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John Spencer · In These Times with Rabbi Ammi Hirsch

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I'm Rabbi Ami Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York, and
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you're listening to In These Times.
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John Spencer is the chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute, co
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director of the Urban Warfare Project, host of the Urban Warfare Project podcast,
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and a founding member of the International Working Group on Subterranean Warfare.
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He began his 25 year career in the U. S. Army as a private, saw two combat
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deployments in Iraq, and retired with a rank of major, and he's a
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colonel in the California State Guard.
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John is one of the few people in the world who researches and studies urban
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and underground warfare, and he's taken four research trips to Israel and Gaza
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since October 7th, making him uniquely qualified to help us understand the
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fighting that's been happening there.
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Major Colonel Professor John Spencer, welcome to In These Times.
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Well, thanks for having me.
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Uh, you're an urban warfare expert.
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Could you explain what that is?
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How do you become a urban warfare expert?
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You spend a lot
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of time studying urban warfare, to be frank.
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So I study what we call the full spectrum of military operations in
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urban areas, you know, villages, towns, cities, mega cities.
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I've been doing it academically for over a decade.
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So that's, you know.
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Books and over a hundred articles, research projects, field research around
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the world, either studying cities or operations that have happened in cities.
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So I specialize in studying urban warfare.
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And you also experienced urban warfare as well in your term
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of service in the military.
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Is that right?
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That's right.
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I
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did, you know, of course I was a, an infantry soldier for over 25 years
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preparing for urban warfare, but I had two combat deployments to Iraq and
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saw plenty of urban warfare, which, you know, every event is different.
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Um, but it also kind of set the seeds into me on how challenging it is.
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It is the most.
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challenging, complex, hardest place you could ever ask a military to do operations
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from really disaster relief to, you know, high intensity combat, as we call it.
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I have my own experiences.
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I try not to rely on my own experiences.
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I rely on the research.
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Of what has happened in history to include what's happening now.
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And that's a big part of my approach for
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sure.
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How many urban warfare experts are there in the world?
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And how many of them are, are, are out there?
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So I often say that in jest that I'm considered one of the
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world's leading experts because there's not many of us out there.
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Uh, so it's like by default, I actually, if there is somebody
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who has done significant work, I know of them or they're very close
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friends and we work together.
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There are in the United States, surprisingly not many.
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And there are, there's a long list of reasons why even in Israel and other
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places, you'll have professors of international relations, war studies.
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Historians, all of that, but nobody who specializes in just the urban
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battles and attributes of war.
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I can count them on one hand, and most of them are very close friends of mine
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who have done projects or continue to do research in this world of urban warfare.
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So when you get, uh, some responses and perhaps some critique.
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on your work.
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Are they considered experts like you are in urban warfare or do they presume
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expertise that they may not have?
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I try to take on the, the positions that the person is saying and not the person's
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actual expertise, to be honest, because, um, I don't claim to know everything.
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I also have a lot of confidence in, in the research I've done.
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So when somebody comes to me with a critique on a statement I'm making.
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Or a position that I'm taking based on, on the ground research.
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So usually it's, have you been to that place that you're talking about?
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And other one is like the history of urban warfare, where I can
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argue with a, you know, a four star general, a former secretary of
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defense from our world, because I know they haven't done the research.
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in urban warfare specifically.
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But I, you know, I don't want to be presumptuous to say that, you know,
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whoever is critiquing hasn't done the work I have done, but what is the body of
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knowledge And research and data sets and history that you're relying on to form
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your analysis that's different than mine.
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You've become, especially since October 7th, but I think before as well,
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you're quite an observant student of the IDF and Israel's operations.
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Was there something beyond academic interest that drew you to Israel
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and the Israel defense forces?
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No, I mean, I think
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originally it started with an academic interest and I, and like you said,
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I've been studying them for years, um, because I study urban warfare and I
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study underground warfare, so tunnels, and there's, there's probably not any
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place on the earth that faces, Or has prepared or has conducted as much urban
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and underground warfare as the IDF.
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And I've been going and writing case studies on everything from the 1967
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battle of Jerusalem actually before that from, you know, the ancient battle
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of Jerusalem when King David went, you know, through the water tunnel to
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capture the city of Jerusalem to, you know, the battle of Suez city during
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the Yom Kippur war, all of these things.
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But there's no escaping that it's a very special place in the world.
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I don't think you'll find any where that's more special to more people.
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Uh, it started, of course, with the academic warfare studies part of it.
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But I have lots of friends in the IDF on top of that, you know, from just my
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engagements and people who welcome me.
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Every time I've gone and I usually get the question of why I've been so vocal,
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you know, since October 7th, there's a lot of individual, moral, ethical
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character attributes of that, but also, I knew a lot of people that were in
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Southern Israel on that day and faced of All those horrors that occurred on that
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day.
