Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Aazam. We get the full crew here, Ady Milburn, Jason Lyons, mcmulroy, and myself. A lot going on, first and foremost, the Gaza ceasefires currently underway as we're shooting this right now, twelve o'clock Eastern on Sunday. What are you guys looking at, Mick? I know you've been tracking this pretty tight.
Yes, tracking it from both the ABC perspective and the fact that my group is doing humanitarian aid in Gaza right now. So obviously it's a great, a great thing that we have a ceasar that's now coming to place. It was very tedious and tension written because neither side trusts each other at all. I mean, they're more lenemies in the purest definition of word, so there was some fits and starts. One of the biggest issues I think that's been evolving around these negotiations is the lack of
clarity of who's alive and who's not right. Normally, when you do hostage negotiations start off with the proof of life, so you know what you're negotiating for. So it's still unclear to the Israeli side and the mediators for that matter. You know, out of the ninety seven that are still left, how many are still alive. And it's believed that even in the first thirty, which is women, elderly and children, that there are already going to be remains rather than
people coming out. So where we are right now, the three females that Israeli hostages have been relieved, they have been checked by the Red Cross, and they're in the process of free patriation. At the same time, there's about ninety Palestinian prisoners, some of which were in prison for a life. A couple actually committed significant terrorist acts that killed inno cent civilians. They're in the process of being moved, and that's even more complicated. You know, where are they going?
I don't even sure where they are and I follow this pretty closely. Some might actually end up in out of the country and Katar in Egypt is what part of the gatter is. And then at this all, with all that going on, you have the idea of having to relocate from population centers, not all the way out. And there's supposed to be six hundred trucks per day
of humanitarianists since much needed going into Gaza. Three hundred are supposed to go all the way to the north, so that is a logistical difficulty because of the damage to the infrastructure, and of course a large portion of that is fuel that is needed for the hospitals to be able to get up and running, which is also very much needed. And this is all happening at the same time, and it's going to go day by day.
We should all hope that it continues to go without any disruption, but there's a big chance that there could be disruption because of this complicated manner. And of course, just to add to that, not everybody listens to Hamas. There's plenty of theiatists in the in there that you know, might want to disrupt this for whatever reason, and if they can do something substantial enough, it's potential. So this is a very tenuous situation.
Andy, Yeah, I mean, well mix uh mixed the expert on this. I've just been reading some of the kind of the human interest side of the story too, when one of the first three women is as actually a British citizen, Jewel national, and so the British papers have been, uh you know, going wild over this, and uh you know, I mean there's some some quite touching coverage. Evidently she
has been a terwrist strength as a hostage. Other hostages who are released have said that, and not simply be because she's British, but Tottenham Hotspur football club, which I believe is you know, another football club, not one of the best.
They're pretty close out there.
Yeah, I'm joking. It's just for all the Spurs fans who are deplorable human beings. But aside from that, because she was a fan of Spurs, you know, they've been releasing yellow balloons during their matches and making announcements, you know, throughout the hostage crisis on her status and you know, kudos to the The other thing is, you know, to mixed point are the Palestinians being released. And I think
this plays into Sinoa's original calculus. Now, remember when Sinoa was released from jail in twenty eleven, it was part of a hostage release, and you know there were thousand, I believe a thousand Palestinians released in return for the body of Gilad Shahalil, who was an Israeli soldier who'd been kidnapped and killed. And so Sinoa was calculus through all of this was partly based on his own experiences.
