Thank you.
This episode is sponsored by Christian Resource Center. They work with cultural change by bringing traditional Christian understanding of family, gender, sex and identity into the Norwegian social debate. Truls Olufsen Meus, who was on my podcast a little while ago, has recently become the country's most famous Christian social debater. He created national transcripts from this podcast where he called the press house a rotting house.
Ami, thank you so much for being here in the studio.
Thank you for inviting me. And welcome to Norway as well. Have you been traveling to Norway many times before? No, twice. First time when I was the director of the Elysian Beth. After the assassination of Rabin. So I came as a kind of a professional meeting with security people who were dealing with security here in Norway.
And second time to visit a friend of mine, he was my roommate in the Naval War College, later became the Vice Admiral of the Navy. And so we visited him and his family and we spent some time with him. That's it. So it's the fourth time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was wondering, because you are the former head of Shin Bet, could you explain a little bit to my listener what Shin Bet is?
Well, in a nutshell, it's more or less a parallel to the FBI and the Secret Service, which means that we are responsible in order to secure the Israeli citizens from domestic violence. Our prime minister was assassinated by an Israeli citizen who served in the IDF, and he was assassinated because
He tried to change the policy of Israel into a direction that was not acceptable by many Israelis. And some of them were very radical, very fundamental, and they became terrorists. They used terror in all that was—this is exactly the cases. And second, I mentioned the Secret Service because we are responsible for the security of dignitaries, elected leaders.
And when Rabin was assassinated, it was a huge failure of the Shin Bet. So I became...
the director after and as a result of his assassination. I see. Because most people, I think, in Norway know about the organization Mossad. Would you say that Shin Bet is like Mossad just for the internal, inside of the country of Israel rather than outside of the country? Yeah, it's not exactly because...
As many people know, first of all, we do not have, Israel is a state without borders. We do not have officially and legitimate eastern border. So we are responsible, we are the organization who fight terror. I mentioned Jewish terror, but most of the terror that we are facing is a Muslim terror.
In this case, you know, today, especially Hamas. But all the terrorist organizations, terrorist sales in the West Bank, in Gaza. But today, all the security community is dealing with it, but it is the direct responsibility of the Shin Bet. I see.
Because I want to talk about the 7th of October and also first I want to say my condolences to the people of Israel and the Jewish people. It's such a horrible, terrible massacre. But a question that a lot of people are asking and I'm sure in Israel also is how it could happen, right? With Shin Bet and Mossad and everybody, so much surveillance and so much intelligence. Is it a big intelligence failure do you think?
Well, it is a huge failure on three dimensions. First of all, the political dimension, the policy that we led, and I'll explain it later. And second, of course, intelligence, conception, misconception, failure. And third, military dimension. And if we really want to understand it, I used to
explain it to youngsters when I meet them because as you can understand this is the first and the most important questions that Israelis are asking ourselves every day. And I think that most Israelis do not know exactly how to explain it. And in my case it's very difficult but it's very simple to explain, not to defend.
I'll give you an example. First of all, I have to remind to the audience that I served 34 years in the Navy and I see myself until today as an old sailor. And there is a great, you know, I used to say that sailors are not very clever. It's a great advantage because when we have to understand something, when we have to explain something, we are doing it in the simplest, the most simple way.
So, okay, let's imagine that we are walking by the sea, and I'll tell you, look, there are submarines here. And you will try to see the submarines. You see nothing. And why? We know that there are submarines, and we don't see them. Because when you are using your eyes, you will not find a submarine. It doesn't penetrate.
the sea. If even you will take, you will use a radar, the frequency is much too high, gigahertz, you will not find it. It doesn't penetrate the sea. So the only way in order to detect, to see that there are submarines, you have to use a totally different sensor, which we call sonar.
to transmit in a totally different frequency, which is much, much lower, almost the frequency of the voice, human voice, and then to process all the information through a specific software. And then you will see that there is submarines, there are submarines. Why I'm saying it? Because finally, when we try to look or to understand the reality,
We do not really remember, but we are doing it through lens of conceptions, paradigms. And each of us comes from a different culture, a different profession, a different way of life. And most times we get the same details, but we come to totally different conclusions on what the reality means. And this is my explanation.
And in order to explain, I mentioned the political dimension. During the last 15 years, our government, with the relations with the Palestinians, our government, not all the Israelis, they came to believe that there is no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And we tried everything and it didn't work.
So the idea is not to try to see what mistakes, what are the mistakes that we did, what are the mistakes that they did. They decided that there is no solution, so the only way to deal with it is to manage the conflict, not to try to solve it. During the 90s, what we call here, we can say it Oslo process, we tried to solve the process.
So during the last 15 years, I think that the last prime minister who really tried to achieve agreement was Ehud Olmert. Ehud Olmert was removed and since the moment that Netanyahu took power as a prime minister, this was the policy of all his governments.
But in order to manage the conflict,
He did everything in order to make sure that they will not have a unified leadership. This was the only way for him to avoid negotiations, to tell the world, "What do you want from us? They don't even have a unified leadership." So he made everything in order to empower Hamas in Gaza, and in order—the result was
I don't think that this was the intention. But the result was weakening the Palestinian Authority. Now Hamas, who took control of Gaza by violence, by killing Fatah activists, became every day more and more powerful because the Israeli government allowed Qatar to give him money, cash, in, you know,
I think that during the last 10 years they got more than 1.3 or 4 billion dollars in cash. In addition, in order to avoid humanitarian crisis, we allowed them, our government allowed them to go to work. So they could achieve any information if they decided that this is what they want.
And you have to understand how intelligence organizations are doing, are working. For example, you are a worker in Israel. Okay, if you want that your family will be safe, you should bring us information. It's not that he is a terrorist, but he wants to make sure that his family will be safe.
But this was why Hamas survived. But the problem was that Hamas is an ideology and Hamas did never accept it. The idea of Palestinian and Israeli states side by side. Hamas is a radical, very, very violent ideology.