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So, if I can ask you about the fighting in Gaza that was launched
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as a result of October 7th.
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Before we get to the moral ramifications, where you have very strong opinions, just
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tell us about the, the landscape itself.
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What was Israel facing?
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On the eve of Saturday night, October 7th, that is at the end of the first
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day, what were they facing in Gaza?
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So by the end of the first day, they're still basically dealing with
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the military invasion that happened of Southern Israel and fighting
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back and securing Israeli land.
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Um, that the scorched earth strategy that Hamas and the
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thousands of Palestinian civilians or Gazans that crossed the border.
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From a military context though, because on October 8th, one Hezbollah attacked
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northern Israel, but Israel, in accordance with all international law, declared
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war after being attacked on Hamas, the governing authority and military of Gaza.
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That's a really important part of this, is what is the context of the
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war, the context of this war is that Israel was invaded on October 7th,
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the Israeli government, sovereign nation declared war against Hamas.
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And of course, with article 51 of the United Nations Charter for
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self defense, I set three goals that haven't changed, return the
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hostages, the over 250 hostages.
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remove Hamas from military and political power in the Gaza Strip and basically
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secure Israel's borders so, you know, no threat comes from Gaza ever again.
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That's the political context that drives all wars.
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From the military lens, the IDF faced in the Gaza Strip, if you've never been
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there, it is a small geographic area, 25 miles long, five to seven miles wide.
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For the IDF though, in facing and achieving those political goals,
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the IDF faced An urban warfare scenario that no military has faced
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in history, let alone modern history.
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You had this, you know, Hamas, the governing authority in Gaza with a
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military ranging from, you know, the estimates are 30 to 50, 000 militants,
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which is a very large force to be facing.
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In war, especially in urban battles, and that's again where the context
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of comparison comes into it.
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There's 24 cities in Gaza, there's 10 cities over 100, 000.
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Gaza city itself is over 600, 000 people, the population in that small area is 2.
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2 million.
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The Hamas military, which is the primary goal to remove.
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The political power and its military and its will to fight that 50, 000
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military force had 24 battalions set across the Gaza Strip with assigned
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geographic areas, brigade commanders, battalion commanders, company commanders.
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It had uniquely roughly 20, 000 rockets, um, and then all other armaments of
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the military that you would expect from anti tank guided munitions to
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bombs, to rifles and machine guns.
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Unique to Gaza though, is the preparation that Hamas had
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turned the environment into.
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Hamas had over 400 miles of tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip, ranging
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from just underneath the buildings.
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to over 200 feet underground where no military bomb can reach.
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And those tunnels were military only tunnels, which is unique as well,
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because I had just gotten back from four trips into Ukraine, analyzing the
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Ukraine Russian war, where in all the cities of Ukraine, there is underground
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networks where the civilians saw refuge, especially in the beginning of the war.
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So you had this 400 miles of tunnels built underneath the Gaza cities for the
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sole purpose of using what's called a human shield strategy, where a, you know,
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basically somebody who doesn't follow the law of war will use the protected
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populations, which is non combatants.
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And the protection sites, the hospitals, the schools, the mosque, the UN
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facilities, and basically hide military capabilities in them or under them.
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Also something that nobody has faced.
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Hamas uses a human sacrifice strategy where Hamas, both the political
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and the military organization, say and act to get as much of their
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population killed as possible.
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And this has been something I've tried to explain to people from
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a military analysis perspective.
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That's something unique, that human sacrifice strategy wasn't deployed by
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the Nazis, the Japanese, ISIS, Al Qaeda, name your terrorist, usually they're
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trying to kill, you know, civilians, but they're not saying we need to sacrifice
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and even sometimes kill our own civilians to achieve our political goal, which for
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Hamas has always been the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews.
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Lastly, Ami, from a military context, most urban centric battles
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of history are meeting engagements where, you know, two militaries
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will meet in the urban environment.
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It's like the greatest, one of the greatest urban battles of history
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is the battle of Stalingrad.
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During World War II and the two massive militaries of over a million men meet
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in the urban area, this war, the idea for entering an enemy territory who had
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prepared for 20 years for that battle so that every aspect of the urban environment
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to include building the urban environment was designed for their strategy of
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war, which is to use their civilians to create this international condemnation.
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So Israel will be stopped in retaliating after being attacked.
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All of those variables are very unique to what the IDF faced in this highly
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contested urban environment where the goal is clear that nobody disagreed
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with the goal, but they had all these different ideals on how the could
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achieve those goals under those very historical Um, military contextual
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variables.
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Are you saying that as part of the war aim of Hamas, they wanted Palestinians,
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their own people to be killed and to suffer and, and to be bombed?
