Can Israel Save Itself?

0:00I'm Dan Kurtz-Falen, and this is the Foreign Affairs Interview. So the day after should describe a reality in which we preserve our security and our identity. But the government, which is led by the most extreme wing of Jewish radicalism and Jewish racism or superiority, well, they are leading us against the will of the most Israeli citizens. It has been almost two years since Hamas' October 7th attacks on Israel and the start of the war in Gaza. Those many months of combat have left Hamas severely weakened with its leadership eviscerated and its military capabilities crippled. But as the war enters a new phase, with Israeli troops pushing into Gaza City this week, the central question of the endgame remains unsettled.

0:53Israeli leaders have consistently refused to offer a clear vision for the war's aftermath, for what happens on the day after. According to Ami Ayalon, that failure has been disastrous for Palestinians as well as for Israelis. It is a recipe for conflict grinding on indefinitely, along with the attendant bloodshed and ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. Ayalon was the commander of the Israeli Navy and the head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency. As he sees it, Israel's long-term security depends on recognizing the rights and aspiration of Palestinians and on the creation of a Palestinian state, one that includes both Gaza and the West Bank.

1:30I alone joined senior editor Yves Fairbanks to reflect on the strategic errors that led to this point, then how the world can reckon with those missteps to find a better path forward for both Israelis and Palestinians.

1:50Ami, it's great to be with you. Thank you. You wrote for us recently a very broad piece, a powerful piece called Israel's Fighting a War That It Cannot Win. And only a path to a Palestinian state can stop calamity in Gaza and the world must lead the way. But I want to start with Israel's Fighting a War It Cannot Win. You wrote, Today, this war is becoming unjust, immoral, and counterproductive, shifting responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza from Hamas to Israel. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you view the different phases of this war? It's now gone on for almost two years.

2:28Well, I'll try to explain the definition of a war that we cannot win because it's very difficult for Israelis to hear it or to read it. And this is not exactly what I mean. I think that we can win, but not the way we are fighting this war now. And we have to understand something that, by the way, I think in many places, probably even in America, most people do not understand, and especially politicians or statements, do not understand the difference between the types of war and the war that we are fighting today during the 21st century. The wars today are not between states. and 95 % of the wars since the collapse of Soviet Union between a state and organization.

3:15And when the war is between a state and organization, it's a way it became, in a way, irrational kind of war because there is no military decision in the battlefield. And Israel-Palestine is a perfect example because we are fighting not against the state of Palestine. There is no Palestinian state. And we are not fighting against the Palestinian people because, you know, the idea, we cannot win a people. We are not going, you know, to murder, to kill millions of people. A terror organization will never rise a white flag. A terror organization will never surrender. And this is something that we cannot understand and we cannot accept.

4:04And this is why we are still thinking in terms of a military decision, where military people understand, but politicians cannot live with it. So they do not define a political goal because, you know, in many, many cases, in our case, Israelis do not agree on the future of Israel. whether it will be Israel from the Jordan to the sea, as our government is trying to achieve now, or it will be a reality of two states in which we will enable to preserve our identity as a Jewish democracy and our security. So when I say that we cannot this war, it is because we do not understand the type of war that we are fighting today.

4:50We have a very, very powerful problem. the most powerful military organization in the Middle East. And we achieve historical, you know, probably the most brilliant military decision, military victory in human history. I cannot compare, but it is not enough because Hamas will not rise a white flag. And it is the opposite. We are using strategy of military decision, which means we are going to kill as many people and to destroy infrastructure until you will understand that you will have to surrender. But they will not surrender because their strategy is non-surrender. In a way, they win every day and we lose every day and they have time.

5:43The specific case of Hamas is something that, again, Hamas is using its people as a human the sheet. Well, that leads me into there's so much that you said in there that I want to follow up on little bits I want to move into. You last spoke to us in November 2023, which you said feels like like centuries ago. And yet you probably didn't anticipate being in this exact place that we're in right now. And we discussed whether you thought Israel could do more to minimize civilian casualties. And you noted that this is a fair concern, but that this was not a military operation. It's a war. And you said you did not think the IDF could achieve its military goals without doing what they were doing because Hamas uses civilians as a human shield.

6:26How do you think about that question now? I think that we didn't learn anything. We Israelis, we didn't learn anything because I think that our military commanders understand it. But they do not control. It is a huge military organization. And you cannot control every soldier, especially in this, you know, atmosphere in which you are fighting in the middle of cities, which is the most dense area that ever fought. Many of the terrorists are not in uniform. So every human being is perceived by our soldiers as an enemy. So they kill everybody because they really believe that they are threatened. and we should not be blamed, but we are responsible.

