EVENT TRANSCRIPT: Is a Full-Scale War Between Israel and Hezbollah Imminent?
DATE: 31st July 2024, 4pm
SPEAKERS: Giora Eiland, Barak Seener
EVENT CHAIR: Barak Seener
Barak Seener 0:03
Good afternoon. Welcome to the latest Henry Jackson society event, which is most apt is a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah imminent. Northern Israel is under attack continually. 60,000 of Israel’s northern residents have been evacuated from their homes as Hezbollah continually sends barrages of rockets. There’s the threat that the range of rocket attacks will increase, not only targeting military bases in the north of Israel, but IDF bases throughout the country, and also threatening critical infrastructure. Israel wants to avoid a major war. However, at the same time, it cannot mean to allow Hezbollah to maintain its military capacity. We have to remember that there is about 200,000 rockets and drones that are currently aimed at Israel, and Israel cannot afford to ignore that the status quo is not tenable. Where in the last 24 hours we’ve had the elimination of Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s most senior military official in a strike in Beirut, as well as the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ main political representative in Iran. We are very, very lucky to have with us today, Major General retired Giora Eiland who is former head of Israel’s national security council, a former IDF General, who held key positions as head of operations directorate J. Three, and as head of the planning directorate J. Five. During his tenure in the IDF, and as head of the National Security Council, Giora Eiland played a central role in Israel significant strategic decision-making processes, positioning him as the highest level of security, both within Israel and in the international stage. Currently, Euro Ireland serves as a senior consultant and commentator on strategic affairs in the media. Giora, thank you so much for joining us. I would like to just simply start off with an initial question for you to take it from there: is a war between Israel and Lebanon inevitable? And if it is, should Israel preempt the rising threat from Hezbollah, to avoid large scale war in the region? And how would it do so?
Giora Eiland 2:55
Well, I don’t think that the war between Israel and Hezbollah is inevitable, as you said, simply for the reason that neither side really wants to have a total war. And more than that, actually, no one wants to see a total war between Israel and Lebanon. And I’m saying Lebanon and not Hezbollah, in a moment I’ll explain why. And, of course, Israel is not interested in such a war, the people of Lebanon are not interested. Hezbollah is not interested. Iran, at least at this point, is not interested in total war. And certainly, all the possible parties, especially France, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and other parties that might have some stake in this area. So a war might be a result of either, let’s say uncontrolled escalation, or because one of the sides might change their mind. But I’m not sure that this is something that is going to occur in the near future. But with your permission, I want to make two general remarks. And these two points are essential if we want to understand what the real background is and why we find ourselves with such a delicate situation today. What are these two points, one of them is more political, and the other is more, let’s say professional or military. From the political point of view, the Iranian regime from the days of Khomeini to the days of Ali Khamenei continuously said in a very explicit and clear words, that the main goal is to eliminate the State of Israel or to wipe Israel off the map said openly. And they say again and again. So this is the vision that the State of Israel will be destroyed. Now, this was a general vision until something like 10 years ago, but 10 years ago, 12 years ago, and the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, who was by the way, intercepted by the Americans about four years ago, but he was a very, very charismatic leader, the commander of the Al Quds , which is the main body of the Revolutionary Guard of the Iran, he actually developed a plan that equally Ring of Fire. Ring of Fire is a very famous song of Johnny Cash, a very well-known American country, musician, but saying it with a smile, when Qasem Soleimani spoke about the Ring of Fire around Israel, he actually develops a plan that had four pillars. Number one, he said, Israel does have enemies, but not enough enemies. So Hezbollah and Hamas by themselves don’t create such a terrible threat to Israel. So we Iran have to develop some other additional enemies. And they began to build the pro-Iranian militias in Syria, in Iraq and in Yemen. And they believed that by creating additional fronts against Israel, and also, of course, to encourage the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to be ready to operate against Israel, Israel