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Has there, even in these very difficult, uh, urban, uh, conflicts, have you ever
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encountered a force that, it's one thing to say, okay, we're kind of callous about
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the suffering of our own people, but that actively wanted the suffering of their
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own people, the killing of their own people, the bombing of their own people
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in order to further their war aims?
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Now,
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one, I've never seen that and two, I'm not saying that Hamas
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is saying that Hamas is leaders.
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And this is a weird war where nobody listens to what the other side says.
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They have said in public statements in, in press conferences, we need the death of
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our men, women, and children are elderly.
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We need them to achieve this greater political goal.
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That's their strategy.
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And then they act that way.
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Have I seen other militaries?
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Like ISIS use civilians for shielding themselves.
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Yes, but even those, all those other evil things have popped up.
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None of them have used this strategy.
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And one of the examples I give is that all 2 million of the Gazan civilians could fit
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in Hamas's tunnels with ease, but there's not one recorded event where a single
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civilian Is allowed in Hamas's tunnel.
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And on top of that, Hamas is, again, publicly said these
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tunnels are not for the civilians.
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That's the UN's problem, the civilians.
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It's almost like they disassociate themselves from themselves.
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The tunnels are for us, for our military to achieve our political goal.
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Which is really important.
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So, I'm not saying it, they're saying it, and all evidence shows that they're
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acting that way, to include shooting their own civilians, preventing their
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civilians from fleeing from combat areas.
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It's just absolutely unique to this war.
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So there's something insidiously,
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uniquely evil about this.
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I don't like comparisons.
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I never like comparisons to Germans or Nazis, you know, but there's
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something, there's some dimension of this Hamas perspective that is
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uniquely evil, worse than ISIS.
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The Nazis, you know, they, they didn't purposely sacrifice
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their own people as a war aim.
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Is that right?
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Do you, am I understanding this?
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That's
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right.
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I mean, and I'm sure, and we can talk about it.
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All of these people were, were absolutely willing to lose civilians in the pursuit
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of their goals, but none of them put forth their primary strategy is the
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death of their civilians to win the political objective, which is this,
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you know, international condemnation, the abandonment of Israel, or.
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The seclusion of Israel and the ultimate forcing Israel to stop
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before they achieve their goal.
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It's historic.
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It really is.
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So two questions, one, how do you fight such an enemy?
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And two, how do you assess their degree of success?
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They did successfully turn much of the world against Israel.
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This is where I've really been vocal as well, because I think this has a
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lot of meaning for the future of war.
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How do you defeat an enemy who does that?
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One very carefully following the laws of war and your own moral ethical code
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of despite what the enemy is doing, you still target the enemy's military
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capabilities, its military, even when it's trying to sacrifice its civilians,
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you do everything that is known to man to protect even its civilians.
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While using strategies, which are proven to defeat an enemy and by defeat, I don't
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care about his ideology during the war.
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The goal is to remove their will to believe that they can win.
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We've kind of gotten a mix up in our modern societies of what war's goals are.
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War is the pursuit of political goals.
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It's a battle of wills to defeat the other side's belief
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that they will maintain power.
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And that's why the goals for Israel were very important to keep in the
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forefront of what is the goal here.
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It's removing Hamas's military capabilities and remove
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Hamas as the governing power.
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of a region.
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Now where people get mixed up into that is they start thinking about, okay,
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but how are you protecting civilians?
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And you have to have that end goal.
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We have a heuristic in what we've lived through.
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So a lot of people have lived through counter terrorism and
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counter insurgency campaigns where they, you know, the support of the
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population is very important to you achieving your goal, which is to.
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Separate the insurgent or the terrorist from his population so that another
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government or another power can exist.
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In a war like this, the goal is to defeat the enemy.
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How do you do it?
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While they're trying to sacrifice their civilians is you target the
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military capabilities and you make really hard decisions along the way.
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And how do you think Israel did?
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I think Israel has done exceptionally well in destroying
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Hamas's military capabilities.
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Um, while doing more than any military in the history of war, as in more
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measures, more steps to protect civilians, even with Hamas's strategy
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than other militaries who have never faced this context of the terrain, the
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tunnels, the enemy, all of these things.
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I think Israel has done exceptionally well, and there will be a lot of lessons.
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For the future of war so that, you know, another Gaza is not created.
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Well, what do you think, what is the American, uh, Military's perspective on
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the IDF generally, but in particular, the post October 7th hostilities.
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Do they respect the IDF?
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Do they admire the IDF?
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Did they learn valuable lessons from the past 16 months?
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Absolutely.
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Everybody I've ever interacted with that is a member of any
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military agrees, like, of course they're doing everything they can.