He will sacrifice everything in order finally in the future to achieve, you know, what they call the end of occupation. It's Palestine from the river to the sea. By the way, this is something that people today try to forget. Not all the Palestinians accept it. By the way, most Palestinians, and we saw it during the 90s, accepted the idea of two states. But Hamas never accepted it.
And since Palestinians, even those who believe in two states, their dream is to get rid or to see the end of occupation, the Israeli occupation. They call it, we want our Palestinian freedom, even those who accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel. So during these 15 years, they came to believe that
that even if they do not accept Hamas, you know, future dreams, which means Palestine from the river to the sea, they came to believe that the only way to see the end of occupation is by the use of power, jihad, violent intifada, whatever. And even those people who did not want to send their children to Hamas schools,
saw Hamas as an organization who fight for their freedom. So Hamas got support every day, and Fatah and Palestinian Authority lost their support within the Palestinian street. So this is the political dimension. On the intelligence dimension, and this was, frankly speaking, a surprise for me,
Israeli Shin Bet should know the ideology. This is what they learn. And I have no idea how come they failed to see that Hamas is not deterred.
Again, when you try not to solve but to manage the conflict, you understand that they will not accept our existence, but we shall be able to control the level of flames, the level of violence. And this was nonsense. This was nonsense because we saw it.
in the polls. After every round of violence, Hamas got more support from the Palestinian street because they were the liberators. So we measured, you know, the number of Hamas activists who died, the number of infrastructure, command centers, communication centers, laboratories that we destroyed, the military aspect
of this violence. And we won every battle. And our conclusion was that since they understand that they are going to lose every battle, they will be deterred. They don't want to sacrifice
their leadership role in Gaza. It was a huge mistake because they do not measure casualties. They measure the support in the street. And we saw after every round of violence. For example, two and a half years ago in May, well, almost three years ago in May, 2021, they suffered a huge military defeat.
And we came to believe that we have three or five years of, you know, a valid deterrence. And we didn't understand that they couldn't care less. And they are planning and they are preparing
And we didn't even understand that, you know, the war that we had two and a half years ago was the first war that did not start by Hamas because of something that happened in Gaza. It was in order to achieve, you know, control on Jerusalem. The name of this battle in Arabic was translated to English.
You know what is the name of the war of today? How do you say it? How do you say? I don't remember the name. Okay, the flood. - Yeah, the flood, yes.
So they are trying to achieve support not only in Gaza and not only within their own communities in the West Bank. And you know what the tragedy is? Today, 80% of the Palestinians support not the religious ideology, but Islam.
Most of the Palestinians believe that they are the liberators. Hamas are the liberators. Hamas. And not only among Palestinians, even within the Arab states, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. And they see Muslim Brotherhood, which Hamas is a branch of, they see them as enemy. They accept Hamas as enemy.
the most popular organization within the Palestinian people. So this is a huge, a huge intelligence failure. And of course, the third is the military. The military accepted, again, the concept, the military intelligence, that they are deterred. Because you have to understand, we saw everything. We knew everything. We saw all the documents.
We know exactly what they aim. We knew exactly what they tried to achieve. We saw the way that they trained themselves with the name of the kibbutzim. And the people who was on the front, they saw them. But once the lens, the concept is that they are deterred,
So you say, okay, this is what they planned, but they will not do it now. Probably they will do it in two years. I see. And so we removed all the combat units from Gaza to the West Bank, because in the West Bank, terror is rising, and the North, because it was obvious that if something will happen in the West Bank, the North, Hezbollah, will join. So...
You know, the surprise of Ehlyas Sanwar was that between the wall or the fence and the kibbutzim, there was nothing. This was his only surprise. So it's painful. It is very, very easy to explain. It is very, very painful. Do you think he did? Yeah. Come on. No, because, you know, finally, we didn't speak about, you know, what...
know what happened, but what did we feel on the 7th of October? And I don't think that I have the English dictionary in order to explain it, and I'm not sure that even in Hebrew I could. What I can say is that I believe that it will take us years to understand what we faced. And I know that Israel will be different after the 7th of October. It will not be the same.
And when I say it will not be the same, it will not be the same the way we trust anybody, even our friends. I think that the level of fear which drives in many aspects Jews for, I don't know how many years, but Israelis for many years will be probably...
the major, major factor in the way we behave. Do you think Israeli intelligence got too comfortable in their technology, in your level of intelligence, that it was like
resting a bit on that comfort, on that self-confidence that could, like a 7th of October could never happen. So we have control, we've got control, this will never happen. If you understand what I'm saying. Yeah, I totally understand. Yes, you are right.
But if you ask me whether this was a major factor, no. My answer is no. We have been just, you know, we are arguing, even when I was the director of the Shin Bet, even when I was in the Navy, we had this type of debate. It is a factor, but I think that, again,
SIGINT, UMINT, the major factor was, because look, it is relatively easy to go back into the history and to use only primitive ways to transfer information. And this is exactly what they did. But again, the major problem was that the assumption that they are deterred. This is the way I understand it.
How much do you think Iran had a role to play in giving Hamas a green light to do this? How much was Iran the major planner of this? And how much does Hamas operate on its own and making its own decisions, do you think? I mean, Iran is getting everything.
by creating this, you know, imperial concept of controlling, you know, Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon. But if you ask me specifically, in the beginning, we had doubts. Today, we understand that, at least when it comes to the date
Hamas, I mean, Hamas did not inform anybody. Iranians were surprised. Lebanese, I mean, Hezbollah got it. All the branches of Iran, all the proxies, Yahutis, Hezbollah, it was not coordinated. Today we know it. By the way, expectations of Hamas leadership was
That they will join because it is a great opportunity. Finally, you know, Israel is, you know, especially after the 10 months of demonstrations in the street and it was clear that Israelis, we are fighting each other, but it was not coordinated with Iran.