7:21We are responsible for the humanitarian crisis that is created under our responsibility because we have the power to end it, because we achieved all the military goals that were declared by our government to dismantle Hamas as a military organization. The military goals were to dismantle the military capability of Azadine al-Qassam, which is the military branch of Hamas, and to eliminate, to transfer or to kill all its political leadership. And we did it. We killed all the leaders. We killed all the military commanders. We destroyed all the military installations. and we killed thousands of the terrorists.

8:13That, in a way, this is Al-Zadir Qassam. But since we do not have a political goal, we cannot agree on the day after because, you know, majority of Israelis totally against the concept of one state from the Jordan to the sea because it is clear to all of us that it will not be a Jewish state and it will not be a democracy. We are not majority between the Jordan and the sea. So the day after should describe a reality in which we preserve our security and our identity. But the government, which is led by the most extreme wing of Jewish radicalism and Jewish racism or superiority, well, they are leading us against the will of the most Israeli citizens.

9:10I hear you saying something interesting, which is that there's a lot of discussion among observers of Israel, discussion in our magazine about what is the vision that the Israeli government has. And to some degree, it seems like you're saying the point is to have no vision, because if the government, if the society confronted the discussion of what the vision is, what it should look like, there would be so much conflict that people fear this discussion. So in a way, you put it off forever. When you think about the wars of Israel, many people will tell you, okay, Israel is fighting many wars, which is nonsense, which is not true.

9:49We are fighting one war during the last 140 years, since the beginning of the concept of Zionism. It took 50 years, exactly 50 years, until UN in 1947 accepted the concept of a Jewish state alongside an Arab state. So we are fighting one war with many, many operations and military, you know, military campaigns and battles, etc. But it is one war in order to create and then to defend the state of Israel. And what I'm saying is that we want this war. And I wrote it in this article several weeks ago. And our victory was achieved in Beirut, March 2002, when all the Arab League members gathered in Beirut and changed the three nodes of Khartoum, node to after success.

10:56Now, it took many years, and in 2002, they understand that we are here to stay. And the world is different, et cetera, et cetera. And it is after, you know, the first Iraqi war. And they understand it. And they change to the three yes. Yes to recognition. Yes to negotiations. And yes to peace with Israel on the conditions of the international resolutions and the Security Council resolution. two states, and we refuse to recognize our victory. Why? Because we stop to believe in diplomacy, because we believe that all the world is against us. There's something very, very deep in the Jewish history.

11:41And the Israeli society is a fearful society. And when you confront a person or a group of people that they are afraid. They are using only one language, violence and military language. They do not believe in creating confidence because confidence, you know, is a kind of a trust. You have to trust whether it is because he has an interest not to fight against us or because, I don't know, he identified, well, okay, they will not join the Zionist movement, but they share an interest. And today, by the way, the 7th of October in 23, brought back the concept of two states to the public debate. We Israelis and probably most Palestinians and for sure the international community forgot it.

12:38The Abraham Accord that was a great diplomatic achievement was the origin, the source of the violence that we faced on the 7th of October, because the concept was, the idea was that we cannot solve the conflict. So we have to manage the conflict. In order to manage the conflict, we have to bypass the Palestinians as a people. And we have to negotiate with the Arab states. And we negotiated with the Emirates. and you know Abraham was based on Palestinians do not exist and it was a huge mistake because this was the reason why Hamas came to believe after the great vision of the American president of Baghdad that was published in Delhi a new Middle East from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, but no Palestinians.

13:47Palestinians were not there. So Hamas understood that if this vision will be created, Palestinians as a people will disappear from history and not to wait and to launch an attack on the 7th of October. It's an interesting idea that you're advancing, which is that certain things that the world and Israelis view as among the things that they can be proud of completely, great victories, the Abraham Accords, certain military victories more recently, or Pyrrhic victories should be understood in the reverse, were misunderstood. And then in fact, there was a victory in the early 2000s that Israel didn't notice, wasn't prepared to notice, didn't acknowledge.

14:32What would you say to people who say, Ami, you have this vast military experience as commander of the Navy, security experience. How can you say that Israel achieved its real victory in 2002 when certain things that would have been a fantasy for a long time, which is the crippling of Iran, the dismantling to some degree of Hezbollah, these great military victories that Israel has apparently accomplished in the last year, two years. You know, we're in a better position militarily and in the region and we're stronger and we're more dominant than we've ever been. What would you say to that? First of all, you cannot separate Iran from the Palestinian conflict because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not the major conflict in the Middle East.

