Neri: 0:05

Shalom and welcome to the Israel Policy Pod. I'm Nery Zilber, a journalist based in Tel Aviv and a policy advisor to Israel Policy Forum. We're back and there's a reason why we were away last week after the outbreak of the Israel-Iran war, which I'll get into in just a minute, trust me. But we have a big episode for you this week with our good friend Amos Harrell, the defense analyst and correspondent at Haaretz, who will break down the historic 12-day war trademark. Donald Trump.

Neri: 0:36

We all just went through Israel's performance in the war, iran's performance in the war and the big question on everyone's mind Iran's performance in the war and the big question on everyone's mind what now, and especially what now for Gaza? Before we start, it's no laughing matter to say this was unlike anything Israel has ever gone through. The country definitely has known rocket and missile fire on its home front for nearly five decades, ever since the days of the PLO back in southern Lebanon and their fire on northern Israel. Since then, israeli citizen towns have come under fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon, saddam Hussein, hamas, of course, the Houthis in Yemen of late. But we've never seen the level of damage and devastation and fatalities caused by Iran's ballistic missiles 28 people were killed and over 1 a thousand injured over the past 12 days, and 15,000 Israelis were left homeless. All you have to do is look at the destruction at the impact sites, whether in Be'er Sheva earlier today, bat Yam, rishon, hatzion, tamra, ramat Gan, tel Aviv and many other locations who sadly were hit, to understand why the devastation was so big. The images are just shocking. It wasn't a joke, even with the terrific work of the Israeli and American air defense systems. Not a joke at all these missiles. But everyone here, I dare say, is very glad that it's over, and I'm also glad it's over. More than anything, I'm glad to be here in Israel.

Neri: 2:10

So what happened? Well, greece happened. I flew out on Thursday June 12th to what I thought would be a wonderful and relaxing wedding weekend Don't worry, not my own wedding On the beautiful island of Hydra in Greece, and, by the way, locals and Euros pronounce it Hydra, not Hydra, but Hydra is Leonard Cohen's island for context, and also for good reason. It's just a beautiful, beautiful place. So, long story short, I wake up on June 13th to learn that Bibi Netanyahu finally did it. He attacked Iran.

Neri: 2:48

And I woke up that morning and also realized I was stuck, since the airspace was immediately shut down over Israel. So there I was in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to, attending a beautiful wedding of two beautiful friends and generally just people beautiful wedding of two beautiful friends and generally just people All the while I'm on my phone following and covering a war back home. By the way, I wasn't alone in this. An estimated 150,000 Israelis also got stuck outside the country when the war broke out and we're looking for a way anyway to get back in. We shouldn't make getting back in any easier, let me tell you, but eventually I, along with my good friend Daniel Estrin of NPR, who was also at this wedding on Idra, found a way to get back.

Neri: 3:37

It took one ferry, two successful flights, two other flights not successful three taxis across various landmasses and 29 hours to get back home. Basically Idra, athens, cairo, sharm el-Sheikh, taba, eilat, tel Aviv. I got back to my apartment in Jaffa on Tuesday, last Tuesday afternoon, turned the key and immediately I got alerts for incoming missiles on my phone. I was overjoyed, let me tell you, to get that message and also resolved that I'm not going back to Hydra anytime soon. It's way too traumatic. With that, let's get to Amos Harrell Hi Amos, welcome back to the podcast.

Amos: 4:23

Hi, neri, thanks for having me.

Neri: 4:26

It's really my pleasure, as always, amos, but especially today, on this auspicious day of the Iran-Israel ceasefire that came in early Tuesday morning. When we set this up Amos yesterday, I didn't know what to expect. I was sure I was going to tell our listeners and viewers that we may have to stop for incoming ballistic missile fire and sirens, but, uh, we now have a ceasefire. It's been a hell of a two weeks, I think, for for everyone, uh, especially those of us, uh, caught up in all of it here on the ground. Um, we'll get into all of it in just a second almost, but I think we'll start here with a question on everyone's mind. Really, after the past 12 historic and crazy days, why now? Why did the ceasefire come in early this morning and why was the ceasefire reached? Why did Israel agree? Why did Trump push for it?

Amos: 5:22

I think, more than anything else. I think that we now live in Trump's world. The world behaves according to Trump rules. It's him above anything else, and it's his own interests, his own motives, that are leading to most decision making. If you go back to the actual Israeli attack against Iran, it wouldn't have happened, probably under any other American president. We've seen Biden, we've seen Obama, we've seen even Bush Jr the second George Bush all disapproving of an Israeli attack. It was only once Trump came back into power after winning the elections last November that it became clear that there is a possibility that America would give Israel the green light Later on, Trump's decision to strike again a very personal way to deal

Amos: 6:23

with things, it's all about him. And then, once he decided to strike, once he decided that America would join by attacking Faudot, it was quite clear that that was over from his view. We all knew in advance that he would portray this as the best in the world, the biggest, the greatest, the highest, the deepest, the tallest, whatever attack in world history like the world has never seen before. And then he would rush as fast as possible, as quickly as possible, to an agreement. So he couldn't reach an agreement, but he could force a ceasefire. So he couldn't reach an agreement, but he could force a ceasefire, both on the Iranians who were, I think, naturally seeking a ceasefire, seeking a relief after all they've been through, and also he would force his good friend Netanyahu to do the same.

