Good morning. It's Friday, May 30th. The multi-front war in the Middle East is now 602 days old. I'm your host, Jonathan Schanzer. Welcome back yet again to the FDD Morning Brief. Another Houthi missile yesterday fired at Israel out of Yemen. Another Israeli interception. If you ask me, this is starting to get old, but I'm not sure I see a way out of this either. The Houthis have bowed.
keep up their indiscriminate firing as long as Israel continues to fight Hamas and Gaza. And try as they might, Stephen Whitcoff and company can't seem to get the stars to align for a ceasefire. Not yet, anyway, so the beat goes on. More on those ceasefire talks, though, in just a minute.
But first, let me tell you about today's guest. If you read the Times of Israel, you probably recognize the name Jacob Magid. He serves as the paper's U.S. bureau chief, and he brings a ton of knowledge to his writings on U.S.-Israel relations, Israeli domestic politics. the hostage negotiations, Gaza aid distribution, and much more. We caught up yesterday for a prerecorded conversation, and that's coming your way right after the headlines.
I get a ton of push notifications on my phone. They help me stay up on the news, but man, they drain my battery faster than a Hezbollah fighter running from an Israeli drone. Yesterday, my phone went nuts with reports that Israel and Hamas... had agreed to a ceasefire. Then came the next flurry. Turns out the Israelis hadn't agreed. And then another flurry, Hamas rejected the proposal too. So the media all got it wrong yesterday. It happens. But here's what I don't get.
The collapsed plan, including the return of just 10 live hostages and 18 deceased hostages in exchange for two months of ceasefire and an IDF pullback. So in other words, the deal was not going to end the conflict. And that's odd because. We keep hearing that the Trump administration is frustrated with Israel and it wants to end this thing. Hey, I want to end this war too, but here's what I don't want. Let me spell this out, folks. Hamas is the weaker...
party. The Trump administration needs to come down on Hamas like a ton of bricks. That means pressure on Iran, Qatar, Turkey, and whatever other garbage countries still support the terrorist group that started this war. I'm not saying it's simple. But I also know this, it shouldn't be this hard. Now for your headlines. Headline one, the IDF announced that it has successfully used lasers to shoot down enemy projectiles.
lasers. This is the stuff of science fiction. For years, Israel's Ministry of Defense has been working with the Israeli Air Force and defense company Raphael to develop a laser air defense system. On October 7th, 2023, the high-powered laser system was still in development. Apparently, the Israelis embarked on an accelerated development initiative after the war broke out and successfully operated prototype lasers in the field.
Israel reportedly deployed the lasers to shoot down dozens, dozens of Hezbollah drones. The videos are cool if you haven't seen them. Welcome to the future, folks. Even it feels like the region is still fighting a war from the 7th century. Headline two. The Lebanese Armed Forces reportedly dismantled most of Hezbollah's infrastructure in southern Lebanon. Two cheers for the LAF, not three, not yet, because the work isn't done. But according to the Wall Street Journal, the Lebanese army...
has been using Israeli intelligence to hunt down Hezbollah weapons and to destroy military posts. Results are still rolling in, but U.S. and Israeli officials are pleased with how things are going. It's all there in a piece that ran in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Prime Minister in Awaf Salaam summed it up. He said that the Lebanese government needs to have a monopoly on arms. And that, my friends, is the first honest thing I have heard out of a Lebanese politician's mouth in years.
Apparently, the prime minister slammed his fists on the table when he told his interviewers this thing. Thank you, Wall Street Journal, for that colorful detail. Reminds me of when Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad broke his hand doing the same thing, insisting that the Palestinian Authority fight corruption. Let's hope that Lebanon fares better. According to the latest, the Lebanese government has achieved about 80% of its mission to clean house. Keep it up, fellas.
Headline three, after 13 years, the stars and stripes are flying again in Damascus. Way to go, old glory. Yesterday, U.S. Special Envoy for Syria, Tom Barrack, who's also U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, was in Syria for the Grand Revolution. reopening of the ambassador's residence. But let me just curb your enthusiasm here for a minute. The US still hasn't reopened the embassy.
That said, Barrack's visit to Syria to raise the American flag is probably a good indication of where things appear to be heading. I must admit, though, I don't like Barak for this job, not because he isn't good at what he does, but because he is the Turkish envoy. And I don't want to give the impression that the United States is okay with Turkey's stranglehold on the new Syrian regime.
it's not all bad. Barak popped over to Riyadh this week and told Saudi media that he thinks the conflict between Israel and Syria is solvable. So Saudi is still in the picture as a possible patron as well. I like them much more. for that role. And by the way, normalization is still on the table. Inshallah folks. Inshallah. Okay.
