Israel At War: A Conversation With Meir Finkel

H.R. McMaster:

America and other free and open societies face crucial challenges and opportunities abroad that affect security and prosperity at home. This is a series of conversations with guests who bring deep understanding of today's battlegrounds and creative ideas about how to compete, overcome challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and secure a better future. I am H.R. McMaster. This is Battlegrounds.

Announcer:

On today's episode of Battlegrounds, our focus is on Israel and the war in Gaza. Our guest is Brigadier General Reserve, Meir Finkel of the Israel Defense Forces. A soldier scholar who holds three PhDs. Finkel is the Head of Research for the Dado Center for Interdisciplinary Military Studies, a think tank designed to further the success of the IDF and its military and political strategies. Finkel served for over 20 years in the IDF Armored Corps, including as the Commander of the 847th Armored Brigade during the Second Lebanon War. He also headed the IDFs Ground Forces Doctrine and Concept Development Department for seven years.

On October 7th, 2023, Hamas terrorists conducted mass murder attacks against Israel, which included heinous acts of infanticide, rape, torture, and kidnapping. Hamas shares Iran's professed intention to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. Iran helped Hamas build its terrorist infrastructure, increase its capabilities, and plan and prepare its assault. Israel launched military operations against Hamas in Gaza on October 27th, 2023. Since then, violence has intensified in the West Bank along Israel's northern border, as Iranians supported Lebanese, Hezbollah has launched multiple attacks causing 60,000 Israelis to evacuate the border region. Israel has intensified security operations in the West Bank, returned fire against Hezbollah and conducted strikes in Syria against Iranian proxies. The conflict has spread across the region as Iranian proxies in Iraq, Yemen and Syria have targeted US personnel and facilities as well as international shipping in the Bab al-Mandab.

On January 28th, 2024, three American soldiers were killed in a border outpost in Jordan, US retaliation included killing the leader of Kata'ib Hezbollah in Baghdad on February 7th. On April 1st, 2024, Israel attacked Iranian Islamic revolutionary guards personnel in what Iran claims was a consulate in Damascus, killing 13. On April 13th, Iran conducted an unprecedented, massive missile and drone attack against Israel from Iranian territory, the US, Allied Nations and Israel defeated the attack destroying 99% of the 150 missiles and 170 drones launched. On April 18th, Israel retaliated using missile strikes to damage an Iranian air base in Isfahan. An Israeli raid in the densely populated New Sadat Refugee Camp on June 8th, freed four of the remaining 120 hostages still in captivity, which include five Americans.

We speak with General Finkel as the IDF closes in on Hamas leadership in Rafah, and calls mount for Israel to halt the offensive and make greater efforts to minimize civilian casualties and ensure Palestinian access to humanitarian assistance. Hamas has rejected recent calls for a ceasefire and has refused to release the hostages as it continues to use the Palestinian population as human shields. Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, who is still at large in Gaza, described October 7th as just a rehearsal. And Palestinian civilian casualties as necessary sacrifices. We welcome General Finkel back to Battlegrounds to analyze the Israeli campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza, the broader regional conflict and how the wars in the Middle East might evolve in the coming months and years.

H.R. McMaster:

General Meir Finkel, it is great to see you. Welcome back to Battlegrounds. Thank you so much for joining us.

Meir Finkel:

Thank you for having me, General in reserve.

H.R. McMaster:

You're a full General in my heart. So it is great to see you, and obviously we're all saying our best to you and your family, which I know has been affected in a profound way by this war. And I thought the best way to start is the way that we learned how to start when we were lieutenants, right? To start with the enemy. And could you maybe tell our viewers a little bit about the Hamas enemy? I mean, Israel has many related enemies. But what was Hamas trying to achieve with these horrific criminal attacks on October 7th? What did they want out of that operation? And maybe talk a little bit about the organization itself, its charter and what its overall mission is.

Meir Finkel:

So Hamas, it's the combination of religious entity which belong to the Muslim brothers, which is, I want to elaborate about this part, but this is a kind of, I would say not the most extreme, but somewhere between the moderate and the extreme Islamic agendas, which we have a variety of. And specifically in our case, they took over Gaza Strip after we disengaged from Gaza in 2005, a year later, we gave Gaza to the Palestinian Authority to remind our audience in a agreement and Hamas practically killed Palestinian Authority officials and took over. And since then, immediately following this decapitation of Palestinian Authority Government there, they began shooting rockets, mortars, short range missiles on Israel. And since then-

H.R. McMaster:

And I would add there, they're also diverted tens of billions of dollars of assistance over those years, away from the Palestinian population and into the terrorist infrastructure that they began to use for these attacks.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. They practically, it was understood as early as 2008, that Hamas way is not to build a new state in Gaza after we disengaged after many years, from '67 to 2005. And as early as 2008, we understood they're building, the division commander then called it, they're building a Commando Division, Iranian Commando Division in Gaza. Okay? And from the military point of view, it's a combination of rockets on Israel there, which is in any terminology, terrorism against civilian. Ability to enter Israel through tunnels and later on will talk about it above the ground, through the sea. They've got their commando navy seals through the air. And between 2005, 2006 and October 7th, 2023, they built the army. We had few rounds of limited war confrontations with them, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, each time we tried under then during their very understood political decisions, not to conquer Gaza again-

H.R. McMaster:

Right. These were essentially extended raids into Gaza to reduce the terrorist infrastructure and their capability. And each of them followed pretty significant rocket attacks coming out of Gaza.

