost-free, but uh you know, at a certain point, do you expect Hezbollah to respond?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the real question.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I do.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't see how they can keep on sustaining this without any response.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe the response is is resumed rocket fire to the extent they're capable uh on northern Israel.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: My guess is that the likelier response is something overseas, since that's harder for Israel to prevent.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems, you know, we've seen that in the past from Hezbollah, I mean, literally dating back decades.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and you know, so it's a combination of their MO and probably where uh Israel is the weakest, because, you know, obviously harder to guard targets uh outside of your borders and thousands of miles outside of your borders than within.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they might also gamble that doing that won't prompt Israel to end the ceasefire in full force, whereas I think rockets on northern Israel would prompt, you know, a furious response from uh from the Israeli Air Force.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't see how Hezbollah can uh can keep on sustaining these types of blows without trying to respond in some way, shape, or form.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I certainly hope they don't, but that doesn't seem realistic to me.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um on this side too, there's uh even before Sunday's strike in Beirut, there was uh the the mood music on this end was uh we may be headed to uh at least a multi-day escalation with Hezbollah, given the increased pace of Israeli strikes, uh like I said, against Hezbollah assets, uh Southern Lebanon, eastern Lebanon, uh on a near-daily basis.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um probably still true, but uh we're you know, we haven't seen it yet.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um by the way, you said something that intrigued me, Michael, uh a military solution, you called it, uh versus uh, let's say the political track of you know, ideally Hezbollah will voluntarily or via coordination with the Lebanese government, uh, deign to put down its arms uh as the ceasefire ideal demanded, at least in southern Lebanon and you know, north of the Litani River, maybe.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you yourself have written that uh Israel may be too beholden, or at least this Israeli government may be too beholden to view everything through a military lens, uh, that a political and diplomatic approach uh may be more beneficial to Israel uh in this kind of I don't want to say post-war, post-war era, because uh I don't know, I'm not I'm not entirely convinced the war has ended on any front, but at least in this very different uh post-October 7th era.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, I I think that what I see coming from the Israeli government is is always, and it's not just the past two years, this is kind of a long-running theme.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's always the short the short-term versus the long-term, right?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it's assessing the immediate short-term threats, which uh almost by definition have to be tackled through military solutions versus thinking about how you mitigate the long-term threat, which almost always has to involve some sort of political aspect.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: And particularly since October 7th, Israel seems even less willing than usual to think about the ways in which there have to be long-term political solutions.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there's of course the perpetual example of the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, but let's leave that aside for a moment.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we just think about dealing with these armed terrorist groups and militias.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And look at how look at how DDR, you know, disarmament, demobilization, and rehabilitation efforts worked around the world in other conflicts.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know that there's any that had a purely military solution.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, people like to cite Northern Ireland all the time as kind of the uh the example that seems to have the most similarities to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the IRA ended up disarming through a combination of real military pressure and intelligence penetration from uh the British Armed Forces and uh the Northern Ireland police.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, if people haven't read um the book uh Say Nothing, absolutely go out and read it.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of fantastic book.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one of the best books I've ever read.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's on the Northern Ireland conflict.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: But it actually like sort of details, it actually, it's funny, it actually doesn't really get so much to the political part of it, but it really details all the ways in which the British had just thoroughly penetrated uh the IRA in lots of ways.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: But the point is that then the the process of of getting the IRA to put its weapons down, it wasn't, it wasn't just about the military and intelligence successes.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was then a more drawn-out political process where you had to give them other incentives and do it in stages.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And like it's it's not going to happen overnight.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, uh I think you know, in in lots of ways, Hezbollah is is much scarier, far more capable.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think probably more ideologically radical, even, although, I don't know, maybe not.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the point is that there has to be some space for the political aspect of this to succeed.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and maybe in the end it won't.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe the Lebanese government and the LAF just don't have the will, the capability, um, the backing to do this.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: But it seems to me that it's worth giving it a shot, especially given how much Hezbollah has been degraded militarily by the IDF.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also worth giving it a shot because the Lebanese government and the LAF, they don't like Hezbollah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're not they're not sympathetic to them.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: They want, they, they want them, they want their power to be minimized and uh and they want them deterred.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So again, like to put all the eggs in that basket, that to me would be a mistake.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and to just assume that the Lebanese government and the LAF, after, you know, frankly, years, if not decades, of, of failure to really do this, um, will be able to do it on their own with no problems.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a I think that's a myopic assumption.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you gotta give them a chance, especially now when Hezbollah is at its weakest point, because otherwise we absolutely will be sitting here, you know, a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, still talking about how you deal with Hezbollah.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, look, the the dirty, unspoken secret, at least publicly, is that maybe the Lebanese government and the Laver are very happy to have the Israeli Air Force do the dirty work for them.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they probably are.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody will admit that.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: The the official line uh out of Beirut is um, well, Israel needs to stop violating the ceasefire, and there's this kind of circular chicken or the egg logic where, well, Israel still has five outposts uh inside southern Lebanon.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if Israel withdraws, then maybe Hezbollah will disarm.