will not be able to resist again, against such strong coalitions of so many enemies that practically speaking are actually surrounding Israel. So, this is one pillar. The second one as I said, our proxies should get the best possible Iranian technology. And contrary to many other countries that did supply the proxies, some weapons, but never the best weapons, Iran gave all their proxies, the best Iranian technology, and I’m speaking about Hezbollah, of course, but also the Houthis, and all other militias and I refer to very advanced missile systems, including precise missiles, very sophisticated drones, anti-aircraft missiles, a very strong and robust communication system, which is fully encrypted, etc. And so actually they beat a very robust and strong-armed forces. And not only, let’s say some kind of militias, the third element is to establish special forces that will be deployed so close to the border of Israel, so in few minutes, not even a few hours that can actually absorb, absorb and can conquer a significant part in Israel, and the main two forces are Redwan of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Nukhba, the Palestinian or the Hamas Special Forces that unfortunately succeeded in their attack on October 7. And the false element in this, let’s say very, very Korean plan is to make sure that Iran can control all those proxies, and when Iran decides, the time has come to initiate the war against Israel, they will be able to synchronize and to coordinate all those forces, and Qasem Soleimani believed that Israel would not be able to fight simultaneously against so many enemies. This is the ring of fire plan based on the ideas of Qasem Soleimani, which is the, let’s say, operational translation to the vision of Ali Khomeini. And we have to understand that this is the main ideology and the main efforts that Iran made in the past ten years, is to make sure such a let’s say a plan can be carried out successfully. The second thing that we have to understand is that all those enemies that Israel face, whether it is Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and others are not terrorist organization, in the lesser simple let’s say perception of where what is terrorist organization. We are not talking about few hundreds or a few thousands people with Kalashnikov and RPG that behave in a very bad way, but they suffered from terrible inferiority compared to the advanced weapon system of the West. Actually, we are speaking about very advanced armed forces. All of these enemies, especially Hezbollah, they do have the Air Force, they have their navies, they have the ground forces, Special Forces, and I already described some of their abilities. So, if we speak about the arsenal of Hezbollah, you mentioned the figures, I don’t think that there are many countries in the world that have such an arsenal of 200,000 rockets and missiles, as I said, most of them are or some of them, at least can cover all the range of Israel. Many of them are already precise weapon systems. Some of them have a very large warhead and they can cause a terrible devastation to any country, including Israel. And if we take, for instance, the Houthis in Yemen that can launch ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and UAVs to a range of 2000 kilometers, I don’t think that there are many countries of the world that have such, let’s say great advanced military capacity. So we’re speaking about very advanced Armed Forces that are operating against us. And I would even say more than that, except the people, the personal themselves that are either Lebanese or Iraqi or Syrian or Yemeni, all other elements of this armies are Iranian. The motivation is Iranian and ideology is Iranian, the technology is Iranian, the noise is Iranian, the decisions are made in Iran. So, we are speaking about actually, Iranian forces deployed, some of them very, very close to Israel, with a very clear intent to destroy Israel. This matter I have to be well understood in advance. Now, let’s speak about Lebanon and it will bring me to the specific question that you asked. Again, the perception about Lebanon is a very false one. The, let’s say, regular perception in the West about Lebanon is that yes, there is Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is a bad organization, terrorist organization, as it is called, that is actually sponsored and directed by Iran. And at the same time, there are the good Lebanese, and this is the Sunnis, the Druze, the Christians, and Lebanon is a real democratic country, they have a lot of Western values, they have a free economy, they have a free press, they have all the institutions of presidency, and the parliament and elections and representatives of the UN, etc. Even the president of the ICJ in The Hague is a Lebanese diplomat. So, this is some kind of an example of our, let’s say, respectful and moderate (view) of the Lebanese. Now, this is the perception of the West. And many people in the West say, since this is the