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What the Midterms Could Mean for Israel, with Joel Rayburn · Between Us: Israel, Jews, and the West

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is Between Us from the Atlanta-Israel Coalition.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: On October 28th, the day after Israel voted, and a week before the midterms here,
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: we held a town hall on what the midterms could mean for Israel.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Joel Rayburn joined us. He's a former U.S.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Special Envoy for Syria, and he's a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute now.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Joel Rubin was meant to be with us as well.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: A technical problem with our software kept him out,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: so Joel Rayburn took the whole hour on his own.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have Rubin back for a conversation of his own.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is a shorter cut of that evening.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: You'll hear what's at stake for Israel in the election,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: what Congress can and cannot do on Iran, campus antisemitism,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: and what the aid actually buys, and of course your questions on Qatar and Syria.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: One thing before we start, AIC doesn't endorse or oppose any candidate or party,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: and our guests speak for themselves.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: John You are the Senior Director for Iran, Iraq, Syria,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: and Lebanon at the National Security Council.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: What's the single biggest thing at stake for Israel in this election, whichever way it goes?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Very good to be with you and with your audience.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're in a phase where, and it's not just this election,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: but it's something that's been coming where the question of Israel and U.S.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: policy and the U.S.-Israel relationship for decades,
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: really since the beginning of that relationship between the United States
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: and Israel, the alliance, It's been a bipartisan matter.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it really didn't matter what party was in power,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: what party was in power in the White House, what party was in power in Congress.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: The relationship was stable, reliable, predictable, that there would be U.S.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: support for Israel and vice versa.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: In mutual foreign policy issues, of course there were disputes from time to time,
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: but generally there was something close to a consensus in Washington, D.C.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: about the place of Israel in U.S. foreign policy, but that's now in question.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's in question for a variety of reasons.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's some questioning of Israel's role in U.S.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: foreign policy coming from several different directions which we can talk about.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, we're in a window, and this election in particular,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: this midterm election,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: is going to determine whether Israel is going to continue
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: to be a national bipartisan issue in U.S.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: foreign policy and politics or whether it's going to become a partisan issue.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's been migrating more and more in recent years toward being a partisan issue,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: and I would say since October 7th,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: it's really run almost full speed toward partisanship,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: where the question of the U.S.-Israel relationship has almost become a litmus test,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: and that's certainly true.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think if our friend Joel Rubin Ware will sign on, I think he would probably talk
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: This question has occupied on the Democratic side, certainly on the Republican side too.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: There seems to be a growing questioning.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say it's not anywhere near a majority.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not near a plurality of people who count themselves on the conservative side,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: on the right side.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: In U.S. politics, but it seems to be growing for a variety of reasons.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's what's at stake in this election is whether Israel is going
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: to continue to be as it traditionally has been a bipartisan foreign policy issue
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: for the United States or a partisan one on the U.S. side.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the midterms, I think.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's the most important aspect for it in these midterms.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a recording this week that Washington is telling the Gulf to expect
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: a short campaign against Iran after the midterms.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Setting the White House aside for a moment, on Iran,
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: what does Congress actually get a say in here?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: War powers, sanctions, money, and does any of that change if the House or Senate were to flip?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't, I mean, the President's Article II authorities to conduct foreign policy
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: and And prosecute war are so extensive once he's been elected
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: and once he's been granted those authorities by Congress,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: which he has in the current arrangement,
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: that I wouldn't anticipate a significant change in the conduct of the campaign
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: between, you know, probably for some months.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think where it would run into...