If you ask me the role of Ruan, first of all, it's the military assistance for years. Not the money, by the way. Most of the money came from Qatar because of ideology, Muslim Brotherhood type of Islam. But I think that the military concept
was totally Iranian concept. To use asymmetric concept. And we used to say to attack F-16 with M-16. You know, it's...
This is, and to combine this attack on the same place, the exact hour, from the air, from the sea, and in very, very primitive, relatively very primitive, you know, instruments, not, even not exactly weapons, and to destroy all our electronic sensors.
days before it is an Iranian concept. But I think that Iran today, we have to understand something, relations between the proxies, all of them by the way, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis,
They do not follow orders from Iran. It is a kind of a compromise, the way I understand these relations. All of them want to see the end of Israel as a Jewish state. The proxies, Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas are organizations or groups
I'm not sure about the Houthis, but you know, it's a minorities within their states or population. So they have in addition to their relations and orders that they get from Iran, they have, you know, conflicting ideas. For example, I believe the way I understand Hezbollah, Hezbollah has three identities.
The first, they see themselves as the defenders, guardians of the Shia community in Lebanon that for hundreds of years they were a minority and they suffered from the other communities, Christian, Sunni, and Druze. And so they are the guardians of the Shia.
of the Shia community. Second, they see themselves as the liberators of Lebanon from Israeli occupation. Because finally, those who fought against us were the Shia terrorists. And yes, they were right. You know, finally we left Lebanon because of the violence that they created.
And in addition, they are a proxy of the Shia minority within the Middle East, led by Iran. So if they will think that what they do for Iran will threaten or will bring to destroy Beirut, they will not, if you ask me, they will not do it.
And it is very, very similar when you try to understand the Sunni organization in Iraq or in Syria or the Houthis. So finally, to your question, Iran was not part of the day.
But yes, there was a major influence by military assistance and of course strategy, etc. So you don't think it's like Hamas has to get a green light from Iran? No, they did not. They did not ask for. Because Iran has two, you know, sometimes different policies.
And we tend to forget, by the way, you know, until several years ago, we used to think that the Shia-Sunni, you know, conflict in the Middle East is the major issue. Today, I'm not sure, but Hamas is a fundamental Sunni organization.
in the past, years ago, when they trained in Iran, I remember when I was a director, they found it very, very difficult to train with Shia combatants. Not only because the language, you know, the whole idea, even, you know, the battle cry when they go to battle, it was different. They did not feel very good
When Sheikh Yassin went to visit his troops during the 90s, you know, they complained. They said, well, they, this Shia crazy, they, we do not belong to them.
So it's very, very complicated. But yes, Iran has a huge, major influence. And I think that the power, the political power and influence of Iran, as long as this war will go on, the power, the political power of Iran in the region is increasing.
How significant do you think it was that the 7th of October happened almost on the day, I think, of the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War? Do you think that was planned? Was there a symbolism in that? Well, the 7th was planned. I think, first of all, it's very, very difficult to tell you because I know that, you know, in cases in which, you know, the decision is made by one person and only five knows about it,
until, I don't know, several hours before, it's very, very difficult, even in retrospect, to know what exactly. But I don't think that there is any relation to Yom Kippur. For us, of course, it's, you know, it's very painful to think that there is some correlation. But the way I see it, I think that there were two...
reasons that has borrowed them to believe that on one hand it will be easier and on the other hand it is very urgent and it should be it should be as soon as possible uh one is of course demonstrations and the rifts within the israeli society by the way we saw it
and the military and the intelligence community presented it to the prime minister, telling him that, you know, the domestic, almost violence between the communities of the Israeli society
is perceived as a moment of weakness in the eyes of our enemies, Iran, et cetera, all of them. And unfortunately, our prime minister did not listen. On the other hand, I think that the second major issue, we know it today, we didn't know it then,
is the American grand vision for the Middle East, from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean, competing, you know, the Chinese strategy, the Belt and the Road, combining the Sunni states from India to the Mediterranean, to one coalition that will face the coalitions led by Iran, etc., etc.,
What happened when he presented it, it was in India, but it was clear that he's going to create this coalition supported by Europe and America and led in the Middle East by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc., etc. Palestinians saw it as the last chance. And I'll tell you why.
because Palestinians did not exist. When you try to understand the American perspective, Palestinians disappeared from the map. What Saudi Arabia and America offered to stop settlement construction for two years. And I think that if and when it
if and when it would have been proposed, they know that Bibi Netanyahu will promise but will not keep his promises. He will go on building settlements the way he, exactly what he did with the Emirates. He promised to the Emirates with the Abraham Accord to stop, you know, annexation. And our government did not stop. But on the other hand,
They perceived it, and you know Saudis do not want to listen to what I'm telling you now. The Saudi peace plan, or what we call today the Arab peace plan, disappeared. It started by the Saudi king, the Saudi peace plan that later in 2002 was accepted by all the Arab League states as the Arab peace plan, which means two states for two people.
And the two sides will negotiate on several issues. They even accepted later a change of territory in order to make sure that 80% of the settlers will not be removed if and when we shall sign this agreement. They gave, I mean, it was not mentioned. Once it was not mentioned, you have to understand the Palestinian perception. Palestinians
believe that they have one very, very important card in their political game, which is holy places in Jerusalem. In the negotiations, you see it in Geneva, you see it in Clinton initiative, in the holy places, status quo will be maintained. Status quo will be maintained. It means that Palestinians will be the guardian of Haram al-Sharif.
for the Muslim people. By the way, today, according to Islam, the king of Jordan, the king of Saudi Arabia, and the king of Morocco are the guardians in the name of Islam. And everything disappeared. So as I told you before, Al-Aqsa is the card that they are playing. And they understood that if they will not do it now,
So they will not have any other chance. I think that this was a major, major factor that brought them to decide, at least on the, not the, probably the day, I have no idea, but yes, the week, more or less. And that's it. So finally, you know, it's again the tragedies that...