Time to hit play on that conversation that I recorded late yesterday afternoon with Jacob Magid of the Times of Israel. He writes about those shifting Middle East dynamics and American policy in the region, if we have one. And I actually do press him on this. Have a listen. Welcome to the program, Jacob McGee. Hi, John. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to have you on the show.
Let me start with this. You have been following the Trump administration and the various moves that it has been making. And I want to get to those component parts in just a few minutes. But if you were to try to summarize. the Trump administration's foreign policy in the Middle East. Let's leave Russia and China out of this for right now. Let's just focus on the Middle East, Israel and its neighbors. How would you try to sum it up? How about deals?
making deals is that a fair response i think definitely that was a takeaway of the trip um he went places where he felt that he could make deals and where he didn't think he could make deals i think that's probably where he left off i think that mean
concern in Israel was that it wasn't part of it. And I think the response that I think probably folks at FDD and other places that are looking at this, I think will say, well, it's because Israel couldn't really finalize any sort of deal for him at the time. And that's what Trump is trying to do.
in the Middle East and probably more broadly. Yeah, I mean, there was that sort of famous quip from the president of South Africa who visited the Oval Office and he said, well, sorry, I don't have any planes to offer you. Is that is that it? Is it only deals or are there other sort of transformational things that go beyond transactions?
I think Trump is quite a transactional person. I don't think it would be fair to just simply say that's the only thing in mind. But I think definitely when he's kicking off his term and wants to advance the economy, I think... that is something that he's trying to that's kind of dictating where he's going and what he's thinking about um and as a result i think that's kind of why israel is maybe left off of the of the itinerary
Yeah. And I think the Israelis obviously don't have any major deals to offer. The deals that are in the works right now. are deals that the Israelis don't necessarily agree with, or maybe they're not ready yet. So maybe let's start with the one where it looks like maybe they're not quite ready, and that is the hostage.
for a pause or an end of the war. As I understand it, Steven Witkoff had a plan that he floated. At one point, it looked like the Israeli press was saying that the deal was going to go through. Then they started to walk it back. My understanding is it was going to be 10 hostages and 10 live hostages and perhaps some that were deceased in exchange for a 60-day pause. And that's apparently not working for either side. Do you have any...
insight into what's going on here? Yeah, just a few moments ago, I was able to get a copy of what I believe is the hot stitch deal proposal that's on the table. Relatively similar to what we saw. in January where you have this first you have an interim truce and it's followed by
During that period, you have negotiations that are supposed to take place on a permanent ceasefire that Hamas wants to happen right after the temporary truce is over. And Israel wants to have some more leeway in terms of maybe if it wants. to be able to resume fighting. So basically the same arguments we've been having between the two sides for the past months again is at the crux of this deal.
There does seem to be a little bit more Israeli buy-in this time because I think the wording in that clause about the transition is kind of vague in terms of whether or not Israel... has to continue negotiating if they don't feel Hamas is talking in good faith, then they're able to, after this 60-day ceasefire ends, resume fighting if it so chooses. There are guarantees from the mediators to keep the parties...
the table during those 60 days. But once that's over, kind of similar to the previous deal in January, once that first phase ended, it was a lot harder to keep the parties at the table. And we saw Israel resume fighting a couple of weeks later.
That's kind of the gist of the deal. Right now, there's still going to be talks regarding maps, my understanding is, about how the IDF will be redeploying during this period, where Hamas wants it obviously to go back as far as possible close to the border. wants to stay as close and as much in Gaza as possible. So those talks are going to take place over the next few days. I'm not one to be particularly optimistic. I think there's still real fundamental differences here.
