Latest / In These Times with Rabbi Ammi Hirsch / Yaakov Katz

Transcript

Yaakov Katz · In These Times with Rabbi Ammi Hirsch

0:01
I am Rabbi Ami Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, and
0:05
you're listening to In These Times.
0:12
Today's podcast was recorded several weeks ago, live with Yako Katz, former
0:18
editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post, a senior fellow at the Jewish People's
0:23
Policy Institute, and author of this new fantastic book while Israel Slept, that
0:30
he wrote with his colleague Amir Boho.
0:33
And since there have not been commissions of investigation yet
0:37
established to investigate and analyze what went wrong on October 7th, this
0:43
book is about the closest we have come so far to understanding the.
0:49
Collapses, both operational as well as strategic that
0:53
occurred on October 7th Yako.
0:56
Congratulations on this important book and welcome back to Steven Wise and to
1:01
in these times.
1:03
Thank you very much, rabbi.
1:04
It's a real pleasure to be with you and to be with everybody here this morning.
1:08
And particularly, I think I said this to you when we last saw each other in Israel
1:12
just a few months ago, but the sand that you have particularly taken on Israel
1:17
and since October 7th and your leadership of, uh, strong, unwavering commitment
1:25
to the security and safety of Israel has been very inspiring for definitely
1:30
American Jews, but I think also Israeli Jews who have watched this sermons that
1:34
you've given have made their rounds.
1:36
Not once, not twice.
1:37
I've gotten them on my WhatsApp feed and seen them across social
1:41
media, so it's just as much a pleasure to be here with you.
1:45
Wow, thank you.
1:46
That that means a lot to me.
1:48
See, he's really plugged in
1:53
talking about sermons.
1:54
You, you ain't heard nothing yet.
1:56
We're in the middle of a high Holy Day season.
1:59
Uh, it's a great book and I want to talk to you, of course, uh, about the book.
2:03
Um, first though, there was, uh, some excitement last week at your
2:07
appearance at the Stryker Center.
2:10
For those of you who hadn't heard the, uh, event was interrupted, I
2:14
think several times or throughout from professional protesters.
2:21
How did that make you feel and, and did it say anything about the American scene
2:25
and where we're at at this point in time?
2:28
What was funny was, uh, my mother lives here on the Upper West Side for
2:32
like the last almost 15 years, and I took an Uber down with her across
2:37
town to go to the Stryker Center.
2:39
We show up there and they had told me that I should come into
2:42
the, uh, entrance on fifth Avenue.
2:45
Uh, so the Uber pulls up on Fifth Avenue and there's barricades with policemen
2:49
all across in the front of the building.
2:51
And I said, mom, do you know, is there a parade here today that you
2:54
know, I didn't, I didn't know about?
2:56
And then we get outta the Uber and, and some policemen sees me
3:00
and says, you're the speaker.
3:02
So I said, what this has to do with me?
3:03
I, it never would've crossed my mind that something like
3:06
this would be for this event.
3:08
I don't think it had anything to do with me in particular.
3:10
I don't think that it had Brett Stevens, who then I was
3:12
in conversation with on stage.
3:14
He was my first editor back at the Jerusalem Post and
3:16
now almost 25 years ago.
3:19
But Brett was very taken in.
3:20
He felt like it was a compliment that they're coming to protest.
3:23
The two of us, I think these are people who they see anything that has to do with
3:26
an Israeli journalist, a pro-Israel known, prominent New York Times columnist and at
3:32
a synagogue and with the title of a book.
3:35
And they just come and they sit there no matter what.
3:37
I said, it doesn't make a difference every few minutes.
3:40
Someone popped up from some row and just starts yelling, genocide.
3:44
And you know, Israel's murdering people and it was very disturbing.
3:48
It happened about seven times.
3:50
It was uncomfortable.
3:52
You definitely lose your train of thought.
3:53
That I can tell you for sure.
3:55
I wanna get to the book
3:56
itself again.
3:58
You all should read the book and all of you, many thousands who
4:01
are listening to the podcast, you should pick up the book as well.
4:05
It's very thoroughly researched.
4:07
How long did it take you and your colleague to research the book
4:11
and how and how did you do it?
4:13
Explain to us a little bit of the process.
4:14
You know, so Amir and I wrote a book, this is my fourth book now,
4:19
two books ago we wrote a book together called Weapon Wizards.
4:23
That was the title, how Israel created some of the most sophisticated
4:25
military technology and really changed the modern battlefield.
4:29
You're all familiar with Iron Dome?
4:31
Um, our satellites, we just launched a new satellite up into space last week.
4:37
Our missile, defense, architecture, cyber security, and defense, our
4:40
tank, the, which is one of the most efficient and protected and adaptable
4:45
tank in the world, and so much more.
4:48
And then we thought about a sequel to that book, and I came up with this idea,
4:55
this is already going back over three years ago, that there's a story to be
4:58
told about how Israel had created a really advanced and sophisticated, very
5:04
unique precision strike capability.
5:08
I take you back in time to, there was one operation in 2019 when Israel began
5:14
to do this thing where it would divide, it wasn't targeting Hamas, it was just
5:19
hurting Islamic Jihad, which is another one of those terrorist factions in Gaza.
5:22
And they literally put a missile through a window onto a bed
5:25
and killed this guy, Baja Abta.
5:27
And the kids were in the room next door.
5:30
And I don't wanna say that nothing happens to him 'cause they were
5:31
probably very traumatized, but nothing happens to them physically.
5:35
And Israel had really developed a very unique strike capability because
5:38
it was trying to be as accurate as possible, minimizing collateral
5:41
damage, minimizing civilian casualties, trying to do things in a way that
5:45
no other military in the world does.
5:47
And I, I went really deep into this story 'cause I thought it was fascinating.
5:50
And what I ended up discovering was how Israel had been on this journey
5:54
from dropping one ton bombs to kill a single guy and having a lot of
5:58
extra people killed to being able to develop these small little bombs that
6:01
can just kill the guy on the bed.
6:03
So you saw tactics, technology, intelligence, and ethics.
6:08
So I pitched this book to our publisher, St. Martin's Press,
6:10
and with some reluctance they agreed and we signed a deal.
6:15
That was in May, June, 2023, and we start working on the book.
6:22
And then October 7th happens, and as, uh, my editor, who I love dearly, who
6:29
is a very nice person and believes.
6:32
In our work and my work, as she said to me about a month into the war, unless
6:36
you call turning Gaza into a crater, a precision strike, it's time to pivot.
6:43
I, I, I've been blessed with some self-awareness, so I knew that we,
6:48
uh, we needed to pivot already and, um, we pivoted to this to try to tell
6:52
the story of how, how did this happen?
6:55
Because I think, like everybody, definitely, we two journalists
6:59
who have been covering the Israeli story and the defense story, I,
7:01
I, before being the editor of the newspaper, I served for about 10
7:04
years as the military correspondent.
7:06
I've spent time in Gaza, I've spent time in Lebanon.
7:09
I've been embedded with the IDF, I've covered all the wars from
7:12
2005 up to, you know, 2015 almost.
7:16
I was surprised.
7:17
I'd been in briefings with the chief of staff, with the head of
7:21
military intelligence in the months leading up to October 7th and.
7:25
There was nothing and we didn't understand how this was possible.
7:28
I think many of us still don't understand how this was possible.