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: If one or both in the Houses of Congress were to change hands,
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: when it comes time for the annual debate over the defense budget,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: and probably over the intelligence budget, but certainly over the defense budget,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think then you would see it would start
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: to have an effect if the House is
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: in different hands than the White House.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: At that point, because then the House controls the purse strings.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: So if a president wants to continue to fund operations,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: then he's going to have to—there's only so far that he's going to be able to go
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: without authorization from Congress at that point.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it could boil down to continuing resolutions or something,
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: or there could be a real— There could be a real standoff.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: There could be a real showdown over the Pentagon's budget bill.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Probably the latest that it could go is probably, say,
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: the late fall of 2027 on that budget contest.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: But In the normal cycle of things,
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: you see the Pentagon's budget come up for debate and beginning to shape it
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: between the executive branch and the House, and Senate too, afterward,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: along about the May timeframe.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think look for that as when the showdown will probably begin.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: But then you could have, say,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: You could have five months of a face-off between the houses of Congress
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: or between Congress and the White House over the money.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, if Israel decides it has to go after Iran's nuclear program again,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: what does it need from Congress and would it get it?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think, I mean,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: operational choices like that between now and, you know,
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: let's say the medium term, the immediate term, I think it's sort of baked in.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: The Pentagon,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: and I think in the U.S.-Israel relationship, let's say munitions,
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: deliveries, and so on, that's sort of, you have what you have.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Congress is not going to affect that, I think, immediately.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now,
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Congress can vote
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: to defund a military operation.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's essentially what Congress did to President Reagan vis-a-vis Nicaragua
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: and the support to the Contras in the mid-1980s.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And if that were to happen, I mean,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: either then a president has to veto that defunding legislation or has to try
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: to figure out some sort of alternative arrangement.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And when the Reagan administration did that, they got into real trouble.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So there's only so far that you can stretch the boundaries there of what you can do
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: in terms of resourcing a campaign.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't expect that that kind of – I think that would be –
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: That would be unlikely for Congress
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: to do that in the near term
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: after the new Congress is seated in January.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't think that there's going to be a really immediate operational impact
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: on what either Israel or the United States military are doing.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's switch gears and talk maybe a little bit about campus and antisemitism.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we're based in Atlanta.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Campus is close to home for many of us.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Congress has held hearings, and there's been a very visible fight
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: over federal money, especially with Columbia and Harvard.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Has any of that made it better for a Jewish student on a college campus, and what would?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And without being in the shoes of a Jewish student,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: that's a hard one to answer.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: I hope the answer is yes.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like Jewish students went
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: without top cover from the federal government
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: for quite some time as the conditions
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: for Jewish students deteriorated and began
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: to deteriorate visibly.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: On some campuses, very unfortunately.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it does feel like in the last few years, there's been top cover.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: At least for me as an outside observer to that relationship,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: it does feel like there's top cover now from the government,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: that the government has been more adamant, Congress has been more adamant in saying,
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Jewish students, we have your back with the kind of harassment, pressure,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: and vilification that you're suffering.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: On some campuses is not acceptable, and it's illegal in many cases,
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: the way that it's playing out,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: and that Jewish students have to be accorded those protections,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: just as we would hope that any minority would be accorded those kind of protections,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: or just any student of any kind, whether they're a minority or not,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: needs to be accorded protections.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like there's been a rebound.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you will, over the last three years or so in that regard.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let us hope.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So there's quite a bit of public debate over, say,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and whether or not it's actually doing its job
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: for Jewish students or, you know,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: does Congress need to write something new or the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think there's any appetite in the next Congress to take that on,
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: and should they?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question. I think it'll depend on the composition of Congress.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are some...
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: What's at stake right now, there are some, I think,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: figures who are running for Congress who, as I described it,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: are skeptical of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: And unfortunately, I think for some people,
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: that carries over into relations with and attitudes
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: toward the American Jewish communities here.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And in a way that is really, I think, very unfortunate.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if that happens,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: then you could have some tension in the Congress.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: You get it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: You can see it coming out from time to time in Congress over the last couple
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: of years, but it's been on the fringe.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we just have to wait and see what the outcome of the elections are,
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: whether that fringe becomes more sizable and begins to weigh
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: in on the legislative agenda.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that's not the case.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: But also,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think Republicans tend to be—and I don't want to say
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: that this isn't true of Democrats either.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Republicans tend to—
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think tend to favor the enforcement of existing law as opposed to the creation
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: of new law to solve problems that existing law could solve if it were enforced.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, a lot of the abuses that we've seen
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: on college campuses are already prohibited by law.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So if there's just an emphasis on law enforcement,
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: that has to come from the executive branch and from local governments.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Then, you know, hopefully there wouldn't be a need for new legislation.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: If there are loopholes, though, and there may be, for example,
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: if there are loopholes that allow for the financing of campaigns that are intended
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: to target and harass Jewish students or any minority,
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: then those loopholes need to be looked at through legislative agendas.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: People hear nearly $4 billion a year in USA to Israel and think it's charity.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: You touched on earlier that you wish people would understand a little bit more
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: of what that might encompass.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: So to someone that isn't familiar with what's actually going on and what aid means
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: in this sense, what does America actually get for that?
