Transcript [00:00] If you are Hamas, you have to be laughing at how easily you can play the international [00:06] and American news media. You can see even after just ten days since Hamas's October 7th [00:13] massacre, the media was fully ready to move on to the story that it that it knew so well and [00:20] was so comfortable telling, which is Israel has gone too far. Israel is unleashed, [00:27] vindictive. Israel is bombing without a care in the world. [00:34] This is The Honest Take, the show that goes past the headlines to find out what's actually true [00:39] about Israel, and about the people covering it. I'm Ben Chertoff, and my guest today is Elliot [00:44] Kaufman. He's on the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and along with his co-writer Yonah [00:49] Jeremy Bob of The Jerusalem Post. He spent two years getting into the room where Israel decided [00:55] how to fight the war, and he wrote the book on. [01:04] Quick favor before we start. Hit the subscribe button wherever you're listening, and if you've [01:09] got 20 seconds, please rate the show. That's the one thing that gets us in front of new people. Okay, here we [01:15] go. There's a version of the last two years you already know. You've seen the casualty numbers, the [01:22] word genocide, the hospital that was bombed on October 17th. That version got written fast, and [01:28] most of it got written before Israeli troops had even set foot in Gaza. Elliot Kaufman and his [01:34] coauthor, Yonah Jeremy Bob, spent the war building the other version, the one assembled from the [01:41] inside. Between them, they got all three members of the war cabinet: Netanyahu, Gallant, Gantz. They [01:48] got the intelligence chiefs. They got Jake Sullivan and Steve Witkoff on the American side, [01:54] and more than 100 senior Israeli military officials, and they did it while a war was still [02:00] going on, which is the astounding part and which is where we'll start. But what comes out is a [02:07] Netanyahu most people would not recognize. Not the man who wants to invade anything that moves, but a [02:13] prime minister who spent the opening weeks of the war putting the brakes on over the objections of [02:18] his own defense minister. It's an IDF that had no plan on the shelf for invading Gaza at all. It's [02:25] an aid operation that Israel, in the words of one of Elliot's own sources, quote, effed up royally, [02:31] unquote. And it's a press corps that ten days in started taking a terrorist's word for it and [02:38] never really stopped. We get into the strike that almost happened in Lebanon on October 11th, and [02:44] the monopoly Hamas was handed over what the world was allowed to see. And at the end, we come back [02:50] home to Brooklyn. And how a protest last year has eerie similarities to another [02:57] story. Elliot has reported at length on the Crown Heights riots of 1991. Elliot Kaufman, [03:04] welcome to The Honest Take. Thanks for having me on. So this book is [03:10] incredible in terms of the access that you and your co-writer Bob got, in terms of [03:17] the number of people you were able to interview. You're in New York. You're an editorial writer. [03:25] Your your coauthor is in Jerusalem, a reporter. Between you, you, between the two of you, you got [03:32] the prime minister, the defense minister, Gantz, the intelligence chiefs, Jake Sullivan, Steve [03:38] Witkoff and north of 100 senior Israeli military officials during a war while it was [03:45] still going on. Can you start at the beginning? How do you get that kind of access? And that's what [03:50] makes our book unique. I think, uh, you know, there have been already several books, good books about [03:56] the October 7th massacre, but there's really nothing else like this available on the war that [04:02] followed, and together we really can claim to offer this inside [04:09] story based on inside material from all of Israel's top leaders. Uh, one way to [04:16] get it is to write for the Wall Street Journal editorial page. That certainly helped, and to have [04:23] been doing so all throughout this war from October 7th on. Another way, [04:29] uh, my coauthor is the senior military correspondent at The Jerusalem Post. He's the he's [04:36] often the only English-language reporter in the room for these top IDF briefings. [04:43] Uh, and so, um, together we are writing on this topic, constantly working with [04:50] Israeli officials all the time over the course of the war, I would publish, um, major [04:56] interviews. We call them weekend interviews at the Wall Street Journal with Prime Minister Netanyahu, [05:03] uh, Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar, uh, Israeli [05:10] ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, and even Israeli historian, uh, Benny Morris. [05:17] Uh, and so I was speaking to all these people, their staffs, um, and [05:24] I think from their point of view, they want to tell the real story of what's happening and not [05:31] the, you know, the sort of anti-Israel propaganda that is flooding all of our social media feeds [05:37] and so much other media. And so to be able to speak to reporters who [05:43] are aiming at the truth, but at the same time are not totally hostile to them. That sounded [05:50] like a good deal. Uh, and so, uh, I developed those sources and relationships as we went. [05:58] Well, you. Being in the room and seeing the coverage that exists in the rest of the world, [06:04] where did where was that gap the biggest in terms of the rift between what was actually going [06:11] on and what was being reported? Well, I could point to a few things, [06:18] but I think, um, number one would have to be and really, for a long [06:25] time has been the understanding of Prime Minister Netanyahu himself. Mhm. In [06:32] the West, especially, his reputation is, as you know, wanting to invade anything that [06:39] moves and send Israeli troops all over. And he is a hawk. It's true when it comes to his to [06:46] the national security threats facing Israel. But, um, if you'd ask how he views [06:52] himself and certainly how many Israelis viewed him, especially before this war, it would be as a [06:58] conservative when it comes to the use of military force into sending Israeli troops. Uh, [07:04] he he himself has been wounded several, several times in combat. His brother, famously, Yoni, [07:11] killed during the hostage rescue mission in Entebbe, Uganda. Um, [07:19] he worries about Israeli soldiers and sending them into into harm's way. And so, so much [07:26] of the story that hasn't been told about this war, for better or for worse, is his [07:32] hesitation or his caution. At the very start of the war, when the question was, should [07:39] Israel strike north first and fight with Hezbollah in Lebanon rather than Hamas in Gaza? And [07:46] then also once Israel had chosen Gaza, why did it take three weeks from [07:53] October 7th until October 27th until Israeli troops entered Gaza? These are crucial [07:59] weeks while the world's media, um, turned on Israel. I think you I think you could [08:06] argue that happened ten days in, but certainly by three weeks in that turn had already happened, and [08:12] Israeli ground troops hadn't even started their