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And what they've been able to achieve is Is significant, um, in dealing
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with the challenges that I've been writing about for years, right?
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How the defender has the advantage, how the underground is a nightmare.
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Absolutely, there are lots of lessons, just like there are lots of
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lessons after many of Israel's wars.
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When Israel does the un And the one example I give people is that after the
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Yom Kippur War, the U. S. military sent lots of people over to study, like, how
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did Israel survive the Yom Kippur War?
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How did they do it?
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We commissioned 27 different studies that fundamentally changed
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the way the U. S. military fights.
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the equipment that we had, the, that led into the first Gulf war for us.
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I was just in Israel in December at a lessons learned conference that
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IDF was having the relationship between the U S military and the IDF.
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It goes back very, very far.
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Absolutely.
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A lot of respect between the two military sensors, so many similarities to our
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professional ethical, moral militaries, but also the challenges that are faced.
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The IDF face challenges that The U. S. military has, you know, Israel
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sent bulldozers during the Battle of Fallujah because The Israeli bulldozer
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is very unique to many of the defensive properties that an enemy can get if
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they get into the urban terrain first.
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So lots of lessons.
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I'm trying to record many of them, right?
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I've written a really big, for me, a piece on how Israel dealt with the
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tunnels, which was an extreme challenge that no modern military has ever faced.
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This aspect of where the underground is more important to the enemy than the
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surface and clearly to its population.
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The tunnels is where Hamas was, it was where the hostages was.
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It was the primary strategy to delay the idea to create this
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international condemnation.
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But there's lots of lessons here too, Rabbi, about what the world
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sees in a war and then how they, they basically come to their conclusions on
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what they can see without expertise.
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They don't care what John Spencer says.
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They just see the videos and the footage and the death and
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destruction that is, it is war.
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And then they make inferences to say they don't have the time, the
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care to research it themselves.
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They just make inferences that somebody is doing something wrong.
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That's really important as well for a lesson on this narrative.
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Information warfare, this court of public opinion has always mattered in
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war, but now we live in a different world and this also revealed a lot of
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anti semitism, to be honest, and I don't have any other way to explain it as
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a objective analyst of war when I say that Like this civilian to combatant
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ratio that I'm sure you've heard of.
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Nobody was asked, nobody's ever asked out of any other military during a battle.
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Go, yeah, but what's your civilian to combatant ratio?
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Cause that's not the way the law work.
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That's a Israeli question that I don't want to go forward because
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it's not the way that war works.
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It's the question is what are you doing to protect civilians?
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And then I can list out.
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You know, the 20 things that Israel does to protect civilians and not
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this civilian to combatant ratio where you take the enemy that is
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actually killing their own civilians.
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We shouldn't be using their number.
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And it's, there's, there's lots of lessons.
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Absolutely.
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I
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want to press you on that for a moment.
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Maybe you can give us some insight.
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It's pretty remarkable, isn't it?
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That you have this such a uniquely evil group of people
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who invaded a sovereign country.
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The war took place that first day.
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It was on the Israeli side of the border.
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It wasn't on the Gaza side.
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Part of their war aim is that as many Palestinians be killed
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as possible in order to swing Western opinion against Israel.
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And they represent So much contrary to what the West represents in terms of
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values and egalitarianism and equality and feminism and so on and so forth.
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And you have a military here who's, which is representing a democracy that is trying
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its best to avoid civilian casualties.
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And it's not only public opinion.
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It's also major international institutions, NGOs, governments.
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International courts of justice that have not only condemned Israel, but accuse
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Israel of genocide and, uh, hold its leaders to, uh, work arms prosecution.
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Again, I want to ask you, how do you explain that?
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You mentioned antisemitism, perhaps that's, that's it, or that's a big part
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of it, or how do you explain all of
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it?
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I can't explain it because I'm the one trying to fight for the truth.
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From a war perspective, there is an anti war crowd.
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They think that if they demand the C State, you know, the stop of all
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wars, there'll be, there'll just not be any killing and we can figure out
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some other way, despite, I do firmly believe, even from an objective point
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of view, um, that there is evil in this world and there are people with evil
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intentions that rise up and gain power.
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And I find it really hard after watching the October 7th video, and as somebody who
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has seen a lot of evil in the world, that that's a very unique type of evil, but
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people somehow can't separate that to the framework of war, where you're protecting
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civilians, you're targeting only military targets, and they don't care, they just
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wanna uh, Take the, the, the evil that was done on October 7th and relate it
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to the actual execution of a just war fought justly, there's the anti war crowd,
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there's the anti trust crowd, like, don't believe anything that anybody says, just
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judge it from what your eyes can see only, right, so this is where, you know,
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I've fought like, well, if we're going to believe everything that Hamas says,
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which is a, You know, internationally designated terrorist organization who
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shouldn't be listening to them at all.