Amos: 7:16

And then quite a strange 24 hours. If you'd like to get into that later. That's quite a story, but this is all. It's like a reality show. It's very real. In the end, people die. It's lethal, there's a lot of pain and suffering and yet some of it is almost comical because events are so different than what we've been used to before when we talked about international relations or matters of war and peace, strategic affairs and so on. This is the 2025 version, directed by Donald J Trump.

Neri: 8:00

Directed by Donald J Trump, and all of it revolving around Donald J Trump Of course, starring, leading the star, he's the main character.

Neri: 8:09

Yeah, yeah, Someone made the point earlier today, on Tuesday, when all of this was going down I think you're referring to him almost in real time negotiating whether Israeli fighter jets would actually bomb Iran or not. I mean really, you know in real time. He was negotiating this social media and then actually with Netanyahu himself. But someone mentioned that there's no staff work in terms of the US president. It's him following events in real time and then reacting in real time to those events.

Amos: 8:42

Some of that's done on Twitter, yeah.

Amos: 8:45

Yeah so it's quite remarkable, but if we go back to the events, then he forces a ceasefire during the late hours of Monday night. Netanyahu was holding a cabinet meeting, but I think Trump called him at one point or another and more or less ordered him to stop strikes against Iran. Then he tweeted sometime in the morning I think it was 3am our Israeli time when he tweeted a long tweet saying that both sides came to him at the same time Israel and Iran. And guess what? They both wanted peace. And now a new era begins in which came to him at the same time Israel and Iran. And guess what? They both wanted peace. And now a new era begins in which love and peace and prosperity for all. He sees all that in our future and our collective futures and so on. So it seemed quite well. He already announced that the ceasefire would be implemented by 7 am our time, and yet both of us woke up at around 5 am once the Iranians began launching missiles against Israel. One of those was very, very lethal. It was an incident in Beersheba where four people were killed. This went on until slightly after 7 am and it seemed to be the end of it. But then, at 10.30, iran launched two missiles again Nobody knows why exactly. Iran is not a terrorist organization. It's different than Hezbollah or Hamas. Once an order is given, it's supposed to be obeyed, but this is not what happened.

Amos: 10:22

And then, while Trump was sleeping, israel announced that it was going to attack and no less than 20 fighter jets were sent to Iran in order to bomb the hell out of Tehran again.

Amos: 10:35

And yet, once again, I can't be. I wouldn't envy the I don't know what official it was, but the man who was supposed to wake up the president and tell him that things were not going on exactly as he assumed. I guess he probably encountered quite a shouting, but that's nothing when compared to what he did while speaking to Netanyahu. Of course, netanyahu was denied that by now, but you could see how angry the president was. Later, he was actually using the F word on camera while talking to reporters, and that was the end of it. By then, the Israelis made a spectacular U-turn Instead of bombing Tehran, the fighter jets bombed the radar somewhere in northern Iran, and that was the end of it. Since then, we have a ceasefire in Iran, and that was the end of it. Since then, we have a ceasefire. I doubted whether anybody would dare again to act differently now, once the president has made his point.

Neri: 11:36

No, definitely not, and especially a president with apparently very little sleep, and also I was told it was very hot and muggy day in Washington, so I think he was displeased anyway. And then he was obviously pushing back against both Iran and Israel, which came as a big shock to everyone here in Israel, that he was just as angry with Israel and claimed the violations. And we should also mention, I think, that Trump contradicted his own original tweet announcing the ceasefire when he said that Iran would stop firing at 7 am, whatever time, and that Israel would only stop firing 12 hours later.

Amos: 12:11

And again quite strange. I've never heard of a ceasefire being implemented like that yeah.

Neri: 12:19

So you also wonder who put that together. But nevertheless he demanded the fighting stop. The fighting eventually did stop. I'm curious Trump aside, amos, from the Israeli point of view, we've been hearing murmurs since the weekend definitely Sunday and government itself, ie the prime minister, that actually were also amenable to finishing the campaign that pretty much all the objectives had been reached and that the mechanism would essentially be what Trump came up with, which was both of you just stop firing and we'll call it a ceasefire and move into the next phase. Is that your understanding as well that Israel was also pretty ready for this 12-day war to be over?

Amos: 13:09

Yeah, that's quite clear. I think Israel has achieved most of its goals. It was only Defense Minister Israel Kaz quite a strange persona to begin with, who insisted on talking about regime change all the way and who, also this morning, threatened Iran again with Israel's mighty response after the last two missiles were launched at the Haifa area. Other than that, I think Netanyahu was quite cautious about acting for regime change. He was flirting with the idea. It was never really discussed, it was never really planned for. I think Israel has done more than it intended to do in the beginning. It was more successful than it believed before the strikes began.

