Dan Senor, host of the “Call Me Back” podcast, discusses the war in Gaza and where it might go from here.
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Transcript
Andrew Roberts: [00:00:00] Dan Senor is the co author of Startup Nation and the Genius of Israel, and his Call Me Back podcast has become an indispensable resource since the 7th of October. Dan, where are we with the war in Gaza at the moment? there seem to be photographs of the, is it pronounced the Givati Brigade? Givati
Dan Senor: Brigade, yeah.
Andrew Roberts: About to move into Rafa. Do you think that's going to happen in the near future?
Dan Senor: Yes, I think that there are like, the estimate is that there are from the beginning, the, from the beginning of this war, the estimate has been, there've been approximately let's, 24 battalions, Hamas battalions, these battalions, Hamas, we tend to think of Hamas, or the popular press tends to think of Hamas as this ragtag, battalion.[00:01:00]
loosely, organized militia, when in fact, it's, much organized, much more like a, light infantry army of an actual state. And, they've got 24 battalions, organized by geography, pretty well organized from a command structure. and it's got a real hierarchy, and, Israel, the IDF has done a very good job at, crushing about 20 of those battalions.
When I say crush, I don't mean eliminate entirely. Obviously there's a lot of fighters who survive, but breaking them down organizationally so they can't wage a kind of organized threat, against Israel and, and deems them much less effective. Unfortunately, there are four left in Rafah. There's, the leadership is in Rafah.
Israeli, Press reports, a friend of mine, Nadav Eyal, who's a reporter who I often have on my podcast, thinks that two have slipped out of Rafah, maybe in central Gaza, I haven't confirmed that. But, it's the IDF's leadership, it's the view of the IDF leadership and the war cabinet that this [00:02:00] war cannot end unless, They hit those last four battalions and have a real plausible path to getting the leadership of Hamas, and they can't do that without going into Rafah.
So despite detention with the U. S., Israel is going to go into Rafah. Maybe not the way they were originally going to go in. I think they've, moderated the way they were going to go in, but they're going in.
Andrew Roberts: There seems to be two schools of thought about Biden's essential threat to, withhold arms from Israel if they do go in.
The first school is that these are 2, 000 bombs that he's not handing over, which aren't hugely necessary for this assault anyway, and maybe this is a sort of paper tiger thing, all, American presidents concentrate on their own election in the run up to a presidential election. And therefore one needn't take it seriously.
and the second school of thought is, That America has again and again in, in 1948, [00:03:00] 1973, and other occasions threatened Israel and, with held, arms from Israel or threatened to withhold arms from Israel. And that this is just basically, yet again, and yet another moment where the United States.
Turns out not to be such a close friend of Israel as is expected. Which of those two, or do you think they're both right or neither? What's your thought?
Dan Senor: I think that Israel has what it needs to conduct what it needs to do in Rafah. It is not sitting there waiting for these 2000 pound bombs to arrive in order to conduct its operation in Rafah.
And I've spoken in the last few days to. a lot of people in the Israeli security establishment who I trust, who argue that they're fine. They're not going to, they're not going to need the Biden embargo. it's a weird thing, an embargo on his own aid package. The Biden embargo on his own military aid package is not going to inhibit [00:04:00] their operation in Rafah.
However, They will need those bombs. If another front opens, if a front opens, say in the North, with Hezbollah or if there's another back and forth with Iran and Iran is looking to light up proxies in and around Israel. so they will, depending on how, multi front and complex, the war becomes increasingly.
So the Israel will need those bombs. And the concern. among the Israeli leadership is the message it sends to Iran, to Hezbollah and to other, anti Israel or pro Iran proxies that, look, Israel is still going to do Rafa. It has the capacity to do Rafa, but now may be a time to strike, or it may be soon time to strike, another, from another front.
I will say there's one other concern that I think is the for me at least is the greatest concern, Andrew, which is The message it sends to all the relevant parties that I think Israel and the Americans, American [00:05:00] administration are focused on right now, what, this move on the arms, on the arms embargo, the signal it sends on the arms embargo to the Israeli leadership.
Is that Israel, A, has to go full steam ahead on Rafa. They can't look like now they've been reined in and they're not going to finish the job in Rafa. It all but guarantees that they have to go into Rafa and go in pretty hard. B, it sends a message to Hamas, unfortunately, that why do they need to negotiate for any kind of temporary ceasefire or hostage deal when pressure is mounting on, Israel?
In fact, the only reason to negotiate a deal with Israel and to reach an agreement, a near term, a short term agreement is so that the pressure. on Hamas goes down, but if the pressure is actually on Israel and Hamas and the U. S. is breaking with Israel, it reduces, the incentives for Hamas to negotiate.
See average Palestinians, everyone's talking about a day after plan. Where's the day after plan? And so everyone's, the American administration [00:06:00] is saying to the Israeli government, where's your day after plan? The Israeli government says, it's hard to have a day after plan without the buy in of local Palestinians.
We're not going to have the buy in of the local Palestinians if they believe Hamas is going to return to power. A world in which the biggest statement coming out of the U. S. administration is that they're holding arms back from Israel in its war from Hamas. I can't think of a clearer signal to an average Palestinian in Gaza that Hamas isn't going anywhere.
And lastly, D, the Saudis. The Saudis are key to any kind of regional agreement here, playing a regional role in Gaza. reaching some kind of normalization deal with Israel and the, and Saudi and the other Gulf States. And the Saudis are looking at this and saying, why do we want to invest heavily in a U.
S. alliance? What do we, this is how unreliable the U. S. is. So I think the signals this move has sent to all these players is actually the biggest risk, far riskier than the implications for any near term, tactical war fighting. [00:07:00]
Andrew Roberts: Israel's been blamed for the negotiations, the hostage negotiations, not progressing.
but, were they ever, was it ever a serious possibility that, Hamas were going to hand over that number of hostages for less than a, a ceasefire, a full and permanent ceasefire?
Dan Senor: Not at the pace the war has been going since. Early March. I would say early on Hamas Agreed to a deal that I think relative to previous, certainly relative to previous negotiations, Israel has been in with Hamas.
the most recent precedent is 2011, when Israel, exchanged 1, 027 Palestinian prisoners for one IDF soldier, one hostage, Gilad Shalit. The, relative to that, this, the, deal in, November of, [00:08:00] 2023, where Israel got back 105 hostages, the terms were much better for Israel. It is not a deal that Hamas wanted to agree to, and it took them some time to agree to it.