Meir Finkel:

We grew along the time with missiles and with range. The last one in 2021, I was sitting in my office near Tel Aviv and getting rockets from Gaza. So the range grew all the time. The amount of missiles grew on the time. It was always a combination of rockets on our civilians and actions on the border. And the major issue is that along those two decades, almost two decades the concept, basic strategic and political concept was that we have to learn to live with this growing monster. We'll hit it each time that we can, but we don't want to get inside again and rule Gaza after we did it from '67 to 2005. And this thinking, which looks fine along the years, but looks wrong now, limited our military thinking. Because as you said, we hope that the civilian and economical part of their-

H.R. McMaster:

Development. Their development, that they would, there was this idea that Hamas really did want a better life for Palestinians-

Meir Finkel:

Yes.

H.R. McMaster:

You had the work visas or the ability for Palestinian workers to come in. There was an idea that over time, Hamas could evolve into less of a terrorist organization, more of a political movement. But this was all a pipe dream. It was a pipe dream. And I think there were some too Meir, who thought that Hamas could be a balance to the Palestinian Authority, which was wrongheaded. So these were all, as it turns out, as you mentioned in retrospect, that was a bad assessment, right? But Zachary Shore, who's I think somebody you're familiar with too, he wrote a great book, A Sense of the Enemy. In this book he said, that you have to be able to see not just patterns, but especially pattern breaks. And I guess, I think what we saw on October 7th was a pattern break. But could you place that pattern break in context of what is Hamas' overall objective? Why does the organization exist? What do they want to achieve?

Meir Finkel:

Hamas, we thought that in the slow process of developing for a terrorist organization into a semi-state, this was the, I think the Israeli way of thinking and the world. And that's the reason that we try to, as you said, to give at least economic horizon through all kinds of issues, including the money, et cetera, et cetera. But Hamas apparently was still holding very tightly the idea of terrorist organization that wants to eliminate Israel and go back to the places that many Gaza left in '48 and fled from Rafah and Israeli cities today. And they still held this idea of throwing us out of Israel. We failed at understanding that the basic ideas are still there, and we failed to understand that, although we knew that a lot of the resources that they get are spend on building the amazingly huge and complex underground facilities, I would say what is called, The Metro in Israel. But we thought that they will balance between the civilian and military party and the party, they didn't.

H.R. McMaster:

And so did international organizations, right? And countries who are donors who wanted that money to go to the Palestinian people. But everything in Gaza is controlled by Hamas. We talk about hospitals, we talk about schools, we talk about-

Meir Finkel:

Yes, everything.

H.R. McMaster:

A police force. But these are not normal hospitals and schools and police forces. There are some good people in there, there's some good educators in there, there's some good doctors in there. But the entire infrastructure has been turned toward Hamas' overall purpose, right?

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And you can see it until now, because our soldiers now, when they enter Hamas' apartments, Hamas' fighter's apartments, they see the bags of humanitarian aid. They don't spread it within the population. It's a kind of, it's unique. I don't don't know if it's unique, I have to think about it, but-

H.R. McMaster:

No, Meir, it's not unique. When we fought Al-Qaeda in Iraq, right? They took over a whole city, much different situation, but very similar tactics. They controlled all the aid we tried to get to the civilian population in this city was diverted to Al-Qaeda's purpose. The hospital was used mainly to murder people who were not supportive of Al-Qaeda. The schools were shut down and turned into education for brainwashing or classes on how to connect kidnapping and murder. So I think what happens is good hearted people want to alleviate the suffering of people, in this case, the Palestinians and Gaza, but don't realize that a precondition for improving the population's lives is to destroy the terrorists who are actually ultimately responsible for the suffering of the people.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. The political organization is a terrorist organization that hold in the throat, the whole population. And of course the population is, you cannot really, it's a real problem to explain usually, and maybe it's a common mistake that we separate between the Hamas organization and the population which support it. It's the Hamas operatives and those who build the infrastructure. But yes, they're terrorizing their own population during peace time and during wartime, and they are holding the humanitarian aid from the population. And this is something that, this is first, this is the fact. And second, it's almost impossible to explain this to the world.

H.R. McMaster:

Well, and one of the key mechanisms for Hamas is to keep people destitute while as we know, their leaders live in these big villas on the beach, or they live in five star hotels in Doha-

Meir Finkel:

Yes.

H.R. McMaster:

But their people are suffering horribly because they want them to suffer so they can direct their anger at others at Israel.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. And I must say, but without going to the North, the [inaudible 00:16:55] Lebanon with its arms, it's not similar. But there is a similarity in that is the targets organization in its force is enforcing its will on the old Lebanese population. If

H.R. McMaster:

Somebody today in Gaza said, "I'd like to form a political opposition against Hamas because I think the Palestinian people here need an alternative." How long do you think he would live, Meir? I mean, he'd be shot immediately.

Meir Finkel:

We are trying this on the Northern part of Gaza. We are trying, it's in the papers. We are trying to alleviate the heads of Hezbollahs' in the North that give them the aid, so then we give it to the population to replace Hamas. Hamas is killing them. We cannot protect them to put the Israeli bodyguards to those Hezbollah heads. And practically they're killing them. So they're terrorizing them. And the issue is very sad because I'm not sure that we can create any kind of substitution to Hamas because we tried it in 2005 when we disengaged and gave Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority was too weak against Hamas in 2005, in 2006. Okay. Nobody, I think in Gaza will rise his head and say, "I'm opposing Hamas and give me..." He will be killed immediately.

It's the same, I must say, in the Northern cities of Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian authority with its police and the small arms, is not succeeding in fighting Hamas operatives and Islamic JI operatives. And that's the reason we are getting inside again and again and to keep them, because the Palestinian police are too weak for that. We're doing it for decades. And we'll practically, I think we'll have to continue to do it because there's no other-

H.R. McMaster:

I don't want to get into a high level political discussion, but this is a really important point. There are those who, and me included, lots of people who are lamenting the fact that an enduring piece seems much more far away distant dream than ever because it's hard to imagine any kind of a two-state solution, or Israel being comfortable with any kind of a two-state solution because of the example of post 2005 in Gaza, because of what's happening in the West Bank-

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes.