Amos: 14:05

It turned out that Iran was not as strong as probably the Israelis have assumed. Iran was infiltrated from so many different angles that they could. You know that the Mossad and Amman, the Israeli military intelligence, knew almost everything that needed to be known about Iran's plans, about Iran's points of weakness, about its infrastructure and so on. So this was extremely successful. And yet I assume Netanyahu being he's in a different stage right now. It's not the old Netanyahu who was always considered extremely calculated and cautious when it came to applying military force. It's a different man since October 7th and everything that has happened since, and yet I don't think that he's looking.

Amos: 14:53

Unlike the situation in Gaza, which we've discussed a lot on the pod in the past, when it came to Iran, he was very focused. What he wanted to do was destroy as much as possible off the nuclear plan. He wanted to drag Trump into this. He understood that it was a one-off kind of thing. There was one mission that he could persuade Trump to agree to, and that has already happened and once this has happened, there was no time to waste. He couldn't seem to be, in the eyes of his supporters, to be too much of a pacifist about this, and yet anybody who was following this could assume that Netanyahu was already searching for the way out. It's not exactly an exit strategy. It's not that calculated. I'm not sure there was such a plan, but once Trump got himself involved in this, then Netanyahu played along. His problem right now is the humiliating see already attacks. Some of his opponents from the opposition are now attacking him from the right.

Amos: 16:09

Even centrists, lieberman or others, are now saying that they're disappointed because actually, more should have been done, but and yet, I think most of the people following this think that Israel has achieved a lot, perhaps much more than we assumed we could, and that, under these circumstances, the best thing to do is to call it a day and look for the next stage.

Neri: 16:31

And especially given the real damage here on the Israeli home front, the issue of the air defenses and the interceptors, whether a war of attrition with Iran going on for days more or weeks more, was really in Israel's interest. That was also a question in the ether, even last week, amos, on the issue of Israel's performance and taking a step back and trying to sum up this historic campaign I mean now who uses that word, but I think in this context it's fair the two main goals, the nuclear program in Iran and the missile program in Iran, damaged, heavily damaged. That was obviously the main objective. But also taking out the military chain of command, especially at the start, nuclear scientists, air defenses, other military installations. I mean how would you sum up Israel's military performance over the past 12 days? I mean how would you assess the damage also inflicted on Iran really at this point?

Amos: 17:39

Nery. Look, this is massive. This is more than anybody would have expected. I've been covering this issue from on and off, I think more than 20 years, and I hardly believe that there would ever come the day when actually this would be implemented, when Israel would actually strike Iran, and by now we're used to it. It's at the pace of events, you know. A few days later you say, okay, what else is new? And yet this is extremely dramatic and it's also very, very successful.

Amos: 18:12

And Netanyahu succeeded twice. First he succeeded in persuading Trump to give him the green light, and then he succeeded, when a lot of people felt that this couldn't be done, in persuading Trump to join in, because there's nothing more successful than success and Trump being at the center of events. There were two issues here the TACO, the Trump Always Chicken Us Out acronym, and also the FOMO Fear of Missing Out, and the combination of the two meant that he needed to show everybody that he was brave and courageous enough to do that and to join in. But going back to the Israeli success, it's quite clear Again Israel was never able to destroy completely the Iranian nuclear plan on its own.

Amos: 18:56

When matters came to Fodou, it was very clear that 90 meters underground was impossible to penetrate from an Israeli perspective, and this is where we needed their help. But other than that, we were extremely successful. We were aggressive, we took the initiative, we surprised the other side. They were exposed. Israeli intelligence turned out to know everything about their plans. Also, we succeeded in assassinating a massive number of their top nuclear scientists, and so on. So this is huge, as the president would say, but on the other hand, it wasn't the end of this. You needed the United States on board in order to finalize the mission. And still, even today, there were reports in the last few hours in the Israeli media that there is no longer an Iranian nuclear project.

Amos: 20:00

Now I somehow suspect that this comes from either Netanyahu or Dermer, and you would allow me to maintain a slight suspicion that there's some sort of exaggeration regarding this conclusion, but there are other people who I would trust, for instance the nuclear analyst David Albright, who are still saying that this is devastating, that the Iranians have no way of enriching uranium again to 60 or 90 percent any time in the near future, and that the destruction is, if not complete, is, extremely massive, and that it would take the Iranians years to recover from this, even if they do there's always a possibility of Israel striking back again or perhaps the Americans joining in.

Amos: 20:52

So this is really, really massive. If we're trying to summarize everything that has happened since October 7th, here is where I take a different point than Netanyahu and his followers and his trumpets and so on, because there what Netanyahu was trying to do, of course, is to define, to invent a new narrative. You saw I don't know if you saw that piece David Remnick, the editor in chief of the New Yorker, interviewed some Israeli journalists, including myself, amit Segal, alouf Ben and others, anshul Pfeffer and all the usual suspects about the latest events, and what Amit said there was that somehow being given the historic examples I would assume that this comes straight from Netanyahu's mouth, but the historical comparison was to Pearl Harbor. October 7th was Pearl Harbor and yet Netanyahu was somehow Roosevelt and he now achieved a final victory over Iran, which was behind the plans to begin with on October 7th, and now the turning point has been reached, and so on, and I think a lot of this was improvised.