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Israel does not want to withdraw until Hezbollah disarms, so that's likely uh, well, those outposts will be there for a long time yet.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, by the way, final point uh on Lebanon via via Belfast and uh Say Nothing, uh fantastic book by Patrick Rad and Keefe.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite uh data point in that entire book was the fact that the Northern Irish police and uh like British intelligence services had their own Fauda undercover units running around running around uh Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Which, you know, I I read that and I was like, well, maybe they were trained by the Israelis.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um we have to ask Gavi Sachhaw uh about about the the Northern Irish Fauda.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe maybe there's a spin-off potential there.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um all kidding aside, uh let's move on to our next topic, and it's uh a big one for for many people Gaza.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh ceasefire deal is now over a month old.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh most of the hostages have thankfully, thankfully been returned, uh, save for two deceased hostages, uh, after one uh was just repatriated or is in the process of being repatriated as as we record.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do we know do we know which of the three?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, we don't, not yet.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and there's two Israeli nationals and one Thai national uh still still there, so we don't know uh who it is necessarily, but um I imagine by the time this podcast goes up, uh we we should know.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh or well, our listeners should know, not us, uh, in the current moment as we record.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: But um similar to Lebanon, uh even over the past month plus, we've seen sporadic escalations of fire between Israel and Hamas.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't want to say on a daily basis, but maybe on every other day basis.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and maybe most worrying of all, there seems to be very little movement so far towards the so-called second phase of the ceasefire deal.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this despite last week's um interesting, important, call it what you will, UN Security Council resolution uh calling for the deployment of the you know this international peacekeeping force, uh this international stabilization force uh to Gaza.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, big picture, what's your sense regarding the state of play of this ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and Gaza?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, here I think everything is is just stuck.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now in terms of you know the transition from phase one to phase two.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: I I do think that to, again, to the extent that this is actually a ceasefire, uh, I do think that this one probably will hold in its current pattern for uh for a while, just because I don't know that Hamas really has any any options to to violate it in in a way that will lead the entire thing to break down.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe even more crucially, the United States is literally sitting there in a warehouse in Kyriatkat, um, kind of, you know, to call whether it's calling balls and strikes or to some extent actually determining what Israel can and cannot do, um, who knows for sure.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: But here, I mean, you literally have minute-by-minute US involvement in a way um that I'm not sure exists to quite the same extent on the on the Lebanese, the Lebanese front.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think that uh because of the prominence of the 20-point plan for President Trump and now the Security Council resolution, it doesn't seem to me that he's going to be willing to let this one completely devolve back into you know, chaos, war, no, no ceasefire on the horizon.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that this one probably holds, but again, you know, to what extent is this actually a ceasefire?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's, you know, where we get into the transition that things are obviously the most complicated.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you reference the uh the ISF, the International Stabilization Force.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: That that that thing is not being created anytime soon.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we now even have the reports of countries that were willing to contribute, like Azerbaijan now changing their minds.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we're still kind of where we were before, which is, you know, the Turks are champing at the bit, they go in there in a second, but obviously the Israelis are never going to let them.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And who else is going to contribute to this thing?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't see how it happens.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, final point on this, which is me just being a broken record in in every single medium, until Israel and then the United States acknowledges that there has to be some sort of Palestinian Authority role here, because that is a way of starting to break the logjam in in all sorts of ways, in terms of building a security force and also in terms of getting other countries to agree to contribute to different different things and pitch in in different ways, then this is, I think, going to remain completely stuck.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I just I don't see another way out.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't know, Neri, tell me tell me if I'm wrong, but I don't see it.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, uh I don't see it either.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: The PA, you know, there's not endless numbers of actors, as we've discussed on this podcast uh for the better part of two years, that are willing to go in and do the real work necessary on the ground inside Gaza to kind of stabilize the situation or at least try to move it into a a better situation.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, even if the Azeris and the Indonesians and whoever were willing to deploy forces, uh how effective are those forces going to be?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: They're just going to sit there, I assume, and monitor uh whatever Israel and Hamas uh feel like they want to do.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think they're gonna have real force on the ground.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the real problem, I think, you you know, you you said the situation is stuck.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Without the ISF, uh it's unclear to me uh how we can move to any future stage of what the plan actually calls for.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Further Israeli withdrawals, um, some kind of start of reconstruction, the even the the governance aspect of you know, the the Board of Peace overseeing everything led by Donald Trump, uh nominally at least.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: But really the the Technocratic Committee uh that's supposed to run Gaz on a day-to-day basis, it's supposed to be tied into the ISF.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and by the way, the Technocratic Committee itself, we've been hearing for weeks now that they were very, very close to figuring out the names and the personalities of the some 15 people who are supposed to man this body, uh, that hasn't happened either.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And let's not forget, there were names floated.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: It was supposed, you know, allegedly was going to be headed by the PA Health Minister, and that got vetoed because PA.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I I don't know.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what plan B is.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, again, regardless of what actually happened or which name did or did not uh get floated, uh it still has not been created.