H.R. McMaster:

And the rest of October 7th, which is you cannot allow a terrorist governed entity to be on your border and to be able to commit those kind of horrific attacks. So I see, Meir, a precondition to any kind of enduring peace, the destruction of Hamas, and an alternative political entity taking over who could actually entertain a two-state solution. Hamas in its charter is determined to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. That doesn't sound like they're willing to entertain a two-state solution to me. So I just think what is missing in the public understanding is how the destruction, the enduring defeat of these groups is a precondition to any kind of enduring piece. So what I'd like to ask you is, is there a path forward to that? I mean, as you mentioned, there have to be Palestinians with guns who are stronger than a group like Hamas for any kind of a political entity to emerge or for the suffering of the Palestinian people to end.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, I agree. Or something, which I cannot see how being brought up but practically, other Arabs for moderate state, that will take kind of responsibility.

H.R. McMaster:

There has to be a peace enforcement mechanism, not-

Meir Finkel:

Yeah, something like this-

H.R. McMaster:

Not a weak UNIFIL, like the UN Force in Southern Lebanon that has no real fighting capability, no mandate, no authority, right? There has to be a real-

Meir Finkel:

I agree. I agree. But then, I agree-

H.R. McMaster:

Who wants to do it? Nobody wants to do it, Meir.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, exactly. So at the end, if there are no heads of Hezbollah, who can stand up and say, "Okay, we'll replace."

H.R. McMaster:

Yeah.

Meir Finkel:

No Palestinian authority is strong enough, no outer combination of Arabic, moderate Arabic states kind of policing, we'll have to fight there until, I don't see-

H.R. McMaster:

I'll tell you, this is not analogous. This is only just analogous at a very high level of generality. But you have Haiti in chaos, and really it's an African force that's going there. But there has to be some kind of force in place for this suffering to end.

Meir Finkel:

I agree. I agree. Before that, I want to add another thing, and this is the humanitarian organization in UNRWA, which is practically, I think, I'm serving in the military, so I can talk about-

H.R. McMaster:

I'll say it's compromised. It's a compromised organization.

Meir Finkel:

It's like it's sustaining the refugee problem. The major problem as I see it is that when people fled in '48, okay?

H.R. McMaster:

Yes. Yeah.

Meir Finkel:

From Palestine-

H.R. McMaster:

After the war initiated against the Jews in 1948?

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes. Because we-

H.R. McMaster:

And then you delivered an unexpected defeat against them that many of those populations were displaced by the Arab forces. And under the belief that they would then return to those. Okay, but there's all history there. But go ahead.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. And then there are still refugees in Gaza, in Jordan, in Syria, and in Lebanon, still refugees after from '48, '75, '76, and this is an issue which is-

H.R. McMaster:

Which is tied to the idea of the right of return, which is tied to-

Meir Finkel:

Yes, exactly.

H.R. McMaster:

Other ideas, right? So we know what the problems are to get to a two-state solution. We know what they are. The question is, are they insurmountable? I mean, they might be, I hope they're not, but they might be insurmountable. I mean, but in the meantime, what we need is we need a better life for the Palestinian people. We need to end the suffering, and we need to ensure that Israelis are never against subjected to the kind of horrific attacks of October 7th. That's kind of the near term goals as I see it, Meir. And what I'd like to ask you is, there's a lot more going on. I mean, I want to talk about the war itself in Gaza. But I'd like to ask you to help us place the war in Gaza in a broader perspective. You've already mentioned Southern Lebanon and Hezbollah. You've already mentioned the West Bank and the degree to which PIJ, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas are growing in strength there.

We haven't yet talked about the Iranian proxy army that is forming on your border in Syria, or the use of more distant proxy forces in Yemen and even Iraq for attacks against Israel. And we haven't talked about what the return address is for all of this, which is Iran, which made an unprecedented attack against Israel with hundreds of missiles and drones from its own territory. So I'm going to ask you, can you place this war in Gaza in the broader perspective of all of Iran's proxies? What are they trying to achieve, and how does the Gaza operation now, war fit in to the four decade plus long war against Israel by these various groups?

Meir Finkel:

So you covered, you listed all the enemies that we are fighting currently and probably a lot of the audience is not aware of because it's kind of what's going on in our Northern border. It's another war, a limited kind of war. But with about 60,000 civilians that were evacuated and still not there, a lot of villages ruined. We are fighting, killed around, I think until now, 500 Hezbollah operative. It's a limited war. And the issue with this is that I think we were thinking about what we called in Israeli military terms, a multi arena war led by Iran. But I think that in our military thought, they'll try to coordinate it, of course by Iran, which is leading it and sending munitions from afar, not from Iran, we thought that they won't interfere directly, but surely from Syria and Iraq because we've got before the war already, all kinds of drones and missiles from there.

And the combination of what we call the first [inaudible 00:26:49], Hamas Hezbollah, and the internal [inaudible 00:26:52], which is the Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Judea and Samaria. And also maybe what we have in 2021, Israeli Arabs, maybe some of them. So we thought about this idea, and practically I think that the reality was moving much more, it's a fast forward. We thought it'll become a reality within the next few years and we were beginning to prepare for this-

H.R. McMaster:

Meir, I might be wrong about this, but I think Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran, he's in his late 80s now. I think he was looking at his to-do list, and at the top of his to-do list is destroy Israel. And I think he may have thought this is the right time to do it because of political divisions in Israel, because of maybe the US Israel relationship, because of the degree to which the United States was having difficulty sustaining support for the Ukrainians. All of this. I think in his mind he thought this-

Meir Finkel:

I agree.

H.R. McMaster:

Time to do it. What do you think?