Amos: 22:15

I think that it wasn't a plan, and I was now trying to portray this as if, on October 9th, he already told people that the Middle East would be different and that he would defeat the radical axis, and so on. I think he improvised. I think a lot of this. He was in shock in the beginning. It took some time to recover. We were not too successful facing Hamas. We're still unable to bring back 50 of our hostages from Gaza. We were much more successful against Hezbollah, and somehow Khamenei in Iran repeated some of Nasrallah's mistakes in Lebanon last year. And now, of course, the radical axis has been hit.

Amos: 22:53

Some of this is probably almost by accident. The collapse of the Assad regime doesn't have a lot to do with us. We somehow contributed to this, but it's not because of us. It happened because of different reasons. It's a chain of events that I think that most people could not have figured in advance.

Amos: 23:12

It's true that Netanyahu, for many, many years, talked about defeating the Axis and that it finally happened. If we haven't defeated them completely, we did manage to destroy most of the nuclear project, and that's extremely important. And yet, in my view, I think that the original sin of October 7th and we've discussed that time and time again on your pod. That was big to be forgotten. So many Israelis killed that day and since All of those hostages 251, 50 now remaining in captivity, 20 of them hopefully still alive this is massive and it will not be forgotten. But Netanyahu, who never claimed responsibility for the fiasco that allowed this to happen, of course is now claiming full credit for the attack now in Iran.

Amos: 24:04

And I think it's not a Hollywood kind of story, you know, first facing loss and then reaching redemption. It's much more complicated than that. Again, I wouldn't count on political polls too much, but you probably noticed the Channel 12 political poll this evening and the Netanyahu coalition still has a support of 49 mandates out of 120, and the opposition still has 51. The Arab parties have the other 10 seats, according to the poll. That's quite amazing. This is supposed to be Netanyahu's biggest achievement ever, one of the biggest strategic victories for Israel in recent memory, if not in Israeli history, and yet the public has hardly moved. Perhaps that would change. Perhaps people would be if the hostages are back. Perhaps people would be persuaded that this is in fact, that it shows that Netanyahu is the greatest leader and that Netanyahu has recovered, and so on the magician, as some people call him.

Amos: 25:06

And yet I think others are not going to forgive him so easily, in spite of this great achievement.

Speaker 3: 25:14

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Neri: 26:11

So I won't put you on the spot because you're not here to talk politics. Almost You're here to talk about military and security affairs. But yes, I also noted before we started recording that the polls really haven't moved in terms of the past 12 days and the great historic achievement that Netanyahu led and orchestrated I mean, he is the prime minister, so we'll give him credit for that. Camp here is already putting forward this new narrative that Aryeh Deri, the head of the Altru Orthodox Shas party, said, I think earlier today or yesterday yesterday that October 7th actually saved thousands, if not millions, of Israeli lives, because it set in motion exactly the sequence of events that you laid out that Hamas a sort of folk tale, a Hasidic tale about God stopped caring for us and then he came back to save us through his Messiah Netanyahu or messenger, or whatever.

Neri: 27:14

Right, god averted his eyes for a few terrible hours in the morning on.

Neri: 27:20

October 7th 2023. But then he came back and now is leading the nation of Israel to success after success. As you said, amos Netanyahu on October 9th could not have known that Nasrallah and Khamenei would make all the strategic errors and mistakes that they eventually did, leading up to, well, their demise and then the past 12 days. It could have gone very differently if they had made different decisions in the wake of Hamas's decision on October 7th. But luckily, we're still here and, well, netanyahu is still here as well.

Neri: 27:55

Just to wrap up, the issue of the nuclear program, amos and the damage done or not done. Obviously people here want to say that it's completely destroyed. Other people are talking about, well, perhaps a covert program 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium 60% that has been taken somewhere inside Iran, advanced centrifuges to enrich that uranium taken somewhere inside Iran. Are you worried about that aspect of it, that some remnants of the program, some kind of advanced elements, will lead Iran to, perhaps the capability of a covert program with an eye to break out? Is that something you're worried about? The people that you talk to are worried about with an eye to break out? Is that something you're worried?

Amos: 28:42

about the people that you talk to are worried about. Yeah, to some extent. Yes, it's too much of a weight to somehow be lost somewhere in Iran without Israel being worried about that. I think the program, the project has been pushed back quite significantly.

Amos: 29:04

And yet you cannot rule out completely a scenario in which the leader, khamenei, who's 86 years old, the Iranian supreme leader, makes a decision sometime in the near future, saying, look, we were that close to reaching our goal of producing a nuclear bomb. We didn't do that in the end, we hesitated, and look what happened.

Amos: 29:28

And now their fear of being really disliked by, I think, the majority of the Iranian public. They're without an insurance policy. It's true that they're besieged without an insurance policy. It's true that they're besieged. They are IRGC corps. The army and so on are quite aggressive and have you know, have had quite enough experience at fighting protests and quite viciously in the past they have seen you know just the hijab revolt two years ago or the unsuccessful Green revolution in 2009.

