Will Trump end the war in Gaza? - With Amit Segal and Nadav Eyal

You are listening to an art media podcast.

Hamas never does anything for free, Dan.

The real question is, will igniting the negotiations through the release of Idan Alexander lead the Trump administration to pressure Israel not to go to that full operation of the Gaza Strip?

I think what we see in a historical perspective is MAGA taking over, the isolationist policy taking over.

What will prevail, the isolationist approach by MAGA, Takal Carlson, or the hawkish old Republican establishment of Mike Waltz, Marco Rubio, etc.?

Right now it's closer to MAGA, I think, but it's too early to call.

It's 8 a.m.

on Monday, May 12th here in New York City.

It's 3 p.m.

on Monday, May 12th in Israel.

Before we get into today's conversation, one quick housekeeping note.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, May 13th, I will be delivering the State of World Jewelry Address at 92nd Street Y at 7.30 p.m.

We'll provide a link in the show notes.

I think it's sold out, but you can still register for virtual access.

And needless to say, there will be a lot to talk about.

With that, today's conversation.

Earlier today, we published an an update on the dramatic events that took place over the weekend.

So I will refrain from repeating myself.

But if you haven't caught up, I'd recommend listening to that three-minute update.

It will be the last episode before this one in your feed, so you can better understand the context of this conversation.

With me this morning are Call Me Back Regulars, Nadav Ayel and Amit Segel.

Nadav, Amit, thanks for being here.

Always pleasure to be here.

Thanks for having us.

Okay, so before we dive into each of the developments that unfolded these past couple days, I want to ask you both what you see happening here and if you can help us connect the dots.

Amit, I'll start with you.

The United States of America is acting alone in many issues, from the Houthis in Yemen, reaching an agreement with this terrorist regime, to talking to Hamas, releasing Idan Alexander, who's American, but an Israeli soldier as well, first and foremost.

And the fear in Israel is that the United States of America would reach a deal with Iran regarding its nuclear weapon program, which might endanger Israeli fundamental strategic national interests.

That's the framework, give or take.

Although, I have to say, when it comes to Iran, we've been hearing over the last few days a few better statements from Washington.

Nadav, any more color to provide?

I think that Amit summarized well the fears in Israel.

The bottom line is what has happened with Idan Alexander right now.

And as we are recording this, we are awaiting the release of Idan Alexander.

His parents are on their way to Israel.

His mother is traveling with Adam Bowler on the airplane.

Dan, and maybe you would want to sound that piece in which Adam Bowler speaks to the passengers on that flight, saying that the Trump administration is committed to getting all the hostages back home.

President Trump, when he told me to go get back every hostage, every Israeli, He wasn't kidding.

And I want you to know that, Yayel,

I've been with you, Gael, with Adi.

We've got to know each other as friends.

And I want you to know that this is the start.

We're going after every single hostage that there exists in all of Israel.

We're coming for them all.

So as we await this, it's very clear that the Israeli government has been completely sidelined in everything related to the Middle East.

If it's the Houthis, the negotiations with Iran, or now with the kind of deal that Netanyahu and the government did not want to see, the release of only the American, the live American hostage left.

Hamas knows that Idan Alexander means a lot to the United States.

Israel wanted to see a sort of an interim deal according to the vision of Steve Witkoff.

What it's actually getting is the very happy release of one soldier, Israeli soldier with American citizenship.

It wanted much more than that.

And behind closed doors, and I guess Amit is hearing quotes that might be more extreme than those that I'm hearing, Israeli ministers and people associated with the prime minister are very frustrated and worried as to the direction that this is taking.

Now, I don't want to overplay this.

There is still a large base of support, of cooperation between the administration and the prime minister's office.

I also would not exactly define this as a crisis because as far as the president is concerned, Israel should do what the president wants it to do.

And right now, Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu, I think, quite cleverly have not voiced their disagreements in public, but the general trajectory is very clear.

I mean, the Israelis seem to be arguing that, yes, they were aware this was going on, but obviously they didn't know the details.

Dermer and Netanyahu were finally informed by Steve Witkoff, I guess, yesterday, that the deal was done.

But it's no secret that there's some direct channel between the Trump administration and some Hamas or Hamas official or intermediary.

But the Israelis are also arguing, look, we made it clear that we were about to go into Gaza for a major operation.

There were dozens of tanks sitting there on the Gaza border ready to go in.

Israel had moved, I don't know how many, but a lot of military assets and personnel from the north and from the central part of Israel down to Gaza.