We talked about Sinwha's time and in Israeli jail, how he studied through the British Open University courses on Israel, on the Zionism. But he's also a keen study analyst of Israeli national psychology, speaks very fluent Hebrew, and so it's ironic, you know, all this time later, a number of deaths later, since fifteen months into it, and you know his predictions are kind of coming true. That's I mean, listen, from a personal perspective, I'm for this cease far, I'm
not criticizing it. But some of these high profile prisoner has been released are indeed high profile. One of the carriers of Baby, who's a senior member of the Alaxa Martis Brigades on the West Bank. He'd you know, he'd escaped from a Gilbauer prison back in twenty twenty one, was caught again and he was behind a waiver of bombings in Jerusalem. There's another prisoner also who's been held personally responsible for forty two deaths of civilians and bombing
attacks back in this second Infidata Defarda. So again this kind of plays into Nettner, whose stands on the hostages. In other words, his apparent unwillingness to negotiate and to you know, any terms of ceasefire. And I'm not suggesting he's driven by principle. He's driven by trying to hold his coalition together. But it runs, it flies in the face of of kind of this really national ethos, which is regardless of cost, to bring back their own alive
or dead. And it'll be interesting to see what happens to his coalition now that Ben Gavier has finally finally quit. He's packed up as toys that Ben Gavier represents the Jewish Power Party and which is of course on the on the on the right wing. But it looks as though because the the consensus in favor of this ceasefire is is I won't say it's universal, but it seems
as though a majority of Israeli support it. And there have been parties in central on the center who have offered to help support Natanna whose coalition in order to carry this through, which is an extraordinary because Netnio, who was hated by these people, I mean, he's hated by a significant part of Israel. But the fact that they're willing to align with them in order to make this
ceasefi deal go through. Just shows the you know, kind of a level of hope and expectation that a sizable chunk of the Israeli public places on this ceasefire and the return of the hostages.
So I need to I want to ask, and I guess I'm not sure if either of you know this, but is it normal for that? I guess what seems like a lopsided exchange, like three of is the Israelis for like three hundred of theirs.
Is that normal? Yeah? Twenty eleven, Yeah, twenty eleven. I think it was. I forget how many it was for one thousand prisoners, but it was in I think it was like in the double digits.
Really, yeah, And it seems like the ratio this time is thirty to one. Okay, Right, So there's three coming out today and there's ninety being released, and some of them are I think out of the pool that might be released in total over one thousand, there's about one hundred and ninety two hundred that have serious life sentence. Like Andy was just talking about these these people that are so it's it's causing some tension, of course with
the family members of the people that were killed. But ultimately, I think for the greater good to get the people that you know, there's the first thirty three include children for Chris.
You know, it's it's I mean.
It's I can see how the families of the ones
that were killed in the past will be upset. But you know, there's very difficult decisions to be made, and it's going to be even more difficult to go from phase one into phase two because phase two is a full withdrawal idef from Kaza, right, So that is that is a huge political decision that's going to be fraught with you know, collapsings of governments and and it of course makes it more difficul It's a moss then decides to start fighting again if they can regain the capacity
because after all, there was a ceasefire on October.
Sixth, right, So.
Yeah, but right now they're focused on getting through Phase one and getting these thirty three people out.
So can we break down a little bit of what the parameters of the ceasefires? Is there a day count on it, like how they had in Lebanons, Hesbola and stuff like that, Like what what does it look like the thirty three hostages. Obviously, like, what are the what's phase one two?
It's so it's forty two days phase one to get thirty three hostages out when it's thirty thirty Palestinian prisoners per hostage. I don't think the amount of truck aid going in changes. I think at six hundred and eighty per day every day. There is some withdrawal requirements for the idef out of population centers, but what's.
Another part of it.
That's that's that's the one I know, and then you go to second phase. It's a full withdrawal, and then third phase in generally speaking, is the reconstruction of Gaza, right, so, which is going to take decades. So if you're looking at the overall strategy of a MOSS, I heard this this morning which I thought was kind of interesting. Pre October seventh, the economy of Gaza was essentially equal to Morocco. Right, So there's this concept that it was an open prison
and everything was without hope, but it wasn't actually the case. Right, So a MOSS for their strategy, is completely devastated Gaza. It's about eighty five to ninety percent uninhabitable structures, and I think I've seen an estimated fifty to sixty billion dollars in required to reconstruct. That'll take ten to fifteen years. That's what that's where they put their people. And forty six thousand dead right.