reality of Lebanon, so we the West, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, United Nations and others should try to help, let’s say moderate the good people in Lebanon, vis-a-vis, the bad guys of Hezbollah. Now this perception is part of being correct. The real situation in Lebanon is entirely different. About 20 years ago, a real strong coalition was made between two groups. On one hand Hezbollah. And the second party is a small group of a very, very, very wealthy Sunnis and Christians in Lebanon, that said, well, let’s work together, let’s establish unity government, that Hezbollah and those people will be part of this coalition. And let’s exploit the country, we, the let’s say, the moderate good, good guys will be in charge of all the civilian activities, and Hezbollah will be, practically speaking, the only real military force in Lebanon. And this agreement works very well. And every decision in Lebanon is, is made by direct talk between the two parties of the coalition. And of course, you cannot nominate the president in Lebanon if Hezbollah does not agree, you cannot sign any, let’s say political agreement with other countries without the full support of Hezbollah, etc. So, it is not exaggeration to say that the Hezbollah is actually controlling Lebanon and since Iran is controlling Hezbollah, you can say that Lebanon, the state of Lebanon is controlled by Iran. And this is not exaggeration. This is exactly what is really happening. Now, why it is important, if a real war breaks out between, or total war between Israel and all the forces that attack us from the North, then Israel would make a terrible mistake if we try to fight on with Hezbollah. If Israel tries to fight only Hezbollah, it will be disaster for Israel. Why? Because the huge abilities of Hezbollah enable them to endure a long war against Israel, and they can create a terrible devastation to many of the vital assets of the State of Israel. As I said, many precise weapons systems that can reach every target in Israel, and they can destroy your power stations, desalination projects, hospitals. train stations, etc. And even if we had a very, very advanced anti-missile system, I’m not sure that we can fight successfully against such a huge number of missiles that might be launching simultaneously against us. Many of them would penetrate and cause, as I said, a terrible damage to a small country of Israel, that is fully dependent on very advanced and modern infrastructure. So, if such a war continues our lasts, let’s say many, many months, Israel will lose this war. Now, Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah does not really care and is ready to sacrifice many fighters and he has a lot and for him, it will not be very hard to recruit new people if he wants, because Hezbollah can offer much better salary than any other, let’s say, respectful business in in Lebanon. So, it is very simple to recruit new people. And they even if he loses many of his arsenal, he can be shown that the Iranian will resupply all the missiles and other munitions that will be lost. So Hassan Nasrallah is ready for a long war against Israel and it does not really care. The only thing that makes him very, very concerned is a possibility that the state of Lebanon will be devastated. And why he’s so concerned about that? Because Hezbollah managed to build its position in Lebanon, by presenting itself as a Lebanese patriot. So, I’m a Lebanese patriot, I’m defending Lebanon, I’m protecting the people of Lebanon, I care about my beloved country, and I will do whatever I can in order to protect the country. So he understands very well that if there is a wall, and if Israel decides that the war would be against the state of Lebanon, and not necessarily only against the military targets of Hezbollah, and the state of all the infrastructure of Lebanon will be destroyed; communication system, the seaport, the naval port, the transportation system, the energy project, etc., and the city of Beirut will look like the city of Gaza, this is something that he cannot tolerate. He understands.
Barak Seener 17:22
You’re saying it could spiral implosion, a civil war that would undermine Hezbollah.
Giora Eiland 17:30
Exactly and they understand very well that if such a wall, let’s say begins at some point, the hundred thousands of Lebanese will come and say why the hell you brought such a terrible catastrophe to Lebanon, you did it only because some crazy Palestinians in Gaza [inaudible] decided to open a war against Israel, why we had to suffer.
Barak Seener 17:56
Your calculus, though, is based on a rational assumption that Hezbollah is a rational actor. It is possible that Hezbollah could be an irrational actor and realize that they are most coveted by their Iranian sponsor. And Iran would come to its defense much more so than it came to Hamas’ defense. So Hezbollah may see itself as the sole entity and ignore Lebanon, because they realize that Iran dominates all and is its protectorate.