And that the message was, we're going in by the time Trump leaves the Middle East if there is no progress.

And by then, it's too late because once we turn that on, it's very hard to turn off.

And so they're arguing, yes, Trump was negotiating, good cop, but you needed the bad cop.

And the bad cop was the threat of military pressure.

Do you buy that?

Yeah.

So first of all, I couldn't agree more.

There is a dramatic difference between Idan Alexander's release and all the other.

There hasn't been a single Palestinian prisoner who was released in exchange for Idan Alexander, unlike hundreds of prisoners in exchange for each female soldier two or three months ago.

So this is very positive.

And Hamas could have made gestures for President Trump or President Biden, but he hasn't done it so far until the Israeli new operation was about to be initiated.

So this is the good part.

The bad part is the American passport that Idan Alexander holds.

Idan Alexander, according to the cruel criterias made by set by Hamas, was to be released last.

He fought alongside Matan Angerst.

Matan would not be released, and Idan is to be released today.

Why?

Because he has a US passport.

And this goes to the broader picture.

I don't know how many people are aware of the fact that the Iranian intelligence is not really worried about how many tanks the IDF has or how many bombs, because what interests them is the number of foreign passports held by Israelis on an annual rate.

Why?

Because in the eyes of the Iranian regime, the more Israelis go to issue foreign passports, the less they believe in the existence of the Zionist evil state.

Therefore, if you give incentive to Israelis, even to soldiers, just imagine the mother that tells her son before he is recruited to the army, please, my son, go to the next Romanian embassy, to the next Portuguese embassy, to the American embassy, and issue a passport because your grandmother or grandfather came from there.

Because if you are to be kidnapped, you'll have a guarantee.

This is a very dangerous moment.

And therefore, I think the Israeli government should have insisted on releasing another Israeli alongside Idan Alexander, be the cost as high as it be.

That gives me chills, honestly, because what you're basically expressing, Amit, is that one could argue this is the ultimate challenge to Zionism in that.

Israeli parents who are about to watch their sons and daughters join the army want them to hedge on citizenship in the Jewish state, that they need another citizenship if they're going to improve their odds at coming back safely.

And you're saying this is something that Iran measures or they keep track of because they think that's the ultimate test of whether or not Israelis are bought into the Zionist project.

Exactly.

Because what would you think if you'd know about a country in which so many people want to issue foreign passports?

Now, I can give the explanation as an Israeli, by the way, a proud Israeli whose mother is American.

Nothing that can be cynical with my Israeli accent, but my mother immigrated from the state.

I'm entitled to a U.S.

passport.

I refuse to issue such a passport, although my wife is very angry at me with this.

You refuse to do it for yourself?

Yeah, because of Zionist reasons.

I don't want to issue a foreign passport.

But many, many Israelis do it not because they are not eager Zionists or not because they want to immigrate, but because the Jewish reflex, the Jewish sentiment is always to have plan B.

If something goes wrong, if the ultimate disaster happens.

Now, if you are Iranian and you believe that the Zionist state is something which is artificially rooted in the Middle East and it is to be unrooted, you are quite encouraged by the fact that 10% of the population hold foreign passports.

And I guess, I'm not only guessing, I know it, that Hamas deliberately wanted at the beginning of the war to actually differentiate between the foreign passport holders and Israelis.

Now, here's the thing.

It's not the first time in history in the Entebbe, in the hijacking of Air France Plain to Entebbe in 1976, there were dozens of foreign passport holders who were released.

Only the Jews were left.

Here it's even worse.

Why?

Because Idan Alexander is not American.

He's not an American tourist who got here.

He is an Israeli American.

So it gives advantage for being not only Israeli.

And in that case, it's quite disturbing that when President Trump tweeted or wrote on the truth that Idan Alexander is to be released, he didn't bother to mention two entities, Hamas and Israel.

It's like, I don't know, rescuing American from the North Pole or something like this.

Nadav, was there any effort by the Israeli leadership to get other Israelis out with Idan Alexander so you wouldn't have the situation that Amid is describing, which again, as he's describing it, it is quite unnerving.

First of all, we spoke yesterday, Dan, before the announcement went out, and I told you there is an attempt by Israel to get at least one hostage out because of this precedent and because of the value of Idan Alexander.

By the way, I just should say for our listeners, what Nadav is referring to is we spoke on the phone.

We don't want our listeners to see, what, you guys released something?

I missed the conversation.

So that's what Nadav is referring to.

Sorry.

You can't miss the push coming from YouTube.

Yeah, okay.

Sorry.