Amos: 30:06

There were many cases in which the Iranian public or parts of it were trying to overthrow the regime and failed, but I think, the regime. There's a possibility that the regime could come to a conclusion that what they need is, in fact, the insurance policy meaning a bomb need is, in fact, the insurance policy meaning a bomb. And if you look at recent history, ukraine has given up its nuclear arsenal after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and that's not a good thing. If you look at Ukraine in the last three years, they probably would have had a better chance of fighting the Russians if they maintained the nuclear capability. Now, the same goes for Libya, of course. Gaddafi 2002, once the United States was getting ready to the Second Gulf War against Iraq. Gaddafi gave up the beginning of a nuclear plan and then it was lynched on the street in 2011, once the Arab Spring began in Libya. In 2011, once the Arab Spring began in Libya.

Amos: 31:05

So I'm sure the Iranians are thinking of these historic examples and trying to avoid that. And yet, first of all, there's the problems with the actual getting, the actual outcome. Is it in fact possible under the new circumstances? Do they have the scientists to do that? Do they have the knowledge? Are they capable of doing that without being struck by the Israelis again? And yet, that's one issue.

Amos: 31:34

And the second is isn't that too dangerous? Wouldn't that mean the end of the regime? And yet I think there's a possibility at least that this is what he'll tell them to do to perhaps an experiment, some kind of a blow up, some kind of a primitive bomb to show that they have the capability to go what is known as the North Korean path. That's a possibility, and I can't rule it out completely. We'll have to wait and see again. In my view, with my limited understanding of what has happened and without having all the intelligence or the information about what was really discovered on Iran's intentions, I think, if there's a you know, there's a possibility that this could happen, and yet I think it was the, as far as I can tell right now.

Amos: 32:23

I think that Israel was justified in the decision to strike. I have said that for the last 12 days. I think that both things can be true at the same time that Israel had the right to do this and that it was the right thing to do, and, on the other hand, that the man making the decision, netanyahu, did not have the legitimacy to decide. He may have been supported in retrospect by most of the Israelis, and yet I doubt his intentions. There was always the. It's more than a suspicion. I think that most of us know that he had personal motives when he decided on that and look, it hasn't played out beautifully for him yet politically. And yet there's an assumption that the trial will be delayed. And think of his criminal trial. It's the part where there's a cross-examination. Is he going to be called back as a witness in a week's time? How would that seem?

Amos: 33:19

The man who bombed Iran would now discuss the cigars and the jewelry and whatever. I can write already his arguments and I'm not a Netanyahu supporter, as you may suspect he would use that. It's part of the issue. His claim to fame, his narrative from now on would be I saved you from an Iranian bomb. This is the way this is, you know. The slogan almost writes itself when you think of the next campaign.

Neri: 33:52

It's literally what he said in a pre-recorded televised address right before we started recording. He literally said I saved you from another. Holocaust, another Holocaust.

Amos: 34:04

Essentially, that's what he's saying he's promised to do that for 40 years and he actually fulfilled the promise by now. It's no wonder that he's acting a little bit messianic by now.

Neri: 34:18

Very messianic. But to your earlier point, Amos. I think it speaks to the paradox of the current moment, where the vast majority of the Israeli public was in favor of this campaign, was in favor and supportive of this war, and yet they're still highly suspicious of the motives, both personal and otherwise, of the man actually leading the campaign, which I think is bearing out now in the polls.

Neri: 34:44

So it's very, very interesting, amos, in terms of the tales of the tape, the Iranian side of the equation. Obviously Iran was the big boss at the end of the Middle East, kind of orchestrating all these proxies, Hamas, hezbollah, the Houthis. To a certain extent, it was always viewed as a formidable foe. How would you assess their response, or lack thereof, over the past 12 days, aside from lobbing ballistic missiles at Israeli cities? What do you think? By the way, I'd love to get your thoughts what happened to the proxies? Hezbollah didn't get involved.

Amos: 35:26

The Houthis fired maybe one missile over the past week and a half. So there is a temptation, already after the victory over Hezbollah last year, to say in retrospect that we underestimated Hamas and we overestimated Hezbollah, and perhaps Iran as well. That's not exactly true. I think what these events show us is how much depends on your preparation and on taking the initiative first. This is June 13th. Without comparing this, exactly is Iran's October 7th. Again, we underestimated Hamas. Iran underestimated our capability and perhaps believed too much in its own capabilities, and this is what happened.

Amos: 36:07

Iran, in the end, prepared for years and years and years the nuclear plan, the missile plan, proliferation of weapons, the building, the Shia militias, the proxies that you mentioned, what Qasem Soleimani, who was assassinated by the Americans in 2020, what he described as a ring of fire around Israel. The big plan was there. There was even another plan, which is even more frightening what we call the annihilation plan, the destruction plan. It turns out that they were serious. This clock that has been described in the Palestine Square in Tehran, it's actually a real thing. They did have a clock counting the hours until the demise of Israel that the leader that Khamenei promised in 2040, 15 years left on that clock and Israel struck yesterday and apparently a missed the clock has not been heard.