• 24:23
  unknown: Right?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Board of Peace, this very ambitious kind of international oversight body, has yet to be uh named.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: ISF, uh despite the UN Security Council resolution last week, has yet to uh be formed or even commitments made.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think that's that's the real issue.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it's unclear to me uh where we go if if if there if there's no movement, I guess uh the IDF will still hold half of Gaza and Hamas will hold the rest of it, and there will be sporadic escalations.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean maybe that's uh not necessarily a bad bad result.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean bad for I think Gaza and the people of Gaza.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but it was like the report a few days ago, I'm sure you saw it, when uh there was uh one of these kind of uh more significant escalations.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh anonymous report in the Arab media, which take it for what it is, that Hamas is is no longer beholden to the ceasefire.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw that, I was like, okay, even if that were true, and I didn't even believe it to be true, even if that was true, what does that mean?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: What would they do about it?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: What would they do?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: It can't it's not like they can keep, you know, start firing rockets at Tel Aviv again.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um they don't hold any hostages really.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: They, you know, after today, they'll hold two deceased hostages.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that leverage is gone.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't I don't quite know what what the meaning is of Hamas no longer being beholden to the ceasefire actually actually implies.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm not sure either.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: And especially when they they're you know, they're they're still taking pot shots at the IDF uh with however many fighters are left in you know the tunnel or tunnels in Rafa.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, they're still kind of testing and probing the yellow line.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: That seems to I I hope I'm not I'm not horribly wrong about this, but that seems to me to be the extent of what they can do at the moment.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so yeah, I I'm I'm with you.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it would mean for them to break the ceasefire, which is you know why why I think that this one uh will be more stable than uh the one on the northern border.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Very interesting.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And just the final question with regard to Gaza.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is there a scenario where the Trump administration just gets fed up, tired, distracted with the whole with the whole Gaza?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I'm reading, you know, my my my colleagues uh that deal with Europe and and specifically Ukraine-Russia.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, Steve Whitkopf and Jared Kushner are now negotiating uh a deal on that front.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So how much bandwidth do they actually have?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Although it it it seems as if Marco Rubio and Dan Driscoll have uh have been brought in to um perhaps follow up uh to be polite on what uh Whitkopf and Kushner did.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you know maybe Whitkopf and Kushner now have have more time to turn their attention back to Gaza.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, on the one hand, we've seen President Trump get bored or frustrated with other conflicts, including Russia Ukraine, right?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: He's you know publicly thrown his hands up a bunch of times and effectively said, All right, you know, that I I I'm I I'm out, which hasn't hasn't proven to hold.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um he seems to he he seems to have the same draw to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that pretty much every one of his predecessors since 1948 has had, uh, where it's very difficult, maybe not all, maybe not Eisenhower, but you know, for the most part, very, very difficult for most of them to just set it aside and ignore it.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so you know, he he does definitely seem to be in that mold.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then there's also the fact that, you know, uh my my my country here may be at war with Venezuela at some point soon, given the military buildup uh in uh the southern hemisphere.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um kind of reminds me when the United States was sending all sorts of stuff uh to to the Middle East uh, you know, six months ago and eight months ago, and then all of a sudden we saw military activity in Iran.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh I don't know why all this stuff would be going on if the US wasn't going to use it.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that might end up being a giant distraction that pulls him away from this too.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh who knows?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: But um even if he stays as invested uh you know mentally, emotionally as he is in this, again, hard, hard to see how this really has any movement without changing the basic equation in an important way, which involves the Palestinian Authority, whether anybody likes it or not.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and anybody, meaning this Israeli government, um remains to be seen.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Remains to be seen.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh final topic, uh the big news from last week, closer to your neck of the woods, uh, was a visit to DC by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman uh to meet with President Trump.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: We had a great webinar last week on this topic, hosted by our colleague Rachel Brandenburg, uh, and featuring our good friends Ambassador uh Michael Ratney, NFZ's Al-Dashiyan.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm curious uh to get your own take, Michael, about what this visit uh may have meant for US-Saudi relations uh and really the prospects of Israeli-Saudi normalization.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what do you think?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: What were the your big takeaways from from last week in the White House?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: My biggest takeaway is that we're just seeing the Israelis get cut out of this in real time.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's always been clear that for the Saudis, Israel normalization was not about Israel.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: That was just secondary.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was about what they were going to get from the US.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: And up until now, they weren't really able to get those things from the United States without the Israel normalization part.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And now they're they they they they they are.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Getting them.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's hard to know exactly what they got.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, I I was I literally laughed out loud during the webinar last week uh when uh Ambassador Ratney expressed his uh frustration now as a civilian of you know seeing a fact sheet without knowing uh without knowing what's right what's actually real and what's behind it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I share that frustration.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've always I've always had it, but probably worse for him since you know he's he's not used to being in that position.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so hard to know exactly what the United States is is giving to the Saudis, but the point is MBS came here, he knew he wasn't gonna walk out of here with a defense treaty, but you know, he walked out of here with a pledge to get F-35s, um, a pledge from President Trump to give him the same F-35s as the U.S.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: gives the Israelis.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now it won't be the same because Israel modifies them, and so you know, Israel has the F-35 Adir, which is an Israeli model with Israeli tech.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, the Saudis can't get that, but it seems as if they might get the same base model.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, walked out of here with the designation as a major non-net non-NATO US ally.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so you know, defense treaty, even if uh President Trump had wanted to give the Saudis a defense treaty, he would have to pass the Senate.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we know what the math is on there.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not not close.