Meir Finkel:

I agree. I think there are three timeframes that we can talk about. The first one is the long term meaning that we have our time and our plan is to destroy Israel until, I don't remember 2040, somewhere in Tehran, I think counting down, I don't remember, 2040, but something like this. So they were preparing for elimination of Israel in the long run. The second timeframe, I think was something that happened because of few issues and the war in Ukraine, when they began to think as a global power. I mean, Iran, okay, we are aiding the Russians. We are much stronger than we thought we can-

H.R. McMaster:

This is for our viewers, this is the provision of Shahed drones, missiles, other capabilities from Iran to Russia.

Meir Finkel:

Yeah. It's amazing for them to be, they're a global actor. So I think that's enforced their-

H.R. McMaster:

And hey, Meir, just quickly on this. I don't think it was a coincidence or just really adept Russian propaganda that immediately after October 7th, the Russians helped Iran on this battle of perception-

Meir Finkel:

Yeah, I agree.

H.R. McMaster:

Invited the Hamas leadership to Moscow, right? Unbelievable in terms of-

Meir Finkel:

Yes, I agree. But I think that what was in the timeframes, the big idea was to destroy Israel in the future.

H.R. McMaster:

Yeah.

Meir Finkel:

Now is the war in Ukraine and what's going on in the Israeli society and et cetera, et cetera, made it kind of, they began to, maybe we can do it earlier than we thought.

H.R. McMaster:

And I want to add the Biden Administration relieved sanctions on Iran that resulted in the transfer of maybe about $80 billion into Iran's coffers at the same time.

Meir Finkel:

Maybe that, but the third factor beside the war in Ukraine and situation in Israel was that it seems that the Americans are withdrawing from the area.

H.R. McMaster:

That's right.

Meir Finkel:

I think those three issues was making the pace of their thinking from the far future to the near future. What Sinwar thought, and this is the third time-

H.R. McMaster:

Sinwar is the military commander of Hamas, who was probably hiding in a tunnel in Rafah at the moment. Go ahead, Meir.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, Rafah, Khan Younis, wherever. But, yes. And he thought, well, maybe he was mistaken on thinking, "Hey, we coordinated this and we should prepare it now." And so within those three timeframes, they thought, okay, we are getting near because the global situation in internal. And he thought it's now, we can do it now. And I think that he thought that Hezbollah will enter because they coordinated and Tehran will enter the war. But he misunderstood the coordination. So he began it now, the war for the destruction of Israel. Fortunately the Hezbollah was not prepared, coordinated on tactical and operation level, but still on the strategic level, on the long view, and same is Iran. But then we got to the situation that we are now in that we are fighting mainly Hamas, but still we have a fight in the North in another four or five arenas that you listed because they enter this. And we are now in a kind of war of attrition in all fronts-

H.R. McMaster:

Yeah.

Meir Finkel:

Which is very demanding in all echelons from the national level to the tactical level.

H.R. McMaster:

And is demanding on the international front in the arena of public opinion, which we want to talk more about.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes, yes.

H.R. McMaster:

But Meir, here's what I'd like to ask you then. I want to come back to Gaza because I think our viewers would like to hear your assessment of the military campaign. Maybe a little bit about how it evolved to where it's, but what's next, what's happening there? Whatever you can talk about. I know you can't talk about any details. But what I want to talk about first is the big lesson of October 7th is you cannot allow a terrorist organization to be on your border with these kinds of capabilities. That lesson applies to Southern Lebanon and to Hezbollah. There's a lot of talk, and actually we talked about this months ago, I can probably say now about the very high likelihood of the IDF feeling and Israel leadership, that a ground operation into Southern Lebanon is essential to eliminate Hezbollah infrastructure as a precondition for enduring security and for bringing back the 60 to 80,000 displaced Israelis from Northern Israel. Can you talk to us a little bit about what is the nature of the discussion?

Meir Finkel:

First of all, you are totally right. We understand that we cannot live with this kind of threat on our borders. This is not acceptable. So the situation in the North can develop into two lines. One of them is the Hezbollah will say, "Okay, and then at the end of the day, I don't want to go to full war with Israel," for some reason. And I understand that there is the UN resolution after Second Lebanon War, 1701 that restrict me from being on the Israeli board, which I, Hezbollah-

H.R. McMaster:

Had agreed to. This is the buffer zone behind a certain line that they have to pull back.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. And I, Hezbollah violated it. So I'll go back in this case, if I think it'll go back and the Americans and the French will give guarantee, there will be much stronger Lebanese army maybe-

H.R. McMaster:

I've seen that. You see European, more European countries are donating to the Lebanese army now, you have also a big diplomatic effort. I know that's a contentious situation, but go ahead. I mean-

Meir Finkel:

Okay, so this is one option. The next option is to do what we did four times in our history for our audience. And I wrote about it in, it was published in English, okay? We conquered 14 villages in Lebanon in '48, and we gave them back only after half a year, after a kind of agreement in '48. And then we conquered South Lebanon in '78 in Litani Operation. And then in '82, First Lebanon War and then in 2006. The next time we are entering Lebanon, I think we'll have to create a sterile zone within at least 10 kilometers with nobody returning them there forever. Something like this, I'll be very brutally is what I'm saying. Because there will be no event number six in which along our history that our villages and I live five kilometers from the border will be under threat of Hezbollah forces waving from the other side of the board. This is unacceptable. And if there will be no solid diplomatic solution, we will conquer South Lebanon and we'll destroy everything, I hope, everything there and nobody will get there because we cannot stand again this situation. And we learn-

H.R. McMaster:

It's important for our viewers to note that-

Meir Finkel:

My personal...

H.R. McMaster:

The most recent Israeli casualty suffered were from including anti-tank weapons that were fired within visual line of sight directly across the border.