Now, what's the situation on the ground look like?
Humanitarian it's very dire.
I mean, we've all heard the most. I don't think there's any functional hospital right now, partly because there's no generations, no power, so the stuff that you need for any kind of advanced medical care is not there. The medicines, vaccinating, vaccinations have been a problem, so there's a concern that you know, otherwise diseases that would not be coming back are coming back. And of course it's winter there, so
there's a big problem with exposure and food. I mean, the food is just not flowing in but it should now and I think that from what my understanding, and we were just talking to our team this morning, there's
two things they need to get the food in. They have to have a place to store it, right because if they don't, people are hoarding it, people are stealing it, people are then selling it, and you know, the people who don't have money, So there has to be a rebuilding of some of the infrastructure that the UN specifically used to use to hold large food stores to get
them in there, so it calms down the population. They can look over there and see that there's enough food for the next two months, so they don't need to fight each other for this bag of rice or attack the truck driver. That's this all needs to happen simultaneously, so it can kind of decompress the situation but also
get food, not just the other issue. And I know get'll deep on this, but when they come into one particular ground entry point, it's very difficult to convince the population that it goes through first that they should let it go because there's a population further away than them they're starving. It's kind of a situation where it's a you know, every man woman for himself, kind of a darwinning type thing. So they have to come in from
different directions. I would say that there's still a need for a maritime cort or just to be done different than it was in the first place, because you can come in a different poluting the north and really bring in large scale humanitarian assistance to places that just aren't getting it because they can't get trucks down.
So Mick, with the speaking on humanitarian still, do you know or do you think there might be a hesitation from humanitarian groups outside of the ones that are already set to do work there to come in because of past attacks on humanitarian you know, trucks and things like that super risky.
Absolutely, they've proven that they still are willing to go and risk at all. I think one of the issues is there's a resistance on the side of humanitarian groups to fully coordinate with the idea, which involves tracking.
Right, So.
Most of us know that, you know, coordination across the battle space is super important, and you don't want to you don't want to blow that off because it's generally you that will pay the consequences.
And then that is what happened.
I understand their issues, you know, from their perspective on allowing themselves to be tracked. But that's one of the issues that leads to these deaths of humanitarian workers for sure.
But it's very dangerous to work there, and I think the more we can do to coordinate, potentially like a military level coordination of movement in a battle space would be beneficial, not only to the individuals who are brave enough to go and serve this humanitarian purpose, but to get the aid to people right, because if everybody was confident that they wouldn't get attacked and accidentally on route, then there would be more people willing to do it right.
So it is a it benefits the people on the ground as well as the humanitarians that are bright enough to go.
There about a thing about the hostages, like you said, like this possibility that there are multiple groups that are holding them, not just Hamas. Is Hamas like coordinating with them to try and get whoever, you know, whatever hostage they have out, because I remember when it first went off, we had Alex leats Us on and he said that there was real trouble, you know, locating the hostages because it's not just Hamas that's just one body. It's like
multiple people that hold these people. Yes, so I'm assuming, yeah, go ahead please.
I think they believe some a lot of them being held by just families right in places that are the least likely to draw attention of you know, if they're with around a lot of Hamas fighters, that is going to draw attention just from the the you know, the sake of the battle right. So that's one of the reasons why Hamas says they don't know how many people are still alive. They would have to send people around to places they believe the hostages are being held to
make some kind of proof of life determination. So certainly not making excuses for him, but that is the difficulty of recovering. These hostages are spread all over the place, and often in places that wouldn't be considered for where a hostage would be.