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, previously all of these things were supposed to be conditional on normalization with Israel, and now they're just not.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, this this is this is sort of the new precedent.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: So that doesn't mean that normalization won't happen.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: I still expect at some point that it will.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: But the idea that that all of these things hinge on Israeli say-so or an Israeli veto, you know, that's completely out the window.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I think it just exposes, you know, we've we've heard Prime Minister Netanyahu and others and folks in the United States talk very confidently about how Saudi normalization is going to happen, you know, within a year.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: And don't pay attention to anything the Saudis say in public.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: They don't really mean it.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it's it's pretty clear after this that the Saudis do mean it.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And again, normalization, I still firmly believe will happen, but it's not around the corner by any means.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and, you know, I also don't think it's just a function of Netanyahu not being willing to say the magic words of Palestinian statehood or credible pathway or whatever it is the Saudis want.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also pretty fairly convinced that the Saudis aren't going to do it while you have Israeli troops operating in in still half of Gaza.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: And that in some ways is even harder because you know, you could have president, you could have Prime Minister, I don't know, take your pick, uh, Naftali Bennett, Gadi Iisenk, Yayu Golan, who, Yaya Lapid, whoever, whoever.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you could have them be Prime Minister a year from now and say whatever you know magic words are required.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: That might be easier for them than withdrawing the IDF from 53% of Gaza.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I just I think normalization is so much harder now than it was before.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and we you know we saw that in all sorts of ways last week.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell So all roads do not lead through Jerusalem to get to Washington.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell Seemingly not.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's a it's a shift.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely a shift.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think it shows the change uh in how Israel is is perceived.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, not just in the Arab world, arguably, but also in America.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh where normalization with Israel was the kind of baseline for all of these things, and now uh like you said, Israel has been has been cut out.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when you were talking about F-35s, I thought you were gonna say uh Trump promised uh MBS the same F-35 that he promised the Emiratis uh back uh back during the uh the Abraham Accords, which uh which obviously never never materialized.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I suspect the Saudis though are going to follow up on this more than the Emiratis did.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think MBS probably wants these more.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Probably.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and you know I'll just give you how how it was viewed on on this end.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, uh there was a lot of criticism of the government um in in, like you said, being cut out of this deal, which which should have had uh this third leg, the Israeli kind of normalization component.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: So there was some criticism of that.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but it did not deflate the uh the pro-Netanyahoo um media ecosystem that are still they're still promising normalization with Saudi uh in the coming year, uh maybe even before uh the next Israeli election.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's still kind of in the ether, although like you said, I agree with you.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think it's it's credible.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um in terms of the qualitative military edge, yeah, there was uh the usual concern alarm being reported from inside the Israeli defense establishment, um, which again, legitimate, but I'm old enough to have actually reported the same concerns uh back in what was it, 2020, uh when the Abraham Accords were signed.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yes.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm I'm not I'm not expert enough in in the actual defense tech issues to be able to say whether the Saudis potentially getting F-35s, you know, six years, eight years from now, um will impact Israel's QME.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: But the fact that it's just the fact that we know the IDF formally objected and submitted a paper to the Prime Minister objecting to the sale, and the fact that Trump publicly waved it off, you know, said, oh, well, the Israelis don't like this, but I don't really care.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do it anyway.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, even if it doesn't, even if it doesn't impact Israel's QME in real life, the perception in some ways is almost as important, right?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: The perception in the region that the United States is just willing to wave off Israeli concerns, that's important too, even if the actual technical aspects of this don't erode QME.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, QME, qualitative military edge.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the U.S.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: uh by law is committed to uphold Israel's qualitative military edge uh across the Middle East.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: So uh in the past, when big weapon systems have been uh provided to this or that Arab state, uh the U.S.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: has gone and uh compensated Israel, shall we say, uh for it in some way.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh unclear if that's gonna happen this time around.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, like we just said, I think the the politics and the focus in Washington has shifted, shall we say?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think I mean correct me if I'm wrong.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this would have been a bigger political issue on Capitol Hill uh a couple years ago.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it would have been much bigger a couple of years ago.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it would have been bigger on both sides of it, right?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: It would have been bigger because of the way the Saudis were viewed versus the way they're viewed now, and it would have been bigger because of the way Israel is viewed versus the way it's viewed now.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just impossible to argue that this is somehow trending in Israel's direction and that none of this matters.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it matters uh significantly.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um we'll see we'll see where it goes.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um Michael, we're this was always going to be an abridged uh recording session.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: So uh we could we could have gone for another 30 minutes uh talking about these and many other topics, but uh to be continued.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe maybe next time we'll invite you.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, we'll have to we'll have to think about it.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: If she's available.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um take care.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Happy happy Thanksgiving.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Thanksgiving too.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we'll talk soon.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, thanks, Nara.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_02: Shalom and welcome to Israel Policy Pod.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Chenny Reichman, the director of IPF Atideed and of Strategic Initiatives here at Israel Policy Forum.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so pleased to be joined today by Matan Sivek, who co-founded the Hostages and Missing Families Forum in DC with his wife Barbanyakov.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: They've done a tremendous amount of work to secure the release of the hostages from Hamas captivity.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Matan.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Sunny, for having me.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, why don't you start off with how you ended up in this role?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: You were a student at Columbia University, um, getting your bastards there, um, and then what happened?