7:30
So we decided this was gonna be the book, and it took us about a year, I
7:33
would say, just of meeting hundreds of different people, literally hundreds.
7:37
And then the writing took about another six to eight months or so.
7:41
And was everybody willing to talk to you?
7:43
Anybody who you wanted to talk with?
7:46
I, I, I don't think there was anyone who didn't wanna talk to
7:49
us who said no, but some people were more difficult than others.
7:52
We were able to get amazing access to all the people who were really involved.
7:57
And what we offered them was something very simple.
8:00
We wanted to tell the story in its entirety.
8:03
We want to give you the opportunity to explain what happened and what transpired.
8:06
Definitely.
8:07
For example, in one of the first chapters is what happened between
8:09
October 6th and October 7th?
8:11
What happened on that fateful night?
8:13
And so much did happen.
8:15
So we offered Hertz Vy, who was the chief of staff who, who named Barr, who was the
8:18
head of the Shin bet, Jerome Finkelman, who was the head of the Southern Command.
8:21
And so many more of the officers.
8:23
And the Defense Minister and the Prime Minister and everyone else, just tell
8:26
it to us and we will present it as is to tell you that I know everything.
8:31
No, to tell you that we had access to everything also.
8:33
No.
8:34
That's why I strongly believe we need a state commission of inquiry
8:37
to really understand everything, because only a state commission can
8:41
really get to every final detail.
8:44
But I think that what we've been able to do is really try to create some
8:49
sort of explanation to the best that we could of, of how this happened.
8:54
It kind of
8:54
reads like a, almost like a preliminary commission of investigation or at least
9:00
sets some of the background to it.
9:02
And in reading the book page after page of what you discovered and lay out, it's
9:07
not only the information you gathered by talking to hundreds of people,
9:11
it's the ability to lay it out in a cogent way so that people understand
9:16
just, just fantastic what you did.
9:18
But it kind of highlights how.
9:22
Lacking how missing is an official overarching commission of investigation.
9:28
Your book doesn't replace the need for a commission of investigation.
9:32
Why do you think that hasn't happened yet?
9:36
Oh, def. First of all, it definitely doesn't replace as
9:37
much as I'd like to think that the book is very good, it definitely
9:40
doesn't replace, and we need one.
9:42
I mean, but why?
9:45
Very simple reason.
9:46
Bebe, he refuses.
9:48
He won't do it.
9:49
Benjamin Atan, the prime Minister because two reasons.
9:53
One, he knows what they'll find.
9:55
He knows what some of those findings will include, and he knows that he
9:59
is responsible, culpable will be held accountable and he doesn't want it.
10:03
Number two is that just historically, so people ask me,
10:06
how do I know he won't do it?
10:07
Maybe he'll do it once the war is open.
10:09
Look, I can only make assessments based on knowledge and what I know is that
10:14
he is, I think, the only prime minister in Israel's history and the longest
10:18
running prime minister he is now.
10:20
About 18 years been Israel's Prime Minister.
10:22
He has never established a single commission of inquiry.
10:26
All the other prime ministers have, he hasn't.
10:28
There's a reason why, I mean, take totally off topic for a moment.
10:32
Take the Mayron disaster in lag Bauer in 2021.
10:37
2022.
10:37
Ju just a sentence or two.
10:39
Describe it for people who like
10:40
Bauer.
10:41
The, the bonfire holiday of about 33 days after Passover ends.
10:46
Maro is where the grave of Shimo bar, uh, ancient sage, and that's
10:53
the traditional pilgrimage site.
10:56
Tens of thousands of people flock to their, to attend the bonfire celebration.
11:00
Uh, there was a stampede, 45 people were killed.
11:03
The greatest civilian disaster in Israeli history.
11:06
And nothing happened.
11:09
Nothing happened.
11:10
The guy who was the minister of police became the speaker of the Knesset.
11:14
The police chief remained in his job.
11:17
No one was held accountable.
11:18
The Prime Minister.
11:20
State the permit.
11:20
I mean, now I don't think that we, Israel needs to become, I dunno,
11:23
Korea or Japan where there's a train crash, two people are killed,
11:27
and the whole government resigns.
11:28
Right?
11:28
I mean, I'm exaggerating, but you know, it's a, it's a culture of
11:31
accountability that is extreme.
11:33
But something, I mean, look at, look at, look at where we are now.
11:36
Two years almost into this war, 900 soldiers killed so many civilians who were
11:43
murdered, massacred on October 7th, 48.
11:46
Hostages remain in Hamas captivity, the country, once
11:49
again back in a divisive state.
11:53
And by the way, it's, I mean, like, it's almost a miracle.
11:55
If you think about, you know, from political perspective, how has
11:58
this government managed to survive?
12:00
I think there's an explanation because of everything they have
12:04
coalesced and united around survival.
12:07
So they, they, they kept going, but I mean, in what world do we live in
12:12
that no one has taken responsibility?
12:15
Now some of the security officials have, they've all been replaced by now.
12:19
Hertz Vy has been removed.
12:21
Ronne Barr has been removed.
12:23
Yoav Gallant has been removed, although somehow he's become like a darling
12:26
of the opposition of Netanyahu.
12:28
And I, I happen to like Yoav and I think he's a good guy.
12:32
But hey man, you were the defense minister on October 7th, right?
12:35
I mean, you failed miserably, right?
12:38
So I mean, like, you know, with all due respect in my book, not
12:41
in the book and, and the way I view life, we need accountability.
12:45
And, and right now we are sorely missing it.
12:49
And by the way, sorry, sorry to interrupt.
12:50
Yeah.
12:51
Ell the Jewish month, we are currently in, as we're, as we're talking ahead
12:56
of the high Holy Days, Rosh Kippur.
12:59
This is the month of accountability of hash nefe, right?
13:04
As, as we call it,
13:07
not for politicians,
13:08
no, no.
13:11
For us, but not, not for them.
13:13
Uh, I want to get to, uh, the failures.
13:16
Presumably there will be at some point commissioned of investigation,
13:19
although the longer you wait, the more the evidence gets stale.
13:23
People forget people pass away and it's just, uh, an offense against
13:29
the reality and against history.
13:32
But presumably, uh, at some point much of this will come out.
13:36
But just on the broadest perspective, how could it be that this country with such
13:43
advanced technology and this military, which you wrote a book about that is
13:48
able to locate somebody in their bedroom and kill him and nobody else, with all
13:55
of this sophisticated intelligence,
13:59
how is it possible that the military and the country were taken completely
14:06
by surprise by, uh, terrorist outfit?
14:10
A mile away.
14:11
Yeah.
14:11
In Gaza, it's just seems inconceivable.
14:13
Which by the way, led to some Israelis still today convinced that there
14:18
was some kind of mole or some spy in the defense forces that prevented
14:25
the discovery of what was going on.
14:28
On the other side.
14:29
If you can answer that question, how is it possible, which is essentially what
14:32
your book is about, and two, specifically, you talked earlier about what was going
14:38
on on the evening of October 6th, so maybe you can relate to that as well.
14:43
Can I make the question even tougher?
14:45
Because let's also look at, let's contrast what Gaza is or what happened,
14:54
what's been happening in this war with the amazing, brilliant success that
14:57
Israel has had with Hezbollah Lebanon?
15:00
The amazing pager attack.
15:02
Look at what happened in the 12 day war with Iran.
15:06
Israel taking out the entire Iranian scientific nuclear leadership, the entire
15:11
military leadership, successful operations against the air defense systems and more.
