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out at patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse. Hello, everyone, welcome to another episode of I so On, and I'm going to announce my interrot and the host introduction first because we never rehearsed this so and then we'll get around to the guest I'm Andy Milburn, I'm Jason Lyons, I'm Dimitrik on Tacos
and today as a guest, we have Alex Pleisis. He's a non resident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council. Very interestingly, I think, I mean, his whole resume is interesting, but of particular interest especially to our listeners. He's just taken over the the Terrorism Studies Group. Is that right? Alex at the Atlantic Council. You know, he's a and perhaps unlike some of the think tank think tank crowd, Alex has plenty of practical experience.
He was Chief of Special Programs in the under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for special operations some low intensity conflict. It's so much easier saying, ASD sold that I get beating. Anyway, kudos to you. That's one part of the Pentagon that I think, honestly, any anyone in soft probably does want to work, even if they don't know it. Alex, I am turning it absolutely over to you and to guide the discussion as you wish, topics of your choice. It is. Thank you. That was a kind of
introduction. I'd like to think of myself as like the forest gump of the g Wat era, stumbling my way through historical events. I have no business being involved with that's no way all like Iraq, Yes, exactly, yeah, along those lines I mean of late. Yes, the terrorism studies program of the Council has been revamped obviously in light of what has transpired, as
we all know from guests and colleagues in the community. You know, after the airport fell on Cobble, the agency was basically told to take the Afghan maps off the wall. We've all moved on. We're going to you know, pivot to the Pacific was the famous phrase. We're going to look to the threats coming you know from China and East China see and then South Chines see. And then all of a sudden the terrorist said, hey, you may be done with us, but we're not done with you globally and regionally.
Right. So we spent better part of twenty years going out after Sunni Cellfist. You know, Jihadis groups across the region, you know, from Alkaita to Isis et cetera, who were seen as a geostrategic threat, particularly with the existence of the caliphate under Isis that you know, then dissipated due
to combat operations. But then we've seen a not a resurgence, but one that's been there the entire time under you know, boiling right there under the surface, the boiling frog syndrome, which was really the threat posed by Iranian state sponsorship of terrorist groups in the region. And for the purpose of discussion, right the definition for terrorism we use is politically motivated violence against civilians.
So somebody is using acts of violence against those civilians and the hopes that they can get them either as voters or a you know, dictatorial regime, to get the regime itself to change its behavior in line with whatever the group wants, is what we're talking about. So for Iran in many cases that you know happens to be in Israel or in other places, or against US forces to try to get us out of the region where they don't want US based
sort of nearby. So that's been a focus on the counter terrorism side, and obviously immediate short term then being Amas, which we you know kind of talked about and October seventh, so my role at the Council in addition to the terrorism program, so part of the N seven initiative or the Negev Forum, which is where the Abraham Accords were sort of born, and so that's
building on the work that the Abraham Accords hadn't done. I was in Abu Dhabi last March, Bahrain last July, and I was supposed to land in Israel and October seventh, actually the rest of my teammates in landed from the Council. We had about thirty members of Congress that were that were coming, many of them we saw on television immediately afterwards saying I was in Israel, and I was there under rocket attack, and they were there for our conference.
What they were doing there, Ministers from a number of Arab countries were coming, Billionaire financiers from New York and from the States were coming in to talk about financial investment in the in the region, improve the lives about Israelis and Palestinians. And then October seventh happens and twelve hundred people are slaughtered, and probably the most sim the most heinous fashion of scene. We'll kind of
get into all that a little bit. I took two hundred hostages at that point, and I have to tell you, having done began analysis on the fly at the Pentagon and senior leader spaces and then you know, through the course of my career and sigh out here or there, seeing the ISIS videos, seeing the al Qaeda videos, they were very business like, for lack of a better term, black shadowy figures. Remember you know Gihati John who was part of the Beatles, you know, with the ISIS videos and some
of the others, they would make very serious policy statements, right. Their acts of violence were grotesque and what they were doing to intimidate people, but it was policy base, right. We want X, you know, we want you out of our lands. The caliphit's going to take over. And even though we don't agree with what they're doing or how they're pursuing it, it was seen as business with serious business in the videos and meant to intimidate.
I went to the Atlanta Council because the Israeli Embassy provided the forty seven minutes of footage of the attack that transpired in October seventh, and I have to tell you it was among the most heinous things I've seen, not only for what had transpired and the callous disregard for human life, even you know, women and children, but the maniacal laughter. The phone calls back to mom and dad bragging about the fact that they had just I just killed Jews.
Mom, your son's a hero, and you know, high fiving each other, giggling about what was going on as they're you know, killing people in some pretty awful torturing folks. Basically, there's no way to describe it. In some pretty awful ways. It was almost indescribable. And if you think about the problem that we had there, it was twenty five hundred people
across the border from Gaza into Israel to contemit these atrocities. This was not a cell of five to ten deranged individual it's even a couple of cells. Twenty five hundred is a massive sample size the population there that came across the border an unfortunately indicative of the indoctrination into the terrorist ideology that Hamas has pursued for quite some time, and it resulted in the deaths of the twelve hundred people in Israel. And what I also, you know, you derived from
looking at the situation is yeah, I mean dealt with hostage cases. As part of my that was the other part of my portfolio at Salek was hostage rescue. I was on the twenty fifteen hostage Policy Review, where we created the Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, We created the Special Envoy for Hostage Affairs, which is currently Rodner Carston's his position. And you know, we wrote the
Presidential Executive Order and the strategy for responding to hostage events. Still deal with hostage cases, still helping hostage cases in Afghanistan, I few other places around the world. And what the situation told me when looking at is a couple of things off the bat. First of all, there were some debates about whether or not Hamas truly knew the scope of what it was doing. The
hostages weren't taken from one kibbutz or one small village. They were taken from all across southern Israel, from a number of different cells that were operating right out of twenty five hundred people. So it was clear from the onset that they were given instructions to take hostages and bring them back to Gaza. And why would you take hostages in that number. The only reason you would need that many hostages to bring back to Gaza is if you were aware that what
you were planning to do was so incredibly big and spectacular. For lack of a better term, in terms of the attack itself and the carnage it was going to cause. That you need to mitigate the gap and military capabilities between the IDF and whatever Hamas has, between rockets and fighters on the ground, and the way you do that is by hostages. That's your negotiating chip,