Go ahead.

Yes.

We spoke and I told you that this is extremely worrying for the Israelis, but the bottom line is that as far as I know, Israel didn't learn about some of these negotiations from the US administration, but by its own intelligence.

Now, look at what the Prime Minister has done yesterday.

The first place in which this was published was in a closed-door discussion of the Knesset Committee for Security Affairs.

There's a parliamentary committee that's supposed to be secret, that's supposed to be confidential.

When you speak with the entire committee, you know for sure it's even almost official that the Commission briefs journalists about about what happened in the discussion.

At any rate, it came out at Channel 12.

So the first place in the world in which it was told that Idan Alexander is going to be freed, although we did report about this, I think we spoke about this on your show, that the president wants to get back from the region with Idan Alexander or with some hostages.

So the first place in which it was actually verified was by the Israeli Prime Minister.

And I spoke with a source yesterday and he told me the reason that the prime minister wanted to say this first is basically he used the metaphor of the saucy metaphor.

I should say, it's not cheating, it's an open relationship, talking about the relationship between Israel and the United States.

Now, the Prime Minister was trying to make the case that it's not that the United States was cheating on Israel, but actually we knew or we were part of it or something like that, when in fact it was direct negotiations again between the United States and Hamas, according to both Hamas and American sources.

Something that Israel definitely doesn't want to encourage or to cultivate.

As to the issue of foreign passports that Amit raised, I totally agree.

It's a fact what Amit said.

The Iranian regime is looking at this.

It's true.

The Iranian regime also thought that Israel is a spider's web and bought into the narrative of Hassan Ashralla.

For these people, allegiance and loyalty and being part of the world is exactly the opposite of being a patriot and success, right?

And our definition, your definition, I think Amit's definition of what is being a patriot and a successful Israelis is very different to what they're thinking.

But the danger here is indeed that right now, we just published a poll by the Reichmann University, the Institute for Liberty in the Reichmann University.

It says that six out of ten Israelis do not believe or have very limited belief that the government of Israel will do everything in its power to release them if they are abducted.

Six out of ten.

How many of the Israelis, according to the Reichman University poll, which was extensive, the entire Israeli society, how many believe that the government of Israel will do everything in its power?

17%

of the Israelis.

What happened last night on Channel 12, where Amid broadcasts with the families of the other hostages, Dana?

Well, you saw the brother of Matan Angrist, the soldier that was held captive together with Idan Alexander, and he was saying terrible things about what his family thinks and feels right now because Matan Angrist is in a dire humanitarian condition as far as Israel knows, and he's not released.

And he says that the fact that another hostage would be released, and of course he is in pain right now and we understand where the family is, he said this is, for us, this is like erasing the Israeli flag.

Vicky Cohen, the mother of Nimrod Cohen, another soldier, wrote on X, this is my son.

She brought a picture of him, age five, holding the Israeli flag.

He just has an Israeli citizenship.

He's Israeli.

What about him?

He has a right to go back home too.

And this, of course, what adds up to this are remarks made off the record to hostage families by a representative of the Trump administration saying that the war is prolonged with no reason, with no actual, and this was reported by Israeli press.

We saw another report by NBC yesterday.

quoting the president himself, no longer, you know, Steve Witkoff or Adam Bowler or something like that, to hostage families, saying the efforts put, I'm paraphrasing, into the war in Gaza is a waste or something like that.

So this gives the hostage families a sense that on the one hand, the US is making sure that Idain Alexander, its citizen, is going to come back home, but there is no actual meaning to the prolonged war.

Now, after I said that, I should add that Israel is now sending its delegation to Cairo to negotiate a broader deal.

Steve Witkov is going to meet, as we are airing this right now, is going to meet the Prime Minister Netanyahu today.

It is the intent of the United States and the administration to stay committed, as far as I know, to the release of all the hostages.

And as far as I know, the Israelis right now are still dead set not on occupying the entire Gaza Strip, regardless, but on trying to pressure Hamas for another deal.

This is really the aim of what the IDF is doing right now in Gaza.

Israel did not begin its full-scale operation to occupy the entire Gaza Strip because it's trying to pressure Hamas into a deal.

Now, whether or not this release would be the first sign towards such a development, I don't know.

Amit, we spoke to Lahav Harkov late last week, and she made the point that it wasn't just Israel that was cut out of the deal.

with the Houthis.

It was the UK.

The UK Defense Minister was furious that the the UK was cut out of any negotiations with the Houthis.

Because in the case of the UK, they were actually conducting the air operations against the Houthis with the U.S.