15:17
So you see that, and then you see what happened on October 7th.
15:20
You say, how is this the same Israel?
15:22
And that does breed some of those conspiracy theories
15:26
that I often hear from people.
15:29
Do.
15:29
Do you give credence to that at all?
15:31
No.
15:31
That there
15:32
was some kind of conspiracy?
15:33
No, no.
15:34
No.
15:34
Again, could be.
15:35
I don't, but I, I don't see any evidence of that.
15:37
I don't think it happened.
15:39
I think something much simpler, and this is why it's so difficult, you know,
15:42
when things are, it's like you're the rabbi here on this, on, on the podium.
15:47
Faith is very complicated as well.
15:49
Right.
15:50
And because it's an enigma and it's so vague, it can also breed
15:54
so many different ways of thinking.
15:57
I think here because of the mystery.
15:59
People search for something tangible to hang onto.
16:04
And that tangible thing is there was a mole, there was a spy.
16:08
Hamas had infiltrated, something had happened because that's the best way
16:12
to explain away something that is so incredibly difficult to comprehend.
16:17
And it really is.
16:19
I mean, Israel is the country that you can't accuse it, of not being vigilant
16:24
and aware of the threats against it.
16:26
It's been embroiled in conflict for so long.
16:30
I think Gaza was unique in the way it was looked at for a number of reasons.
16:36
And by the way, I've come to think about this, and I don't use this term
16:41
in the book, but I've come to think about that we believed in a fairytale.
16:44
We believed that a genocidal terrorist group could live alongside us and we
16:50
could contain it, we could deter it.
16:53
We could literally buy it off or pay it off.
16:57
And that's what we did.
16:59
I, I'd like to think of it this way.
17:01
If I told all of you today here that we're gonna end the war tomorrow and
17:05
we're gonna ask our friends in Doha to send $30 million of cash every
17:11
month to Hamas to buy quiet, you would think I am crazy, but I've lost it.
17:16
Right?
17:17
But that's what we did for five years.
17:20
So, so the question really comes down to how did we even think that
17:24
something like that makes sense.
17:26
I joke, but you know, Netanyahu apparently didn't watch the Godfather.
17:31
'cause rule number one is you don't pay them.
17:33
Right?
17:34
I mean, but, but, but that came from something, and I
17:36
think there's something deeper.
17:39
I think that Israelis, we look at ourselves as part of the western world.
17:46
We are an advanced society.
17:47
We're a progressive society.
17:48
We're a democracy.
17:50
Our values are aligned with other liberal democracies in the world.
17:53
Some people think we're changing, and that's very possible.
17:55
We think sometimes America's changing as well, so there's what to talk about.
17:59
But our trade is with the European Union, our greatest trade partner.
18:04
Lots of trade with the United States.
18:06
We consume American media, movies, television shows, literature.
18:11
We don't read the Chinese books.
18:13
We don't watch Bollywood, Indian film.
18:16
We are part of the West.
18:17
We're a member of the OECD.
18:19
We are an advanced developed country.
18:21
So if you ask Israelis, are you western or are you eastern?
18:24
Of course we're part of the western world.
18:26
There's no question about that.
18:27
We thought we were Luxembourg, but we forgot that our neighbors are
18:31
not Belgium, France and Germany, they are Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran.
18:38
Off on the horizon.
18:40
And as people who are westerners, we want to live at our very basic
18:46
core, a quiet, peaceful, good life.
18:49
And life in Israel has been very good.
18:51
The economy has grown over the last 15, 20 years in remarkable ways.
18:56
Our high tech industries booming.
18:58
I mean, even during the war, look at some of the recent exits that have
19:01
been announced in, in 25, $30 billion.
19:05
The stock market today is at record High Israel.
19:07
The stock market is record high.
19:08
I mean like in all, despite the war.
19:10
So the, the shekel remains strong.
19:12
I mean, there's, there, there's so many different elements.
19:14
This, but all of this was, was in the lead up in these years, and a lot of
19:19
it under Netanyahu has to be said.
19:21
Abraham Accords reached under Netanyahu in 2020, opening us up to
19:26
normalization with the rest, with large parts of the, of the Arab world,
19:30
that until then were closed off to us.
19:32
For that reason.
19:33
I spend a lot of time in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, 500,000 Israelis.
19:37
Went to Dubai in the first year after the Abraham Accords were announced.
19:42
That's like 5% of our country.
19:44
I mean it, it's remarkable.
19:46
So I think that that that's at the foundation and that leads you to
19:50
believe that if I can delay this confrontation that I know will
19:56
happen and is going to happen because it's happening every two years.
19:59
We're fighting.
20:00
We pull outta Gaza in 2005, 2006 already.
20:03
They kidnapped Gilat Shali.
20:04
We go in in an operation called Summer Rains 2008 nine.
20:08
Operation Cast LED 2012, pillar of Defense 2014 Operation Protective Edge.
20:13
It's a terrible cycle.
20:14
It's like a game of whack-a-mole.
20:16
But we say to ourselves, we have to find a way to delay this even more.
20:19
Or this is just reality.
20:22
So containment comes, and the containment policies built, I think on three legs.
20:28
Leg number one is the technology.
20:34
They develop missiles.
20:35
We create Iron Dome, we swat them out of the sky, we take away the missile.
20:38
It's no longer a strategic threat to us.
20:41
So basically they can fire missiles at us, but we don't really have to respond
20:43
'cause we got Iron Dome, we're okay.
20:44
We just keep on living.
20:47
They come in in 2014, they dig tunnels, they cross in, they kill Israeli soldiers.
20:51
So what do we do?
20:52
We dig an underground wall and we cut off the tunnels.
20:55
We spend billions of dollars.
20:56
We create teams of engineers, sonar, seismic geologists.
21:01
They can detect if a tunnel's being dug, where it's being dug,
21:04
and what tool is being dug with.
21:06
So sophisticated, remarkable.
21:09
How many tunnels were used on October 7th to infiltrate Israel?
21:13
Zero.
21:14
They all crossed above ground.
21:15
They went old tech, old school.
21:18
That was leg one created a false sense of security.
21:22
Leg two was that we had bigger issues to deal with.
21:28
We had Iran, we had Hezbollah.
21:31
I was in all those briefings over the years.
21:33
I'm sure you've heard a lot about it.
21:34
You read about it in the media of what Hezbollah arsenal could do to us.
21:38
150,000 rockets and missiles could devastate the state of Israel, unlike
21:42
anything we've ever seen in the past.
21:43
So is when, when you're the leadership, you have to prioritize Iran,
21:47
number one, Hezbollah number two, if not close to being number one.
21:51
Hamas is down there on the totem pole one day.
21:53
You know, if we have to deal with it, it's contained.
21:55
We got the technology, we got good intelligence, and we can whack
22:00
him once in a while we'll be okay.
22:02
And then there was number three, which is a little more controversial,
22:06
I think that Netanyahu saw in Hamas something of an asset.
22:10
Now don't, don't misunderstand me.
22:12
I don't think he wanted this, God forbid, I don't think he wanted to see
22:16
Hamas be able to attack us in this way.
22:19
But the idea of the Palestinian people being divided for him
22:24
was an opportunity to further.
22:27
Torpedo or prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,
22:33
which I think in his core being is one of his motivations and his ideologies.
22:38
And therefore the separation of, and by the way, basal sm rich can always count
22:44
on the far right to say it straight.