Meir Finkel:

There are hundreds of war houses along our Northern border, okay? There are lots of villages and two cities, well, not cities, big towns, [inaudible 00:36:46] and Shlomi, who are not returning back until now. We cannot accept this situation at the end of the war or at the end of the conflict if there will be no war. But we won't agree, I think that the government and I, as a military practitioner and theorist, I don't think that we can live with something which is less than 10, 20 kilometers of area clean without any Hezbollah. Because as you said, we learned from what happened in the South, we learned from what we did in the North, and we'll create totally new condition in the North.

H.R. McMaster:

So for our viewers, what I just want to point out is, this war is a multi-front war, as we mentioned at the beginning. And it's a war that I think, Meir, it's going to go on for years. I mean, I just don't see how it's going to be resolved in the near term. There's a lot more we could do, maybe I think to expedite the end of the war from an international perspective, by doubling down on our support for Israel, by really focusing as the Biden Administration is on trying to get a peace enforcement force of some kind, ready for a Gaza operation. But I think really this war continues until we act like we know what the return address is, which is Iran. And what we haven't-

Meir Finkel:

Yes.

H.R. McMaster:

Is really imposed any costs on the rent. The Iranians Meir, I believe, are willing to expend every Arab and Palestinian life to destroy Israel. And it is a cynical, horrible strategy that they're pursuing, and they get away with it. Because we keep talking about deescalation and managing the war and instead of imposing costs on Iran. So Meir, what's your vision of what happens with Iran who we know is accelerating the course toward a nuclear weapon, which I know Israel will not tolerate under the begging doctrine. How do you see, I mean, do you have in your mind a vision of the end of this conflict? And unless we deal without dealing directly with Iran at some point?

Meir Finkel:

The only option is that regime change in Iran, which I don't see how it happened, but a long day is many-

H.R. McMaster:

Lowest turnout ever in their elections that just happened, for example. People are very discontent there. But of course, as you know, for a totalitarian regime like theirs, this theocratic dictatorship, you don't have to be strong, you just have to be stronger than any organized opposition, right? And they're great at repressing their-

Meir Finkel:

Yeah. And in this sense, it's similar to Hamas in Gaza, the government is terrorizing it's civilians.

H.R. McMaster:

Yeah.

Meir Finkel:

It's how to perceive it, but that's particularly what's going on in Iran.

H.R. McMaster:

And it's terrorizing and it's brainwashing and indoctrinating. It's the whole cycle of ignorance, which leads to hatred, which is used to justify violence.

Meir Finkel:

But you are right in saying that Iran is the head of the octopus, as we call it, or whatever. And unless it is badly harmed or changes its mind, it won't over. Now you try to change it with sanctions. I'm not in the details of what worked and what didn't exactly along the ears of sanctions. There is the military threat, which is Israel can impose harm on a military infrastructure in Iran, but we've got our limitations. And in order to do so, we need that the west will be, and especially the Americans, will be part of the issue. We can do what we can do. Again, the nuclear, but it still, it's a huge country and it's quite far, et cetera, et cetera. It must be a international effort. And so sanctions a war against Iran, which will be, I don't know how to phrase it. Okay, maybe we will have to do it and we'll hope that the rest will follow. I don't know.

H.R. McMaster:

Yeah, we certainly need a more resolute response so that Iran recognizes that they'll suffer severe consequences if they continue-

Meir Finkel:

Yes.

H.R. McMaster:

To use these proxies in an effort to push the United States out of the region, which is what they want. That's step A, so they can pursue step B, which is the destruction of Israel. But hey, Meir, I want to bring you back down into the Gaza for a moment and maybe drawing on your books, On Flexibility, on Agility, assess the Israeli campaign so far and maybe summarize for our viewers what remains in the operation. I know that there are operations going on simultaneously in Northern Gaza, in Khan Younis. We just saw the liberation of hostages in a dense urban area. And then also in Rafah, where we think, at least from those of us who are reading just from the outside here, that there's the most critical command and control and leadership infrastructure for Hamas. But can you explain the campaign to date and then really what's next?

Meir Finkel:

Yes. The campaign has practically, I think maybe four phases, but I'll put aside the initial, immediate response by air power, which I think it was quite short between the seventh and the 20th of October. I think when we, or something, I don't remember exactly when we began the maneuver. We did something that we thought that will never happen as we spoke in the beginning, that after we disengage from Gaza ruling it for decades, we'll have to conquer Gaza.

And practically, it was in three stages and it relates to our adaptation and the enemy, I think, surprised. I don't think that Sinwar and Hamad thought that we'll get inside this one million civilian city with the huge underground infrastructure and will get inside. I think they didn't believe it. They saw that we'll do something in the periphery, et cetera. And I think that we didn't believe it before the war, but we had to do it.

H.R. McMaster:

Yeah.

Meir Finkel:

And we found ourselves in a situation that we didn't imagine. And from all levels, it was kind of the maneuver miracle, I don't know how to call it. After decades of not maneuvering with a lot of forces in all terrain-

H.R. McMaster:

Large informations, right? Multiple brigades, it's very complicated. Absolutely.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes. Very complicated. And it's not fighting only above the ground, but also under the ground. But we did it quite good. I think it was the preparation, basically from a military perspective, what was done in the IDF from 2006, Second Lebanon War until now proved itself, combined arms. Very good.

H.R. McMaster:

Now remember, I visited with you years ago, the training area in the North that has all that subterranean infrastructure. And so your small units were well acquainted with this kind of four dimensional fight above ground, below ground.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. But I think that we didn't plan to at the end, to put soldiers into the tunnels. But I would say that there was kind of adaptation in few levels. First on the strategic level. Well, after decades of not thinking about, okay, we'll have to concur Gaza, we decided we have to do it. We planned plans that in two weeks that we didn't have to concur Gaza. I must say that in the North, the time that it took our forces and mainly the reservist to get to the North and to surprise, I believe that Hezbollah was surprised twice. First from the fact that Hamas entered the war much earlier than Hezbollah. And second, from the ability of the IDF to spread the forces along the border to practically neutralize his capability, which our audience have to know that is based on about altogether 6,000 Radwan forces, Commando forces. Out of them, about 1,500 are stationed on the border, on immediate alert. More forces than we had in peace time along the border.

