Why Israel is in deep trouble: John Mearsheimer with Tom Switzer

Why are Palestinians being starved? Why are they killing Palestinians? Why are they making Gaza uninhabitable? It's very simple, they want to expel you ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the InterContinental. My name is Tom Switzer. I am the executive director of the Center for Independence. studies, uh, now for those of you who don't know much about CIS, we are a public policy research organization, we just based Road on Mcquire Street and we are primarily focused on addressing our nation's big public policy challenges, so we are interested. in economics education uh energy housing affordability intergenerational issues Big issues but we are also very involved in the foreign policy debate and that brings us to tonight's event.

I must emphasize at the outset that I think it is probably fair to say that this crisis The difference between Isel and Gaza in the Middle East is probably the most controversial issue in international relations in 2024 and in a month from now we will hear from Brett Stevens, the award-winning columnist of the New York Times and formerly of the Wall Street Journal. I will be speaking in strong defense of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, but tonight we will hear a radically different view and we, the IEC, believe that it is very important, especially for a classical liberal organization like the IEC, to hear both sides of any debate .

Now John Mimer is without a doubt. one of the most distinguished political science professors in the world. He has been a professor of political science at the University of Chicago for more than four decades. He is the author of many notable and influential books, most notably The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, which was published in 2001 in Foreign Affairs, the prestigious New York-based Journal of Opinion on International Affairs. He ranks Mim's great power thesis as one of the three most influential foreign policy theses of the post-Cold War era. John, as Foreign Affairs has acknowledged he is. I quote one of the most famous political scientists in history, rap extraordinaire, one of the most famous political scientists in history and that review of John's latest book was written by a critic.

John is also, I think it's fair to say, a global sensation in the digital world. in fact, 19 of his debates and interviews on YouTube have each attracted more than 1 million views, it is extraordinary and I must emphasize that, given that he very correctly predicted that the US-led invasion of Iraq would not only be unnecessary but also a Epic's strategic mistake. Proportions, so it is an extraordinary reach and influence for John and with that it is a great pleasure on behalf of CIS to welcome Professor John Mishama back to CIS. Thank you so much for the kind words Tom, it's great to be back here.

It's great to see Tom again and thank you all for coming to hear me speak tonight, as everyone knows, since October 7th, the Middle East has been turned upside down. I think before October 7, almost everyone thought that the Middle East was a fairly stable area, there were no big ones. Then October 7 happened and it seems that today they are nothing more than problems and, as far as the eye can see, what I What I would like to do is analyze what has happened since October 7. I would like to talk about the causes of the problem. where we are today and where we are going and in pursuit of that I want to divide my talk this way first.

I want to focus on analyzing the conflict in Gaza mainly between Israel and the Palestinians or Israel and Hamas and also say a few words about H about Hezbollah because the BL Israel conflict is connected to Gaza, so that is the first conflict I want to analyze, then the second conflict I want to analyze is the conflict between Iran, Israel and the US that took place on April 1 and April 14. and April 19, and I want to find out what exactly happened there and what the consequences are and of course I will also do the same with the Gaza War, so those are the two conflicts that I am going to analyze and then What I want to do In the second part of the talk is to talk about the consequences of all this, the consequences of those two conflicts for Israel, for the United States and for Iran, and my basic argument is that Israel is the big loser.

Israel is in really serious

trouble

today and there is little hope of escaping that second advance in which the Americans are also losers, although they do not lose as much as Israel and the winners are not decisively, but the winners are the Iranians. That's the basic structure of my talk tonight. Now let me start with what happened on October 7 and talk about the Gaza war. And just for context to put a framework in your head, it is very important to understand that Israel today is what I would call Greater Israel Israel controls everything between the river and the CA and of course that phrase is often associated with Hamas and what Hamas wants is control everything between the river and the Sea just as Israel does and the end result is that what you have today is a great Israel and that great Israel includes what is called the Green Line of Israel, which was Israel before the war of 1967 plus Gaza plus the West Bank.

Well, then there are those three areas that comprise greater Israel and what is very important to understand is that within greater Israel there are approximately 7.3 million Palestinians and approximately 7.3 million Israeli Jews, there is approximate equality between the two parties, so the question is how does Israel think about dealing with a greater Israel where there is a rough equality between these two populations and there are basically four options, one is the one you have. a great democratic Israel that's not going to happen because it would no longer be a Jewish state, that's fine because if you look at demographic patterns, Palestinians are having more babies than Jewish Israelis, so that's not happening.

The second possibility is a two-state solution that everyone loves. to talk about a two-state solution that certainly will not happen after what happened on October 7, but even before, and I will talk more about this. Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli elite have no interest in a two-state solution. Well, the third possibility. It is apartheid and basically what we have now is an apartheid state. We can go into this in detail in the Q&A if you want to, but if you look at Amnesty International Human Rights Watch and Bellum, which is the main human rights group in Israel, those three organizations have produced extensive reports laying out why Israel It is a divided State.

The fourth option is ethnic cleansing, and ethnic cleansing means getting rid of the majority of Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. and create a great Israel that is completely dominated by Israeli Jews and has very few, if any, Palestinians among them, so again the four options are number one, the great Democratic Israel, solution number two of two states, those two are off the table, apartheid number three. which is basically what we have now and number four is ethnic cleansing where we get rid of the Palestinians. Okay, now let's switch gears a little bit and talk about what the situation was like before October 7th and focus primarily on Gaza before October 7th, the Palestinians in Gaza.

He basically lived in a giant open-air prison. What happened was that in 2005, when Ariel Chiron was the Prime Minister of Israel, he decided to remove the settlers from Gaza, as you know, there are settlers in the West Bank, until 2005 there were Israeli settlers in Gaza and Chiron removed them and he removed them because Gaza was a hornet's nest and having settlers there was a nightmare and they had their hands full in the West Bank and they wanted to focus on the West Bank and what they did was withdrawn. All the settlers left and it became an open-air prison.

Now it seemed that until October 7, Netanyahu and his company could handle the situation inside Gaza. Nobody thought that what happened on October 7 was going to happen. That's why they caught the Israelis. With their pants down they thought they were handling the situation very well and what was happening there is that Netanyahu was actually very happy with the fact that Hamas was ruling Gaza. This is hard to believe today, but it is true and he was making sure that Hamas was being funded and Hamas was doing reasonably well now, why is that? Netanyahu is adamantly opposed to a two-state solution and Mach mdab Bas, who heads the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is in favor of a two-state solution. so from Chiron's point of view, no Chiron from Netanyahu's point of view would have been true from Chiron's point of view, also if he had not passed away a boss is a threat because a boss wants a two-way solution states, so what Netanyahu has What has been done is to support Hamas because we all know that Hamas does not want a two-state solution and is pitting Hamas against the pl uh in the West Bank and it seems to work and, by the way, of from time to time you meet each couple. years the Israelis mow the grass, which means they precipitate a conflict with the Palestinians, go in there, kill hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians, destroy some buildings and send them a very clear message that they know we are in charge and we want them to do it.