They were like, wait a minute, our pilots are involved in risking their lives and conducting these operations, and we learn about this deal in the press.

So I think we tend to, we, the three of us and the audience we represent, tend to think everything, think about everything in the context of what does this mean for Israel?

What does this mean for the Jewish community, the diaspora, whatever it is.

But all of U.S.

allies, to some degree these days, may be treated this way.

And so, while it's important to remember that it's not just, it may not be a deliberate decision to shut Israel out.

That said, there does seem, as Nadav just said, does seem, at least with these direct talks, there seems to have been a new dynamic, shall we say, between Trump and Netanyahu.

Is that what you're hearing?

I know you're very close to, you have a lot of sources in and around the prime minister's office.

Is there a sense that the relationship is changing?

Following Trump's various decisions that were interpreted in Israel as anti-Israeli, ignoring Israel, rumors had it that the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump, the administration and Minister Dermer, have deteriorated significantly.

As far as I know, it's false.

The relationship is basically good.

Yes, there has been tensions between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, but it's a first-term story.

I think what we see in a historical perspective is MAGA taking over, the isolationist policy taking over.

Isolationism in the 21st century doesn't necessarily mean that you live in the States having nothing to do with different countries, like, you know, like the 18th, the 19th century United States.

No, it means that the U.S.

takes decisions that are good for the U.S.

And I interpret Trump's policy a bit different than my colleagues.

I think that what Trump does, and if you hear the U.S.

Ambassador Mike Huckabee, I think there is a hint there.

The U.S.

says, you do whatever you need, guys, and we will do whatever we need, which means that we are not going to interrupt you to do what you need in Gaza, in Judea and Samaria, in Syria, in Lebanon.

This is the story.

If you take a look, the United States did not push Israel to withdraw from Lebanon.

President Trump told Netanyahu, if you need to take Syria, take one-third, give Erdogan two-thirds, everything is okay with me.

Same goes for Gaza.

But the other side of the coin is that we will do whatever we need if we reach an agreement with the Houthis.

And we are the first in the Houthi history to cause them to surrender and stop attacking ships, thus lowering the inflation by 0.2, 0.3 points.

That's fine with us.

Now, here is the question which comes for Iran.

Because the Iranian question is not something that Israel can do alone.

So here we see the contradiction.

On one hand, Israel can do whatever it needs in order to dismantle this nuclear threat.

On the other hand, if we want to do it, we need the assistance of the United States, both in defense and maybe during the attack.

What will prevail, the isolationist approach by MAGA, Takle Carlson, Donald Trump Jr.?

or the hawkish old Republican establishment of Mike Waltz, Marco Rubio, etc.

Right now, it's closer to MAGA, I think, but it's too early to call.

Yeah, and I think it's important to just remember, Trump's rhetoric on Iran has only gotten stronger

in recent weeks.

So, on the one hand, there's all this noise and atmospherics, and I'm not saying that isn't important, but there's a lot of narrative, shall we say, about tension between the U.S.

and Israel or tension between Netanyahu and Trump.

At the same time, where Trump and Witcoff early on, the concern was when it relates to Iran, they were talking about, well, they could possibly have a, you know, they can enrich if it's for civilian purposes.

And the more hawkish figures, both inside and outside the administration and in the Senate, like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, were saying, no way, Iran cannot be left to enrich, or you're basically doing the Obama 2.0 deal.

And now Trump's rhetoric, including if you just see what he said in recent days, it's just getting stronger and stronger that Iran's enrichment capability is either going to go, what did he say?

It's either going to go quietly or it's going to go with a boom, but it's going.

And so that's, I think, this sort of what's paradoxical is there's this narrative out there about tension.

And we're actually seeing it, like what we've seen over the last couple of days on this hostage negotiation.

At the same time, on Iran, the issue it seems that the Israelis care most about or should care most about, the administration's rhetoric has gotten stronger.

Nadav, what's your reaction to that?

First of all, I don't know.

And let me tell you, Dan, the Israelis don't know either.

It's very encouraged by the remarks made by Steve Witkoff as to the actual dismantlement and stopping enrichment on Iranian soil.

Having said that, I would look at the statements made by the Iranians in the last 24 hours.

They definitely didn't sound like they were told to stop enriching, which is as far as they are concerned, a non-starter, which is on the record.

I'm not analyzing right now.

I'm just saying for Iran, they basically walk up and leave the room as far as they are concerned if they are told that they need to dismantle their enrichment facilities, this is their position of the Islamic Republic.