What I'm trying to say now, we did not win the battle on the 7th of October. We paid a huge price. But we still can win the war that started on the 7th of October. And this probably we shall discuss it later. But...
Until now, if you, and I'm not speaking about, you know, results in the battlefield. When we try to understand the concept of victory, battlefield is important, but I know that we had wars in which we won all the battles, but we lost the war. So in this case, I think that we have to understand that
The battle on the 7th of October was won by Hamas. We shouldn't lose hope because I believe that we can win the war, but the winning is because today not only the Palestinians, the Palestinians, Arab states, Islam and the world understand that nothing can be achieved
in the region, unless we shall put the Palestinian conflict on the table. And we see it. We see it by the speeches of all the leaders in Europe. We see it with, you know, with probably a future American plan. We see it with the interest of the international community. And we see it with the support
of many people who know nothing about the Middle East, who know nothing about the real conflict, who know nothing about the real dream of Hamas, which is to destroy Israel as a nation, but they support Hamas.
You see it here in Oslo. Yeah. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. What do you think about Norway's reaction to this after the 7th of October? Look, I'm not too familiar with specifically, you know, events in Oslo. I want to say something that, you know, that is a way I understand the international community. And I believe that many people in Oslo.
Unfortunately, people who do not believe, who do not understand the Middle East came to believe in something. We Israelis, we are blamed for the three major tragedies that the West created, which is colonialism, apartheid, and terrorism.
what followed the Holocaust, which is assassination of a people, whatever. And I think that the simple fact that we are blamed, people do not understand. If we are blamed in something that they call colonialism, they do not understand the whole concept of Zionism.
They do not understand that this is a place in which we were created as a nation. And they do not understand what is the difference between our problems. Yes, we are doing many mistakes, but this is not colonialism. They do not understand apartheid. Yes, again, we are doing many mistakes, but this is not apartheid. And again, there is no intention
And I'm not speaking about some lunatics Israelis, some of them are, you know, are ministers today. They do not listen to the orders that our military units get from our commanders. There is no intention to kill innocent people. If you will ask every general, every commander,
In the Israeli IDF, he will tell you, we do not have a war with the Palestinians. We have a war with Hamas. And we shall do everything in order to avoid killing of innocent people. But when people see so many people dying, they do not care. They do not think. They become very, very emotional. I cannot blame anybody. But if you really want to blame us, you have to study.
We have to try to understand. And the way I understand the behavior of the street in Europe, in America, they do not understand. They did not study. And they do not understand the complexity of this conflict.
How much of that that we are seeing that people are just so quick to demonize Israel and walk around with plaques saying from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free and calling out like South Africa is trying to get a court case for genocide. How much of that do you think is anti-Semitism at the bottom? I think that today there is no measurement in which we can separate
between antisemitism, pure antisemitism and anti-Israeli feelings. I don't know how to measure it because I don't think that the people who hate us care about it. When a person go to the street shouting from the river to the sea, I think that they understand Zionism as racism.
And it's totally stupid. It's totally misunderstanding of the Zionist concept. So, but I don't think that people, again, I don't think that they think about it. They see what they see. Look, the way I understand the war of today, it is not a war between states. It's a war between state and a terror organization. What is so unique about it
It is the first time that I know in military history that one side is using as a strategy his people as a human shield. It's the first time in human history. And, you know, I'm not inventing. You just have to go to Hamas website and you will see it. In Azadir al-Qassam website, they write, they explain the strategy. They know their strategy.
They don't think that they can destroy or conquer the state of Israel. They say the way we are going to do it is to bring the IDF, Israeli soldiers, into the centers of Gaza so they will kill as many people as possible, civilians. And the idea is to bring them to the center of the city because it is the most dense populated area.
So you cannot hit a military target when they clearly are using schools, mosques, hospitals as military installations. So, you know, we are trying to do everything to behave according with the humanitarian law and not to hit civilians. But yes, we have the permission. We have the right by law.
to hit a military target. So this is the whole idea, to bring the Israelis, even if they will try to do everything, in order not to hit civilians. The only way to hit Hamas activists or to destroy Hamas command and control centers is to destroy civilians.
and to create humanitarian disaster. And this is what the people are seeing. - And this is what Hamas wants as well because- - This is exactly the trap that Hamas created. Look, people tend to forget, you know, Hamas during the last 15 years, they built the largest, the largest shelter in the world. Hundreds of kilometers or miles, whatever you measure,
And it is defended against all kind of weapon. There is no entry to any civilian. The largest jail on earth serve only Hamas activists and Hamas leaders. It's unbelievable. They could save I don't know how many thousands just to give them a shelter. There is a war.
They couldn't care less. This is a concept. So when people see it, of course they blame us because they see Israeli soldiers. And we, you know, many years ago, we created a narrative. When we told the world the story of David and Goliath, we know nothing about Goliath. Probably he was a great father or a great husband. I have no idea. But he's a bad guy because he's armed and he's big.
David, we know a lot about David, and he was far from being perfect. He made many mistakes, but he's a good guy. Why? Because he's small, he's weak. So when the world, in the new world of globalization and revolution in media, communication, and networks, the world sees this battle as a television program.
They see it every day. They decide from the very beginning who is a bad guy, who is a good guy. And when they see tank against, I don't know, a woman, they know nothing about what happened a moment before. But they decide who is a good guy, who is a bad guy. That's it.
And they couldn't care about the law or international law or, again, what happened a moment before and whether, you know, this troop were attacked or they are defending the family. They couldn't care less. And that's it.
That's what Hamas wants too because then they get a win-win situation where they kill as many Israeli and as many Jewish people as they like. And then afterwards, they also get the fact that the world society demonizes Israel for being in a war where innocent civilians are killed. So they get everything that they want.
Until now, yes. And this is why it is for him. I think that it's very, very important for us to understand it. And on the other hand, it's very, very difficult because, you know, we believe and I believe that we are right.