22:47
Uh, Al Muer said this at one point a couple years ago, the Hamas is an asset.
22:50
He called it a an asset because of exactly this.
22:54
'cause when Obama would come to Bibe and say, listen, you gotta
22:57
establish a Palestinian state, make concessions, confidence building
22:59
measures, whatever whatcha talking about, they don't even get along right.
23:03
The Palestinian authority can't even enter Gaza.
23:07
So what kind of Palestinians did are we even talking about?
23:09
And so I think that therefore the Hamas was there.
23:11
I mean, think, think about this Rabbi.
23:14
We were allowing money into Gaza by the Qatari, but at our request that 30
23:21
million every month, and at the same time we're lopping here in the United States.
23:26
For what becomes known as the Taylor Force Act legislation that
23:30
passes in both houses of Congress that deducts from American Aid.
23:36
The amount of money that the Palestinian authority pays to terrorists who are in
23:40
prison, which is a terrible abomination.
23:42
They should not be paying terrorists who are in Israeli prisons
23:46
for having committed terrorist attacks against Israelis and Jews.
23:50
However, they're not actively fighting us, so we're paying those who are
23:55
actively fighting us and taking away money from those who are not fighting us.
24:00
That tells the story in of itself.
24:03
So
24:04
you talked about the political level, and maybe this was
24:08
the case in the IDF as well.
24:10
You talk about not only strategic mistakes, but tactical
24:15
mistakes on the ground as well.
24:16
Maybe that they were informed by a certain concept, what you call co
24:20
concept, you know, the strategic flaws.
24:25
In observing reality.
24:27
You know, I, I keep on thinking that even with all of the lack of
24:34
understanding what was going on on the other side, still had there been, you
24:40
know, 10 helicopters in the sky, 10 fighter jets, 25 tanks, October 7th
24:45
wouldn't have happened even despite everything, despite all of these flaws.
24:50
So the weakness was pervasive in the IDF as well.
24:56
Yeah.
24:56
So talk to us about why that was the case and what was happening on October 6th.
25:03
This paradigm or this co conception, which starts at the top and
25:07
trickles down and also comes from the bottom up, it was accepted.
25:12
I, I, I use we, because we are all responsible, everyone in the military.
25:21
In the political establishment, right?
25:22
It was, it was mostly Netanyahu, but there was Bennett and Lapid
25:25
for about 18 months in between, and they held by the same policies.
25:29
They did the same things, right?
25:31
Bennett took great pride in allowing in Palestinian workers from Gaza into
25:36
Israel, as again, one of those ideas of we create economic prosperity and
25:41
assets that they have to lose and that will give us leverage and we can
25:45
deter, and they want to build up Gaza.
25:47
So he did the same things as Bebe.
25:49
At the end of the day in the military, there was a belief in the
25:55
same way that Hamas was deterred, they were missing the signs.
26:00
I think that there's a great saying by Donald Rumsfeld, something along the lines
26:05
of, it wasn't for lack of information, it was that we lacked imagination.
26:10
If you go to October 6th.
26:13
The alarm bells were ringing in Israeli military intelligence headquarters
26:18
at the Shin Bet headquarters.
26:20
There were a number of clear indicators that something was happening.
26:25
There always are.
26:26
In re retrospect,
26:26
there always are.
26:27
Exactly.
26:28
So that's exactly the dilemma.
26:31
So there was one was, for example, cards, about a hundred Israeli
26:36
sim cards suddenly go live on the network are detected inside Gaza.
26:40
So there aren't a hundred Israelis in Gaza, but there are Palestinians
26:43
who are putting now Israeli sim cards into their phones.
26:47
Are they planning an invasion?
26:48
We don't know Israel.
26:51
The intelligence guys look back and see that a year prior, they
26:54
had tested about 30 of them around the same time, same day, almost.
26:58
So maybe this is the annual test.
27:01
During the night, they see the uncover rocket launchers, underground rocket
27:04
launchers, maybe preparing to fire, but then they intercept a phone call between
27:10
an Islamic Jihad guy and a Kamas guy.
27:12
The Islamic Jihad guy says, are you guys doing something?
27:14
'cause we're seeing things also that are happening.
27:17
Kama says, no, it's a drill.
27:18
So is it a drill or is it not a drill?
27:20
We see them preparing underground bunkers for their top commanders, Moham
27:24
death, the elusive military commander who is eventually killed in the war.
27:29
They're preparing the bunker for him and his family.
27:32
Why would they need to prepare the bunker if they're not preparing
27:34
to descend into the bunker?
27:37
So there's so many different indicators, and now when after it all happens,
27:42
you look back, you see that there was much more intelligence that was
27:46
even coming from the tragic tits, the female spotters, those surveillance
27:52
soldiers, who, in my view, paid the ultimate price at a base called Als
27:58
along the border, 15 of them murdered.
28:01
Six of them taken in tag Gaza, one of them rescued early on, but five remained
28:06
there in captivity for way too long.
28:09
I can only imagine what they went through eventually released
28:12
in January of this year.
28:15
So they had written reports saying, we're seeing things in
28:19
our area that are different than what's usually going on here.
28:23
More senior commanders coming and watching drills that they don't usually do.
28:27
They were normalizing being alongside the border where they're not supposed to be.
28:33
So all of that is there.
28:34
And the IDF all throughout the night, and this surprised me, I was not
28:38
aware just how much they were talking about this all throughout the night.
28:43
The chief of staff with the head of the Southerner command, with the head of
28:46
the operations director, the head of the Gaza division, the Shin BET director
28:51
goes from his home back to headquarters at about three four in the morning
28:55
because he feels something is off.
28:57
He takes one of his elite teams of commandos and dispatches them to the Gaza
29:01
border, although just a handful of people, nothing that could stop what was coming.
29:06
But in other words, there were signs.
29:09
They were caught on the issue of is this a drill or is it an attack?
29:13
And if it is an attack, what kind, what's the scope?
29:16
What's the scale?
29:18
They thought at the worst penetration at two points in the end.
29:21
Do you know how many places they penetrated the border?
29:24
Close to 70 points of entry along the border that day?
29:27
It, it was, it was just, like I said, lack of imagination and understanding.
29:34
And I think Rabbi, you're a hundred percent right, and this is, as we
29:37
were writing this and rereading and editing, you wanna bang your
29:40
head against the wall at some point because I mean, it's very easy to say
29:43
What if we could've, we should've.
29:45
But you could've just taken two tanks, move them up to the border,
29:48
turn down the floodlights and say, Hey guys, we know what you're doing.
29:52
We're here.
29:52
Don't you dare.
29:53
Now, would there still potentially have been something maybe, but smaller?
29:56
You could have taken Apache helicopters.
29:58
They're based at the Ramon Air Force base.
30:00
It's about a 10 minute flight from Gaza.
30:02
You just send them to the border.
30:04
Choppers flying, making noise.
30:08
They probably wouldn't have done anything.
30:10
I mean, and then there's the whole other issue, which is also
30:13
astounding when you think about it.
30:15
You had eventually about 3000 people who invaded Israel that day.
30:19
About half of them were looters.
30:21
Pillers people who saw this opportunity, who came into
30:24
steal to kill, to rape as well.
30:28
But that core of the, of the elite Hamas commanders, definitely
30:33
who were in the know were in the beginning, just a few dozen.
30:36
But when the green light was given, it grew to hundreds.