So we mobilized the nation very, very quickly. So we stopped, we freezed the situation in the North, the situation that they cannot surprise us. And then there was practically, we got into Gaza, and I think Hamas was surprised from the fact that we are going inside. I think the main issue was Shifa Hospital. They didn't believe we are going to get to the heart of Gaza, we did that. And then they didn't believe we are going to Khan Younis.

H.R. McMaster:

And hey, could you just for our viewers, quickly talk about what you uncovered in Shifa Hospital, right? I mean, from my experience fighting Al-Qaeda in Iraq, one of the first things that they do is they take over hospitals because it gives them a big building for command and control. But it's also, as I mentioned, they would use it as a place to torture and kill people as well as for their own people they would provide medical assistance. But for others who were opposed to them, they denied medical assistance. So you talk about the hospital a little bit.

Meir Finkel:

I think that the hospital's main, the reason they use hospitals is not for what you just said, but because-

H.R. McMaster:

It's protected. It's protected.

Meir Finkel:

It's taken as limiting our ability-

H.R. McMaster:

Absolutely.

Meir Finkel:

Because you remember what happened in Shifa, when the whole world said, "Okay, the Israelis are entering in hospital," but practically it's not in hospital, there are people hospitalized there, but it's in headquarters, it's-

H.R. McMaster:

So weapons, cash, it's ammunition storage facility-

Meir Finkel:

Exactly.

H.R. McMaster:

Absolutely. And the same thing with mosques. They do the same thing with mosques. Absolutely.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, exactly. So I think that they built on the perception that we won't enter them there because of what? Because it'll damage how the West is looking on us. I think this was a major issue. And I think that the idea along the hallway succeeded in something which is almost impossible really, to separate all the time on the strategic level by calling the population to move to specific areas with detailed maps that show you have to go to this sector, and because... Down to the tactical level, how to fight in a hospital when there are doctors there and people injured that are being taken care and Hamas operatives in the same, I would say in the same room. And we succeeded in doing this, including aiding the hospital with all kind of machinery during the fight. So the hospital will continue to work. And we did it on strategic operational with all kinds of humanitarian roads and with your head, with all kinds issue to the tactical level.

We're trying not to hit civilians, although they're part of the, again, as I said in the beginning, there are enemy civilians. There's no differentiation, it's not civilians that landed from the moon and the Hamas, okay? They supported Hamas, at least part of them, otherwise, it's hard to say. I think that in-

H.R. McMaster:

Yeah, I would just say Meir, I would just say that it's hard to differentiate because of the fear. The fear that Hamas imposes on the population between those who are in their hearts, Hamas supporters.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. Okay. I agree-

H.R. McMaster:

There are polls, there are indications that a very large percentage of the Palestinian population want a change, want Hamas out.

Meir Finkel:

I agree-

H.R. McMaster:

But they're powerless. They're powerless. They're powerless.

Meir Finkel:

I agree. Okay. Okay. The fact is that I think that in every second house we find weapons, every second, third house. But let's put it aside. So the first phase was Northern Gaza and the heart of Gaza and Shifa. Second phase, and then there was a kind of hostages deal. I don't remember the timeframe, but we stopped practically.

H.R. McMaster:

Yes.

Meir Finkel:

And then we entered Khan Younis, which is a big city again, we tried to catch Sinwar and we thought that we'll be able to catch the seniors of Hamas, we didn't succeed. But practical Khan Younis would clean the military infrastructure in the border sense. I think operational level tunnels, not every tactical level, but the major tunnels when the command and control tunnels and the factories that they have spread in all Gaza, missile factories and RPG factories. This is the major issue in eliminating Hamas ability to fight in the North. And then we were waiting for months, I think, I don't remember what was the time until another hostages deal. And then we enter Rafah practically, when we finished with Rafah, we finished with fighting the Hamas military. Wherever we get inside, they spread from a kind of semi-military organization into guerrilla, meaning that they're fighting with small arms. They don't have much more, we are-

H.R. McMaster:

Booby trap houses, they use IEDs, other explosives. These are roadside bombs. Or they put trip wires in buildings, so when you enter a building, that sort of thing.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And I think that the major-

H.R. McMaster:

And snipers.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes, yes, yes, I agree. The major issue in Rafah is not the Rafah city, although it's important, but the Philadelphia line, which we have to explain to our audience that Israel Gaza is not bordering only Israel, but also Egypt. I don't think that many know that, that they've got a few kilometers in border with Egypt. It's not only us surrounding them, it's the Egyptians that doesn't like the Muslim brothers at all, also doesn't like Hamas. And the problem was that most of the Iranian assets that were getting into Gaza was getting into smuggling Rafah Border Control Facility. And under the ground between Egyptian Rafah and Gaza Rafah. And the most important thing that we're not doing now, it's cutting the tunnels and holding the line. Now, in this situation, the mass capability to fight is, I think I know, got down to 10% from what he had. Okay?

H.R. McMaster:

So you had 24 battalions or so of Hamas initially in your estimate. And then what do you think? Do you think they're down to what? Do you think they're down to four battalions or something remaining?

Meir Finkel:

Yes. But this is not the only perspective that we should look to. We killed about half the of the operatives. But this is because they can recruit more, but-

H.R. McMaster:

They can regroup, they can write. Yes.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. But one or two things that they cannot is that building-

H.R. McMaster:

The material, the ammunition, the weapons.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. Because in order to generate the ability to shoot on Israeli civilians, they need all kinds of Iranian aid, which they cannot get now because we are on the Philadelphia. And materials and factories that they had a lot in Gaza, which we ruined I think, to the end.

H.R. McMaster:

And these factories, and we should just tell our viewers, this is where they would build rockets. So components for rockets-

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes.