mission. So there was this real caution from Prime [08:18] Minister Netanyahu, and it continued for the early part of the war. I think so much of the story of [08:25] the war, though, is how that changes over time and how Netanyahu comes to [08:31] outlast, exhaust or simply fire all of his internal [08:38] rivals. Um, and really, uh, persist in his determination [08:44] to keep the war going. And it's at that point that he and that he ends up making some of the [08:51] boldest decisions of the war, some of the riskiest decisions of the war in Lebanon, in Iran. But I [08:58] would argue some of the most successful decisions of the war. Do you think that [09:05] the media coverage in that time period after October 7th, before the ground invasion started, [09:12] when the media, when really the whole world was suddenly calling it a genocide, a war that hadn't [09:18] happened yet? Um, do you think that that actually did that affect the course of the war? Netanyahu's [09:25] decisions, the war room's decisions? Um, and how did that. I'm curious as to how [09:31] the the misreporting of the war shaped the actual war on the ground. You know what? I [09:38] think it affected certain people in the war room more than others, for instance, [09:46] Yoav Gallant, uh, Israel's then defense minister, uh, believed [09:52] after October 7th that Israel would have significant international support and be [09:59] able to fight a much longer war than usual because the world had seen what happened on [10:05] October 7th. Interestingly, Prime Minister Netanyahu was always more skeptical of that. I [10:11] think his greater exposure to the West, understanding how quickly the world could turn on [10:18] Israel despite what it had seen, and therefore when the world was changing, especially when the [10:24] atmosphere in the in the United States was changing, I think that had more of an effect on [10:30] Gallant and also on Benny Gantz, who was that third member of the initial war room [10:37] triumvirate. Um, both of them had expected more and therefore had more to be [10:43] disappointed. You know, it's worth looking at the different the different audiences here. I [10:50] mean, on the one hand, you can focus on the anti-Israel movement, and I think it is fair to [10:56] say that the anti-Israel movement, even in the US, backed Hamas's [11:02] October 7th attack, invasion, massacre. And that sounds like a, you know, strong, [11:09] provocative statement. But I think it's just a simple fact. If you look at, for instance, the [11:16] leading anti-Israel protest movement in the US, SJP, Students for Justice in Palestine, its [11:22] national organization on October 8th, 2023, sent out the most remarkable [11:29] toolkit to all of its campus chapters, instructing them on how to handle what had just happened. And [11:36] these are the campus chapters that would lead the protests at campuses across the country, [11:41] encampments and so forth. And in that, in that toolkit. What was said? [11:48] This was a historic win for the Palestinian resistance. Glory to our [11:55] resistance. Glory to our martyrs. There is no right way to resist, and there is [12:02] no wrong way. All of it is legitimate, SJP said. And if that wasn't clear enough, they actually [12:09] included a sample flier again, sent out to every campus chapter to advertise events. And [12:15] on that flier was a depiction of a Hamas paraglider. Right. Okay. Paragliding into Israel [12:22] to carry out that October 7th massacre. I can give you similar examples from Columbia University. [12:29] From Harvard University. Epicenters of this protest movement from those very first days when [12:35] it really was just Hamas's October 7th massacre. I can also give you examples from the Democratic [12:42] Socialists of America. Now, this rising force in American politics, which backed [12:49] Hamas's October 7th massacre, uh, endorsed and advertised events by pro-Hamas [12:56] groups and communist groups celebrating the massacre and then sent its own representatives [13:01] there to hear speakers do that, celebrate and praise that massacre. More examples from the [13:08] Council on American-Islamic Relations, American Muslims for Palestine. The list goes on and on. [13:15] That's where that movement was. But what I would tell you is Americans were not yet were not yet [13:22] there. Americans weren't immediately calling this genocide. That would take time. [13:29] And it was very interesting to watch over the course of this war, how that hard-line anti-Israel [13:34] critique would develop and win people over. Who weren't there from the very start. [13:41] How much did, um, did Netanyahu, did Gallant know about the campus atmosphere and that stuff that [13:48] was happening? I mean, from somebody who consumes probably more social media than is healthy. I knew [13:54] about that immediately, and it was shocking and terrifying to see. How much of that affected [13:59] decisions, do you think, inside, inside the war room, if it did at all? Well, if [14:06] if it had really affected the decisions, you might expect them to have planned for a much shorter [14:12] war. In the end, that isn't really what happened. Right. So I think, uh, what they were [14:19] focusing on was the Biden administration itself, and Prime Minister Netanyahu would tell me, [14:25] um, President Biden actually deserves extraordinary credit, despite all of the [14:31] disagreements they had, precisely because Netanyahu knew Biden had that left flank. [14:38] Biden was under extraordinary pressure from within his own party, from his own [14:44] Democratic Party base, activists, younger voters. And so [14:51] Israel was watching that insofar as it had an ability to pressure President Biden. And over the [14:58] course of the war, they would see that. I mean, one of the jokes that I would hear, um, from the [15:05] from the Prime Minister's Office in Israel was that President Biden is working in support of [15:12] the two-state solution: Michigan and Nevada. Those two, those [15:19] two, those two states. Worrying about the anti-Israel opposition in [15:25] Michigan in particular. And there was one month in particular of the war where it was just decision [15:32] after decision coming down to put pressure on Israel on the war, but also unrelated issues to [15:39] the war. One after the other. And it was clear to Israel's decision makers that President Biden was [15:45] under pressure and was and was responding to it in ways that made their jobs more [15:52] difficult. One of the things that's fascinating to read in your book is, is how Gallant [15:58] originally had almost immediately wanted to attack Hezbollah in the North. I [16:05] because assuming that there was going to be an attack from the north, which eventually there was, [16:10] and that Netanyahu was the one who was kind of putting the brakes on that, how how did he want [16:15] the war to unfold differently from how the prime minister reshaped it? [16:22] So Hamas attacks October 7th, kills 1,200, takes more than 250 hostages. [16:29] Hezbollah attacks October 8th. But not in the way that it could have. Hezbollah is [16:36] sitting there looming over Israel with 150,000 missiles. It could have launched thousands of [16:42] missiles