Giora Eiland 18:40
That’s not the mindset of Nasrallah that I think that we know quite well is very different from Sinwar of Gaza, who really does not care about the lives of the people of Gaza and the destruction of Gaza. He has a very different kind of reproach. Hezbollah, and again, Nasrallah was smart enough to base its, let’s say, ability to, to create such a very strong position in Lebanon on two elements. Number one is the financial and the military assistance that is given to him by Iran. That’s true. And number two by being a legitimate party in Lebanon as part of the let’s say Lebanese national movement and as a defender of Lebanon. And this is something that this is a very important element is reforming and defending Lebanon. And the President of Lebanon for instance, says yes, Hezbollah is the defensive force of Lebanon. He cannot officially say, “well, I’m focused on fighting just because I want to help some other country like Iran”, he is trying to find the right balance between these two methods, and they understand very well what is what might be the implications for such a war. And himself almost said, in a moment of honesty, something like this a 10 years ago and 10 years ago, we were in what we call the second Lebanese War. And in that war Israel, even accidentally, we destroyed a significant part of the Dahieh district in Beirut, which is the Shia district of Beirut. By the why yesterday, the attack took place in the very same district. And the hundreds of Shia people came to Nasrallah later and said, “Please don’t compensate us, we lost our apartment, we lost all of our property”. There is no real insurance system in Lebanon and the government, of course, escaped every, any possible responsibility to compensate the people for the loss of their property. And Nasrallah said at that time, if I knew that this would be the result, I would not have begun such a vote, he said it. So, he understands that this is his weak point, he, let’s say, is concerned about the, let’s say, the wellbeing of Lebanon or the people of Lebanon. Now, why I’m emphasizing this point, because Israel does understand of course, that this is the main way, number one to deter Hezbollah and number two to be able to win if such a vulgar [inaudible], but unfortunately, the international community does not understand. I mean, all the messages that we get from the UK, the United States and others are the following one. Okay, we might understand that, under certain circumstances, you can decide to open a total war against Hezbollah. But remember, you have to fight only Hezbollah and to attack only purely military targets, don’t even try to attack the national assets of the state of Lebanon, because Lebanon is not accountable, they have different entity, they are not involved in this role. And if we accept this kind of advice, as I said, we will lose the war, because the devastation in Israel is going to be very significant. And the only way to win is to cause a much more terrible devastation in Lebanon, and not only to try to target specific individuals of Hezbollah which are not going to deter anyone and are not going to end this war. And this is a very, very, very important method.
Barak Seener 22:27
On that last point. Right. Do you think that the assassination of Shukr in Lebanon yesterday constitutes a deterrence of any form?
Giora Eiland 22:44
To certain extent, the answer is yes. I mean, of course, Hezbollah will not admit, of course, Hezbollah is not going to say, Okay, we made a terrible mistake, we are stopping it, we don’t want to suffer similar casualties in the future. Of course, their official of the practical reaction will be exactly the opposite. I mean, they will retaliate. And they would say, we are not afraid that we are ready for total war, although they are not really interested in such a war. And the real question is, what is going to be their response? And what might be the, let’s say, next phases in that possible escalation? And I would say that there could be three different scenarios. The first scenario is, yes, Hezbollah will attack some targets in Israel and if they succeed, especially if they succeed to kill Israelis, then the Israeli government will not be able not to retaliate. And this is exactly the way our escalation begins. And we might find ourselves a few days or a few weeks in the real Total War, although no one really wants it. So, this is one possible scenario, that I don’t think that this is the main or this is the most probable one. A second, which is a more visible one, is that there will be some Hezbollah attack, Israel might be able to contain it because it is not important who shot the last, it is really important what is the impact, we managed to create a very significant impact by eliminating the number two number three of Hezbollah, one of the real professional generals, one of the closest people to Nasrallah and if they attack back and cause only physical damage, I think that we can contain it, but it means that this kind of low intensity conflict or this kind of potential war will continue. It doesn’t serve Israel, it does not serve Hezbollah, but it is certainly serving Iran. That’s exactly what Iran wants today, and this is to make sure that Israel is finding itself in a long unsolved war in more than one a front. So, this is the second possible scenario. But there is a third possible scenario that now seems to be a little slim. But I cannot exclude it. And this is the following one. Maybe the State of Israel, that’s contrary to behavior so far, the prime minister will decide to be much more moderate in regard to the ability to reach an agreement about the hostages in Gaza, to agree to end, to practically speaking, end the war in Gaza. And if we agree on hostages deal with Hamas in Gaza, that, as I said, will bring to a very long cessation of violence, practically a long-term, long time of ceasefire, Hezbollah might decide that they will agree to a ceasefire, too. And then if a ceasefire is achieved on two fronts, maybe some political discussions will begin. And they might bring to some, let’s say, political solution that the both sides, Israel and Hezbollah, can accept.