Amos: 37:03

This is at least the story from Tehran right now. But there was a plan there and it turns out that they spent hundreds. According to the Israeli intelligence, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars on these plans and it all collapsed within 12 days, which is quite amazing. It turns out that it's not enough to spend money. It's not enough to be a crazy ideological radical.

Speaker 3: 37:34

Islamist.

Amos: 37:35

You still need something more than that. You need better preparations, perhaps better thinking, perhaps people who are more free to express their professional opinions and do not fear a leader that can execute them if they don't do as they're told, and so on. It's different. Israel, in spite of all of its flaws and weaknesses, is still a democracy, a western kind of strange western kind of liberal democracy, and it had the upper hand because it was about our survival and because we prepared for that, because Mossad and Aman and the Air Force and so on were preparing for so many years to do that. And this is, in a way, quite similar to what happened with Hezbollah. And again, hezbollah. We now tend to forget about that, but Hezbollah was our mightiest opponent. For many, many years. People didn't believe that Iran would get itself involved, but we did fear a Hezbollah attack for many, many years, and Hezbollah was destroyed within a few. Most of its capabilities were destroyed within a few weeks. Now, getting back to your second question not only Hezbollah, but the other proxies. So Hezbollah was taken out of the equation. Last September and October, naim Qasem, the deputy the longtime deputy leader of Hezbollah, who was never ready for prime time, suddenly found himself in trying to fill Nasrallah's big shoes, and he's not very good at that and even now he's trying to avoid conflict with Israel. It could change in the future. Right now he doesn't want to end up like Nasrallah and the situation in Lebanon has changed quite a lot. The government, the new president, the chief of staff of the army are not on Hezbollah's side anymore and there there's much more American involvement right now in trying to push Hezbollah into a corner. So Hezbollah was not rooting for another round with Israel.

Amos: 39:40

At the moment Same goes for others, I would assume tonight. We talked about that earlier. I wouldn't be surprised if you'd be woken up later on tonight by a missile from the Houthis in Yemen. I don't know if you'll bother going to the bomb shelter. We've stopped going for Houthi missiles. Bomb shelter We've stopped going for Houthi missiles. It doesn't have the same kind of it doesn't bring you the same kind of emotional response as Iranian missiles, which have another kind of alarm at your phone and so on. So a lot of people you know if you live in a five-story building, you may go to the stair steps two floors under you and not go all the way into the bomb shelter, and nobody does that kind of calculation with an Iranian missile attack, but that's the way it goes, so probably the Houthis would get themselves involved soon. And yet they didn't launch one single missile, I think, since the beginning. The same goes for the Iraqi Shia militias and so on.

Amos: 40:48

All of those proxy forces that Iran was spending so much money on for years and years chose to stay out of this realm, and I think they realized what has happened. What was the real equation of power? Again, israel should not be too vain about that. There's this Quite constant danger of Hibblis, of being too sure of yourself and feeling that you know everything and that you can beat anybody. That's not the case. This is what led us to October 7th, and yet I think that our performance, whether it's the military, or Mossad, or Shin Bet or so on, ever since not on October 7th, not in Gaza, but on other fronts is quite impressive when it comes down to it. But as I said before, I cannot just clap for Netanyahu while he avoids assuming responsibility for what has happened on October 7th. It doesn't just go away the memory, the taint you know that Eretz Ne'eret, the satirical program on Channel 12, has him with a sort of chomanketem taint.

Neri: 42:00

A stain on his forehead.

Amos: 42:02

On his forehead.

Neri: 42:04

It doesn't go away.

Amos: 42:05

This blood. Yeah, it doesn't go away, and this blood is on me, and I think that's quite a powerful metaphor for what has happened, and I think he knows that. This is the reason why he avoids discussing it completely. This is the reason why he hasn't visited Niroz on the Gaza border yet, while he went to Bat Yam and other places that were hit by Iranian missiles in the last few days.

Neri: 42:30

By the way, it's like Israel's version of Saturday Night Live.

Amos: 42:35

Somewhat funnier in my view, but that's. It's a lot funnier, yeah.

Neri: 42:39

A lot funnier, a lot more biting, pretty much a genius show. And they actually had a wartime episode last week, which was quite remarkable.

Amos: 42:49

And, yes, he still had the stain on his forehead, but this is Israel, nery no need to explain that to you because you live here but the fact that the resilience remains, that people are willing to discuss, the fact that both of us we're professionals, we're journalists, we were at the wrong place at the wrong time and we needed to do anything to get back to our place in Israel and to cover the story.

Amos: 43:17

And yet the fact that we had such a hard time returning part of this had to do with that that so many Israelis wanted to come back as well. Not too many escaped the country. Tens of thousands wanted to go home. Under these circumstances, the same thing happened on October 7th, and you have people making jokes about that on the one hand, and seriously discussing the situation on the other, and behaving like it's absolutely normal for you, for us, to go to the bomb shelter five times a day and to discuss what protects you better the safe room at your home or the bomb shelter underneath your apartment building. This is the kind of reality that we live in for quite some time.