on day one, and if it had, Israel's best estimates were Hezbollah would kill [16:48] 5,000 Israelis, dwarfing what Hamas had done. And that would just be day one. [16:55] Haifa would be devastated. The North smashed up. Ben Gurion Airport severely [17:02] damaged. About a third of the of the national electric grid taken off. And as we've heard, towers [17:08] toppling in Tel Aviv, all of that or all of that was a realistic assessment. And so [17:15] Gallant seeing Hezbollah fire only uh, it was, uh, several [17:22] dozen mortar rounds, mostly, but also, um, anti-tank missiles and rockets. [17:28] Gallant makes a prediction in Israel's war room in those early days. And what he says is, [17:35] um. Hezbollah is just waiting. Hezbollah is waiting for us to send all of our [17:42] forces to the south toward Gaza at that point. That's when Hezbollah is [17:49] going to strike with all it has. And so for weeks into the into the war, months, actually, Israel kept [17:56] an incredible, uh, proportion of its forces deployed on the northern front such that Israel [18:03] had more air power waiting there than it was using in Gaza for the first several weeks of the [18:09] war. Gallant's argument was that Israel cannot allow Hezbollah to strike hard [18:16] first. Israel must do that itself. And he had an entire plan ready to [18:22] go for Israel to take that fight to Hezbollah, activating not so much the the [18:29] pagers, which weren't actually fully ready at that point. But the walkie-talkies. Specifically [18:36] sabotage. They had previously been sabotaged, ready to blow them up and start [18:43] a really remarkable sequence of strikes which would destroy [18:50] much of, uh, Beirut, really send its entire population out of [18:57] there, um, and, uh, uh, decimate Hezbollah's [19:03] missile arsenal. Go after Nasrallah, all the senior leaders. I would say it was everything that you [19:10] saw in September 2024. Ultimately, when Israel did fight Hezbollah in a serious way, except [19:17] more so and more strongly and right at the start of the war, when the whole world [19:24] was looking at Gaza. Israel would instead strike north at Lebanon and it came [19:30] very, very close to happening. I'm not sure everybody appreciates this, but, um, Netanyahu, even [19:37] though he was opposed to it for various reasons, I can go into, mostly because it was such a massive [19:43] risk, uh, right at the start of the war. But Netanyahu at one point sent Israeli [19:50] planes in the air to carry out that that, um, campaign on October [19:57] 11th, 20, 2023. He did so because Israeli radar had picked up what they thought [20:04] were Hezbollah paragliders flying into Israel. In the end, he had to call those planes [20:10] back because it turns out on the radar, those weren't paragliders, those were geese, those [20:17] were birds flying in the air. And the entire war could have turned on exactly that [20:24] misreading of the of the situation. Do any of your sources have I mean, obviously this is more [20:30] armchair quarterbacking, but what would have happened had that attack been launched? Would it [20:35] have significant? I mean, obviously it would significantly change the course of events, but is [20:41] there any kind of plus or minus talk on that? Oh, [20:47] absolutely. And you know, from Gallant more than anyone because he still believes in this [20:53] fervently. And what he would tell you is, given the success Israel was able to have ultimately in [21:00] Lebanon with the pagers, with all the strikes, uh, in September 2024, it could have had that same [21:07] success, if not more so right at the start of the war. And what does that what does that then mean? [21:13] Number one, Israel's north doesn't have to be evacuated and fully depopulated for ten, 11 [21:20] months. Israel shrunk in those months. I mean, this was a vision of the destruction of Israel, where [21:27] one region after another suddenly becomes uninhabitable. Uh, none of that would have happened. [21:33] But I think more to the point about the war, Israel could have then shifted its forces to [21:40] Gaza rather than having to leave so many of them waiting, sitting around in the North for most of [21:46] the crucial part of the Gaza war. And let me just tell you practically what that means. One question [21:53] I get often is, um, why didn't Israel invade Gaza from the north and the [22:00] south at the start? Why did it wait so long to fight in Rafah, at the very south, Hamas's crucial [22:06] arms-smuggling hub with Egypt? Um, and the answer which people don't like to hear is [22:13] that Israel didn't have the manpower. It simply didn't. It had spent years making its army smaller, [22:20] so that it wasn't as much of a financial burden, and it had to keep so many troops ready for this [22:26] big escalation in the North. That whole time, if Israel could have its full, its full forces, [22:33] it might not have had to have done this sort of plodding, destructive military campaign in Gaza. [22:40] Start at the top and slowly make your way down to the bottom, allowing Hamas to flee at every step [22:46] of the process. It could have done both north and south at the same time. But what all of that [22:52] analysis there leaves out is that if it all goes according to plan, I think we forget that [22:59] this was only four days after October 7th. The IDF was [23:06] in shock. All Israel's leadership was in shock. Could they pull that off? Could [23:13] they trust Israeli intelligence to be exactly right after they had totally missed Hamas's [23:19] October 7th invasion? These are all huge gambles. And not only that, given what we know about how [23:25] the war went, it is likely that starting this massive, destructive war in Lebanon, Israel would [23:32] have very quickly run out of diplomatic capital with with the US, which was dead set against such [23:38] an attack. And it also would have quickly run out of ammunition. And then the question becomes, what [23:45] do you even do with Gaza? At that point, when you've used up so much politically and [23:51] militarily right at the start of the war? Yeah, the the decision going back to Rafah [23:58] to what you just mentioned, but like the the delay in that decision alone, just to to go into Rafah [24:05] because of the diplomatic repercussions that would come from it, which ended up, you know, not [24:10] being as you report it was not nearly what people had predicted it would be in terms of the length [24:16] of time it would take to clear, etc. Um, you. Argue that Israel handed [24:23] Hamas, uh, quote, a near monopoly on reporting from Gaza by not allowing foreign [24:30] press. And, and you quote our own Gil Hoffman, an HonestReporting alum, in saying that that was a [24:36] costly error. You know, I had I had Matti Friedman on the on the show a couple of months ago. He's [24:42] argued that even if you did let reporters in the foreign press into Gaza, just the nature [24:49] of being in under a totalitarian regime like Hamas there wouldn't they wouldn't have any [24:55] freedom to just walk around and report as things are. And it would just give the imprimatur of, of [25:02] ABC News, whereas it's actually still Hamas. Is there any way that that could