It's the internal There's a couple of things that are going to be really interesting to watch play out. One is, you know, as the Trump administration moves into position here, what their stance is going to be if the Israelis make the call that her Mass is not cooperating with the ceasefire and that all bets are off, and that the IDF will go in and finish the task of
destroying her Maas. Now, Netanyahu tells his colleagues is right wing colleagues who are left, notably Smoldrich, who represents the ultra orthodox MK. I think it's MK party. You know, he's telling him, Look, Harmas is going to break this deal and everything's going to be fine, because then we'll go in and finish the task. This is just kind of a hiccup. But but you know, no one really
knows what the Trump administration's status is on that. You know, it does seem as though Trump wants this to end, that it is an unnecessary distraction from from what he sees. And I'm you know, I don't have any insights here. I'm just saying from what he and his foreign policy team see as being dealing with the real adversary, which is Iran, and moving forward on achieving some kind of
resolution there. But nevertheless, that's you know, that's kind of what Netna who believes in that and Smoldrich Smadrich called this week Netanya who a lying son of a liar, which is which is an interesting juxtaposition of adjectives and nouns.
And so he's hanging on by a thread and something has been you know, something's been promised to him because who at the same time, against his will, has has started not well, he hasn't started, but Israeli government has started to enforce the conscription of ultra Orthodox Jews and actually this week issued warrants for the arrest of those
who are trying to evade conscription. This has been a live wire issue in Israeli a politics for some time, and Netna who opposed it, and it was the Supreme Court that overalled, you know what the government, the government's appeal that this was not the government's attempts to block it,
I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And so you can see now who is dancing very He's not to mix metaphors, but he is walking a tightrope here, trying to trying to keep the right wing, trying to keep the ultra orthodox within his coalition because those are his power base, rather than having to rely on centrist parties who will desert him probably as soon as the you know, as the the dealer is over.
Yeah, now, I'm sorry, Andy, with this conscription, is that something that would still be in effect. Let's just say everything stopped today, the ceasefire held, there was no more fighting. Would that be something that would still be put into effect? Or was that only because of what happened on October seventh.
No, October the seventh might have been a catalyst, you know, the mass the mass mobilization of all the reservists I think probably made it very clearly apparent to a number of israelis that the burden of military service was not being equally shaped throughout the population. But this has been an issue that has been going on for at least five years because as you you guys probably know, the
the already a population have under an understanding. I believe it's going all the way back to Benkurian when when they were kind of imported into Israel from Eastern Europe after the war to keep the traditions of Jewish religion alive. You know, the agreement back then was that they would not be called into service. But they have. You know, they've grown, they've multiplied, and and and so now it's very you know, when you have a large segment of
the population who is not serving in the military. And and I'm this isn't coming from me, It's coming from a lot of you know, Israeli friends, and their views are not really tangibly contributing to Israeli society in any
other way. I mean, they continue the religion, yes, they study it and they propagate it, but they're not defending the country and they're not working at business that adds to the GDP, and so it doesn't you know, modern Israel doesn't accept this exemption in the way that it You know that Ben Gurion intended it to be justified. So at lengthy answer, but yeah, this week one thousand, one thousand ultra Orthodox men received their draft I'm sorry, not this week. Here is months ago. It was back
in last summer. Is in July they received their draft notices and now warrants are being issued for arrests. It doesn't I don't know how many who are being classified as deserters, but it's apparently a significant portion of those one thousand who are called up. And at the same time, the ultro Orthodox parties, of which of whom now of which smold Rich is a representative, oppose this and have a post it from the start.
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Yeah, so you guys, Andy, you mentioned like the Trump administration's real aim in the region is Iran, And last week I saw a report where France, Germany and the UK met with her Iran to talk about whether it's options or what's gonna happen if they do get hit in terms of like their nuclear capabilities, and like, there was some speculation that Israel had a plan ready to go and they're waiting for the Trump administration to come in,
just because I'm assuming the Trump administration would probably be a bit more lenient at least in the press. Where have you guys heard anything about that in terms of like where we're at in terms like it sounds like it's just ready to go and they're just waiting to hit the button basically.