Barak Seener 26:11
I think, you know, on your third point, I think that’s what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is really betting on when he speaks about a symbiotic relationship between Gaza and Lebanon. And he says the need to achieve a ceasefire and Gaza can de-escalate tensions in Lebanon. What concerns me about that equation is that it does, though, maintain the status quo, that Hezbollah can increase its terror capability on your doorstep, and also, it further shields Iran to enhance its Ring of Fire strategy. They can they achieve greater strategic depth through the usage of that proxies. And it’s just simply a temporary, quiet, but one that is quite dangerous in the long term.
Giora Eiland 27:21
All that you said is correct. And there are a lot of risks, although I can describe different possible development. But one of the things that might be achieved, and this is very important, not for us, this is very important for the international community to understand is the following matter. If there is a ceasefire two fronts, and we have a little time to try to work on something more stable and more promising than only, let’s say, a very fragile ceasefire, time has come to explain the world what Iran is really doing. Now, the problem is not that Iran is trying to destroy Israel. This is something that is very well known and this is not the most important matter for the Europeans and the Americans and others. But there is another element in the Iranian strategy that should bother everyone. The Iranian behavior is the following one: they find, let’s say poor countries like Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, they build a toy Iranian militia inside these countries, and it is very simple for them to recruit people, because again, they can offer much better salaries than what other people in those countries can offer. They can supply all the weapons and all other elements to these militias, and they can make those countries to be a complete failed state. And that’s exactly what we see in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. But for Iran, that’s not enough. Okay, they’ve managed to achieve success in these four countries, but they want to continue with other countries; next countries are probably going to be Sudan and Jordan. And next countries might be some other countries because it works well because Iran by doing so, they get whatever they want. They achieve a full control in these countries, they don’t have to sacrifice their own forces because someone else is ready to sacrifice life for-
Barak Seener 29:33
This is what my concern is I feel that Israel is tactically focusing on the symptom and not the cause.
Giora Eiland 29:41
Yeah, you’re right. But here we come with this message, when after the Second World War, when the United Nation was established is more based on the idea that the world can be much more secure if responsible nation states will have, let’s say, some kind of relations between them. So, the main actors or the main players in the international arena should be a state, an accountable state, maybe states that have different agenda, different interests, different tensions with their members, but nevertheless, these are states. What Iran is trying to do is to torpedo to undermine this concept of responsible nation states, and actually transform all other countries where they operate to something which is on one hand, is probably only a militia, but actually, they’re controlling a state without any of your accountability of a state. If we take Yemen, for example, and we all of us continued to say, well, the terrorist militia of Houthis, in Yemen, that’s not exactly true. This organization is controlling the state of Yemen. And if not all of it, at least half of it of the [inaudible], which is on the, on the coast of the Red Sea. So, the state of Yemen is controlled by Iran, but no one treats it as a state that is controlled by Iran. And, and we continue to be very forgiving, I would say in time to speak well, this is terrorist organizations. For instance, if the United States and United Kingdom understand the nature of what is really happening in Yemen, what they should do is to say, well, this is a state controlled by Iran, we cannot tolerate it and we are going to attack or to call out to destroy this country, and not only to target once every few days a specific missile.
Barak Seener 31:43
I mean, something I published a report called restoring deterrence destabilizing the Iranian regime. And in that report, I say that we are very much focused on an artificial distinction between Iran and its proxies, when actually we ought to conflate the two and the proxies are like states themselves, they dominate the states. I think that anybody who is in the know does not see Hezbollah as a sub state actor in Lebanon but sees them as more dominant than the Lebanese military themselves. Similarly, with Yemen. Nobody thinks that the Houthis are just simply a sub state actor that is promoting terrorism, they recognize that the Houthis are the state itself and like a cancer, you know, they attach them-, Iran attaches itself to the host. That’s something that I think the international community recognizes, but it makes policy very unmanageable if we set ourselves large scale goals, and we create these art-, we silo we compartmentalize arbitrarily. And it, it’s an art-, it’s a false distinction that makes policy manageable, but it actually blows up in our face.