bargaining chip. Israel has to participated in lopsided deals for years, releasing thousands of people and even you know, murderers for dead bodies of Israeli citizens to bring them back. So Hamas knew what it was doing and what it created is this nightmare scenario where you have essentially Gaza eight by twenty five miles controlled by a terrorist organization that's effectively walled and blocked off. It's often described as
the most densely populator, and it's not the most densely popular. I don't even think it makes top twenty five. But it is extremely densely populated. Out of two million people in that small space, with an underground tunnel network five hundred kilometers or so, if not more. It's basically a giant ant farm. I mean there's stuff all over the place, and so you've got
this densely populated environment that is non permissive. With a hostile population there towards the Israelis, and with two hundred hostages dispersed across a tunnel system and in buildings across the area, it makes trying to conduct simultaneous hostage rescue operations virtually impossible. You've got small arms fired RPGs and potentially shoulder fired missiles, manpads,
et cetera. Make helicopter missions, you know, and they're extremely difficult, right for any aerial insertion, you know, trying to come over the beach is obviously difficult too, is you're going to be seen coming, So
you're really basically limited. That point to a large scale ground incursion that we saw along with special operations for US is trying to conduct limited raids and so you're really it puts you in a shitty position, for lack of a better term, it really forces you into a primary stance of negotiation to try to get the hostages released, because there really isn't a good viable means. So Hamas really set themselves up in this case to get what it is that they
were looking for. Now, whether they're going to get it, it doesn't look like that's going to happen here at the end based on negotiations. But this was well planned, this was well thought out. Yes, certainly, I mean no argument there. I think you know, that's the you know, having spent a good deal of time in this round the last six months up set on this program. The sad thing is, you know, as as someone who really loves this, is that I don't think that country will
ever be the same again. I can't. I just can't see it. I don't think that people outside the country understand that. I think you know, and and I think at the same time and this this may not be neither there here nor there, but it's but I think it's an interesting aspect and I think I'm not sure what the comment is on this, but you know, as masks whether or not, you know, as they try and distance themselves from some of the worst random atrocities and yet claim clean you know,
responsibility for others, you know, it almost becomes irrelevant. But an interesting point I think is and worth pointing out with no agenda, is that a lot of those people who got out of regards who were common criminals or opportunists, sadly, and that is what now the idea I thinks. I mean, I'm sorry the you know, the IDF thinks occurred in some of the kabutz is that weren't on the map but were nevertheless act right, you hear the same thing, and I think, you know, do you right
your point? If you look at the polling data coming out, they're ninety percent support for the war on Gaza, ninety percent for you know, eradicating Hamas for lack of a better term, fifteen percent you know, support for Prime Minister Notatan Yahoo, which is which you think is rare, right, I mean, after nine eleven we saw rally around the frost. That's not high, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, I mean having been there on surprise that it's not hi. I didn't need anyone who liked
them, you know, that's what they're furious. But like you said,
but but yeah, they've rallied. That's absolutely the point. So so I wanted to now kind of jump forward in and I know, you know, every time, no one can talk about this discussion without getting angry calls, you know, and so on our listeners know hopefully hey listen, this is we're going to go down this pop because we need to just arguing either way as we get you know, fast forward to where we are now, right and I believe and tell me if this is you know, incorrect summer and
then and then absolutely want to hear your filth. So so you know, the things over the weekend, especially in the Arab media, there was there were kind of optimistic rumors that her Maas was going to and accept the latest proposal, which happened to be an Egyptian broken one. Right and then and then sometimes Sunday morning, Israeli time, har Maas targeted an assembly era in there coron Chuan killing or Israeli soldiers wounding, wounding nine right after that.
So so that that in in in you know, as far as the Israelis were concerned, Hey, that's all bets are off right, sure, and that's it went into session and not then that said, I'm sorry. The cabinet went into session, came out by unanus unanimous vote, decided to go ahead with invasion of Rafa, her mask her Mass's claim at the time, so us, hey, this was self defense, so we're going to take Rafa anyway. That's why they were there in that assembly area and the whole
useless borrow of arguments. But as the as the you know, kind of the initial shaping action start in a phase that was estimated to take two to three weeks, you know, evacuation of personnel, insertion of special operations forces, gathering an assembly, as all those steps are taking place. Arguably William Burns was able to say, hey, look all this stuff is happening, you know, kind of the veiled stake behind the carrot, and the carrot
being potentially survival of Hamas leadership. And that's and at that point Hamas counterproposed, but it wasn't the Egyptian proposal. It had changed in at least two points that the Israelis regard is critical. And that's kind of where we are
now agree. And I think, you know, as you mentioned for listeners who are in there, you know, history starts for people on either side of this argument, either after Palestinians or after Jews were killed and people argue to the death that were Who's if you got the moral right here we're largely talking about here is the military tactics and situation that on the ground that's going on. You can draw your own conclusion about who's correct and who's not.
And that's not. I'm not really interested in getting into the moral rights and wrongs here so much as like we're having a discussion about what's happening from a tactical perspective, from a strategy perspective, what's going well and what's not, and we and we talk, you know, we talk about politics here too. Yeah, absolutely, I think, you know, I think our listeners count on us to be as bipartisant as we can, or at least if we present one view, can we argue back. And we've got pretty good
at that. That's fair. Yeah, feel free to express your views at all. Okay, I I think so. I wrote on October eleventh that wrote a piece for the Atlantic Council basically detailing exactly what's happening now, the military strategy, how it was going to work. So from the beginning Prime Minister Nataniell who laid out what he declared was his goal for the operation,
which would be the demilitarization of a moss Right. We know from twenty years of counter terrorism ourselves, you can't kill an ideology with bombs and bullets. That's simply not going to fly, right, But you can degrade and disrupt a terrorist organization such as isis right in the caliphate or so called caliphate to the point where it's rendered and effective and and operate the way that it was.
But in order to do that in an area that they control, you basically have to conduct a giant cort on in search of Gaza, which are
then going to break up into chunks, which is what they did. So if you you know, at the beginning of the operation, they basically, I mean and as your well ware, you know, midway down Gaza is Wadi Gaza, like a wadi that kind of goes across the little valley, and they declared that to be the basically the line of advance, and they told everybody in northern Gaza to get south, so they included the ect evacuation of Gaza city. Roughly a million residents then fled south and Israel began conducting
clearing operations inside the city. Hamas remnants were they are the battalions, and they fought on. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers have been killed. This was a real battle that's been going on. You know, Hamas did stay and fight and the goal is to get the strategic weapons and the fighters. But when I looked at the forty seven minute video of what transpired that day, and that's again where some of the analysis comes from. There were no strategic weapons.