As far as I know, it did not change.

Now, if the Trump administration managed to change that, this is huge.

This is huge for the region.

It's huge for the world.

And I'm going to, you know, definitely congratulate them and ourselves for this huge achievement.

But the fact that the Iranians will sound positive 48 hours after Steve Witkoff said these things,

I'll just give the quote by the Iranian foreign minister, who's also the expert on the subject, Abbas Argakji.

He said, I can state that compared to previous three rounds, the negotiations were much more serious and straightforward.

You know, this doesn't sound good in terms of unless the Islamic Republic's changed positions completely.

So there's a sea difference here.

You know, one day Israel is hearing that it's about dismantlement of the nuclear facilities, And the other day, they're hearing a different thing.

Israel's positions are clear as to that.

They believe that the Iranians will cheat, that they should not receive any agreement that allows them any enrichment, which is a position held by some people, that the Trump administration, and President Trump has committed himself to an extent to that position.

But everything can be negotiated.

And I think that this is something, frankly, that many people within the Israeli government do not understand about the administration.

And Dan, I think you can shed more light about this.

Let's see what's happening with China right now, with the tariffs and the rest.

Everything is about negotiations and getting the best possible result.

I think it's extremely realist.

It might lead us to the stop of the war with Russia and Ukraine.

It could lead us maybe to a super deal in the Middle East.

By the way, unlike the arguments against the president, this has has been his line for years on years as to foreign wars.

So this is what this administration is about.

And what I'm hearing is that, maybe unlike what Amit is hearing, is that they are becoming frustrated with the way that Netanyahu is conducting himself.

Now, again, I already said I'm not declaring it a full-blown crisis, but they are frustrated because they want to get things done.

They want to see a new Middle East.

They're saying this, you know, to hostage families.

We want to see a different Middle East.

And you're either going to play with the administration or you're going to stand in its way.

And everybody who knows anything about this administration tells Israel, tells its government, don't stand in the way.

Try to get as much as you can for Israeli security, national security interests.

But Dan, I'd really love to hear what you think about that.

I think there is a misunderstanding in some parts of Jerusalem, specifically the far right, as to what the Trump administration is and what it wants in the Middle East.

But your take is

Look, I think the administration would love nothing more than to be able to have some kind of grand bargain, some mega deal that reshapes the Middle East and do something that no previous president was able to accomplish.

And they're very aware that the Biden administration wanted this, the Saudi normalization.

They wanted some big deal and weren't able to do it.

And I think this administration wants it for that reason and a variety of others.

But at the same time, I do agree that they really don't want to spend time sweating the details or consuming themselves with the details of what they believe Israel is doing in its quote-unquote backyard.

And that's why they're like, you know, if the war in Gaza, in their minds, is the obstacle to some grand bargain, some grand solution, some massive transformation of the Middle East deal, then that could become an issue.

And that, I think, is what's worrying a lot of people about what Trump is going to hear these next few days when he's in the Gulf, is that he's going going to hear from these Gulf leaders that he's meeting with, look at all the wonderful things that could happen if only Israel could wrap things up in Gaza and how that will change the president's approach.

But short of that, and depending on how persuasive that is, and depending on whether or not Israel gets to bookend

what Trump hears, meaning they sent Dermer to meet with Trump late last week precisely for this reason, and others, including Iran, I'm sure they'll figure out a way to engage with the administration right after the trip.

So their voice will be in the mix.

but short of the golf basically saying look at the new world mr president that you can claim credit for if only israel wraps up in gaza short of that i do not think the administration really cares about what israel is doing in gaza i think people overstate what the isolationist tendency of this tendencies of this administration are it's not so much isolationists it's just different countries have their own interests around the world They're going to take care of their business.

In some cases, we're going to provide them with the resources to take care of their business.

And as long as it doesn't cause problems for us, they can have a free hand.

And that, I think, has been the operating assumption of this government in Israel up to now in terms of how to deal with the Trump administration.

The administration lifted all conditions on arms supplies.

They basically gave them free reign.

So now the real question is whether or not that will change.

So I want to talk about this Gulf summit that I'm referring to, where the president's going to be meeting with leaders of the Gulf.

I just want to add something that came out as we were speaking.

Yeah.

Idan Alexander's family, according to press reports in Israel, confirm that after he's released, Idan Alexander is due to travel to Qatar,

where he will meet President Trump.

Wow.

And according to this Channel 12 report, maybe Amit can add more, he will meet also with the Emir of Qatar.

Wow.