So there's there's been a plan of course by Israel for the day that they believe that Iron's in a breakout mode toward a deliverable nuclear weapon. I think it's poortant to point out that yes, they could get four four weapons, or at least enough leugh material to make four weapons, but then they have to and I'm not a nuclear bomb expert, but they have to come up with the triggering mechanisms to make it functional, right, And I've heard up in open source, I've heard up to
a year that would take. But they there is a plan, and I do believe it's being discussed more more openly and more more along the idea that it will happen if Iran, if there's enough intelligence that indicates that's where it's heading. And I think the Biden administration was talking about it with Israel and now the incoming administration was
probably part of those conversations during this transition. And we'll see, but it could be that they're openly talking about it or at least talking to media about it, because they want Iran to look at that and say, Okay, you know, we've been We've had several strategic setbacks, right, We're out of Syria for the most part. We've seen hesbelon a Mos decimated. We've shown that we can't actually conventionally fight Israel, and we don't really have any air Messi defense systems,
as three hundred have been destroyed by Israel. Maybe it's an opportunity to go back in the negotiations for an agreement that President Trump would find acceptable and that would likely include all the proxy operations, which wasn't included in the first agreement, the JCPOA, which is why they got criticized. So this might be real in the sense that they are really looking at you know, how are we going
to do this if we need to. But it also might be at least in part, to really send a message to Iron like now's the time to try to come up with a new agreement, and it might be effective. They might come to the back of the table because they are not doing well economically. The regime is incredibly unpopular, and they've proven that they really don't have much bite to their bark. They're pretty much all barked military.
I mean, I'm assuming here and I'm speculating, would Israel really want another deal even if it involved proxy forces?
I do think, oh sorry, all right, yeah, just quickly and then over you any I think if you include the proxy forces, it would be a difficult discussion of the United States going Okay, So they're not getting nuke and they stop bunning the proxy forces and you're against it, right, So like, what is it you want?
I mean, do you want the conflict with Iran? I don't think that would be good for the region, right or you? So I think if you include that it'll change the discussion. I'm sure there will be some people there, but we have to focus.
On the majority because that's what counts ay. Yeah, no, I was going to say, I don't think there's gonna be I don't think there's much room to maneuver if if the Uranians do agree, of course they've got to convince the negotiating parties of a means to monitor this. But if you Iranians agree to prevent to stop in funding Hosbolla in particular, and of course hamas Uh and and you know, from US perspective, the Hohoi's two, then I think that'll keep you know, all parties Israel, Saudi Arabia,
United States happy. But it Yeah, it'll be interesting to see. Certainly there as Mix says they're on the ropes, but that is such a that's such a central part of their foreign policy, right, because that is how that's how they exert influence and for Coots force the you know, the I O. G. C. And Mania himself to to kind of give up on that as almost unimaginable propagation overseas of of of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the destruction of Israel have been you know, it's been a
an open strategy of on. It was a shed strategy with its proxies. To step back from that, it's going to be a tough call on that pont and perhaps the threat of a strike on the NUCIA program is the only thing that will bring them to it.
All right, Going back to the cease fire for a second, I want a little bit of speculation from you guys. Does it hold, does the fort that we get to the fort not even hold? Does it get to the forty two days?
M So, I think it's in both sides interest to get to the end of the forty two days if done, if it's if it's done by the letter of the agreement. So part of it's just hopeful optimism, but I think is a good chance. After that, it's really tough because it I mean, if you were at Israel shoes, you're gonna withdraw the idea, who who's spilling the security vacume? Right? So my understanding, you know, I've been here talking to a lot of folks about policy stuff, and I'll so
what we're doing overseas. My understanding is the US has gone to golf allies and talked about a multinational security force that could potentially bridge the gap between you know, obviously not a OAS and something that's Palestinian but not ass and they've all said held out right, So then who's going to fill the security vacuum? And it's just for practical reasons, that's that's a tough answer and a tough decision to make. You know, then is it going to be a private company, is it going to be
at multiple private companies? And what would be acceptable? What kind of outside are they going to train Palestinians? I mean, it's and then I mean that all has to happen before we go into the second phase or or there's no security that the Israelis would be comfortable with. So I don't want to say we will not get into
the second phase because that just seems defeat us. But the challenges are very real and it's it's it's hard to it's it's hard to see that unless the international community, which says a lot and does little, steps up in some capacity, there will be a very difficult decision with the idea to put the idea out.