There weren't even really many technicals being used. This was AK forty seven's pistols, knives and grenades, That's what I saw. So the fighters themselves are what conducted that attack, that threat to Israel, right, So for
them it's the act of battalions on the ground. So if your goal is to demilitarize Hamas and also ensure that that type of attack doesn't happen again, and I don't mean from a radicalization perspective, the people turn around say, well, gright, you're creating another generation of radicalized individuals because they've been now subjected to total lost their families, their homes, their livelihoods, and this
is just going to be a perpetual cycle of violence. That is one counter argument to go from a strictly military perspective and achieving the objectives that were laid out in front of them. You know, the only way you can really do that is you got to go in and search, and so that would include remaining areas or raw fund everywhere else. Because the second you pull out and all of a sudden, IMS still has strategic stockpiles of rockets and everything
else, and rockets are flying across the border. The chiefs, the government who is responsible for ensuring this type of tactics to happen again, look like utter in complete clowns. So that's the political problem, never mind the actual military problem itself of not getting the remaining fighters and the stockbillus. You're never going to get every AK forty seven, You're not going to get every single
fighter. But again, it's about disruption and degrading the institution to where it doesn't function, and you've got to deal with the remnants sort of afterwards.
And so the problem is when everybody pushed south again. If you look at if you picture Gaza as a giant rectangle for lack of a better term, and starting up the top and moving south, everybody's essentially wedged between what's a wall on the right hand side or the east side, and on the north side south side is a wall with Egypt, and on the left is the
Mediterranean Sea that Egypt that Israel has basically a naval blockade. So it's a giant rectangle where everybody's stuck in the center, and so everybody's now pushed south close to that wall with Egypt nearly two million people. Infrastructure has been destroyed, so difficult in many cass sewage, water are those types of things.
Humanitarian conditions are extremely difficult on the ground. I mean the Sidney McCain ahead the World Food Program has talked about famine and other issues that are on the ground there which are very real. I mean, we've been running rescue operations in Gaza since October, helping to evacuate American citizens and allies, and it's the same thing you get from our folks on the ground. You know,
in terms of the conditions, they're right. So the question then became, what the hell do you do with the two million people trapped south and around the wall, and the Israeli answer as well, we're gonna have to shuffle them around the battlespace literally like in a circle, and as we move in, we'll push them one way or the other and try to send people back north, although you don't want people behind your rear flank. And so it became this, my god, this humanitarian disaster. You know, we need
to stop this operation. They're going to have to go into rawling. You cannot achieve the military objective of demilitarization and leave strategic areas where you've got known Hamas fighters and stockpiles of weapons intact and expect to achieve your objective. It's simply not going to happen. So when everybody's arging against them, looking from a military and security perspective, they're going to have to do it. And then Hamas is like, well, you know, we don't want this,
We want to be fairly troops with it all from Gaza. Yeah, you also opened a giant hole in the fence and opened up hell for lack of a better term, with twenty five hundred people coming across the border and slaughtering twelve hundred Israelis and probably the most heinous way they've seen and relative decides their
population. It's a very significant number of people and there was not. And again the arguments are, well, you know, we've been trapped like you know, caged animals in Gaza, and this is you know, resistance fighting back against an oppressor who is unoccupied territory and they have no business being here in the first place. The justifications will go back and forth in terms of whether people should or shouldn't, whether you believe it was the right thing to
do or not. Five hundred people across the border. They blew a hole and a billion dollar front system that was out there, and they murdered twelve hundred people. Alex can I can I just not, you know, certainly not argue that point. But to talk about U the you know, the the operation itself, and and I think, you know, I think it's fair to for me to share I think at this stage a pessimistic assumption about
the hostages. And sure it's not easy for me to do that. I actually know you know, one of the hostage families and have met, you know, But I I just it's got to always be front and center as a strategic goal for the Israelis. I understand that. But in practical terms, although it's importance remains great, I think in practical terms, we you know, we we're looking at a very long shot, right, you know, for for even getting the forty LT. But that's anyway, that's that's
kind of that's something we can can say here clear ye. But I understand in Israel, no, you know, that's a you cannot talk about that. But but from the from the perspective military operation. Then as far as goals, as far as objectives, you know, it's almost an opening. And it's not a secret. I mean, there have been rumblings among IDF leadership about kind of lack of strategic objectives. They have no problem. In fact, they insist that many of them, I mean that Rafa has to
be cleared. But they they're needing kind of just like they're needing some kind of overall goal. Who takes over from her mask? That's that's number one. How do you see that evolving? Number two? Is you mentioned and we're all aware of this problem to include of course the Israelis, the you know this whole clear and hold. They just don't have demand power to hold Gaza. They haven't made an attempt to do so. That isn't for tapical
reasons. It's simply because they can't keep three hundred thousand reservers tied down. So they've had to move out of areas of Gaza. They have tried to, they have retained, you know, they've kept solve in that they've they've got far better visibility of what goes on. But the plain fact is, as they know at Hamas's backfield those areas and retaken control, and that is always going to be a problem. So those kind of questions are linked how
how to solve that problem? Never mind, you know, let's not even worry about well, let's not talk about the hostages at this point, but those goals. So, I mean, I think it's it's actually probably the most point of question and the one that needs to be answered the most.
Quite frankly, there's an obsession with RAFA right now because it's been the thing in the news, and you know, with a progressive administration on the US side and around the world, with seeing a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians. It's my god, the humanitarian situation we need to focus on. RAFA is going to be done, and not that long. This is not going
to be a very long operation. As you mentioned, it pivots to the longer term question and it's one that has actually probably I think the worst moan Israeli security perspective. Like you mentioned, who is going to take over security afterwards? Inside because you need to, like we talked about clear bill and holds, somebody has to provide security. Who is going to govern that space?
Right? And then we talk about reconstruction. If we look at the damage that we've seen, fifty percent of buildings are damaged or destroyed in one capacity or another. It's going to be a decade to rebuild, at least on most estimates. If the people there don't accept the governing institution that is put on top of them, right, they may rise up against it.
So if it's not a if the Pelstony authority doesn't come in and they're not accepted, or somebody else outside of Hamas right now, knowledge you have Hamas remnants that are going to rise up, but you may have the population that's
going to rise up. And then for security, if that security force ends up being the IDF and there's not an outside force of contractors or a coalition of Arab states or whatever or else has been proposed, you essentially end up with the Iractionnario and I hate using these comparisons generalize ones to other conflicts, but if we think about it, it's essentially where we are, right all right, We've taken Bagdad, and we've we've beaten the Iraqi army in two
thousand and three, fantastic. We're a uniformed military force whose mission is to conduct military operations and defeat an adversary. Now you're telling me, I got a whole display. We could do the security mission. Sure, Okay, who does governance? Anybody in here do governance? Nation and state building?