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Well, then we should at least listen to this democratic sovereign nation.
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You know, every we should listen to what they're saying as well, their
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information, their numbers, everything.
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And there are so many really problematic things that have been said, like the
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genocide claim, like the starvation claim, like the bombing claims that are all.
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Counterfactual, you know, I actually was on a podcast with Jordan Peterson,
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where we were discussing like, here's what I've seen on the ground.
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Here's what facts we actually know and the evidence.
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And he basically said, what's your evidence that evidence
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convinces anybody of anything?
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This is emotion, right?
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This is what Hamas has tried to invoke just the emotion, not critical thinking,
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not evidence, not the framework of war, not a shared understanding.
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They just want the emotion.
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It's pretty depressing, don't you think?
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I mean, if Hamas, who are obviously a group of highly intelligent
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people who strategize and they have a plan, part of the plan.
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It was to take advantage of the, of the weakness of the West and its
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inability to distinguish between terrorism and, and self defense.
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It's very disconcerting, and even at the highest levels of the Western
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intellectual world, you're an academic.
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It seems like the more degrees people have, the less they're able to
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distinguish between basic morality.
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I
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agree, and it is, I don't let it get me down because I still
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believe that the truth matters.
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I still believe in critical thinking.
28:06
I still believe in, you know, evidence based research strategies.
28:10
But when I try to answer, like, why have you published 33 different articles
28:15
since October 7th about every aspect of the war you can or, you know,
28:19
been so vocal because I believe that this is about more than just Israel.
28:23
This is about Western society.
28:25
This is about intellectual thought.
28:28
This is about every year.
28:30
There's so many, you know, from our, you know, academic institutions creating
28:34
the dumbest people on the planet.
28:35
who are actually protesting in support of this evil that we're talking about.
28:40
And they have twisted reality so much so that they believe Hamas are the
28:45
oppressed, Israel is the oppressor.
28:50
But I still believe that, and as a, as a father, that, that it's
28:54
important to fight for values, for good, for all of these things.
28:59
My tools are trying to get people to understand the framework of war,
29:06
unfortunately, and I, I believe this as well is that only the dead have seen
29:10
the end of war, but, you know, in some of these smart circles, people think
29:14
that they can, we can have this peace dividend and that all work and go away.
29:19
I would love that, but there are evil people who have narcissistic
29:25
intentions or even grander evil that are sometimes backed by religion.
29:32
They're not.
29:33
I mean, the, the reasons that people go to war haven't changed since ancient time.
29:37
Fear, pride, and interest.
29:41
I believe in what we call the global international order has reduced wars.
29:46
And this is what we wanted, right?
29:47
We wanted after World War II, we wanted no more world wars.
29:53
But a lot of these problematic thinkings have led us into greater suffering.
29:59
When things happen like the invasion of Israel on October 7th, and
30:03
they're like, yeah, but no, there's no, there's no, yeah, but there is
30:07
the reason you have a military is to defend your sovereign nation.
30:12
We all want our children to have a better life than we did.
30:16
We all want to not see innocence suffer, but the problem is we're listening
30:22
to people that don't have that.
30:23
That's Hamas.
30:24
They don't have those shared human values.
30:27
So it's really hard to have a shared conversation when we don't
30:31
have those shared human values.
30:33
And there is this group that have radicalized themselves to
30:37
not having that shared value.
30:39
And it's really hard to fight against that.
30:42
But you, that doesn't mean you shouldn't, because if you don't, then it only grows.
30:49
Are you worried that, uh, terrorists around the world are learning a lesson
30:53
that taking hostages actually pays off?
30:56
One, Israel fought a different type of war because there were
31:00
hostages in Gaza than eventually what they fought in, uh, Lebanon.
31:04
Because there were no hostages in Lebanon.
31:07
And secondly, in terms of The numbers of terrorists that are being released
31:13
by Israel, some of them with, uh, lots of blood on their hands.
31:18
Are you worried that people around the world are looking at
31:21
this and are concluding, well, it actually pays off to take hostages?
31:25
I
31:27
mean, that's just fact, right?
31:28
I mean, where the motto of we don't negotiate with terrorists
31:32
wasn't like something of pride.
31:34
It was after a rise in airline hijacking and taking up hostages that
31:42
it, you can't reward the practice or you're encouraging it to continue.
31:46
So absolutely.
31:47
That is one of the many worries of responding to
31:50
October 7th is that the price.
31:53
That Israel is willing to pay has increased over time.
31:56
Forget the Gilad Shalit, one IDF soldier, where Israel exchanged a thousand
32:02
prisoners to include Yahya Sinwar, the architect, you know, of October 7th.