We see this war as a just war, a war of defense, because we have been attacked. And again, I don't know how to explain to your audience what happened to us and what we saw and the celebration of killing, assassination of innocent people, children, women, etc. It's unbelievable.
And it is really a war of defense because the reality in which Hamas will control the Palestinians on one side of the fence and we shall live on the other side, it's unacceptable anymore. We have a war against Hamas and our military goals are totally just to dismantle the military capabilities of Hamas, of al-Zarif al-Qassam, and to destroy its political leadership who brought him
to this horrible day. I think that the major mistake that we are doing now is that we do not define, and I believe that it is because of political reasons, the day after. And as a person who fought probably too many wars, I can tell you that when you send your people, your soldiers, your warriors, to a war,
without a clear definition of the day after, the most dangerous scenario is that the war becomes the end, the goal, and not the mean. Because finally, the day after is a definition of victory. Victory is a reality on the day after, and it is measured in political terms. Yes, military is a way to achieve it, but the day after, the definition of the day after,
is a political reality. And we refuse to discuss it because of political reasons. Yes, because we do not see, we do not agree on the day after. Because if you ask me, the debate, the discussion, the rifts between us on the image of the day after will bring us back to our struggle in the streets on the day before, before the 7th of October.
when we say Israel is a Jewish democracy. What do we mean? We do not agree on our Judaism. We do not agree on our democracy. My Judaism is not racism and Jewish supremacy, but there is a minority in Israel who do not see Judaism the way I see it. So I think that this is our mistake.
And in a way, this is why I came to Oslo and I'm traveling all over to explain the way I see the day after. And when I said, yes, we did not win the battle on the 7th of October, but we can win the war. And I think that we have to understand, yes, we try to explain to the audience what is Hamas all about.
But when we go to fight towards Hamas, we have to understand that we are fighting in two dimensions. First is the real war, which is a battlefield. We are killing each other. And we are winning this dimension. We destroyed most, not all, but most of the military capability. But we have to understand that even if we shall kill or arrest all Hamas activists,
Hamas as an ideology will not disappear because this is another dimension and you cannot destroy an ideology with the use of military power. In order to destroy ideology, the only way is to present a better ideology. So the street will not support Hamas. They will support
the better ideology. And also starting with kids and with education because I've had Itamar Marcus here from Israel who is from Palestinian Media Watch and he was talking about the literature and the books that kids are reading in Palestine and in Gaza where they look at
pictures of this is how to kill a jew like basically like yes teaching them indoctrinating them to hate jews hate israel and and i assume something has to be done with that somehow uh yes you are right but i don't think that we should start with the schools you know i this is exactly the discussions that i had with jibril during the 90s and uh let me tell you something about it you know uh the books that
were approved by the European community were much better than the books that they learned during the time, the years, many years, 25 years, in which we controlled their education system. They still use the Jordanian books and the Egyptian books, which are totally anti-Semitic. We have to deal with it, but we have to start with creating a political horizon.
Jibril, you used to tell me, you are speaking to me about the books in the school. You know, our children do not get to the schools. They are stopped in military checkpoints. So yes, we shall have to discuss it, but we shall not be able to do it unless we create hope. And the only way to create hope is to present hope.
political horizon in which they will see the end of occupation. End of occupation is their dream of a national liberty, a state alongside Israel. So what I should start, you know, this process, not by changing the books. I should start with a declaration that we have a war against Hamas.
Al-Hamas military organization will disappear from the map and from the political map within the Palestinians as a military wing. But the political horizon will be the horizon of two states side by side. Probably it will take 40 years or 20 years because we lost confidence.
And we shall have to gain confidence in order to go on on this way. But we have to start by saying, yes, we accept international decisions, resolutions and Security Council resolutions. And we shall support.
two states, and we shall sign with everybody, even if he fought against us, on one condition: that he accept that this is the future, two states. Since Hamas do not accept it, he is not, he will not participate in any of these negotiations. And we have to accept the idea that we are going, we have to make peace with enemies.
You are not negotiating when you discuss peace with people who never had war with. With all the respect to the Abraham Accord, we never had anything and they never had anything against us. With all the respect. It's relatively easy to sign peace with, you know, the Emirates. The problem is to sign peace. So the example is a peace with Egypt.
or the peace with Jordan. And yes, we have to negotiate with people that we fought against them on one condition, that they will accept the vision of two states. And then we shall discuss exactly where the root of the border and what will be the price that each side will have to pay. But again, it will be measured by the confidence that we are gaining every day.
But who do you think should be in control of Palestinian areas in Gaza after all of this is done? Because when Hamas is gone, who should take control? And also, who should be in control of Gaza? Should Israel go in after they left in 2005 and go back in again and control the areas? No, no way. What should happen? I think that we have only...
Three options. One is that Israel will go in and will take care of the security of everything. By the way, I don't think all these people who say that we should stay in order to control the security, but they will control the civil life, etc., economy, etc., it's nonsense. It failed. It is failing every day in the West Bank.
And if you ask me, finally, I think that we shouldn't do it. It will be a disaster from the security point of view, and by the way, even from the economic point of view. And second scenario is that, okay, we go out and there is a total chaos, humanitarian disaster and total chaos because they are fighting each other and we shall suffer.
And the third option is Palestinian Authority participating in a regional coalition, Arab-speaking language, Arab-speaking states. They can come from Jordan, from Morocco, from Saudi Arabia, Emirates, or Egypt, because otherwise it will be perceived as another crusade.
if people will speak in, I don't know, Christians and will speak in European languages. And yes, international community and especially Emirates and Saudi Arabia should give the money in order to marshal plan building Gaza. It will take years, but it's very, very important that the money will come not from Qatar and not from Iran.
but from states that accept us and our right, and states that we have peace with, but they will speak Arabic, and it will be coordinated with the Palestinians. And after two years, yes, Palestinians will have to go to elections. If they will not go to elections, we shall not have any confidence with them. Today, Abu Mazen is perceived as an Israeli collaborator.