They were resisting it. Why did they suddenly fold? It was, at the time, peak military pressure against Hamas. calculated. So we're told, that it was the only time he could relieve the pressure even temporarily on him and Hamas was to do this deal. The only data point we have in this war, and it's not obviously a lot, but it's something.
The only data point we have is that when military pressure is most intense, Hamas is willing to negotiate. And so I, I just think since early March, what have we had, what was March of, 2024? It was the present state of the union address, President Biden, where for the first time he used some of the harshest rhetoric against Israel that we have seen, language he not, no one in his administration used before.
A week [00:09:00] after that, you had Senator Schumer's speech from the Senate floor that was blessed by the, Biden administration, where he was basically equating Netanyahu and Hamas in the same sentence as obstacles to peace and calling for the downfall of the Israeli government. Quite extraordinary. A fellow democracy calling for a change in government.
And then a week after that, you had the UN Security Council vote 14 to zero, calling for a ceasefire for the first time delinked from return of the hostages. The U. S. did not vote for it, but it abstained for the first time. It had previously vetoed those resolutions, so it effectively green lit it. I believe from that point on, Andrew, from basically, you had those string of events in March, and you can just, it's a direct line to, What happened over the last few days, which is the arms embargo and during these last couple of months, the Hamas leadership has seen pressure mounting on Israel and their calculation is in a world in which the pressure and all the focus and all the international attention attention is being unleashed on Israel and not [00:10:00] Hamas.
Why on earth would we, Hamas, sign some deal that would probably result in the war not ending and us, no longer being in some, position of power. So they are holding out. And I think it's sadly, unrealistic that, we will get, see any kind of deal in the near term unless the military pressure ramps back up and would be even better, but I don't think it was going to happen is the U.
S. stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel publicly, the way President Biden did in the first couple of months after October 7th.
Andrew Roberts: How's this looking in American, sheer American political electoral terms, Biden's decision to, impose this embargo? Is it, is it popular with the Democrats, is it, and more importantly, is it popular with people who would otherwise might vote for President Trump?
Dan Senor: I, think you can't look at the arms embargo issue in a, as a standalone issue. I [00:11:00] think American foreign policy with regards, with regard to Israel and our, wars generally in the Middle East are unique, play a unique role in American politics because they touch on so many cultural issues within the United States in a way that other foreign policy issues don't.
as, as disappointing as it is me, for me to see the Russia Ukraine war fade as an issue, a few weeks or even a couple of months, into, 2022 after the war started is. it. There was just no domestic base for a real, or there was no domestic context in the U.
S., no domestic political context to have this debate. Israel's different. you have obviously this craziness going on U. S. campuses. you have protest movements shutting down hospitals, shutting down bridges, shutting down airports in cities across the country. it's just, it's touched a cultural nerve in this country and is expressing itself in a way that you don't get on any other foreign policy issue.[00:12:00]
I, so that's, so then the military aid issues, it's part of that. It's like a longer, it's a bigger discussion. And I think the bigger discussion is a proxy for the sense that there's a breakdown in order in the United States, just civil, And there's a sense among independent voters, which President Biden needs is about 5 million independent voters, swing voters.
People could easily swing between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. they swung between, Obama and Romney. they go back and forth. These are voters who are up for grabs. either candidate needs to win majority of them in a hand. They spread out, out over a few states and most of them are not Jewish and most of them are not Arab.
Most of them are middle of the road. Highly educated, upper middle class voters in a handful of counties in this country. And my sense is they look at what's going on. Again, it's not specifically about the aid issue or that issue. They just take a step back and say, what is [00:13:00] going on? the inmates are running the asylum everywhere in city councils, in college and universities.
And so I think. The war in Israel becomes a proxy for Biden not being able to keep a handle on it. And the most, in that sense, the most, I think this point I'm about to say not only unnerved me, but my understandings that unnerved some of President Biden's advisors is in the interview he gave with Aaron Burnett on CNN where he first, Officially confirmed the arms embargo she referenced the college protests and she said they're calling you genocide Joe and you know What is your reaction to that or something?
And he said I hear their message like I hear it was the most amazing thing in the world. You hear their message. is that, is, are you suggesting the message is valid? As opposed to what, and I've given this advice to people around Biden, not, that they're listening to it, not that they, but I actually think he has a, what the equivalent of a sister soldier moment.
Bill Clinton in [00:14:00] 1992, where he took on. hateful rhetoric within what some would call the base of the Democratic Party back then in 1992. I think there's Biden to really confront this craziness. And I think most young voters, the ones that he's worried about, don't care about this issue. There was just a poll out a few days ago, that surveyed 2000 young voters, mostly college kids, asked them to rank their top issues.
The lowest rank issue of all their top issues, Was the war in Gaza, meaning something like 8 percent of them cared about the war in Gaza. Most of them care about healthcare, student loans, you can go on. So I think that this is one of these situations where the loudest voices get the attention, but they don't actually represent real numbers.
And I think that most young voters that Biden is, the Biden campaign is worried about are going to be for Biden no matter what, largely because he's running against Donald Trump, but he runs a real risk. of losing the center. And I do [00:15:00] not think the center looks favorably upon the chaos we are watching right now that is in response to this war.
And so the aid issue fits into that, but it's not the, it's not the, so the embargo issue fits into that larger debate where it feels like things are spiraling out of control. But I don't think it's that singular issue alone.
Andrew Roberts: And do you think, has Donald Trump himself, Move towards this, centrist, group of voters is what's he saying over, over the embargo and over Gaza at the moment that, might allow him to pick up that kind of support.
Dan Senor: I think this is a, an enormous opportunity for president Trump. I'm surprised he is, and I, I'm surprised he's not doing more. He's quite busy at the moment, of course, since he's talking about his,
Andrew Roberts: his, ex, girlfriend. yeah.
Dan Senor: That is true. it's true. yeah. he, but I do think like that he's [00:16:00] done some pretty good work.