30:39
Not one could call up an Israeli agent like we are this
30:44
great intelligence agency.
30:46
We didn't have one human informant on the ground.
30:49
WA
30:49
was there one human on.
30:51
There must have been humans on the ground in Gaza, and there was not.
30:53
And this is, this is, how could
30:54
that
30:54
be
30:55
there?
30:55
They were all in Lebanon and Iran.
30:57
We tell a story of a unit called the 504th unit of the military intelligence,
31:04
which is really one of the elite.
31:06
Units of Israel's military intelligence.
31:08
They activate, recruit and manage, handle human assets in different theaters.
31:17
They scramble to the Gaza border because one of their team members by chance
31:22
is at the Nova Music Festival, is shot in wounded and calls headquarters.
31:26
So they scramble to go down there.
31:28
They totally neglected Gaza for years.
31:31
It just wasn't a priority.
31:32
Israel, back to the technology, we thought we knew everything because we
31:37
were listening to everything we had tapped their internal communication systems.
31:42
We had eyes and ears everywhere.
31:44
We thought we knew it all, but we didn't.
31:48
Yako, you're an expert on analyzing and observing and among other things,
31:53
the character of Israeli society, it's like happened like almost to
31:57
the day, 50 years after the same kind of failure in the Yom Kippur.
32:03
Do you think there's something about the Israeli personality that tends to,
32:08
over time when the immediacy fades and it kind of seeps into a transmitted
32:15
history rather than lived experience, do you think there's something about
32:19
human personality or Israeli personality and specifically that kinda steps back
32:25
and, you know, has a element of hubris and arrogance and, you know, look how
32:30
far we've developed and look how far we've come and these people are living
32:34
underground, so what can they do to us?
32:37
Do you think there's something about that or, or all intelligence agencies would've
32:42
essentially fallen into the same trap?
32:44
I think it's a, it's, it's complicated.
32:46
I think that there are intelligence agencies that would also face a similar
32:51
challenge to the one that Israel was dealing with when it came to Gaza.
32:55
But I think that you are a hundred percent right, that we had a
32:59
sense of arrogance of hubris.
33:03
When it came to a strategic surprise that was being prepared for us,
33:08
we thought it could never happen.
33:09
No one in their wildest dreams imagine that this was possible.
33:14
You know, look at the hundreds of miles, literally of tunnels that
33:19
Chris Cross Gaza still there.
33:22
It now seems that there might be about four or 500 miles
33:26
of tunnels in the beginning.
33:28
About a year ago, Israel thought it had already neutralized 60 to 70%.
33:32
Latest numbers I hear is maybe 50% right?
33:35
About a week and a half ago, you might have read a story about another
33:38
tunnel, about two kilometers long that was discovered in Hannis, in
33:41
southern Gaza with side rooms, one of those, what they call strategic
33:46
tunnels, only being discovered.
33:48
Now, we're two years into this war Now.
33:51
Part of the reason was we knew there were tunnels in Gaza, but we
33:56
didn't collect intelligence on them.
33:58
We were focused just on the cross border tunnels.
34:00
Now, why did we not collect intelligence on them?
34:02
Yeah, because never anyone ever imagined it was possible that they would take
34:06
251 people from Israel, steal them away to Gaza and hide them in tunnels.
34:12
So why would we?
34:13
We knew there were tunnels.
34:14
We knew they had underground bugs.
34:15
We knew that there were hatches under each home, but we don't have to map them
34:18
out and find out what their routes are, because we'll never have to go in there.
34:21
We'll never have to do it.
34:23
When you say people couldn't even conceive that this would
34:26
happen, what do you mean by this?
34:29
This operational capacity to do what they did or the philosophy?
34:34
The, the intention.
34:36
The political will.
34:37
The military capacity to do that.
34:40
In other words, was there a underestimation of their genocidal
34:45
intention or their capacity to carry out their genocidal intentions?
34:50
It was both.
34:51
Plus one more.
34:52
No one thought that S Noir was interested in this.
34:55
The prevailing belief was that Yasir, the leader of Kamas, wanted quiet.
35:01
Wanted economic prosperity.
35:03
It was what he was transmitting to Israel.
35:05
There was almost communication between him and Netanyahu, not in direct
35:09
talks, but when they would fire a missile and we would look at it and see
35:13
where it landed, we would say, okay, they just struck at an empty spot.
35:17
Wolf's hit, you know, an empty sand dune in Gaza.
35:21
So we communicate through targets, but we know that they don't want to
35:25
hit us and we don't want, we would wink at each other, we called it.
35:28
Right.
35:29
It was fake.
35:30
So the political level, we never thought Xir would do
35:32
this on the operational level.
35:33
We didn't think they were capable.
35:35
But then there was the other issue, because of the first two, we did
35:40
not have in the military, even operational plans for a full invasion
35:46
and assault on Gaza because it was never something that was imaginable.
35:51
You have to also remember and put into context that Prime Minister
35:54
Netanyahu had become disenchanted.
35:57
With the IDF Ground Forces capability, Netanyahu, in all his years, people
36:03
tend to look at him as very aggressive.
36:06
He's actually very hesitant when it comes to the use of military force.
36:10
Let's take out these last two years, of course, and that's
36:13
not necessarily a bad thing.
36:16
Sometimes it's good.
36:17
Be careful, be cautious, very infatuated with standoff capabilities
36:23
where you can put a plane over Iraq and drop a missile that can fly
36:27
50 kilometers or miles into Iran.
36:30
You never even have to cross into Iranian airspace.
36:33
All those bombings we've seen over the years in places like Syria, the aircraft
36:37
are, for the most part, in Israel, they just hover above the border and
36:41
the bombs fly so accurately and far.
36:46
But Netanyahu was scarred by the Israeli ground forces in two major operations.
36:51
One was 2006, the second Lebanon war.
36:54
Then he was not prime minister, but that war ended.
36:57
And was not believed to be a success for the Israeli military.
37:01
Definitely the ground forces in 2014 when he was Prime Minister and
37:05
eventually had his arm twisted to allow in the ground forces just two
37:10
kilometers to take out some of the cross border tunnels, then he was also not
37:16
impressed by what the military could do.
37:18
And it took a lot of convincing even after October 7th, even after the greatest
37:21
atrocity where the most Jews were murdered on a single day since the Holocaust.
37:25
Even then he needed to be convinced that the military could do this.
37:30
So there was the lack of belief in what Hamas could do or wanted to do, and
37:36
the lack of belief in the capability of what the Israeli military could do.
37:44
Your book is really terrifying.
37:46
Uh, when you describe page after page of what was actually happening
37:50
on the ground, one before sunrises on October 7th and two, the.
37:56
Hours of that day.
37:57
And the, you described the chaos in Israel, and I mean, Israelis I think
38:02
were completely stunned and shocked.
38:04
And you describe how it took so long for the defense forces to actually
38:12
understand what was going on and to begin to not even go develop plans about
38:17
invading Gaza, but figuring out how to save Israelis who were under assault.
38:22
And you describe in your book that a common refrain from
38:26
people who were eventually rescued is what took you so long?
38:30
What took so long?
38:33
This is one of those great still mysteries that I think does breed
38:38
some of those conspiracy theories.
38:40
Where was the Air Force?
38:41
I mean, I met with pilots who were sent in the immediate aftermath of
38:45
the attack when the rockets began to fly off into the Mediterranean to
38:49
protect gas rigs because maybe Hamas or Hezbollah would be attacking.