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, look, essentially, I mean,
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: most of that is the United States helping Israel to buy U.S.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: military equipment, U.S. arms and other military equipment.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it's actually, I mean, it's a bit circular.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: The expenditure is a bit circular.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like the United States is just sort of writing Israel a check for a stipend
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: and then Israel goes off and does what it wants with it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is foreign,
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: it's mostly foreign military financing, which can only be,
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: it's like giving Israel, you know, if you go to Chuck E.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Cheese and you get the Chuck E.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Cheese tokens, you can only spend them on things in the Chuck E. Cheese shop.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: You can't, so it's like giving Israel tokens to come back and buy only in the American shop.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not a straight out gift.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the U.S. defense industry, that benefits us.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: It benefits the U.S.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: military because the more business, the more sales that the U.S.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: defense industry has, it means they can keep production lines going.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times in the United States military,
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: we don't have a big order for munitions
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: or other equipment Or would have systems
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: from our own defense industry sometimes in lean budget years,
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: but we want to keep those production lines going.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: So during those kind of times,
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: it's always good for us to have allies purchasing from our defense industry.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Not only that, it benefits us because then we have some other forces
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: that are not ours, but that are allied with us.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Then in a time of conflict, Or deterrents are interoperable with ours.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so, because we're using the same equipment, which means,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: if you have the same equipment,
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: it means you usually are using similar doctrine and you're training very similarly
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: on those weapons systems or those other military operational systems.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that's all to the good.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's why foreign military sales benefits the United States.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Beyond that, strategically speaking, If the Israeli military is highly capable,
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: and it's almost like a forward deployed ally of ours in a critical region,
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: then that reduces the burden on the United States to look out
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: for alliance interests there directly.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: In many cases, the Israeli military can do things
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: to protect our shared security interests that would cost the United States
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: a lot more if we had to do it alone.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then more recently, the Um,
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: the Israeli military capabilities have provided some very timely
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: and crucial tools Defense capabilities to other critical partners
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: in the United States in that region.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Are the Gulf states in Jordan, for example, in particular?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say those are the benefits.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: I've started talking now and forgotten what the original question was,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: but I hope I got around to an answer to it.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Your question was the $4 billion.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: What do we get out of it?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the major things that we get out of it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: I would say just according
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: to a strict America First analysis.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So in essence, it's a jobs program for the United States,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: and it saves the United States military from putting itself in harm's way
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: in many cases.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think, yeah, okay, that's a bit of an oversimplification,
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: but I think it's in that direction, yes.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not so much that it's a jobs program, it's almost like it's a capabilities program.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Again, if we have, let's say in a given year,
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: If the Pentagon is only going to buy X hundred of a certain munition,
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: then the defense industry might contract to just have the production lines going
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: to deliver that. But then if Israel is going to purchase another X hundred,
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: why that keeps the capacity going.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: It keeps the capacity greater.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then if the United States then wants to ramp up, as we're doing now with,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: for example, air defense interceptors and other key munitions,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: then we're glad of those years,
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: those leaner years where our allies were the people putting in the orders.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And now we have our growing list.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Of audience questions.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: We'll try to get to what time allows, Plain question,
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: is Iran closer to a nuclear weapon today than it was two years ago or further away?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Further away.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's been a real evisceration of their physical capability, the physical program.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the enriched uranium material is almost inaccessible
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: to them, you know,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: buried under a mountain.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of their technology has been destroyed and is under mountains, under rubble.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Very difficult for them to reconstitute.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we have eyes on, and there's a deterrent against them doing it.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: So they're much further away.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: They still have the human capital.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: They still have the plans and the know-how.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's going to be a danger as long as there's a regime there that wants to get
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: a nuclear weapon.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: We can only really be safe— If there's
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: a different kind of government
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: or the current government undertakes a radical change or capitulates
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: and just abandons those ambitions.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: But materially speaking, they're further away.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank God.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I have a couple of questions on the same topic, so I'll try to merge them a little bit here.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we were talking about Israel as almost a forward-deployed force for the U.S.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Within the region, Qatar hosts America's biggest airbase,
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: but it also hosts Hamas's political leadership.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: How does Washington live with both, and should it?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think this is a delicate question.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: My own observation, having been in national security roles,
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes it's a fly on the wall,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: going back some ways over successive administrations.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think in the past,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Qatar occasionally had policies
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: that I think were problematic.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: But on the other hand, there were successive U.S.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: administrations that Found it useful to have Qatar,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: not just Qatar but some others,
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: but Qatar to play an intermediary role.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: So on some occasions the Qataris were doing what U.S.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: administration enlisted them to do.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: For example, opening up an office for the Taliban in Doha.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: They did that at the request of the U.S. administration.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Some aspects, I think, of the hosting of Hamas fall into that category as well.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Petr shares the world's largest gas field with Iran.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: How much would you say that that shapes what Doha will or won't do on Iran?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think all the Gulf states.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: All the Gulf states...