At least Witkoff and the Americans are a lot more optimistic right now, so take that with a grain of salt. Yeah, I mean, I was in Israel when the last major ceasefire went through. That was January. And the Israelis really thought it was an achievement that they didn't have to go into phase two if Iran and its patron.
and the Qataris and everybody didn't sort of finally come around to releasing all the hostages and that there was sort of an easy re-entry back into conflict. And I'm guessing that's where the Israelis are now as well. But that does raise a... question for me about why is it that we're still talking about half of the live hostages, give or take, and half of the deceased hostages? Why are we not looking at a deal that handles all of this all at once?
ends the war, ends the crisis. This is something that I think everybody seems to want. 70% of Israelis want it. The Americans want it. I think pretty much all the Middle East wants it. Why is this so hard? I think we have a coalition in Israel that is not up for that kind of result of just simply ending the war and basically leaving things as they are. Netanyahu argues that this is something that will simply leave Hamas in power.
if it's dramatically weakened to where it was just months or years ago, where they're still able to regroup. We saw it happen in the first phase. deal that happened in January where Hamas did demonstrate its presence and therefore Israel is talking about going all the way. What's tricky about this is that there's not a real metric, I think, for what defeat looks like. conditions and he's been adding one now about
Trump plan being implemented as well, in addition to Hamas's military capabilities being dismantled, its governing capabilities being dismantled. Now you have this Trump plan that he wants all of Gazans basically out of the strip. adding those conditions i think it's also there are his critics will say it's because of the political situation in israel that is
coalition partners who had Vital Smutrich, who a few days ago was giving indications to Netanyahu that he would be okay with the temporary ceasefire deal as long as Israel was able to resume fighting. Now he's actually threatening of the past 24 hours, saying that even a temporary deal, I'm not...
willing to accept. Notably, Benkvier has been silent, but I assume, given that Benkvier has tried to be to the right of him, if you take those two parties, that kind of robs Netanyahu of his coalition. You have the ultra-Orthodox... mandate, sorry, the ultra-orthodox draft law issue that still hasn't been solved, and there's more of a feeling of elections in the air, I think right now, when I speak to Israeli officials, that maybe that will...
either choosing to make have netanyahu go one way or the other but um i think there's a feeling just that the that there's not a willingness right now on the Israeli part completely to just simply end the war. And I think that's obviously leading to some frustration. with the Trump administration. And we're certainly hearing that from Stephen Whitcoff. And apparently we've been hearing it about, you know, we're hearing it from people that are close to the president himself.
But not only on Gaza, right? We're hearing it about Iran. And there, I think it's a different story, right? I mean, on Gaza, you have to understand that the Israelis don't want to leave. Hamas in place. And that seems to be at odds with where the administration is, which is let's try to end the war. Israel saying it's not on the right terms. with a run this looks like something very different right i mean this looks like um at least in in many respects
Maybe not in every respect, but it looks like it's a backslide into an Obama JCPOA 2.0. The Israelis don't want to allow the Iranian regime to continue to enrich. They don't want confidence building measures. And by the way, also they see. a vulnerable Iran right now, an Iran that is susceptible to attack. And I think they'd rather be in offensive mode rather than having these negotiations continue. So does that sum it up or is there more to it than the tensions that we've been?
No, I think it's accurate. I think those who aren't huge fans of Netanyahu are definitely, I would argue, overplaying this issue of a rift. On the other hand, speaking to Israeli officials just in Washington yesterday, the idea that things are totally fine, I think, is also a bit of an exaggeration. president trump in public is asked and given an opportunity really to kind of just not answer um or escape the question but
Given the reports of the past few days of whether or not he held this call with Netanyahu and told him to hold off on an attack, and he said point blank, I'll answer honestly, yeah, I did tell him to hold off. It would be very inappropriate right now to...
launch this attack we're at a very important point in these negotiations that we feel like we're really close to a deal and attack right now is not what we think would be beneficial the fact that he's willing to say that publicly it kind of felt like something you'd hear President Biden say. And I think it's noteworthy that the frustration, it seems like, with Netanyahu seems to be somewhat of a bipartisan issue at times.
Yeah, and I think I'm hearing from Israel that folks are just surprised that this is where Trump is. I think they thought that, you know, Trump returning to the White House after some tough discussions and disagreements with Biden, that things were going to change.
And now they're not. Right. What we're actually seeing is more continuity than change. And that is certainly leading to frustrations. I would say it's discomfort. It's unease, but it does not look like a full blown rift, which is, I think, the way that, as you suggest.
in Israel. Opponents of Netanyahu would like to frame this. And certainly opponents of the U.S.-Israel relationship here in the United States, I think people are trying to frame it that way. I think you're right. I don't think we're at that moment yet, but it is not comfortable. And speaking of not comfortable, I also see right now maybe some signs of discomfort between the UAE.