A couple clever things. So he can't do the big rallies the way he used to do in 2020 and 2016, to drive, the news cycle, partly because, I don't, I think his campaign has, fewer cash resources than, they have in the past. Those, events are expensive to put on, but more importantly, he doesn't have the time.
to your point, he's, hold up in a courtroom in, in lower Manhattan. But he has done, even when he's been in New York, he's been spending a lot of time with the NYPD. A few weeks ago, there was a NYPD police officer that was tragically, slain, was murdered. And, President Trump went and visited on, one afternoon, he just went and visited the family of, of the slain, police officer.
And so I think he's, doing some things to send a message, whose side he's on. That said, I don't think he's doing enough. I think he's a complicated relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu, [00:17:00] and he is therefore reluctant to speak more forcefully and more clearly, on, the side of Israel. He's been criticizing Biden's handling of the war, in a weird way.
so I, and he's been very uneven in what he has said. So I, think, now look, there's plenty of time, but I think that, I think there's an enormous opportunity for President Trump to speak clearly about whose side he and America
It's a civilizational struggle, and lastly, that he's going to bring order to, to, and, combat this civil unrest in the United States. I think if he spoke forcefully and clearly, using those, in, in that, making those points, I think it would be very political help, politically helpful to him.
I'm surprised he hasn't been doing it.
Andrew Roberts: Let me talk about that complicated relationship that he has with, Bibi Netanyahu, because he said the other day that he's, that Bibi pulled out of the [00:18:00] Soleimani assassination. And, but other people argue that, it's a much more personal and with Trump sort of solipsistic thing whereby, because, Bibi congratulated Biden on his victory in 2020.
Trump takes his personally and, and therefore doesn't want to support Bibi. Where, what do you think? Have you heard anything about this Soleimani thing? I've
Dan Senor: never heard about the Soleimani, It's the first time I've ever heard this idea, and there are others who've spoken about this like Secretary Pompeo who were involved, with the strike against Soleimani and, Israel, look, I wasn't serving, but my understanding is Israel was intimately involved, in this operation, like very intimately involved, and, was, key to, obviously, some of the intelligence that enabled, this operation, so I've, every person I've ever spoken to [00:19:00] about the operation has left me with the impression that Israel and the U.
S. were locked, locked arms on this. I think it's probably more personal, that, he is frustrated that, and that Netanyahu wasn't grateful enough to Trump given all the things that were accomplished for Israel in the Trump administration. And there were extraordinary things that were accomplished, really extraordinary, groundbreaking things that were accomplished in the Trump administration as it relates to Israel.
Israeli leaders, like leaders of, any country that has a strong relationship with the United States, has to respect, The U. S. democracy, transfer peaceful, transfer of power, and, and it's, they have a responsibility to deal with whoever's going to succeed, the current president. and I, don't know, punishing Netanyahu for congratulating someone who won an election seems, [00:20:00]
Andrew Roberts: But we're not asking for logic and rationality here and needless to say, you mentioned groundbreaking things that Trump did in his presidency with regard to Israel. Where are the Abraham Accords in all of this? How have they been affected by the 7th of October?
Dan Senor: So the amazing thing is, Andrew, is that they, I, remember in, the war, The Israel Gaza war in May of 21.
it was an 11 day war, I think. and, yeah, it was a few months after Biden had been sworn in and people at the time were saying, and this is when things really flared up between, Israel and Gaza. And, and people were saying, this is the true test of the Abraham Accords because the Abraham Accords had just, been, signed and put into place at the tail end of the Trump administration.
So it wasn't, not that much time had [00:21:00] passed. And then suddenly there's a war between, Israel and Hamas, short lived obviously. And, and this, everyone's saying, this is the true test of the Abraham Accords. Nonsense. What we're experiencing now is the true test of the Abraham Accords. And I'm pleasantly, I don't know, surprised, cautiously optimistic that they have held and they are holding, the UAE and Bahrain in particular have their ambassadors in Israel.
They are working with Israel. there's a lot of not only economic cooperation, technology, R& D cooperation, but there's also military and strategic cooperation, in a range of fronts, not the least of which this back and forth with Iran. a few weeks ago, where the Abraham Accords countries and some of the non Abraham Accords countries, were, very, were involved working closely with Israel.
So I, I actually think the Abraham Accords have endured, and if they can endure this period, I think they can endure anything. I think it's important to remember, and I'm a little bit, [00:22:00] I've been a little bit of a contrarian on this from day one, post October 7th, that the sense that Israel needs to be restrained in its response to October 7th.
as a means to keeping all its new friends happy and engaged and supportive of Israel, the Abraham Accords countries, perhaps future Abraham Accords countries like Saudi Arabia. I've been a contrary in this where I've argued the opposite. Yes, the, these countries do not like to see images of Palestinians, innocent civilian, Palestinian civilians getting killed.
They don't like to see those images on Al Jazeera or on the screens of, phones on Tik Tok. it causes them a headache, on the quote unquote Arab street. They are attracted to Israel. These countries have been attracted to Israel, not because they view Israel as a charity case, not because they view Israel as a victim, and not because they have, suddenly, out of love of Zion.
They were attracted to Israel because of Israel's strength. [00:23:00] Israel's strength economically. it's a regional economic superpower. technologically, it's a global technology superpower. It's a global cybersecurity superpower. And because it was perceived to be a military and tech and an intelligence juggernaut in the region.
That's why these countries wanted to normalize with Israel. They want to piggyback onto Israel's strength. And if Israel looks like a paper tiger or looks weak, their interest in working with Israel goes down. And so the importance of Israel taking a hit like it did on October 7th, being able to bounce back, being able to restore deterrence, being able to remove a threat, and then being able to go on and thrive, however hard it's going to be, because it's the country is shattered, the population is shattered.
If they can do that, I actually think these relationships in the region will broaden and deeper.
Andrew Roberts: That makes perfect sense. You're the author, of course, of Startup Nation, the story of Israel's economic miracle. How badly has, [00:24:00] the Israeli economy been affected by, the events since the 7th of October?
and, And how can they come back? We in Britain are facing this appalling boycott campaign against Israeli goods and services. Are we going to, first of all, is that being seen across the world? And secondly, is the Israeli economy badly affected by it?
Dan Senor: the Israeli economy is being badly affected, but not because of boycotts and divestment campaigns.
The Israeli economy is being badly hit because, A, tourism crashed, which is not the biggest source of, economic growth in Israel, but is an important input. tourism crashed, A. B, the call on the labor force, was extremely. And, I'm [00:25:00] not going to go into the specifics of the, the, the, the, the not solely concentrated, but largely concentrated, many of them in, senior and middle management positions in Israel's technology sector.