I understand that you have to stay in this open-air prison, so that's the basic situation that exists. It seems like Netanyahu is handling the situation and almost everyone thinks that's why they kept their pants down on October 7, but again, what's going on? of October 7 is Hamas attacking Israel and I think it is fair to say that it achieves spectacular success. I think the evidence is that Hamas was surprised by the success they had and anyway they eventually left Israel and the Israelis considered solidifying the situation within their borders uh and then eventually they go on the offensive against Hamas and that offensive is now taking place.

Well, now what we want to ask is what exactly are Israel's objectives here. This is very important. Understand what Israel is trying to do now. If you read the Western mainstream media and this includes us, Australia, what people are talking about is that Israel is interested in defeating Hamas and here we are talking about decisively defeating Hamas and eliminating Hamas, and you can understand why from Israel's point of view. point of view that makes sense, the second objective is to recover the hostages, as everyone knows, Hamas took about 240 hostages and what the Israelis obviously want to do is recover those hostages, so there are two main objectives: defeat Hamas decisively and take back the hostages what is not discussed in the Western media is the real goal and the real goal is to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the reason they want to ethnically cleanse Gaza is because number one, that is the way out of apartheid .

Everyone understands that Israel is an apartheid state. and the only way out of that situation is to clean up, furthermore, it is the only way to defeat Hamas. I will talk more about this. It's pretty clear that the Israelis are not going to defeat Hamas, right? And I can't believe they thought. They would defeat Hamas before they got in there, they are too smart for that, but if you clean up Gaza and expel all the Palestinians, expel Hamas, then you solve two of the main problems that you face with ethnic cleansing, you solve the problem of apartheid. and now you solve the Hamas problem, you're probably telling yourself that Israel wouldn't do something like this, uh, just a couple of points first of all to create the state of Israel, you had to do massive ethnic cleansing to begin with. in 1948 and in 1967 the Israelis cleansed large portions of what is now greater Israel and the idea that they wouldn't do this if you read all kinds of Israeli media they talk about ethnic cleansing all the time and it makes a lot of sense if you think about the bottom line. .

I would make one of the criticisms and I will talk more about this of what the Israelis and especially Benjamin Netanyahu are doing in Gaza: they have not come up with a plan for what Gaza will be like after the in other words, what is the political solution here once to stop shooting and Israeli military commanders? IDF military commanders constantly complain these days that Netanyahu doesn't give them any idea what the final political deal will be like so they can deal with Hamas and deal with the pale Ians thinking about what the endgame is here. The reason there is no ending.

The reason they are not talking about how they are going to run a Palestinian-dominated Gaza is because they want the Palestinians out. They want to ethnically cleanse Gaza and that begs the question: how is this done right? How can you get rid of the Palestinians? First of all, they definitely went after Hamas to begin with, that was the purely military side of the story they were going after. Hamas, but for ethnic cleansing to work, a significant number of basically innocent Palestinians must first be killed. The Palestinians, not Hamas, have to kill large numbers of them and they have to be given a powerful incentive by killing them to drive them out.

Two, you have to make the place uninhabitable and that's what they're doing. I mean, they're not just killing people, they're making Gaza uninhabitable. Could you explain this in detail in the questions and answersYes, people want to hear the story, but it's like a lot of people say, especially the UN people who are there, that the place is uninhabitable and the reason it's uninhabitable is because they're trying to clean up Gaza. It is very important to understand that and ultimately what they are doing is starving the population. With all kinds of talk about the famine in the northern part of Gaza, the United States is leaning heavily on the Israelis to allow food and other aid.

The Israelis resist at every step, why are they starving the Palestinians, why are they killing the Palestinians. Why are they doing it? Gaza is uninhabitable, it's very simple, they want to expel them, so that's basically what's been happening and at first there was talk of all kinds of genocide and I said publicly that this is not a genocide, but then December I changed my Keep in mind that, I think the Israelis are now involved in a genocide and what has happened here is that because they have not been able to remove the Palestinians, they have had to increase the number of murders, which they do well, and they continue to pressure to get them out. drive the Palestinians out of Gaza and the way they do it is just kill more and more people and have the Palestinian friends make the situation in Gaza more and more unbearable so the situation is getting worse and worse despite that the United States and, indeed, the West in general are doing everything they can to help feed the Palestinians, so the question is where are we today?

Where are we today? First of all, they have not defeated Hamas and they are not going to defeat Hamas. Kurt Campbell, who undersecretary of state basically said that yesterday there were all kinds of stories in the Israeli press that they are not going to defeat Hamas, that they have not recovered the hostages and that they have not been able to clean up Gaza. They have not been able to clean Gaza, furthermore, they are trapped in Gaza, they are there, right, they left in 2005 and returned there, this is not good, so what you see here is that Israel is in real

trouble

in Gaza now.

In addition to the problem in Gaza, they have a huge problem with Hezbollah because Hezbollah in the north, in support of Hamas, has been bombing northern Israel and there are between 60,000 and 100,000 Israelis from the northern part of Israel who have had to move to the center . from Israel temporarily and I can't go home because Hezbollah is bombing northern Israel and Hezbollah has said that until all this is over in Gaza they are going to continue fighting the Israelis, this is a big problem for the Israelis, so Not only do they have problems with Hamas and Gaza, they have problems with Hezbollah on the northern border and, by the way, the Houthis are now taking the name of the Israelis and the Houthis recently launched their first missile inside Israel, just one, but that's a harbinger of What is to come is to see how much trouble Israel is in, they have not achieved their objectives with respect to those two stated objectives and with respect to ethnic cleansing and, as I told you before, they always want to understand that there are four options here first. two are off the table and that comes down to aparti or ethnic cleansing and the Israelis understand very well an apartheid state we remember what happened in South Africa we have to solve that problem that is why ethnic cleansing is so attractive but they have been unable to carry out an ethnic cleansing until now that's the story that's the story about Gaza let's change the subject now let's talk about Iran against Israel against the United States uh until April 1 the war between Israel and Iran and even the United States and Iran was a war in the shadow uh, and it's very important to understand that we didn't want the war that shadowed the war to escalate, we didn't want to see Iran and Israel get into a fight, very important to understand, neither the Iranians, the Iranians had no interest in the escalation, the country that had an interest in an escalation if the Israelis the Israelis have targeted Iran for a long time and have been doing everything possible over time to lead us into a war against Iran, but we did not want a war, what's happening? on April 1, as I'm sure you all remember, is that the Israelis attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, this angers the Iranians and the Iranians make it clear that they are going to retaliate against Israel, that the United States is However, the United States is very angry at the Israelis for doing this and not telling them it was going to happen, so it seems that the Israeli right is going to have a big conflict between Israel and the United States on the one hand and the Iranians on the other. other.