Which means that he'll have an opportunity to meet in person the guy who actually financed his kidnappers.

Wow.

Amit, yesterday it was reported reported that President Trump would be meeting with leaders during this Gulf summit, leaders from Lebanon, from Syria, and included in that would be Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

And also during this swirl through the Gulf, Riyadh will try to get Trump on board a deal that includes ending the war in Gaza and formalizing a demilitarized Palestinian state.

Now, I want a few caveats here.

One, it's not clear that the meeting with the military leaders is happening.

Two, it's not even clear that if it does happen or anything like it happens, that Abbas will be there.

No one has confirmed that.

And three,

the idea of Trump acknowledging or tipping his hat to the need for a Palestinian state in the context of Saudi normalization in the context of this meeting was reported, I think, by one of the Arab newspapers.

It doesn't seem terribly well sourced.

I'm not saying none of this is going to happen.

I just like to add my skepticism to reporting when I think it's warranted.

All that being said, Amit, what is your sense of this particular topic?

I'm not sure President Trump would be the envisioner of the state of Palestine.

It's not his claim to fame or not, nor his raison d'être,

and nothing will get from his meeting with President Abbas as long as it happens.

But here is the thing.

For many, many months, Israel refused for the terms set by the Saudis in return for normalization.

What Saudis demanded following October 7th was steps in the ground, feasible steps regarding the establishing of a Palestinian statehood.

And Israelis, the sentiment of Netanyahu and Dermer was Saudis need this normalization no less than we want it.

So why would we bargain for it?

And the idea is not because of

demands from Netanyahu's coalition partners, not only, but mainly because if you give the Palestinians things regarding Palestinian statehood following October 7th, things that were not on the table prior to October 7th,

you give incentives for people to massacre you because they'll get policy changes thanks to this massacre.

That's why Israel refuses to give concessions when it comes to the Palestinian statehood.

Now, here's the thing.

I think Netanyahu and Dermer were under the impression that if there is no normalization, there are no American steps or no American gifts to the Saudis.

And therefore, I guess they are very, very surprised and worried to hear the reports that, for instance, the Trump administration is willing to give them solutions when it comes to civil nuclear program in Saudi Arabia.

I'm not sure if this report in Reuters is accurate, but if it is, this is a conception, conceptia by the Israeli administration that was proved wrong.

But no matter what, it's not that Israel is about to give concessions when it comes to the Palestinian issue.

Nadav, the IDF, as I mentioned earlier, dozens of tanks in there on the Gaza border.

IDF about to launch this operation or is prepared to launch this operation, which if it goes forward could last many months and involve a full ground invasion and possibly some kind of new occupation of the Gaza Strip.

Given the recent developments we've been talking about, the developments over the last couple of days, how does it impact this operation?

Well, first of all, there's a direct contact between Hamas and between the Trump administration.

And there was a report, I think also in Reuters or AP, that said that Hamas is stating that they were promised by the administration, by the president, a bigger gift if they release this gift of Idan Alexander as a show of goodwill.

At any rate, Hamas never does anything for free them.

And also it is

positioned right now in the Gaza Strip, surrounded, under siege, in war with Israel.

They're looking to a very simple solution, ending the war with them having some control in the Gaza Strip, even behind, let's say, a bureaucrat government or an expert government of some sort, what we call the Hezbollah model.

This has been the aim of Hamas since the beginning of the war.

And they are willing willing to pay, at least this is what they're saying, with the release of all the hostages.

By the way, again, many polls in Israel, even when, you know, even now, I just saw a poll in which you tell people that that will mean that Hamas will stay in power in the near future.

You see that the majority is saying, get the hostages back in the first place.

So for Hamas, the real question is:

will igniting the negotiations through the release of Idan Alexander lead the Trump administration to pressure Israel not to go to that full operation of the Gaza Strip?

I'm not sure about that.

I'm not sure.

I read carefully what President Trump wrote.

First of all, he did write that he sees this as a first step to ending the conflict, and he wrote that twice in that Truth Social post.

So he twice underlined that he intends to lead towards the end of this brutal conflict, but he didn't mention Hamas.

And

I can definitely see two very specific scenarios.

The first one, which we

already know is true, is that the U.S.

is pressuring the sides to use this as leverage to get at least the Witkoff vision of getting an interim deal and getting released another 10 hostages.

There's definitely pressure now by the U.S., by Israel too.

Israel is sending its delegation to Cairo, trying to leverage the release of Idan Alexander, the blessed release of Idan Alexander, in order to get a bigger deal.