And that technology sector is the single biggest source of economic growth for Israel. So those people get called up to serve, for indefinite periods of time. It really jammed up a lot of these tech companies. I think these tech companies will be stronger and more resilient in the long run. for this, but in the near term, it's just, if you have a, if you have a vice president of sales or business development at a, tech company, and they're trying to close a sale, or they're working on the next round of investments, and they suddenly have to disappear and go to Gaza for two months, and stuff falls through the [00:26:00] cracks, and it just slows, It slows things down.
It slows down activity. so that has been a setback. The, most of the reservists are back now in their jobs and catching up, depending on what happens with Rafa, how involved it becomes, depending on what happens in the North, you have a lot of these people being called up again.
that's the real risk of the Israeli economy. I do want to say specifically something about boycotts and divestment. There are about 450 today, multinationals. with major operations in Israel. So think of every major high tech company, think of even non tech companies like the major auto companies or Procter Gamble or Walmart or Coca Cola, like all these companies, big multinationals have these major R& D programs.
operations in Israel, where they do, they work with Israelis to solve some of their biggest innovation challenges. 450. And just to give you a sense, there's only one reason companies, multinationals set up operations in these foreign jurisdictions in these, kinds of countries. [00:27:00] One is that they want to access to the local market, but Israel's population's tiny.
There's no real local market or two for logistical reasons. They want access to, to, it's like a regional hub and they can access a bunch of different markets from Israel. You wouldn't do that. You wouldn't set something like that up in Israel because Israel shut off for most of the region. you do that like in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.
So the only reason you set up shop in Israel is access to Israeli know hows, Israeli brainpower, Israeli kind of innovation, innovative approach to thinking, a lot of what we wrote about in both Startup Nation and our most recent book, Genius of Israel. And, None, not a single one of those companies has shut down their operations since October 7th.
And that, and despite real pressure to do And that tells me back to my earlier point, Andrew, about the importance of Israeli strength. Why aren't they shutting down? The political easy thing to do would be to shut down. The pressure I'm sure they're getting from many of their young employees is to shut down.
We just saw this thing, this event with Google where 30 employees were demanding that [00:28:00] Google shut down its operations in Israel and not be doing business with Israel at all. Those 30 employees were fired. Why? For a variety of reasons, not the least of which many of these companies recognize if they shut down their Israeli operations, they will be at a competitive disadvantage against their peers, against their rivals in whatever sector they're in.
They need access to Israeli talent. And so the good news is the boycotts have been a complete failure economically. I don't want to jinx it, obviously things could turn, it's a volatile time. But here we are seven months into this war and we've seen no major company pull back from Israel.
Andrew Roberts: Presumably also, if you're Google, you simply can't allow 30 radical activists to decide your investment policy. You have to sack them, don't you?
Dan Senor: Totally. and the, yes, but I've, heard, look, if you see what's happening at the universities here, there's, a range. Some university administrations are shutting down.
[00:29:00] these, protest movements, they're refusing to negotiate with the leaders of the encampments and, the students for justice in Palestine, these other groups. But others have tried to negotiate with them, tried to quietly negotiate with them, reach some kind of middle ground, mollify them in some way.
And so I think you could have seen a range of the, of a similar range in corporate America. Where some companies say, sorry, it's precedent setting. If we start doing business with you and meaning negotiating with you, we're not going to negotiate with you. We're actually going to fire you. There are others who may say, we'll try to accommodate you.
We can't do everything you're asking for. Let's get into a dialogue. so I think you're right. I hope that's the lesson that, that's the model most of corporate America, chooses, but. it remains to be seen, but so far the Google example is to me the best example.
Andrew Roberts: In Britain, we've had a group of university vice chancellors meet the prime minister and they attacked the prime minister for saying that he was using these, [00:30:00] these campus uprisings to, quote, exacerbate the culture wars.
There weren't culture wars, haven't been culture wars that have been hugely exacerbated by the, Palestinian pro Palestinian, protesters. It does seem. Pretty extraordinary that our, our academics are not tougher, but, might the reason be that many of them who believe the guardian where it, which claims that it was the right, that created the culture wars deliberately in order to try and win votes.
and also because I suspect quite a lot of them, these, post 1960s, radicals actually have got to the top of universities and believe and support the pro Palestinian position. Do you think that's a possibility?
Dan Senor: Yeah. I think it's more than pro Palestinian. I think it's it's pro war.
that's, what's [00:31:00] so unbelievable about the position of the protesters. It's not, they're not saying, they're not saying, let's have a ceasefire. Let's return the hostages. Let's. reach a two state solution. That is not the language they're using. Let's just literally, let's, I, people who, are softly protective of the protesters, I say, let's just take the protesters at their word.
Let's just look at the language, right? So globalize the intifada. What is that? Like that? That's one of their calls. It's globalized. What is the, I say, what is the Intifada? The Intifada started in 1987. It was sparked in the Jabali refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. It was a protest movement against military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and that the Israel was, was, an obstacle to, Palestinian self determination, regardless of what one thinks of that debate.
That's what the Intifada was about. And it was ultimately was violent revolt against the IDF. So what does globalize the Intifada mean? [00:32:00] is there IDF, are there IDF installations around the world? No. It's apply the Intifada model that was used against the IDF and use it against Jews around the world.
That, that's exactly what it means. Two, they, there was a protest in, in, at Columbia University here in New York where there's Jewish students were standing and speaking and one of the protesters, the anti Israel protesters, held up a sign that said, Kassam, with an arrow pointed at the Jews, Kassam, your next target, Kassam is the military wing of Hamas, meaning you did, you hit Israel on October 7th, here's your next target, Kassam.
Kassam is, was the, first, wave of, Hamas terrorists into, Israel. into Israel on October 7th. they chant, there's video of all of this, burn Tel Aviv to the ground. and I can go on and on. This is, and, they, say we are Hamas, by the way, that is, we are Hamas.