Who the hell is responsible for that? So and that's again when we had a population and an ingenious decision to send the Iraqi army home without their weapons and have a bunch of military age males without jobs or income who are now pissed off at what's going on. Right, and at least there there was at least a democratic election of local candidates who were not selected by the US. Eventually, right, there's a democracy where you have a Shia majority government
for the first time after Saddam was removed. Right in Gaza, we're not even talking about that. So we're talking about potentially these Raelies from what we're hearing of these so far, because there's been no announcements to what the hell of plan is. Right again, Rafa is the big thing. Great,
what happens in two three weeks a month when this is done? If the plan is for the IDF to remain there at the security posture, also administer temporary governance and then start the reconstruction process and try to find some alternative government against there hasn't been elections in the Palestinia, a decision, by the way, which has tremendous economic and social implications throughout Israelis society much. It's not
an operation. It's not like deciding to surge the military to Iron one hundred percent, as you mentioned, because it's just simply not there from a size perspective, and the economic impact to israel effort from the limited. You know, the war went only on for a few months. We've been at war for twenty years in the US. There was a pretty sizable impact the Israeli economy with people that we're missing. We're seeing it Ukraine another small country as
well. You know, thirty percent of factories or thirty percent of production capacities down in many cases for Ukrainian factories where people are off to work. So the impacts are real, as you mentioned, from an economic perspective as well as societal. So even if that wasn't the case, but it is, you have to worry about that. You don't have the numbers, and you
end up with that point. So for folks that are listening right, the definition of what we're talking about here is an insurgency where you have a group of people who are going to rise up against the governing authority that they don't recognize as legitimate and against the security apparatus in that case being the idea that they don't see is legitimate either. And it only takes me. I mean,
we did this in Iraq for a long time. I gave two years of my life almost in a country that I'll never get back over weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, fighting in a counterinsurgency right and against an insert an insurgent force. And in this case what happened hamas fighter's sticking their you know, rifle out of windows again. Like I said, you're not going to get every aka, every pistol taking pot shots. That is rarely soldiers
killed two, three, four today, five tomorrow. It doesn't take that much where that adds up over time and you end up in the sustain It's actually Amasa's best case scenario. No longer do they have to break through a fence to attack his fahlya soldiers. They can do it in their own backyard, you know, And I and I just you know one other comment,
I guess just the kind of context. But the term occupation itself carries an incredible emotional historical weight in discussions with the IDF, and I just turn them insout it now. I think one hundred percent, right, is a very emotional term. I mean even the way that you know, areas of gaz are described as you know, the refugee camp, and people are thinking there's pitch tens, you know, somewhere because they're used to seeing that elsewhere.
And refugees are people who flee their own homeland to go to another country, right, Otherwise they're internally displaced persons by Definitely, if you're inside your own country, you're an IDP. If you flee to a neighboring country orn outside country, you're a refugee. They're not refugee gamps. People have been living
there since nineteen forty eight, right. And the terminology is important because it's for them to evoke some emotion and you know, a reflection of what they see as an occupation by the Israelis of land that doesn't belong to them. Whereas this is the sovereign state of Israel, and we've got people in our country or neighbors, they was like preferred as a dangerous neighborhood, who want to kill us. So you're right, it's a very very different mindset.
It does evoke a lot of emotion, and we're talking about it, and you know, there's a question of whether or not there should be a two state solution or a one state solution, and unfortunately, this is the other
conundrum that we need to talk about as well as part of this. It's blatantly clear, based on the messaging from the Arab States, Russia, hiling on, China, other major players in the world, that they believe the solution to this is a Palestinian state based on the sixty seven borders before that war, which a large squapth of land in the West Bank with some land swaps as they'll call it, whatever the hell that looks like. And then
the guy's a strip. From an Israeli perspective, forget the thinness of the state of Israel at those borders, whether or not it's militarily defensible, eleven to nine miles wide, and it's thin this point, right, you can cut the country in half. Put that, just put that aside for a second. This is question of now of whether a two state solutions possible. Is there somebody they can trust to govern a neighboring state to give up that
territory? Right these are? And then are you rewarding terrorism by agreeing to a two state solution even if it's not with Hamas after twelve hundred people were killed? And is that now going to be seen as a forcing function for future policy? Ask on behalf of other people? And politically inside and that's
the other thing. Politically inside Israel, there isn't the appetite if you're looking at the polling data for a two state solution right now, So you have that as just the general background for what's going on, then there's the political reality. So for those of you who are not following Israeli politics because it's not something most people would do. So it's not you know, just it is what it is, Prime Minister NATANYAHUO. It's a parliamentary style system.
So it's a majority of the members of parliament get together for a majority and then they elect their leader who becomes the prime minister. In this case, due to a history of you know, then you always been one of the longest serving premiers in Israeli history. He's got a couple of stints in and
out of the job. There. The coalition he had to put together to get the job includes you know, what's described as the far right inside the Kanesset, which are groups of people who are adamantly against a Palestinian state. You know, you know, Ben Gavie's one who's very famous for being outspoken. I mean, he was so outspoken and outlandish in his behavior. The
Idea wouldn't let him join. He actually didn't serve, which is rare in a country work service and mandatory conscription and getting in not only just to serve, but which he is now Minister for Security right, national security, right, and that touches on a couple of things, like you're right, it's Minister for national security. And so for folks who are looking at this problem set, you've got a guy who's basically who's feelings towards the Palestinians was so
great. He's now the Minister for internal security, like like you mentioned Nation Security, guy who's made some outlandish statements publicly, you know, like who cares about this? This is be Israelis and the Palestinian rights don't matter, which has been not received well so Natanyahu even if he wanted to make some more of these, you know what would be seen as progressive gestures towards you know, in our state or what not, Palestinian state. There's members of
his cabinet who are adamantly opposed to this. And when you have a razor thin majority like we're seeing in the US right We've seen the shit show in the House of Representatives over the last six months where it's like a game of musical chairs to forgere o that hol the speaker is going to be every six weeks. It's basically the same thing for the Israelis. Know who you know
does something that's considered too brash or too far is a concession. His government could literally collapse in terms of these folks who pull out of the coalition and yeah, there's a war cabinet, but at the end of the day, they could say, you know, we're not doing this, and there's not a requirement to call for elections, and he wants to remain in power.
So you have this domestic political problem with a razor thin majority and a group of people who are opposed to an Arab state, and then you have a global community who is saying that we're going to pay for this, will help with reconstruction, will recognize the state of Israel, you know, in terms of the potential Saudi deal on the table, but it all hinges upon the
acceptance of a Palestinian state on the sixty seven borders. And so the global community's viewpoint on this in many states, their desires and outcome for Palestinians is at stark contrast and odds to domestic Israeli politics and the realities of the governing situation inside Israel. And so that is probably one of the biggest problems that people aren't seeing. That's driving a lot of the inability to get to get some of it's done, because you got people saying you need to do this.