32:08
It has absolutely, this is teaching terrorists of the world.
32:12
That it's highly lucrative to take hostages unless you put a stop to it, but
32:18
there are many other concerns I have as an analyst of war to Gaza, like the fact
32:24
that it wasn't just a hostage taking, but Hamas created everything from the war.
32:29
Using every hospital for a military purpose, the schools, the mosque, the
32:34
UN facilities, like it's all creating a standard and if there is value
32:40
to, if you don't follow the laws of war and you're rewarded through this
32:45
international condemnation, like, okay, you can't touch a hospital no
32:49
matter what the enemy is doing to it.
32:51
You get to more people, more terrorists, putting civilians, putting
32:57
protected sites in danger because they get an advantage out of it.
33:01
But one thing you said that's important is, you know, looking in a short
33:05
amount of time at the difference between Hamas and Gaza and fighting
33:09
Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon.
33:11
One of the variables that we didn't talk about is just the fact that the civilians.
33:17
able to get out of harm's way in a war unique to Gaza because of Egypt.
33:25
Egypt said, look, I don't care what the international norm is.
33:29
I will not allow people to leave the combat area into my territory.
33:34
Nobody, they'll close the gate despite signing like African refugee pact
33:39
saying that they would always do is it's very abnormal for civilians not
33:44
to be able to get out of harm's way.
33:46
During a war, especially if time is given, but in Gaza's case, because
33:51
Egypt said not one will leave into the Sinai, when you see the war finally
33:58
start against Hezbollah after a year of kind of this liberal idea of just
34:03
negotiate with them and they'll stop sending rockets into Israel, Israel
34:09
did the same thing it did in Gaza, which is announce civilians, please
34:12
get out of harm's way in these areas.
34:15
The civilians left.
34:16
Nobody's talking about the civilian casualty rate in the war against
34:19
Hezbollah and Hezbollah didn't build an entire world underneath the civilian
34:27
populations, although it did use human shields and built, you know, rockets
34:32
into civilian homes to disguise them.
34:35
It didn't build 400 miles of tunnels underneath the civilians to sacrifice
34:41
the civilians to achieve their goals.
34:43
And just that short amount of geography, and I'm sure you've been
34:46
there, you know, that three hour drive difference to people's ability
34:51
to understand the variables in the war that are so unique to Hamas.
34:55
That wasn't present when Israel fought Hezbollah.
35:00
Just from a military perspective, uh, were you impressed with the
35:04
IDF campaign against Hezbollah?
35:07
Yeah, absolutely.
35:08
Um, and, and because I've focused so much on Gaza, it's been underreported
35:13
again in this Kind of court of public opinion, but what Israel was able to do
35:19
to Hezbollah in a matter of a few weeks is historic, is highly discriminant.
35:26
It's unparalleled from the Pager operation to the complete eradication of a terrorist
35:33
army for Israel within two weeks to completely eradicate as in kill the entire
35:40
leadership structure of a terrorist army.
35:44
It's unparalleled in the history of war and absolutely impressive.
35:50
The political goal of war, which is to reestablish deterrence and
35:55
so that Hezbollah stops attacking Israel and Israel can repopulate its
36:00
entire northern part of his country.
36:04
The ability for Israel to do that in a matter of weeks.
36:08
Which led into the.
36:11
Eradication of the Islamic regime in Iran, which is the head of all
36:16
this, its influence in the region, its ring of fire, it's the fall of
36:22
the Assad regime in Syria, all highly impressive from a military analytical
36:29
perspective that will also be written about into the future, of course.
36:34
My last question about the Middle East is, um, do you remember where you were
36:37
on October 7th and were you surprised?
36:42
at the success, the initial success of Hamas.
36:47
So, yeah, I was sitting at home and watching it on, on, on TV,
36:53
seeing it explode on social media, finding it difficult to
36:58
understand what was happening.
37:00
Like everybody else, somebody who studied massive attacks from like
37:04
the Mumbai 2008 terrorist attack still was hard to understand it.
37:10
And yes, very surprised what the Hamas.
37:15
And Gaza civilians that crossed the border with Hamas were able to do, I still
37:21
couldn't understand it until I actually got to Israel in December and looked at
37:25
the scale and the scope and the planning as a military analyst, the planning
37:31
that Hamas went into the overall attack.
37:34
How it executed it.
37:36
How do you explain that, that this, this military that you just described decimated
37:41
and dismantled a terrorist army, that those were the people that everybody was
37:46
afraid of in Israel, not so much Hamas.
37:49
It was Hezbollah, this major power that could wreak havoc on Israel.
37:53
Thousands of people would die.
37:55
They had tunnels going into the Northern settlements.
37:58
That's what people were worried about.