Yeah, especially especially since all these prisoners have just been released, to include two hundred with you know who are serving multiple life sentences each.
You know.
So, yes, Hamas's leadership has been destroyed, but Har Mass has not been destroyed. And that's clearly evident in some of the some of the film that we're seeing, some of the video clips of Har Mass fighters driving through carn Unice and being cheered by the crowds, and and of course that's predictable. You don't. You can't destroy an organization like Hamas by just whack a moll, by sheer destruction. I mean, that's that's not the way to go about it.
We've talked about this over and over and who knows how many how many nason Her Mass fighters they have created and bye by doing that. You know, if you've seen your whole family killed by the Israelis, you might have been offensive of before. But I think anyone here on this video call, when most of our audience would probably want to pick up a gun and get vengeance because that's human nature. And now and you know, now you've got all these Embroier leaders returning to the fray.
It just doesn't you know, it doesn't bode well. The destruction of her mask was always just an empty phrase. And I don't think Israel is any nearer now than it ever was to doing that. Yikes.
I mean also to completely agree with you, Andy, forty two days to phase two, and you need some sort of security for us there. That's not the IDF, and they're not in the plan in like you should be, not even in the beginning talks of it. You should be like in the middle of like logistics out it's gonna work. Who's going to be there? And there's nobody. It's like, Okay, I hope we get to I hope we get hostages out. I hope we get humanitarian aid there.
But to think that like the idea is gonna pull out in phase two is madness because there's nobody else. Who else is going to do I don't think there's US. Uh, there's political capital even with Trump to get to bring the US troops in there.
Uh.
And if if the people, if other countries in the Middle East aren't willing to step up. It's like, who the fuck is gonna do this?
I think it's it's just such a yah, such a a problematic situation because you know, first of all, I mean, they the the only the only potential realistic solution would be to couple together some of the you know, more powerful and and uh and richer families among the Palestinians in Gaza to you know, to to oppose the rebirth of her mask. But that's that's impractical. These yes, there are a lot of influential families, but they've had to
collaborate with Hamas to this point simply to survive. And then putting a peace force, peacekeeping force into there is all risk and no gain as far as certainly, as far as you know, the Arab countries are are concerned, and the Israelis aren't a peacekeeping force, you know, they have they have zero credibility in that regard, and certainly among the Palestinians at this stage, and they don't want to do it, nor will they contribute to the to
the rebuilding Gaza. They don't subscribe to, you know, our philosophy or colon Palace philosophy of if you break the China or whatever it was by the China Shop, right, you've got to help rebuild it. So there's simply no one who who who's going to be willing to step up to the plate and sadly or not sadly, and what's going look to the United States to take leadership on this. I can't see the European Union doing that. This and I and with the administration coming in that's
disavowed involvement in any such the operation overseas. It just yeah, there's no that doesn't seem to be any solution at all.
Is there any political will or capital in the UN where like you can get nothing?
Well, I mean, the UN probably would have to be part of it and certainly maybe.
Even lead it.
But to Andy's point and all of our points, there's no country is going to want to Roger up. It's certainly not USA. This is this is nation nation building of course, because yeah, we build Gosla, But could a private company that's falling that falls under the authority and legitimacy of the UN. I mean, as a guy who tries to look for some solution because if not, it's basically going to be a continuous cycle of violence. I
think they have to look at it. You know, the private security companies do get you know, bad reps, but they can serve a purpose if they're if they're overseen correctly, and if they fall under the legitimacy of an international organization like the Unitedations. And if they don't do that, I don't know what the other options are because it's Israel is simply not going to leave a security balcon which as will absolutely fill immediately if if they just
precipitously leave. So yeah, it's a challenge that the world should look at as one to solve.