People are in power, like I can't do that. My government will collapse, and I want to remain in power. And that's essentially what we're looking at. Sorry, yeah, ahead to me real quick. You said something a while back. Sorry it took me so long, but you had mentioned in the in the after you know, the I don't know, but the possibility but you know, like an Arab led uh not I guess occupation,
but temporary governance perhaps or security or something like that. Is there in whether officially or not, Is there are there any Arab states that would be willing to raise your hand that you know of and say, hey, we'll hold on to things, hold things together until you get it. And my second part of that question would be how long would the Palaestatan people be willing to put up with that? Because that is another I could turn it to another occupation. So I will asge that with yes. But so yes,
there are, but with some conditions. You know, Gaza was administered by Egypt for quite some time. People forget that, you know, historically, it's not the first time they've had an outside the country that's helped to administer the situation there. Egypt also has the highest anti Israeli sentiment in the entire Arab world. I think I think a third of all Arabs live within six
miles of then out river between Egypt and Sudan. When you look at it, it's the epicenter of our culture and language, one of the longest standing peace deals of Israel. But the highest anti is really sentiment that's kind of around and there's no desire I think for the Egyptians to do that. They're
broke at this point they needed the IMF loans. You know, Ceci's been trying to God to country the best that he can, and they were worried about a permanent displacement the Palestinians. And the reason that I mentioned this is
tied directly to your question. For an Arab forced to go into Gaza to provide security potentially have to shoot terrorists that are trying to come out from a killing fellow Arabs, fellow Muslims, and also pay for reconstruction without a commitment to a two state solution based on the sixty seven borders or something that the Palestinian people would find acceptable for a lot of the Arab states, and again the Egyptians with opening the gate to the Sinai, the biggest concern that they
have there is if this is a permanent displacement and I open the gate, am I complicit in the end of a Palestinian state that includes Gaza. Am I doing Israel's dirty work for me? And the same thing is kind of thought and spoken in the background, but not publicly amongst the Arab states as they're looking the situation. If I provide the security force here and I do
the reconstruction and there's no Palestinian state. I essentially am green lighting the Israelis coming in conducting their actions in Gaza, all the death and destruction that took place. Whether you agree with Israel's justification for doing so or not, it's the Raaly situation what's transpired. Am I complicit now in that because I'm providing
these services on the back end and the Palestinians get nothing for it. So I think, yes, there are states who are willing to do so, but it's going to require that to be part of a comprehensive plan that includes a two state solution. And right now, there's nothing for them to gain. There's absolutely nothing for them to gain to come in and offer to do this. They're vilified, you know, by half the world, and they're not really achieving anything and that great cost. And you know, honestly,
the impetus behind normalization has nothing to do with ideology. It's everything to do with the economies, right and so and so why why in order to achieve that would any country volunteer to take on a massive, unending, indefinite economic cost, not to mention all the political baggage that comes with it. But I'm not sure that. You know, when I say we collectively us,
I'm not sure that our State Department always understands that. I think sometimes again, whether we're dealing with the Arab or the Israeli side, we tend to mirror image our own goals and objectives rather than you know, be able to see it through their eyes. You mean not everybody's warrantogy goals are aligning, fix it and yeah, but I mean inside and inside every Middle East, and it's just an American Texan struggling to be waiting get his or even worse
than New York helping the world. That's the case, was that life from Block is like I would advise you that there's certain areas of New York not to invade if you ever make it to America. When he's talking to the the whole true, the reconstruction alone is just a bad show. Can we can we touch on like what's going on with the hostage negotiation? He's fire negotiation because there was like some back and forth yesterday every you know, one
side was saying yeah, we yeah, we agreed. The other side is like no, no, no, we didn't. Yeah, So I think that's a great place to start. So they originally started with two hundred hostages. Let me just make something equivalently clear as far as I'm concerned from a policy perspective on these works. You take hostages, you're holding them against their
will. You were holding them inside Gaza. The Israelis are telling you we are going to conduct military operations here as a result of the attack that took place. It is your responsibility as the hostage taker and you take your happy ass and the hostages with you out of the combat area that's there. And if you can't to basically rodrop and say hey, I can't do that. I realized we're talking in an idealistic world, right that this is what's supposed
to happen. But from a responsibility standpoint, that is the truth. A mosto people is holding them against their will. So out of those two hundred people, we did see that early group of releases, right that the initial deal that saw you know, a ceasefire that took place, and we saw
the hostages being released, So we saw that population dwindle. Since then, we've seen a number of bodies that have been recovered either by as rarely special forces or by you know hamas videos and announcing these people have died and then telling them it was Israel's fault as means of propaganda. Whether it's true or
not irrelevant because they were using it for propaganda purposes. So, because how many people are actually left now Israel knows in the literal sense, there are people who are missing who were assumed taken on October seventh, who've either been seen on videos or whatever else, so we know what kind of with that looks like, and most at least state that they were taken alive. Right, because there's another category of people who are missing though we don't know.
Yeah, live for dead bodies and people forget. The state of Israel was founded in the modern State of Israel was founded in nineteen forty eight, right, So everybody had come from somewhere else Zionism as they called it, starting the Zionis Congress starting the late eighteen hundreds, right, started bringing people into
the war of independence. The modern state founded. The reason I mentioned it is there were waves of refugees and immigrants that came to Israel, Jews from around the world and the after about the World War two and where they're being oppressed in other places to come into Israel to find the Jewish state, as you know, their rightful places as a as a Jew in the world, that you are authorized to come to Israel and become a citizen if you if
you are a Jew, both in terms of religium and also I forget the connection is one grand parent. I forget what the bloodline requirement is. But everybody, the point is it became somewhere else. So a lot of these hostages are dual citizens. They're dual nationals because it's such a young country in terms of the modern state, that the people hold dual citizenship from wherever their parents are. In some cases they themselves were born if they're not first generation
immigrants. I believe there's still five Americans that are part of that that pool that's there. You've got a couple of other problems. There was heinous sexual violence that took place on October seventh. You know there you've seen the videos of the Israeli female soldier in the gray sweatpants with the trail of blood you know, from her the back to the backside as she's being forced into a vehicle. While the sexual violence was not in the forty seven minute video.
I've seen enough. And then myself outside of that video itself, and then also spoken enough people and survivors, et cetera to know that it was real. I fear that there are a number of female hostages or soldiers who may not come back as a result of not wanting them, not wanting to tell that story. It is a real rim fear that I have that I don't have anything other than a suspicion based on the way things have gone down.