have been played [25:08] differently that would have been more effective? Friedman may be right about [25:15] that. Um, I'm not sure it's a silver bullet, but what I was looking at there [25:21] is the hard-line anti-Israel critique which I had, which I had mentioned earlier, [25:28] and the way it succeeded is actually very simple. It [25:35] simply pretended Hamas was never there. Hamas was [25:41] not even a part of the story that was told. And I mean that in every way. [25:48] Uh, first, none of the videos that flooded our social media feeds had Hamas in it. It was never [25:55] seen because the only journalism coming out of there was Hamas journalism [26:01] coming out of Gaza. It was there in terms of talking about the [26:08] casualty toll, the death toll of the war. We would hear 20,000 Palestinians [26:14] killed, 40,000 Palestinians killed and so forth without even, you know, without even [26:21] mentioning how many of them were Hamas terrorists, were fighters in the war. Uh, it's [26:28] sort of obvious and astonishing, but when you never mention it, it's as if they weren't even [26:34] there in talking about aid. You know, you can say that Hamas was stealing aid, [26:41] diverting aid, taxing aid. And yet still Israel did various things wrong in how it handled the aid [26:47] situation in Gaza. That's a totally legitimate point of view. But the Gaza genocide activist [26:53] would never even mention any of those things in simply, in, in and simply, [27:00] um, pretend that Israel wasn't facilitating the transfer of massive, massive quantities [27:07] of, of, uh, humanitarian aid. And so the picture of the war that was transmitted [27:14] wasn't of Israel fighting a terror army of tens of thousands fighting with more than [27:21] 400 miles of tunnels built under every Gazan city, with hospital [27:27] headquarters, tunnels, um, underneath cemeteries, fighting out of schools and mosques [27:34] using human shields instead. The story of the war that emerged and that was [27:41] talked about constantly and that was shown via images, was Israel versus Palestinian civilians. [27:48] And I think that's what most of the world ultimately saw. Yeah. Not only did that was that [27:54] activists who were saying that and making that point, but I mean, it was it was large news [27:58] organizations who weren't reporting that Israeli aid was going in or putting up photos on the on [28:04] the front page of emaciated children who had preexisting conditions and, and claiming that that [28:10] was because of aid not getting in. You you work in one of the larger legacy [28:17] media worlds. Granted, the the Journal has been much better on a lot of this. Um, [28:24] it seems endemic now, not only to the activists, but to the actual reporting itself. You're inside [28:31] those rooms as well. How do you square up the two? Well, I mean, I should clarify that [28:38] I, I am a member of the editorial board. So we are kept separate [28:45] from the news side, really on all things. And so I'm not in those rooms. Right. You're in the [28:52] building. You know, in our rooms. Um, I think we were very clear on what was happening from the start. [28:58] But I wouldn't argue with you that the news media. Um, it was. I mean, if [29:05] you are Hamas, you have to be laughing at how easily you can play the international and [29:12] American news media. I mean, let's start ten days into the war. October [29:19] 7th, uh, 17th, uh, the bombing of al-Ahli Hospital [29:26] in Gaza. That, to me, is when the coverage shifts decisively. And from that point on, the new [29:32] narrative is already set. And so what happens then? You have news reports break out from [29:38] Hamas reporting out that at least 500 dead. Israel just bombed this hospital in the [29:45] heart of Gaza. And those are all the news headlines. Some of them, at the end, would have [29:51] "Hamas says." More often it would be "Gaza Health Ministry says," or just stated as fact. You had the [29:58] BBC say on the air, this must have been an Israeli bomb. We can't even really think of what else this [30:03] could. That was one of the most telling moments, because that it just it's such a window into [30:08] how they're thinking this has to be that immediately. Right away. Take the terrorists' word [30:14] for it. And what ended up happening is that it wasn't Israel. It wasn't even a bomb. It was a [30:21] Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. It didn't even hit the hospital. It hit the parking lot next to [30:27] the hospital, and there weren't anywhere near 500 dead, which, by the way, didn't stop Hamas's Gaza [30:33] Health Ministry from including, I think it was 471 dead in the death toll supposedly [30:40] from that strike. So everything about that story was wrong. And yet the media, you could see, even [30:47] after just ten days since Hamas's October 7th massacre, was fully ready to move on to the [30:53] story that it that it knew so well and was so comfortable telling, which is Israel has [31:00] gone too far. Israel is unleashed, vindictive. Israel is bombing without a care in the world. [31:06] That was their story. And even though they hastily corrected what happened on [31:13] October 17th, that narrative stuck and was and, um, was with us, [31:20] uh, for the rest of the war. And I would just emphasize, we're talking about in Gaza, two [31:26] years of this being the high-salience, let's say top three, top five [31:33] issue in the news every single day in America. And so if people want to talk about diplomatic damage [31:39] to Israel, that's why it was so high-salience every single day. Israel knew it was going to [31:46] lose that PR war. Really, whenever it has to fight in Gaza, it has to fight Palestinians. Um, but to [31:53] have that go on for so long like that, um, it dealt tremendous damage. You [32:00] count 33 BBC headlines on the GHF shootings and you say the IPC [32:07] cherry-pick, cherry-picked its data, but a senior Israeli official told you, quote, we effed up [32:13] royally on the PR with the aid, unquote. How much of the famine story was the press just cherry-picking, [32:19] which we obviously know is happening, and how much is the responsibility of Israel's PR [32:25] machine? I guess I would put it this way. Um, I don't think [32:32] Israel messed up on the PR there. I think Israel messed up, period. Um, I think [32:38] Israel knew that it was going to get unfair treatment on that issue, and [32:45] therefore it can't mess up in that way because every, every single failure, even if [32:52] really the blame should be shifted among, you know, three parties, all of it is going to go on Israel. [32:58] And what I would say is the move to roll out the Gaza Humanitarian [33:05] Foundation. Supplying aid directly to Gazans rather than allowing [33:11] Hamas to steal, divert and tax it every single day of the war. That came way too [33:18] late. It also didn't really make sense to roll it out after there had already been a couple months [33:24] of aid cut off. Now that controversial aid cutoff happened right after Israel had [33:31] flooded Gaza with aid during the second hostage deal. But if you're going to roll out a new aid [33:38] program, do it while Gaza is flush with aid, not after two