The other side, but the United States doesn't want this and Iran doesn't want this, so what happens? This is April 1st. The attack on the embassy on April 14. Iran retaliates against Israel. Everyone remember this. The question is what happens between April. April 1 and 14 and then what happens on April 14. It is very important to understand these details. The United States and Iran work together through intermediaries because we do not have direct relations. We work together through intermediaries to ensure that the Iranian attack is limited. that we see coming in advance and that the United States and the Israelis and others are capable of meeting the attack.

Also, we made it clear that we want the Iranians not to attack any populated areas and basically go after one or two military objectives that we and the Iranians agree will be a limited attack that we are coordinating with the Iranians because again we don't want an escalation, we We refer to the Americans and neither do they. So when the Iranian attack occurs, a hotline is established, an informal hotline between the United States. and Iran through Oman because both the Iranians and the Americans want to keep this under control. It's very important to understand that and the Iranians attack and what happens there.

Americans are

deep

ly involved in the defense of Israel. Everyone remembers everyone talking about how the Jordanians and the Saudis. the French, the British, the Americans, the Israelis, they were all involved in dealing with this attack. This is a real problem for Israel because Israel has always prided itself on being able to independently deal with an adversary that thinks about attacking it well in this case, right? We're just coordinating things with the Iranians to make sure this is limited and doesn't get out of control, but there is considerable evidence that about half of the missiles and drones that were shot down were shot down by the United States, not Israel.

About half of us were

deep

ly involved, we had warships shooting down Iranian ballistic missiles and we were using fighter jets to shoot down cruise missiles and shoot down drones. Now the Israelis played a very important role in this, but it's important to understand that we, the United States. The United States were coordinating the effort, you see how deeply involved we were, we wanted to keep this under control, we wanted to make sure that the Iranian offensive against Israel was not successful, which brings me to the final part of the story about the events of April involving Iran. and Israel, the Israelis retaliate on April 19.

Remember that April 1 is when the embassy in Damascus was attacked. April 14 is when Iran goes after Israel. It does limited damage, almost no damage, and then on April 19, the Israelis retaliate now, as expected. They wanted to unleash the dogs the Israelis wanted a big counterattack against Iran the United States didn't want us for a second to be trying to put a cap on the volcano so what the Israelis end up doing is basically removing a radar in the Isfahan area of ​​Iran, uh , just a radar, a radar associated with an s300 missile, it is a very, very, very limited response and it is a limited response because the United States demands that it be a limited response, furthermore, we are going to Great Lanes to tell the Israelis that in reality You won a great Victory on April 14 by stopping all those Israeli missiles and drones so that Israel accepts the fact that you won a great Victory on April 14.

All we need is just a small scale attack where we go after a radar and that's the end of the story and of course that was the end of the story, it's gone, unlike Gaza which continues to this day today, so what I'm telling you is that we have these two major conflicts, the one in Gaza that I just described and then the one involving Iran Israel and the United States between April 1 and April 19 now I want to talk about the consequences of this for Israel, the United States and for Iran and as I told you I think Israel was the big loser here now they are saying: yourself why is that the case is a number of reasons, first of all, the Israelis are back in Gaza, they left in 2005.

Ariel Chiron, like all of you, is not a shrinking violet, he is at least a man as tough as ours, like Benjamin Netanyahu, he retired because Gaza is a hornet's nest, well, the Israelis agree I return to Gaza, they have no way out at this moment and they have no solution to the problem, they have made Gaza uninhabitable, what are they going to do? The Palestinians are not leaving, what are they going to go? To do so, they are running the place and they are in serious trouble. The second reason the Israelis lose is that you have to understand how the Israelis think about deterrence and this is a very smart way to think about deterrence.

I am not being critical of Israeli thinking here. What the Israelis believe is that their deterrence depends on mastery of escalation mastery of escalation that means that if someone hits me and I hit him back, I hit him harder than I was hit initially, in other words, to As we move up the escalation ladder, I master escalation dominance. The best example of this is in the summer of 2003, Hezbollah killed some Israelis. This is on the northern border. Hezbollah killed some Israelis and kidnapped one Israeli. Well, the Israelis retaliated massively and Nasrallah, who is the head of Hezbollah, said, I think two.

Months later, Nazala said that if he had known what the Israelis were going to do in terms of retaliation, he would never have allowed the attack on July 12, 2006. That's an escalation of dominance. Do you understand that it is very important from Israel's point of view? They have to do it. clear to all their neighbors that if they hit us, we will hit them back harder. It is now very clear that the Israelis no longer have escalation dominance through Iran or Hezbollah. They cannot close the conflict with Hezbollah on their northern border. It's really quite remarkable. The Israelis are hitting Hezbollah very hard and Hezbollah is responding.

Hezbollah has 150,000 rockets and missiles and those numbers will only grow over time by 150,000, so the Israelis are limited in what they can do and with respect to Iran I describe to you what happened. April 1 April 14 April 19 that's not a domain escalation. Sorry, that's not dominance escalation and besides they needed the Americans, you all understand. I'm going off track for a second if you look at what's happening in Gaza. The Israelis could never carry out that operation in Gaza without American support, not even close, and all sorts of Israeli generals say in the Israeli press that they alone cannot produce the weapons to carry out the operations they are now carrying out. out in Gaza, they need us and what I'm telling you what happened on April 14.

They needed us. You hear all this talk about Iron Dome and its ability to shoot down missiles. They can't do it alone. Iron Dome is not that formidable defensive system and, furthermore, given the cost trade-off. The ratio of missiles that the Iranians in Hezbollah have in Iron Dome over the long term in a fight is simply not very useful, so from a deterrence point of view, the Israelis are in real trouble, so my first The point is that they are in real trouble because they are trapped in Gaza and they have no solution to the problem and number two, their deterrence has been very weak, weakened.

Number three, it's very important to understand that with the arrival of all these missiles and the arrival of drones it is now possible for actors like Kamas. the Houthis, Hezbollah and Iran develop the ability to attack Israel and cause enormous amounts of damage and many people who live in Israel are not very comfortable with this situation, right? The idea that they are exposed to adversaries and these are formidable adversaries. I don't want to downplay the fact that groups like Hezbollah and groups like Kamas would like to take down Israel, these are really difficult men and what has happened here is that as the passage of While missile and drone capabilities have reached the point where it is quite easy for actors like these to employ those weapons to create a real threat to Israel.

The fourth way that Israel is in trouble is that it has effectively become a pariah state, uh, in ways that it never was in the past, uh, if you look at what's happening in the United States and around the world. on college campuses and on college campuses, this is just evidence of whether you believe what is happening is right or wrong, that Israel's reputation has been severely tarnished. If you think about the fact that South Africa took Israel to the international court of justice and the international court of justice did not find thatIsrael is committing genocide, they did not find that that is yet to be determined, but what the international court of justice found is that there is enough evidence to think that Israel could be committing genocide and if you look at the polls within the States States it is truly remarkable how many people, especially Democrats, believe that Israel is involved in genocide.