We are the Houthis, they say. It's so unbelievable. So it's not like they're saying we abhor all [00:33:00] violence. We want it to end. We wanted to, however fanciful that may have been, we want all violence, and we wanted to It's not like
Andrew Roberts: the sort of peaceniks of the Vietnam anti war era. It's actually going so far as, I don't know, Jane Fonda supporting North Korea, North
Dan Senor: North Vietnam, exactly.
that was considered an outlier. that's what's interesting. So in, in the, 1960s, in the US, if, someone had waved the flag or said, we are the Viet Cong. there was a little bit of that, but it was not the mainstream of the movement. It was considered an outlier, worrisome, at the time, but an outlier that what you, that model is the mainstream of this movement and the difference with the Vietnam, the anti-Vietnam protests on American college campuses.
Regardless of what one thought about the debate, about US involvement, in, in, in that part of the re world, Southeast Asia, these protesters had skin in the game. they did not wanna be drafted. to fight this war. 56, [00:34:00] 000 Americans were killed in that war. they were watching, as they would say it, again, I'm not defending their position, but they were watching people they knew be called up and, by their telling these people were cannon fodder for misguided policies.
So they, that's what they were protesting. They, were directly affected. These kids protesting today, have no skin in the game. No one's asking them, no one's asking them to fight in this war. and and they're using the rhetoric of the enemy of the West. They're embracing it. So I just think it's, the idea that this is, the, professors are in the, some of these chancellors of universities are showing solidarity with the students is outrageous.
In fact, they're fueling a lot of the derangement that we're seeing in the minds of these students.
Andrew Roberts: We've, we've mentioned the two state solution several times. Do you think that is closer or further away, [00:35:00] now than it was before the 7th of October?
Dan Senor: I think it's, I think it's, farther away, I, for, a variety of reasons, one, there has been no responsible, moderate Palestinian voice that has really emerged since October 7th, that could, play a role by my, in my estimation to, to run what would be a semi sovereign state on Israel's border, just a couple kilometers from Israeli civilian communities that were massacred, on October 7th.
You can't get, close to a hundred thousand Israelis to return to their homes in Southern Israel and tell them there's going to be a new Palestinian state, Just there, two, two kilometers if you're, in some of the kibbutzim in the south, or if you're in Sderot, which is a town in southern Israel, or something like, 40, 40 kilometers or so if you're in Tel Aviv, [00:36:00] there's going to be a Palestinian, a pseudo, a quasi Palestinian state there.
The IDF will not be present. the, players running that state, if they're not Hamas, they'll be sympathetic to Hamas. The overwhelming majority of polling shows, the polling shows the overwhelming majority of Palestinians, even in the West Bank, are sympathetic to what Hamas did on October 7th. The Palestinian Authority is yet to condemn what Hamas did on October 7th.
so there's no one emergent. that could play a role where you could get a real two state solution. Now that could change if, but we won't know if, it could change, I believe until most Palestinians really believe Hamas is gone. If the, defeat of Hamas is decisive and there's a real sense that Hamas Can't come back anytime soon.
Kibon War, Yigyes Sinwar, who's the, leader of Hamas, who's the architect of October 7th. He was known, in fact, he was in an Israeli prison, not for what he had done to Israelis. He was released in that 2011 deal I referenced [00:37:00] earlier. He was, serving multiple life sentences, not because of what he'd done to Israelis, but because of what he'd done to Palestinians.
He was known as the guy. Who, if anyone was suspected of quote unquote collaborating with the Israelis, he orchestrated the massacre of Palestinians who were considered, collaborators of Israel. Palestinians are terrified of him and terrified of the Hamas that he led. and so the idea that any Palestinian could step up.
and play a meaningful role in a responsible way in a moderate, leadership, moderate government, while Hamas is still hanging around. I just think it's unrealistic. So I'm not saying impossible. I'm skeptical. And, and we won't really know till most Palestinians believe Hamas is gone.
Andrew Roberts: And what kind of security guarantees could Israelis believe in, international ones? the way in which, America and Britain [00:38:00] and other countries have not, stuck up for Israel in the way that they ought to have implies that if a future Palestinian state started arming its police, at what point would anybody be able to step in apart from Israel or want to step in?
Dan Senor: Yeah. that's why all this talk about there's going to be. Moderate Arab states that are going to step in and provide a, like a peacekeeping force, play a security role in, Gaza. I'm, all ears, but I'm skeptical. And the reason I'm skeptical is because the idea that the Saudi leadership or the Emirati leadership or the Jordanian leadership is going to want, are going to want to risk the lives of the, soldiers in their militaries.
fighting with Hamas in Gaza, and that's what we're talking about, or fighting with Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza. I just, I think there, there's just no way you, imagine if Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad or any other group that, [00:39:00] that pops up, in Gaza, some kind of radical, jihadi offshoots, if they start, targeting and slaughtering personnel of militaries of other Arab countries.
What are those Arab countries staying power going to be? maybe they have staying power. We just don't know. most of these governments hate Hamas. In fact, they hate the Palestinians. they will tell you that when you have conversations with them. So the idea that they're going to risk the lives of their, citizens, fighting with Palestinians in Gaza.
I, just don't, so then, and then it puts Israel in an impossible situation, to your point, because then Israel says, we can secure our, the situation, we can provide some stability if we go into Gaza, so then they get situation, does Israel want to be in a, position where it has to ask the Gulf states for approval if it's going to send the IDF into Gaza?
into Gaza. And to be clear, and I know you know this, but I often try to explain this to listeners. This is not like the U. S. making a decision about [00:40:00] whether or not to send forces to Afghanistan, which is like 8, 000 miles away or whatever from the United States. This is, Israel needing permission to, this would mean Israel needing permission to send its forces into an area that's two kilometers away from Israel, two kilometers away from civilian, from a civilian neighborhoods and areas and people would see him in towns.
the idea that the IDF and Israel is going to need permission from other governments to, it would be like, I'm, here in Manhattan and, it'd be like if there were another terrorist attack against the U S and the U S needed permission from someone about whether or not it could go into Staten Island, to secure the safety of, of Manhattanites.
It's just, It's so otherworldly. And so I just think the, state of Israel, the Jewish state, if you think of, look at the history of Zionism, it was all predicated on Israel, never having to be dependent on others for those [00:41:00] kinds of guarantees. And that is why actually, to come back to your earlier question, why I think this Biden arms embargo has touched such a nerve for Israelis, because it's a reminder that we're not supposed to be in this situation, but we're so dependent on, others to prevent a future genocide.