months, once those supplies have [33:44] started to dwindle. What ended up happening was the GHF had no runway to get off the [33:51] ground, and so was the food situation in Gaza deteriorated. [33:58] The GHF was taking huge blame and was not able to ramp up and scale up as [34:05] quickly as was us was needed to put that story to rest. And so [34:11] there wasn't famine. The media got played over and over again, but the [34:18] situation was getting worse and Israel allowed Hamas to make it get worse. [34:25] And so the question for Israel how to handle that militarily, strategically, it [34:32] can blame the press and it's right to do so, and yet it still had to plan [34:38] ahead for that and be better on that issue than it ultimately was. Um, the only other [34:45] thing I would add there is that, uh, President Biden's statement upon the introduction of aid [34:52] to Gaza, October 18th, 2023 is worth remembering, and it is always [34:59] forgotten, I find. President Biden said, we are going to be sending this aid, but if [35:06] Hamas steals it, it will end. And he said, just as a matter of practicality, we won't be [35:12] able to keep on providing this aid if Hamas keeps on stealing it. And so, in Israel's war room, [35:19] there was huge frustration when Hamas would steal it. And the Biden response would [35:26] be, well, now you have to provide even more aid to account for Hamas stealing it. And [35:33] so while Israel's hostages were languishing, Israel found itself supplying its own enemy [35:40] so that so that Hamas could continue the fight. What was. [35:47] Of. Of all the things that you learned with all this access and what ended up in the book, what. [35:54] Was. What was one of the things that, um, you didn't really believe before you [36:01] started the book that that you, you know now or one of the really surprising things for for you. [36:08] You know, one thing I had heard, but I could only credit it so much. And then I found out it [36:15] really was true and just how much it shaped the war is that the IDF had [36:22] no plan for a full invasion of Gaza on October 7th. The [36:29] the IDF had nothing that it could pull off the shelf for: this is how we invade Gaza, and we've [36:36] all trained on this, and we're all ready and we're going to do it. And I think what that tells you is [36:41] just how far from everybody's minds it was the IDF, Prime Minister Netanyahu himself. I mean, you [36:48] can read his 2022 memoir in which he writes about why he wasn't countenancing a full [36:55] invasion of Gaza, by the way, he actually predicts pretty much what happened. He says, [37:02] um, we would lose thousands of Israeli troops. We would end up killing tens of [37:08] thousands of Palestinians at huge diplomatic costs, and we had bigger [37:15] fish to fry. Iran. He actually mentioned Syria at that time, um, as well. But, uh, [37:22] so October 7th happens. The thought is, okay, let's not do the same thing that we've already [37:29] done. The Biden administration is actually advocating and pressing Israel hard. Do not do a [37:34] full ground invasion of Gaza even right after October 7th. What they say is do special forces [37:40] raids and airstrikes. Prime Minister Netanyahu answers. But we've already tried that four times [37:47] in four previous Gaza wars, and that's what led us here. So they, you know, have to do something more, [37:53] uh, to put an end to this threat, overthrow Hamas. And yet the IDF has no plan. And so [38:00] that crucial first week of the war. Gallant, IDF chief Halevi, are actually [38:07] just working on taking something old from 2008 and up and updating it so that it even fits the [38:14] current IDF and could even theoretically be actionable. Then, after that, Prime [38:21] Minister Netanyahu is getting all kinds of advice from the Biden administration, saying that your [38:27] troops are going to be walking into a death trap. You're going to lose on the ground in Gaza City, [38:33] because Hamas has prepared this territory for more than 15 years precisely to bleed you there, [38:39] precisely to trap you. And so Prime Minister Netanyahu says, shouldn't we at least train our [38:46] soldiers on the plan before we send them in? Um, and so that's what [38:52] Israel does subsequently. And that's how you get those lost weeks of the war, when you could have [38:59] done, when Israel could have done so much. In those first weeks after October 7th, there were so much [39:05] harder to do, let's say, in May 2024 when people were yelling about [39:11] Rafah. Okay, what you could do in the first week of the war is not what you could do. A year later or [39:17] two years later, it would be at a much greater cost. And so, you know, when I [39:24] think about Israel's lack of planning in Gaza, what I think is it showed constantly. [39:30] Israel seemed to be halting, unsure of what to do next, whether it was going to go all the way or [39:37] not in the way that you'd never saw in Lebanon or in Iran in the 12-Day War, when [39:44] Israel executed things that had been planned for more than a decade, and really stunning sequences [39:51] of strikes that left Hezbollah unable to respond. That left Iran looking like a paper [39:57] tiger in the 12-Day War. And so I think planning had everything to do [40:04] with how this war went on every front. It is the book [40:11] is a series of, you know, astounding victories and then setback and astounding victories and then [40:17] setback. And it really, you know, like you were just saying, it's not that there was never the, the, the, [40:23] the one fell swoop. Um, if you, if you will, you know, as the war went on, [40:30] Hamas uses its own population, uh, sacrifices its own population as a [40:36] strategy. Um, how how does Israel, how do Western [40:42] countries fight a war like that? Is there a way to do it better than they did? [40:50] Well, I don't think there's a way to do it that escapes this kind of criticism. When you're going [40:57] to have a response like, say, the one from Amnesty International. Okay. Amnesty International's [41:04] October 7th, 2023 headline was civilians pay the price on both [41:10] sides for an unprecedented escalation in Gaza and Israel on October 7th [41:17] itself. It's both sides. Then you you know, fast forward to an Amnesty International accuses [41:23] Israel of genocide, changing its own definition of genocide in order to be able to do so. The first [41:30] sentence and people think I'm making this up because it's so on the nose. But the very first [41:34] sentence of that Amnesty International report is on the 7th of October, [41:39] 2023, Israel launched a ground invasion of the occupied Gaza [41:46] Strip. Now, if that is your framework for what happened on October 7th and the war that followed. [41:53] Then you can see it the way they do, but it becomes very, very difficult to see how you're [41:58] going to have any kind of successful war against an enemy like that. But what I'll tell you is that, [42:05] uh, I think, you know, I was asked, did Israel go too far in Gaza? [42:12] And I said, no, I don't think Israel went too far. I think it fought for too long. And a big part [42:19] of why it fought for too long is because Israel had this raid-and-leave