It will be a long process, but we should not try to do it alone. We should trust America and the Arab countries that we have peace with, that they will do it. Not only, they will not join the Zionist concept or the Zionist movement, but they see Hamas as an enemy. So we have to rely on their interest.
And we shall be part of it. But we should not lead this regional coalition. And finally, the idea is it will take years to create this regional coalition that will face Iran with the support of, of course, normalize our relations with Saudi Arabia and with the support, assistance of Iran.
Europe and America. What do you think about the UN peacekeeping forces? Could that be an alternative to have that inside of Gaza? Look, you are speaking about the name. I couldn't care less what is the name of this, but I think that the people who will police, who will, you know, act as a police or will have to fight against Hamas activists,
It depends on the resolution in the UN because the UN has the power to send troops, military troops. They did it in Europe, in Kosovo, but they did not do it in Lebanon. In Lebanon, it's a toy. They did it in Mogadishu as well. Right, right, right. Okay, yes. It's not peacekeeping. It's, you know, people who have the right.
not only to defend themselves, but to fight in order to make sure that, you know, a military organization will not be created under their control.
Also, what I find so interesting is that, you know, ISIS, when they existed in a large format, all the Western countries agreed that we have to destroy ISIS, we have to get rid of them. But it's somehow different with Hamas, that you don't have the same agreement. Why do you think that is? Because I think in the level of brutality, Hamas is even worse than ISIS is. I don't know if you're right, but the type of brutality is...
is a level of ISIS. And this is something that people probably do not understand. Hamas was born as a branch of Muslim Brotherhood. ISIS was born as a failure of Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim Brotherhood was founded in the early years of the first half of the 20th century by al-Banna in Egypt.
and as a fundamentalist way of Islam. But they did not use violence. Violence was only the last resort. They were based on the support of the street. They used, you know, they call it the dawah, which is the charities, education. They believe that finally by education, by supporting the society,
People will understand that, you know, that this is the right way to understand God or Islam. During the 50s, they failed. During the time in which, you know, communism was very, very, you know, influential and penetrated into Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, the movement, failed.
that they failed. And this was, you know, the roots of Al-Qaeda that were born somewhere, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et cetera. So we, by the way, we saw something similar in Iraq.
when Al-Qaeda tried to create the Caliphate and they failed, so ISIS was born. So always when they fail, something more radical is born. So in a way, the way I explain it, again, probably professionals will find that it, the way I know when they fail, something much more radical is created.
So you have to understand that they lost, not lost, but the religious aspect of Hamas is very, very weak since the death of Sheikh Yassin. They do not have a formal and very, very powerful religious aspect.
Sheikh Yassin was the last leader. Well, he was a creator. He was the founder of Hamas, but he was the last leader who combined political and religious. In some aspect, even he formed the military strategy. After his death, you know, they are fighting each other.
and the domestic branches, which lives in Gaza and in the West Bank, they control, they are close to the scene. So they became much more powerful. The people, you know, the political leaders who are, you know, flying everywhere. Some of them are in, you know, in Beirut or in Qatar or visiting Iran and Syria.
They are less influential, they are fighting each other, but what we saw is a totally different type of terror than we used to see during the first and the second Intifada. It's a totally different level. - Why do you think that is? Why did they change how they operated and got to that level of brutality? - It was first of all because the failure of the military.
of the traditional ideology in which the level of violence is limited. And second, we saw it by the way since the moment that we, it was a tendency, but we saw it the way they attacked Hamas or Fatah leaders when they took over by power. You have to understand until then, they had a very clear red line. We shall not
kill a Muslim brother. It was the result of, you know, they felt that they want the support of the Palestinian people because they won parliamentarian elections. And then, you know, the traitors who cooperate with Israelis did not let them, you know, to take over.
Anyhow, it was a process. We saw it. We could try to understand the left and of course Iranian influence. Again, the military strategy is Iranian strategy. But do you think the brutality in itself is a military strategy that Hamas uses to gain something, to be as brutal as possible? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. And I'll tell you why. Because
I know that, you know, the first day was horrible and they celebrated the violence. And we understand it now when they published all what they filmed. Immediately, I think that it took them two days to understand that it was a huge mistake because it was obvious that they are going to lose the support of the international community.
So they erased many, many of the pictures from the internet. Well, of course, you cannot do everything, but it was clear that they understood that they did a mistake. So I don't think that it was a formal strategy. But again, I'm not sure that I know enough in order to give you an honest answer. Because it seems like
if they wanted to be seen as like some kind of freedom fighters or fighting on behalf of Palestinian people, they would attack soldiers. They would attack Israeli soldiers, be like from soldier to soldier. But the opposite of that, they went to women and children. It's like the total... I think it took about, I don't know how many days, not many days, three, four days for the leader of the...
of the Muslim political party in Israel, Mansour Abbas, to give a speech. And he attacked them. He said, "It is against what you did against civilians, "what you did against women and children "and elderly people. "It is totally against Hamas. "It is totally against Muslim Brotherhood. "You should release immediately all the hostages."
So I think that this was a moment in which they understood that they made a mistake. They are losing many of, most of the Israeli Arabs and many major communities within the Islam. I think that, you know, what happened is always, you know, you see, first of all, a kind of a denial. I met Arabs, Muslims who said, no, it's, they didn't do it.
All what you are telling that they did, it's a lie. You cannot prove it. So it's a kind of denial. Most, I think that this is a way for many relatively, relatively pragmatic Muslims to support Hamas by denying what they did on the 7th of October. That's it. It's an Israeli invention.