Andrew Roberts: You mentioned earlier about Israel being an intelligence superpower, but, obviously something terrible happened. Something terribly went appallingly wrong with, Israeli intelligence. Much vaunted, Israeli intelligence on the 7th of October. There will, of course, be an inquiry, about it. How, confident are you that they'll get to the bottom of it and also that the right lessons will be learned?
Dan Senor: Look, I This question asked a lot for a number of reasons. One of which is because I'm a big champion for startup nation and the technology story of [00:42:00] Israel and, and, and Israel's intelligence community has come to depend very much on Israel's technological capabilities. There are entire units in the IDF, like 8, 200, like the Tal Piot program, which isn't actually a unit, but it's a program in the IDF that are 90, the unit 9, 900.
There are these world class technology units, and, they have fueled their technology. personnel has fueled from those units have, been the engine for a lot of Israel's technology growth. And, the question is, was Israel too dependent on tech so much so that it missed October 7th. I do not think Israel missed October 7th.
There was plenty of signals, not human intelligence necessarily, but there was signal intelligence that the Israelis had. Right down to the night of October 7th from, past midnight, from when October 6th going to October 7th, when the IDFC intelligence, this has been publicly reported, picked up something like a couple of hundred Palestinians switching their phones from Palestinian to Israeli.[00:43:00]
Gazan SIM cards to Israeli SIM cards all at once. They signal intelligence, pick that up. Now, why would a bunch of Palestinians amassing near Israel's, Gaza's border with Israel suddenly be switching their SIM cards so their phones could work in Israel? I can give you example, after example, these signs are being picked up.
The problem is with intelligence is the, the intelligence you gather is, only as good as it, is it can challenge the, concept that, that overrides decision making and policy making. And the concept in Israel, they call the Concepcja, the concept was that Hamas was not interested in a war with Israel.
That, Hamas's leadership, while they were fine with these skirmishes. They would have every couple of years with Israel. They had one in 2008, they had one in 2012. They had one in 2014. They had one in 2018. I mentioned they had one in, 2021. They had one in the summer of 22. I can go on. [00:44:00] So they were having these skirmishes with Israel, but they would heat up and then they'd heat, then they'd cool down.
And the theory among most, not all, but most in the Israeli decision making, apparatus from right to left was that ultimately Hamas wanted to govern and run Gaza. They weren't. Interested in a war that could risk. their ability to run Gaza. And so they were getting these feeds in Hey, Hamas is doing this.
There's this training exercise that Hamas seems to be working on that looks like a training exercise for an invasion of Israel. So there were all these data points they were getting, and yet. It didn't fit into the concept, and so that, to me, was the failure, was not willing to challenge the concept. That said, and I think you're, this is an important part of, the RAFA operation, what happened on the Egyptian, and this has not gotten enough attention, what happened on the Egyptian Gaza border, to me, is a, That is where the real failure was that [00:45:00] there was so much smuggling and tunnels and like how did all this Built a 350 mile tunnel system underground In Israel, sorry in Gaza where did the resources come the cement the trucks the engineers the Instruments, the equipment, just think about everything involved with building what they built.
Now, most of it came in through Egypt. And, partly because of the Israel Egyptian peace agreement going back to Camp David. and, and how much stock Israel puts in its bilateral relationship with Egypt. It really, deferred a lot to Egypt and I think that also is one of the big, failures that so much of what, Hamas was able to do over the last decade, and a half in building up was a result of Israel maybe not being as on top of the, security of the Egyptian, Israeli border, Egyptian Gaza border as it should have been.
And I think that, that is as much of what the Arafa operation is going to be about as anything. [00:46:00]
Andrew Roberts: Your mother was a Holocaust survivor, whose own father died in Auschwitz. Holocaust denial, of course, has been around for a very long time. Today, according to a recent survey of over a thousand British Muslims, 24 percent of British Muslims don't believe that rape and murder took place in southern Israel on the 7th of October.
What on earth can be done about that?
Dan Senor: I'm, so this one. I'm not worried about Israel. I just got back from Israel. It's my third trip there since October 7th. Each time I visit, I say to myself, I'm not worried about Israel. the country's shattered. The country is bouncing back. It will, it'll take time.
They've got enormous challenges. but Israelis have a sense of, agency. They have a sense of that, that, their, destiny is like they can control it to some degree. They have an army, they have a national [00:47:00] economy. They, have independence. I worry about Jews in places like the United States and the UK and Canada.
There's a sense, I'm more worried about them than I am about Israelis. And by the way, Israelis, when I speak to them say, when I asked them how they're doing, they say, It's hard, it's brutal, but we're gonna be okay. What about you? we're more worried about you, because they feel like we're sitting ducks, sitting over here.
and, Douglas Murray, who I know is a mutual friend, he just gave a talk in, New York at the Manhattan Institute, where I think I've seen you speak before, actually, and at a dinner. And he, had this line that really touched a nerve for me. He said, sometimes there, and I'm not going to, I'll misquote it, but I'll look at the gist of it.
He says, sometimes there are events in history. Where it's like a flash, like a flame goes up and there's like [00:48:00] a light from the flame and you look around and you can see where everybody stands and that's what October 7th in a sense was and that's exactly how I feel, just like light went up. And I'm looking around and I'm saying, wow, so you're, you traffic in Holocaust denialism, you traffic in rape denialism, you traffic in, and you start to see, and it's shocking by the way, because it's not just the 24 percent of the Muslims in the UK.
It's also people who traffic in versions of what you said that are mainstream members of society and people you wouldn't ever imagine doing such a thing. And so I don't have a good answer for what one does about that. And I get asked these questions all the time, we've got to do a better job of winning the, PR war and Israel's got to tell its story better.
And sure, all those things are true, but there's something else going on that is part and parcel of the oldest hatred. There's a reason [00:49:00] why historians call antisemitism the oldest hatred. It's been around forever and it takes new forms, but they're just innovations on the old form and vilification.
Of israel is the new form. It's we're not against jews. We're against zionists. Okay. the overwhelming the jews number The overwhelming majority of jews no matter where they are zionists. So you're basically saying you are You're, against Jews. And and you're attacking Jewish owned businesses and you're attacking Jewish institutions in the diaspora.