38:54
To the Tamara rig or the, uh, ish rig or whatever it was.
38:59
Hamas' attack was old school or old tech, but sophisticated.
39:06
They understood that if they're able to take out the sensors along the border,
39:11
we have cameras, we have remote control weapons, and they did that with drones,
39:14
dropping explosive devices, but they did by firing hundreds and thousands
39:19
of rockets at 6 29 in the morning when the rocket assault began was they know
39:23
that the Modus app operandi, and the way that the IDF operates is all soldiers in
39:28
the immediate vicinity of the border go into the safe rooms or the safe areas.
39:32
So everybody's hunkering down and they have a few minutes.
39:36
And in those minutes, people on just motorbikes, by the way, some
39:39
of the GoPro videos later came out.
39:41
You can watch it where you see them at one point sitting around a table,
39:44
having one last coffee, getting their weapons ready, communication devices
39:47
ready, and then within minutes, five minutes, they're already over the border.
39:54
On the back of a motorbike, two guys, few motorbikes, they drive straight to the
39:58
border under the cover of the rockets.
40:01
They plant an explosive device, they cross in and within seconds they're in Israel.
40:06
And because of the borderline positions, what they immediately attack right away,
40:09
air communications, they know where the communication boxes are, they know
40:13
where the power is for the sensors.
40:14
And right away they blow those up and they destroy them.
40:17
So what ends up happening is you have no lines of communication, not
40:22
between anyone on the border, not between the borderline positions and
40:26
the headquarters in Tel Aviv, which is where the Air Force headquarters are.
40:30
So who's gonna scramble the Air Force?
40:32
Who's the Air Force gonna talk to?
40:34
How are they gonna know what's happening on the ground?
40:36
So they don't have, there's no eyes, there's no one to see what's going on.
40:40
And inside the bases, the commanders are fighting for their own lives, right?
40:46
So every base is assaulted re aim, which is even a little further
40:49
from the border where the Gaza Division headquarters are, which is
40:51
supposed to coordinate everything.
40:53
The commander, this guy Rosenfeld, Brigadier General, he's an elite commando.
40:58
In his past, he served in the Alag unit, one of the elite units of the IDF.
41:01
He's inside the al, the Al, the war room.
41:05
The command center, which is, I've been in there a few times.
41:08
It's heavily fortified.
41:09
He's in there.
41:10
He can't see what's happening outside, but he knows now that his base is
41:14
in, has been infiltrated and part of him wants to go out and fight, right?
41:18
Vy, the chief of staff, who's at his house, gets into the car, starts driving
41:24
towards the military headquarters.
41:26
At some point, he has a thought, maybe I should even drive South.
41:28
I should go fight.
41:29
And then Logic takes over and he realizes I'm the chief of staff.
41:33
I gotta go to headquarters and run this thing.
41:37
But there was that imperative because it was all breaking down.
41:39
No one understood what was happening.
41:41
And you had amazing stories.
41:42
By the way, this has to be said of courage and bravery and heroism,
41:45
unlike anything we've seen before.
41:48
Of how just regular Israelis or people who weren't in uniform were
41:51
not even in service anymore, took their sidearm, got in their car and
41:56
just drove down south when they heard something was happening to help.
41:59
And many of them paid with their lives and many of them saved immense life.
42:07
This breakdown communications led to a great lag and delay in the
42:12
IDFs effectiveness and ability to launch a real response coordinated.
42:19
I mean, there's stories I spoke to people in, in Far za in Beri, near Oz. Three of
42:24
the kibbutz heavily, heavily hit near os.
42:27
One in four people either murdered or kidnapped, abducted by Hamas.
42:32
At one point, it was in Za, where a helicopter comes, drops
42:36
off a squad of elite soldiers.
42:41
Then some of them get wounded in the meantime.
42:44
They come, they start to fight, but they're small in number.
42:46
About 500 kamas guys had infiltrated Raza at this point.
42:50
And there's what's known as the nu the, the rapid response team of the kibbutz.
42:55
They're fighting.
42:55
They're what?
42:56
The 15 people?
42:57
12 people.
42:58
And now there's the Shada guys.
42:59
They're fighting policemen come in, they come under fire, they leave.
43:03
At some point, some of these Alda guys get wounded.
43:05
The helicopter comes back just to pick up the Shalah guys, not
43:08
to pick up the, the civilians.
43:10
Now, not that anyone wanted this to happen to the civilians, but there
43:13
was just, there was no communication and that's why it took so long.
43:19
Yeah, it's really terrifying because in some cases on the kibbutz, it
43:23
took a day, two days, and even by the third day to totally clear them out.
43:28
Clear out.
43:29
Yeah.
43:29
And, and there were people who were wounded and killed and
43:33
entrapped during that time.
43:35
And you, you just have this.
43:38
Such effective military that, as you say, the people that were eventually
43:42
rescued, it was a common refrain.
43:44
Where were you?
43:45
Yeah.
43:45
What took you so long?
43:46
I mean, they, the outpost, the military outposts that they eventually went
43:51
to where the TPIs were taken from by the time they got there, it was over
43:56
when they were in already, there were really no terrorists left anymore.
44:00
By the time they got there, they were done.
44:03
They had killed pillage.
44:06
And the people who managed to still hold on to their safe room and to the door and
44:12
to prevent the infiltration were those people from the stories we tell there,
44:16
which still, I, I think about them, uh, you know, they're knocking on the door
44:21
and, and people are not opening it, and some of the soldiers yell out, right.
44:27
The, the universal phrase that all Jews know for them to know that we're, we're,
44:33
we're the good guys, but it was too.
44:38
Um, can I ask you, do you think Kamas knew about the Nova Festival
44:44
or did they stumble on it?
44:48
Indications are that they knew that there was something happening.
44:50
They had collected intelligence.
44:52
They flew in.
44:52
Remember the, the attack was launched in three different ways on the ground.
44:57
They also had naval forces, if you can call them naval forces, but they had boats
45:01
that took some people to the Z King Beach.
45:04
Some of those ships were intercepted by just regular navy
45:06
patrols, which are always there.
45:08
Others did make it to the shores and killed dozens of people there.
45:13
And then they came in on the hang gliders or the paragliders, and some of them
45:16
landed within the fields along Nova.
45:20
Did they know exactly the scale of what that festival looked like?
45:23
Probably not that There were thousands of people who were there and, and that
45:26
number, because of the festival, the number was so high in terms of casualties.
45:32
There were almost 400 people who were killed just at no.
45:35
And a number of hostages was, was also great from among the
45:39
people who were at that party.
45:41
So they had some luck.
45:44
I also don't, I'm not sure that they understood that
45:48
they would be so successful.
45:50
And this we learned from the IDF and the aftermath with the forensic evidence
45:54
and what they collected in the field.
45:55
They came to stay for a long battle.
45:59
So they were surprised to some extent.
46:02
I think they knew they would get across the border.
46:04
They thought they would be met by fiercer resistance from
46:07
Israel, and that surprised them.
46:10
But they, they tried to get farther.
46:11
Remember they made it to o Faki.
46:13
They made it to sta.
46:14
We know they had maps that were gonna take them to Air Force bases.
46:19
Who knows where else They wanted to potentially attack prisons
46:22
and try to release prisoners.
46:24
They, uh, came with tools, medical equipment, to do amputations in the
46:29
field, not of the Israelis of themselves.