H.R. McMaster:

Would come in and they would build the rockets in these factories and then disperse them out to the fire-

Meir Finkel:

Yes, exactly. Yes. So if they have no capability to produce their rockets and to get ones from outside, so their ability to hit Israeli civilians is got down, I think to few percent, their ability to attack Israel, like in October 7th is getting down, got down very dramatically because their ability and because now we have a white perimeter with forces around Gaza. So what is left for them is to survive. They move to guerrilla against our forces. So from military point of view, I think we call it in Israeli terms, Battlefield Decision. They're not able to fight as a military machine anymore. They can fight in small groups against our forces and not against our civilians.

So we will have to mow the grass there like we are doing in Judea and Somalia, unless, and we are getting back to the beginning or middle of the discussion, a new arrangement on the political level will take place instead of the Hamas. And we'll continue fighting Hamas, but still the major issue is a political institution that will take place and replace them. This is the main issue. And they don't have any good idea what form it'll take, but it should take a new form.

H.R. McMaster:

Absolutely. I mean, security is a precondition for any, I think political alternative to Hamas emerge as I mentioned, because again, who wants to be the mayor of Gaza? Well, as soon as you put your hand up, you're dead.

Hey, we're almost out of time. I mean, this has been a fascinating conversation and I know that our viewers are much better informed now. But I want to ask you a question about civilian casualties. And of course it's heartbreaking for anybody to see innocent suffer, women and children or non-combatants and so forth. There have been a high number of civilian casualties. We don't know what those are. Of course, you cannot believe what you hear from the Hamas controlled health ministry. I mean, I think that's all obviously something you can't believe anything from anybody tells you from Hamas. But of course, we've all seen the images of civilians suffering and its heartbreaking.

Can you talk to our viewers about why in this environment it's very difficult to prevent civilian casualties, what the IDF is doing to prevent civilian casualties and try to alleviate human suffering broadly? And then what more can be done, Meir? I mean, what more can be done to address this humanitarian concern that is widely felt? I think it real, but across the world.

Meir Finkel:

Okay, so I'll begin. I think getting back to Hamas military doctrine, Hamas military doctrine is hit Israel and then a fight or survive under two basic conditions. First, I hide behind the civilians, fighting within civilians. And second, I'm fighting under the ground. Under the ground, meaning not under the sands, but under the houses where the civilians are living. That was the doctrine. And what we have to do is to break apart this doctrine, meaning that first we tried to, as best as we could, you can call it operational level method, is to basically evacuate the population out of the area that we are going to maneuver into. Okay. And that's what we did. We told the civilians in Northern Gaza, which is a million civilians or more, to move South, okay? I think it basically it worked. So that was on the operation level.

On the tactical level, the idea was to check, and we are trying to check, although it's a different method that we did previously in more limited conflict is try to see that there are no, on the tactical level when the unit is entering to see that there are no civilians there, that they're fighting only the enemy with leaflets that I don't know how many thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions [inaudible 00:59:37], who is calling the population on the nets practically. Maybe you can show it during the podcast. We've got a map that divide Gaza into very small sectors, and we call the population on a very specific calls to move from one sector to another sector. It's not from North Gaza to South Gaza, it's from one neighborhood to another neighborhood. And we try to guarantee that if you move to another neighborhood, you won't be held because we're going to fight only in the next neighborhood.

And on the most tactical levels is to try to discriminate as hard as we can with the two rules of engagement, not hitting civilians. And we are, but our audience have to understand that what you are fighting, and this is a major issue. I remind that we killed three hostages, our hostages that were succeeded to run away from Hamas, but were killed by Israeli soldiers because it's hard to explain to the audience in this kind of situation what's going on in the mind of a soldier that every day for many days is being shot from booby traps, so everything looks like a threat.

So on the tactical level, we are trying to keep as hard as we can, the rules of engagement of shooting only enemy. But this incident exemplifies the complexity of differentiating between enemy operatives, which we killed a lot, and military and civilians who are within the area. And there are times, I must say that when we got information about Hamas senior leaders who are still hiding in a place in Gaza with civilians, we are trying to kill them. We cannot, it's a complex. We cannot say, there was a media issue between the idea of spokesman and somebody I think in the BBC that asked him, "Why didn't you tell one of the targeted killing that we did. Why didn't you call the civilians and told them that you are going to hit?" Because we had to surprise the senior Hamas official, otherwise he would move again.

H.R. McMaster:

This was like the coverage of the hostage rescue recently. It was established-

Meir Finkel:

Yes, you're right. You are right. It's my mistake. Yes, exactly. Yes.

H.R. McMaster:

A lot of the press reports were they were released. No, they weren't released, they were rescued and they were being held in civilian homes in a very densely, I mean, it's just astounding to me, three to which the reporting, much of it does not capture this complexity and does not place the primary blame on the perpetrators of these crimes.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes, exactly.

H.R. McMaster:

Using the civilian population for the criminal acts of holding these hostages.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. And I must say that Rafah shows that we are succeeding on the operation and tactical level because all the world told us, don't enter Rafah because the civilians are there, the Egyptians, they will starve. And practically we manage to evacuate again.