So and this has been the every 80 or 100 years we get a flare up of this and we have a flare up of it right now. I, how do you counter something that's been around forever? I so I was just in Israel as I mentioned. We were there with our kids. We're 15 and 16. It's, it was their first trip since October 7th.[00:50:00]
Last summer, we were in Europe. My mother and we went to her hometown in Kosh, Slovakia. We went to her home, we went with the, our extended family, for them to see my mother's roots in that part of the world. She's in her mid eighties now. She lives in Israel. and then we went to Auschwitz, which is where her father was killed.
And my 16-year-old said son said to me in Tel Aviv two weeks ago, he said, I found visiting Southern Israel today. We went to. Kibbutz Niros, where one in four Israelis living at Kibbutz Niros were either taken hostage or murdered. We went to the site of the Nova Music Festival. We, our kids saw everything.
And my son said, IFI can't believe I'm saying this, but I found today the visit we did in the Gaza envelope of Israel, harder than visiting Auschwitz. And I was taken aback when he said that. And I, I said, why? And he said, look, Auschwitz was awful. And it was, the show was like, but he said, but. [00:51:00] My perspective, I realized, I just viewed that's something that happened in another time that is not part of my life.
That it's just something that you just assume that it's it's, that somehow humanity, these weren't his words, but what he was basically saying is humanity somehow modernizes, reforms, gets enlightened, whatever it is, that he just assumed there's the Holocaust, and then the world got normal.
And then he looks at what happened on October 7th, and he says, wait a minute. The world. Doesn't just get normal. Like we're seeing the same thing again, and that freaked him out. And that's why I don't have a good answer for your question.
Andrew Roberts: And also to answer, to, to, reply to your son is, that he's also right because the Nazis try to hide Auschwitz.
They try to blow up the gas chambers, whereas the, Hamas terrorists wore GoPro, in order to publicize there and allow their, their atrocities to be seen as widely as possible. That's another horrific aspect, isn't it? [00:52:00]
Dan Senor: I was at the, so the Nova, so there's the Nova music festival site in Southern Israel.
And then there's the, there's an exhibition. there's a symposium right now, that's traveling, it's in New York City and it's going to LA next, actually should go to London, about, that the chronicles what happened at the Nova music festival. It's been organized by this guy, Scooter Braun, who's in the music industry and some others from the music industry.
And I was just there last Sunday and they have all these videos. And some of the videos are of the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, because they have their GoPro cameras on filming the whole time. It's the Hamas terrorists in Gaza before they launch into Israel. So you watch them in Gaza, like having conversations and because the GoPro video technology is quite advanced, it's like very high quality video footage and you just watch them plotting this.
They wanted to document it all. It's perplexing to me that, you're right. [00:53:00] it's. It's, I don't know if you call it worse, but it's definitely different in that sense than the Nazism that the glorification of the violence and the celebration and the telegraphing of the ghoulishness and the, unfathomable, slaughtering was as important.
As the act,
Andrew Roberts: I think, the, I was very interested in what you were saying about essentially the mustastatizing of antisemitism and we've got something that we saw a couple of days ago, which also ties in with what you say about the flare going up. The, metaphor that Douglas Murray used, the flair going up where, a crowd in, a mob, essentially in Malmo attempted to stop the Israelis from taking part in the Eurovision song contest.
And Greta Thunberg turned up to support the, to support the demonstrators. [00:54:00] obviously, the world's leading green. Then you also have, in the British local elections, one of the councillors who was elected for the Green Party, shouting Allahu Akbar, when he was elected and, he was essentially elected on a, anti Israeli platform.
I think this might be something to watch, the, the fear that, the Green Party, which has always been, pretty open to a few strange people and cranks and so on, might be a vehicle for, for, anti Israeli, anti Zionist, and ultimately anti Semitic, attacks.
Dan Senor: Yeah, I think you're right, but I don't, sadly, I don't lean, I don't, I think it's going to go farther than just the Green Party.
I think you're going to see this pressure in, center left, Parties, center left parties, not just the extreme left parties. I think you will see this. you saw, [00:55:00] in the UK, obviously we saw this with Corbynism. could you imagine if Corbyn were prime minister today? Could you imagine?
I think about this all the time. If it w it's not that hard, by the way, to imagine if Bernie Sanders had won the democratic primary. In 2020, he could have beaten Trump, if Bernie Sanders were president of the United States right now. these are not, impossible, implausible scenarios. And these are, these would be leaders.
I know we think Corbyn and Sanders are extreme. They are. But they would be the leaders of mainstream politics. majoritarian center left parties. And so I'm really worried about where the, pressure is going to be coming from. I don't think it'll just be the greens.
Andrew Roberts: At the end of all my, podcasts, I ask my guests, what book they're reading.
I prefer a history book or a biography if at all possible. [00:56:00] what's, what's on your bedside table at So
Dan Senor: I'm reading a book. I'm rereading a book. that I read a number of years ago, but it just felt so less relevant then than it does today. It's called The Pity of It All, by Amos, Alon, E L O N.
and it's, The Pity of It All, a portrait of the German Jewish epic. And it chronicles Jewish history in Germany from 1743 to 1933. And what the book does in a very chilling way is it captures the growth in Jewish history. community size, Jewish prestige in German society, how the Jews were leading, were major players in every part of German society, in finance, in medicine, in the arts, in academia, in media.
you could just literally go across, the board. The Jews were major players. And of course the [00:57:00] story ends on the eve of Hitler's formal rise to power. And. it's like our Douglas Murray, the flame goes up and you, with that in mind, you're, when I read this book and you're seeing these Germans, German Jews figuring out, wait a minute, but we're so established in, German society and look at all the contributions we've made.
Now I've went through this with a number of my American friends who are very influential in the business world and in philanthropy and in academia in the United States. And after October 7th. They said, wait a minute, I've been giving gobs of money to these universities, I've been very involved, I've, helped all these, I've funded the hospitals, and the operas, and the, I've done all, I've been involved, and I wake up one day, And all these institutions don't have my back and they don't have the Jewish people's back and they, aren't willing to confront issues like rape as a weapon of war, which was what Hamas used against the Jews.
They're just silent. The flame goes up [00:58:00] and they're, there's a study that something like between 10 and 15 percent Jews are, the most philanthropically engaged, most philanthropically generous community in the United States. But a minority of their money goes to Jewish causes. Most of their funding, historically, has gone to, as I said, the universities, and the big institutions, and the hospitals, and the, and, cultural institutions, and, they wake up one day, and they're like, wow, these, people I work with, the non Jews, would knife me in a heartbeat the moment they saw me.