46:31
If somebody were to be wounded.
46:33
They were there for a long battle and a long haul.
46:36
And you know, this always comes down to the question,
46:40
what did they want to achieve?
46:42
Right?
46:42
Which is no one really, really knows.
46:46
We don't have sunir to ask, but the best theories I've heard from these Israeli
46:51
intelligence folks, one was, let's remember where we were back in October
46:57
23, normalization with Saudi Arabia.
47:01
Appeared real was on the table.
47:03
They definitely wanted to prevent that from happening.
47:06
They wanted to bring the Palestinian cause back to the forefront of
47:10
the Arabs Arab World's agenda, but of the global agenda as well.
47:16
They wanted also, did they think they could destroy the state of Israel?
47:19
No.
47:20
I mean, they can't destroy Israel.
47:23
But did they want to pierce the hearts of Israelis and shatter
47:26
the sense of security for Israel?
47:28
100%. And we know.
47:31
That they had also tried to coordinate with Iran and Hezbollah, not yet talking
47:36
about a date or time for the attack.
47:39
And, and Sunir jumped the gun a bit with everyone.
47:42
But they had been preparing this for a very long time.
47:45
And you know, now Fali, Ben and Inlaid who had been in office from the summer of
47:51
21 till January 23, they were lucky that it just didn't happen on their watch.
47:58
'cause really they had been planning it throughout that period.
48:01
So they saw an opportunity, I think, in the fights that were taking place
48:08
in Israel over judicial reform.
48:09
At the time when they saw Israelis fighting among themselves, they saw that
48:15
vulnerability and that exposure, and they said, okay, we can now take advantage.
48:18
Israel is now distracted
48:21
in terms of the objectives that you just laid out.
48:23
They've actually achieved all those objectives no matter how many.
48:27
Fatalities and defeats that they suffer in Gaza.
48:32
From their perspective, they won.
48:34
Well, I'll tell you even more than that, rabbi, if I'm Hamas and thank God I'm
48:40
not, but I'm looking at this war and I'm thinking, I am winning right now.
48:46
Because we have to remember, I mean, this is something that's very
48:50
difficult, I think to always understand.
48:53
It's very difficult for me to understand.
48:54
They might look like us.
48:56
They're humans.
48:57
Some of them speak English, right?
48:59
They, they look like we do, but they're not like us.
49:03
We have to understand they do not value life at all.
49:07
The lives of the people of Gaza are a weapon in the war against Israel.
49:13
They want them to be killed.
49:15
They want Israel to kill people, innocent men, women, and children.
49:21
It is for this reason.
49:23
They fight, the way they fight, that they dig these tunnels and embed
49:26
themselves in civilian infrastructure.
49:28
They have hundreds of miles of tunnels.
49:29
Why?
49:30
Ask yourself a simple question.
49:33
Why not let they don't have bomb shelters, but these are bomb shelters.
49:36
Why not let the people of Gaza into the bomb shelters, into the tunnels?
49:39
'cause it's not for them.
49:41
It's for Hamas, because those people above ground are meant to be killed
49:46
because that serves the greater cause, the delegitimization, the isolation,
49:51
the turning of Israel into pariah state.
49:54
One of the most perverse things that has come out of this war is how
50:01
the icc, the International Criminal court, right, issued four arrest
50:04
warrants against people involved in the war between Israel and Hammas.
50:10
One against Muhamad def the military commander Hammas one against the leader of
50:15
Hammas against Benjamin Etan and against Yu of Galand, the former defense minister.
50:22
Sin noir is dead.
50:23
Deaf is dead.
50:24
So think for a moment how the ICC, the two arrest warrants that remain,
50:30
that have been issued since this war are against the people who are
50:33
the victims of the Hamas assault.
50:38
They look at what the world has done in the ways turning on Israel, and they see
50:43
what might be happening here at the UN in just a couple of weeks where France
50:48
and Britain and Belgium and Australia and so many other countries, Spain are
50:52
saying, we're going to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state.
50:57
So they have 48 hostages.
50:59
Israel is isolated, and a pariah states around the world, its leaders have
51:04
arrest warrants against them by the ICC.
51:07
Are they losing the war?
51:10
No.
51:11
To some extent, they might be winning, and I think here is
51:16
where we all come into play.
51:19
Because in my view, at least, it's about moral clarity.
51:24
It's about making it clear to the world who is the right side and who
51:30
is the wrong side, who is the victim and who is the aggressor who started
51:33
this war and who never wanted this war.
51:36
The whole book is about how we didn't want the war, right?
51:39
How for 30 years we go back in time for 30 years.
51:42
We did everything, every manipulation, every somersault and gymnastics to try
51:48
to avoid October 7th from happening.
51:52
'cause we knew to some extent what would happen.
51:54
'cause we knew what this would be, look and look like.
51:58
And therefore I think you're a hundred percent right.
52:01
Hamas, to some extent is winning right now.
52:05
Does that frustrate you Greatly, deeply, because I am scared what this means.
52:14
You know, I have a lot of criticism of the government.
52:18
Plenty.
52:19
My biggest criticism will be that, uh, we don't articulate what the
52:23
plant is for the day after Gaza.
52:26
Right now, as Israel is preparing a potential large
52:29
offensive against Gaza City.
52:32
Okay?
52:32
We go into Gaza City, we clear it out, we kill Hamas members.
52:35
Hopefully we're able to move out almost all the civilians.
52:39
We destroy infrastructure.
52:40
And then what, who do we give it to?
52:42
So either the, the options, what are they?
52:44
It's either military rule by Israel, which is not something I wanna see,
52:49
or some sort of militia or, or what is that entity going to look like?
52:52
We need an entity that will govern Gaza by not articulating it.
52:56
I think we cause ourselves just damage by making it seem as if all we wanna do is
52:59
just kill and destroy, which is not true.
53:01
We know we need an entity, we just don't wanna talk about what it is.
53:04
This has to do with politics.
53:07
But I am concerned that if we don't have a decisive victory here in this war.
53:14
And I, I don't like slogans.
53:15
The Prime Minister talks about total victory, and they printed
53:19
baseball hats that say that those are just fake, empty slogans.
53:23
But we do need a victory because we need to teach our enemies not to mess with us.
53:27
And that if you do, there is a price to be paid, you will no longer exist.
53:30
And we also need the moral clarity of the Western world because
53:35
terrorist groups look at all of us.
53:36
They look at what these countries do.
53:38
Listen, this is beyond the scope of your book, but you're an analyst.
53:41
You, you talk to the western media all the time.
53:43
You're an expert on the answer to these questions that you're raising.
53:48
What, why do you think the world turned on?
53:50
And the Western media in particular took two weeks for the story
53:54
to be one of Israel's under assault to the suffering of Gaza.
53:58
That's been the story of the western media and much of the western
54:03
elite cultural institutions for two years, minus the first two weeks.
54:08
You had protests on the streets of New York before sundown, the evening
54:11
before sundown on October 7th itself.
54:13
That's right.
54:16
But you know, the, there are protesters who are just incontrovertibly, right.
54:22
And against Israel, and that's their job, and that's what they're gonna do.
54:25
But that's not really where the universities are.
54:27
That's not where the media is.
54:29
That's not where even the UN is, let alone climate activists, uh,
54:34
activists that worry about, uh, feminist rights and women's rights,
54:39
and why don't they see this?
54:42
What is going on?