But then more important that you mentioned in recent days they've been negotating last couple of weeks. The asked was for forty women, children and elderly as part of that deal, and Amas basically came back and said, we don't have that many that we can find. Right, Well, you took them, so when you're saying can't find them, it's not like you know, you
put somebody somewhere like you're responsible for them. And I asked, is it just Hamas that's holding the hostages or is it like Islamichi Hoad Are there other groups? There were multiple, So to start out with, you had Hamas Palestinian, Islamichi had and then as Andy rightfully noted, you had a bunch of local criminal shitbags who also broke through the hole in the fence that well
Hamas sold the responsible and they created the whole. They let they let these you know, pat but multiple groups that were holding them, which was part of the problem. And again in the hostage situation, the first thing you want to do is you want to establish who's holding them as much you could figure out who these people are, who's the decision maker on the release,
get to them, figure out what the hell they want? Can you actually give them something that's not a policy concession, it's a terrorist and can you get these people released? That's what you're looking to do in these situations, right, part of the problem. That was part of the reason they were asking for those initial members tool ladies. I think the first ones they let out in the very beginning, and that was I think proof that they were
negotiating with the right people. Do you have kind of command and control to actually release hostages? And that was part of the establishment of that that, Okay, these people are real, but you're right, does PIJ have some folks to other people? Yeah? And I think that that may be part of it. There still should be forty people that Hamas has alone to be able to get their hands on. Some of it could be a means of
communication issues. But yes, Israel was bombing and they're conducting military average. But they told you they were conducting military options. They told you where they were conducting military operations, So all of those hostages should be safe in southern
Gaza, somewhere out and away from remain military operations were conducted. If Hamas actually did what they were supposed to do, my fear is that either due to military activity, you know, the combat up north, or you know, over time, not being able to sustain these people whatever else, that people died during that. So I don't believe that all of the remaining hostages are alive. I don't know how many. I don't have numbers. I'm
certainly not going to speculate and play with people's emotions and toys. But when you've got a terrorist organization who is asking for things that they want is the reason they took the hostages in the first place, and they can't produce them the hostages that they're supposed to in order to get what they want, that's a problem because again, if they weren't asking for things, who gives a shit, you know, whether we keep them alive or kill them or whatever
else. And then from a terrorist perspective, it doesn't matter. You took the hostages because you knew you were going to need them. You knew the only way this situation was going to end in your favor was through a negotiated settlement, because the IDF has overwhelming military superior and advantage over you. So
going into that and knowing that's what how Mass's intentions were. If they can't produce the hostages, the only conclusion you can draw from at that point is they're either in community or they're out of communication, which is unlikely given the way Kasa functions and where everything is, and more likely, unfortunately, that there's more deceased than I think that people are willing to admit at this point.
I mean, that's the conclusion that one has to draw logically. So my background on hostage negotiation is dealing with my granddaughter and trying to get her to go to the bathroom. So let me ask a simple Hollywood question. I'm sure people asking and these sorts of things. Are the families involved or is it kind of like, okay, we'll take it from here. We'll
let you know. It depends, right, so in this particular case, the families are unlikely to be involved, and that's due to the fact that hostage takers are not looking for concessions from the family through the family or they trying to communicate with the Israeli government through the family. Right, they've taken into very public fashion and their negotiates taking place and cutter, you know, with the representatives of different The people on the ground are unlikely to be in
communication. It's open. This is open. It's not something I'm you know, sharing, I'm out a government, I have a clearance anymore. I'm not revealing classified. Their signals intelligence is good. I mean they understand what's going on inside there, which I know sounds insane in the aftermath of October seventh, but they surge capabilities and they've got a pretty good feel for what
the hell's going on the ground. So if they were making phone calls out with housages, talking to families, et cetera, would be be a big problem. Which the reason they ran hard phone lines under the ground is a means of evasion from the Israelis because they know what that looks like. So
communication is extremely unlikely. If they need to put pressure on the Israeli governments, or they'll try to activate the families by releasing these videos of people showing that they're still alive, to get them fired up and go protest and try to agree. That's all means to pressure a deal that Hamas believes is in its favor. That's the reason all that shenanigans has kind of taken place.
So I don't die. The families are not that involved here, and the role of third parties, which normally get like folks like me and whatever else. It's not an appropriate time for me or someone else like me to try to insert myself in that situation where it's very delicate ongoing negotiations at the governmental level, and unless they need help, where you have some sort of unique thing you can bring the table, you end up meddling and causing problems.
Right, that's perfect, thank you. It's not one of those situations I've observed myself. In your opinion, Alex, do you think hostages will be released? Because I can't see how MAS going for hostages being released without a deal on a ceasefire, and it doesn't seem like Israel is interested in that at all. So I think the big problem and the biggest disconnect in all of this is Moss wants a complete ceasefire and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces
from Gaza. And it's like the guy who beats the shit out of you, and you show up with a gun and point out, well, you know, I actually didn't mean to beat the shit out of you. I'm really sorry about that. I promise not to do it again, even though I've been spewing nothing but genocid wal you know, rhetoric. If I ever got my hands on you again, you know, snap your neck. I mean, it's the center stud of these Raelis feel going at it right.
And like I said, if the military objective is to you know, demilitarized Moss, they have to go into Rafa and the battle therefore is not over. And they're not going to withdraw because who the hell is going to provide security. They're not going to allow a Hamas to reform in the vacuum, you know, to the extent possible. Again, that's yet to be seen. Over time. As Andy mentioned, people you know creeping back up north and you know, and you know, reoccupying areas so that that ship show
is already coming We're already going to see that that battle line coming. Hamas continued existence in the form of governance and a governing structure inside Gaza is a non starter for anybody in the West. It's a non starter for most Arab states. They don't like Hamas. This is not like buying closed doors folks like I hate those guys. I wish the war wasn't being prosecuted this ways, but I'm really not. You know, all that upset about Hamas no
longer existing as institution. They're not exactly a well liked group amongst most of the arb states. So the the issue is, then, is there a willingness to accept reality. You picked the fight you can't win. You can have a respite for a while. You could, perhaps, you know, ease the conditions for folks on the ground that are there, perhaps even negotiate your own exit, like you mentioned, to save your own ass and go to some other country and try to live to fight another day. All those
fucking guys are dead men walking, every last one of them. The Mosada is going to get their hands on them and they are going to die. I don't care where they are on the face of this earth. That is one prediction I will make. I will not make a lot of military predictions. Those men will not survive. They will eventually say Israel's going to get them. So since Sinwar who's in charge, who, by the way, is a sociopath. The guy is a psycho, the one who's elected to