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: So, actually, we were a group of students, um, Israeli students at Columbia University, and October 7 happened, and we were, of course, the worlded like all of us.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: We just wanted to be helpful.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: And the environment on campus was just like shifted in in a day.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and from a very casual, nice place that we all love to go to, it became an extreme, like an extremely toxic environment, let's put it this way, uh, where we felt very uncomfortable right away.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_03: And after, yeah, two days after October 7, we received uh a phone call from a friend from Israel who shared with us that there are 700 and something uh missing people that we don't know where they are.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_03: And he mentioned that they're establishing the Hostage and Missing Families Forum in Israel, um, still not knowing what exactly it's gonna look like or what they're gonna do.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: But he asked if we might be helpful and arrange something in the US because they might come to the US as well.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: And we were like, yeah, we want to be helpful.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and what we did is that um I was living back then um with my wife Barr here in DC, uh, and I was splitting my time between New York and DC.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: So we said, okay, we will arrange something in DC.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: Our friends will arrange something in New York, but we we thought it would be a very, very fast um sprint that in two weeks from now it will be over and we won't need to do anything.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_03: So this was the initial plan.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: And this is how it all started, and uh and here we are.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: Two years later.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_03: Two years later.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we're just uh we still have three um hostages to bring back home, but the fact that the living hostages are out is just um, you know, we we we have never dreamt that this day will come.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um like we we we it's really unbelievable um that it happened.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, so it was not a fest sprint, it was a very uh long mark.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: As the folks running the hostage forum in Washington, D.C., as opposed to the the New York one, you were interfacing a lot with uh the U.S.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: government.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: So you worked first with the Biden administration and then with the Trump administration.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: Can you reflect a little bit on that?
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe compare the two to some extent, um, give some insights on how things moved.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_03: I will share a little bit about our work in general, um so people can understand um, you know, what we what we focused on, and um and there was also a big difference between our work in New York and DC.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_03: So in general, we really wanted to make sure, or the main the main goal of our operation is to ensure that no one forgets about the hostages that cannot express their voice.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: They're stuck in dark tunnels and they're voiceless.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: And we were their voice.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_03: And the idea by establishing this operation was to provide the most effective platform for hostage families to advocate for their loved ones.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: And um, this is what we did, and it required really to include everyone.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_03: So we worked um top-down and bottom-up.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, when I say bottom-up, I mean uh a lot of grasswood work.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: So, for example, in New York, um, it was led by Dana and Shani and Omer.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, they they they really built an incredible community, a very big one, substantial, that's supported on a weekly basis, the hostage families, uh, in many different ways, by the way, not necessarily the rallies um in Central Park, but in many different ways.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_03: And from the grassroots work with different communities, um, it led us to work with a lot with the media to make sure that you know we're included in the in the news span and in the news cycle.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: And it's just it's very hard to compete with all the breaking news all the time.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, we had to work with the international community.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: So um so people understand that this issue is not related just to Israel, it encompasses 40 um countries, people from all around the world, uh, and they had to understand that they have some sort of responsibility.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: So we worked a lot with the UN and different embassies.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: We worked um closely with different think tanks that are shaping um policies and public opinions for them to educate them about what's happening uh in Gaza and what's happening to hostage families and hostages in general.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then it led us to work with the top tier, which is Congress and administration.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: Again, we mainly focus on educating um senior uh public officials, uh, ensuring that they have all the information that they need in order to uh first focus on this topic and understand that this is a pressing issue, and second, to understand what didn't work so far and what we can learn from it.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: And and and again, you know, the the hostage families or former hostages, they're not politicians, they're they're they're not they're not uh shaping any any any policy uh but the human or the but like humanizing them and and and seeing those faces outside of the poster changed everything for people.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_03: They became much more committed uh to this cause.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: So this is in general what we did with both administration with the same strategy.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um some people claimed that you know strategies shifted.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_03: We had the same strategy, we work with everybody, and we were, you know, from time to time we were criticized for doing that, for working with the entire spectrum, because we needed all hand on deck, and people had to understand it, and and it it bothered some people, but we had to to keep going.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll just note I'm now remembering at the at the DNC in Chicago there was controversy because hostage families were meeting with anti-Israel protesters, even, which is right.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um meaning obviously for the same purpose, which is reminding them about the hostages, because there was no discrimination.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: Just everybody who we can talk to about this needs to know and needs to be thinking about it.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then of course, people were mad right.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_03: People were mad that we met with a squad, for example.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, that hostage families uh met with a squad.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_03: I found it surprising because you know they have a very big audience that that needs to know better about what happened on October 7.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I felt it um at Columbia University that people are just like they're ignorant about this topic, they just don't know.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: And we we were well received by by by the by most figures.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so um, and if you're asking, I'm taking this to your question about working with both administrations, I think that it shows uh it really speaks volume about the agility of the families and their laser focus, um, purposeful like mission, they were, they knew what it what they want, they knew what they win, they they they they just focused on that.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: And people, it resonated with them.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_03: They understand that they don't want to, once you bring back their loved ones, they're gone.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, while this issue was politicized in Israel in in many different ways, and I understand, and I can understand why.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's just that here, this is our battle as well, to make sure that Republicans and Democrats can work together on releasing the hostages.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_03: And there is a big difference between the two.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that there are only maybe like one or two topics that they can agree upon these days.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's really hard to find those um shared goals that they can gather around.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I cannot even think of one at the moment except for the hostages, but but you know, we're in a very paralyzing uh like days.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_03: So um, yeah, but so we worked uh with both.