And Israel, I know you recently wrote about this, stemming from Jerusalem Day, right, where this is where right-wing Israelis were marching through the old city with flags. um i've seen these before i've attended them before as an observer and i can see why some people might see that this would look like i don't know i mean incitement's a strong word but
This provocation certainly, I think, fits the bill. And now the Emiratis are weighing in on this. And this is the first time I've seen them kind of speak out against Israel in kind of a political way. Is that your read? I think it's not just the Emiratis, but the Gulf and a lot of these countries in general have a real aversion to a religious extremism. And I think this is just seen as like that. the pinnacle of religious extremism, they're obviously
more extreme examples. But I think looking at some of the phraseology, the slogans that are used at these marches year after year, and it seems that I've been to a couple myself, that they've gotten worse over the... since they started a war, which I understand there's obviously a move to the right in Israel and frustration with Palestinians in general, but the death to Arabs, Mohammed is dead, may your village burn, not really...
kind of the slogans of peace that we're hearing at these marches. And it's not only that, but there's physical and... verbal assaults of various passersby and who are forced to basically close their shops early in order for this march to go through the Muslim quarter, which they feel is a provocation. And I think the lack of any sort of enforcement and some
Sometimes you do have condemnations from Israeli officials. We didn't have that at all this year. And actually, that was one thing that one Israeli official I spoke with in Washington made a note of like, yeah, we noticed that this year Netanyahu didn't make a point of. condemning or having anyone in the government say maybe this isn't the right...
the right atmosphere that we should be creating in the midst of a war. And I think the UAE, I was surprised, honestly, how frustrated they were about this because this is a country that during the war has kept its ambassador in Abu Dhabi.
boosted trade with Israel. It's kept those daily flights when a lot of countries, and especially now with the Houthi attacks, have been pulling those back. And yet on this issue decided to kind of really... go all the way not obviously not on the way because they're keeping those ties and i don't think that's going to change um but definitely in rhetoric and and the the line that i got from a senior emirati official um which is something that also they don't really typically they're very media
cautious i think and don't often speak on what's called background whereas they're not giving a name, but they're still, it's a statement that's verified by the foreign ministry before it goes out. And they felt it was important to do this and really say, don't test us on this issue. We expect to see enforcement moving forward. Not saying or there will be consequences, but clearly that's the message that I'm getting.
Yeah, I think I got that too. And I found your report very interesting on this. It's obviously coming amidst some pressure coming from Europe, from Canada. Definitely feels like Israel's taking it from all sides right now, from what we're allies. I think they still are, but I think those alliances increasingly appear under strain. We're going to leave it there. I want to thank you. Thank you, Jacob Magid, for joining us today on the FDD Morning Brief. Thanks, Jonathan.
All right. Interesting conversation. Not sure I agree with all those assessments, but always good to hear from people like Jacob who track this stuff day in and day out. Here's what FTD has on tap for you today. Don't miss FTD founder and president Cliff Mays.
latest column in the Washington Times, where he exposes the growing alliance between far-left radicals and jihadists that helped set the stage for last week's terrorist attack in Washington, D.C. Cliff issues a stark warning. Slogans like Free Palestine and Globalize... intifada they're not just mere rhetoric it's not just slogans those are anti-semitic rallying cries for violence
In real clear defense, my colleagues Melissa Sachs and David May explore a troubling trend. American educators have been attending deeply problematic conferences and webinars. Often hosted in Islamist strongholds like Turkey that provide a platform for terrorist propaganda. These ideas don't stay abroad. What happens in Turkey doesn't stay in Turkey. These ideas filter back into U.S. classrooms from K through 12. to college and they are shaping young minds in dangerous ways.
And don't miss the season one finale of FDD's podcast, The Iran Breakdown, hosted by Mark Dubowitz. He sits down with Israeli singer and actress Liraz Charhi, star of the hit TV series Tehran, to talk about the Iranian people. who are fighting to break free from their oppressive regime. Word on the street is that Dubo is gearing up for a second season, so stay tuned.
That's a wrap for today, folks. If you want more super smart stuff to read on foreign policy and national security, check out the expert analysis on our website, fdd.org. or take a scroll through our growing library of social media content. And please do support our work with the tax-deductible donation at FTD.
Tune in Monday for another fascinating, riveting, compelling, and otherwise entertaining episode of the FDD Morning Brief. Until then, enjoy your weekend. I'm Jonathan Schanzer signing off for FDD.