There is a recent survey. That shows that 56% of all Democrats think Israel is committing genocide. Consider that 56% of Americans believe Israel is committing genocide. There is another poll showing conversations about Biden voters showing that 57% think Israel is committing genocide. 27% are not sure 57% think Israel is committing genocide 27% are not sure and then 15% do not believe Israel is committing genocide this is quite remarkable when I think about how I thought about Israel and pretty much everyone I knew thought of Israel when I was a child and I was a young man and how virtually everyone I know now thinks of Israel, a fundamental transformation has occurred, it is really quite remarkable and the idea of ​​the Jewish State being accused of genocide is really quite remarkable, this is a sign of big problems and the use of the separate label is being used more and more and this is not going to change because the situation in Gaza is not going to improve, that was one of the points I am trying to convey to you: there is no solution on the horizon here if someone asked me in the question and answer period what I would do to fix this problem.

I can tell you what the answer is now. I have no idea, let's be very clear on this categorically depressing, but I think from Israel's point of view anyway. what has happened to their reputation is disastrous and I don't think it's going to improve over time, so these four reasons, number one, the fact that they are trapped in Gaza once again, number two, the fact that Their deterrence has been weakened because they do not have escalation domain number three, the fact that they are surrounded by adversaries who hate them and would like to destroy them and that they have an increasing number of missiles and drones that can cause them a lot of problems is bad news and number four, the pariah state argument now let me conclude by talking briefly about the United States and talking about Iran.

The United States is a big loser here, too. First of all, it is in our best interest to have peace in the Middle East. First of all, we have been struggling. So many wars that the American public is fed up with all these wars. The last thing we want is more wars in the Middle East. My God, a war against Iran. This is the last thing people want. We want peace. Furthermore, we need a peaceful Middle East. so we can turn to East Asia from the American point of view, the most serious threat on the planet is China, the United States has to contain China, we have to turn to Asia, we cannot turn to Asia because we are trapped in Ukraine and now we are stuck in the Middle East, this is not good, we want to resolve this safely, have a situation like the one that existed before October 7.

Remember what Jake Sullivan said a few weeks before October 7th. He hadn't seen the Middle East this peaceful for a long time and he was very happy about that and it made a lot of sense from the American point of view, but that disappeared very quickly on October 7, so we want peace. The second point is that we also care a lot. about having friendly relations with as many states in the Middle East as possible why is this so? The Russians are already there, number one and two. The Chinese are starting to move in for all the older dogs.

I noticed that there are several big dogs in the audience that we all remember at the time when the United States and the Soviet Union were competing in the Middle East, well, what you will see in the future is not only the United States and Russia, but also the United States, Russia and China competing in the Middle East, the Chinese are building a blue water Navy to project power in the gulf number one, number two, they are heavily dependent on oil and therefore are doing everything they can to have good relations with Iran, good relations with Saudi Arabia and we are very concerned.

On this, the United States does not want bad relations with Middle Eastern countries that drive them into the arms of the Chinese and the Russians, and you see that a lot of that happens because of the way that everyone knows about the Abraham Accords, the Abraham. It was where the United States recently attempted to bring together Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States into a sort of Quasi-Alliance. All of this has now fallen apart because of what is happening in Gaza. It is not in Israel's interest and it is certainly not in Saudi Arabia's interest at all, so you see the problem we have here, just another problem and this applies to the Israelis as well, it is the nuclear issue, you all understand that Iran is taking a jump. far from developing nuclear weapons, uh, because we, with pressure from the Israelis, we Americans withdrew from the jcpoa, which was the nuclear deal that the Obama administration worked out with Iran, the Iranians are now enriching uranium up to 60% and you know that you have to enrich. uranium up to 90% to have enough to have it, to have it, capable of becoming a bomb and it is very easy to get 60% to 90%, my guess is, and just reading the literature, that Iran could have enough physical material to three bombs in about 6 weeks that's not a bomb it's just footage.

I think it would probably take about six months to build three bombs and then they would have to develop the delivery capability, so it's not like they're going to develop a bomb in a month or two, that's not going to happen, but they're not that far away. and what happens when you bomb their embassy and then you fight with them on April 14 and 19 is you give them an incentive to get nuclear weapons and you can see signs of that, you can see signs that the Iranians are talking about getting nuclear weapons, so that one of the main problems that the Israelis and the Americans face as a result of what happened between April 1 and April 19 is that we have incentivized the Iranians to obtain nuclear weapons, not that they are going to follow through with This, but we have given them a powerful incentive to do so and they have the capacity because they can enrich uranium up to 90%.

And then produce bombs just say a few words in conclusion Tom about Iran like I told you before I think Iran is the winner I think the United States is the loser I think Israel is the biggest loser uh but I think the Iranians are the winners uh so far and this does not mean that they really came out of this smelling like roses as my mother used to say. I don't want to go that far, but overall I think they've done pretty well for themselves, first of all. They have been able, except for April 14, to remain on the sidelines and are using their representatives in the region or are working with their representatives; that's a better way to put it to great effect because, as you know, the Iranians are allied with Hamas.

They're allied with Hezbollah, they're allied with the Houthis, and they're allied with these militias inside Iraq and Syria that have their weapons trained not only on the United States but also on Israel, so they've been able to stay out of it. of the fight, but I see that their representatives are doing very well in this conflict both with the United States um and uh and with Israel. Another point you should keep in mind is that Iran, as a result of all this, now has very close relations with Russia and China. What we are doing, what the United States is doing, is bringing the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese and the North Koreans together to the right and this makes it more difficult for us to isolate Iran and if Iran starts to take the nuclear path, nuclear weapons.

Road and we want to put pressure on the Iranians, it's not clear that the Chinese and the Russians are going to help us much, we need the Chinese and the Russians to help us, but anyway the Iranians feel that they are in a pretty good situation because the United States and the Israelis have not been able to do anything to really harm them, in fact Iran got away with hitting Israel. This is the first time that Iran has been able to launch missiles and drones from its own territory. It hit Israel and Israel barely The Iranians who have been retaliated against probably feel good about that, as they should, and then the bottom line is that the sanctions against Iran are not working like they used to, they have been weakened, so if you look in general at what what happened to the Iranians and what is happening to the Americans and especially what is happening to the Israelis, you see that the situation after October 7 is fundamentally different from the situation before October 7, right in In the case of the Israelis, before October 7 it seemed that they were in the cat and the bird seat in which they were handling themselves very well. his own opinion on the situation in Gaza and, by the way, I want to be clear here.

I thought they were doing an excellent job handling the problem in Gaza. I thought they had things under control. I was surprised by what happened on October 7th, but once in October. The seventh one happened and while we've seen these two conflict conflicts develop, one the war in Gaza and how that's linked to Hezbollah that you don't want to forget and then two the Iran Israel United States uh exchange between April 1 and April 19 en It is quite clear that the world has changed in ways that are not good for either Israel or the United States. Thank you.