15:22Iran is an existential threat. And if they will achieve a nuclear military power, Well, it is a different Middle East. But we do not understand that Iran is not a threat only against Israel. When the nuclear deal was on the table, it was a main issue in Saudi Arabia, in Egypt, in Jordan, in Syria, everywhere. But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a common denominator of all the Arab states and the world of Islam. You know, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict bring together nationality and religion. You know, today you cannot separate my identity as an Israeli citizen or a Jewish nationality from statehood.

16:24So religion, nationality, and it is becoming very, very dangerous when this is the reason. to go to war. Because a religious war is totally different from a type of a pragmatic war, which is a war between states. Whoever will rise the flame of, I am fighting for Palestine, will lead the Arab war. And this was what Iran did. Iran, by the way, when all the Arab states forgot Palestine because they tried to achieve, economic relations, military relations, intelligence relations with Israel. Probably many of them, by the way, were ready because they thought that Israel is a gate to America. But this was pragmatism.

17:16After 2011, the Arab Spring, we understand that we are facing a different Middle East in which the street achieved a major part of the political power. we saw what happened to leaders who did not understand it and I quote Mohammed bin Salman who said to the American foreign minister he said, do you think that I care about Palestine? No, I don't, but my people do but he understands that unless he will understand the will of the street he will find himself in the place of Mubarak, when more than one million people went out to Tahrir Square, the Arab street, the Muslim street. We see it, by the way, in the Middle East.

18:08By the way, we see it in Europe, and we see it in American universities. So it is not a minor conflict between Israelis and Palestinians anymore. It's a major regional conflict, which creates a major impact on the international community, on the economy, and on the political stability in Europe, in America, in many, many other places. So this is a time, in a way, but this is an opportunity. Your piece has these three components. Essentially, the longer these military operations with no political vision, no day after vision, no end game go on, the more responsibility comes onto Israel for the injustice and the grave moral problems of this.

18:53War, the calamities in Gaza. Yeah, and the humanitarian crisis, which is created under our responsibility. Yes. Then the second component is your acknowledgement that regional states will not play into Israel's, let's say, maybe fantasy of how a diplomatic, hyper-pragmatic solution would be achieved without some facing and reckoning with the issue of the Palestinians. And then the third component is a path forward. You lay out two paths that Israel has, which is to continue on its status quo, military operations, graver and graver humanitarian catastrophe, as you say. And the other path is some path toward a two-state solution.

19:37You say that this should begin or that it really needs to start with a powerful statement and a sense of unity between certain outside players. Who are those? And can you say why psychologically? It's important that there be a joint sense externally of a kind of world solution for this. Now, the tragedy of Israel, and probably, I have no idea about America, but many other places that we see the enemy, they see the enemy. In the eyes of military generals, they do not understand statementship. And the tragedy of Israel is that none, none of our political leaders do not reach the level of statementship.

20:25We do not have any statement among our political leaders. Why do you think that is? The revolution in media affairs or, you know, communication and of course globalization. You know, a political leader has to be elected. And when the people in the street are afraid, we always prefer security on rights. especially so this is the first step in the long road that leads to the collapse of all the democracies you know the major powers of political power is not in the hand of the elected leaders or non-elected leaders it's in the street so a popular leader he understands you know in a real pragmatic world when you face a society which is afraid.

21:22You will do everything in order to reduce the level of fear. But in this case, you take advantage of the fear in order to be elected. You have this society that's very fearful, but what is the role that the so-called international community can play here? Because you describe in your piece that it should and it can play a strong role. I think, though, that the general feeling is, among a lot of people who consider themselves sophisticated political analysts, that if the international community, if the UK, if Europe puts a lot of pressure on Israel, it will only make Israelis defensive and they'll say no and they'll resist this always.

22:00Can you just lay out in a basic way for us what your piece envisions of the role that the international community can play and why maybe that's different from how it is acting currently? I expect the international community to lead. I think that here's the answer is very, very simple. This is exactly what the Saudi and the French initiative is trying to do. In a way, they are saying, look, we understand that the only viable future is two states. There is no other concept which looks like a viable concept in order to maintain our identity and our security on both sides. Palestinians hit us. And it didn't work.