Not just right.
I mean, listen, I'm happy to cease fires at least get in the forty two days, you know, knock on it hopefully, and you know, kids kind of stopped starving in the fucking street, you know what I mean, Like where there's this basic humanitarian aid getting there and hospitals getting up and running and stuff like that. Yeah, this is uh, rock in the hard place. And I'm having a hard time picturing a guy like Eric Prince sending his boys in to Gaza to like start helping prop
up and keep security going. On maybe there is another person outside of Harrik Prince. I hope to God that I'll be able to do it. If the private option was was the one that got the most steam.
Yeah, I keep going back to these prisoner this prisoner exchange or the exchange thing. I wouldn't put it past the Israelis to as they're releasing these guys to give them a wink and say we'll see you again soon, because I don't see them just letting them go and run around, run amuck, you know, And it's kind of like this weird cycle. It's like we let them go, they start their ship again, we capture or kill them. It starts tension, you know. It's just I don't know.
I just don't see these people, even if they go to other countries, I don't see them living much longer, you know, or it just being forgiven and let go. Maybe I'm wrong on that.
No, certainly there's a history of following up by assassinating prisoners or high profile prisoners who have been released. But remember there are two hundred I mean, there are some eleven hundred prisoners getting released, and of those, two hundred
hours so serving multiple life sentences. I don't know among those how many are potential leaders, but certainly there's some high profile names with a long resume of what they would call resistance action against the occupier in their words, going way back to you know, their nineties and.
So yeah, and.
Whack them all with works, as we found out, it works if it's combined with other efforts, right, But whack them all alone has not. You know, it has mowned the grass for the Israelis. It's brought his bolla to its knees, but it has. But they're not out, you know, neither his Bolla nor her mass is out. And it would be a mistake to think they are. It's not.
I'm trying to think of you know, when you think of the way we went after God, I mean, there's so many things that we didn't do well in the United States, but we did do it do a good job of going after al Qaeda, al Qaeda in Iraq, right, But it was a combined effort, and it was counterinsurgency combined with assassination and you know, the whole intelligence cycle, and it was many more actions and a number of those actions some people might cause soft but it did
work for us, of course, until we withdrew and the Islamic State came in. But the point is no, we let's you know, let's not undermine our own efforts. It worked well, but that's not what the Israelis do. They assassinate and someone else moves into the position. If you look at all the lead members of Hamas, Sinoard've, you name it, they all they a position opened up for them because he has really has killed the guy who
was there before. And you very rarely get someone in coming into dead man's shoes who is more benign than its predecessor just by nature of the beast, because he knows the risks, so he's bound to be more of a zealot than the guy before.
Good point.
And I mean like Sinwar got released in twenty eleven, right, and you know he was operating for the most part. I mean, I'm sure there were some of the like people were tracking it and looking to smoke them, but from.
Muso, Yeah, And in twenty fourteen, he was the guy on the political bureau who coordinated the our cousin brigades, you know, the military wing and directed action and the Israelis didn't manage to get him. And then he emerged from the tunnels in twenty fourteen afterwards to declare victory Daif, who was kind of his right hand man who took over they are custom brigades you know, years later, and was really the guy who did a lot of the
military planning for seven October. The Israelis tried to kill him seven times. They got his family, right, you know, they killed his wife, his infant son, and his daughter. And that wasn't you know, that wasn't likely to make him step down and go, okay, guys, you got it. He went ahead and planned seven October, right, so you think you know, again, it's an understanding of mentality. I think sometimes the Israelis forget they're dealing with human beings.