38:00
And this military that had, that did something that no other military.
38:05
Could have done even conceived of doing with, uh, pager, uh, attacks
38:09
and so on that completely dismantled this terrorist army in two weeks.
38:14
How do you explain the utter collapse on October 7th?
38:18
So
38:20
there are two stories that have yet to been told that really
38:23
aren't my stories to tell.
38:24
But.
38:25
Um, they had to be told one is what happened on October 7th.
38:29
I know more personally about from four research trips into Israel and into
38:35
Gaza than most people know to include those in Israel about what happened
38:39
at every individual site from the Sarov police station to the battle at
38:44
the black arrow to all the kibbutzim.
38:47
Truly understanding what happened on that day is really important.
38:52
And then the other story is, well, how did it happen?
38:54
What are all the contributing factors that allowed from the national strategic
39:01
level to the, you know, putting Hamas in a box, thinking that they were
39:05
contained, that all the active defense of the Iron Dome and other technologies
39:11
was enough to contain them, that they weren't pursuing their war goals.
39:16
That, you know, of the hierarchy of threats to Israel security,
39:20
the top of it was Iran, then Hezbollah, and then maybe Hamas.
39:28
But there, you know, from the Jericho plan, they had 18 months out to the,
39:32
you know, the, the intelligence reports happening right before it, the hubris
39:36
of shrinking militaries, believing in technologies is the better investment.
39:43
There are lots of contributing factors to how Hamas.
39:48
Was able to pull off this attack and, and have the successes, although
39:54
they, they had greater goals, they had maps to Jerusalem, they had
39:59
maps to Tel Aviv and other sites.
40:01
And the only reason that they didn't succeed was because of
40:04
Israelis standing in the door.
40:07
rushing to stop it.
40:10
But that story of how did October 7th happen, it has to be told because
40:16
there's no preventing it ever again.
40:19
October 7th should have changed everything, just
40:22
like 9 11 changed everything.
40:25
With the U S national security, from the way we look at intelligence, collect
40:31
intelligence, decide on intelligence to our military capabilities, all of that.
40:36
If you don't tell the story of why October 7th happened, it's really hard
40:40
to ensure it can never happen again.
40:44
So, I suppose that means, uh, it's really important to establish these commissions
40:49
of investigation both on the political level as well as the military level.
40:54
Absolutely.
40:56
And the more independent those commissions are, the better.
41:00
With that, Major Colonel Professor John Spencer, I want to thank you very much
41:05
for taking this time and also on behalf of, uh, the American Jewish community.
41:10
And the Jewish people around the world, thank you very much for standing
41:14
up for the truth and for right and for doing it in a courageous way.
41:19
Thanks for having me.
41:25
John Spencer speaks such common sense that it's baffling and frankly depressing that
41:31
so many around the world take exception to the basic realities he conveys.
41:35
October 7th changed everything for Israel and the Jewish people.
41:40
What was will never again be.
41:43
The massacres of that day revealed to Israelis, Jews, and all fair minded
41:47
people that genocidal forces seeking the destruction of Israel and the
41:51
extermination of Jews are arrayed a mile away from Jewish villages.
41:57
The only reason that 1, 200 Israelis were slaughtered on that
42:00
day and not 12, 000 or 120, 000?
42:04
was not because of intent, but capacity.
42:08
As John mentioned, Hamas had maps to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
42:12
They were going to continue to murder, rape, and kidnap
42:14
for as long as they could.
42:17
It was the IDF and heroic civilians that brought the killing to an end.
42:21
Otherwise, Hamas would have continued the rampage, killing
42:25
every last Israeli they could find.
42:27
It's not speculation.
42:30
Just listen to what they themselves say.
42:33
Judaism despises war.
42:36
We have always maintained that there will come a day of peace,
42:39
when nations will know war no more, when the lion shall lie down with
42:43
the lamb and all will be tranquil.
42:46
Overwhelmingly, in Judaism, our heroes were scholars, teachers, philosophers,
42:51
and poets, not military figures.
42:55
Who is a hero?
42:56
ask the sages.
42:58
One who turns an enemy into a friend.
43:01
But we are not pacifists.
43:04
Turning the other cheek might sound good if it is someone else's cheek.
43:08
But Judaism never embraced that philosophy.
43:11
There are occasions, and Judaism discusses these at great length, when the refusal to
43:16
use force is not only unwise, but immoral.
43:21
While each life is precious in the sight of God, my life is no less valuable
43:27
than the one who seeks to destroy me.
43:30
And therefore Judaism teaches that if a neighbor arises to kill you,
43:34
you must arise earlier to thwart him.
43:37
That was the monumental collapse of October 7th.
43:41
The IDF did not preemptively thwart the attack.