• 47:15
  unknown: Yeah.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: And while you didn't shift your strategy at all, was there anything that did evolve in how you were doing your work over the course of the years?
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: Not necessarily based on Trump or Biden, but maybe based on what's happening on the ground in Israel.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a big question.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um and of course the answer is yes.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_03: Um like from tactics perspective, we we changed many things.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um first, and I have to tell you that it was a huge shift in our operation, that the fact that hostages came back home.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_03: Hostages started advocating for their kind of like captivity, like colleagues uh or like like the people that they were with in captivity, you know?
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um and it was it was huge because you could you could hear firsthand for someone who experienced that.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_03: I also think that, you know, for for us or for me, it's important to underscore that the arena in Israel and arena in the US, there are different arenas.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um what happened in Israel could have been valuable for the operation and the efforts and the advocacy, but it it not necessarily, it wouldn't necessarily work here in the United States.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: And this is why we kept working with with everybody, um, we didn't ban anyone, and um, and I think that it was very, very, very important um uh for for this the this cause.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_03: And definitely when the Trump administration um stepped into office and into power, and you could um you could see uh the the the change within the dynamic between Israel and the United States.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um it it also changed a lot for us uh operationally in a way, um tactically, because they work differently, they work in a different way than the Biden administration.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_03: And here I would like to underscore two uh two main things that we noticed that are different between the two.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_03: So the first, um yeah, in the first year of this struggle, the Biden administration was extremely supportive of releasing the hostages and was extremely supportive of Israel as well, in my opinion.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_03: However, they decided strategically to focus on the American hostages as a tool or as a leverage to uh release all hostages.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_03: This was their strategy.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_03: So when they were meeting with hostage families, they met mostly with um the 13 American families.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_03: This was very different from the Trump administration.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, the Trump administration had a completely different approach that we supported, by the way.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um we tried to we tried to share with the Biden administration, and we kept saying that, that it will be important to incorporate all hostage families in their efforts.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um for some reason it it didn't work out, but uh I know that they they tried to do their best, and as you could see, the the the first deal um that was executed when Trump, but President Trump um um was elected, uh it was structured by the Biden administration and implemented by kind of like to be honest, by kind of like by both administrations.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um the change, the the change of government government was important for this push, but it was uh an amazing show of bipartisanship, um, you know, uh in January uh 2020, uh uh 2025.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um so um this is the first point that I wanted to underscore.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_03: The second that you learned with time is that the Trump administration they are very, very um result-oriented, they uh focus less on the process and they welcome ideas that could turn things upside down.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so you can think more creatively about how to solve different issues with emergency cases.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um sometimes it works better.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_03: So the Biden administration, when we were working with them, and and again, I'm I'm very appreciative of all their work, uh, because I I think that they've done uh amazing work and they and and they really did the best they they could.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_03: And they they all the time focused on the processes that will lead you to the outcome.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_03: And they had very organized processes that are extremely important for government um and um and best practices of government.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_03: But with this emergency case that people can die any moment, I think that uh it was also valuable to have different senior public officials who can, you know, kind of like bring a different perspective that is not necessarily uh the natural way of uh of thinking for government officials.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_03: This is the two the two points that I think that people uh it will be interesting for people to understand and that we noticed um throughout our work.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's sometimes hard to see the clear line between activism and how it leads to actual policy implementation.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think that the hostage forum was like a very obvious example of seeing the policies change and be implemented and move as such a direct um line to the activism you guys were doing.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_02: Can you speak a little more about that and what you think was most effective?
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because to me, I mean, I I I remember hearing Trump reference, right, uh reference in Tel Aviv people holding signs with his name on it, for example.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I I I've just seen throughout the war um Joe Biden and Donald Trump know that regardless of what they're hearing from different government officials in Israel, they know that the people are on their side and are pushing for this.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that made a huge difference.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_03: Definitely.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I will get to the to the signs uh like Trump signs in Tel Aviv, but first I wanted to emphasize one point uh that I think that is was was for us, it was crucial to convey throughout this work, um, especially by the way, with um the Republican administration.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_03: So there was this thought that we all had at the beginning that the hostages will be rescued, will be rescued by the IDF.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_03: In the beginning of the war.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_03: In the beginning of the war, and also later on, and I will explain, but when we started working, um working, when we started volunteering and and establishing the um this this entity, so we thought that what will happen is that the IDF will go to Gaza and will rescue the hostages, they will come back in two weeks, and that's it, like done deal.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like we didn't think of any uh other scenario.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um so when we realized that it's not going to happen, we kept hearing voices from many different directions that are that were supportive of this approach that IDF should go and rescue.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_03: And we tried along the way to explain or educate about this, that uh it's very risky for the soldiers to do that.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_03: We heard, we start hearing from former hostages that people cannot be rescued from the tunnels.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's just like unattainable, it's not something that they can do because they sleep next to uh mines, they sleep next to weapons, they they everything is explosive there.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and and Hamas terrorists they got the order that if IDF is approaching a tunnel, they should kill the hostages.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: So we were, to be honest, very concerned about that.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_02: And what and then we have the story of we also heard saw hostages accidentally being being killed by the IDF as well.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_03: Correct.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_03: So before that, before yeah, just before that, we had um a rescue of um actually the IDF rescued eight people um out of 255, like 251 who were kidnapped on October 7th, and four who were already there.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_03: So they rescued eight people.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh one of them is Noah Gamani, you know, we had Andre Kozlov, uh several of them.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_03: And in a month, I think, or two months later, we had the terrible, most horrifying incident of the murder of the uh beautiful Sikhs, as we call them.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh here's Carmel, Almog, Ordanino, Edenirus, and Alex.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_03: And it showed that it this is like trying to rescue hostages from tunnels, it's not a solution that we should pursue.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm telling you, it was a there was a big fight around it.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_03: People kept suggesting it because it's it's easier to suggest that.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, you send troops, you tell them go to rescue.