strategy [42:26] for most of the war, such that it would raid one area of Gaza, root out all the Hamas from [42:33] that area, and then leave the area, and then, lo and behold, Hamas would go back in. Hamas would [42:39] flee somewhere and then return once Israel's troops left. And so Israeli troops would have to [42:44] come back and they would have to fight in the same neighborhoods. Two, three, four, even five times. [42:51] And that's partly why you see so much of the destruction in those areas, because they had [42:56] battle after battle there instead of just one. And so the question is, they're not stupid. Why did [43:03] they leave these areas? And very quickly you get some interesting answers. One is, [43:09] well, the Biden administration was in charge. Any Israeli attempt to stay in an area and [43:16] even start governing the people of that area, providing them services and so forth. Sticking [43:22] around that would have been seen as the start of an occupation, and that would have been a red line [43:28] for the Biden administration. But it wasn't just the US, you know, the IDF itself, [43:34] with the support of a great many Israelis, opposed any kind of occupation at all costs. [43:41] The last thing that they wanted was to have to rule over more Palestinians. And so [43:48] they really, really avoided that, which left really only two options. Are you going to let [43:55] Hamas stay in control of these people, or will you install the Palestinian Authority, [44:02] which Hamas easily defeated in Gaza, uh, 17 years prior? And the [44:09] PA has only gotten weaker since and less popular since. So presumably Hamas could easily do that [44:15] again. Neither of these were good options. Um, and you know what? One thing I learned [44:21] reporting on this war was that General David Petraeus in the US, who had [44:28] commanded the surge in Iraq, actually told Yoav Gallant, Israel's defense minister, [44:35] exactly this before Israel invaded Gaza. Gallant went to Petraeus [44:41] for advice. Petraeus told him, uh, you have to do an Iraq-style [44:48] civil-military counterinsurgency campaign. Take territory, govern [44:55] the territory, build up the territory. And Gallant said, we've never done that before. We don't have a [45:01] we don't even have a counterinsurgency manual. How can we do this? And that's, you know, a fair point, [45:07] and I'm not sure there was there was support in the world or in Israel for that kind of plan. And [45:12] you can point to Iraq and say even there there were difficulties with that plan. You know, God [45:17] knows. Um, uh, but in the end, I think Gallant's raid-and-leave strategy [45:24] was left with very few defenders in Israel on the right, on the left, in the center. And [45:31] once Trump came into office and after that second hostage deal, we saw Israel abandon [45:38] that strategy and start holding 25% of Gaza, 50%, 75% and then closing in [45:44] on Gaza City, what could be close to 100%. And that's when we saw [45:51] Hamas buckle under pressure. And I think that's also where we see many of the [45:58] biggest achievements of the war in that even after that final hostage deal, Israel returning [46:04] everyone, which top IDF command hadn't seen coming. Um, Israel was still [46:11] able to now hold on to more than half of the Gaza Strip until Hamas disarms. I think it [46:17] had to hold that territory earlier. Um, and that would have helped the war go [46:24] quicker and be less destructive for Gazans. So while your book was coming. [46:31] Out, um, a film premiered at the Venice Film Festival called NAZA. It's going to be [46:38] premiering in New York, I think this week or the week that we're recording this. It, of course, broke [46:43] records with a 25-minute standing ovation. Um, the. In the trailer, an anonymous witness is [46:50] asked about the largest number of expected civilian deaths ever approved in a single strike [46:56] in Gaza. And he says there were there was approval for up to 500. Is this, you know, you interviewed [47:03] the people who would have been making those decisions. Does that square up at all with [47:07] anything that you were you were reporting? So 500 would be [47:14] very surprising to me because, uh, one incident that we go into in some [47:20] depth is the strike on Hamas's military commander, the guy who led the October 7th [47:27] massacre, Mohammed Deif. And there Israel had authorized for [47:33] 70 or 50 civilian casualties along with him. And this is Hamas's legendary [47:40] number one right military guy. And so for someone else to be 500, I would be [47:47] surprised. But if that were the case, I don't think necessarily it would prove what they [47:54] are trying to prove. For instance, I remember hearing a very senior US military legal [48:00] advisor discuss how the US had the ability to kill the top Taliban leadership [48:07] early on in the war in Afghanistan, but decided not to because there would be some 100 to [48:14] 200. If I'm remembering this correctly, civilian casualties along with it. [48:21] Okay, fine. They, you know, backed off. We won't do it. The Taliban was able to [48:28] cohere as an organization and keep on fighting in a war that would drag on and on and kill [48:34] thousands and tens of thousands and many more than that. And now you have the Taliban in charge [48:41] of Afghanistan again. So military decisions like that, you can always say, be more [48:47] cautious. Accept less and less collateral damage. But that isn't always the most moral [48:54] decision. And I think that's something that military commanders have to grapple with. And what [48:59] this film seems to do is take that grappling with civilian casualties and say [49:06] it was too cavalier, and therefore what Israel was doing was genocide. Rather than look at what [49:13] Israel had just faced on October 7th, and the need to accept higher risk both to Israelis [49:20] and to Palestinian civilians in order to carry out a suddenly far more urgent [49:26] military campaign. It's precisely that calculation of civilian casualties that [49:33] shows you that Israel wasn't operating indiscriminately, that Israel wasn't trying to [49:39] kill as many Palestinians as it could. As people say, I think that narrative of the war is [49:46] one that has become popular, but that cannot survive scrutiny that [49:53] crumbles at first contact with reality, with specificity, and with deep reporting [50:00] into Israel's war room and the decisions that it was actually making, which is to say, whether to [50:06] invade Rafah at all, if it wanted to just kill Palestinians. What? Why was that even? Why? Why was [50:13] that even a question? Why did it come so close to fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon first, and just [50:19] telling Gaza and the Palestinians there, you know. We'll leave that off to the side. The reason is [50:24] because Israel and its war room were making difficult military and [50:31] strategic decisions, faced with often impossible choices precisely because of the way [50:37] Hamas structured this war, guaranteeing it to become the kind of deadly, destructive battle that [50:44] it that it was. What what is your takeaway from this war as a whole? Well, I