Do you think that, like we touched upon before, with, let's say that when you get to destroy the whole of Hamas militarily so that they're not there again, they're not there, no one left lack of their soldiers. But do you think that it's a problem with the statistic that you mentioned, like 80% of the Palestinians living there are actually supporting what Hamas did? What are you going to do? How could you change that? And
won't that be still a threat towards Israel and Israeli people, even if Hamas is gone? I was not clear enough. The only way to defeat Hamas, the only way, is to destroy its ideology. And we cannot destroy ideology by the use of military power. Sometimes it is the opposite. Sometimes when you use military power, the ideology goes deeper.
within the Muslim society. So again, the only way is to present a political horizon, to give hope. And this is in a way what we tried to do during the 90s. We failed because of many, many mistakes that both sides did. The assassination of Rabin is one of them. The speed in which we went on building settlements
But on the other hand, they did many mistakes. They did not control their terror. Even when they fought, it was not enough because finally we expected to have more security and we suffered more violence, more terror, et cetera, et cetera. So both sides did many mistakes. But instead of trying to understand both sides,
The Middle East were led by the two minorities. The extreme minorities on both sides that did everything in order to destroy Oslo process. And they succeeded. That's it. This was not the intention, not of the Israeli government, and probably not of the Palestinian administration. But finally, we did not understand each other. It's...
It's a major mistake in many wars in a retrospect. There is a very, very important book was written by McNamara, who was a defense minister during the time of Vietnam War. But he was not only a defense minister, he was the ideology behind the war. And he promised Americans, you know, that they are going to win the war. And many years later, during the 90s, he wrote a book
In retrospect, this is the name of the book. And it became a documentary that won the Oscar in 2002. The name of the documentary is A Fog of War. And he presents his, I think it was 11 lessons that he learned from this war. You know what is the first one? We did not understand the Vietnamese. We did not understand they hate the Chinese. They do not accept communism.
All what they want is to get rid of colonialism, French and American colonialism. And I don't know how many millions of Vietnamese and how many dozens of thousands of Americans died in this war. But this is the first lesson that McNamara, the one who created the ideology,
based on the domino effect, you know, it's a, okay, communism against capitalism. And if we shall lose Vietnam, we lost the global war, the cold war. Huge mistake. And I ask myself, do we really understand the Palestinians? Most Palestinians, and I can tell you because I heard it from the people whom I worked with fighting against Hamas terror.
among the Palestinians. They hate Hamas. They see him as an enemy. They used to say, "We are fighting in order to create a Palestinian democracy on the other side of the border between Israel and Palestine." And Hamas thinks, Hamas is fighting in order to create a Palestinian Muslim state ruled by Sharia. We shall never send our children.
to study or to learn in his schools. They hate the religious theology which Hamas lead. And I ask myself, do we really understand our enemy? And my conclusion is no, we do not.
But is there a difference between the people in Palestine who actually support Hamas, like the statistic you were mentioning earlier, 80%, and the people who actually hate Hamas, or do they overlap? How do you square those different statistics? It's very simple. It's very difficult to measure. But you have to understand, the conflict between Hamas, the religious groups,
and Fatah, the national movement, is based on three issues. One, when you say occupation, what do you mean? Fatah accepted the concept of two states in '88. It was a long process, but finally it was official in '88 when they wrote the Declaration of Independence.
the one who wrote it under the permission of Arafat was Mahmoud Darwish, the greatest Palestinian poet. And they say we accept all the UN and the Security Council resolutions. Once I asked Arafat, why do you not accept Israel as a Jewish state? And he said, Ami, I did.
accepted it. I accepted 181, which is a Jewish state and an Arab Palestinian state. So what do you want from me? So in a way, we have to really try to understand when they say we accept all UN and Security Council resolutions. They accepted later, by the way, signed by Abu Mazen, the Arab Peace Initiative, which again, two states later, even exchange of territory, etc., etc.,
So, Hamas never accepted this resolution. For Hamas, it's from the river to the sea. During the 90s, it was accepted, Oslo was accepted, Oslo meaning two states, by between 75 to 85% of the Palestinians. Second is how to get rid of the occupation, how to achieve national freedom.
Fatah, when they joined Oslo, they gave up on the military struggle. Not because they stopped, but they said, okay, this is a new world. It was after, you know, the first...
when they went to Madrid, anyhow, it was after the war in Iraq, first war in Iraq, they failed. They understood that they failed. And they said, okay, now the way is diplomacy. And they went to Oslo. Hamas never accepted it. Sheikh Yassin, even during the 90s, said, look, Israelis will never give us a state alongside Israel.
And the third one is the future Palestine, Fatah. And Palestinian Authority later accepted that it will be a kind of a Palestinian democracy. Their model was something between the way they saw Israel, a Jewish democracy, and the way they saw Turkey before Adwan. And you just have to read the Palestinian constitution.
This is exactly what they expect. The fact that they did not have elections, etc. This is another corruption. I'm not speaking, I'm not trying to defend, but this is one of the points of defense. Hamas never accepted democracy. They want the Sharia, the Quran, to be the constitution. So during the 90s, the national concept
control the Palestinian people. More than 75% supported the three debates and accepted Fatah and Palestinian authority aspects. Today, they don't want to see Palestine ruled by Sharia. But yes, they say the only way, well, they say diplomacy failed,
And the only language that Israel understands is the language of power. And this is why Hamas is gaining power, because he's the only one who is achieving, who sacrifices.
something for their liberty. But do you have an impression that the ordinary civilian people in Gaza actually approved of and support the horrible atrocities of 7th of October, how they brutally murdered and massacred? Do they celebrate that? Well, I have no idea. I know that today, by the way, we see even in Al Jazeera,
television from time to time, many, many people in Gaza who blame Hamas for the, you know, for the killing, for what we do. For, you know, they understand that Hamas is responsible to the new reality, which, or to the
But I have no idea how many of them, I don't think that there is any poll today. There is no way to do it because, you know, practically, there is no way to try to measure what really they feel. I can tell you that from my experience or from the experience of, if we can learn something from world history,
when the Allies tried to convince Germans to go against Hitler because he's creating a huge disaster. In Germany, they killed by intention. I think it was 470 or 80,000 people, civilians, in Dresden and some other cities.
killing civilians intentionally in order for them to understand what Hitler is doing them, expecting that they will go against Hitler. They achieved the opposite. Most Germans saw the Allies as a major enemy. So the idea of, you know,
Killing innocent people in order to explain to the society that they have to change their leadership, at least the way I understand history, failed. We did not succeed in Lebanon when we tried to do it. Allies did not succeed during the Second World War.