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_03: If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't work.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_03: But we lost soldiers as well through those operations, like our non-smorat.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_03: So you we had to work diligently with the administration and and different stakeholders, also think tanks, um congress members, just to tell them that it's it's it's not going to happen.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_03: And we got a lot of pushback about that.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then people started saying that uh again, the hostage families um they hold uh toxic conversations uh with the senior officials because they're not supportive of uh rescue operations.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not about not being supportive of rescue operations, it's about being supportive of um of saving the lives of the people who are in the tunnels and the soldiers.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_03: So this was a huge, a huge fight.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and when that by the way, when the Trump administration uh took office, uh, we had to restart these conversations because they be because think about it, like totally different people.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_03: No one worked with the Biden administration from the time, like almost no one.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um like very few.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_03: They were also replaced.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_03: So we had to restart everything.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it was also a bit frustrating for the families.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_03: They were very, very tired.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't know what's happening.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_03: But thank God when Trump was elected, we could see um hostages coming back home.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_03: Through a deal.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_03: Through a negotiated deal.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_02: Through a negotiated deal.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_02: There's a little bit of there's a huge difference actually between the way your activism worked in America in general versus in Israel.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: Is there anything, any color you can paint to that?
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: Did you guys do any work in Israel too?
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_02: How did the how did it look when Israeli officials came to America?
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_02: What role did you play in any of that?
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_03: As I shared with you, we we work with everybody.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, it's important to say uh from the our strategy from the beginning, after actually it's not like from day one, but let's say after a month, we realized that salvation will come from the US and not from Israel.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_03: That this is the reality, and it was hard reality for me as an Israeli.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_03: But I knew that if the hostages will be released, it will be it will be initiated by the US.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_03: And and already in the after the first month we could we could say that.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_03: So we were extremely adamant about working here and focusing on what's happening here because uh we felt that again that the work in Israel was extremely important, but it was a very different work, and there were different People to do that.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_03: So we did not we didn't meddle in anything that is related to Israel.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_03: And also, by the way, with the government.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_03: We did work in collaboration with the embassy here, for example, that they were some sort of like a liaison or like the contact person for us.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_03: But, you know, hostage families, they joined the prime minister in his visits.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_03: We met with some ministers who visited here, like visited DC, but it was really not our focus, to be honest.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I will I will stop there.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: Can you just say a word about the moment when you found out the final living hostages were going to be returning home?
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think it happened in your kitchen, if I'm not mistaken.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_03: So actually, I would love to talk about this moment because it was so precious.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_03: I will tell you the entire story.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_03: So it all started after a huge frustration that we had in um in last August about a deal that was about to be reached and unfortunately collapsed eventually.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think that we all felt, you know, frustration is a very nice word to describe it, but but but we we didn't know what to do anymore.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_03: We were like, we, you know, we all stakeholders want it.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, different, even even we even Hamas by the media, like it was, like they mentioned that they want it.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we had no contact, of course, with Hamas, but the media um shared it.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and still it didn't work.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_03: Still it didn't work.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_03: So we were thinking of like what we should do.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_03: And uh we were approaching October 7, the second anniversary of October 7, and we thought that it would be valuable to do something that will resonate with people and that we can invite the stakeholders that we've been working on in the past two years.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_03: So we came up with the idea to have the Sukhaw of Hope, um a place where hostage families could host all the people they worked with and to thank them for their effort.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_03: At the end of these two days, uh Tsukkal of Hope event, we were actually practicing, uh we had a small uh side event uh to practice yoga for Carmel Gat, who was assassinated by Hamas because she was a yoga instructor.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_03: And we all set our intention for the release of the hostages.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_03: And it was really unique because all families practiced and they were part of it.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_03: They decided that they will they will join, they will join the class.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and we talked about releasing the hostages, and exactly at 6 p.m., right after the class ended, we received a numerous, like really like it was unbelievable.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_03: We received so many messages and and calls about the fact that a deal is going to be reached uh very soon.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_03: They were so happy, all of them.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_03: I can't uh, you know, we have photos uh that we can show from from those moments that they when they discovered the news, but they were extremely just like hopeful and and they could smile.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_03: You could see Arbelia Hood, who was in solitary for uh, you know, I don't know, endless, endless time.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's just like she she was in solitary for like hundreds of days, uh, smiling happy.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um we it was also a bit challenging because some of the families uh their loved ones are deceased, and they knew that they might not um you know get them uh first.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_03: Or one of them is Nadav Rodaiev, uh, who was with us, and his father uh was held in Gaza.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_03: And and we were at my house, and what happened next is that um Secretary Lutnick and his wife Alison um they entered the house.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_03: They wanted to celebrate with hostage families, and they brought two champagnes with them.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and we actually celebrated with them, and it was beautiful.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_03: And yet one of the former hostages asked Secretary Lutnick if we can speak with the president to thank him for reaching a deal.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_03: And actually, Secretary Lutnick just told President Trump and he was on the line uh after three seconds, maybe.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_03: So it was also really interesting to see the dynamic that you know they're such close friends, he can reach out to him like very quickly.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you don't need to go through all these um, you know, mediators.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and President Trump, when when when he answered, he again was very kind to the families and they all thanked him.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_03: And this is the video where all outlets kind of like uh picked up because this was the first time when the world heard that the hostages will be out on Monday, not Saturday, not Sunday, but Monday.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_03: And this is why it was like important news uh for the world, and our kitchen became a little bit famous uh without knowing that this is like our kitchen, but actually it's a great example, and I have to tell you, about or a great reflection.