The second scenario is that it's a much more limited event than we speculated.

President Trump comes to the region, he collects his wins.

What are his wins?

First and foremost, the deals with Saudi Arabia, the $2 trillion, $1 trillion

deals, I don't know.

I didn't read the newspaper today or through social.

I I don't know what's the number there right now.

So he takes that, the way that he's being accepted across the Middle East.

He basically returns with Idan Alexander, another major win.

goes back to the U.S.

And then a few days later, Israel sees that Hamas is not willing to go with the Steve Witkoff vision of at least an interim deal.

And it starts the big operation in the Gaza Strip.

And it was all about the visit then.

Now, as we know, high premium on short term.

This is very much the world in which we live right now, right?

High premium, high value on short term.

So I definitely see the condition in which this leads nowhere beyond an operation in the Gaza Ship.

The pressure by the U.S., as far as I know, is to try to think about what Israel wants.

as to the end of the war and what kind of an agreement together with the Arab moderate Arab countries, together with the US, could actually answer Israel's security concerns.

I think that this is very much a question that is being raised by this current American administration.

By the way, to be fair, it also was raised by the previous administration.

Amit, you just wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal, which we'll post to in the show notes, as well as your newsletter that I read daily.

We will post the link to the newsletter in the show notes as well for our listeners to sign up for.

But in the Wall Street Journal piece, you wrote, and I quote, if this were President Biden right now, if this were President Biden, the Israeli right led by Netanyahu would be accusing the American leader of throwing Israel under the bus.

The prime minister would fly to Washington to address Congress and rally senators to petition against the president.

But who is Netanyahu going to persuade now?

AOC?

And then you kind of lay out this scenario.

So I guess, where do all these developments that we're discussing put Netanyahu, politically speaking, in Israel, but also in the U.S.?

Well, Netanyahu used to work mostly with or against democratic administrations.

He was relatively good tackling the Clinton administration, Obama administration, Biden administration.

So Netanyahu was usually handling democratic administrations.

And then Netanyahu's method is very, very simple.

Netanyahu sees Washington as a city with two centers, the White House and the Capitol Hill.

Now,

when it is there is a Democratic president in the White House, usually there is at least a very big minority or a small majority of Republicans on the Hill.

But it's not the case when it comes to a very, very friendly Republican president.

Then it's way more difficult because you don't have a way to maneuver, especially when it comes to a president that is flirting with the isolationist movement.

And therefore the situation is more complicated.

But I would still offer not to write the obituaries for Netanyahu and Dermer's policies.

I think the relationship with this administration is better than described.

And certainly better than it was with the Biden administration.

Exactly.

And Amit, how does this play inside Israel?

Inside Israel, it makes things more complicated.

The main reason for Netanyahu to prolong his coalition life, even artificially, is because he's waiting for many freebies, that's how you call it, many gifts from the Trump administration.

During the first term, it was the Eboham Accords, the annexation of Golan Heights, the embassy in Jerusalem, and so forth.

Those are things that can change the course of Likuda Netanyahu himself.

It can give Netanyahu the seats that he desperately needs and he doesn't have, as we speak, in order to survive for the seventh term.

But if Trump is about to be more hostile than Netanyahu Netanyahu thought in the first place, maybe it gives an incentive for Netanyahu either to resign or to call up an early election, thus avoiding this extremely unpopular issue of recruiting or exempting the unorthodox from going to the army.

I don't personally think that Netanyahu is about to resign or call up an early election, but I just want you to actually have it in mind that this is at least an option.

Nadav, I think that if Netanyahu is left without the at least tacit or expressed support of the Trump administration, if he faces real pressure by the Trump administration, and if he's going to get an agreement with Iran that isn't going to answer what the defense apparatus is seeing as minimal, it's going to be a huge political crisis for him internally.

And Amit just raised the issue of the possibility of Netanyahu even resigning in that case.

And I'm hearing, you know, this kind of an idea that he will be left with no options.

Now, I still think, as Amit said, I agree, that we're far from it.

We're not there yet.

But look at what the Trump administration did with the Ukraine-Russia war, Dan.

Look at what they did.

You know, one day Trump is having this tweet about Zelensky.

Then the other, he has a tweet about Putin.

Then he sends people to negotiations.

Then he uses the leverage of the United States, I think, quite efficiently on both sides.

And he's really the closest that we have been to a ceasefire there.

I still don't know if we'll see a ceasefire, but if this starts happening with Israel and ending the war, this is going to be a big crisis for Netanyahu internally, because then the question is, so what is he bringing to the arena?