We, the Jews, or Israel, become controversial. And I just want to, there's this, I'm starting to use this, I want to read more about it. But there was something in 1933 in Germany, which almost chronically goes through in this book, The Pity of it All, it was called the Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, was the organization, the Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith.
And what they did is they created a book, this union, of, it was 1, [00:59:00] 060 pages, and it, comprised thousands of entries of names of the most influential Jews in German society. And they put this book together as Hitler was coming to power to say, look at this person. He's the head of the hospital. Look at this person.
He's the chancellor of the university. Look at this person. He runs this investment bank. Look at all these Jews. Look at all these contributions we're making to German society. We can't be that bad, right? look at what we've done. Now, this book has been used as an example by historians. To show how the Nazis destroyed their own society.
Because by slaughtering all these people who are making great contributions. The Nazis destroyed this incredible asset that Germany had. All these very influential Jews were making this great contribution. But when I read this now, Andrew, I think I focus on another point, which is eerily similar to yes, of course, the Nazis slaughtered all these Jews that were making an important contribution.
That's, an important point. But there's another [01:00:00] point that's almost more relevant to today, which is that we're doing the same thing. Jews in America today, and I assume the UK. Which is to say, but look, we're, such upstanding, high performing, high contributing members of society. Why don't people have our back?
They don't have our back now. They didn't have our back then. They have our backs then. And it's just a reminder of the repetitive nature of this.
Andrew Roberts: There's a, very shocking article in the Times today about, anti Semitic outbursts against Jews in the health service. These are doctors, make up over 1 percent of our, our doctors and the, amount of anti Semitic incidents against them have increased, fourfold, in the UK.
In the UK, you think doctors, they're, picking on, doctors. you can't really get a more, altruistic [01:01:00] person in society than a doctor. And yet that is, that doesn't help you in any way if you're Jewish. Dan, what about your, what if, your, your counterfactual, what's, what's, what are you thinking of?
Dan Senor: My what if, Andrew, is. Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli Prime Minister, who was assassinated, first time an Israeli Prime Minister had been assassinated by an Israeli Jew, right wing, I don't even call him right wing, whatever, religious extremist, assassinated on November 4th, 2016. 1995, a couple of years after the Oslo peace process had begun, and Israel was really on a path towards the recognition and creation of a Palestinian state.
And he was assassinated in 1995. Now, obviously, this was a horrendous loss for so many reasons. Yitzhak Rabin was a great man, a great, as military [01:02:00] leader, a great political leader, a moderate, center left leader, far more centrist leader for Israel's, in Israel's labor party than some who succeeded him, extraordinary figure.
So the, tragedy of his loss was, in its own right was, horrendous. I often wonder if he were not assassinated, the implications it would have had on the future decades debate over the creation of a Palestinian state and a two state solution. Because what his assassination. The narrative his assassination left on Israeli society was Israel was on a path towards normalization with the Palestinians and Israel was on a path towards a two state solution.
And then this crazed gunman, this crazed extremist ended it by putting a bullet in Yitzhak Rabin and that this assassin killed the peace [01:03:00] process. And I actually, and then as we all know, then in May of 1996. Netanyahu gets elected prime minister, Netanyahu beats, defeats Perez, who never, had never won an election.
He was just the successor to Rubin after Rubin was assassinated. And he, it was a very close election. He won by just barely one, one point. And there was just the sense that what really happened in Israeli society in the nineties is there was a peace process. There was a path towards normalization.
Israeli society was basically on board with it. And the man who was the sort of indispensable man. was Yitzhak Rabin, and once he was killed, the peace process was killed, and then we've had decades of the Second Intifada, and, you can just go on and on all the way up to October 7th. I, wish Yitzhak Rabin had to run for re election.
And on this issue, because had he survived, had he not obviously been killed, like I said, there's a whole bunch of reasons why I wish he wouldn't have been killed, but I think it would have been very healthy for Israeli society to have had an election [01:04:00] where Rabin had to defend the path he had put Israel on with his peace process.
I believe he would have lost that election. Daniel Gordas, who's a historian, wrote a very good book on the history of Israel. I've talked to him about this, and he's very critical of Netanyahu, he's a fierce critic of Netanyahu. Even he believes that Rabin probably would have lost his re election, unless he abandoned the peace process, because the peace process, there were early signs in those first couple of years, after the Oslo Accords were signed in 93, There were early signs that the, that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership were not serious.
They were not educating their public that they were going to have to make real concessions. They were not educating the public that they're gonna have to learn how to normalize with Jews. There was, they were not maintaining their commitments. The Palestinian leadership, the PLO Fatah at the time was not committed to this process.
And Rabin would have either had to defend the process in an election. and probably lose. The election would have been a referendum on this, [01:05:00] or he would have had to walk away from it. It's almost like the inverse of Nixon goes to China or Begin goes to Camp David that only someone from the right could have normalized with China.
I think only someone from the left could have at that point said to the Israeli public, the Palestinians aren't serious. I'm telling you, they're not serious because I'm serious. I was an architect of this and they're not serious. I think he would have had to do that or lose the election. And I think that would have been very healthy for the debate about how serious the Palestinians are about a two state solution that we have been, that's been consuming American foreign policy and consuming Middle East politics and geopolitics for the subsequent three decades.
Andrew Roberts: Dan, you were part of the delegation that accompanied President George W. Bush to celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary in the May of 2008. It's a very different situation today, 16 years ago, 16 years later, sorry. Where Israel's being [01:06:00] demonized and vilified, even though it's the victim. Thank you very much indeed for coming on, Secrets of Statecraft and, being so forthright and so eloquent about the, other country you love.
Dan Senor: Thank you, Andrea. I'm a very devoted fan of this podcast. So it was a real honor to be on it. And, I just, I, keep, podcasting and keep writing because you, you're keeping many of us sane. Thank you very much.
Andrew Roberts: My next guest on Secrets of Statecraft is Zainab Badawi. The president of SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the author of An African History of Africa.
VO: This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution, where we generate and promote ideas advancing freedom. For more information about our [01:07:00] work, to hear more of our podcasts, or view our video content, please visit hoover. org.