• 1:05:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great reflection of our operation because we're always there, and by design, you cannot see us.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_03: And it was so important that it will remain this way that hostage families will will be front and center, and the operation around them is around them and not front and center, and you and you don't need to know about us.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um but uh so I think that uh for me and and Barr, my wife, I think that uh it was such an incredible closure.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_02: Do you want to take a minute to talk about what you're doing with your life now?
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thank you for asking.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and and if if you see it as a continuation of the work you've already been doing in some way, definitely.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think that everyone that dealt with the hostage case, um, you know, that this was their life in a way, uh, is dealing with the question, now what?
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_03: You wake up in the morning and you're like, okay.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_03: Also, by the way, former hostages, hostage families, they all ask, now what?
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_03: They need to rebuild their life.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and they're doing it, they're doing it, but it will take them time, and people need to understand that the rehabilitation process for them is a very long one.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_03: What they have been through, and we only witness what they've been through through their interviews and what they tell.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_03: But there are many things that they don't tell.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_03: For me, it was important to keep accompanying them and be part of their life in many ways and say, okay, we were your platform for advocacy, but now we need to create a platform for rehabilitation as well, um, that will walk this path of life with you and will make sure that, you know, we might abandon you on October 7, but but we but we're here for you now that you're back, and also for the families who who did not receive their loved ones, and the families who received their loved ones in coffins.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, and I think that they all need help, and and people need to remember that it's not only the immediate family.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_03: We're talking about the extended family of every single family that really lost everything.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_03: Some of them they were displaced, okay?
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_03: They lost their homes, they lost their communities, some of them they lost their jobs because they just didn't, they could not work.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_03: Some of them they need, or most of them, they need to repurpose their life.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I was uh I'm very grateful that I will uh I will be continuing my professional journey uh with Israel.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Israel is the largest humanitarian organization that in Israel, um, and also that was founded in Israel.
• 1:08:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that the main idea of Israel at the beginning was to bring Israeli technologies to communities that went through different disasters and really helped them to recover from first response to the rehabilitation process.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_03: So it could be they could be there for years uh in Sudan, they're there for 12 years already.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_03: So they wanted to focus on anywhere else beside the Middle East, but after October 7 and operating in 65 countries, they decided that it's too close to home and they need to operate in Israel.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_03: And now they had really a major role in rehabilitation of displaced communities in Israel.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm very grateful about the fact that they're now working on the rehabilitation of former hostages and hostage families together with an initiative that they established uh with former colleagues of mine from the hostage families forum uh um that is called 255 uh for the 255 hostages uh held in Gaza, who were held in Gaza.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_03: And this will be the platform that will accompany families throughout their life.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and I'm hopeful that people will still be supportive, that um they will still ask for their well-being.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_03: And the idea is really to provide them with all services that they need, from like professional to psychological, uh, mental health support, um group retreats.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so all these this is 255.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_03: So one of the things that I'm gonna do is to continue my work with hostage families that I'm very grateful about.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_03: But in general, uh I'm I'm really looking forward uh for Israel to um to expand and get even uh bigger to become one of the uh leading humanitarian organizations that we could all count on, that will be a trustworthy one.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that in in the atmosphere, the environment that we live in, and the discourse that we live in around the humanitarian um sector, we notice that that we're missing those kind of organizations.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that Israel will be an extremely relevant one.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_03: And this is uh why I decided to join um to give this good work.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Matan.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I will name that um amidst this war, it's been really hard for American Jews, for Jews in general, all of us who are supportive of Israel, to find ways to be helpful in the rehabilitation of the Gaza Strip when there is this lack of trust between our community and the humanitarian space.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_02: And Israel aid has been one of the few places that is reliable that we can count on to also work on reconstruction in Gaza that um we know is you know sidelining Hamas and and working with good actors.
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that's also been good to hear.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm really happy to see that you're continuing your mission.
• 1:11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for joining us.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_03: And uh I really appreciate you providing me this space um to talk about it.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm looking forward to you know further collaborations, and it's really great to speak with you.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, thanks again to Michael Koplow, Makan Civic, and Shane Reichmann for their generous time and insights.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Also, a special thanks to our producer, Jacob Gilman, our editor, Tracy Levy, and our assistant producer Edin Jesselson, as always, and to all of you who support Israel Policy Forum's work.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_00: 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.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, thank you for listening and a happy and tasty Thanksgiving holiday for all those celebrating.