Giora Eiland 33:13
I fully agree with what you said. And I guess that sooner or later, the West, regardless of Israel should understand that this is going to be the let’s say the fate of many other countries in the region. By the way, if Israel did not really help Jordan in many, many ways, some of them are very confidential, when Jordan would have been already another proxy of Iran, because it is a small or very weak country, very weak economy. They do have borders with both Iraq and Syria, where a very strong Iranian militias are deploying, and they are trying to destabilize this kingdom, and they will do the very same things to other countries.
Barak Seener 33:56
So, look, we understand your other phenomena, the nature of the phenomenon itself. What do you think our strategic approach is that the US and Israel, possibly the UK too, but what do you think Israel and the international community, what policies should it be adopting in order to change the status quo? Because currently, it’s not looking in Israel’s favor?
Giora Eiland 34:28
I agree. And at least, let’s I’m sorry, but this is going to be my last answer because I unfortunately have to leave but there are two things that have to be adapted by the mainly by the United States, but I would say by NATO, or some other of the allies of the United States. The first one, if Israel finds itself in total war against Hezbollah and Lebanon in the North, and if it is exploited by the Iranian and the Iranian continues or tries again, to attack Israel, it is not enough that the United States will try to defend Israel by participating in this very successful interception projects of the Iranian missiles. It has to be clear for the Iranians that if they attack Israel, then the United States might consider or at least might consider attacking Iran. And Iran is very vulnerable. And one of the things that people don’t understand Iran is a big country, they have a very strong military force. But all the energy sector is completely, let’s say, vulnerable. And if it is attacked by the West, of course, it might have some global impact. But this is something that the Iranian regime cannot tolerate. And they have to understand that this is a possible development, if they attack Israel directly as they did in the past. So, this is one thing that needs to be clear. And the other thing is that whether this specific crisis is resolved this way or that way, at some point, the United States and the West have to understand that if they do not begin a process that will make sure that all those failed states will not continue to be controlled by Iran, and Iran should be deterred from doing what they have doing so far, then the West will suffer. And more than that, there is, of course, much more global impact, because there is a strong alignment today, between Iran, Russia and China. Iran is focusing here on the Middle East, Russia on Ukraine, China on Taiwan, but all these countries cooperate in order to, let’s say, to push the West backward, and if the West is too moderate, too careful, too criticizing Israel for this and that, it might lead to a lot of, let’s say, possible defeats of the West.
Barak Seener 37:02
I say to you, sorry, I’ll just interject, I think that there’s a direct correlation between the strategic priority to deescalate tensions in the Middle East. And with the West’s lack of appetite, to contend with the Axis of Resistance, the West also is compartmentalizing Russia, Iran and China in order to arbitrarily make policy more manageable for themselves. And they, again, because it will be too overwhelming for them, they don’t want to recognize the fact that the threat is seamless.
Giora Eiland 37:44
I agree. And again, I have to apologize. It was a great conversation. But I have to end this.
Barak Seener 37:52
Thank you so much. You told me in advance you were going to be leaving early. So, thank you so much for your insights. I will continue to take q&a once Giora has left. But Giora and I really do sing from the same hymn sheet. So, thank you so much, Giora.
Giora Eiland 38:13
Okay, you’re welcome, bye bye.