22:42So we should not change the goal. We should change the structure. the architecture of the process. And let's start by deciding that it will be negotiated between two states, not between a state and an organization. And in your article I wrote, look, Palestinians recognize Israel three times. In 1988, when they came with the Declaration of the Palestinian Independence, when they signed on Oslo, 1993, and then in the Arab Peace Initiative. They recognized Israel as a state, but we never recognized Palestine. So in your view, it is important recognition in order to have a proper interlocutor. It is a precondition because this is the only way to defeat Hamas.

23:37You know, Hamas is not the military wing of Hamas, Azad-e-Lkassar. Hamas is a combination between a military capability but ideology. And the ideology is a major threat because even if we shall kill all its terror activists, they have children, a child who lost his parents. What do you think he will do? He will become a terrorist. So in order to defeat an ideology, we have to present a better ideology and to promise it. a political horizon of a Palestinian state. And if we shall do it and we shall show him on the ground that we are marching every day we are doing one step, it will take many years.

24:29We'll be right back after this short break.

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26:03In the November interview that you did with us, you said that in your view, you doubted that Israelis would back a government doing what the current government has been doing for very long. And it made me wonder what you've learned about Israeli society over the last two years. Confusion is a way to describe the Israeli society. Now, when you read the polls, there are so many contradictions. On the one hand, between 70 % to 70 % of the Israelis believe that in order to bring back the hostages and to end the war, we are ready to pay in a process, to pay the process that will lead to a Palestinian state.

26:50On the other side, most Israelis believe that all Palestinians have Hamas and there are no innocent people in Gaza. I don't know. There is no way to define the Israeli, but to say we are in a state of fear and confusion. In a state of fear, you need an anchor of hope. And for me, the best example is what happened to us when Sadat came to Jerusalem. It was after the bloodiest war ever formed in Israel. We hated the Egyptians. But he came to Israel and he spoke to us. He did it against the whole Arab and Muslim world. He was brave enough. By the way, he was assassinated on this issue. Exactly as Rabin, two pioneers of peace, were assassinated because their society, the Israel society and the Egyptian society, did not understand it.

27:53But I saw what happened. In one day, on the day later. No, he became something that most Israelis said that we trust him. In recent polls, you know who the Israeli trusts? Most Israelis, Trump and Ben Salman. We do not trust none of our leaders. We trust only Trump and Ben Salman. I'm not sure about today because Trump is changing his views every day. But we believe that he brought back the hostages, not our prime minister. It is clear that our prime minister was against it. By the way, 50 % of the people who voted for Netanyahu believe that he should resign immediately when the war will be over.

28:43Do you think that the Biden administration wasted any opportunities? Because it also had a high level of trust at a certain point among Israelis. There was a real fondness for Biden. And was there an opportunity in that, that maybe, maybe this president, maybe a future American president, maybe another world leader could see, was there a missed opportunity in that trust? I don't know almost anything about the American political community or politics. It was time of elections and he has to be elected. And I know what happened to any leader who wants to be elected. And, you know, he's losing his political courage.

29:28I cannot blame him because I know that, you know, the cemeteries of political figures are full with people not less capable, probably more educated. But they decided to go on with what they believe in and they lost elections. I think that Israelis do not understand how important was Biden to save Israel. I'm not exaggerating to save Israel you know that we know today we have the intelligence information that unless America Biden would send the Navy including submarines to the east of the Mediterranean I believe that Iran would join Lebanon and Hezbollah would join and our military victory today I don't think that we could be able to lose the idea that we can fight Gaza and only later, you know, in sequence.

30:29Not to fight everybody. You know, Hezbollah, Iran, Hamas, and the Houthis on the same time was everything. And it was achieved by the immediate decision of Biden to do everything to sacrifice the position of America in the Middle East. We read a lot of opinion polls about Israelis. Israelis believe this about the people in Gaza. Israelis have a very declined faith in the two-state solution. Yet I also find that when I talk to a range of Israeli writers, they'll often say, you know, I agree with the types of things that Ami is saying. I agree that this is a humanitarian catastrophe. I agree even, you know, we could contemplate the word genocide and talk about that.

31:16I agree that there has to be a two-state solution, but I won't write it. Why? Well, that's my question, but I'm wondering, what do you think in your experience, or maybe just your character, has allowed you to stand outside the Israeli consensus and see Israelis? You are asking me to define myself. When I tried to do it, I published a book in a way that tells the history of the state of Israel and my story, etc. And when I wrote the book, I learned a lot about myself. I saw that probably almost from the day that I was born, I'm a minority. I do not represent the Israeli society or the Israeli military community.