Neri: 44:00

Yeah, quite some time, and well, now almost 21 months of just one thing leading to the next one. I think on this podcast we go from one week to the next thing unprecedented and historic and and dramatic and so on.

Amos: 44:17

Yeah, yeah, which which all of them usually are.

Neri: 44:19

Uh, for 20, we're all again we're all little trumps by now, little little trumps and uh, we could do with some some more, uh rest some more boring days, um, not going to happen, not soon, not soon.

Neri: 44:29

Uh, on that point, I'm almost just looking ahead. Uh, and what we can expect, uh, we'll see it's a more boring days. Not going to happen, not soon, not soon. On that point, amos, just looking ahead and what we can expect, at least on the Israel-Iran front. Now many people are discussing diplomacy, so we'll start with the diplomatic path. It looks like the Trump administration and the various world powers will try to re-engage Iran with regard to its nuclear program, try to get Tehran back to the negotiating table, to, I suppose, get a better deal, a stronger deal. Hoping Tehran capitulates, caves, softens its position. Do you really think you personally, do you really think Iran, once it gets back to the negotiating table, will be more amenable after 12 days of getting hammered by the Israeli and American air forces?

Amos: 45:15

This is the general line of thinking right now, the common wisdom or whatever. I assume that this is the way things are going to go for a little bit at least Under this pressure.

Amos: 45:25

the Iranian leadership knows what happened. I'm sure the Iranian leadership knows what happened. It's true that Iranian TV yesterday described this or this morning, that because of this great, successful attack in Qatar on the American base, now it's the Americans who capitulated and are willing to force Israel into reaching a ceasefire, which is, of course, absolute nonsense. It's, you know, israel and the United States had the upper hand and it's Iran that's been forced to renegotiate. Is that enough to reach a deal? I'm not so sure, because there's always that there is a sort of a double jeopardy or danger. Here One has to do with Trump's character or mood. He may lose interest. This is what happened on the Gaza situation. He was pushing for a hostage deal.

Amos: 46:11

He got many hostages back in January out alive. Then he, as a gesture, he got Idan Alexander, the Israeli soldier, with American citizenship, and then he more or less lost interest. This could happen on Iran as well, although it's a much bigger deal for him. The second problem has to do with his administration. There's nobody around him.

Amos: 46:36

As usual, when administrations change from Republican to Democrat or vice versa, people leave the experts leave the officials leave because this is the tradition Under Trump, especially with Elon Musk being around for a bit. It's much worse than that.

Speaker 3: 46:54

And.

Amos: 46:54

I'm told by Israelis that they hardly have any counterparts on the Pentagon, at State or at the NSC. There are hardly any experts left. So who's going to figure out what a deal should be like? Who's the nuclear expert to discuss these issues? Not many of them left. Witkoff cannot deal with everything. Steve Witkoff is Trump's envoy to the rest of the world. He deals with Ukraine, he deals with Gaza, the hostage deal and now Iran. I'm not sure about the level of expertise and this is where I'm a bit worried about. And yet the outcome could be different because of everything that has happened during the last 12 days. I think they're more willing to negotiate. I think the United States, because of what has happened, has more leverage, more leeway while discussing it with the Iranians. We'll see how this evolves.

Amos: 47:48

But, the fact that so much of their capabilities have been destroyed of course puts us in a better situation, and yet what could be seen as a violation? What if we actually discover this hidden enriched uranium? What if they start enriching uranium again? What if they launch a missile or smuggle missiles to Yemen or Hezbollah? Should Israel punish them?

Amos: 48:12

I already hear an Israeli official saying we can do what we did in Lebanon. That's different. It's true that we were very, very good at obliterating their anti-aircraft systems and we controlled the skies over Tehran within 48 hours, which was quite massive, and yet this is 1,500 kilometers away. This is different than striking Lebanon, which is a two or three minutes flight. It's true that since November last year, after the ceasefire was reached, every time when there's a violation, Israel strikes targets and terrorists from Hezbollah's side and Hezbollah does not respond. It's not going to be exactly the same with Iran. I don't think we have the same level of leeway to do that, so we'll have to wait and see. For the time being, we talk tough, but we'll have to see if we have enough space to maneuver here or whether Trump is going to decide how this is treated.

Neri: 49:20

So you beat me to the follow-up question. The natural follow-up question, which is diplomacy aside, there's also the second path, the non-diplomacy side, from at least the Israeli point of view, which is, like you said, taking action if we see Iran trying to rebuild either its nuclear program, its air defenses, its ballistic missile program. So, in terms of just talking tough, okay, israel is going to try to mow the grass, as it were, like it does in the West Bank or Lebanon, now in Iran. I mean, do you think that's credible at all, given the fact that if we hit Iran, we may be back in the bomb shelters once again?