Welcome back to the CIS. It's great to have you back. Not understanding all those points you raised about the escalation of dominance and the fact that the Israelis are now stuck in Gaza, right? Aren't you overstating your point about Israel's bleak security prospects? After all, it's not declared, but they do have nuclear weapons, and as a foreign policy realist, I would surely understand that nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent. to a foreign attack, so are you being too pessimistic about Israel's security prospects? I think there is no doubt, as Tom points out that nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent.

And I don't think that any country with nuclear weapons is going to disappear from the planet because another country attacks it, uh, I think that no country would try to inflict a decisive defeat on Israel because it has new nuclear weapons, but the problem is that Israel has a problem internal. See Tom's point about nuclear weapons, it applies if you're talking about Iran hitting Israel, it's an interstate issue, okay, but Hamas is not another country. Hamas is within Greater Isra. What Hamas is doing is running a rebellion or exe or running an insurrection and nuclear weapons do nothing for you.

In that sense, to take this a step further, we've talked a little bit briefly about South Africa and the fact that South Africa was an apartheid state, uh, and basically that state that existed, apartheid South Africa disappeared, that state had nuclear weapons. . South Africa had nuclear weapons and what you want to understand and this is very important in the Israeli context is that what is happening within your society within your body politic matters enormously and nuclear weapons cannot do much to protect you, you see. what I'm saying, but I don't want to downplay your basic point that nuclear weapons provide deterrence against Iran obtaining nuclear weapons or, well, I mean that many academics would still argue that the security prospects for Israel are not as bleak as you point out, not just because of their access to nuclear weapons, let me tell you this, he tells Zakaria, a CNN anchor who is also a columnist for the Washington Post, he said this before October 7, but let me tell you this, this is what it says, first there is the Disappearance of the Arab threat since its first day of existence Israel has faced the danger of extinction from the Arab armies.

This is the threat against which the Jewish State has planned weapons and trade for most of its national life. Today that threat has disappeared second from armies. Israel's main strategic adversaries Iraq Syria Egypt are historically in disarray, while the Israeli military has become the region's superpower a league ahead of the rest. How would you respond to Zakaria? You are right in the sense that those traditional adversaries have effectively disappeared when I was young and the 1956 war took place, the 1967 war took place, the 1973 war took place, these were all conflicts involving Israel against the states. Arabs and, by the way, in 1948, when Israel gained its independence, on May 14, 1948, yesterday was the independence of Israel.

Day, but 76th anniversary, yes, but there is no doubt that the Israelis fought wars in 1948, that is their point, but that is no longer the threat, there is a whole new set of threats called Hamas, called Hezbollah, called the Houthis But aren't we seeing a broader trend in the Middle East between the Iranian Bakier proxies that you just mentioned, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels versus Saudi Arabia and the Sunni Gulf States, isn't that the most important issue?broad and to the extent that it is true, doesn't it help Israel because it has We have a civil war essentially in the Muslim community in the Arab world, how does it help Israel solve the Gaza problem?

Explain to me how that helps Israel solve the Gaza problem, and while you're at it, explain to me how it helps solve the missile problem. let Hezbollah Hamas, the Houthis and Iran present Israel, you like former president Jimmy Carter and the university, we have time for questions, I want to finish, you called tonight, uh, Israel and a paride state, um, you can't, the Palestinians vote, uh. It's important to understand that there are basically three groups: the Palestinians, the Palestinians obviously in Gaza, who we talked about tonight, the Palestinians in the West Bank and then the Palestinians within what is called the Green Line of Israel, which was the Israel that existed until the war of 1967 before. they captured those two territories and when I say that there are 7.3 million Palestinians in Greater Israel which includes the Palestinians in those three areas, the only Palestinians who can vote are the Palestinians on the green line of Israel, the Palestinians in Gaza and uh uh and the West Bank can't vote well, so that's one point, the second point is that the Palestinians in Israel don't have the same rights, there's no doubt that they can vote well, but they don't have the same rights, that's why they always I would say that Israel is not a liberal democracy.

If you want to argue that Israel is a democracy, right? You can argue that. I would even fight you there over the West Bank and Gaza, but let me tell you, I will give you the right that it is a democracy. I do not argue that Israel is a liberal democracy because Palestinians do not have equal rights within Israel's Green Line; In my opinion, this is the main reason why Israel does not have a constitution; They've moved in that direction a couple of times, but they can do it. Don't go too far down that road because you don't want equal rights, you want a Jewish state, not a state where Palestinians and Jews are equal in number and have equal rights, okay, but your critics and they are not just Jewish leaders, many people in this room would say orally that it is an exaggeration to compare Israel today with the old racist South Africa of last year. and this is the late Les Gilb, someone Yu, the former president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, cites that the United States is helping to protect one of the few nations in the world that shares American values ​​and interests, a true democracy, and this is Richard Cohen. long-time Washington Post columnist Today's Israel and yesterday's South Africa have almost nothing in common in South Africa the white minority population harshly ruled the majority black population non-whites were denied civil rights and in 1958 They were even deprived of citizenship.

Cohen goes on to say that, in contrast, Israeli Arabs around part of the country have the same civil and political rights as Israeli Jews. Arabs sit in the Knesset and serve in the military, though most are exempt from the draft, and Cohen concludes that whatever it is looks suspiciously like a liberal democracy, it can't be a party again, its response to people like Les Gelb and Richard, very quickly, they don't have the same rights, these are the Palestinians who live within Greenline Israel, they just don't have the same rights, huh. And what about the Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in the West Bank?

This is all part of Greater Israel, but let me make a couple of points, other than that, first of all, whether Israel is an apartheid state is not based on any comparison to In South Africa you have to find a definition of party and then there is We have to look at what is happening inside Israel and see if it fits well with that definition. There is no doubt that there are differences and I will get to this in a second between apartheid in South Africa and apartheid in Israel, but the question is what are the general characteristics of an apartheid regime and does Israel meet the requirements now, as I told you? first, if you have any doubts about it, there are huge reports written by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Bet Selum, which is the main human rights group within Israel, they make the case for why Israel is an apartheid state and I think that Those three reports make a very powerful case.

My last point to you is that there are several South Africans living under apartheid in South Africa, including South African Jews and Bishop Tutu, who argue that the apartheid system in Israel is worse than the apartheid system in South Africa. Let us now move on to Rafa, the city in southern Gaza. Israeli leaders appear to believe that a full-scale military ground invasion of Rafa will finish the job of eliminating Hamas. You have said that is not realistic, now your critics would say that with your gleeful mutilations, your riots, your rapes and beheadings, your murder of babies in October. 7.

Hamas needs to be crushed and if Hamas maintains control of Rafa and the people it will win, Israelis may believe that Hamas needs to be crushed and you can understand, given what happened on October 7, why they feel that way that they are not going to crush Hamas and If you read the newspapers carefully every day you will see that Hamas has come back to life in northern Gaza and that the Israelis have now sent military forces to northern Gaza to confront Hamas. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are publishing articles today dealing with the fact that Hamas is almost impossible to defeat, they just aren't going to be defeated.