take over Hamas. He was the internal security enforcer for Hamas. At one point he went to prison for only almost twenty years inside Israel. He was one of the ones that was released for a Gilliat Shalit back in six At that point he had brain cancer and was and survived because an Israeli neurosurgeon removed the tumor from his brain. So he had murdered Palestinians and I think plans to kill Israeli soldiers back then, and that's why he ended up going to
jail and he got out. He's run on the show now from the tunnels under Gaza. He's the one that everybody's basically waiting on to say yes or no on this Teal And so far it seems like Micheal and some of the others who were in you know, in different plays in do Hard and Negotiating or wherever they happened to be hiding. It sounds like there's more favor from those outside to try to negotiate a deal, and he's basically like, no,
it's not going to happen. So the question of whether or not there's a deal and hostages is going to get out is depend upon Hamas accepting the
fact this war will continue at some point. You pick the fight that you know you can't win, and the Israelis are going to finish it one way or the other, right, And it's whether or not you're willing to give some reprieve to the Palestindian people and release some you know, innocent civilians and everything else if they're interested in doing that, and so far, you know what came back yesterday was that they significantly produced the number of postages to be
released and also extended the timeframe in which they would be released, like three a week or something like that, as opposed to three a day, which is a non starter for the Israelis. So it would take Hamas getting serious on releasing the hostage as well as accepting the long term fate that Israel's going
to continue to fight. Look, if you don't want fight, you shouldn't start in the first place, right, and their argument's going to be, well, then we'll continue to hold the hostages and at some point Israel's going to have to go in and try to recover the to themselves and take the territory, or there's going to have to be a deal settlement. But the terms that were put on the table yesterday, from a security perspective and politically in Israel, non starter, not gonna happen. And then and then,
and Alex stick correct me if I'm wrong. Then you've got this really convoluted kind of chain of communication for the negotiations, right, So not even the US are in the room. The israelis not so, and the parties are not And then the parties that Hamas sends to Doha can't make decisions for Hamas, right, They've got to And as you said, Alex, for some somehow they're connecting with Sindjah beneath you know, beneath Kaza to get his final
say so on things. And it's like what's real Taliban, And in Doha as well, it's the light of misfit. Everybody there's a mouthpiece, but we can make any decision. They go go back to Kanda Arkabo to get a decision render. So yeah, you have that problem, and then it
sounds like yesterday. Another shit show is the fact that this you know, negotiation allegedly was taking place without the Israeli's dollars that there changing to the terms saying yeah, and the way I read that was Hamaskan O I like this, this I could deal with. Everybody's been saying that it's Hamasa's fault for saying no. So I'm going to come out publicly and I'm now going to
say yes, I've accepted the terms of this deal. At the same time, political pressures bounting in Israel for a deal to be accepted and basically trying to throw the ball over the Israeli car. Well, we accept the terms of the deal. It's like Congress plays the game, right, we passed the law, We're going home on break. Yeah, but your law coming out of one chamber of the other is completely unacceptable to the other side. So I don't even fun if you pass it and you're going back home from
wherever you're from, it's it's that's not gonna fly. And that's essentially what we landed on yesterday. As it's like, I'm glad you negotiate with yourself and came up with a deal that you thought is feasible. Doesn't work for us. We're going into rafa until you guys get serious. So the Israelis are basically saying, hey, that deal is in a fucking sushi menu. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there will be hostages released, there will yeah, yeah, I mean it's in business, business too. You're a businessman
as well, in addition to having time and service. When you you know, forget Donald the r of the deal, there's only so many levers of power you can pull inside of deal structure. Right, you've got terms, you know, payment terms net thirty, net forty five, net sixty. Right, you know how much profit margin you're going to have, what other conditions you can have or terms on the sale that's going to be beneficial to somebody else. Right, you can tweak those levers, but it deal's got
to be good for both sides unless some of these backs. And at the end of the day, Hamas is trying to pull all those levers in its favor and Israel is never going to accept that. But Alex, I don't see any shaded air in the then diagram at all, you know. So, so you know, as far as organizations, possibly there's some wiggle room, you know, Israel Hamas maybe some wiggle room, maybe kind of a
Tunisian type exit for the leadership. As you said that the Israeli snow will only be temporary, right, you know, I mean it took them, It took them twenty four years, but they got air faed in the end. Right. Well, it's actually but actually fascinating story. If we got time for that. When you're done, I want to hit that piece because actually, yeah, yeah, you're going to steal to stop talking. I
would love to hear that. So Arafat. So I got to meet one of the agency doctors at one point and kind of told us the story about what had happened with Arafat because it kind of came up as a means because his job was to assess the health of foreigners and see how they're doing right, and so everybody I was looking for antidote anecdotes are cool stories when you go to training classes in the community and said, well, you know,
Arafat, he actually died, and you know he's like the Israelis didn't didn't actually get him and I said, what do you means? He said, but they kind of did. I said, can you explain what you mean? And he said, well, he got sick. He ended up with septis semia where he had you know, the infection had gotten so bad I got in bloodstream and when he was septi scemic and required surgery, he was
in France, right, so he was supposed to have surgery. I believe he was in Paris where they were going to conduct the surgery, and supposed the French doctors got together, like with the septi seemia that's here and the conditions and his age and everything else, there's a good chance he's going to die in the operating table. I'm not fucking touching him. I'm going to
be the one labeled as responsible for killing Arafat on the table. And he was so paranoid that the Israelis would get him, you know, in a medical situation, they would get to him, like in a hospital somewhere, that he held off on medical treatment till the very end, until it was too late. So he's like, well, the Israelis didn't get him.
It was the paranoia that they had induced in him after years of assassination attempts that actually caused him not to seek medical treatment until it was too late, and for the French to go, fuck this, I'm not touching him. That is such a great no. I mean, that's such a great story. I mean the irony because how many times did Marsat try to kill him?
I Meangman, you know in that book Rise and Kill First. If you look up assassination attempts on Arafat, it's like, I mean, asan barrock at one point when he was prime minister, because he had been there and dealt the force equivalent commander in terms of uh Syria. McCall right. I think at one point in his book he talked about standing there with like a I don't know if it was an RPG or like a shoulder fired rocket that he was in a field that was supposed to be aimed at killing Arafat.
And then then Arafat's in charge. Eight years later, he's the prime minister and the two of them were trying to negotiate a peacedale. I mean exactly that. It's just give you an illusture of example of how fucked up the politics are there at that point. But there's some symmetry there when Malacham. When Bagan wanted to visit the UK in nineteen seventy seven, the British had to remove a a an arrest warrant for murder for for connection with the
blowing up the hotel. David back in when does that forty five forty one there in the forties? Absolutely insane? I mean one day you were fighting one next to your that's right, yeah, and they found out almost at the last minute. It was a hilarious story. Special Branch is that's awesome, but we need to be there for the arrival summit ceremony because we've that
is insane. I got one more question about the whole What does Egypt do because like there's been some talk about Egypt kind of spinning up and is not interested in like like you said, like you know, a million refugees coming through there, you know that border. See does the Egyptian military do anything?