43:45
Unfounded and arrogant military and political assumptions
43:49
blinded Israel to what would unfold at 629 AM on October 7th.
43:54
If only there were helicopters in the sky and tanks arrayed on the border.
44:00
One of the central lessons of Jewish existence.
44:03
is that powerlessness leads to catastrophe.
44:07
It was among the key catalysts of the modern Zionist movement.
44:11
Powerlessness leads to more abuse, not less.
44:14
It leads the strong to savage the weak.
44:18
That was Putin's assumption when he attacked Ukraine.
44:20
He thought it would all be over quickly.
44:23
He invaded because he thought he could do so easily.
44:27
The sad reality of the human condition.
44:29
And such as our world is now, is that wicked villains like Hamas
44:34
must be countered with force.
44:37
For Israelis, the only way to stay alive in the Middle East is to be stronger
44:40
than those seeking to destroy Israel.
44:43
I wish it were not the case.
44:46
As a rabbi, I am devoted to Judaism's central message of peace.
44:51
I wish that Israel's neighbors were Western peace loving folks.
44:55
Perhaps one day they will be, but alas.
44:59
It is not today.
45:02
It's important to reiterate the basic truth that John Spencer conveyed.
45:07
Civilian casualties is the Hamas strategy.
45:12
This is a unique and diabolical evil.
45:16
Nothing like this has ever happened before in the history of warfare.
45:21
No doubt, countries have taken risks with their own civilians and were
45:24
callous about their well being.
45:27
But never has a nation faced a foe like Hamas.
45:30
whose entire war strategy is to cause the death and suffering of their own people.
45:35
Hamas itself says so.
45:37
We need the death of our men, women, and children to achieve
45:40
our greater political goal.
45:43
Militaries have used human shields before, but never like this.
45:47
As John mentioned, all two million Gazans could have sheltered in
45:50
those Hamas tunnels that were more extensive than the London Underground.
45:54
Not even one civilian was allowed in.
45:57
They are for us, Hamas clarified.
46:00
You, the population, you or the UN's problem.
46:04
They shot their own people who tried to flee.
46:07
They hoarded food and other supplies for themselves.
46:12
Millions of refugees fled Middle East Wars in the past decade.
46:16
Why didn't Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, all those brothers who
46:22
shed crocodile tears for Palestinians, why didn't they open their gates?
46:28
Why weren't gazen allowed to flee as is the norm in military conflict?
46:33
And what does it say about us the west?
46:36
that so many support Hamas.
46:38
It is a kind of moral bankruptcy that threatens our very future.
46:43
I believe in the West and Western values.
46:46
I hope with all my heart that we are not in an irreversible
46:50
decline as so many contend.
46:53
Either way, history will record the collapse of morality in our era and
46:59
will point to the inability of so many in the West to distinguish between
47:03
good and evil, freedom fighting and terrorism, savagery and self defense.
47:09
This is why October 7th.
47:11
is not only Israel's war, it is a war for the future of
47:15
Western decency and morality.
47:19
I reflected on this moral collapse while viewing the return of the
47:22
bodies of four year old Ariel and nine month old Kfir Bebas last month.
47:28
Israeli forensic scientists determined that they were murdered in cold blood.
47:34
In a ghoulish and unimaginably cruel spectacle, Hamas transferred their
47:39
remains from Gaza in the presence of cheering, exuberant crowds.
47:44
This is not freedom fighting, it is sheer evil, homicidal, demonic,
47:51
and difficult to conceive how such cruelty is even possible.
47:56
It infects much of Palestinian society.
48:01
Of course there are many good and moral people in the Palestinian
48:04
community, but the sad and unavoidable truth is that Hamas represents
48:10
Palestinians and Palestinianism.
48:13
They are, by far, the most popular group in Palestinian society.
48:19
Until that culture is deradicalized, there is no hope for peace and no
48:24
hope for Palestinian society itself.
48:27
That should be the task of the West and the United Nations moving forward.
48:31
Stop encouraging and funding Palestinian extremism.
48:37
October 7th was devastating for Israel, but also revealed the
48:41
moral rot in Western civilization.
48:44
As John said, academic institutions are creating the dumbest people on the planet.
48:50
At least on a moral basis.
48:53
We have allowed radical, illiberal, immoral ideologies into our
48:58
most cherished institutions.
49:01
And they are infecting the minds of young Americans, including, astonishingly and
49:06
distressingly, some young American Jews.
49:11
I still believe the truth matters, John told me.
49:15
So do I. And so should you.
49:19
To all right minded, truth loving people, stay the course.
49:24
And continue the struggle.
49:26
It is the only way to preserve our way of life.
49:30
The result of centuries of good people striving towards the light.
49:38
Until next time, this is In These Times.