Amos: 50:01

Yeah, this is what I fear Again. I never say never, considering everything that has happened since October 7th and specifically in the last few weeks, because maybe I didn't emphasize that enough, but a lot of these scenarios are not only impressive, but very, very surprising, according to everything that we've read and heard for many years. But mowing the grass 1,500 kilometers away, it's a slight understatement. It's a bigger issue and Iran has more power than people are ready to acknowledge. It's true that the fact that the ceasefire was reached is not only because of the mighty United States. A lot of this has been achieved by the Israelis, and Trump would never have joined if the Israelis were not that successful. We would have left us to rot if we failed. Trump loves winners.

Amos: 50:52

He doesn't like losers. Remember him talking disparagingly on Israel immediately after the massacre. He actually made fun of the Afghan, called him an idiot or a fool or whatever. Because of October 7th. And then now things look different. But a lot of this has been achieved because of what Israel was able to do.

Neri: 51:16

Right. So it remains to be seen Talk aside, whether diplomatic or military how this actually plays out, which is a big, not concern, but a big thought of mine. Right that if the fighting is now stopped, okay, what's going to happen tomorrow and the next day and next week and next month remains to be seen. Final question to you, Amos, and it's an important one in terms of looking ahead after the past 12 days Gaza, the previous war, the original war, we're back to now our regular programming of the past 20 months, which is really the Gaza front. Do you think the Iran-Israel war of the past 12 days will have a positive impact, or any impact at all, really, on the prospects of getting a ceasefire for hostage deal?

Amos: 52:08

in Gaza, there will be impacts. It's a bit too soon to tell what kind of impact. We've heard one of Trump's envoys, the Palestinian-American Bachbach, saying talking to I think it's Egyptian TV a few hours ago and saying that there was a window of opportunity here, and this is what many Israelis believe as well that after Netanyahu achieved his victory over Iran, he would be more willing to negotiate. A lot of this has to do with our side of what our side of this discussion thinks and how we behave, because, as you know, israel was an obstacle too. It was not only about Hamas in recent months. It was Netanyahu, under extreme political circumstances, was not really willing to compromise.

Amos: 52:57

So there's a different situation right now and Israel could persuade itself that, after destroying or dismantling the Iranian axis, hamas is left with no support and perhaps we could be slightly more generous in order to get our boys back, in order to get everybody back home. So there's a possibility there. On the other hand, there's a lot of bloodshed there. If you look at the recent events, there's an ongoing it's not so much fighting, there are all kinds of incidents, but we also kill many and so on, without using Hamas, without those convoys being controlled by Hamas, but this is devastating. If you look at the situation in the last two months or so, israel has become more and more aggressive without reaching a lot. We haven't destroyed Hamas completely. Hamas is still holding the hostages.

Amos: 54:13

It's not really willing to become more flexible about an agreement and we're stuck in this for quite some time. So maybe this sense that we've become more successful on the bigger front, so to speak, on Iran, maybe that would allow more flexibility from the Israeli side, because my view is that this needs to end for a long time now that going back to fighting in March was the wrong decision to make, that it had devastating results for the Palestinian people in Gaza and that it didn't work out too well for us as well.

Amos: 54:47

That it actually hasn't led to a breakthrough, but just this constant bleeding regarding Gaza, which is leading us nowhere. So it's time to end this Now. I doubt very much Netanyahu's motives, and yet I think that, for political reasons, he may need to end this as well. If he identifies, in spite of the polls that we mentioned earlier, if he identifies a window of opportunity in which he can finally claim another political victory in elections, then in order to do that, the first thing that he needs to do is to finally solve the hostage problem in Gaza.

Amos: 55:25

Of course that means, for the time being, a divorce from Smoot-Oçan Begzi. We're not going to allow him to do that. But yet a collapse of the government may be, something that he will be interested in considering the alternatives under these circumstances.

Neri: 55:42

Yeah, that's the optimistic path, the optimistic option path, the optimistic option. You hear voices, even Netanyahu the other day in his press conference, saying you know well, now that we've taken apart Iran and the rest of the Axis, then Hamas will clearly feel more pressure and they'll cave and they'll give us what we want on our terms namely the hostages, without us committing to ending the war.

Neri: 56:06

So that's the flip side of the past 12 days on Gaza, combined with, by the way, the IDF still taking casualties in Gaza, which is also, you know, nobody really noticed, but at least four soldiers have died in Gaza over the past week, week and a half and 12 have died since the beginning of June, right, right.

Amos: 56:29

So I think the focus will shift and 12 have died since the beginning of June.

Neri: 56:31

Right, all right. So I think the focus will shift most definitely back to Gaza and we'll see how that's resolved. Amos, I know it's late. Thank you so much for your time and insights, as always. Hopefully the Houthis do not wake us up in the middle of the night. We'll see about that. We'll see about that. We'll see about that, but till next time, thank you very much.

Amos: 56:54

Thank you.

Neri: 56:55

Okay, thanks again to Amos Harrell, as always, for his generous time and insights. Also, a special thanks to our producer, jacob Gilliband, and to all of you who support Israel Policy Forum's work. Do consider making a donation to Israel Policy Forum for being a credible source of analysis and ideas on issues such as these that we all care deeply about, including this podcast. And, most importantly, thank you for listening.