think a big [50:51] part of it is what perspective you look at this from. You know, often we think about, let's say, [50:58] Netanyahu's perspective. And he was very clear that Hamas had to be overthrown and Hamas hasn't [51:05] been overthrown. And therefore, you can you can tell yourself this war was a was a failure. [51:12] And certainly there were failures, especially in Gaza. But try to look at this war from the vantage [51:18] point of Iran's regime, okay? Their intention was to destroy [51:25] Israel. The regime had been working on this for decades, making [51:32] multibillion dollar investments on all the fronts Gaza, Lebanon, [51:38] Yemen, Iraq, even, certainly Iran itself working on a nuclear weapon, a ballistic missile [51:45] program to surround Israel with this ring of fire that would one day engulf it, [51:51] destroying Israel. Hamas was part of that plan, but its leader, Yahya [51:59] Sinwar, didn't want to wait. Sinwar figured he could set this all into [52:06] motion himself, and in that way, bring in the rest of that Iranian terror axis. And [52:13] so what happened once Sinwar knocked over the one domino? What else fell? If [52:19] you are Iran's regime and you are looking at this, what you see is Hamas has been smashed. [52:26] It's lost more than half of its territory. It's lost its crucial arms-smuggling hub on the [52:33] border. Its leaders killed, missile arsenal a fraction of what it once was. [52:40] Hezbollah has been devastated. That existential threat looming over Israel, which, by the way, that [52:46] missile arsenal was supposed to defend Iran itself and deter Israel from ever attacking Iran. [52:53] Hezbollah is no longer that existential threat to Israel. It's lost its leaders, commanders, most [53:00] of its missile arsenal and its elite invasion force that was looming on Israel's border because [53:07] Israel took Hezbollah out of the fight, knocked it out of the fight. Syria's Assad regime fell, [53:14] allowing Israel to destroy most of the Syrian military. That means Iran's proxy axis [53:21] has lost its critical supply hub. And then you look at Iran itself. And even though [53:28] Iran has scored some victories in this latest Iran war. Already we see the Strait of [53:34] Hormuz starting to, um, slip away from its grip, [53:41] and we see Iran under a US naval blockade. Who would have seen that coming on [53:47] October 6th, 2023? And all of the immense economic devastation of of Iran, together [53:54] with its industrial base, defense, industrial base, political leaders, commanders and all the [54:01] rest. And of course, more important than any of that, Iran's nuclear program. [54:08] Because of that 12-Day War in June 2025, Iran's nuclear program lies in [54:15] rubble. As a result of this war, which Sinwar set into motion. So while [54:22] Israel has faced, you know, has borne immense diplomatic costs, has suffered [54:28] in terms of public relations. Those are two existential threats. Iran's nuclear program, [54:35] Hezbollah's missile program you can even throw in Iran's missile program, although results there are [54:40] somewhat mixed. But you have these existential threats that have been pushed off by [54:47] some years. Which is which I think if you had if you had told [54:54] somebody that before this war that Israel could could do that against Iran's nuclear [55:01] program and against Hezbollah's missiles, uh, that would be seen as a tremendous strategic [55:07] victory. And so we don't know right now, between those military victories and those diplomatic [55:14] defeats which will last and which will prove ephemeral. My own view is that it's what [55:21] Israel and what the US does now and, you know, for the next couple of years, which will ultimately [55:27] answer that question. I want to segue to something a little closer to where I'm sitting right [55:34] now in Crown Heights in 2025, Within Our Lifetime, which is one of the more militant [55:42] pro-Palestinian anti-Israel groups, organized a protest at 770 Eastern Parkway, [55:48] which of course is the the headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch. And the. The poster said that they were [55:55] going to flood Crown Heights to drive Zionists out of Crown Heights. It ended up there was some [56:02] confrontation, some of the reporting then, uh, portrayed it as a mob of angry Lubavitcher [56:09] attacking protesters, which, if you watch the footage, was kind of the opposite of what actually [56:14] happened. You reported on really in admiration of that, that [56:20] event, the Crown Heights riots in 1991 for somebody who is too young to [56:27] remember that, or who has never heard of of what happened. Can you give me a quick summary of the [56:33] Crown Heights riots, and then what you found in terms of the the discrepancies in reporting after [56:38] the fact to what actually happened? Sure. So I wrote about that for its, [56:45] uh, 30th anniversary in 2021. And I did so [56:52] because people don't believe it when you tell them that [56:58] arguably the worst antisemitic attack incident, call it what you will [57:05] happened in 1991, in New York City. They can't believe it when you tell [57:11] them that for three straight nights. Jews had to hide in their homes as people [57:17] outside yelled for their blood and tried to tear down their doors and threw bricks [57:24] through windows and destroyed their cars. Um, you have Jews getting [57:31] beaten up and stabbed in the streets. One of them, Yankel Rosenbaum, would die. [57:38] Um. Uh, it could have been many, many more than that. And the NYPD, until the [57:44] final night of the riot, uh, would really stand by and let it happen. And that New [57:51] York's political leadership would stand by and let it happen. And the media writing [57:58] about it would try to fit it into a preexisting narrative, which was racial [58:05] clashes in Brooklyn. You know, 20th-century America knew that story. Okay. Uh, racial [58:11] clashes, whites and blacks. And there's a whole narrative, and each side knows what side they take [58:17] of that story. How do you understand? How do you know? Understand? It is a riot. Unacceptable. It was [58:22] the voice of the unheard. And we have to look at what social problems caused this. And, you know, the [58:28] New York Times launched into the whole familiar story when the actual story was [58:34] one minority group, uh, really carrying out a sort of pogrom against [58:42] another. Well, the actual story wasn't white-Black racial tension wasn't something about [58:49] racism, but was antisemitism. And right at that event, you have all the [58:55] slogans of, say, the Nation of Islam attacked, um, attacking Jews about, [59:02] uh, various imagined things historically really crazy, crazy things like that, and people openly [59:09] claiming to be finishing the job that Hitler started, um, that was happening on the streets [59:16] of New York City. And the reason why it wasn't confronted sooner than it was is because [59:23] of, I think you would have to say, political factors. And as I speak to Jews in different [59:30] parts of the country, of the world, in Canada, say, they ask questions like, [59:37] is the police on our side anymore? Would people come to our