That's why I told you that ethnic cleansing is so attractive to Israelis. Ethnic cleansing. It solves the apartheid problem that Tom was challenging me on a minute ago and it solves the Moss problem that he is challenging me on now. Many Democratic lawmakers who have traditionally been very supportive of Israel have called for Netanyahu to be replaced. To what extent would things change in Gaza and the Israeli military operation in Gaza if Netanyahu is replaced as many Democratic lawmakers and, indeed, Brett Stevens at the New York Times have called for Netanyahu to be impeached. How would things change at all?

This is an argument I hear in the United States and it is made by liberal American Jews like Tom Fredman in the New York Times, yes, in the New York Times, who believe that Netanyahu is an anomaly and if only we could get rid of him and replace him with Thomas Jeff or someone like that, they know that Israel will go away, live happily ever after, this is a silly argument, right, it is quite clear that Netanyahu and his war cabinet and the majority of the national security elite in Israel today agree I agree with Israeli policy under Netanyahu, so if anything changes, it wouldn't change anything, it would hardly change anything now. you say that Israel has had Iran in its sights for a long time, but isn't it true that the Iranian Shia theocracy has also had Israel in its SIDS for a long time after all, many of its leaders have declared the eradication of Israel from the face of war?

Looking at the map, there is no doubt that Iran considers Israel a mortal enemy and would like to take down the Jewish State in the same way that Hezbollah would like to take down the Jewish State, so there is no doubt about it and there is no doubt that the Israelis hate Iranians or hate Iran and it is a case of mutual hatred. Mutual dislike, call it what you want. There is no question who is responsible for starting this. The implication of your question was that it is Iran that is responsible, not Israel. Well, the leaders say.

Talking about this about eradicating Israel from the face of the Earth is quite provocative, isn't it? I agree that that's correct, but I'm just saying that it's not clear if they started doing it. Do you want to remember that Iran once had very good relations with Israel once had very good relations with the United States and even in the 1990s the Iranians were interested in improving relations with the United States and one could argue that if it had achieved a two-state solution, Iran would have reconciled with uh, dealing with this problem, so, as you know, we haven't talked much about the two-state solution, largely because I took it off the table from the beginning, but it is very important to understand that every American president since Jimmy Carter has pushed. tough on the two-state solution because we believe that the two-state solution we mean the American elites think that the two-state solution is the only reasonable way out of this conundrum.

The point here is that the Palestinians must be given self-determination, they need a sovereign state of their own and this is what the two-state solution was designed for and the American leaders understood that if the Israelis did not accept a two-state solution two states and you guys didn't get a two state solution, you were going to have problems as far as the eye can see, you all understand, maybe the younger people in the audience don't, but what happened on October 7th is really not an anomaly, there was the first inapa then there were the second inapa light Ides in the early 2000s, sorry, light Ides in the early 2000s, yes, 1987 was the first inapa and 2000 was the second inata and these were, already You know, Palestinian uprisings, but, John, you could get a bilateral solution with the Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, but Hamas has made it very clear, since you have acknowledged that they do not support a two-state solution at all, there is no doubt about it.

Regarding this, I just want to be very clear, this comes back to my point. that Netanyahu is playing divide and conquer. Netanyahu had pretty good relations with Hamas before October 7 because Hamas doesn't want a two-state solution and Netanyahu doesn't want a two-state solution and from Netanyahu's point of view the real threat was mmud abas and the Palestinian Authority and, by the way, you will notice that the Americans have been saying that what we have to do in Gaza is put the Palestinian Authority in control, get Hamas out of the way and put the Palestinian Authority in control.

Netanyahu has done it. It is unequivocally clear that this is not happening and that is because the Palestinian Authority has reconciled itself to a two-state solution and that is nightmare news for Netanyahu. You say that Tan's hand has been strengthened during this dispute, but let me tell you that Iran is surrounded by hostiles. Sunni states along the Persian Gulf, from Saudi Arabia, are fanatically anti-AI and a well-armed archenemy. In Iraq and Syria, at least until recently, Iran faced large Sunni insurgencies dedicated to massacring Shiites. Then there is the internal unrest within Iran. Many younger people, many younger Iranians have a more liberal view about the world and their parents and certainly the Shiite clerical regime.

So are you overlooking Iran's true weaknesses and limitations? Well, he only gave me 50 minutes to talk. If it had been like that. willing to honor my request to be able to speak for two hours, it would have qualified my argument a little, although there is absolutely no doubt that Iran has major problems, but the thing to remember about Iran is that Iran is much more powerful than all of its neighbors, it has a very large population and the human capital C within Iran is very impressive, right? The Godzilla situation is why the Saudis are so interested in the Abraham Accord.

The Saudis want to sleep with the Israelis and the Americans because the Saudis understand that the Iranians have a lot of potential power when you want to measure the power of a country. The two things you go to first are population size and the second is wealth. The second is wealth, right wealth and population size. If you look at the Iranian situation, they are potentially a very powerful country, which should not take away any points. about the problems that you face, okay, now it's time for question time and please, I encourage you, oh well, I encourage you to try to ask them a shorter question than mine, but also feel free to ask not only about the Middle East but also.

Ukraine and China, which John has talked about in great detail. The first question: you have talked about how Israel is now trapped in Gaza. Do you see a similar trap for the United States or do they have a path forward to get out of this? The United States is not going to enter Gaza, is it? I mean, we're not putting forces there, but we are united with Israel, we have this special relationship, so as long as Israel is stuck in Gaza and has all kinds of problems both in terms of dealing with the Palestinians and with the rest of the world , it has enormous consequences for us, we end up vetoing Security Council resolutions that we do not want to veto, it ends up poisoning our relations with the Egyptians and the Jordanians, so there are all kinds of consequences for us that are negative and that is why The Biden Administration, admittedly, is deeply committed to trying to figure out how to solve this, as I said before, we would like to see mmud abas take control, then we can get rich Arab countries to invest money, we can rebuild Gaza and live happily ever after. , that's what we want to do because we have no interest in letting this continue, but the problem we face is that we can't get the Israelis Join us, this is well documentedand the bottom line is that there is no end to the problems for the Israelis, but even for us the next question yes sir, thank you John Lan McIntyre, as Australia's security depends on the United States, don't we have? no option but to take sides in Gaza and Ukraine, that is, in Australia.

I'm not sure what it means to take sides. If you're talking about Hamas against Israel, that's very different than talking about Palestinians against Israel, in other words, I know a lot of people who love Hamas and hope Israel destroys it, who sympathize a lot with Palestinians who believe Israel is committing genocide, so I would say you can side with the Palestinians if you are Australian and can make the argument. that that's in Israel's interest, the right people who have advocated for a two-state solution have long argued that that's in Israel's interest, that's the solution, that's the argument, but if it's a choice between Hamas and Israel, Australia certainly the government and most of the people operating in the foreign policy establishment have no choice but to decide with Israel against Tomas.