54:44
Do you think there's something about war that western civilization at
54:49
this point in history just simply doesn't understand or doesn't accept?
54:56
I think people don't like war.
54:57
People don't like conflict.
55:00
They don't wanna see people killed.
55:01
But I, but I think there's something deeper here.
55:03
I mean, you mentioned media.
55:05
I've done a lot of media.
55:07
Since October 7th, I spoke at BBC just last week, and I was always
55:14
the guy who, as a journalist, for a long time, 25 years now almost.
55:17
It was always whenever I was told by people, you know, it's
55:20
antisemitism, they're just against us.
55:22
I would say, no, we need to do better.
55:24
We need to explain ourselves better.
55:25
They're ignorant.
55:26
They need to be informed better.
55:29
I can say pretty confidently today that it is antisemitism.
55:34
It is a strong foundation of antisemitism.
55:37
I think that there are, unfortunately, large parts of the world and of western
55:43
civilization and society, they do not want to see a strong Jewish state of Israel.
55:49
They don't wanna see that the Jewish people have the ability to defend
55:52
themselves and to fight for themselves.
55:55
They want to see us weak and beaten down.
55:58
That is the Jew.
55:59
That they want to see in front of them.
56:01
Why was all this
56:02
unleashed?
56:03
By October 7th?
56:04
Israel's been around for 75 years.
56:07
What was unique about October 7th?
56:09
In this period of time, it all kind of erupted.
56:12
All this bubbling hate, this lava underneath the surface just
56:17
erupted and was unleashed on October 7th and the aftermath.
56:20
They smelled Jewish
56:22
blood and they saw an opportunity.
56:25
We were beaten, we were weakened, we were vulnerable.
56:29
I've spoken to so many ministers, of course, in the Israeli government,
56:32
in the war cabinet, and I ask all of them what most surprised you?
56:37
It was how vulnerable we really were.
56:41
How Hamas was able to really penetrate the state of Israel, how our security
56:47
could not be taken for granted.
56:48
I think that all these people who were there, who were silent
56:51
for decades, and they came outta the woodwork in the masses.
56:55
You experienced it here with antisemite.
56:57
You have to have police outside your synagogue now.
57:00
Right.
57:00
You know, with the people in France and England where they hide the
57:03
shoals because they don't want people to know where they are.
57:07
Right.
57:07
Nowadays, you have to barricade yourselves.
57:09
I can only imagine what's gonna happen here on Rosh Kippur.
57:12
The security's gonna be probably triple layered.
57:16
It shouldn't be like that.
57:17
But this is, I think they smelled the Jewish blood.
57:21
They saw the opportunity and they want to make us weak and vulnerable, and
57:26
they want us to be that way without the ability to defend for ourselves
57:31
and fight for ourselves and be what the Jewish state of Israel was meant to be.
57:34
The dependent state for the Jewish people to have self-determination,
57:38
to stand up for themselves and to be able to create a society where you
57:43
don't have to bow your head as a Jew.
57:46
I have one more question for you.
57:48
Uh, for many people, including in the Jewish community and certainly
57:52
the case in the Western media, very quickly this war became.
57:59
Benjamin Netanyahu's war, the opposition and the animosity was
58:04
focused on Prime Minister Netanya, and it still is to a large extent.
58:09
How much of what has transpired over the last two years do you
58:14
think was specifically connected to decisions that Prime Minister
58:21
Netanyahu has made that other Israeli prime ministers, if they were in
58:27
power, would have made differently?
58:29
In other words, how much of this war is really Bebe's war, and how
58:33
much of it would any Israeli prime minister have made the same decisions?
58:39
I think it is Bebe's war, but I think Israel today is Bebe's Israel, and I think
58:44
that the policies that he enacted and set into effect, and I mentioned for example,
58:49
the Qatari Cash, just one quick story.
58:52
Netanyahu started it when Ben, it became Prime Minister in the summer of 21.
58:57
He promised to stop the suitcases of cash, but they had to transfer the money first.
59:02
He thought he could do direct deposits in bank accounts of people in Gaza.
59:06
Then recognize they don't have bank accounts, right?
59:09
Because they're a cash Muhammad, Mustafa and Iram don't have bank accounts.
59:13
So they came up with a scheme.
59:14
They gave the money to the un, which deposited in the Arab Bank,
59:17
which basically printed gift cards like small debit cards.
59:20
'cause the money was meant to go to poor Palestinians, although it opened
59:23
up other money for Hamas to be able to use for terrorist activities.
59:26
So Bennett went like this, but he did the same thing.
59:28
It was the same policy.
59:30
So I don't think it would've been different under any other
59:33
Prime Minister for that matter of any of the viable candidates.
59:37
I think that ultimately he is the head, he is responsible
59:40
and should be held accountable.
59:42
But I also have to say something else.
59:44
October 7th is a coin with two sides.
59:48
One side is the utter failure, what we have been talking about
59:51
for pretty much the last hour, but the other side of that coin.
59:55
The re-engineering of the Middle East.
59:58
We have pushed back and defeated to an extent Hezbollah.
1:00:03
It's still there.
1:00:04
But look at the decision that was just made a few days ago by the government
1:00:07
of Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah.
1:00:10
That is a brave, courageous decision by this government.
1:00:13
Let's see what happens.
1:00:14
Assad has fallen, yes, HTS and led by Hams and led by Ed Shara.
1:00:22
They were Al-Qaeda just yesterday.
1:00:24
Pretty much.
1:00:25
Now they wear suits, so they don't look Al-Qaeda, will they be our friends?
1:00:30
Will they not?
1:00:30
Who knows, but there is an opportunity.
1:00:33
But Assad was a bad guy.
1:00:35
He's gone.
1:00:37
Iran, we took them on.
1:00:38
I never believed that would've happened and it's not over.
1:00:42
Trust me, it's not over with Iran.
1:00:44
There will be another round 'cause they will try to rebuild and we
1:00:47
will have to maintain the success.
1:00:49
Or they will attack us.
1:00:50
Who knows how that's gonna play out.
1:00:52
But we have set back and delayed their nuclear program.
1:00:54
They were at the threshold.
1:00:56
They have been set back and their ballistic missiles have been set back,
1:01:01
and Hamas itself has been degraded.
1:01:03
The Houthis leadership, we decimated the leadership of the Houthis
1:01:08
government a week and a half ago.
1:01:10
That is also Netanyahu.
1:01:13
So he deserves the blame, but he also deserves the credit.
1:01:18
My question really was, in the aftermath of October 7th, if there was another
1:01:22
Israeli Prime Minister, any of the opposition figures, would they also have
1:01:27
made the decision to invade Gaza and to try and, you know, uh, decimate Hamas?
1:01:32
Or is this uniquely Netanyahu?
1:01:36
I think that they would've done the initial stages, but I think
1:01:39
that a different, Benny GaN Lapid and Natali Bennett, the war
1:01:44
probably would be over by now.
1:01:46
Mm-hmm.
1:01:46
Yeah.
1:01:48
I'm glad you're, uh, wrote such a fantastic investigation.
1:01:52
Keep up the great work if we can give it up for Yako Katz, thank you very much.
1:02:02
I just want to, uh, on our behalf, uh, wish you and your family
1:02:05
and all of the people of Israel and all of the Jewish people, a
1:02:09
better year, a more tranquil year.
1:02:11
We pray that the active hostilities will end and we'll see better days.
1:02:17
Shava.
1:02:17
Thank you.