This is his main raison d'etat, the fact that he internationally is so well connected and specifically with Republicans.

And we see this streak within the MAGA movement that doesn't like some of what Netanyahu is being doing.

You just need to read, for instance, Stebbannon and others to see this kind of criticism.

Now, again, let's not overplay this, let's overblow this at this point.

I think it's very important.

At the end of the day, relations there remain good.

The base of President Trump is highly supportive of Israel.

Which the President Trump is very aware of.

He's very tuned into that.

The first thing I tell people in Israel about trying to understand the president is always look at his base.

The president is such a great listener to the base of the people who support him.

And if you want to see what's going to happen in the future with tariffs, with the rest, you need to listen to people in Pennsylvania, you know, in some parts of Michigan.

You need to really listen to what they're saying.

You probably know what the president wants to get achieved at the end of the day.

And because of that, I think that it's more likely for us not to see a full-blown kind of open crisis.

If this would happen, it's like a new day in Israeli politics, a new day in Israeli politics, a new day in the Middle East.

And much is dependent on the Iran deal.

Because there, BB won't be able to bluff.

We're either going to get a great deal, you know, dismantling some some parts of the nuclear program, supplying more security to the region and to Israel and to the United States, or going to get something else or going to get a strike.

And Etaniao will need to explain how we got there, because this is the most important card he had in the last 30 years speaking publicly.

So that's going to be a LACMIS test.

I will say, one, I think you're exactly right.

I think observers underestimate how tuned in President Trump is not only to his base, but to where his base is most, the greatest acid test of where his base is reflected, which is the members of Congress, the Republican members of Congress.

And as you're watching, just on a different subject, this reconciliation bill, this tax and spending bill that's going through Congress right now, or may or may not be going through Congress, suddenly you have different factions of House Republicans signing letters, telling the president we disagree with this, telling the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, we disagree with that, like completely coming, going at odds with what the president is asking for.

And they're doing it in a very public way, by the way, on a range of, a number of issues, not just, this is not just one or two issues.

And they're going very public with it to the point that they're at odds with what the president is demanding the House Republicans do.

The president put out a truth social the other day saying, look, I think that they should do this.

They're saying they should do that.

You know, they're worried about their reelection.

I can pull the quote out, but he basically says they should do what they need to do.

I understand where they're coming from.

Like, he's not willing to get into a real confrontation with them because

what they are talking about is central to their reelection.

These House members, President Trump wants the Republicans to hang on to the House majority.

He does not want the Democrats to have the majority.

And these House Republicans are saying on this particular tax and spend package, we are going to lose the majority and the president's backing off.

And I think Israel falls into the same category for the reasons you're saying, Nadav.

The idea that the president's going to get into an open crisis with the base of his party where the representatives in Congress, Republicans, are going to bear the heat of that confrontation.

I just think he has a sensitivity to these issues that people underappreciate.

So that's why I look, there could be tensions.

The role that Israel plays in America, in American society, in American politics, it's a cultural issue in the United States, in a way that the Russia-Ukraine war is not a cultural issue in the United States.

And like I said, or like you said, I think the president is very dialed into that.

In any event, we will leave it there.

Nadav, Amid, I'm sure we will be in touch with you soon because there is a lot going on.

But let's say the most important thing, Dan, just before we leave.

Today, Today, God willing, Idan Alexander is coming home.

His parents are in Israel.

After all the analysis and everything else, it's a happy day.

It brings us closer to the release of the hostages.

And, you know, for me, I think we need, in that sense, we need to keep our eyes on the ball after all the analysis we just made.

It's one hostage closer.

It's one hostage closer.

And it's so meaningful.

It just needs to be over and done.

I agree, and I'm glad you said that.

We get caught up in all the geopolitics and the implications.

And the reality is it's like one more life and one more world transformed.

We all know the family and the parents and it's it's

intense.

All right.

Gentlemen, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

That's our show for today.

If you found this episode valuable, please share it with others who you think may appreciate it.

Time and again, we've seen that our listeners are the ones driving the growth of the Call Me Back community.

So thank you.

To offer comments, suggestions, sign up for updates, or explore past episodes, visit our website, arcmedia.org.

That's arkmedia.org, where you can also find transcripts with hyperlinked resources, which will hopefully help you deepen your own understanding of the topics we cover.

Call Me Back is produced and edited by Elon Benatar.

Additional editing by Martin Huergo.

Research by Gabe Silverstein.

Our music was composed by Yuval Semo.

Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.