And I don't think that we succeed when we try to do it, if we try to do it. I don't think so, by the way. I don't think that this is the policy. I think that we just did not decide on the day after. And this is a major failure.
Also, the hostages, the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas over 200 days now. Why is it so difficult to get them out, do you think? To get them out because we are speaking with or we are trying to negotiate with this organization if they are ready to kill his own citizens. So why should they care about our citizens? It's...
We do not understand, you know, how asymmetric is the concept of rationality. It is a totally different ideology, and this is why it is a totally different concept of rationality. So I think that once we understand it, and this is why I say, I think that we cannot achieve anything more
by using our military power in Gaza. I think that we achieved what we can achieve and again, we destroyed Hamas as a ruling power in Gaza. From now on, all what we shall do, we shall find ourselves, you know, drowning deeper within the swamp of Gaza. And...
We are creating chaos and humanitarian disaster. And this is not what we want. And I think that we should stop, accept this fire, pay all the necessary price in order to get back our hostages, all of them. And this should be the image of victory of this battle.
I think that, you know, when we try to define victory, we do not understand that victory is never measured by how many people we kill or not even by what is the size of territory that we control. Victory is measured by how far or close we are to the values in which we believe.
So when we say, people of Israel are responsible for each other. I think that the first value, which is relevant today, is to bring back all our hostages. And this is the image of victory. And then we shall say, okay, from now on,
Hamas will be defeated by the creation of two states because you have to understand once Palestinians will believe that they are closer to this reality, they will not support Hamas. They will support any leader who will bring them closer to the reality in which they want to believe, which is two states.
And why do I know it? Because this is exactly what Sheikh Yassin said during, in a very, very unique and very important interview that he gave in 1997. He was asked about it. What is the future? He said, in the future, we shall win because, you know, we have the belief, etc. Israelis will go on lying.
But he said, so he was asked, okay, so what you are afraid of? And he said, my fear is only if Palestinians will believe that Israelis will give them a state alongside Palestine, because this will be the moment in which Palestinians will not support Hamas and they will support other leadership
or other ideology, other idea that will bring them closer to their dream. So this is exactly what we should do. We should defeat Hamas ideology. If he will not get the support of the street, he does not exist.
This is something that we do not understand. My viewers sent in some questions asking me to ask you this. I will give them a chance to have the last questions. Okay, let's see here what they are asking. Yeah, what do you think about...
people having conspiracy theories around in Europe saying absurd things like, you know, Israel wanted the 7th of October to happen so that they have a legitimate cause to go into Palestine and Gaza. What do you say to that? I learned something, you know, that there is no way to convince people who believe in conspiracy that it's nonsense. That's it.
You know, years ago when I studied in Harvard University, which today I'm not so proud about it, but I graduated Harvard. So I had a very, very clever professor, Professor Herbert, Herbert Kelman. And he used to say, every time when someone comes to you with a conspiracy theory, don't believe him. Most of what you see,
is the result of stupidity and coincidence. People do not have the wisdom and the organization capability in order really to create
a conspiracy. Well, I think that this is the only answer that I can. It's so, so nonsense to think that we allowed Hamas to kill 1,200 of our people. You have to be, I don't know, you don't know
You don't know our history, you don't know the Jewish people, you don't know Jewish story, you don't know anything about us. So I don't know, I can't compete with... A final question for you before you have to leave here. What is your dream for Israel and Palestine going forward from today and in the future? What do you hope to see? Two states, side by side. It is not... I really believe that it is achievable.
And yes, many people tells me, "Okay, but it's nonsense. You know, we tried everything. You are a small minority. You are naive." I said, "No, I'm not naive. If we shall not achieve..." Look, Zionist ideology that was created during the second half of the 19th century, there were a small minority among the Jews. Most of the Jews stayed in Europe and were assassins during the Holocaust.
And after 54 years, we create, we, our parents created the state of Israel. So they were not naive, but yes, they were a minority. But they were dreamers who knew it was a very, very unique combination between to have a dream and being able to execute, to be successful.
Very pragmatic. They negotiated, you know, with the Turks and later with the British. And finally, they understood, you know, that the British will not give it to us and we shall have to fight. But finally, they created their dream. And I believe that if we shall not create reality of two states, Zionism will not exist. We do not understand from the river to the sea, there are more than 14 million people.
We are 7 million Jews. They are 7.1 or .2 million Muslims, Palestinians. So if we shall have one state, it will not be a Jewish state, and it will not be a democracy neither. And we shall not have security. We shall not go back to '48. We shall go back to the '40s, '30s, when Jews killed Arabs and Arabs killed Jews.
and the British mandate was weak, and our leadership did not control, our people and their leadership did not control, sometimes even supported the Arab violence. And this is the end of the Zionist concept, of the Zionist dream. I think that we understand when we understand, we understand in a time of crisis. And this is why I believe, and I know that it sounds horrible,
that, you know, after the Holocaust, we created the state of Israel. And we cannot deny the impact of the Holocaust on our ability to create a state, on the support from the international community for us to build the state. And I think that out of this horrible pain and crisis, there is an opportunity because we have to listen to the world
to America, to Europe, to all the Arab states and the Muslim world that signed on the Arab Peace Initiative. They accept the reality of two states. And for those people who tell me, "Okay, but what about the land of Israel?" We have to prioritize. If we want to have a state in which we maintain and preserve our identity as a Jewish democracy,
The only way to do it is by dividing this piece of land. We have to be majority in our state. Otherwise, we do not have the power and we do not have the right to dictate the culture, the language, the symbols, even the laws in Israel as a Jewish democracy. That's it. Amir Alon, thank you so much for coming here. Thank you so much for speaking with me. Okay, thank you. Thanks.