neighborhood and and attack us? [59:44] Um, or are there political factors holding back the police? And at that point in time, the [59:51] early 1990s, New York City, it had been made very clear to any senior police [59:58] officer that the that the quickest way to throw your entire career in the [60:04] garbage was to seriously confront. At that time, black rioters in New York [60:11] City, that was the way to do it. And so whatever you do when that happens, do nothing until you [60:18] have been given an explicit order from the political echelon, which at that time there [60:25] were all sorts of conspiracy theories, had there been some order to stand down? There's no evidence [60:31] for that. But the truth of what happened is, in a way, even more damning. There were no orders given [60:37] at all. They simply sat back and let it happen. Um, hoping that [60:44] somebody else would solve the issue. And I think that now is something that a lot of Jewish [60:49] communities can relate to, uh, political leaders who might say the right things but [60:56] aren't going to take action. Uh, and then when it when it comes down to it, the police, I think [61:03] lessons have been learned. But police really needing political guidance before they do [61:07] something politically controversial. And if if those orders if that instructions if [61:14] that isn't there, well then Jews really can be, uh, abandoned, even in the heart of New [61:21] York City. Night after night, when there are rioters, uh, coming for them in the streets. So [61:28] with all of this, with what's going on stateside in terms of the rise in antisemitism, what's [61:33] going on in Israel, in terms of successes and failures in the war? What is giving? What gives you [61:39] hope? Uh, after coming out of all this reporting and writing. What gives me hope is that the [61:46] interest based case, the realist case for supporting Israel, has never been [61:53] stronger. Okay, not only have the Abraham Accords survived this war, which was not at all guaranteed, [61:59] and they're actually going stronger. I think we'll be hearing more about that before too long. But, um, [62:06] but Israel itself has shown what it can do as an ally. I mean, to be able to [62:13] take that risk at the start of the 12-Day War. Go to war with Iran, America's leading [62:20] regional adversary. And own the skies of Iran and actually pave a path [62:26] to Iran's most defended nuclear facility, Fordow, um, [62:33] such that American bombers would have a clear shot. I mean, right now, for instance, [62:40] America needs Saudi Arabia to act against the Houthis. America really needs it. Okay. For the [62:47] sake of this continuing Iran war, the Saudis spend $70 billion a year on defense. [62:53] That's more than Iran. That's more than Israel. And yet, do they have [63:00] the will to fight? Have they ever shown. We haven't seen that from them. And so if you're [63:07] an American president who needs a regional ally to be able to take care of various [63:14] threats and fight, so that in large part, the US doesn't always have to. Who are you going to [63:21] build that regional order around? It seems clear the answer is Israel. And Israel has [63:27] demonstrated that on front after front, remarkable capabilities, military, intelligence [63:34] and the like. And so that does give me optimism. When I look at the political [63:41] scenario, I do see cause for pessimism, but I wonder if it will [63:48] last. And here's what here's what I mean by having such a high-salience war go on for so long. [63:54] There's no question Israel has paid a price with US public opinion. And yet we did see [64:01] something like this coming. I mean, it's not exactly a new story in the Democratic Party, a [64:07] decline in support for Israel. When you have somebody like Bernie Sanders, say, be, you know, a [64:14] leading figure or even the leading figure in the Democratic Party. You do wonder how long [64:20] before there will be a turn like this, uh, in the Republican Party, you see [64:27] weakening as well. Uh, and when you and when you look at somebody like Tucker Carlson, [64:34] for instance, what he was able to do is, I think, give young [64:40] Republicans permission to go with the cultural flow on Israel by telling them that [64:47] actually adopting the far-left narrative on Israel is even harder right, is even harder right-wing [64:54] on Israel. If you pair it with a paranoia about Jewish [65:00] subversion. And so when I look at that show, the subtext of, say, the Tucker Carlson show isn't that [65:06] all Jews are evil, it's that all evil is Jewish, and that is a [65:13] message that is being that is flooding. Let's say, um, social media feeds on the right, on [65:20] the left. So there is real reason for worry. Real reason to fight back on these questions. [65:27] What I want to see is what happens when, for the first time in three years, Israel isn't the number [65:34] one or the number two story in the news every single day. I think then you could see that [65:41] some of these military victories in what Israel has shown itself capable of, that [65:48] lasts that realist base case for Israel is as strong as ever, and some [65:55] of what I think can only be described as a moral panic and a real hysteria about Israel. You talked [66:02] about a 25-minute standing ovation. You know, a sitcom could be 22 minutes. So a full 25-minute [66:09] sitting there. That sounds to me like a moral hysteria. Once that gives way, I think [66:16] we will see large regional opportunities for Israel going forward. Elliot [66:23] Kaufman, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. [66:31] So the first draft is never corrected. And that's the thread running under all of this. Al-Ahli was [66:37] a rocket that landed in a parking lot. And the correction never caught up to the headline. Crown [66:43] Heights was a pogrom that got filed as a race riot, and we still think of it that way today. But [66:48] I asked Elliot at the end what gives him hope? And I want to leave you with his answer rather than [66:54] mine. He said the case for Israel that's actually getting stronger isn't the moral one that [67:00] everyone is fighting over. It's the practical one. A country that can own the skies over Iran and [67:05] clear a path to Fordow is the ally you build a regional order around, and he thinks that fact [67:12] outlasts the argument. His bet is that a lot of what we're living through right now is a moral [67:18] panic, and that panics end. I don't know if he's right, but it's worth sitting with the idea that [67:24] the loudest part of this might also be the most temporary. If this gave you something to think [67:29] about. Do me a favor and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. It's genuinely the thing [67:36] that helps new people find the show. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, or Spotify so you don't miss the [67:42] next show and follow @HonestReporting on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X for the work [67:48] behind these conversations. Elliot's book, written with Yonah Jeremy Bob, is The War Room, and [67:55] it's out now. I'm Ben Chertoff. This has been The Honest Take, and we'll see you next time.