Next question John Connor yes, your part of your proposal is essentially that there is no support in Israel for a two-state solution. I now know that there is an organization whose membership is limited to people who have held the rank of major or above in one of the four Israeli defense and intelligence institutions, something that is constantly argued, I have not verified this since October, but it is consistently argued in favor of a two-state solution, while acknowledging that it is difficult, I really think that was, in fact, a reflection of at least the views of a significant part of the Israeli intelligence and military establishment before the 7th.

October, given that sufficient pressure from the US and otherwise may require transfers. population of Gaza and the 500,000 settlers in the West Bank, Israeli settlers, but surely there must be, to some extent, they may be pushing at an open door and trying to reach that solution with everyone and with due respect. I don't agree with you. On that note, I think there are a handful of people in the Israeli establishment who are in favor of a two-state solution, but they are few in number and the elites regret that that organization includes the heads of all those. four previous heads of all those four organizations, several from a still small number.

I think that there is also no evidence. The Israelis are not going to accept a two-state solution after what happened on October 7. They are going to create a viable Palestinian state that has its own weapons on its border. They have not defeated Hamas, they have just suffered. This devastating defeat on October 7th is simply not going to happen. Well, next question, Tony, and then we'll go to Anon. I would like to just push this two state solution a little bit more um and really like you. a realist I mean you basically said that a great Israel um with the friend you know um West Bank and Gaza on it as a democratic state is off the table I think everyone can understand that um I think ethnic cleanliness is off the table table because it's not going to happen.

Nobody is going to let Israel do that and I'm not even sure Israel wants to do that, so you go back to the two-state solution. I'm a little bit intrigued as a realist why you're not embracing that and and I can just press you Can't the United States really use its influence to create that solution that comes out of this look? I hope to be wrong. and the two state solution is a viable alternative the Israelis wake up and smell the coffee and the Americans do what you described, they know I have been wrong before and if there is any issue I would like to be wrong about moving forward, this is it In spirit, I agree with you, but I don't think, as I said to the gentleman on your right, that there will be much enthusiasm for a two-state solution before October 7th within Israel and certainly now, and public opinion is against it. the two-state solution, as well as against elite opinion and, furthermore, with respect to the United States putting pressure on Israel.

Steve Walt and I wrote this book about the Israel lobby. Steve Wal from Harvard University, yes, Steve Walt, professor at Harvard, him and me. I wrote the book on the Israel lobby and there is no way any American government can put significant pressure on Israel. Well, you say that, but the Reagan administration put pressure on Israel and Prime Minister Bigan when they invaded southern Lebanon. This is the New York Times. I think this was just a few days ago, they quoted this is a quote. Mr. Reagan used the power of American weapons several times to influence Israeli war policy at different points, including warplanes, cluster munitions to be delayed or withheld, and of course Joe Biden recently. he withheld support of 3,500 bombs for Israel, both for the Israel lobby, no, no, I mean, there you could point to one or two cases, back in the distant past, where the United States put some pressure on Israel. and the Reagan administration in 1982, yes, it was with President Bush Sena, uh, with the agreements that failed, failed, went nowhere, right, no president has been able to put Joe Biden is not going to put significant pressure on the Joe Biden lobby.

You understand that Joe Biden wants to win the election next November and if Joe Biden gets tough on Israel, you'll see what, Brett, you'll have Brett Stevens here, ask Brett Stevens, he wrote a great column as soon as Joe Biden told him. Israel was holding back these extra bombs that they didn't really need anyway because they have so many bombs as soon as that happened. Brett Stevens had a column and all kinds of Israel supporters told Joe Biden in no uncertain terms: "you want to." to remember that you are running for re-election and we will not forget it and, of course, the problem that Biden faces, as everyone knows, is that the Arab Americans and many others are going to punish well the joke that runs in Jerusalem is that having been strongly supports Netanyahu after October 7 Joe Biden is seriously committed to the two-state solution Michigan and Pennsylvania, okay and Anon.

I have two questions, but I'll ask them very, very quickly. First of all, you said a couple of times that Israel is trapped in Gaza, they can't get out. Can you be more specific about why they are trapped and why they can't retreat? And my second question in all the decades that you have been following this conflict closely, where do you think the situation is? Israel currently said that its political reputation is losing, but specifically in regards to information warfare and its ability to spread disinformation. We've had babies beheaded and PE people baked and widespread sexual violence.

Do you think that? This is different in terms of the willingness of the people, the general public or the willingness of the great West to believe, yes, everything that is, these are two big questions, just like all the other questions, uh, sure , but only in the first is the first question: why Israelis, why do I say that the Israelis are trapped in Gaza? Well, they have said that they will not leave Gaza, it is true, they will stay there and they understand that it is a choice, it is a choice, but they decided to stay. I mean, I said that "We're stuck in Gaza and I just said it's because they decided to stay there.

I mean, it may be a choice that you may not like, but that's the choice they made and you have to remember that they haven't defeated number one." of Hamas and number two, there is the question: who is going to run the place correctly, so how they will stay, remains to be seen, where how many troops they leave, where those troops are deployed, how those troops act, that remains to be seen. see, but they are stuck the second question is a very interesting question, it was about controlling the narrative, uh, the Israelis controlled the narrative in really powerful ways until the late 1980s, so there was this group of historians in Israel called the new historians who were then were young at the time and they had access to the archives and they had access to the records about how Israel was created and what they did was they debunked all the myths or almost all the myths about how Israel was created and really portrayed the Israelis in a negative light, okay, and that was the beginning of the problem and I could tell you all kinds of stories about that, because people started to think differently about Israel, unlike the way we thought when I was young.

There was a book by Leon Urus called Exodus and everyone read it and it was a movie by Paul Newman and even Marie Saints starred in it and it portrayed the Israelis in a very positive light and the Arabs in a very negative light and once the new historians came, all kinds of people, mainly at the elite level, started to think differently about the creation of Israel and the behavior of Israel, then what happens is you get social media and you get the Internet and Israel It has enormous influence and it influences what the Wall Street Journal what the New York Times what the Washington Post says but Tick Tock is a nightmare for Israel it is a total nightmare there is this famous conversation uh that you can get on the Internet by Jonathan Greenblat, who is the head of the Anti-Defamation League, the ADL who is Abe Foxman's successor is on the phone with someone and you know there's a video and he's talking about Tick Tock and it's just a disaster for Israel.

People see what is happening and the Israelis. This is actually quite remarkable. The Israelis are filming. they themselves do absolutely horrible things to the Palestinians and then they put it on the Internet, it's hard to believe and, furthermore, in the whole history of genocide, you know, if you want to argue that Israel is guilty of genocide, you have to do two things there are to provide evidence of intent number one and you have to provide evidence that Israel's actions are consistent with the intent now with respect to intent, Israeli leaders across the board, including Benjamin N Net, after October 7 said all kinds of things that in my opinion The opinion demonstrated genocidal intent.