Do they spin up I don't see it now, spin up perhaps on the other side of a fence to make sure that people escape, because there were some reports yesterday that you know it must be blow try to blow a whole the fence to cause chaos and let the palestin the in start of escape the situation. The reality is, if you talk to the vest majority of Pealestinians, yes they would, they would like humanitarian assistants. They don't want to leave. They want their own country. So by them leaving, right,
they're not going to get they want. I think there's people be happy refugees and get the hell out of Gaza. Don't get me wrong, given the circumstances. But for the Egyptians, they're not going to start a war with these railies. They're not going to There won't be military you know, you know, uh clashes between the two so to speak. It would be
the situation's sort of unforeseeable. They do have one of the oldest I mean, let's not forget look how far we are into this war and the conditions that you see in Gaza and what the you know people are talking about. They still have diplomatic relations, you know, with a number of countries, they have peace treaties with it. Right, they haven't suspended, they haven't
pulled thembasters. So we haven't even gotten to the point where we start, like the diplomatic dictance that starts before that the combat starts where it's like, Okay, I'm going to recall this guy for consultations. Now I'm going to pull the ambassador from here. We're going to degrade, you know, our status here in this country. We haven't even started executing through those diplomatic steps yet, never mind getting down to a military conflict between the two states.
So I think of anything, it's potentially we see them, you know, providing security around around Gos and to make sure people don't come into Egypt. But I don't I don't see them them going inside. They don't want touch it, as we're mentioned earlier, as any mentioned too, for political reasons, for economic reasons. They don't want to do it. It's they would like this is a they don't want to touch this with a ten foot pole,
nless they have to. And and also to be clear, for the Israelis, having CC and control in Egypt is the best of a number of bad options. You know, they have delighted that it's not more sea still on the Muslim Brotherhood, but who you know, the Cross is an offshoot
of the Muslim Brotherhood. So and there is and there's more collaboration and cooperation behind the scenes than people realize is the Egyptian government is sensitive to its own public, who as wait, so hates Csraeli's but that the pragmatists, you know at the desert they are are. So what happens now? What's your best prediction? I know that's horribly unfair, but we've got we've got nothing closer to an expert. I know you don't like been cool an expert.
God help you wait, I can't imagine anyone closer to an expert. So, I mean, how I see it going. The key decision that still has to be rendered is by sin More and whether or not he's willing to accept reality on some of these major points in the deal. So far it seems to be a bridge too far that they're unwilling to do that. Israel will go into Rafa. It's going to happen sooner, or it's going to
happen later. I believe that the IDF will be asked to provide security inside of Gaza, at least initially while they're there there is I mean, we are too close to the end of an operation of with no mobilization of forces from an Arab country to expect them to be the day after scenario to take over security. So the short term and the midterm is becoming increasingly clear.
What is still unclear this point is a long term solution for governance post war, reconstruction and security, and that is where I think we're going to attempt to see some more US broker deals in the background and trying to see this normalization go on. The sticking point I mentioned on one side more he's willing to accept reality there. The other sticking point then for the longer term solution is whether or not Israel is going to move towards the state Tuesday, Alex,
you're breaking up a little bit there towards the sixty seven middle. Yeah, Alex, Sorry we lost you there. You got a little choppy just from the lost pomp. Yeah. As you're telling you about the state solution, it was, you know, a sense it that the whole thing. So for the folks or you know, pro two state solution, there isn't
the domestic support inside of Israel for that. So again, if I mentioned sin war being the short term issue in terms of his willingness to accept reality and what's not going to happen as the result of the negotiated settlement to the war. There's a long term issue that has to be addressed, which is on the Israeli side, which is the you know, a two state solution,
and there isn't the domestic will Ford right now. And for folks again not following Israeli politics, well, nen Yah who just gets out of office, this is all going to get solved. You know, he's a conservative loan and you know he doesn't want a two state solutions never going to happen if you look at the polling data. First of all, he's really left, has been decimated. He's really left in politics, but relatively doesn't really
exist in terms of a functioning entity right now. Those days are long gone, and who knows what happens in the future. But you know Benny Gantz is likely going to come in afterwards. And while he comes with a lot less the political legal baggage that Netanyahu does, if you look at his stances on the war and the other people in the wark Habin, their stances are just as firm as that who is on a lot of these issues, and they're subject to the same public opinion poll and votes as Netanyahuz. And so
there's two things that in order for this really to get moved. There's two things that have to get solved. Sinmar has to accept reality for this war is not going to end on his terms, and the fact that he wants these Raelies out in a permanent ceasefire. That's great. I want a golden Ferrari. No one's parking one of my driveway next weekening it to happen.
And the long term, there needs to be some sort of willingness to move towards a two state solution but not make it look like it's rewarding terrorism, which is a difficult balancing act in order for us to see a realistic foreign security force and investment in reconstruction to take place. So unfortunately, we are coming close to the end of the end for the end of becoming shortly for
Rafick. It's a small area that needs to get cleared. We are getting very close to where the day after scenario is supposed to start, where the day after scenario is completely undefined. And so that is the biggest concern that I see in front of us right now is the coming insurgency that I believe is coming. Yikes, Alex, I'm not going to make a flippant come in at the end about you wassend on a on a high note because you know, I think sadly you are right on tugget. I'm a Mets fan.
There's always next season. Oh god, yeah, you know if I always a sports fan. I think it's something pathetic to say, you know, to try and raise our spirits right at the end. But instead I'm gonna turn over to d all Right, Alex, everybody can find you on Twitter and LinkedIn obviously, right, Alex plezis what's your Twitter handle? I'm gonna put it all in the description anyway, so if anyone love it, fellow Greek has to stop to try to get that last name correct. You
know, it's that because you try to pronounce it the other time. And I was just gonna say, pleizzis. I mean I heard, I think, probably the most insulting comment, which you can't even you know, say in this environment anymore. Boot camp twenty years ago, I had a drill sergeant and looked at me and goes, do you know what pleza is? I was like, what, you know those moments where you're like, oh God, what's coming? Because that's the one part of the buffalo the natives
would need. I didn't even know how. I sat there utterly stuck. I didn't even had to respond to that. It's so for Twitter, it's at A L e x P L I T s A s so at Alex bleitzis and linkedin' the same subs Alex Bleitzas. All right, I'm gonna leave all the links in the description, of course Andy's award winning book. Congratulations Andy, congratulations. Maybe yeah, the link will be in the description.
That's the last episode. You need to do that, But I appreciate it, all right, higl buying a copy of you guys having a Bandy's book. Yeah, it's incredible, it is good. Yeah, well, thank you? What else? Okay, if you're listening to us, rate and review. If you're watching us, like and subscribe, check out our Patreon, Patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse. We have a really important guest tomorrow
on the Teamhouse. Adam Gamal. He wrote the unit. Uh yeah, he's in studio too, but I'm gonna be blocking his face out live, so hopefully I don't screw that up and show his identity. There's another Team House podcast. Yeah, can you imagine the actually yeah, you audacity you know what they see me and Jason. Everyone wants to be us. Huh exactly. It's not that, it's not that fucking Jack Jack Something Murphy, Jack Murphy, that Green Beret rabble rouser, another musclehead, Dave popped it,
said warrior scollar right to one of these. Thanks als, We really appreciate that. Yeah, you guys awesome. That was guys. You do