Barak Seener 38:18
I’m now going to take a look at some of the Q and A’s that has come through I understand that they were originally for Giora Eiland, but I will be attempting to respond from a strategic outlook myself. So, one question is by Eddie [inaudible]. So, if so if in the days to come their reprisals by Iran or client states, should Israel go it alone to hit Iran and hit it hard? Something that I have published quite extensively about is the mistake for Israel and the US to make a distinction between Iran and its surrogates. In this respect we’re talking about focusing on Hezbollah, but you cannot decouple Hezbollah, from the Houthis because they’re functioning together in a seamless manner coordinated by Iran’s Ring of Fire. Iran has a war room where it is coordinating the malign activities of them both. And I think that a problem that Israel faces is that it considers tactical results as actual strategic wins. So, for example, it if it is striking at terrorists in Lebanon or in Iran, which requires an enormous amount of technical intelligence and planning capabilities, it doesn’t necessarily translate into strategic gains. It doesn’t translate into Israel at all having a strategic vision. So, while Iran has this kind of strategic flexibility of molding the entire region in its image, Israel has been highly reactive, striking Iranian proxies on its borders, and not allowing se Hezbollah to establish a firm foothold on its borders or not allowing Iran to, as a state, establish a firm foothold on the Syrian border. I personally don’t think it’s adequate and it feeds into something even greater when you hear Antony Blinken saying that the US was not at all notified in advance of the attack on Haniyeh on Iranian soil. On one hand, it demonstrates that Israel has the strategic capability to target facilities or assets on Iranian soil, but it doesn’t have the current willingness to do it at a broader level. But on the other hand, what’s concerning about it is it demonstrates that America doesn’t have a strategic vision of how to contend with Iran. So, I think that Israel may not have a choice, and may have to go it alone as a result. I’m looking at another question here. And please, just bear with me. From Peter Balfour, does your arm want to destroy Israel completely? Or does it want to have a permanent enemy and conflict in line with George Orwell’s quote, that is war is peace? I think that’s a profound question. And the same question was asked by the sick on the Soviet Union during the Cold War. And it played into the hands of two different types of strategists, you would have had somebody like Reagan that would have spoken in moralistic terms, vis-a-vis the evil empire, and his understanding of it was that the Soviet Union had a zero-sum game approach. It was seeking global domination, continual expansion, and exporting its ideology abroad. When you then, in contrast to Reagan, you had strategic analysts that were thinking in terms of great power politics, how to, perhaps add to America’s nuclear capabilities in terms of Mutually Assured Destruction, how it could how America could perhaps align itself with other regimes, especially in Latin America, to deter the Soviet Union. So, what you had simultaneously were discussions of deterrence and taking on an evil empire at the same time. And I think that the same thing can be applied to Iran. On one hand, it does want to have a permanent enemy, because in that manner, the mullahs can justify their control by concentration of power, their demonization of the other, their willingness to export their Islamic revolution abroad. On the other hand, there really is this eschatological vision that the Iranian regime has, which is to bring the final Mahdi and destroy the State of Israel. So these things aren’t necessarily distinct. They may work concurrently with one another and even co-elapse even though the different parties may explain it in a different manner. Hold on. Is a two-state solution compatible with a safe and secure Israel? I think that if you have an enemy, an adversary that is thinking purely in ideological terms and with genocidal intentions, then the question isn’t any more about territorial compromise or nationalism, it is about ideology. It’s a zero-sum game. And so I think that at the moment now, with Israel being gulped by malign actors that are proxies of Iran, whether it be from Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and direct attacks from Iran itself, I don’t think that now is really the time to speak about a two state solution. By David Conway, might Israel going in alone against Iran trigger a civil war there and bring down the regime, like you recommended for dealing with Hezbollah in Lebanon? I think there’s always the law of unintended consequences. I remember a number of years ago hearing, Robert Kagan, who was at the time considered a neoconservative, speaking against having strikes against the Iranian regime, because he said it would coalesce the populace around the regime that would shore up support for the regime. I don’t know how he reached that conclusion; it could have done the exact opposite. It could have enormously undermined the legitimacy of the regime in the same way that Giora Eiland said that could very well occur in Lebanon. So, I think there’s the law of unintended consequences. And I think that Israel has to prioritize targeting assets that threaten it, whether it be IRGC facilities, or nuclear facilities, or drone