You see your wife and your kids killed, all right, what's your mindset going to be? Are you going to care about killing civilian so your adversary who did that? No, of course not, and I and I guarantee most people who regard themselves as being compassionate human beings wouldn't think
that way. You take a guy who's a jihadist anyway by background and do that, then you know you're gonna have trouble on your hands and sure enough they did, and they got that you've you know, eventually, but someone else took over the Alkasom Brigades, someone else who probably lost a lot of people during these attacks, and it's probably planning something and going to be planning something as soon as you know her mouse gets its feedback under it. I mean, it seems to me so obvious, you know,
they all this cheering every time they get someone. It's like, dude, it's what what else are you doing? What are you doing to consolidate your your advance is nothing? You know, You've you've left a city level to rubble population that is bound to hate you. You're doing nothing to help
them rebuild it. As bad as we were at times, and we made some mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, but for the most part, we understood that a strategy cannot simply rest on killing, killing and killing, and certainly not when you're dealing with a group that not a not a conventional adversary with fixed lines, You're dealing with an insurgent group.
Yeah, so one quick thing before this net and Yahoo. Politically, i mean, it's good that he's you know, there was a big, big push for the hostages and stuff like that. But he is losing starting to lose a bit of his like right flank in terms of ben Yavir and stuff like that. Is he able to keep a coalition together enough where he's not gonna get like hit with you know, getting booted, you know, a snap whatever election or whatever that you know, their system works, how their system works.
I think that Again I'm not I'm no expert, but I think that the you know, as I mentioned that, there are there are Israeli politicians who are more centrist, who are willing to align themselves with Netnia who for the sake of the ceasefire deal. So I don't think that his government is an immediate danger of falling, but that could change, you know, the ceasefire deal ends, depending on how it ends or any other of a number
of factors. But of course, remember there are there are criminal charges against him that that can only be brought when he is no longer Prime minister, and so he it's more than his political future at stake. It could possibly be, you know, his way to avoid being locked up is to continue in power. And I think most people, even his supporters, will see he will do ething to stay in town, and he's a survivor. He's the longest serving Israeli prime minister period, you know, longer than Ben Gurion.
And he's been a lead player in Israeli politics since in the early nineties.
And it's the Phase two negotiations. I think they start next week. Next week there could be could be the biggest challenge to that degrees with it. He's going to have to really explain what we already talked about, how do we ensure that Homosis to take back over and become the threat that they once were before October seventh.
I mean, you could see how hard these negotiations were, right the two sides I fucking hate each other. Where It's like this Phase two things should have been planned for months ago. It should have been part of the initial ceasefire in terms of like how is it going to work, who's going to be there, you know, the the actual nuts and bolts of it.
We said, I'm sorry who said? You know? He he took a stand on on the requirement for the Israelis to withdraw from Gaza, right and even though even when the military said, hey, we can go down to the Philadelphia corridor and still be ready to respond from there, and Halevi, who was the chief of staff said publicly as did oh gosh, yeah gallant. Right, they both said that,
and they were both fired. And so you know that that was the way that he that he kept he kept slow rolling the ceasefire, even when his own general said, hey, those terms are acceptable. He found a way too. They weren't. It might have been just a strategy.
And when it comes to negotiation that if they were to talk too much about phase two, they would have been around around the accelent phase two. I never even got into phase one.
Yeah, all right, So cautious optimism. And I hope they keep bringing that humanitarian aaden because I'm not interested in like little kids fucking starving in the street. It's a bummer. Yeah. And Mick is you know, involved in that humanitarian effort with fog Bo.
Uh.
You could check it out the linkers and the description. There's some other stuff too about the TikTok band and stuff like that. We could do that on another time. This is awesome, all right, So mixed companies, uh, fog Bow long Bow, everything is in the description. Check that out. Andy Milburn, He's got a great book. When the tempest gathers linkers in the description find him. If you wanted
to talk to Andy Milburn, maybe he'll answer you. The links are in the description Stop asking Me Jason lyon same thing. Links are in the description as well, and the best place to support the show is Patreon dot com, slash the Teamhouse. I missed you, guys. It's been a little bit of it's been a week, an entire week. I haven't seen you guys. Yeah, great show, guys. If there's anything else you guys want to add, please feel free.
No good good good saying you guys.
Thanks everybody.
Oh yeah, thanks for take it.