This was documented in the South African cases, yes, documented in the South African case and, by the way, there was an article in Har Rets which is like the New York Times of Israel, an elevated, yes, liberal Israeli publication. word liberal american liberal yes american liberal uh but anyway there was peace in haret and the headline of peace in haret said the path to the witch this is the decision of the international court of justice uh on whether it is potentially genocide the piece of haret said the road to the H, this is the headline, the road to the ha is paved with public comments from Israeli leaders, which is exactly right, you just tell yourself if they are really saying these things right and, again , you have all these videos, uh, and you know.

One day I was talking to my daughter, who's not very political at all, she's in her 40s and she was talking about seeing what Israelis are doing to kids on Tik Tock and she said, "I can't watch Tik Tock, I just can." I don't watch these videos anymore, they are so horrible, right, this is a disaster for Israel, it is a PR disaster, John, we have been very happy to welcome the year 12 students, so their last year in the Ravenswood College high school, which is a prestigious school in the final year, we have some students here, we have a teacher from the school, I think he wants to ask a question and they will also ask one of the students to ask a question, if that It is possible, of course, yes, thanks for the talk.

Um, you mentioned the winners and losers referring to the United States, Iran and um Israel of this war, but I'm wondering, I'd like to hear what you think the impact will be on the 7.4 million Palestinians, the other party in the war. . long term they are obviously suffering right now, but my real question is really about the one state solution, you said the options are, um, a one state solution, two state solution, continuation of apartheid or cleanup ethnic cleansing and for those of us who believe that ethnic cleansing and apartheid are not acceptable and who want to see the maintenance of international law which leaves us with one or two states and I think many experts say that two states are not possible given the mosaic of illegal settlements.

What would have to change in the future to achieve a one-state solution? You know, like I said, did everyone hear the question? uh, I don't have a good answer for that, uh, I mean, as I said to these two gentlemen, uh, on my Left I hope I'm wrong and they're right about the possibility of a two-state solution. I think they are wrong. And as I made clear, I don't think there is any way to achieve a solution. one-state solution and I don't quite understand where this train is headed. I think Israel is in serious trouble. I think the Israelis will continue to push for ethnic cleansing.

I think that's what we're doing. To see, I think for the reasons I tried to explain here, from your point of view it seems to be the best solution. I don't think they can get away with it. I'm not 100%sure. I hope they can't do it. far from it, but where this all ends, you know, it goes back to the brief discussion I was having with Tom when Tom said, "Oh, Israel has a nuclear weapon, it's not going anywhere and you want to remember that South Africa had a nuclear weapon." nuclear". As I reminded Tom and apartheid in South Africa is gone, the kind of long-term future of Israel is in doubt for many reasons, many of which I haven't mentioned tonight for reasons related to Tim, but you have to understand that immediately after October. 7. 500,000 Israelis left the country 500,000 Israelis left Israel after October, yes, wow, yes, and you know.

The other day I was talking to someone who is in the Polish foreign policy establishment and he told me that you would be surprised how many Israelis are applying for a Polish citizenship, uh uh, a pardon, yes, Polish citizenship, uh, so that they can have a Polish passport and the same goes for other European countries, uh, so you just, no, I don't want to get into the centrifugal forces that are at play inside Israel because it's already too late at night, but this is a country that He just has a lot of problems and where this is all going.

I don't know, among them demographic challenges, now we have a question from one of the rivenwood students hi, I am a year 12 student at Ravenson School for Girls, the question I want to ask is basically looking at the US elections, how What do you think is the conflict in the Middle East and its impact? of non-state actors will influence the outcome of the upcoming US elections, which you mentioned earlier in your talk. Thank you. I'm jealous of all of you students. They are so young. It's depressing to think how old I am. Yes, it is a very interesting question.

What happens if Trump is elected? First of all, I think that in terms of the Middle East and East Asia it will have little effect. Well, the interesting question is whether it will matter in Europe with respect to NATO and with respect to Putin. We all know from the last time he was with Trump that he really wanted to flush NATO down the toilet. He has no use for NATO. He believes his European allies are freeloaders and would like to get rid of them. And he likes it. Putin, uh, this is not surprising and I really wanted to have good relations with Putin.

He lost on both counts. The mass where the Deep State, whatever you want to call it, defeated him. Now he is determined not to let that happen again if he wins. He is number one and he will bring a whole group of experienced people who served with him in the first term and who share his view of the world. He didn't have those people available in 2017 when he moved into the White House in January 2017. Now he feels and I think it's right that he can bring in a team of individuals and they collectively can defeat the number one and number two deep state in the Foundation.

Heritage, they are putting together a plan for what to do once they get back to the White House in 2025, so they will have the people who will have the plan or the grand strategy and then the question is can they make it work and again my initial point is that I think where they will try to fundamentally change things is in Europe and the question they have to ask themselves is do you think Trump, even with all the preparation that is now underway? Do you think Trump can defeat the deep state? I am a structuralist, as some of you know, students clearly know.

I think structure really matters and limits how much agency someone like Trump has, so I'm betting on the deep state with respect to NATO and with respect to Europe and I think if Trump or Biden win it won't matter much on the foreign policy. I think the die is cast here certainly in East Asia I think the die is cast in the Middle East. I mean what are you going to do in the Middle East. What is Trump going to do differently? Well, the Republican Party is clearly more pro-Israel than the Democrat. The party is correct, yes, but even there, because of what I told Tony about the lobby, the Democratic Party is full of people especially among the younger Democrats, who I think it's fair to say are hostile to Israel right now, but the Democratic Party Elite Elites, the people who run the country, are no different than the Republicans, right, it's tweetle D and tweetle dum uh and uh and Joe Biden will be the Democrat if the Democrats when will Donald be Trump If the Republicans and I just don't think they're going to make much of a difference, unfortunately we're running out of time, but I just want to wrap up and make a few comments about the CIS, two of our favorite quotes that you've heard me say. this before, first, John Stewart Mill, the famous English liberal thinker of the 19th century.

He said that anyone who only knows his own position knows little about it and what that means is that my friend, mentor and former teammate of C, Owen Harry, used it. To put it, and this is very relevant to the students in the room, take special care to understand your opponent's position and to understand it not in a characterized or superficial form but in its strongest form, because until you have refuted it in its strongest form, you will have I did not refute it at all and this is a necessary condition both to fully develop your own position and to attack your opponents successfully.

That's the first quote, our other favorite quote in the CIS is from the great public intellectual of the 20th century Walter Litman, also a realist in foreign policy and he said that we all think the same, no one thinks much now. I think tonight we heard a strikingly different view than what you'll hear in the Australian newspaper, the financial magazine The Wall Street Journal The Daily Telegraph. I only mention these articles because they are documents that you and I read regularly and I think it is fair to say that, on behalf of our colleagues and board members here at CIS John, we are very grateful for your presence here presenting the counterargument that you will hear from Brett Stevens in a month. time, join me and be thankful join me for decades.

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