H.R. McMaster:

This is what people don't understand. So when you have the State Department spokesman, which is almost laughable to me, saying it doesn't make sense to do a big operation in Rafah, they should only do raids. It's raids that cause more civilian casualties. When you have a major military operation and you've trained soldiers, as you're saying, to discriminate, to overwhelm the enemy in tactical engagements, but apply that firepower with discipline and discrimination, you take far less casualties. And when you see tanks, Meir, we both I know have a strong affinity for tanks. People think well tanks, they kill a lot of people. No, actually a tank allows you to take more personal risk so you can force the enemy to reveal their hostile intent and protect civilians. So a major operation is what is needed in Rafah, not only to accomplish the mission, but also to reduce civilian casualties.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, I agree. And not only that, we opened new humanitarian road that bypass Rafah to the area where the most refugees are there. So we did all kinds of things and a miracle we fight in Rafah, and it's okay. So I think we are doing our best and most of the population in the West doesn't understand the efforts that we are trying to do after a lot of talking about the starvation in Gaza et cetera, et cetera when there's no one, it's okay, they're not starving. There's no humanitarian crisis. All the issues that were in the beginning, that we are all kind of things that we are fighting along. I think most human, the military code of the IDF and the way the conduct of war of the IDF is the most in the complexity of war, I think not many armies in the world can do and do what we are doing. And still the shame is that we're not appreciated for those efforts.

H.R. McMaster:

Of course. I think that any suffering of innocence is terrible and there have been a high number of civilian casualties. But again, I think what we've tried to do is explain today how difficult it is when you have an enemy organization that instead of protecting the population, our militaries, we exist to protect our civilians. Part of Hamas' plan is to get as many of their own people killed as possible. They've said as much, right? And this is what Sinwar has said. We want more what he calls martyrs. So it's really difficult to understand that kind of a death cult is what I would call them and the degree to which they're perpetuating this. But I must say that the IDF, the US forces, we have to always do everything we can, to do more to prevent civilian casualties. But Meir, the last question I want to ask you is, why is Israel having such a hard time on the battleground of perception I would call?

We have this kind of crazy situation where Hamas has created this whole situation that has resulted in so much human suffering, but instead of holding Hamas responsible, you have many who are calling for ceasefires or putting the blame on Israel and almost exclusively for what's happening in Gaza. What more could Israel do on this battleground of perception? I was thinking of a show like the lifestyle of the rich and famous that would go into all of the villas that are owned by Hamas leadership and then do a quick cut to the destitution of the Palestinian people and place the blame on these terrorists who have created the situation.

Meir Finkel:

I won't get into practical issues, but I think the answer to your questions is you began with why we are not winning in this misperception war? So I think the first part of the answer is basically historical ignorance of people in the West. They're not interested in anything except for-

H.R. McMaster:

When you see these students here in the United States and they're chanting from the river to the sea, which is essentially a call for genocide, they don't even know what river. They don't even know what sea, many of them.

Meir Finkel:

So the first half of the answer is this one. And the second one, I think, and this is much bold issue than what we are talking, is philosophies that are growing in the West.

H.R. McMaster:

Sort of the postmodernist, post-colonial theories-

Meir Finkel:

Yes.

H.R. McMaster:

In which everyone in the world is organized into oppressor and oppressed.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, exactly.

H.R. McMaster:

Therefore, because the Palestinians are oppressed, that Israel must be the oppressors when in fact the pressures of Palestinians and Gaza is Hamas, right? I mean, they missed the whole point.

Meir Finkel:

Yes.

H.R. McMaster:

Yeah, right.

Meir Finkel:

And the Israeli is the last colonialist. So it's historical ignorance and this way of thinking that differentiate between [inaudible 01:09:33], and we're on the wrong side of history.

H.R. McMaster:

Israel are settler occupiers. When Israel left Gaza in 2005-

Meir Finkel:

Yes.

H.R. McMaster:

[inaudible 01:09:43] control of Gaza after it was attacked in 1967.

Meir Finkel:

Exactly.

H.R. McMaster:

There's no historical understanding at all.

Meir Finkel:

So it's a combination of those two big issues that I think limit, it's a kind of a ceiling to Israeli perception war. We cannot penetrate with your ideas, this combination of ignorance and thinking about, okay, they are the [inaudible 01:10:11]. And that's create a kind of imaginary ideas of transsexuals saying, "We are with Gaza," not understanding that they'll be killed.

H.R. McMaster:

Hamas is not going to respect your pronouns. I mean, they won't.

Meir Finkel:

Yes, yes. So the level of-

H.R. McMaster:

[inaudible 01:10:42], it's nutty, it's nutty, it's nutty.

Meir Finkel:

Yes. So I don't have any good suggestions for how we can win such a thing when the situation of-

H.R. McMaster:

Well, I think one of the ways is to invite Meir Finkel onto Battlegrounds. So I'm hoping that people watch this and understand better. So, hey, can I just say, this is an episode to be continued and I hope that you will join me again in a few months. There's so much more to talk about. But I'd like to thank you on behalf of the Hoover Institution and all of our viewers for helping us learn more about a real battleground in this case that is critical, I think, to the security not only of Israel, but of the Palestinian people. And I would say because of the threat associated with the ring of fire, the various proxies, the role of Iran, important to the security of all humanity. I mean, it's important, I think Meir, to remember that half the Syrian population is dead, wounded or displaced because of Iran's support for the murders, Assad Regime. Where are the protests about that? So I think that clarifying the nature of the war in Gaza and the broader war is really important to security in the Middle East. But I think to the security of all humanity-

Meir Finkel:

I totally agree. And I think that after a few decades of apparent peace and what's going on in Ukraine and what's going on in Israel is a wake up call. And the problem is, I think it's taken as a wake up call for the government, but not for the population. There's a big, the governments in the West understand what's going on, I think. But there's civilian population in the West is still living in a dream not understanding that is... Should be interested in what's going on here for his sake. And I hope that this episode will do something.

H.R. McMaster:

Well, what I think we can all agree on is that what we need is peace. And sadly, oftentimes you have to fight for peace.

Meir Finkel:

Yes.

H.R. McMaster:

And I think that's what we're doing today. So Meir, hey, thank you again and it was wonderful to be with you. And on behalf of all of our viewers in Hoover, I really appreciate it. Shalom, thank you.

Meir Finkel:

Shalom Todah. Thank you. And thank you for inviting me. And bye.

H.R. McMaster:

Bye.

Announcer:

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