factories, or rocket capabilities. Those are the strategic priorities. But to attempt to drill down into what may cascade into a civil war, I think is infinitely complex. And I don’t think that not only Israel would not be up to it. I don’t think any, any Western State would be able to create such a calculus and execute that effectively. Richard Galba asks a question. Do you think that the current Israeli leadership is up to the challenges to previous Israeli PMS destroyed Iraqi and Syrian nuclear ambitions where the current leadership spent is time talking about it, drawing pictures about the Iranian threat? Does the current Israeli conception of reality allow for decisive action against the head of the spider’s web, Iran? Once again, picking up my report, that is exactly what my report, restoring deterrence destabilizing the Iranian regime was focused about. I don’t think that Israeli prime minister that Israel’s conscious consciousness is there. I don’t think that the US is there. I think that the US prioritizes de-escalation. I think that plays into Iran’s hands. It’s hugely provocative for Iran to activate its proxies and not receive any- not to not be held accountable at all, for its malign actions. I don’t think that Israel is very much focused on targeting the head of the spider’s web, Iran. In WikiLeaks, it was referred to target the head of the snake, which is what King Abdullah from Saudi Arabia expressed to President Obama. One of the reasons why Israel is not up to it, is because it’s very much focused on distinguishing between Iranian surrogates and the regime itself. It’s very much having a defensive posture. And I feel that it isn’t the same Israel that destroyed the facility in Osirak or the Syrian nuclear facility in 2007. So, it’s, I think that Israel is very, very good at actually alerting the international community to the nature of the threat. But you have to bear in mind that successive American administrations have overlooked multiple attacks by Iran, on its assets across the region. It got to the point where a few months ago when the US targeted an IRGC facility in Syria. It announced it prior to the attack, to give Iran heads up. So, I think that both America and Israel do not have the correct strategic approach at the moment. And unfortunately, I don’t think that wins do set, do pose setbacks to global jihad, like targeting Haniyeh or Shukr. I don’t think that they actually have a great strategic impact. An anonymous question, Should America consider Israel’s accession to NATO to guarantee peace in the Middle East? I’ll just say very, very quickly, I don’t think it will happen. I also don’t think that a Turkey will be willing to- I don’t think Erdogan will be willing to allow Israel’s ascension to it. But I just think it’s quite abstract because one of NATO’s principles are that members come to the aid of other Member States if they are threatened. And I think that Israel is not at that stage of history. I think that Israel is very much focused too, in a defensive posture to defend itself. I’m looking for any other questions. Another question that was asked by Michael Robin, was what is Hezbollah’s role in Lebanon? There’s obviously a political role such as providing humanitarian support to Syrian refugees to win support amongst the populace. But that I would add to that, that that isn’t the end in and of itself. The whole purpose of these organizations like Hamas, or like Hezbollah, that have this artificial distinction between a political and military wing is in order to give legitimacy amongst the population, but to camouflage itself within that population. And it’s not only to camouflage themselves, in the population in use human shields in the population, but it’s to transform that entire populations infrastructure to be part of that terrorist infrastructure. That is what Giora Eiland was speaking about before about how Iran actually becomes a host to client states and converts them into failed states. A final question is, how does Egypt see the situation out? Well, I, I don’t know I can only respond for myself how Egypt sees the situation. I think that Egypt naturally wants to maintain the status quo. We have to understand as well, that from Gaza, there were tunnels going into Egypt for miles and miles in which Hamas was smuggling weapons. And I think that Egypt maintained the status quo and turned a blind eye to it. It was security disaster for Israel. But Egypt contributed to it by turning a blind eye to the situation and I think that, at least publicly, Egypt will denounce any measures taken against Hezbollah. They will be publicly promoting de-escalation, but I think privately they have every vested interest, like any other Sunni state, to undermine Iran and defang its proxies. So I think that we do need to make a distinction between what Sunni states are saying publicly, and what they’re saying privately because they do not articulate publicly what their strategic interests are. Privately, the Muslim Brotherhood is not in their interest. Privately, a Shia Iran that flexes its muscle is not in its strategic interests at all. And so they would like to see not only Iranian proxies undermined, but they would want to see the regime itself set back. On that note, I would like to thank everybody for joining this insightful discussion. Giora Eiland isn’t here, but I would like to thank him for his enormous contributions. And thank you, everybody, for making the time to join us today. Take care.