According to a diplomatic source, Hamas is preventing civilians inside Gaza from leaving their homes when they are warned about an impending strike by the Israelis. I confirmed this with someone on the ground in Gaza City and then reached out to Hamas for comment, a senior Hamas official telling
Fox News it's technically impossible. The initial information is good information, and it is significant as we are getting reports today about the Israelis telling all of the northern Gazan population to leave because it appears a ground invasion is eminine well.
Ian Bremer, who were about to talk to tweeted out that more than four hundred thousand have already fled their homes in North Gaza headed south, as recommended by the Israelis.
And they headline The New York Times panic gripts Gaza as Israel tells one point one million to leave the north and Hamas is urging defiance of it. So I'd say chaos is a fairly well applied term. Ian Bremer, president of the Eurasia Group, author of the Power of Crisis, to respect the commentator on a number of out let's Ian, how are you always good to.
Talk gentlemen, I've missed you, and likewise.
It's good to talk. The immediate situation is chaotic enough. I know you specialize in trying to imagine what the next couple of steps are. How uncertain is the situation right now?
Well, it's very certain in the sense that the Israelis are going to escalate their airstrikes into Gaza and eventually a ground occupation into Gaza. That is very clear. And while the evacuation is going apace already four hundred thousand Palestinians of about two point three million Kasa that have left their homes and are trying to get out of Dodge for safety, far more are still going to be there.
They will be unwilling or incapable of leaving, and that means that the civilian consequences for this war are going to get much much worse. This is of course, very dangerous for the Israelis in terms of the impact it has on their relations around the world, and they have to be careful here.
Well, that's what we're just talking about. How wobbly do you think the United States government, France and all these other countries that have said we are with Israel one hundred percent, howe hundred percent are they?
I mean, you remember when Biden said a few months ago that we're with Ukraine for as long as it takes, which you know a lot of it takes. Is not something you usually hear from an eighty year old. I mean, I worry. I worry, of course, that the willingness of the United States, in any circumstance to be significantly a long term committed to a serious fight has a cell by date. This is very far from the United States.
It's very far from the heart of the average American citizen that has been through four years of America First and twenty years of an Afghanistan war, in a decade of an Iraq war. I mean, you have to use that as context. But certainly Israel is an issue that has very strong bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans in the US. Fighting against Islamic terror is something that draws a lot of interest for Americans. And yes, you can find some students at Harvard that will say that the
Israelis are responsible. That is by no means representative of the vast majority of the country.
Hey, let's look at this for a minute from the perspective of Hamas, You don't plan an attack like this for two years and spend the lives of a bunch of fighters just to strike a blow then go hide again. They have a plan, a strategy. What do you suppose it is.
I think that a lot of times plans are born of desperate plans come from having few good alternatives. And over the last couple of years, what you've seen is that the Palestinians have been marginalized in the region. Not many countries have shown a lot of interest in helping the Palestinians. Fellow Arab nations have said, well, we'll work
with the Israelis. And it doesn't even if the Palestinian situation is getting worse, Even as not Yahoo is expanding his settlements illegally on Palestinian territory, you have governments lining up to open diplomatic relations with Israel. So the Palestinians are loosing there and the Palestinians are becoming irrelevant for
the Israelis. Israelis are focusing on things like corruption, scandals and social descents and judicial reform, and all of that I think is a useful context to understand why Hamas would consider this kind of Attech because they increasingly felt isolated and that nothing else was working for them. But let's be clear, Haamas is not new to the terrorism game. Harmas has been killing and trying to kill lots of
Israeli civilians for a long time. What has really changed here dramatically is their ability to do so, and that is not in Yahoo taking his eye off the ball. The Israeli Prime Minister has access to the best border security in the world. This is not like US Mexico border security. This is serious border security. They have real human intelligence, I mean gold standard signals intelligence on the ground and in the air to be able to understand
exactly what the Palestinians are up to. And for the last six months they have taken their eye off the ball. They have not focused on this issue at all. In fact, they've taken a lot of the defense forces off of security with Gaga and put them into the West Bank because they were expanding the settlements in their Palatinian reprisal. So, I mean eighty six percent of Israelis in a poll two days ago by the Jerusalem Post, which is a right one newspaper in Israel, blame not Yahoo for this,
which is astonishing it's astonishing. So let's recognize that that's the biggest thing that has changed is that the Israelis do And if you're going to lock up the Palestindians in Gaza, two point three million people, ninety percent don't have access to water, fifty percent don't have access to proper food. If you're going to do that and you're going to take more of their land, you better focus on national security. You better make sure the border is secure and not in Yahoo didn't do that.
So I want to get this question, and I know I have a limited time with you if I'm if I'm running China and my goal is to take Taiwan, I can't imagine a better time than when the United States is involved in this and the world is paying attention to this, and you got an old president who might not be completely with it mentally. Why wouldn't that.
Have a lot of reasons. One is that China's growth right now is very low, and if they take Taiwan, it's going to be a disaster for Chinese growth. You destroy companies that they do a lot of business with, not least of which TSMC, one of the most important strategic companies in the world with all the semiconductors, and they don't get the high level semiconductors, so they get everything else there. So that's key. Secondly, militarily, this is
an amphibious assault. It's over one hundred miles away from China mainland China. I'm not sure they'd be able to do it militarily right now. Certainly that's the view of people that focus on this a lot more closely than I do. And so I would be shocked to see a sudden, sudden military attack by the Chinese against Taiwan. And you know, this is a time when China has been sending signals that they want to work more closely
with the United States. You know, they just met with Chuck Schumer and a bipartisan group of senators for eighty minutes. Chuck Schumer's wife won't meet with him for eighty minutes, so you know, I mean, the fact that Chijin thing did that in the run up to the Apex summit with Biden next month, I mean, does show that they are trying to normalize relations a little bit.
And it sounds like you have some insight into the Schumer marriage that maybe we'll ask you about the future.
God. Yeah, yeah, that's a longer conversation.
Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group. A final thought, Ian, and feel free to lead your next newsletter with this. There is no way Joe Biden will be the candidate of the Democratic Party for president next November. Zero chance. If you bet me one hundred dollars up against both of my femurs, I would take that bet. Go ahead, printed, I'll do it.
I will bet you that I want yours.
I want yours, I want you.
Had interest in yours, but I would definitely want them.
Hang them on your wall is a trophy, That's fine. I'm that confident.
Yeah, Biden's de nominee.
There is no plan b I mean look, I mean I don't understand the fact is it's thirteen months away, and my crystal ball tells me that he will be thirteen months older in thirteen months, and that is a big deal.
That is non negligible. But the president wants to run. Everyone around him recognizes that, and until that changes, there is no other nominee. So, I mean, look, I think that everyone out there would like the Americans to punt the election to twenty twenty eight. Yeah, and then you'll have two different candidates, but that is not where we are.
God, twenty four is going to be a crazy year. I'm sure we'll be.
Talking a lot. I'm excited about this.
Yeah, get that Hunsky ready for me. Ian Bremmer always great to talk you and thanks.
Very good guys.
Yep, he's excited about your femurs, Armstrong and Getty