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: For all the Gulf states, the Iranian regime has become a threat.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And for all the Gulf states, the Iranian regime has become,
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think what they would privately describe as an existential threat.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I do believe the way in which the Iranian regime,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: when the current war began at the end of February, beginning of March,
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: and the first thing that the Iranian regime did was In response
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: to the U.S.-Israeli military pressure was to lash out at the Gulf countries,
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: all of which were trying to stay neutral at that time.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the lesson that the Gulf countries took away from that was
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: that they cannot live alongside that regime as it's currently constituted today.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: In safety.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like their attitude, I think,
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: is we can't live with these guys over the longer term.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in the immediate term, they are there.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: They do have to live right across the water.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I think in the longer term, because there was an idea, you remember, leading up to
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, for example, in Beijing,
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: the Chinese supposedly were brokering a different kind of relationship between Iran
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: and Saudi Arabia, and there were all kinds of ideas like that,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: that the Gulf and the Iranians were going to come to some new sort of rapprochement
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: or non-aggression pact, if you will.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: But that all flew out the window,
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: and it flew out the window because of what the Iranians chose to do.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: They chose to punish the Gulf for something the Gulf wasn't involved in.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Including Qatar, including striking Qatar.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Last question with Qatar here.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: They put billions into American universities and it owns Al Jazeera.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Putting those together, how much has Qatari money shaped how young Americans see Israel?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what, if anything, should Congress do about it?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question, but I think you have to zoom out, not just Qatar,
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: not just whatever would be the problematic Problematic aspects of that coming
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: from Qatar, but coming from any foreign element that's engaged
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: in shaping
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: the American education system.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: So Chinese, the Confucius Centers, for example,
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: that's something I think that the U.S. has had too laissez-faire an attitude about.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's changing.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Joel Rayburn, you were America's envoy for Syria.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Israel now has troops on the Syrian side of the Golan and a new government in Damascus.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a threat to Israel or an opening?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the question today.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have to think that...
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have to think that there's room there for a different, I hope so,
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: a different relationship between Israel and Syria and that you don't fall back
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: into the same kind of hostility that was there under the Assad regime
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: for 50-something years.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I, for one, would not like to see an opportunity,
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: if there is an opportunity there for a different kind of relationship,
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: and I kind of think there is,
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I would be It would be disappointing to see that opportunity pass.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: There are problems in it, you know,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: and I think both sides are sort of figuring out how
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: to exist as adjacent
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: to one another.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a tough thing.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I really do think, I think that has to be, the differences I hope can be solved politically.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Last word. Is there anything we didn't ask tonight that you wish we had?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, look, yeah, I think one of the big aspects, you know,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: for somebody like me who comes from the national security world and military world,
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: the relationship with Israel, the CENTCOM-Israel relationship, you know,
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: makes strategic sense.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: But from my familiarity with Israel,
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: when I go there and just sort of keep track of what's happening there,
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: Israel is booming, and Israel has one of the most vibrant, growing economies,
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: not just in that region, but globally.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: And Israel is such a technological innovator.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a country that is the tech incubator.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a real analog to Silicon Valley.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of innovation that's happening in Israel.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times there are concepts that are developed and begun to be fielded
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: in Silicon Valley that make their way over to Israel and then get really creative.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's almost like then it bounces back to us with even more enhancement in a way
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: that benefits us.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: So the U.S.-Israel technological alliance, if you will,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think in the future is going to be even more important
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: than the U.S.-Israel military alliance.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: So much of the relationship has been about,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: well, will Israel be buying U.S. munitions?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Will the U.S. be financing the buying...
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Israel's buying of U.S.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: munitions, when in reality, I think the future of it is a technological alliance
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: between the U.S. tech sector and Israel as startup nation, if you will.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's it for this one.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks to Joel Rayburn for stepping in and carrying the whole evening on his own.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: The full hour with every question is on our YouTube channel and at atlantaisrael.org.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to hear episodes first and send in your own questions,
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can join AIC at atlantaisrael.org slash join.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.